Activity

Pandemics like COVID-19 confront us with decisions about life and death that come with great uncertainty, factual as well as moral. read more How should policy makers deal with such uncertainty? We suggest that rather than to deliberate until they have found the right course of action, they better do moral experiments that generate relevant experiences to enable more reliable moral evaluations and rational decisions.Climatic factors act on populations at multiple timescales leading to the separation of long-term climate and shorter-term weather effects. We used passerine counts from 1995 to 2019 in subarctic Alaska (Denali National Park, USA) to assess the impacts of the prior breeding season’s weather on breeding season abundance and the impacts of climate measured through shifts in elevational distribution. Weather and climate appear to have had opposing effects on the abundance of some shrub-associated species as evidenced by a positive response to nesting phase temperature over a 1-year lag and a negative response to warming-induced shifts in shrub-dominated habitats over the long term. The latter response was indicated by declines in abundance which occurred in some part through portions of these populations shifting upslope of our fixed sampling frame. Overall, the abundance of species was related to one or more of the lagged effects of weather and the effects of weather alone drove nearly twofold variation in annual abundance in most species. The effect of nesting phase temperature was a strong positive predictor at both community and individual species levels, whereas arrival phase temperature had weak support at both levels. The effects of total precipitation during the nesting phase and snowmelt timing shared mixed support at community and species levels, but generally indicated higher abundance following seasons that were drier and had earlier snowmelt. Together, our findings of opposing effects of climatic variables at different timescales have implications for understanding the mechanisms of population and distributional change in passerines in the subarctic.Land use alteration such as livestock grazing can affect water quality in habitats of at-risk wildlife species. Data from managed wetlands are needed to understand levels of exposure for aquatic life stages and monitor grazing-related changes afield. We quantified spatial and temporal variation in water quality in wetlands occupied by threatened Oregon spotted frog (Rana pretiosa) at Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, United States (US). We used analyses for censored data to evaluate the importance of habitat type and grazing history in predicting concentrations of nutrients, turbidity, fecal indicator bacteria (FIB; total coliforms, Escherichia coli (E. coli), and enterococci), and estrogenicity, an indicator of estrogenic activity. Nutrients (orthophosphate and ammonia) and enterococci varied over time and space, while E. coli, total coliforms, turbidity, and estrogenicity were more strongly associated with local livestock grazing metrics. Turbidity was correlated with several grazing-related constituents and may be particularly useful for monitoring water quality in landscapes with livestock use. Concentrations of orthophosphate and estrogenicity were elevated at several sites relative to published health benchmarks, and their potential effects on Rana pretiosa warrant further investigation. Our data provided an initial assessment of potential exposure of amphibians to grazing-related constituents in western US wetlands. Increased monitoring of surface water quality and amphibian population status in combination with controlled laboratory toxicity studies could help inform future research and targeted management strategies for wetlands with both grazing and amphibians of conservation concern.In this retrospective analysis, the Newborn Life Support (NLS) test scenario performance of participants of the Dutch Neonatal Advanced Life Support (NALS) course was assessed. Characteristics of participants and total amount of failures were collected. Failures were subdivided in (1) errors of omission; (2) errors of commission; and (3) unspecified if data was missing. Pearson’s chi-squared test was used to assess differences between participant groups. In total, 23 out of 86 participants (27%) failed their NLS test scenario. Life support course instructors in general (20/21) passed their test scenario more often compared to other participants (43/65) (p = 0.008). In total 110 fail items were recorded; the most common errors being not assessing heart rate (error of omission) (n = 47) and inadequate performance of airway management (error of commission) (n = 24).Conclusion A substantial part of NALS participants failed their NLS test scenario. Errors of omission could be reduced by the availability of a checklist/NLS algorithm. Life support course instructors possibly make less errors of commission due to retention of skills by teaching these skills at least twice a year. Therefore, our study suggests that neonatal basic life support skills should be retained by local assurance of training programmes. What is Known • Retention of skills after life support courses decreases after three months. • Adherence to newborn life support guidelines is suboptimal. What is New • NLS performance is suboptimal in participants for advanced neonatal life support. • Most common failures are not assessing heart rate and inadequate airway management.

Genome-wide identification, tissue-specific and stress expression analyses and functional characterization of PbrATG8s genes were conducted and the role of PbrATG8c in Botryosphaeria dothidea resistance was further investigated. Autophagy plays an important role in plant growth, development and stress tolerance. ATG8 has been reported to be an autophagy marker in many species. However, there is little information regarding ATG8 family members in pear (Pyrus bretschneideri Rehd). We performed a genome-wide analysis and identified nine PbrATG8 gene family members in pear. Phylogenetic analysis showed that PbrATG8 genes clustered into four major groups (Groups I-IV). Eight PbrATG8 genes were successfully mapped to 6 of the 17 chromosomes of the pear genome. The synteny results showed that two pairs are collinear. Gene expression data showed that all genes were differentially expressed in a range of pear tissues. Transcript analysis of PbrATG8 genes under dehydration, salt and pathogen infection stresses revealed that PbrATG8c responded to all test stresses.