Browsing Harvard Medical School by Keyword "Ecology"
Now showing items 1-15 of 15
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Blood Oxygen Depletion Is Independent of Dive Function in a Deep Diving Vertebrate, the Northern Elephant Seal
(Public Library of Science, 2013)Although energetics is fundamental to animal ecology, traditional methods of determining metabolic rate are neither direct nor instantaneous. Recently, continuous blood oxygen (O2) measurements were used to assess energy ... -
Catecholate Siderophores Protect Bacteria from Pyochelin Toxicity
(Public Library of Science, 2012)Background: Bacteria produce small molecule iron chelators, known as siderophores, to facilitate the acquisition of iron from the environment. The synthesis of more than one siderophore and the production of multiple ... -
Cycling Empirical Antibiotic Therapy in Hospitals: Meta-Analysis and Models
(Public Library of Science, 2014)The rise of resistance together with the shortage of new broad-spectrum antibiotics underlines the urgency of optimizing the use of available drugs to minimize disease burden. Theoretical studies suggest that coordinating ... -
Dengue on islands: a Bayesian approach to understanding the global ecology of dengue viruses
(Oxford University Press, 2015)Background: Transmission of dengue viruses (DENV), the most common arboviral pathogens globally, is influenced by many climatic and socioeconomic factors. However, the relative contributions of these factors on a global ... -
Digital Surveillance: A Novel Approach to Monitoring the Illegal Wildlife Trade
(Public Library of Science, 2012)A dearth of information obscures the true scale of the global illegal trade in wildlife. Herein, we introduce an automated web crawling surveillance system developed to monitor reports on illegally traded wildlife. A ... -
Dynamics of the Microbiota in Response to Host Infection
(Public Library of Science, 2014)Longitudinal studies of the microbiota are important for discovering changes in microbial communities that affect the host. The complexity of these ecosystems requires rigorous integrated experimental and computational ... -
The Highly Conserved Bacterial RNase YbeY Is Essential in Vibrio cholerae, Playing a Critical Role in Virulence, Stress Regulation, and RNA Processing
(Public Library of Science, 2014)YbeY, a highly conserved protein, is an RNase in E. coli and plays key roles in both processing of the critical 3′ end of 16 S rRNA and in 70 S ribosome quality control under stress. These central roles account for YbeY's ... -
Household Transmission of Vibrio cholerae in Bangladesh
(Public Library of Science, 2014)Background: Vibrio cholerae infections cluster in households. This study's objective was to quantify the relative contribution of direct, within-household exposure (for example, via contamination of household food, water, ... -
Identification of Listeria monocytogenes Determinants Required for Biofilm Formation
(Public Library of Science, 2014)Listeria monocytogenes is a Gram-positive, food-borne pathogen of humans and animals. L. monocytogenes is considered to be a potential public health risk by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as this bacterium ... -
Inferring Dynamic Signatures of Microbes in Complex Host Ecosystems
(Public Library of Science, 2012)The human gut microbiota comprise a complex and dynamic ecosystem that profoundly affects host development and physiology. Standard approaches for analyzing time-series data of the microbiota involve computation of measures ... -
Non-Invasive Mapping of the Gastrointestinal Microbiota Identifies Children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
(Public Library of Science, 2012)Background: Pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is challenging to diagnose because of the non-specificity of symptoms; an unequivocal diagnosis can only be made using colonoscopy, which clinicians are reluctant to ... -
On the Origins and Control of Community Types in the Human Microbiome
(Public Library of Science, 2016)Microbiome-based stratification of healthy individuals into compositional categories, referred to as “enterotypes” or “community types”, holds promise for drastically improving personalized medicine. Despite this potential, ... -
Probabilistic adaptation in changing microbial environments
(PeerJ, 2016)Microbes growing in animal host environments face fluctuations that have elements of both randomness and predictability. In the mammalian gut, fluctuations in nutrient levels and other physiological parameters are structured ... -
A Sexually Conditioned Switch of Chemosensory Behavior in C. elegans
(Public Library of Science, 2013)In sexually reproducing animals, mating is essential for transmitting genetic information to the next generation and therefore animals have evolved mechanisms for optimizing the chance of successful mate location. In the ... -
Widespread Climate Change in the Himalayas and Associated Changes in Local Ecosystems
(Public Library of Science, 2012)Background: Climate change in the Himalayas, a biodiversity hotspot, home of many sacred landscapes, and the source of eight largest rivers of Asia, is likely to impact the well-being of \(\sim\)20% of humanity. However, ...