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L Legendre

Publications and source records attributed to L Legendre.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Recent progress in understanding the evolution of carnivorous lentibulariaceae (lamiales).

Carnivorous plants have emerged as model systems for addressing many ecological and evolutionary questions, and since Lentibulariaceae comprise more than half of all known carnivorous species (325 spp.), they are of particular interest. Studies using various molecular markers have established that Lentibulariaceae and their three genera are monophyletic with Pinguicula being sister to a Genlisea-Utricularia-clade, while the closest relatives of the family remain uncertain. Character states of the carnivorous syndrome in related proto-carnivorous lamialean families apparently emerged independently. In Utricularia, the terrestrial habit has been reconstructed as plesiomorphic, and an extension of subgenus Polypompholyx is warranted. In the protozoan-attracting Genlisea, subgenus Tayloria is revealed as basal lineage. In Pinguicula, the six major lineages found reflect radiations in clearly defined geographic regions, whereas most previously recognized subgeneric taxa are non-monophyletic. Genlisea and Utricularia exhibit substitutional rates that rank among the highest in angiosperms for the molecular markers analyzed. One possible explanation for this lies in selective constraints on a wide range of genomic regions that may have been lowered due to the use of an alternative mode of acquiring nutrients.

Animals↗

Evolution of carnivory in Lentibulariaceae and the Lamiales.

As a basis for analysing the evolution of the carnivorous syndrome in Lentibulariaceae (Lamiales), phylogenetic reconstructions were conducted based on coding and non-coding chloroplast DNA (matK gene and flanking trnK intron sequences, totalling about 2.4 kb). A dense taxon sampling including all other major lineages of Lamiales was needed since the closest relatives of Lentibulariaceae and the position of "proto-carnivores" were unknown. Tree inference using maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian approaches resulted in fully congruent topologies within Lentibulariaceae, whereas relationships among the different lineages of Lamiales were only congruent between likelihood and Bayesian optimizations. Lentibulariaceae and their three genera (Pinguicula, Genlisea, and Utricularia) are monophyletic, with Pinguicula being sister to a Genlisea-Utricularia clade. Likelihood and Bayesian trees converge on Bignoniaceae as sister to Lentibulariaceae, albeit lacking good support. The "proto-carnivores" (Byblidaceae, Martyniaceae) are found in different positions among other Lamiales but not as sister to the carnivorous Lentibulariaceae, which is also supported by Khishino-Hasegawa tests. This implies that carnivory and its preliminary stages ("proto-carnivores") independently evolved more than once among Lamiales. Ancestral states of structural characters connected to the carnivorous syndrome are reconstructed using the molecular tree, and a hypothesis on the evolutionary pathway of the carnivorous syndrome in Lentibulariaceae is presented. Extreme DNA mutational rates found in Utricularia and Genlisea are shown to correspond to their unusual nutritional specialization, thereby hinting at a marked degree of carnivory in these two genera.

Animals↗

Flow cytometry in oceanography 1989--1999: environmental challenges and research trends.

BACKGROUND: The present review is based on the identification of four major environmental crises that have been approached from a biological oceanographic viewpoint. These crises are the release of contaminants in near shore marine waters, the collapse of marine resources that were renewable until recently, the loss of biodiversity, and global climate change METHODS: The review examines the contribution of cytometry-based biological oceanography to the resolution of the four environmental crises. Using a database of 302 papers, flow cytometric (FCM) studies in biological oceanography over the 1989--1999 decade are examined. Future biological oceanographic applications of FCM are discussed. RESULTS: Most of the published FCM oceanographic studies focus on phytoplankton and bacterioplankton. Analysis of our 1989-1999 database shows the predominance of studies dedicated to phytoplankton (77%), followed by heterotrophic bacteria (21%). The latter progressively increased over the last decade, together with the improved understanding of the biogeochemical and trophic roles of marine bacteria. Most studies on these two microorganisms were conducted in vitro until 1996, after which the trend reversed in favor of in situ research. The most investigated areas were those with major international sampling efforts, related to the changing climate. Concerning environmental topics, 62% of papers on phytoplankton and bacterioplankton focused on the structure of microbial communities and fluxes (e.g., production, grazing); this provides the basis for biological oceanographic studies on resources and climate change. CONCLUSIONS: Future progress in the biological oceanographic use of FCM will likely fall into two categories, i.e., applications where FCM will be combined with the development of other methods and those where FCM will be the main analytical tool. It is expected that FCM and other cytometric approaches will improve the ability of biological oceanography to address the major environmental challenges that are confronting human societies.

Animals↗

Biogenic carbon cycling in the upper ocean: effects of microbial respiration.

Food-web processes are important controls of oceanic biogenic carbon flux and ocean-atmosphere carbon dioxide exchange. Two key controlling parameters are the growth efficiencies of the principal trophic components and the rate of carbon remineralization. We report that bacterial growth efficiency is an inverse function of temperature. This relationship permits bacterial respiration in the euphotic zone to be computed from temperature and bacterial production. Using the temperature-growth efficiency relationship, we show that bacterial respiration generally accounts for most community respiration. This implies that a larger fraction of assimilated carbon is respired at low than at high latitudes, so a greater proportion of production can be exported in polar than in tropical regions. Because bacterial production is also a function of temperature, it should be possible to compute euphotic zone heterotrophic respiration at large scales using remotely sensed information.

Atmosphere↗

Use of maxillary and mandibular splints for restoration of normal occlusion following jaw trauma in a cat: a case report.

A compression fracture of the maxilla in a young cat was treated by splinting the maxillary canine teeth. Wire-reinforced composite resin was used to keep these teeth from tipping palatally. This technique stabilized the fracture with anatomic reduction and minimal invasion of the tissues. A mandibular symphyseal separation was also stabilized with a cerclage wire and composite resin bonded wire fixation of the mandibular canine teeth. Two years later, occlusion was normal.

Animals↗

Vertical Flux of Biogenic Carbon in the Ocean: Is There Food Web Control?

Models of biogenic carbon (BC) flux assume that short herbivorous food chains lead to high export, whereas complex microbial or omnivorous food webs lead to recycling and low export, and that export of BC from the euphotic zone equals new production (NP). In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, particulate organic carbon fluxes were similar during the spring phytoplankton bloom, when herbivory dominated, and during nonbloom conditions, when microbial and omnivorous food webs dominated. In contrast, NP was 1.2 to 161 times greater during the bloom than after it. Thus, neither food web structure nor NP can predict the magnitude or patterns of BC export, particularly on time scales over which the ocean is in nonequilibrium conditions.

Journal Article↗

Plant and human neutrophil oxidative burst complexes contain immunologically related proteins.

Generation of the microbicidal oxidative burst in human neutrophils requires participation of four proteins, a membrane bound flavocytochrome beta-558, two soluble proteins termed p47-phox and p67-phox, and the Ras-related GTPase Rac. Because plant cells exposed to pathogens produce a similar oxidative burst, we have looked for similarities between the oxidase complexes of the two systems. Antibodies against human neutrophil p47-phox and p67-phox were used to immunoblot cell extracts from several plant cell lines and were found to cross-react with proteins of the same molecular weight. Furthermore, plant cell lines not previously shown to produce an oxidative burst, yet found to express these immunoreactive proteins, rapidly generated hydrogen peroxide in response to elicitation. Finally, diphenylene iodonium (DPI) and alpha-naphthol, known specific inhibitors of the NADPH oxidase in neutrophils, also inhibited the oxidative burst in soybean cell suspensions with similar Ki values (about 15 microM and 30 microM respectively). These results provide evidence for involvement of proteins related to the neutrophil oxidase complex in the defense-related oxidative burst of plants.

Cells, Cultured↗

Assessment of salinity-related mortality of freshwater bacteria in the saint lawrence estuary.

The growth response of freshwater bacteria from the St. Lawrence River, exposed to brackish waters (salinity of 0 to 20(permil)) from the upper estuary, was assessed by a methodology requiring the combined use of dilution cultures and diffusion chambers. The longitudinal distribution of bacterial abundance in waters within this salinity range was also examined. Growth of the freshwater bacteria was reduced by 15 and 50% after exposure to salinities of 10 and 20(permil), respectively. At lower salinities, no growth reduction was observed, and at a salinity of 2(permil), growth was even stimulated. Longitudinal distribution data showed that bacterial abundance also peaked at this salinity. In contrast with an earlier hypothesis, this study shows that the decline of bacterial abundance in the low-salinity waters of the estuary is not caused by salinity-related mortality of freshwater bacteria, because the mixing time between fresh and marine (>20(permil)) waters is relatively long (days). However, results suggest that mortality of freshwater bacteria can be an important process in estuaries with shorter mixing times (hours). The combined use of diffusion chambers and dilution cultures proved to be a valuable methodology for assessing growth (or mortality) of bacteria exposed to environmental gradients.

Journal Article↗

Phospholipase C activation during elicitation of the oxidative burst in cultured plant cells.

Although phospholipase C hydrolysis of polyphosphoinositides constitutes one of the major second messenger pathways in animal cells, its participation in signal transduction in higher plants has not been established. To determine whether activation of phosphatidylinositol-directed phospholipase C might be involved in signaling the elicitor-induced oxidative burst in plants, suspension-cultured soybean cells were treated with two stimulants of the H2O2 burst and examined for polyphosphoinositide turnover. Both polygalacturonic acid elicitor and the G protein activator, mastoparan, promoted a transient increase in inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) content that exceeded basal IP3 levels (0.9 +/- 0.4 pmol of IP3/10(6) cells, n = 28) by 2.6- and 7-fold, respectively. In each case, intracellular IP3 content reached a maximum at 1 min post-stimulation and declined to near basal levels during the subsequent 5-10 min. Neomycin sulfate, an inhibitor of polyphosphoinositide hydrolysis, blocked the IP3 transient, and Mas-17, an inactive analogue of mastoparan, induced no change in IP3. Thin layer chromatography of lipid extracts of the soybean cells corroborated the above results by revealing a rapid decrease in phosphatidyl-inositol monophosphate and phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate following polygalacturonic acid elicitor and mastoparan (but not Mas-17) stimulation. Since the rise in IP3 preceded H2O2 production and since neomycin sulfate inhibited the appearance of both, we hypothesize that phospholipase C activation might constitute one pathway by which elicitors trigger the soybean oxidative burst.

Cells, Cultured↗

Evidence for participation of GTP-binding proteins in elicitation of the rapid oxidative burst in cultured soybean cells.

GTP-binding proteins have been shown to serve as second messengers in the transduction of hormone signals across animal cell plasma membranes. We present here three lines of evidence to demonstrate that GTP-binding proteins are also involved in the elicitation of the defense response of cultured soybean cells. First, the antigen-binding fragment (Fab) of an antibody that specifically recognizes GTP-binding proteins in plants and animals was delivered into soybean cells using a non-destructive biotin-mediated delivery technique developed previously. Internalization of this Fab enhanced up to 10-fold the rapid oxidative burst induced by elicitor molecules, whereas internalization of its heat-denatured counterpart or unrelated proteins had no effect. Because the antibody recognizes a protein of molecular mass approximately 45 kDa in soybean cell membranes that is protected from ADP-ribosylation by GTP gamma S (guanosine 5'-O-(thiotriphosphate), we propose the 45-kDa GTP-binding protein is responsible for these effects. Second, mastoparan, a specific activator of GTP-binding proteins, was shown to induce the defense-related oxidative burst in the absence of elicitor stimulation, thus mimicking an activated receptor as it is thought to do in mammalian systems. Finally, but admittedly less convincing, the A subunit of cholera toxin, an activator of certain stimulatory GTP-binding proteins (Gs), was found to weakly enhance the conventional elicitor-induced oxidative burst. Taken together, these data argue for the involvement of GTP-binding proteins in elicitor signal transduction in soybean cells.

Adenosine Diphosphate Ribose↗

Analyzing multivariate flow cytometric data in aquatic sciences.

Flow cytometry has recently been introduced in aquatic ecology. Its unique feature is to measure several optical characteristics simultaneously on a large number of cells. Until now, these data have generally been analyzed in simple ways, e.g., frequency histograms and bivariate scatter diagrams, so that the multivariate potential of the data has not been fully exploited. This paper presents a way of answering ecologically meaningful questions, using the multivariate characteristics of the data. In order to do so, the multivariate data are reduced to a small number of classes by clustering, which reduces the data to a categorical variable. Multivariate pairwise comparisons can then be performed among samples using these new data vectors. The test case presented in the paper forms a time series of observations from which the new method enables us to study on the temporal evolution of cell types.

Data Interpretation, Statistical↗