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  • Dalsgaard Wulff posted an update 20 hours, 10 minutes ago

    s coexistence by causing self-limitation in dominant species, strong inter-specific variation in self-limitation might undermine coexistence in the long-term. Because of the increasing number of exotic oomycetes worldwide, further attention should be given to oomycetes as drivers of PSFs in plant communities.There are few clinically valid tools that can be used to assess potential parent-infant relational risk. Proteases inhibitor This study describes the development and initial validation of the assessment of representational risk (ARR) coding system to be applied to the parent development interview (Slade, A., Aber, J. L., Bresgi, I., Berger, B., & Kaplan, M. (2004). The Parent Development Interview – Revised. Unpublished protocol. New York, NY The City University of New York.) for assessing potential risk in caregivers’ representations of their infant, themselves as parents, and their relationship. The ARR was developed and validated in three samples in England. A review of the literature informed the selection of 10 items. It had a three-factor structure that was used to inform subscales hostile, helpless, and narcissistic caregiving representations. The subscales and total risk scores showed good criterion validity for discriminating between high and low risk samples and good concurrent validity with measures of parental psychopathology and parent-infant interaction. The ARR is a potentially valuable coding system for identifying risk in early attachment relationships.Trait variation can have important consequences for the outcomes of species interactions. Even though some traits vary as much within species as across related species, models and empirical studies typically do not consider the role of intraspecific trait variation for processes such as disease transmission. For example, many pollinator species are in decline because of a variety of stressors including pathogens, but the role of intraspecific trait variation in mediating disease dynamics is rarely considered. For example, pollinator body size could affect pathogen transmission via differences in resistance, foraging behavior and physiology. We tested effects of body size on pollinator pathogen transmission using the common eastern bumble bee Bombus impatiens in field tents, introducing an infected “donor” microcolony of large or small workers with an uninfected average-sized “recipient” microcolony and allowing bees to forage for 9-16 d. Small donor bees had nearly 50% higher infection intensity (cells/0.02 μL) than large donor bees, but large donor bees were twice as likely to transmit Crithidia bombi to recipient bees. Both behavioral and physiological mechanisms may underlie this apparent paradox. Compared to small bees, large bees foraged more and produced more feces; simulations showed that foraging and defecation rates together had stronger effects on transmission than did donor infection intensity. Thus, effects of bee size on contact rates and pathogen supply may play significant roles in disease transmission, demonstrating the multifaceted impacts of traits on transmission dynamics.Probabilistic near-term forecasting facilitates evaluation of model predictions against observations and is of pressing need in ecology to inform environmental decision-making and effect societal change. Despite this imperative, many ecologists are unfamiliar with the widely used tools for evaluating probabilistic forecasts developed in other fields. We address this gap by reviewing the literature on probabilistic forecast evaluation from diverse fields including climatology, economics, and epidemiology. We present established practices for selecting evaluation data (end-sample hold out), graphical forecast evaluation (times-series plots with uncertainty, probability integral transform plots), quantitative evaluation using scoring rules (log, quadratic, spherical, and ranked probability scores), and comparing scores across models (skill score, Diebold-Mariano test). We cover common approaches, highlight mathematical concepts to follow, and note decision points to allow application of general principles to specific forecasting endeavors. We illustrate these approaches with an application to a long-term rodent population time series currently used for ecological forecasting and discuss how ecology can continue to learn from and drive the cross-disciplinary field of forecasting science.AlkB homolog 5 (ALKBH5) has been reported as a key m6A demethylase that is involved in development and diseases; however, the function of ALKBH5 in osteogenesis remains unknown. In this study, we report that ALKBH5 mRNA and protein expression were upregulated during osteoblast differentiation and that ALKBH5 knockdown suppressed osteoblast differentiation, mineralization, and the expression of osteogenic biomarkers. Conversely, ALKBH5 overexpression promoted osteogenesis. Moreover, the expression of wild-type ALKBH5, but not the m6A-modified active site mutant ALKBH5, could rescue ALKBH5 knockdown-induced osteogenesis inhibition. Furthermore, knockdown of ALKBH5 significantly impaired the mRNA stability of the transcription factor Runx2, which plays a key role in osteoblast differentiation. Taken together, our results suggest that ALKBH5 promotes osteogenesis through modulating Runx2 mRNA stability.This study explores the lived experiences of Israeli parents of transgender young adults, depicting gender diversity as a family-relational phenomenon. The analysis of 18 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Israeli parents of trans young adults suggests that the parents’ experiences were characterized by a dialectic between feelings of vulnerability and resilience. The parents’ vulnerability was shaped by their social positioning as a minority group as well as their socio-political environment, and their ability to cope with these hardships enhanced their resilience. As the parents developed their resilience through meaning-making, social support, and activism, they gained a new sense of agency alongside a deep sense of vulnerability, suggesting that vulnerability and resilience are not objective, opposite binaries but rather fluid categories that are continually constructed through the intersection of micro- and macro-level factors.