Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Landes Bioscience
Résumé : International audience
In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. A key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process vs. those that measure flux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process); thus, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation needs to be differentiated from stimuli that result in increased autophagic activity, defined as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (in most higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the field understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field.
Autophagy

hal-00735751
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00735751
PUBMED : 22966490

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Public Library of Science
Résumé : International audience
Anthropogenic impacts are increasingly affecting the world's oceans. Networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) provide an option for increasing the ecological and economic benefits often provided by single MPAs. It is vital to empirically assess the effects of MPA networks and to prioritize the monitoring data necessary to explain those effects. We summarize the types of MPA networks based on their intended management outcomes and illustrate a framework for evaluating whether a connectivity network is providing an outcome greater than the sum of individual MPA effects. We use an analysis of an MPA network in Hawai'i to compare networked MPAs to non-networked MPAs to demonstrate results consistent with a network effect. We assert that planning processes for MPA networks should identify their intended outcomes while also employing coupled field monitoring-simulation modeling approaches, a powerful way to prioritize the most relevant monitoring data for empirically assessing MPA network performance.
ISSN: 1932-6203

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
hal-01341695
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01341695
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01341695/document
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01341695/file/journal.pone.0102298.PDF
DOI : 10.1371/journal.pone.0102298

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : International audience
1. The use of targets to provide measurable objectives and benchmarks for management, conservation, andrestoration of ecosystems is commonplace. In the marine and coastal realms, targets have been successful insetting sustainable limits to fisheries harvests, thresholds for pollutants, and recommended amounts ofrepresentative habitat included in marine protected area (MPA) networks. Quantifiable targets can dissuadegovernments from making dubious claims about investments in ocean protection that sound impressive butcannot be verified. Examples are presented where protection targets have been used successfully for marinemanagement, and instances where measurable and meaningful benchmarks serve to allow tracking of true progress.2. However, the setting of targets can also be a double-edged sword. In some cases, targets have proven useful,but in many instances, interventions made to fulfil targets not only give a false illusion of progress or even success,they present opportunity costs that impede further conservation.3. Some of these issues were raised in the 2003 article ‘Dangerous Targets?: Unresolved issues and ideologicalclashes around marine protected areas’ that appeared in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and FreshwaterEcosystems. Since its publication, the article’s warnings about how targets can sometimes be dangerous andcounter-productive have led to intense debate among scientists and policy-makers alike, and the paper has beencited in more than 500 publications. Yet today, more than a dozen years after the first ‘Dangerous Targets’publication, new targets are driving more MPA designations and conservation strategies than ever before, andthe ‘dangerous’ aspects of target setting have been largely ignored.4. This paper discusses old ‘dangers’ in the context of new developments in marine conservation, including thelingering problem of having simplistic metrics drive marine policies, and the unintended result that can often occurwhen outputs (percentage of area under MPA designation) do not align with true outcomes of effectivemanagement and conservation. Newly emerging ‘dangers’ in letting areal targets (percentage of area underMPA designation) drive MPA designations are also discussed, including how the rush to fulfil obligations toprotect a certain proportion of area is taking place in planning, separate from broader level, and potentiallymore holistic, marine spatial planning (MSP).5. The paper suggests five recommendations that would allow policy-makers to use targets more effectively,including: (1) increase transparency in planning, especially around specific goals and objectives of MPAestablishment; (2) use time-based areal targets when representativity is a goal of the protected area strategy; (3)
ISSN: 1052-7613

hal-01380963
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01380963
DOI : 10.1002/aqc.2675