Grazing and detritivory in 20 stream food webs across a broad pH gradient.

Acidity is a major driving variable in the ecology of fresh waters, and we sought to quantify macroecological patterns in stream food webs across a wide pH gradient. We postulated that a few generalist herbivore-detritivores would dominate the invertebrate assemblage at low pH, with more specialists grazers at high pH. We also expected a switch towards algae in the diet of all primary consumers as the pH increased. For 20 stream food webs across the British Isles, spanning pH 5.0-8.4 (the acid sites being at least partially culturally acidified), we characterised basal resources and primary consumers, using both gut contents analysis and stable isotopes to study resource use by the latter. We found considerable species turnover across the pH gradient, with generalist herbivore-detritivores dominating the primary consumer assemblage at low pH and maintaining grazing. These were joined or replaced at higher pH by a suite of specialist grazers, while many taxa that persisted across the pH gradient broadened the range of algae consumed as acidity declined and increased their ingestion of biofilm, whose nutritional quality was higher than that of coarse detritus. There was thus an increased overall reliance on algae at higher pH, both by generalist herbivore-detritivores and due to the presence of specialist grazers, although detritus was important even in non-acidic streams. Both the ability of acid-tolerant, herbivore-detritivores to exploit both autochthonous and allochthonous food and the low nutritional value of basal resources might render chemically recovering systems resistant to invasion by the specialist grazers and help explain the sluggish ecological recovery of fresh waters whose water chemistry has ameliorated.

Autoimmunity as the consequence of a spontaneous mutation in Rasgrp1.

A mouse strain was identified with a recessive genetic lesion, which spontaneously developed a lymphoproliferative autoimmune syndrome exhibiting features of systemic lupus erythematosus. Positional mapping of the disease-associated locus revealed a lesion in Rasgrp1 that prevented the translation of the RasGRP1 protein. T cells from these mice failed to activate Ras or proliferate vigorously following antigen encounter and showed defects in positive selection. Peripheral RasGRP1lag T cells spontaneously adopted a memory phenotype and were able to transfer disease to lymphopenic recipient mice. CD4+ T cells accumulated in the lymphoid tissues of older RasGRP1lag mice and were resistant to activation-induced cell death. RasGRP1lag B cells were functionally normal, but activated B cells were detected in older mice, as were autoantibodies directed against self-antigens. Our findings indicate that Ras signaling pathways are required to maintain T cell tolerance and to prevent autoimmune disease.