University of Tübingen

About: University of Tübingen is a education organization based out in Tübingen, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Immune system. The organization has 40555 authors who have published 84108 publications receiving 3015320 citations. The organization is also known as: Eberhard Karls University & Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen.

The Einstein Telescope: a third-generation gravitational wave observatory

Abstract: Advanced gravitational wave interferometers, currently under realization, will soon permit the detection of gravitational waves from astronomical sources. To open the era of precision gravitational wave astronomy, a further substantial improvement in sensitivity is required. The future space-based Laser Interferometer Space Antenna and the third-generation ground-based observatory Einstein Telescope (ET) promise to achieve the required sensitivity improvements in frequency ranges. The vastly improved sensitivity of the third generation of gravitational wave observatories could permit detailed measurements of the sources' physical parameters and could complement, in a multi-messenger approach, the observation of signals emitted by cosmological sources obtained through other kinds of telescopes. This paper describes the progress of the ET project which is currently in its design study phase.

Facilitation in plant communities: the past, the present, and the future

Abstract: Summary 1 Once neglected, the role of facilitative interactions in plant communities has received considerable attention in the last two decades, and is now widely recognized It is timely to consider the progress made by research in this field 2 We review the development of plant facilitation research, focusing on the history of the field, the relationship between plant‐plant interactions and environmental severity gradients, and attempts to integrate facilitation into mainstream ecological theory We then consider future directions for facilitation research 3 With respect to our fundamental understanding of plant facilitation, clarification of the relationship between interactions and environmental gradients is central for further progress, and necessitates the design and implementation of experiments that move beyond the clear limitations of previous studies 4 There is substantial scope for exploring indirect facilitative effects in plant communities, including their impacts on diversity and evolution, and future studies should connect the degree of non-transitivity in plant competitive networks to community diversity and facilitative promotion of species coexistence, and explore how the role of indirect facilitation varies with environmental severity 5 Certain ecological modelling approaches (eg individual-based modelling), although thus far largely neglected, provide highly useful tools for exploring these fundamental processes 6 Evolutionary responses might result from facilitative interactions, and consideration of facilitation might lead to re-assessment of the evolution of plant growth forms

antiSMASH: rapid identification, annotation and analysis of secondary metabolite biosynthesis gene clusters in bacterial and fungal genome sequences

Abstract: Bacterial and fungal secondary metabolism is a rich source of novel bioactive compounds with potential pharmaceutical applications as antibiotics, anti-tumor drugs or cholesterol-lowering drugs To find new drug candidates, microbiologists are increasingly relying on sequencing genomes of a wide variety of microbes However, rapidly and reliably pinpointing all the potential gene clusters for secondary metabolites in dozens of newly sequenced genomes has been extremely challenging, due to their biochemical heterogeneity, the presence of unknown enzymes and the dispersed nature of the necessary specialized bioinformatics tools and resources Here, we present antiSMASH (antibiotics & Secondary Metabolite Analysis Shell), the first comprehensive pipeline capable of identifying biosynthetic loci covering the whole range of known secondary metabolite compound classes (polyketides, non-ribosomal peptides, terpenes, aminoglycosides, aminocoumarins, indolocarbazoles, lantibiotics, bacteriocins, nucleosides, beta-lactams, butyrolactones, siderophores, melanins and others) It aligns the identified regions at the gene cluster level to their nearest relatives from a database containing all other known gene clusters, and integrates or cross-links all previously available secondary-metabolite specific gene analysis methods in one interactive view antiSMASH is available at http://antismashsecondarymetabolitesorg

Sea-level fluctuations during the last glacial cycle

Abstract: The last glacial cycle was characterized by substantial millennial-scale climate fluctuations1,2,3,4,5, but the extent of any associated changes in global sea level (or, equivalently, ice volume) remains elusive. Highstands of sea level can be reconstructed from dated fossil coral reef terraces6,7, and these data are complemented by a compilation of global sea-level estimates based on deep-sea oxygen isotope ratios at millennial-scale resolution8 or higher1. Records based on oxygen isotopes, however, contain uncertainties in the range of ±30 m, or ±1 °C in deep sea temperature9,10. Here we analyse oxygen isotope records from Red Sea sediment cores to reconstruct the history of water residence times in the Red Sea. We then use a hydraulic model of the water exchange between the Red Sea and the world ocean to derive the sill depth—and hence global sea level—over the past 470,000 years (470 kyr). Our reconstruction is accurate to within ±12 m, and gives a centennial-scale resolution from 70 to 25 kyr before present. We find that sea-level changes of up to 35 m, at rates of up to 2 cm yr-1, occurred, coincident with abrupt changes in climate.