ORCID Profile
0000-0002-1020-8409
Current Organisation
University of St Andrews
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Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-03-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-023-37127-2
Abstract: While human activities are known to elicit rapid turnover in species composition through time, the properties of the species that increase or decrease their spatial occupancy underlying this turnover are less clear. Here, we used an extensive dataset of 238 metacommunity time series of multiple taxa spread across the globe to evaluate whether species that are more widespread (large-ranged species) differed in how they changed their site occupancy over the 10–90 years the metacommunities were monitored relative to species that are more narrowly distributed (small-ranged species). We found that on average, large-ranged species tended to increase in occupancy through time, whereas small-ranged species tended to decrease. These relationships were stronger in marine than in terrestrial and freshwater realms. However, in terrestrial regions, the directional changes in occupancy were less extreme in protected areas. Our findings provide evidence for systematic decreases in occupancy of small-ranged species, and that habitat protection could mitigate these losses in the face of environmental change.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 21-10-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.10.19.464984
Abstract: The process of coral recruitment is crucial to the functioning of coral reef ecosystems, as well as recovery of coral assemblages following disturbances. Fishes can be key mediators of this process by removing benthic competitors like algae, but their foraging impacts are capable of being facilitative or harmful to coral recruits depending on species traits. Reef fish assemblages are highly erse in foraging strategies and the relationship between this ersity with coral settlement and recruitment success remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate how foraging trait ersity of reef fish assemblages covaries with coral settlement and recruitment success across multiple sites at Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef. Using a multi-model inference approach incorporating six metrics of fish assemblage foraging ersity (foraging rates, trait richness, trait evenness, trait ergence, herbivore abundance, and sessile invertivore abundance), we found that herbivore abundance was positively related to both coral settlement and recruitment success. However, the correlation with herbivore abundance was not as strong in comparison with foraging trait ersity metrics. Coral settlement and recruitment exhibited a negative relationship with foraging trait ersity, especially with trait ergence and richness in settlement. Our findings provide further evidence that fish play a role in making benthic habitats more conducive for coral settlement and recruitment. Because of their ability to shape the reef benthos, the variation of fish bio ersity is likely to contribute to spatially uneven patterns of coral recruitment and reef recovery.
Publisher: Rockefeller University Press
Date: 05-09-2017
DOI: 10.1084/JEM.20171093
Abstract: Glioblastoma is a highly lethal brain cancer that frequently recurs in proximity to the original resection cavity. We explored the use of oncolytic virus therapy against glioblastoma with Zika virus (ZIKV), a flavivirus that induces cell death and differentiation of neural precursor cells in the developing fetus. ZIKV preferentially infected and killed glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs) relative to differentiated tumor progeny or normal neuronal cells. The effects against GSCs were not a general property of neurotropic flaviviruses, as West Nile virus indiscriminately killed both tumor and normal neural cells. ZIKV potently depleted patient-derived GSCs grown in culture and in organoids. Moreover, mice with glioblastoma survived substantially longer and at greater rates when the tumor was inoculated with a mouse-adapted strain of ZIKV. Our results suggest that ZIKV is an oncolytic virus that can preferentially target GSCs thus, genetically modified strains that further optimize safety could have therapeutic efficacy for adult glioblastoma patients.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 08-09-2023
Publisher: Pensoft Publishers
Date: 26-01-2022
DOI: 10.3897/ARPHAPREPRINTS.E81207
Abstract: Observations are key to understand the drivers of bio ersity loss, and the impacts on ecosystem services and ultimately on people. Many EU policies and initiatives demand unbiased, integrated and regularly updated bio ersity and ecosystem service data. However, efforts to monitor bio ersity are spatially and temporally fragmented, taxonomically biased, and lack integration in Europe. EuropaBON aims to bridge this gap by designing an EU-wide framework for monitoring bio ersity and ecosystem services. EuropaBON harnesses the power of modelling essential variables to integrate different reporting streams, data sources, and monitoring schemes. These essential variables provide consistent knowledge about multiple dimensions of bio ersity change across space and time. They can then be analyzed and synthesized to support decision-making at different spatial scales, from the sub-national to the European scale, through the production of indicators and scenarios. To develop essential bio ersity and ecosystem variables workflows that are policy relevant, EuropaBON is built around stakeholder engagement and knowledge exchange (WP2). EuropaBON will work with stakeholders to identify user and policy needs for bio ersity monitoring and investigate the feasibility of setting up a center to coordinate monitoring activities across Europe (WP2). Together with stakeholders, EuropaBON will assess current monitoring efforts to identify gaps, data and workflow bottlenecks, and analyse cost-effectiveness of different schemes (WP3). This will be used to co-design improved monitoring schemes using novel technologies to become more representative temporally, spatially and taxonomically, delivering multiple benefits to users and society (WP4). Finally, EuropaBON will demonstrate in a set of showcases how workflows tailored to the Birds Directive, Habitats Directive, Water Framework Directive, Climate and Restoration Policy, and the Bioeconomy Strategy, can be implemented (WP5).
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 03-02-2023
DOI: 10.1101/2023.02.03.526822
Abstract: Biotic responses to global change include directional shifts in organismal traits. Body size, an integrative trait that determines demographic rates and ecosystem functions, is often thought to be shrinking in the Anthropocene. Here, we assess the prevalence of body size change in six taxon groups across 5,032 assemblage time-series spanning 1960-2020. Using the Price equation to partition this change into within-species body size versus compositional changes, we detect prevailing decreases in body size through time. Change in assemblage composition contributes more to body size changes than within-species trends, but both components show substantial variation in magnitude and direction. The biomass of assemblages remains remarkably stable as decreases in body size trade-off with increases in abundance. Variable within-species and compositional trends combine into shrinking body size, abundance increases and stable biomass.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 14-03-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-019-40327-W
Abstract: Glioblastoma (GBM) is a lethal brain tumour. Despite therapy with surgery, radiation, and alkylating chemotherapy, most people have recurrence within 6 months and die within 2 years. A major reason for recurrence is resistance to DNA damage. Here, we demonstrate that CHD4, an ATPase and member of the nucleosome remodelling and deactetylase (NuRD) complex, drives a component of this resistance. CHD4 is overexpressed in GBM specimens and cell lines. Based on The Cancer Genome Atlas and Rembrandt datasets, CHD4 expression is associated with poor prognosis in patients. While it has been known in other cancers that CHD4 goes to sites of DNA damage, we found CHD4 also regulates expression of RAD51, an essential component of the homologous recombination machinery, which repairs DNA damage. Correspondingly, CHD4 suppression results in defective DNA damage response in GBM cells. These findings demonstrate a mechanism by which CHD4 promotes GBM cell survival after DNA damaging treatments. Additionally, we found that CHD4 suppression, even in the absence of extrinsic treatment, cumulatively increases DNA damage. Lastly, we found that CHD4 is dispensable for normal human astrocyte survival. Since standard GBM treatments like radiation and temozolomide chemotherapy create DNA damage, these findings suggest an important resistance mechanism that has therapeutic implications.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-03-2023
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-10-2021
DOI: 10.1111/OIK.08713
Abstract: Herbivory is a core ecosystem function that is delivered heterogeneously across space. Disentangling the drivers of foraging patterns is key to understanding the functional impact of herbivores. Because intrinsic drivers of foraging like metabolism, nutritional requirements and movement costs scale allometrically, foraging movement patterns in terrestrial herbivores have been shown to also scale positively with body size. However, spatial patterns of herbivory can also be explained by orthogonal factors such as trophic position, competition and functional groupings. Here, we investigate body size and species traits as drivers of the spatial scaling of foraging patterns in herbivorous coral reef fishes. We quantified foraging patterns of 119 in iduals from nine common herbivorous species using focal in idual surveys. Body size, species identity, feeding substrata, social grouping and functional group were tested as predictors of three foraging metrics: foraging area, inter‐foray distance and tortuosity. Our resulting model revealed that species identity overshadowed body size as a predictor in models for all foraging metrics. While foraging area was explained best by species only, the resulting tortuosity and mean inter‐foray distance models included a small effect of body size that explained within‐species variation. We do not find strong support for size‐scaling of foraging patterns in our study species. These findings indicate that foraging allometry based on Optimal foraging theory cannot be generally applied to reef fish assemblages due to a ersity of foraging strategies, such as spatial partitioning and territoriality. Our work reveals the importance of behavioural ecology and taxonomic ersity in understanding herbivory, especially given the functional differences across species. With coral reefs under threat across the world, this is an important step to disentangling the spatial delivery of a core ecosystem function.
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Cher FY Chow.