Using Statistical Learning Algorithms in Regional Landslide Susceptibility Zonation with Limited Landslide Field Data

Regional Landslide Susceptibility Zonation(LSZ) is always challenged by the available amount of field data, especially in southwestern China where large mountainous areas and limited field information coincide. Statistical learning algorithms are believed to be superior to traditional statistical algorithms for their data adaptability. The aim of the paper is to evaluate how statistical learning algorithms perform on regional LSZ with limited field data. The focus is on three statistical learning algorithms, Logistic Regression(LR), Artificial Neural Networks(ANN) and Support Vector Machine(SVM). Hanzhong city, a landslide prone area in southwestern China is taken as a study case. Nine environmental factors are selected as inputs. The accuracies of the resulting LSZ maps are evaluated through landslide density analysis(LDA), receiver operating characteristic(ROC) curves and Kappa index statistics. The dependence of the algorithm on the size of field samples is examined by varying the sizes of the training set. The SVM has proven to be the most accurate and the most stable algorithm at small training set sizes and on all known landslide sizes. The accuracy of SVM shows a steadilyincreasing trend and reaches a high level at a small size of the training set, while accuracies of LR and ANN algorithms show distinct fluctuations. The geomorphological interpretations confirm the strength of SVM on all landslide sizes. Our results show that the strengths of SVM in generalization capability and model robustness make it an appropriate and efficient tool for regional LSZ with limited landslide field samples.

Selective Extraction Methods for Aluminium,Iron and Organic Carbon from Montane Volcanic Ash Soils

Montane volcanic ash soils contain disproportionate amounts of soil organic carbon and thereby play an often underestimated role in the global carbon cycle.Given the central role of Al and Fe in stabilizing organic matter in volcanic ash soils,we assessed various extraction methods of Al,Fe,and C fractions from montane volcanic ash soils in northern Ecuador,aiming at elucidating the role of Al and Fe in stabilizing soil organic matter(SOM).We found extractions with cold sodium hydroxide,ammonium oxalate/oxalic acid,sodium pyrophosphate,and sodium tetraborate to be particularly useful.Combination of these methods yielded information about the role of the mineral phase in stabilizing organic matter and the differences in type and degree of complexation of organic matter with Al and Fe in the various horizons and soil profiles.Sodium tetraborate extraction proved the only soft extraction method that yielded simultaneous information about the Al,Fe,and C fractions extracted.It also appeared to differentiate between SOM fractions of different stability.The fractions of copper chloride-and potassium chloride-extractable Al were useful in assessing the total reactive and toxic Al fractions,respectively.The classical subdivision of organic matter into humic acids,fulvic acids,and humin added little useful information.The use of fulvic acids as a proxy for mobile organic matter as done in several model-based approaches seems invalid in the soils studied.

Proposed nomenclature for Pseudallescheria,Scedosporium and related genera

As a result of fundamental changes in the International Code of Nomenclature on the use of separate names for sexual and asexual stages of fungi,generic names of many groups should be reconsidered.Members of the ECMM/ISHAM working group on Pseudallescheria/Scedosporium infections herein advocate a novel nomenclature for genera and species in Pseudallescheria,Scedosporium and allied taxa.The generic names Parascedosporium,Lomentospora,Petriella,Petriellopsis,and Scedosporium are proposed for a lineage within Microascaceae with mostly Scedosporium anamorphs producing slimy,annellidic conidia.Considering that Scedosporium has priority over Pseudallescheria and that Scedosporium prolificans is phylogenetically distinct from the other Scedosporium species,some name changes are proposed.Pseudallescheria minutispora and Petriellidium desertorum are renamed as Scedosporium minutisporum and S.desertorum,respectively.Scedosporium prolificans is renamed as Lomentospora prolificans.

Herbivore performance and plant defense after sequential attacks by inducing and suppressing herbivores

It is well known that herbivore-induced plant defenses alter host plant quality and can affect the behavior and performance of later arriving herbivores.Effects of sequential attacks by herbivores that either suppress or induce plant defenses are less well studied.We sequentially infested leaves of tomato plants with a strain of the phytophagous spider mite Tetranychus urticae that induces plant defenses and the closely related Tetranychus evansi, which suppresses plant defenses.Plant quality was quantified through oviposifion of both spider mite species and by measuring proteinase inhibitor activity using plant material that had been sequentially attacked by both herbivore species.Spider-mite oviposifion data show that T.evansi could suppress an earlier induction of plant defenses by T.urticae,and T.urticae could induce defenses in plants previously attacked by T.evansi in 1 day.Longer attacks by the second species did not result in further changes in oviposifion.Proteinase inhibitor activity levels showed that T.evansi suppressed the high activity levels induced by T.urticae to constitutive levels in 1 day,and further suppressed activity to levels similar to those in plants attacked by T.evansi alone.Attacks by T.urticae induced proteinase inhibitor activity in plants previously attacked by T.evansi,eventually to similar levels as induced by T.urticae alone.Hence,plant quality and plant defenses were significantly affected by sequential attacks and the order of attack does not affect subsequent performance,but does affect proteinase inhibitor activity levels.Based on our results,we discuss the evolution of suppression of plant defenses.

Phylogeny and taxonomy of meristematic rock-inhabiting black fungi in the Dothideomycetes based on multi-locus phylogenies

The last decade has revealed an unexpected fungal diversity associated with natural rocks,often collected in environments influenced by harsh climatic conditions.Yet the phylogenetic affiliations and the taxonomy of many of these extreme fungi,mainly within Dothideomycetes,the largest class of Ascomycota,have only partially been described.In the present study we confirm that most rock inhabiting-fungi(RIF)are highly polyphyletic among Dothideomycetidae,mainly within the order Capnodiales,an order otherwise incorporating several families of major plant pathological importance.Novel taxa were identified within the two major and distinct clades of Teratosphaeriaceae,both comprising meristematic black fungi.Thirty one novel species and 13 new genera are proposed,based on ITS and partial nucLSU,RPB2 and BT2 sequences.

Notes,outline and divergence times of Basidiomycota

The Basidiomycota constitutes a major phylum of the kingdom Fungi and is second in species numbers to the Ascomycota.The present work provides an overview of all validly published,currently used basidiomycete genera to date in a single document.An outline of all genera of Basidiomycota is provided,which includes 1928 currently used genera names,with 1263 synonyms,which are distributed in 241 families,68 orders,18 classes and four subphyla.We provide brief notes for each accepted genus including information on classification,number of accepted species,type species,life mode,habitat,distribution,and sequence information.Furthermore,three phylogenetic analyses with combined LSU,SSU,5.8s,rpb1,rpb2,and ef1 datasets for the subphyla Agaricomycotina,Pucciniomycotina and Ustilaginomycotina are conducted,respectively.Divergence time estimates are provided to the family level with 632 species from 62 orders,168 families and 605 genera.Our study indicates that the divergence times of the subphyla in Basidiomycota are 406-430 Mya,classes are 211-383 Mya,and orders are 99-323 Mya,which are largely consistent with previous studies.In this study,all phylogenetically supported families were dated,with the families of Agaricomycotina diverging from 27-178 Mya,Pucciniomycotina from 85-222 Mya,and Ustilaginomycotina from 79-177 Mya.Divergence times as additional criterion in ranking provide additional evidence to resolve taxonomic problems in the Basidiomycota taxonomic system,and also provide a better understanding of their phylogeny and evolution.

Root-derived organic matter confines sponge community composition in mangrove ecosystems

Introduction:Caribbean mangrove-associated sponge communities are very distinct from sponge communities living on nearby reefs,but the mechanisms that underlie this distinction remain uncertain.It has been hypothesized that dissolved organic matter(DOM)leaching from mangrove roots and the ability of mangrove-associated spongebacterial consortia to degrade mangrove DOM may cause this distinction.Methods:This study tested whether mangrove DOM,leaching from mimicry substrates or directly injected in sponge tissue,affected the performance of a reef and a mangrove sponge species.Results:Controls and the mangrove sponge remained unaffected by mangrove DOM leaching from mimicry substrates or directly injected in sponge tissue,but the reef species showed substantial necrosis when exposed to mangrove DOM.Conclusions:Results presented in this study suggest that mangrove DOM confines the composition of sponge communities in mangrove ecosystems,explaining the exclusion of typical reef species and the adjacent occurrence of distinct sponge communities.

Adult size and tinning of reproduction in five species of Asobara parasitoid wasps

The majority o f adult parasitoid wasps are unable to synthesize lipids and therefore face a trade-off between the investment of lipids in eggs or in the maintenance of soma.It has been shown that resource allocation should depend on body size in parasitoids.Given that smaller females have shorter expected life times,they should concentrate their reproductive effort into early life.To test this prediction,we investigated the relationship between body size and the timing of egg production in parasitoids.We measured body size,lipid reserves,and reproductive investment(number of eggs,ovigeny index equivalent[OIE]and egg size)at eclosion in five species of Asobara(Hymenoptera:Braconidae)originating from different geographic and climatic environments.Our results show significant interspecific variation in all these traits.A diagnostic test for phylogenetic independence revealed that closely related species did not resemble each other more closely than expected by chance for all traits measured.Lipid reserves scaled positively with body size both between and within species.In agreement with theory,01 correlated negatively with body size both between and within species.Total egg area at eclosion correlated negatively with lipid reserves both between and within species.This indicates the existence of a trade-off between allocation of lipids to current reproduction and survival/future reproduction.With the exception of the most extreme pro-ovigenic species,A.pers im ilis,we found that proovigeny was compensated for by small egg size.Our results indicate the role of habitats in shaping interspecific variation in resource allocation strategies.

Diversity and delimitation of Rhizopus microsporus

Rhizopus microsporus has been used for centuries in the production of oriental fermented foods,but the species is also known as a toxin producer and from severe human infections.To study the diversity and species delimitation of Rhizopus microsporus,48 isolates from the reference collection of the CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre,comprising nine environmental,ten clinical,and 23 foodborne strains,in addition to six strains from unknown sources and representing all existing varieties of the species,were examined.Sequence diversity was based on the internal transcribed spacer(ITS),and on a part of the actin(ACT)and translation elongation factor 1-α(TEF)genes.Differences in physiological properties were assessed including temperature relationships.Spore morphology was studied,mating type tests were performed,and MALDI-ToF profiles were generated.Clinical and food-associated strains as well as members of different varieties mated successfully and consequently they belong to a single biological species.Molecular differences did not match with any other parameter investigated.Based on these results the varieties of Rhizopus microsporus are reduced to synonyms.

Taxonomy of Ochroconis, genus including opportunistic pathogens on humans and animals

The genus Ochroconis(Sympoventuriaceae,Venturiales)is revised and currently contains 13 species for which the phylogenetic position has been determined using multilocus sequencing.The older generic name Scolecobasidium is considered to be of doubtful identity because the type specimen is ambiguous.Within the Ochroconis lineage,phylogenetic distances of all markers analyzed are exceptionally large,both between and within species.A new genus Verruconis is proposed for the neurotropic opportunist Ochroconis gallopava.Species accepted within the lineages are keyed out on the basis of phenotypic characters.Main ecological traits within each species are discussed.Verruconis species are thermophilic and one of them is an important agent of infection in the brain,while Ochroconis is mesophilic,several species causing infections in cold-blooded animals.

Dishwashers provide a selective extreme environment for human-opportunistic yeast-like fungi

Urban life has led to the creation of human-made environments that,from a microbiological perspective,provide extreme life conditions.Certain non-ubiquitous microorganisms such as thermophilic members of the black yeast genus Exophiala are enriched within these habitats for which no counterpart is known in nature.Dishwashers consistently accumulate a number of specific black,white and red yeasts on the rubber seals of doors and in stagnant water at the interior.Several of these yeasts are primarily known as agents of human opportunistic infections.In this review,the literature data are supported by a screening study involving 937 households in 15 cities in Turkey.Fungi were detected in 230 samples(24.5%).Using rDNA sequencing,the prevalent species were identified as Exophiala dermatitidis(n=116),Candida parapsilosis(n=44),E.phaeomuriformis(n=35),Magnusiomyces capitatus(n=22),Rhodotorula mucilaginosa(n=15),and C.lusitaniae(n=14).The possible role of dishwashers in transmitting disease is discussed.

Chaetomium-like fungi causing opportunistic infections in humans:a possible role for extremotolerance

Members of the family Chaetomiaceae are ubiquitous ascosporulating fungi commonly,which reside in soil enriched with manure or cellulosic materials.Their role as human pathogens is largely ignored.However,the ability of some species to grow at high temperature enables them to play an important role as opportunistic pathogens.The family contains several genera and species that have never been reported to cause human infection.Hereby,three new species are described;two belong to the genus Subramaniula and one represents a Chaetomium species.Subramaniula asteroides was isolated from various sources including eye and skin infections as well as from the natural environment,and S.obscura was isolated from a toe infection.Chaetomium anamorphosum was isolated from a kidney transplant patient suffering from fungal peritonitis.All species described were previously misidentified as Papulaspora spp.due to the formation of cellular clumps or bulbil-like structures,which are characteristic of Papulaspora.The isolates failed to form sexual fruit bodies and ascospores remained absent,which is an unusual feature for the generally ascosporulating genera Chaetomium and Subramaniula;minute conidia from phialides were sometimes observed.

A proto-monsoonal climate in the late Eocene of Southeast Asia:Evidence from a sedimentary record in central Myanmar

The Burma Terrane has yielded some of the earliest pieces of evidence for monsoonal rainfall in the Bay of Bengal.However,Burmese ecosystems and their potential monsoonal imprint remain poorly studied.This study focuses on the late Eocene Yaw Formation(23°N)in central Myanmar,which was located near the equator(c.5°N)during the Eocene.We quantitatively assessed the past vegetation,climate,and depositional environments with sporomorph diagrams,bioclimatic analysis,and sequence biostratigraphy.We calculated the palynological diversity and drew inferences with rarefaction analysis by comparing with four other middle to late Eocene tropical palynofloras.Palynological results highlight a high floristic diversity for the palynoflora throughout the section formed by six pollen zones characterized by different vegetation.They indicate that lowland evergreen forests and swamps dominated in the Eocene Burmese deltaic plains while terra firma areas were occupied by seasonal evergreen,seasonally dry,and deciduous forests.This vegetation pattern is typical to what is found around the Bay of Bengal today and supports a monsoon-like climate at the time of the Yaw Formation.Bioclimatic analysis further suggests that in the late Eocene,the Yaw Formation was more seasonal,drier,and cooler compared to modern-day climate at similar near-equatorial latitude.More seasonal and drier conditions can be explained by a well-marked seasonal migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone(ITCZ),driver of proto-monsoonal rainfall.Cooler temperatures in the late Eocene of central Myanmar may be due to the lack of adequate modern analogues for the Eocene monsoonal climate,while those found at other three Eocene Asian paleobotanical sites(India and South China)may be caused by the effect of canopy evapotranspirational cooling.Our data suggest that paleoenvironmental change including two transgressive-regressive depositional sequences is controlled by global sea level change,which may be driven by climate change and tectonics.The high diversity of the Yaw Formation palynoflora,despite well-marked seasonality,is explained by its crossroads location for plant dispersals between India and Asia.

Influence of Organo-Metal Interactions on Regeneration of Exhausted Clay Mineral Sorbents in Soil Columns Loaded with Heavy Metals

Natural clay minerals can play an important role in crude remediation of wastewater polluted with the heavy metals(HMs) Cu, Zn and Ni. The presence and timing of addition of natural dissolved organic matter(DOM) have a significant effect on the HM removal by clay mineral sorbents. However, the influence of the presence of DOM on the remediation of the used clay mineral sorbents once saturated with HMs is largely unknown. To resolve this, clay mineral-rich soil column of varying composition, loaded(i) with Cu, Zn and Ni only,(ii) first with DOM followed by Cu, Zn and Ni, or(iii) with DOM, Cu, Zn and Ni simultaneously, was used in a set of desorption experiments. The soil columns were leached with 0.001 mol L^(-1)CaCl_2 dissolved in water as control eluent and 0.001 mol L^(-1)CaCl_2 dissolved in DOM as treatment eluent. During the preceding loading phase of the sorbent, the timing of DOM addition(sequential or concurrent with HMs) was found to have a significant influence on the subsequent removal of the HMs. In particular when the column was loaded with DOM and HMs simultaneously, largely irreversible co-precipitation took place. Our results indicate that the regeneration potential of clay mineral sorbents in wastewater treatment will be significantly reduced when the treated water is rich in DOM. In contrast, in manured agricultural fields(where HMs enter together with DOM), HM mobility will be lower than expected from interaction dynamics of HMs and clay minerals.

The world’s ten most feared fungi

An account is provided of the world’s ten most feared fungi.Within areas of interest,we have organized the entries in the order of concern.We put four human pathogens first as this is of concern to most people.This is followed by fungi producing mycotoxins that are highly harmful for humans;Aspergillus flavus,the main producer of aflatoxins,was used as an example.Problems due to indoor air fungi may also directly affect our health and we use Stachybotrys chartarum as an example.Not everyone collects and eats edible mushrooms.However,fatalities caused by mushroom intoxications often make news headlines and therefore we include one of the most poisonous of all mushrooms,Amanita phalloides,as an example.We then move on to the fungi that damage our dwellings causing serious anxiety by rotting our timber structures and flooring.Serpula lacrymans,which causes dry rot is an excellent example.The next example serves to represent all plant and forest pathogens.Here we chose Austropuccinia psidii as it is causing devastating effects in Australia and will probably do likewise in New Zealand.Finally,we chose an important amphibian pathogen which is causing serious declines in the numbers of frogs and other amphibians worldwide.Although we target the top ten most feared fungi,numerous others are causing serious concern to human health,plant production,forestry,other animals and our factories and dwellings.By highlighting ten feared fungi as an example,we aim to promote public awareness of the cost and importance of fungi.

Environmental siblings of black agents of human chromoblastomycosis

Agents of human chromoblastomycosis,a skin disease almost exclusively caused by members of the order Chaetothyriales,are assumed to be traumatically inoculated into the skin with sharp environmental materials such as plant thorns or wooden splinters carrying the respective opportunist.In the supposition that such fungi should have their main habitat in the environment,we investigated the occurrence of black fungi in living areas of patients with chromoblastomycosis.In South America Fonsecaea agents are prevalent as agents of the disease,while also related Cladophialophora species,known from other types of skin infections,are known from the continent.Ninety environmental isolates were preliminarily selected as possible agents of chromoblastomycosis,based on morphology.Judging from ITS sequence data isolates were attributed to the genera Cladophialophora,Cyphellophora,Exophiala,Fonsecaea,Phialophora,and Veronaea.A total of 45 fungi morphologically identified as Fonsecaea or Cladophialophora isolated from debris and thorns of living prickly plants in Brazil were processed for taxonomic studies.Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the isolates indeed belonged to the Chaetothyriales,but only rarely an agent of chromoblastomycosis was concerned;only two strains of F.pedrosoi and one F.monophora were isolated from debris plants.The remaining isolates belonged to hitherto unknown molecular siblings of Fonsecaea.Two novel taxa are introduced.

Scaling Notebooks as Re-configurable Cloud Workflows

Literate computing environments,such as the Jupyter(i.e.,Jupyter Notebooks,JupyterLab,and JupyterHub),have been widely used in scientific studies;they allow users to interactively develop scientific code,test algorithms,and describe the scientific narratives of the experiments in an integrated document.To scale up scientific analyses,many implemented Jupyter environment architectures encapsulate the whole Jupyter notebooks as reproducible units and autoscale them on dedicated remote infrastructures(e.g.,highperformance computing and cloud computing environments).The existing solutions are stl limited in many ways,e.g.,1)the workflow(or pipeline)is implicit in a notebook,and some steps can be generically used by different code and executed in parallel,but because of the tight cell structure,all steps in the Jupyter notebook have to be executed sequentially and lack of the flexibility of reusing the core code fragments,and 2)there are performance bottlenecks that need to improve the parallelism and scalability when handling extensive input data and complex computation.In this work,we focus on how to manage the workflow in a notebook seamlessly.We 1)encapsulate the reusable cells as RESTful services and containerize them as portal components,2)provide a composition tool for describing workflow logic of those reusable components,and 3)automate the execution on remote cloud infrastructure.Empirically,we validate the solution's usability via a use case from the Ecology and Earth Science domain,illustrating the processing of massive Light Detection and Ranging(LiDAR)data.The demonstration and analysis show that our method is feasible,but that it needs further improvement,especially on integrating distributed workflow scheduling,automatic deployment,and execution to develop as a mature approach.

Global ITS diversity in the Sporothrix schenckii complex

Molecular phylogeny has revealed that sporotrichosis is caused by several Sporothrix species which differ in clinical behavior.The complex is embedded within Ophiostoma,a genus mainly comprising fungi that live in association with bark beetles,but differs by a high virulence towards humans and other mammals.The different ecology is corroborated by phylogenetic separation.The aim of the present study was to determine the validity of the rDNA internal transcribed spacer(ITS)region as a marker for diagnostics of species in the clinical group,using betatubulin sequences to calibrate species delimitations.The topology of the two gene trees was concordant,and all clinically relevant Sporothrix species could easily be recognized by means of the ITS region.An increased geographic sampling did not affected delimitation success in the clinical clade of the S.schenckii complex.