TY - JOUR A1 - Nomdedeu, Mar Monsonis A1 - Willen, Christine A1 - Schieffer, Andre A1 - Arndt, Hartmut T1 - Temperature-dependent ranges of coexistence in a model of a two-prey-one-predator microbial food web JF - Marine Biology N2 - The objective of our study was to analyze the effects of temperature on the population dynamics of a three-species food web consisting of two prey bacteria (Pedobacter sp. and Acinetobacter johnsonii) and a protozoan predator (Tetrahymena pyriformis) as model organisms. We assessed the effects of temperature on the growth rates of all three species with the objective of developing a model with four differential equations based on the experimental data. The following hypotheses were tested at a theoretical level: Firstly, temperature changes can affect the dynamic behavior of a system by temperature-dependent parameters and interactions and secondly, food web response to temperature cannot be derived from the single species temperature response. The main outcome of the study is that temperature changes affect the parameter range where coexistence is possible within all three species. This has significant consequences on our ideas regarding the evaluation of effects of global warming. Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227-012-1966-x SN - 1432-1793 VL - 159 IS - 11 SP - 2423 EP - 2430 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - THES A1 - Schieffer, Andre T1 - Studies on diversity and coexistence in an experimental microbial community N2 - Biodiversity and the coexistence of species have puzzled and fascinated biologists since decades and is a hotspot in todays’ natural sciences. Preserving this biodiversity is a great challenge as habitats and environments underlying tremendous changes like climate change and the loss of natural habitats, which are mainly due to anthropogenic influences. The coexistence of numerous species even in homogeneous environments is a stunning feature of natural communities and has been summarized under the term ‘paradox of plankton’. Up to now, there are several mechanisms discussed, which may contribute to local and global diversity of organisms. Several interspecific trade offs have been identified maintaining the coexistence of species like their abilities regarding competition and predator avoidance, their capability to disperse in space and time, and their ability to exploit variable resources. Further, micro-evolutionary dynamics supporting the coexistence of species have been added to our knowledge, and deriving from theoretical deterministic models, non-linear dynamics which describe the temporal fluctuation of abundances of organisms. Whereas competition and predation seem to be clue structural elements within interacting organisms, the intrinsic dynamic behavior – by means of temporal changes in abundance - plays an important role regarding coexistence within a community. The present work sheds light on different factors affecting the coexistence of species using experimental microbial model systems consisting of a bacterivorous ciliate as the predator and two bacteria strains as prey organism. Additionally, another experimental setup consisting of two up to five bacteria species competing for one limiting resource was investigated. Highly controllable chemostat systems were established to exclude extrinsic disturbances. According to theoretical analyses I was able to show - experimentally and theoretically - that phenotypic plasticity of one species within a microbial one-predator-two-prey food web enlarges the range of possible coexistence of all species under different dynamic conditions, compared to a food web without phenotypic plasticity. This was accompanied by non-linear (chaotic) population dynamics within all experimental systems showing phenotypic plasticity. The experiments on the interplay of competition, predation and invasion showed that all aspects have an influence on species coexistence. Under undisturbed controlled conditions all aspects were analyzed in detail and in combination. Populations showed oscillations which were shown by quasi-chaotic attractors in phase space diagrams. Competition experiments with two up to five bacteria species competing for one limiting resource showed that all organisms were able to coexist which was mediated by species oscillations entering a regime of chaos. Besides that fact it was found, that the productivity (biomass) as well as the total cell numbers – under the same nutrition supply – increased by an increasing number of species in the experimental systems. Up to now, the occurrence of non-linear dynamics in well controlled experimental studies has been recognized several times and this phenomenon seemed to be more common in natural systems than generally assumed. N2 - Biodiversität und die Koexistenz von Arten fasziniert und verblüfft Biologen seit Jahr-zehnten und stellen einen Schwerpunkt in der heutigen Umweltforschung dar. Der Schutz und die Konservierung dieser Mannigfaltigkeit stellen eine große Herausfor-derung dar, da die natürlichen Lebensräume sowie die Umwelt enormen Verände-rungen unterworfen sind, welche meist in einem anthropogenen Ursprung wurzeln. Die Koexistenz vieler Arten, auch in relativ homogenen Habitaten ist ein faszinieren-des Charakteristikum natürlicher Lebensgemeinschaften und wird als ‚Paradox des Planktons‘ bezeichnet. Gegenwärtig werden diverse Ursachen diskutiert, welche vermutlich zur lokalen und globalen Diversität von Organismen beitragen. Einige die-ser möglichen Ursachen, die zur Aufrechterhaltung der Koexistenz der Arten beitra-gen, wurden identifiziert: Das Vermögen der Konkurrenz- und Prädationsvermeidung, die Fähigkeit räumlicher sowie zeitlicher Verteilung, sowie das Vermögen variable Ressourcen zu nutzen. Des Weiteren wurden mikro-evolutionäre Phänomene und Dynamiken identifiziert, sowie, von theoretischen deterministischen Modellen ausge-hend, nichtlineare Dynamiken, welche die zeitlichen Schwankungen der Abundanzen von Organismen beschreiben. Diese Aspekte stellen die Schlüsselkomponenten zwi-schen interagierenden Organismen dar, wobei das intrinsiche, nicht lineare dynami-sche Verhalten in Form von zeitlichen Veränderungen in Abundanzen eine zusätzli-che entscheidende Rolle bezüglich der Koexistenz von Arten spielen kann. Einige dieser Aspekte wurden in der vorliegenden Arbeit untersucht. In Anlehnung an theoretische Analysen konnte experimentell sowie theoretisch gezeigt werden, dass phänotypische Plastizität in einer Bakterienart in einem mikrobiellen Ein-Räuber-zwei-Beute-Nahrungsgewebe den Bereich der möglichen Koexistenz unter sich än-dernden experimentellen Bedingungen (Änderungen der Durchflussraten der Chemostate) – im direkten Vergleich zu einem experimentellen Nahrungsgewebe ohne phänotypische Plastizität – erweitern kann. Dies wurde begleitet durch nicht lineare Abundanzschwankungen in den Populationen aller untersuchten Versuchs-ansätze. In weiteren Untersuchungen wurde das Zusammenspiel von Konkurrenz, Prädation und Invasion in einer experimentellen mikrobiellen Gemeinschaft untersucht. Unter kontrollierten Bedingungen konnten diese Aspekte detailliert untersucht werden und es konnten Aufschlüsse darüber gewonnen werden, welche Reaktionen (Interaktionen) innerhalb der untersuchten Gemeinschaften stattfinden. Im Versuchsverlauf wurden Veränderungen in den Abundanzen sowie chaotische Schwankungen der Zellzahlen festgestellt. In Konkurrenzexperimenten von zwei bis zu fünf um eine limitierende Ressource konkurrierende Bakterienarten konnte gezeigt werden, dass alle Arten – vermittelt durch chaotische Abundanzschwankungen – nebeneinander koexistieren konnten. Begleitend dazu wurde herausgefunden, dass die Produktivität (Biomasse) sowie die Gesamtzellzahl bei gleicher Nahrungsverfügbarkeit der experimentellen Systeme mit steigender Artenzahl zunehmen. Gegenwärtig ist das Auftreten von Chaos in gut kontrollierten experimentellen Studien vereinzelt beobachtet worden, wobei dieses Phänomen jedoch häufiger in der Natur aufzutreten scheint als generell vermutet. Y1 - 2012 N1 - Köln, Univ., Diss., 2012 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Weckesser, Martin A1 - Grießmeier, Martin A1 - Schmidt, Daniela A1 - Sonnenberg, Frank A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Kemna, Lars A1 - Holschbach, Marcus A1 - Langen, Karl-J. A1 - Müller-Gärtner, Hans-W. T1 - Iodine-123 α-methyl tyrosine single-photon emission tomography of cerebral gliomas: standardised evaluation of tumour uptake and extent JF - European Journal of Nuclear Medicine N2 - Single-photon emission tomography (SPET) with the amino acid analogue l-3-[123I]iodo-α-methyl tyrosine (IMT) is helpful in the diagnosis and monitoring of cerebral gliomas. Radiolabelled amino acids seem to reflect tumour infiltration more specifically than conventional methods like magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography. Automatic tumour delineation based on maximal tumour uptake may cause an overestimation of mean tumour uptake and an underestimation of tumour extension in tumours with circumscribed peaks. The aim of this study was to develop a program for tumour delineation and calculation of mean tumour uptake which takes into account the mean background activity and is thus optimised to the problem of tumour definition in IMT SPET. Using the frequency distribution of pixel intensities of the tomograms a program was developed which automatically detects a reference brain region and draws an isocontour region around the tumour taking into account mean brain radioactivity. Tumour area and tumour/brain ratios were calculated. A three-compartment phantom was simulated to test the program. The program was applied to IMT SPET studies of 20 patients with cerebral gliomas and was compared to the results of manual analysis by three different investigators. Activity ratios and chamber extension of the phantom were correctly calculated by the automatic analysis. A method based on image maxima alone failed to determine chamber extension correctly. Manual region of interest analysis in patient studies resulted in a mean inter-observer standard deviation of 8.7%±6.1% (range 2.7%–25.0%). The mean value of the results of the manual analysis showed a significant correlation to the results of the automatic analysis (r = 0.91, P<0.0001 for the uptake ratio; r = 0.87, P<0.0001 for the tumour area). We conclude that the algorithm proposed simplifies the calculation of uptake ratios and may be used for observer-independent evaluation of IMT SPET studies. Three-dimensional tumour recognition and transfer to co-registered morphological images based on this program may be useful for the planning of surgical and radiation treatment. Y1 - 1998 SN - 1619-7089 VL - 25 IS - 2 SP - 150 EP - 156 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Taylor, J. G. A1 - Schmitz, N. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Grosse-Ruyken, M.-L. A1 - Gruber, O. A1 - Müller-Gärtner, H.-W. A1 - Shah, N. J. T1 - The network of brain areas involved in the motion aftereffect JF - Neuroimage N2 - A network of brain areas is expected to be involved in supporting the motion aftereffect. The most active components of this network were determined by means of an fMRI study of nine subjects exposed to a visual stimulus of moving bars producing the effect. Across the subjects, common areas were identified during various stages of the effect, as well as networks of areas specific to a single stage. In addition to the well-known motion-sensitive area MT the prefrontal brain areas BA44 and 47 and the cingulate gyrus, as well as posterior sites such as BA37 and BA40, were important components during the period of the motion aftereffect experience. They appear to be involved in control circuitry for selecting which of a number of processing styles is appropriate. The experimental fMRI results of the activation levels and their time courses for the various areas are explored. Correlation analysis shows that there are effectively two separate and weakly coupled networks involved in the total process. Implications of the results for awareness of the effect itself are briefly considered in the final discussion. Y1 - 2000 SN - 1053-8119 VL - 11 IS - 4 SP - 257 EP - 270 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fink, G. R. A1 - Marshall, J. C. A1 - Shah, N. J. A1 - Weiss, P.H. A1 - Halligan, P. W. A1 - Grosse-Ruyken, M. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Zilles, K. A1 - Freund, H. J. T1 - Line bisection judgments implicate right parietal cortex and cerebellum as assessed by fMRI JF - Neurology Y1 - 2000 SN - 1526-632X VL - 54 IS - 6 SP - 1324 EP - 1331 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Zimmermann, E. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - Pulse recording by free-running sampling JF - 2000 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, Vol. 2 N2 - Pulses from a position-sensitive photomultiplier (PS-PMT) are recorded by free running ADCs at a sampling rate of 40 MHz. A four-channel acquisition-board has been developed which is equipped with four 12 bit-ADCs connected to one FPGA (field programmable gate array). The FPGA manages data acquisition and the transfer to the host computer. It can also work as a digital trigger, so a separate hardware-trigger can be omitted. The method of free running sampling provides a maximum of information, besides the pulse charge and amplitude also pulse shape and starting time are contained in the sampled data. These informations are crucial for many tasks such as distinguishing between different scintillator materials, determination of radiation type, pile-up recovery, coincidence detection or time-of-flight applications. The absence of an analog integrator allows coping with very high count rates. Since this method is going to be employed in positron emission tomography (PET), the position of an event is another important information. The simultaneous readout of four channels allows localization by means of center-of-gravity weighting. First results from a test setup with LSO-scintillators coupled to the PS-PMT are presented Y1 - 2000 SN - 1082-3654 SP - 9/179 EP - 9/181 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Zimmermann, E. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - Pulse recording by free-running sampling JF - IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science N2 - Pulses from a position-sensitive photomultiplier (PS-PMT) are recorded by free-running ADCs at a sampling rate of 40 MHz. A four-channel acquisition board has been developed which is equipped with four 12-bit ADCs connected to one field programmable gate array (FPGA). The FPGA manages data acquisition and the transfer to the host computer. It can also work as a digital trigger, so a separate hardware trigger can be omitted. The method of free-running sampling provides a maximum of information, besides the pulse charge and amplitude also pulse shape and starting time are contained in the sampled data. This information is crucial for many tasks such as distinguishing between different scintillator materials, determination of radiation type, pile-up recovery, coincidence detection or time-of-flight applications. The absence of an analog integrator allows very high count rates to be dealt with. Since this method is to be employed in positron emission tomography (PET), the position of an event is also important. The simultaneous readout of four channels allows localization by means of center-of-gravity weighting. First results from a test setup with LSO scintillators coupled to the PS-PMT are presented here Y1 - 2001 SN - 0018-9499 VL - 48 IS - 3 SP - 524 EP - 526 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heinrich, U. A1 - Blum, A. A1 - Bussmann, N. A1 - Engels, R. A1 - Kemmerling, G. A1 - Weber, S. A1 - Ziemons, Karl T1 - Statistical studies on the light output and energy resolution of small LSO single crystals with different surface treatments combined with various reflector materials JF - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment N2 - The optimization of light output and energy resolution of scintillators is of special interest for the development of high resolution and high sensitivity PET. The aim of this work is to obtain statistically reliable results concerning optimal surface treatment of scintillation crystals and the selection of reflector material. For this purpose, raw, mechanically polished and etched LSO crystals (size 2×2×10 mm3) were combined with various reflector materials (Teflon tape, Teflon matrix, BaSO4) and exposed to a 22Na source. In order to ensure the statistical reliability of the results, groups of 10 LSO crystals each were measured for all combinations of surface treatment and reflector material. Using no reflector material the light output increased up to 551±35% by mechanical polishing the surface compared to 100±5% for raw crystals. Etching the surface increased the light output to 441±29%. The untreated crystals had an energy resolution of 24.6±4.0%. By mechanical polishing the surface it was possible to achieve an energy resolution of 13.2±0.8%, by etching of 14.8±0.7%. In combination with BaSO4 as reflector material the maximum increase of light output has been established to 932±57% for mechanically polished and 895±61% for etched crystals. The combination with BaSO4 also caused the best improvement of the energy resolution up to 11.6±0.2% for mechanically polished and 12.2±0.3% for etched crystals. Relating to the light output there was no significant statistical difference between the two surface treatments in combination with BaSO4. In contrast to this, the statistical results of the energy resolution have shown the combination of mechanical polishing and BaSO4 as the optimum. Y1 - 2002 SN - 0168-9002 N1 - Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Inorganic Scin tillators and their Use in Scientific and Industrial Applications VL - 486 IS - 1-2 SP - 60 EP - 66 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Zimmermann, E. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - A PET system with free running ADCs JF - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment N2 - A small PET system has been built up with two multichannel photomultipliers, which are attached to a matrix of 64 single LSO crystals each. The signal from each multiplier is being sampled continuously by a 12 bit ADC at a sampling frequency of 40 MHz. In case of a scintillation pulse a subsequent FPGA sends the corresponding set of samples together with the channel information and a time mark to the host computer. The data transfer is performed with a rate of 20 MB/s. On the host all necessary information is extracted from the data. The pulse energy is determined, coincident events are detected and multiple hits within one matrix can be identified. In order to achieve a narrow time window the pulse starting time is refined further than the resolution of the time mark (=25 ns) would allow. This is possible by interpolating between the pulse samples. First data obtained from this system will be presented. The system is part of developments for a much larger system and has been created to study the feasibility and performance of the technique and the hardware architecture. Y1 - 2002 SN - 0168-9002 N1 - Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Inorganic Scin tillators and their Use in Scientific and Industrial Applications VL - 486 IS - 1-2 SP - 18 EP - 21 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Zimmermann, E. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - Coincidence detection by digital processing of free-running sampled pulses JF - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment N2 - Coincident events in two scintillator crystals coupled to photomultipliers (PMT) are detected by processing just the digital data of the recorded pulses. For this purpose the signals from both PMTs are continuously sampled by free-running ADCs at a sampling rate of 40 MHz. For each sampled pulse the starting time is determined by processing the pulse data. Even a fairly simple interpolating algorithm results in a FWHM of about 2 ns. Y1 - 2002 SN - 0168-9002 VL - 487 IS - 3 SP - 530 EP - 534 ER -