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Spiroplasma Display an Intricate Continuum of Infection Heterogeneity and Persistence in Myrmica AntsNARA Subscribed
Many bacterial taxa evolved facultative symbiotic associations with insects and spread through host populations by horizontal and maternal transmission. Co‐infection at the individual host level may facilitate or constrain the spread of facultative symbionts. Due to insufficiently detailed genotyping, co‐infections of maternally transmitted symbionts often remain hidden, limiting our understanding of (co‐)infection dynamics. S...
Black Death Land Abandonment Drove European Diversity LossesNARA Subscribed
The current prevailing perception is that human impacts on the biological realm have been overwhelmingly negative. Here, we test this narrative by considering the consequences for aspects of floristic diversity of the ‘Black Death era’ (1300–1400 ce ), where one third of Europe's population died within half a decade. Based on evidence from 109 pollen records spanning the Common Era, we find increasing floristic diversity from...
Aim It is widely reported that aspects of present‐day global biodiversity are declining, with humans largely to blame. However—perhaps paradoxically—in Europe, floristic diversity and human populations have grown in tandem for millennia. Disturbance intensity and habitat heterogeneity potentially explain this phenomenon, though we lack understanding of how human land use intensity affected biodiversity at numerous spatial scal...
Conventional antibiotic therapies often fail to eradicate bacterial biofilms due to limited penetration, altered microenvironments, and the presence of persister cells, contributing to persistent and recurrent infections. As a result,the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, particularly those forming biofilms, underscores the urgent need for alternative therapeutic strategies. Lipid-based drug delivery systems have...
Exposure of wetlands important for nonbreeding waterbirds to sea‐level rise in the MediterraneanNARA Subscribed
Sea‐level rise (SLR) is expected to cause major changes to coastal wetlands, which are among the world's most vulnerable ecosystems and are critical for nonbreeding waterbirds. Because strategies for adaptation to SLR, such as nature‐based solutions and designation of protected areas, can locally reduce the negative effects of coastal flooding under SLR on coastal wetlands, it is crucial to prioritize adaptation efforts, espec...
Antibiotic resistance and tolerance: What can drug delivery do against this global threat?NARA Subscribed
Antimicrobial resistance and tolerance (AMR&T) are urgent global health concerns, with alarmingly increasing numbers of antimicrobial drugs failing and a corresponding rise in related deaths. Several reasons for this situation can be cited, such as the misuse of traditional antibiotics, the massive use of sanitizing measures, and the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture, fisheries, and cattle. AMR&T management requires a mult...
Pesticide resistance represents a clear and trackable case of adaptive evolution with a strong societal impact. Understanding the factors associated with the evolution and spread of resistance is imperative to develop sustainable crop management strategies. The two‐spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae , a major crop pest with worldwide distribution and a polyphagous lifestyle, has evolved resistance to most classes of pesti...
Inulin-lipid hybrid (ILH) microparticles promote pH-triggered release of rifampicin within infected macrophagesNARA Subscribed
Intracellular bacteria serve as a problematic source of infection due to their ability to evade biological immune responses and the inability for conventional antibiotics to efficiently penetrate cellular membranes. Subsequently, new treatment approaches are urgently required to effectively eradicate intracellular pathogens residing within immune cells (e.g. macrophages). In this study, the poorly soluble and poorly permeable...
Decreasing relatedness among mycorrhizal fungi in a shared plant network increases fungal network size but not plant benefitNARA Subscribed
Theory suggests that relatives will cooperate more, and compete less, because of an increased benefit for shared genes. In symbiotic partnerships, hosts may benefit from interacting with highly related symbionts because there is less conflict among the symbionts. This has been difficult to test empirically. We used the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis to study the effects of fungal relatedness on host and fungal benefits, crea...
Common, low-frequency, rare, and ultra-rare coding variants contribute to COVID-19 severityNARA Subscribed
The combined impact of common and rare exonic variants in COVID-19 host genetics is currently insufficiently understood. Here, common and rare variants from whole-exome sequencing data of about 4000 SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals were used to define an interpretable machine-learning model for predicting COVID-19 severity. First, variants were converted into separate sets of Boolean features, depending on the absence or the pr...
With ongoing global change, life is continuously forced to move to novel areas, which leads to dynamically changing species ranges. As dispersal is central to range dynamics, factors promoting fast and distant dispersal are key to understanding and predicting species ranges. During range expansions, genetic variation is depleted at the expanding front. Such conditions should reduce evolutionary potential, while increasing kin...
Adaptation of a polyphagous herbivore to a novel host plant extensively shapes the transcriptome of herbivore and hostNARA Subscribed
Generalist arthropod herbivores rapidly adapt to a broad range of host plants. However, the extent of transcriptional reprogramming in the herbivore and its hosts associated with adaptation remains poorly understood. Using the spider mite Tetranychus urticae and tomato as models with available genomic resources, we investigated the reciprocal genomewide transcriptional changes in both spider mite and tomato as a consequence of...