Demography-environment relationships improve mechanistic understanding of range dynamics under climate change.

Species respond to climate change with range and abundance dynamics. To better explain and predict them, we need a mechanistic understanding of how the underlying demographic processes are shaped by climatic conditions. Here, we aim to infer demography-climate relationships from distribution and abundance data. For this, we developed spatially explicit, process-based models for eight Swiss breeding bird populations. These jointly consider dispersal, population dynamics and the climate-dependence of three demographic processes-juvenile survival, adult survival and fecundity. The models were calibrated to 267 nationwide abundance time series in a Bayesian framework. The fitted models showed moderate to excellent goodness-of-fit and discriminatory power. The most influential climatic predictors for population performance were the mean breeding-season temperature and the total winter precipitation. Contemporary climate change benefitted the population trends of typical mountain birds leading to lower population losses or even slight increases, whereas lowland birds were adversely affected. Our results emphasize that generic process-based models embedded in a robust statistical framework can improve our predictions of range dynamics and may allow disentangling of the underlying processes. For future research, we advocate a stronger integration of experimental and empirical studies in order to gain more precise insights into the mechanisms by which climate affects populations. This article is part of the theme issue 'Detecting and attributing the causes of biodiversity change: needs, gaps and solutions'.

Pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 and carbonic anhydrase IX targeting in hypoxic tumors.

Pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 (PDHK1) and carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX) are some of the most hypoxia-inducible proteins associated with tumors, implicated in glucose metabolism and pH regulation, respectively. They both appear to be necessary for model tumor growth, and their high level of expression in human tumors predicts poor patient outcome. Another thing they have in common is that hypoxia not only induces their expression but also their enzymatic activity. This work therefore simultaneously targets these two hypoxia-inducible proteins either pharmacologically or genetically in vitro and in vivo, leading to decreased cancer cell survival and significantly slower model tumor growth. It also suggests that CAIX and PDHK1 are important for cells originating from a colorectal primary tumor, as well as from its metastasis. Moreover, our analysis reveals a unique relationship between these two HIF-1 target genes. In conclusion, the attributes of PDHK1 and CAIX predict them to be promising targets for the design of new, specific inhibitors that could negatively influence tumor cell proliferation and survival, or increase efficacy of standard treatment regimens, and at the same time avoid normal tissue toxicity.

Enhanced metabolism as a common feature of cancer plasticity.

Cancer cells often rely on glycolytic metabolism in order to fulfill high demands of ATP and macromolecules for the sustained growth and proliferation. However, glycolysis is not necessarily the main source of energy for all cancer cells. Some of them rather depend on glutamine or lactate that favor the utilization of oxidative metabolic pathway. Different employment rate of metabolism creates variable products that participate in the formation of environmental milieu, which in turn triggers broad spectrum of cellular signaling pathways leading to migration, invasion, or proliferation. In this review we discuss different metabolic pathways promoted in tumor cells and describe the possibilities of their targeting as therapeutic strategies.

Reduced fecundity in small populations of the rare plant Gentianopsis ciliate (Gentianaceae).

Habitat destruction is the main cause for the biodiversity crisis. Surviving populations are often fragmented, i.e., small and isolated from each other. Reproduction of plants in small populations is often reduced, and this has been attributed to inbreeding depression, reduced attractiveness for pollinators, and reduced habitat quality in small populations. Here we present data on the effects of fragmentation on the rare, self-compatible perennial herb Gentianopsis ciliata (Gentianaceae), a species with very small and presumably well-dispersed seeds. We studied the relationship between population size, plant size, and the number of flowers produced in 63 populations from 1996-1998. In one of the years, leaf and flower size and the number of seeds produced per fruit was studied in a subset of 25 populations. Plant size, flower size, and the number of seeds per fruit and per plant increased with population size, whereas leaf length and the number of flowers per plant did not. The effects of population size on reproduction and on flower size remained significant if the effects were adjusted for differences in plant size, indicating that they could not be explained by differences in habitat quality. The strongly reduced reproduction in small populations may be due to pollination limitation, while the reduced flower size could indicate genetic effects.