Publications

Natural wine is made from grapes produced under organic or biodynamic management without using additives in the cellar. Natural wine represents a movement of winegrowers that see agriculture as an ethical act against wine industrialization and as a way to make food systems more sustainable. The movement has gained fast-growing global fame and connects rural producers with urban consumers. The recent French recognition of a natural wine certification has spurred discontent among other European countries and wine business associations. A debate about the policy implications of natural wine certification is necessary in order to shed light on the matter. This article calls for transparency in the labeling of wine ingredients, in line with recent consumer demands, which would make the creation of new certifications redundant.

1. Switching plant species visited by pollinators (partner flexibility) has been proposed as a behavioural mechanism able to attenuate the negative impacts of shifts in plant communities on pollination. However, it is unclear whether the magnitude of such response is generalizable or depends on the environmental context. Moreover, the ability of pollinators to exploit plants with dissimilar traits (trait flexibility) has been overlooked, even though it can affect the spectrum of new partners available.

2. To shed some light on this problem, we quantified partner and trait flexibility in five communities from four different environments, from Alpine to semi-arid. We evaluated whether the rate at which pollinators incorporated new plant species throughout the flowering season was similar across communities or context dependent. Then, we assessed whether pollinators changed the type of flowers visited and if such trait flexibility was related to their capacity to visit new plant species. Finally, we developed an agent-based model to explore whether diet flexibility can protect pollination when the plant community changes. To this end, we used scenarios of phenological decoupling.

3. In general, pollinators switched interaction partners to cope with the temporal replacement of plant species. Yet, the magnitude of such behaviour varied across communities, probably in response to differences in the number of floral resources available. Also, pollinators were able to visit plant species with dissimilar traits, though both components of diet flexibility (partner identity and traits) did not necessarily covary. Thus, to have a full picture of pollinators' diet flexibility, we need to consider the floral traits of partners. Finally, our theoretical model shows that diet flexibility can protect pollination after shifts in plant communities, but that such positive effects are limited by trait-matching between co-occurring species.

4. Synthesis. Overall, our study highlights the importance of incorporating plant traits when evaluating the ability of pollinators to find new interaction partners. Besides, our simulation results suggest that diet flexibility may not unequivocally protect pollination against changes in plant communities, especially if they entail shifts in the characteristics of the floral assemblage, and hence, the ability of pollinators to find new interaction partners can be compromised.

The ability of amino acid “customizable units” to generate structural diversity is illustrated by the conversion of 4-hydroxyproline (Hyp) units into a variety of nitrogen heterocycles. After a frst common step, where the unit underwent a one-pot decarboxylation–alkylation reaction to aford 2-alkylpyrrolidines with high stereoselectivity, a divergent step was carried out. Thus, the deprotected 4-hydroxy group was used either to initiate a radical scission that aforded aliphatic β-amino aldehydes, or to carry out an elimination reaction, to give 2-alkyl-2,5-dihydro-1H-pyrroles. In the frst case, the amines underwent a tandem reductive amination–cyclization to aford β-amino-δ-lactams, an efcient rigidifying unit in peptides. Diferent lactam N-substituents, such as alkylamines, peptides, and alkenyl chains suitable for olefn metathesis were introduced this way. In the second case, the pyrrole derivatives were efciently converted into alkaloid and iminosugar derivatives in good global yields and with excellent stereoselectivity.

We set out to document the diversity and distribution of bryophytes in Admiralty Bay and thereby enable the identification of patterns in local diversity and their possible drivers. Combining data extracted from different sources and recent collections, we documented the presence of 63 species. Similarity analyses of moss species diversity in relation to underlying geology and ornithogenic influence identified an identical cophenetic correlation coefficient of 0.744 for both factors. The Sørensen index was < 0.6, indicating that the groups share < 60% of the species recorded. The data showed that the selected filters (ornithogenic soils, non-ornithogenic soils and different geological extracts) did not underlie consistent species groupings, and we conclude that other environmental and topographical factors are likely to be responsible for shaping the moss community structure in Admiralty Bay. To enable effective management of Antarctic Specially Managed Area (ASMA) No. 1 and Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) No. 128, robust assessments of the local ecosystem and biodiversity are necessary to assist in the decision-making processes mandated under the Antarctic Treaty System, one of whose founding principles is the preservation of the Antarctic ecosystem.

Dynamic nucleophilic aromatic substitution of tetrazines (SNTz) has been employed to build theranostic prodrugs that are activated by hydrogen sulfide. H2S is typically found in high concentrations in some kinds of cancer cells and it is able to trigger the disassembly of tetrazine prodrugs. In such a way, a dual release of drugs and/or fluorescent compounds can be selectively triggered.

Environmental variation within a species’ range can create contrasting selective pressures, leading to divergent selection and novel adaptations. The conservation value of populations inhabiting environmentally marginal areas remains in debate and is closely related to the adaptive potential in changing environments. Strong selection caused by stressful conditions may generate novel adaptations, conferring these populations distinct evolutionary potential and high conservation value under climate change. On the other hand, environmentally marginal populations may be genetically depauperate, with little potential for new adaptations to emerge. Here, we explored the use of ecological niche models (ENMs) linked with common garden experiments to predict and test for genetically determined phenotypic differentiation related to contrasting environmental conditions. To do so, we built an ENM for the alpine plant Silene ciliata in central Spain and conducted common garden experiments, assessing flowering phenology changes and differences in leaf cell resistance to extreme temperatures. The suitability patterns and response curves of the ENM led to the predictions that: (1) the environmentally marginal populations experiencing less snowpack and higher minimum temperatures would have delayed flowering to avoid risks of late-spring frosts and (2) those with higher minimum temperatures and greater potential evapotranspiration would show enhanced cell resistance to high temperatures to deal with physiological stress related to desiccation and heat. The common garden experiments revealed the expected genetically based phenotypic differentiation in flowering phenology. In contrast, they did not show the expected differentiation for cell resistance, but these latter experiments had high variance and hence lower statistical power. The results highlight ENMs as useful tools to identify contrasting putative selective pressures across species ranges. Linking ENMs with common garden experiments provides a theoretically justified and practical way to study adaptive processes, including insights regarding the conservation value of populations inhabiting environmentally marginal areas under ongoing climate change.

In 2020, an earthquake doublet, a M7.8 on July 22nd and a M7.6 on October 19th, struck the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone beneath the Shumagin Islands. This is the first documented earthquake doublet involving a megathrust event and a strike-slip event. The first event partially ruptured a seismic gap, which has not hosted large earthquakes since 1917, and the second event was unusual as it broke a trench-perpendicular fault within the incoming oceanic slab. We used an improved Bayesian geodetic inversion method to estimate the fault slip distributions of the major earthquakes using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) wrapped phase and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) offsets data. The geodetic inversions reveal that the Shumagin seismic gap is multi-segmented, and the M7.8 earthquake ruptured the eastern segment from 14 km down to 44 km depth. The coseismic slip occurred along a more steeply, 26◦ dipping segment, and was bounded up-dip by a bend of the megathrust interface to a shallower 8◦ dip angle connecting to the trench. The model for the M7.6 event tightly constrained the rupture depth extent to 19-39 km, within the depth range of the M7.8 coseismic rupture area. We find that the M7.6 event ruptured the incoming slab across its full seismogenic thickness, potentially reactivating subducted Kula-Resurrection seafloor-spreading ridge structures. Coulomb stress transfer models suggest that coseismic and/or postseismic slip of the M7.8 event could have triggered the M7.6 event. We conclude that the segmented megathrust structure and the location of intraslab fault structures limited the rupture dimensions of the M7.8 event and are responsible for the segmentation of the Shumagin seismic gap. Our study suggests that the western and shallower up-dip segments of the seismic gap did not fail and remain potential seismic and tsunami hazard sources. The unusual earthquake doublet provides a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of the role of the subducting lithosphere structure in the segmentation of subduction zones.

Cancer is an abnormal state of cells where they undergo uncontrolled proliferation and produce aggressive malignancies that cause millions of deaths every year. With the new understanding of the molecular mechanism(s) of disease progression, our knowledge about the disease is snowballing, leading to the evolution of many new therapeutic regimes and their successive trials. In the past few decades, various combinations of therapies have been proposed and are presently employed in the treatment of diverse cancers. Targeted drug therapy, immunotherapy, and personalized medicines are now largely being employed, which were not common a few years back. The field of cancer discoveries and therapeutics are evolving fast as cancer type-specific biomarkers are progressively being identified and several types of cancers are nowadays undergoing systematic therapies, extending patients’ disease-free survival thereafter. Although growing evidence shows that a systematic and targeted approach could be the future of cancer medicine, chemotherapy remains a largely opted therapeutic option despite its known side effects on the patient’s physical and psychological health. Chemotherapeutic agents/pharmaceuticals served a great purpose over the past few decades and have remained the frontline choice for advanced-stage malignancies where surgery and/or radiation therapy cannot be prescribed due to specific reasons. The present report succinctly reviews the existing and contemporary advancements in chemotherapy and assesses the status of the enrolled drugs/pharmaceuticals; it also comprehensively discusses the emerging role of specific/targeted therapeutic strategies that are presently being employed to achieve better clinical success/survival rate in cancer patients.

The Canary Archipelago is home to two species of obligately cavernicolous assassin bugs of the genus Collartida Villiers, 1949 (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Emesinae: Collartidini). These species are highly adapted for cave life, being blind and wingless. In the present study, we describe a new species of the genus, C. phantasma sp. nov. from the Federica mine in Gran Canaria. C. phantasma sp. nov. differs from the other two Collartida species found in the Canary Archipelago in that the male is fully winged, the female is wingless, and both sexes have well-developed eyes. We provide information regarding the new species’ habitat, its taxonomic affinities, and its ability to fly.