Refine
Document Type
- Article (3)
- Part of Periodical (1)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (4)
Keywords
- Adaptation (1)
- DNA methylation (1)
- Duricrusts (1)
- Familiengeschichte (1)
- Frühe Neuzeit (1)
- Genealogie (1)
- Jewish Studies (1)
- Jüdische Studien (1)
- Modern Jewish history (1)
- Moderne Jüdische Geschichte (1)
Epigenetic mechanisms convey environmental information through generations and can regulate gene expression. Epigenetic studies in wild mammals are rare, but enable understanding adaptation processes as they may occur in nature. In most wild mammal species, males are the dispersing sex and thus often have to cope with differing habitats and thermal changes more rapidly than the often philopatric females. As temperature is a major environmental selection factor, we investigated whether genetically heterogeneous Wild guinea pig (Cavia aperea) males adapt epigenetically to an increase in temperature, whether that response will be transmitted to the next generation(s), and whether it regulates mRNA expression. Five (F0) adult male guinea pigs were exposed to an increased ambient temperature for 2 months, corresponding to the duration of the species' spermatogenesis. To study the effect of heat, we focused on the main thermoregulatory organ, the liver. We analyzed CpG-methylation changes of male offspring (F1) sired before and after the fathers' heat treatment (as has recently been described in Weyrich et al. [Mol. Ecol., 2015]). Transcription analysis was performed for the three genes with the highest number of differentially methylated changes detected: the thermoregulation gene Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (Stat3), the proteolytic peptidase gene Cathepsin Z (Ctsz), and Sirtuin 6 (Sirt6) with function in epigenetic regulation. Stat3 gene expression was significantly reduced (P < 0.05), which indicated a close link between CpG-methylation and expression levels for this gene. The two other genes did not show gene expression changes. Our results indicate the presence of a paternal transgenerational epigenetic effect. Quick adaptation to climatic changes may become increasingly relevant for the survival of wildlife species as global temperatures are rising.
The Jewish family has been the subject of much admiration and analysis, criticism and myth-making, not just but especially in modern times. As a field of inquiry, its place is at the intersection – or in the shadow – of the great topics in Jewish Studies and its contributing disciplines. Among them are the modernization and privatization of Judaism and Jewish life; integration and distinctiveness of Jews as individuals and as a group; gender roles and education. These and related questions have been the focus of modern Jewish family research, which took shape as a discipline in the 1910s.
This issue of PaRDeS traces the origins of academic Jewish family research and takes stock of its development over a century, with its ruptures that have added to the importance of familial roots and continuities. A special section retrieves the founder of the field, Arthur Czellitzer (1871–1943), his biography and work from oblivion and places him in the context of early 20th-century science and Jewish life.
The articles on current questions of Jewish family history reflect the topic’s potential for shedding new light on key questions in Jewish Studies past and present. Their thematic range – from 13th-century Yiddish Arthurian romances via family-based business practices in 19th-century Hungary and Germany, to concepts of Jewish parenthood in Imperial Russia – illustrates the broad interest in Jewish family research as a paradigm for early modern and modern Jewish Studies.
This paper reports on extremely thick and massive duricrusts in soils of two basins in the Alentejo (southern Portugal). Since different types of duricrusts (calcretes, silcretes and palycretes) have been reported from other regions in the Mediterranean, the purpose of this study was to identify the cementing agents in the duricrusts and to compare their composition in the two basins. Moreover, the study aimed at identifying the processes involved in duricrust formation, and especially the role of topography and lateral water and element transport in the landscape, and drawing conclusions about environmental conditions and time of duricrust formation.
After studying an extensive number of road cuts in the field and mapping soil patterns in parts of the two basins by manual augering, ten pedons were selected for detailed description and sampling. Thin sections were analysed under a petrographic microscope, focusing on the micromorphology and optical properties of the cementing materials. Selected samples were studied by scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy to reconfirm the optical identification. The laboratory analyses included pH, carbonate contents, and X-ray diffraction analysis.
The duricrusts in the eastern Sado basin are indurated by silica. Combination of XRD and thin section analysis allowed to identify opal-CT as a major component, while opal-A is present to a lesser extent, and chalcedony is very rare. The cementing materials of the duricrusts in the Oriola basin are palygorskite and calcite, which may occur alone or in combination within a soil profile.
The thick duricrusts formed in the basins through precipitation of calcite, palygorskite and silica from lateral water flows, which ran from the Serra de Portel into the basins, during short moist seasons in a generally warm, semi-arid climate with strong evapotranspiration. Lithology of the upper catchment areas (element sources) and topography control the spatial distribution of the different duricrusts. Their formation took place mainly during the Pliocene. Palygorskite transformation to smectite in the upper parts of the palycretes indicates that palygorskite is unstable in the present (more humid, typical Mediterranean) climate. This study demonstrates the potential role of lateral water and element transport in landscapes that need to be considered in pedological studies and concepts, and the use of mineral indicators of past climates such as palygorskite and the ageing stage of silica precipitations as tools for reconstructing environmental conditions and possible time of duricrust formation.