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Notes: Abstract: Mice with a targeted disruption of the dopamine β-hydroxylase (DBH) gene are unable to synthesize norepinephrine (NE) and epinephrine. These mice have elevated levels of dopamine in most tissues, although the levels are only a fraction of those normally found for NE. It is noteworthy that NE can be restored to normal levels in many tissues after a single injection of the synthetic amino acid precursor of NE, l-threo-3,4-dihydroxyphenylserine (DOPS). In other tissues, NE can be restored to normal levels after multiple injections of DOPS, whereas in the midbrain and cerebellum, restoration of NE is limited to 25–30% of normal. NE levels typically peak ∼5 h after DOPS administration and are undetectable by 48 h. Epinephrine levels are more difficult to restore. The elevated levels of dopamine fall modestly after injection of DOPS. S(−)-Carbidopa, which does not cross the blood-brain barrier, inhibits aromatic l-amino acid decarboxylase and effectively prevents restoration of NE by DOPS in the periphery, while allowing restoration in the CNS. Ptosis and reductions in male fertility, hind-limb extension, postdecapitation convulsions, and uncoupling protein expression in dopamine β-hydroxylase-deficient mice are all reversed by DOPS injection.

Notes: 1. The Lotic Intersite Nitrogen eXperiment (LINX) was a coordinated study of the relationships between North American biomes and factors governing ammonium uptake in streams. Our objective was to relate inter-biome variability of ammonium uptake to physical, chemical and biological processes.2. Data were collected from 11 streams ranging from arctic to tropical and from desert to rainforest. Measurements at each site included physical, hydraulic and chemical characteristics, biological parameters, whole-stream metabolism and ammonium uptake. Ammonium uptake was measured by injection of 15N-ammonium and downstream measurements of 15N-ammonium concentration.3. We found no general, statistically significant relationships that explained the variability in ammonium uptake among sites. However, this approach does not account for the multiple mechanisms of ammonium uptake in streams. When we estimated biological demand for inorganic nitrogen based on our measurements of in-stream metabolism, we found good correspondence between calculated nitrogen demand and measured assimilative nitrogen uptake.4. Nitrogen uptake varied little among sites, reflecting metabolic compensation in streams in a variety of distinctly different biomes (autotrophic production is high where allochthonous inputs are relatively low and vice versa).5. Both autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism require nitrogen and these biotic processes dominate inorganic nitrogen retention in streams. Factors that affect the relative balance of autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism indirectly control inorganic nitrogen uptake.

Notes: 1. Ecological stoichiometry deals with the mass balance of multiple key elements [e.g. carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P)] in ecological systems. This conceptual framework, largely developed in the pelagic zone of lakes, has been successfully applied to topics ranging from population dynamics to biogeochemical cycling. More recently, an explicit stoichiometric approach has also been used in many other environments, including freshwater benthic ecosystems.2. Description of elemental patterns among benthic resources and consumers provides a useful starting point for understanding causes of variation and stoichiometric imbalance in feeding interactions. Although there is considerable overlap among categories, terrestrially-derived resources, such as wood, leaf litter and green leaves have substantially higher C : nutrient ratios than other resources of both terrestrial and aquatic origin, such as periphyton and fine particulate organic matter. The elemental composition of these resources for benthic consumers is modulated by a range of factors and processes, including nutrient availability and ratios, particle size and microbial colonisation.3. Among consumers in benthic systems, bacteria are the most nutrient-rich, followed (in descending order) by fishes, invertebrate predators, invertebrate primary consumers, and fungi. Differences in consumer C : nutrient ratios appear to be related to broad-scale phylogenetic differences which determine body size, growth rate and resource allocation to structural body constituents (e.g. P-rich bone).4. Benthic consumers can influence the stoichiometry of dissolved nutrients and basal resources in multiple ways. Direct consumption alters the stoichiometry of food resources by increasing nutrient availability (e.g. reduced boundary layer thickness on substrata) or through removal of nutrient-rich patches (e.g. selective feeding on fungal patches within leaf litter). In addition, consumers alter the stoichiometry of resources and dissolved nutrient pools through the return of egested or excreted nutrients. In some cases, consumer excretion supplies a large proportion of the nutrients required by algae and heterotrophic microbes and alters elemental ratios of dissolved nutrient pools.5. Organic matter decomposition in benthic systems is accompanied by significant changes in the elemental composition of organic matter. Microbial colonisation of leaf litter influences C : nutrient ratios, and patterns of microbial succession (e.g. fungi followed by bacteria) may be under some degree of stoichiometric control. Large elemental imbalances exist between particulate organic matter and detritivores, which is likely to constrain growth rates and invertebrate secondary production. Such imbalances may therefore select for behavioural and other strategies for dealing with them. Comminution of large particles by benthic consumers alters detrital C : nutrient ratios and can influence the stoichiometry of elemental export from whole catchments.6. A stoichiometric framework is likely to advance understanding of biogeochemical cycling in benthic ecosystems. A set of scenarios is developed that explores the influence of microbial elemental composition on nutrient spiralling parameters in streams, such as uptake length and uptake rate ratios. The presented hypothetical examples identify when the elemental composition of benthic stream organisms is likely to predict nutrient uptake ratios and conditions that would cause benthic stoichiometry and nutrient uptake from the water column to become uncoupled.

Notes: [Auszug] Most mice lacking the gene for doparnine P -hydroxylase (dbh mice) die in utero but can be rescued by supplying the precursor Lthreo-3,4-dihydroxyphenylserine (DOPS) in the maternal drinking ...

Notes: [Auszug] To disrupt the dopamine /-hydroxylase (DBH) locus, 3.4 kilobases (kb) of genomic sequence that included 0.6 kb of the DBH proximal promoter and the first exon were replaced with a neomycin-resistance cassette (neo\ Fig. la), and the resulting construct was electroporated into AB1 embryonic ...

Notes: Increasing numbers of studies are recording detailed temperature data for characterization of ground water–stream exchange. We examined laboratory and field operation of a small-diameter, stand-alone and inexpensive temperature logger capable of investigating stream–ground water exchange was examined. The Thermochron iButton is a 17.35-mm-diameter by 6-mm-thick instrument that costs 〈$10 when ordered in quantity. Testing of the loggers in a controlled temperature bath revealed a precision of ±0.4°C and an accuracy of ±0.5°C for a group of 201. More than 500 loggers have been installed in channels and in subchannel and floodplain ground water environments in two gravel-bedded rivers in the western United States. Loggers were placed as single devices and in vertical arrays in monitoring wells with diameters of 10.16, 5.08, 2.54, and 1.9 cm. We determined that the loggers have four principal advantages over more commonly used wired and currently available stand-alone logging devices: (1) the wireless nature does not require the instrument location to be associated with a control-recording system; (2) the small size allows for installation in small hand-driven or direct-push monitoring wells and thus intimate contact of the instruments with the hydrologic environment; (3) multiple loggers are easily suspended in a single fully perforated monitoring well, allowing for the collection of high-resolution temperature profile data; and (4) the low cost of the loggers allows for the deployment of large numbers, thus improving spatial resolution in shallow ground water floodplain scale studies.