Latest Articles

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  Section: Plants ; Topics: Plant biology

  Allometric scaling relationships of biomass for six common understory species in French temperate forests

  Populus, Claire;   Mårell, Anders;   Korboulewsky, Nathalie  

  10.24072/pcjournal.806 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 6 (2026), article no. e100

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  Forest ecologists often focus on trees and tend to overlook understory plants. However, understory species, despite representing less aboveground biomass than trees, are essential for forest dynamics and ecosystem functioning. The understory contributes to forest biodiversity, influences the forest microclimate and the availability of water and nutrients, and how disturbances, such as fires and large herbivores, impact the ecosystem. Estimating plant biomass can be difficult and time-consuming, but it is crucial to understanding and managing forest ecosystem services and risks. In this study, we improved biomass measurement methods for six common understory species in European temperate forests and with diverse ecologies and life forms: wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa), common heather (Calluna vulgaris), common honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum), purple moor-grass (Molinia caerulea), common bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) and brambles (Rubus fruticosus agg.). Based on vegetation samples and measurements from temperate forests in France, mostly on acidic soils, we developed aboveground biomass models. Our findings demonstrate that simple, rapid, non-destructive measurements – like cover and height – enabled us to accurately and precisely estimate the total aboveground (M_T), leaf (M_L), and stem (M_S) biomass. M_L and M_S scaled isometrically for heather and honeysuckle, and nearly isometrically for bracken, while bramble M_L and M_S scaled to 0.8 (i.e., varying leaf-to-stem ratio). These allometric scaling relationships are applicable at the scale of temperate acidic French forests and may also be applicable to European forests for the six species studied, thus promising a more complete estimation of forest biomass dynamics.

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  Section: Paleontology ; Topics: Paleontology, Evolution

  Garamaudo bauciensis, a new freshwater mosasaurid (Reptilia, Squamata) from the Santonian (Late Cretaceous) of Provence, southeastern France

  Bardet, Nathalie; Houssaye, Alexandra; Pelissier, François-Louis; Dutour, Yves; Turini, Eric; Tortosa, Thierry

  10.24072/pcjournal.804 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 6 (2026), article no. e99

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  Mosasauroids are primarily known as aquatic squamates that diversified in the marine realm during the Late Cretaceous. While most species had paddles, an elongated skull and body, and a laterally compressed tail, and lived in the open sea, some early species, with limbs similar to those of terrestrial animals and a varanoid-like body, lived in marine coastal shallow waters. Recently, mosasauroid remains have been discovered in freshwater environments in several continental deposits of the Santonian-Campanian of Europe. This study describes new cranial and postcranial mosasauroid remains from Santonian continental deposits in Provence, southeastern France, and attributes them to a new tethysaurine: Garamaudo bauciensis gen. et sp. nov. This mosasauroid, approximately 2.5 m long, with limbs looking adapted for a terrestrial locomotion and a sacrum, and with osteosclerosis in its vertebrae and humerus (at least), probably hovered at shallow depth in freshwater ecosystems. This new discovery reveals that it is only within the Tethysaurinae that multiple freshwater forms evolved, pointing to possible niche partitioning, associated with the retention of the plesiopedal / plesiopelvic condition, in parallel with the invasion of open waters by most other hydropedal and hydropelvic mosasauroids. These considerations suggest a richer evolutionary history of mosasauroids than is currently assumed.

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  Section: Nutrition ; Topics: Biochemistry

  Protein-enriched soups as a practical strategy to meet protein needs in older adults

  Hadisi, Parisa; Aubry, Laurent; Bourillon, Sylvie; Lopez, Victor; Sante-Lhoutellier, Veronique  

  10.24072/pcjournal.803 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 6 (2026), article no. e98

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  Soups are routinely included in home-delivery meals for the elderly, making them an effective vehicle for increasing protein intake in this population at risk of malnutrition. Adequate protein and essential amino acids, particularly branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), are critical for preserving muscle mass in this group, prompting this study to examine whether enriching vegetable-based soups could improve their nutritional quality. Five soups (pumpkin, lentil, chickpea, mushroom, and split pea) were enriched with animal-derived ingredients, including ham, La Vache qui rit® processed cheeses, and egg yolk, or with spirulina as an alternative protein source. Protein content, free iron, and phytic acid were quantified, and a static in-vitro digestion model adapted to older adult gastrointestinal conditions was applied under fixed-volume conditions to assess apparent protein hydrolysis through peptide and free amino acid release, as well as iron bioaccessibility. Protein content increased in all soups after enrichment, although the magnitude of improvement depended strongly on the soup base. After in-vitro digestion, enriched soups generally showed higher soluble protein-derived fractions and higher concentrations of free essential amino acids, including BCAAs. Egg yolk and spirulina produced the greatest increases in bioaccessible BCAAs, while spirulina-enriched soups showed the highest levels of bioaccessible free iron. In contrast, lentil soup, characterized by high phytic acid content, exhibited lower iron bioaccessibility, suggesting that inhibitory matrix components may limit the effectiveness of enrichment. Overall, these findings show that both the enrichment ingredient and the food matrix modulate nutrient release during digestion, and that selected animal-derived ingredients and spirulina can improve the nutritional potential of vegetable-based soups intended for older adults

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  Section: Psychology ; Topics: Psychological and cognitive sciences

  Using Formal and Computational Modelling to Develop an Initial Within-Person System Dynamics Model of Relapse in Smoking Cessation: A Participatory, Iterative, Multi-Method Approach

  Perski, Olga;   Allen, James M.; Kim, Meelim; Pavel, Misha; Hankonen, Nelli; Hekler, Eric

  10.24072/pcjournal.802 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 6 (2026), article no. e97

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  Popular relapse prevention theories are represented using natural language descriptions and lack temporal information about how phenomena of interest (i.e., ‘relapse’, ‘prolapse’, ‘abstinence’) are dynamically caused over time and within individuals. We drew on the Theory Construction Methodology to develop a formal and computational model of relapse in smoking cessation. We used a participatory, iterative, multi-method approach involving i) an informal theory and computational model review, ii) stakeholder interviews with researchers, people with lived experience, stop smoking practitioners, and policymakers (N = 15) and iii) in silico simulations. We propose an initial within-person system dynamics model of relapse (‘COMPLAPSE’) in which biopsychosocial factors (e.g., stressors, cigarette cues, cravings, self-efficacy) are represented as time-varying inputs and state variables. These factors jointly determine the momentary preference for each behavioural option (i.e., smoke a cigarette, use a regulatory strategy, do nothing), with the probability of selecting each option (i.e., the output) generated by a softmax function. The simulations highlight the model’s ability to generate representational patterns of the phenomena of interest (i.e., relapse, prolapse and abstinence), thus providing an early sense-check of its explanatory adequacy. In addition, local sensitivity analyses demonstrate that systematic variation of selected model parameters leads to expected qualitative shifts from, for example, prolapse to relapse. We discuss the implications of our work for relapse prevention theories and real-world applications, including the development and optimisation of technology-mediated just-in-time adaptive interventions for relapse prevention in smoking cessation.