关键词： 树鼩   实验动物   基础生物学   人类疾病动物模型  

摘要： 动物模型在生物医学领域(如回答人体各种重大生物学问题、解析人类疾病机理和新药研发等方面)已经做出了不可替代的巨大贡献。转化医学存在的问题使得树鼩(Tupaia belangeri chinensis)实验动物重新得到重视;人类疾病的树鼩模型也再次受到越来越多的关注。该文综述了国内外特别是近年来我国树鼩研究进展,包括树鼩基础生物学及动物模型方面取得的成绩,并分析了该领域目前存在的困难和问题,探讨了未来的一些研究方向。

关键词： 动物模型   人类疾病机理   实验室   树鼩基因组  

摘要： 由中科院昆明动物所动物模型与人类疾病机理重点实验室、深圳华大基因研究院等单位合作完成的破译树鼩基因组研究工作于2013年2月在《自然·通讯》（Nature Communications）杂志上在线发表。研究人员通过完成高质量的树鼩（Tupaia belangen chinensis）全基因组测序及比较基因组分析，阐明了其系统分类地位和相关生物学特征的遗传基础，尤其是树购用于若干重要疾病如HBV、HCV感染以及抑郁症模型创建的遗传学基础。该研究将能推动树鼩应用于生物医药的系统研究。

关键词： browse   diet   herbivore   insectivore   muroid rodents   omnivore   savanna   stable isotopes  

摘要： It is well established that massive consumption of plants by the abundant and diverse assemblage of savanna ungulates in East Africa competitively suppresses the native guild of herbivorous to omnivorous small mammals. An important role of woody plant suppression in the Acacia-dominated savannas for this guild of rodents, when released from ungulate competition, has been demonstrated only recently, but without direct evidence of which species are involved. In an effort to establish which of the common species in this guild are most likely to impact growth of trees and forbs, as opposed to grasses or insects, or both, I present data on atomic and isotopic ratios of fecal carbon and nitrogen from 8 commonly occurring muroid rodents from savanna and bush habitats on the Laikipia Plateau of central Kenya: Acomys percivali, Acomys wilsoni, Aethomys hindei, Arvicanthis niloticus, Mastomys natalensis, Mus spp. (thought to be mostly M. minutoides), Saccostomus mearnsi, and Gerbilliscus robustus. In this region where all grasses are C-4 and all trees and other nongrasses are C-3, different ratios of C-13:C-12(delta C-13) in plant tissues give pure grazers, pure browsers, and mixed-feeding herbivores distinctive carbon isotope signatures. Degree of omnivory is revealed by C:N and, arguably, by delta C-15, but the latter is influenced by dietary protein quality and varies widely by plant species and soil type. Joint consideration of stable-isotope data, total C:N, and microhistological analysis of feces allowed better resolution of dietary niche of each species than any of these data sets could, alone. Grass was either coequal to browse (dicots) or dominated the plant portion of each species' diet, which was somewhat unexpected given rodents' hypothesized role in limiting Acacia recruitment. All species consumed some arthropods. A. niloticus, the only diurnal species, was the most herbivorous, being largely a grazer. S. mearnsi, A. hindei, and M. natalensis were mixed-feeding

关键词： Horse   Impacts   Mechanization   Productivity   Cost   Compaction  

摘要： The authors tested animal and machine harvesting as alternative systems for salvaging windthrown trees in regenerated patch cuts. Removal intensity was very low, averaging between 10 and 20 m(3) ha(-1), or between 30 and 60% of the initial stocking. Both systems performed well. Damage to regeneration never exceeded 5% of the total number. Soil disturbance was very shallow, and interested less than 3% of the total area. No significant difference was found between the animal and the machine treatments. From an economic viewpoint, the animal system broke even, whereas the machine system accrued an average profit of over 200 ha-1. However, profit was not as large as to become a major driver. Park users may represent the main factor when selecting a specific salvage system, and should be the subject of future research. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

关键词： Animal types   Behavioral ecology   Bioethics   Biology   Community ecology   Conservation science   Ecological economics   Ecology   Large animals   Population biology   Population dynamics   Population ecology   Research Article   Risk-benefit analysis   Science policy   Species interactions   Veterinary science   Wildlife  

摘要： Large African predators, especially lions (Panthera leo) and leopards (Panthera pardus), are financially valuable for ecotourism and trophy hunting operations on land also utilized for the production of other wildlife species for the same purpose. Predation of ungulates used for trophy hunting can create conflict with landholders and trade off thus exists between the value of lions and leopards and their impact on ungulate populations. Therefore productionist and conservation trade-offs are complexly graded and difficult to resolve. We investigated this with a risk-benefit analysis on a large private wildlife production area in Zimbabwe. Our model showed that lions result in substantial financial costs through predation on wild ungulates that may not be offset by profits from hunting them, whereas the returns from trophy hunting of leopards are projected to exceed the costs due to leopard predation. In the absence of additional income derived from photo-tourism the number of lions may need to be managed to minimize their impact. Lions drive important ecological processes, but there is a need to balance ecological and financial imperatives on wildlife ranches, community wildlife lands and other categories of multiple use land used for wildlife production. This will ensure the competitiveness of wildlife based land uses relative to alternatives. Our findings may thus be limited to conservancies, community land-use areas and commercial game ranches, which are expansive in Africa, and should not necessarily applied to areas where biodiversity conservation is the primary objective, even if hunting is allowed there.

关键词： 饲养繁殖   动物模型   种群建立   实验动物科技   HCV   树鼩   相关产业   应用  

摘要： 不久前，云南省科学技术奖励办公室发布了2012年度云南省科学技术奖审定结果，中国医学科学院医学生物学研究所申报“树勋饲养繁殖种群建立及其在HCV动物模型中的应用”项目获得2012年度云南省科学技术进步奖一等奖。该项目成果开创了云南省特色实验动物资源——树鼩研究新的里程碑，彰显了云南省在树鼩饲养种群繁殖和运用树鼩建立HCV模型研究领域的顶尖实力。

关键词： Intron evolution   Molecular phylogenetics   Maximum parsimony   Metazoan phylogeny   Ecdysozoa   Rare genomic changes  

摘要： Gene structure data can substantially advance our understanding of metazoan evolution and deliver an independent approach to resolve conflicts among existing hypotheses. Here, we used changes of spliceosomal intron positions as novel phylogenetic marker to reconstruct the animal tree. This kind of data is inferred from orthologous genes containing mutually exclusive introns at pairs of sequence positions in close proximity, so-called near intron pairs (NIPs). NIP data were collected for 48 species and utilized as binary genome-level characters in maximum parsimony (MP) analyses to reconstruct deep metazoan phylogeny. All groupings that were obtained with more than 80% bootstrap support are consistent with currently supported phylogenetic hypotheses. This includes monophyletic Chordata, Vertebrata, Nematoda, Platyhelminthes and Trochozoa. Several other clades such as Deuterostomia, Protostomia, Arthropoda, Ecdysozoa, Spiralia, and Eumetazoa, however, failed to be recovered due to a few problematic taxa such as the mite Ixodes and the warty comb jelly Mnemiopsis. The corresponding unexpected branchings can be explained by the paucity of synapomorphic changes of intron positions shared between some genomes, by the sensitivity of MP analyses to long-branch attraction (LBA), and by the very unequal evolutionary rates of intron loss and intron gain during evolution of the different subclades of metazoans. In addition, we obtained an assemblage of Cnidaria, Porifera, and Placozoa as sister group of Bilateria + Ctenophora with medium support, a disputable, but remarkable result. We conclude that NIPs can be used as phylogenetic characters also within a broader phylogenetic context, given that they have emerged regularly during evolution irrespective of the large variation of intron density across metazoan genomes. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

关键词： Agriculture   Agroecology   Behavioral ecology   Biodiversity   Bioindicators   Biology   Conservation science   Ecological environments   Ecology   Ecosystems   Ecosystems agroecology   Entomology   Mammalogy   Research Article   Terrestrial environments   Zoology  

摘要： Anthropogenic habitat modification often has a profound negative impact on the flora and fauna of an ecosystem. In parts of the Middle East, ephemeral rivers (wadis) are characterised by stands of acacia trees. Green, flourishing assemblages of these trees are in decline in several countries, most likely due to human-induced water stress and habitat changes. We examined the importance of healthy acacia stands for bats and their arthropod prey in comparison to other natural and artificial habitats available in the Arava desert of Israel. We assessed bat activity and species richness through acoustic monitoring for entire nights and concurrently collected arthropods using light and pit traps. Dense green stands of acacia trees were the most important natural desert habitat for insectivorous bats. Irrigated gardens and parks in villages and fields of date palms had high arthropod levels but only village sites rivalled acacia trees in bat activity level. We confirmed up to 13 bat species around a single patch of acacia trees;one of the richest sites in any natural desert habitat in Israel. Some bat species utilised artificial sites;others were found almost exclusively in natural habitats. Two rare species (Barbastella leucomelas and Nycteris the baica) were identified solely around acacia trees. We provide strong evidence that acacia trees are of unique importance to the community of insectivorous desert-dwelling bats, and that the health of the trees is crucial to their value as a foraging resource. Consequently, conservation efforts for acacia habitats, and in particular for the green more densely packed stands of trees, need to increase to protect this vital habitat for an entire community of protected bats.

关键词： PHYLOGENY -- Molecular aspects   ANIMALS -- Classification   TREE graphs   ZOOLOGY -- Research   EVOLUTION (Biology)   RIBOSOMAL RNA   RESEARCH   INTERDISCIPLINARY research   MOLECULAR biology  

摘要： In a letter to T. H. Huxley written on 26 September 1857, Charles Darwin imagined a time to come "though I shall not live to see it, when we shall have very fairly true genealogical trees of each great kingdom of nature" (1). The publication of On the Origin of Species, two years later, prompted a century and a half of disagreement among zoologists proposing often wildly contradictory schemes of animal evolution. Clarity began to emerge with Field et al.'s landmark publication 25 years ago of an analysis of animal relationships based on ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequences (2). The paper made zoologists realize that molecular biology could and should be applied to traditional zoological questions.

关键词： Savanna   river   water quality   rainfall   biogeochemistry   seasonality   Serengeti   Tanzania  

摘要： Surface water resources play an important role in the transportation of nutrients within and between regions. Water quality varies spatially across landscapes, but the extent of this variability and the interaction between water quality and wildlife are not well-known. In some savannas, heterogeneous climatic and geologic patterns result in gradients of precipitation and soil nutrients, leading to temporal and regional differences in soil and vegetation quality. Wildlife utilise these seasonal patterns, influencing soil nutrient dynamics and vegetation. However, the impact of seasonally abundant wildlife, climate, and soils on surface water quality is unknown in savannas. Fluctuations in surface water quality were measured across the Serengeti ecosystem at 6-month intervals, and the influence of rainfall, watershed, and seasonal wildlife migration were then modelled. The results suggest that although soil composition in watersheds influences the concentration of soil-derived nutrients in rivers, rainfall and wildlife have a significant effect on the seasonal concentrations of most nutrients. The role of migratory wildlife in surface water quality in some watersheds is likely dampened by the large influence of resident species across seasons and habitats. The alteration of rainfall patterns by climate change is expected to influence nutrient transport into savanna rivers. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.