April 2011

Existing experimental knowledge suggests that in diverse ecosystems, given the redundancy in the ecological roles of species, the efficiency of ecosystem processes stabilizes after a certain number of species is reached, and that the functioning of such processes is not considerably impacted when few species are lost. A new field study shows evidence of the contrary. Mora et al. (e1000606) show the existence of accelerating relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in coral reefs worldwide and conclude that the functionality of the most diverse reef systems is the most impaired by the deleterious effects of human populations worldwide.

Image Credit: Thomas Vignaud

Synopses

Tuning into Places

Rachel Jones

PLOS Biology: published April 5, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001042

A Two-Step Process Gets mRNA Loaded and Ready to Go

Richard Robinson

PLOS Biology: published April 19, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001047

A Yeast Model for Understanding ALS: Fast, Cheap, and Easy to Control

Richard Robinson

PLOS Biology: published April 26, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001053

The Next Step for Motor Proteins

Mason Inman

PLOS Biology: published April 12, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001043

Essay

Nematodes: The Worm and Its Relatives

Mark Blaxter

PLOS Biology: published April 19, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001050

Perspective

The 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Well Blowout: A Little Hindsight

Carl Safina

PLOS Biology: published April 19, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001049

Primer

Gamma Rhythms in the Brain

Xiaoxuan Jia, Adam Kohn

PLOS Biology: published April 12, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001045

Research Articles

Global Human Footprint on the Linkage between Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning in Reef Fishes

Camilo Mora, Octavio Aburto-Oropeza, Arturo Ayala Bocos, Paula M. Ayotte, Stuart Banks, Andrew G. Bauman, Maria Beger, Sandra Bessudo, David J. Booth, Eran Brokovich, Andrew Brooks, Pascale Chabanet, Joshua E. Cinner, Jorge Cortés, Juan J. Cruz-Motta, Amilcar Cupul Magaña, Edward E. DeMartini, Graham J. Edgar, David A. Feary, Sebastian C. A. Ferse, Alan M. Friedlander, Kevin J. Gaston, Charlotte Gough, Nicholas A. J. Graham, Alison Green, Hector Guzman, Marah Hardt, Michel Kulbicki, Yves Letourneur, Andres López Pérez, Michel Loreau, Yossi Loya, Camilo Martinez, Ismael Mascareñas-Osorio, Tau Morove, Marc-Olivier Nadon, Yohei Nakamura, Gustavo Paredes, Nicholas V. C. Polunin, Morgan S. Pratchett, Héctor Reyes Bonilla, Fernando Rivera, Enric Sala, Stuart A. Sandin, German Soler, Rick Stuart-Smith, Emmanuel Tessier, Derek P. Tittensor, Mark Tupper, Paolo Usseglio, Laurent Vigliola, Laurent Wantiez, Ivor Williams, Shaun K. Wilson, Fernando A. Zapata

PLOS Biology: published April 5, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000606

Different Origins of Gamma Rhythm and High-Gamma Activity in Macaque Visual Cortex

Supratim Ray, John H. R. Maunsell

PLOS Biology: published April 12, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000610

The “Parahippocampal Place Area” Responds Preferentially to High Spatial Frequencies in Humans and Monkeys

Reza Rajimehr, Kathryn J. Devaney, Natalia Y. Bilenko, Jeremy C. Young, Roger B. H. Tootell

PLOS Biology: published April 5, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000608

Retinoic Acid Functions as a Key GABAergic Differentiation Signal in the Basal Ganglia

Christina Chatzi, Thomas Brade, Gregg Duester

PLOS Biology: published April 12, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000609

Dynamic Analysis of Stochastic Transcription Cycles

Claire V. Harper, Bärbel Finkenstädt, Dan J. Woodcock, Sönke Friedrichsen, Sabrina Semprini, Louise Ashall, David G. Spiller, John J. Mullins, David A. Rand, Julian R. E. Davis, Michael R. H. White

PLOS Biology: published April 12, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000607

A Cytoplasmic Complex Mediates Specific mRNA Recognition and Localization in Yeast

Marisa Müller, Roland Gerhard Heym, Andreas Mayer, Katharina Kramer, Maria Schmid, Patrick Cramer, Henning Urlaub, Ralf-Peter Jansen, Dierk Niessing

PLOS Biology: published April 19, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000611

Eps8 Regulates Hair Bundle Length and Functional Maturation of Mammalian Auditory Hair Cells

Valeria Zampini, Lukas Rüttiger, Stuart L. Johnson, Christoph Franz, David N. Furness, Jörg Waldhaus, Hao Xiong, Carole M. Hackney, Matthew C. Holley, Nina Offenhauser, Pier Paolo Di Fiore, Marlies Knipper, Sergio Masetto, Walter Marcotti

PLOS Biology: published April 19, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001048

Neurosteroid Dehydroepiandrosterone Interacts with Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) Receptors, Preventing Neuronal Apoptosis

Iakovos Lazaridis, Ioannis Charalampopoulos, Vassilia-Ismini Alexaki, Nicolaos Avlonitis, Iosif Pediaditakis, Paschalis Efstathopoulos, Theodora Calogeropoulou, Elias Castanas, Achille Gravanis

PLOS Biology: published April 26, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001051

Mechanism of Neuroprotective Mitochondrial Remodeling by PKA/AKAP1

Ronald A. Merrill, Ruben K. Dagda, Audrey S. Dickey, J. Thomas Cribbs, Steven H. Green, Yuriy M. Usachev, Stefan Strack

PLOS Biology: published April 19, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000612

Molecular Determinants and Genetic Modifiers of Aggregation and Toxicity for the ALS Disease Protein FUS/TLS

Zhihui Sun, Zamia Diaz, Xiaodong Fang, Michael P. Hart, Alessandra Chesi, James Shorter, Aaron D. Gitler

PLOS Biology: published April 26, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000614

A Yeast Model of FUS/TLS-Dependent Cytotoxicity

Shulin Ju, Daniel F. Tardiff, Haesun Han, Kanneganti Divya, Quan Zhong, Lynne E. Maquat, Daryl A. Bosco, Lawrence J. Hayward, Robert H. Brown Jr., Susan Lindquist, Dagmar Ringe, Gregory A. Petsko

PLOS Biology: published April 26, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001052

A User's Guide to the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE)

The ENCODE Project Consortium

PLOS Biology: published April 19, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001046

A Genetically Encoded Tag for Correlated Light and Electron Microscopy of Intact Cells, Tissues, and Organisms

Xiaokun Shu, Varda Lev-Ram, Thomas J. Deerinck, Yingchuan Qi, Ericka B. Ramko, Michael W. Davidson, Yishi Jin, Mark H. Ellisman, Roger Y. Tsien

PLOS Biology: published April 5, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001041

A Chaperonin Subunit with Unique Structures Is Essential for Folding of a Specific Substrate

Lianwei Peng, Yoichiro Fukao, Fumiyoshi Myouga, Reiko Motohashi, Kazuo Shinozaki, Toshiharu Shikanai

PLOS Biology: published April 5, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001040

Force-Velocity Measurements of a Few Growing Actin Filaments

Coraline Brangbour, Olivia du Roure, Emmanuèle Helfer, Damien Démoulin, Alexis Mazurier, Marc Fermigier, Marie-France Carlier, Jérôme Bibette, Jean Baudry

PLOS Biology: published April 26, 2011 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000613