Relative gut lengths of coral reef butterflyfishes (Pisces: Chaetodontidae)

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Coral Reefs 30 (2011): 1005-1010, doi:10.1007/s00338-011-0791-x.Variation in gut length of closely related animals is known to generally be a good predictor of dietary habits. We examined gut length in 28 species of butterflyfishes (Chaetodontidae), which encompass a wide range of dietary types (planktivores, omnivores, corallivores). We found general dietary patterns to be a good predictor of relative gut length, although we found high variation among groups and covariance with body size. The longest gut lengths are found in species that exclusively feed on the living tissue of corals, while the shortest gut length is found in a planktivorous species. Although we tried to control for phylogeny, corallivory has arisen multiple times in this family, confounding our analyses. The butterflyfishes, a speciose family with a wide range of dietary habits, may nonetheless provide an ideal system for future work studying gut physiology associated with specialisation and foraging behaviours.This project was funded in part by a National Science Foundation (USA) Graduate Research Fellowship to MLB.2012-06-1

Standardisation framework for the Maudsley staging method for treatment resistance in depression

Background: Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is a serious and relatively common clinical condition. Lack of consensus on defining and staging TRD remains one of the main barriers to understanding TRD and approaches to intervention. The Maudsley Staging Method (MSM) is the first multidimensional model developed to define and stage treatment-resistance in “unipolar depression”. The model is being used increasingly in treatment and epidemiological studies of TRD and has the potential to support consensus. Yet, standardised methods for rating the MSM have not been described adequately. The aim of this report is to present standardised approaches for rating or completing the MSM. Method: Based on the initial development of the MSM and a narrative review of the literature, the developers of the MSM provide explicit guidance on how the three dimensions of the MSM–treatment failure, severity of depressive episode and duration of depressive episode– may be rated. Result: The core dimension of the MSM, treatment failure, may be assessed using the Maudsley Treatment Inventory (MTI), a new method developed for the purposes of completing the MSM. The MTI consists of a relatively comprehensive list of medications with options for rating doses and provisions treatment for multiple episodes. The second dimension, severity of symptoms, may be assessed using simple instruments such as the Clinical Global Impression, the Psychiatric Status Rating or checklist from a standard diagnostic checklist. The standardisation also provides a simple rating scale for scoring the third dimension, duration of depressive episode. Conclusion: The approaches provided should have clinical and research utility in staging TRD. However, in proposing this model, we are fully cognisant that until the pathophysiology of depression is better understood, staging methods can only be tentative approximations. Future developments should attempt to incorporate other biological/ pathophysiological dimensions for staging

fisheries and tourism social economic and ecological trade offs in coral reef systems

Coastal communities are exerting increasingly more pressure on coral reef ecosystem services in the Anthropocene. Balancing trade-offs between local economic demands, preservation of traditional values, and maintenance of both biodiversity and ecosystem resilience is a challenge for reef managers and resource users. Consistently, growing reef tourism sectors offer more lucrative livelihoods than subsistence and artisanal fisheries at the cost of traditional heritage loss and ecological damage. Using a systematic review of coral reef fishery reconstructions since the 1940s, we show that declining trends in fisheries catch and fish stocks dominate coral reef fisheries globally, due in part to overfishing of schooling and spawning-aggregating fish stocks vulnerable to exploitation. Using a separate systematic review of coral reef tourism studies since 2013, we identify socio-ecological impacts and economic opportunities associated to the industry. Fisheries and tourism have the potential to threaten the ecological stability of coral reefs, resulting in phase shifts toward less productive coral-depleted ecosystem states. We consider whether four common management strategies (unmanaged commons, ecosystem-based management, co-management, and adaptive co-management) fulfil ecological conservation and socioeconomic goals, such as living wage, job security, and maintenance of cultural traditions. Strategies to enforce resource exclusion and withhold traditional resource rights risk social unrest; thus, the coexistence of fisheries and tourism industries is essential. The purpose of this chapter is to assist managers and scientists in their responsibility to devise implementable strategies that protect local community livelihoods and the coral reefs on which they rely

The minimum sizes of fish sanctuaries and fishing effort reductions needed to achieve sustainable coastal fisheries in Calauag and Tayabas bays

The impact of the sizes of fish sanctuaries and fishing effort reductions (i.e., number of fishers and fishing days per year) and various combinations thereof on projected catch per fisher were assessed for Calauag and Tayabas Bays. This study explored the likely impact and viability of the options available to fishery managers to sustain coastal fisheries in these bays. Using recent data from the Fisheries Resource Management Program and an updated, bay-level version of the steady-state model FISHBE (Fisheries Information for Sustainable Harvests-BioEconomic), thousands of individual model runs were made and reduced to fishing capacity charts, which are introduced here as graphical guide for managers to allow them to examine the consequences of various scenarios. Results showed that both bays are still overfished. FISH-BE estimates revealed only around 1,100 of the 1,500 municipal fishers in Calauag Bay can be supported sustainably over the long term (i.e., \u3e5 byr) under current conditions. Tayabas Bay\u27s fisheries are in a more critical state because it has six times more fishers but the bay is only three times larger in area than Calauag Bay. FISH-BE simulations showed only 2,800 of about 9,500 municipal fishers in Tayabas Bay could be supported sustainably over the long term. If all 1,500 fishers are to be supported, at least 20% (150 km2) of Calauag Bay should be set aside as no-take sanctuaries. For Tayabas Bay, if the number of municipal fishers is not reduced, no-take fish sanctuaries totaling at least 55% of the bay\u27s waters (or 1,385 km2) need to be set up. Fisheries management in these bays clearly requires a combination of measures which are outlined in this report

Assessment, management and future directions for coastal fisheries in Asian countries

In Asia, the fisheries sector is important in terms of food security, livelihoods and foreign exchange earnings. However, as in many parts of the world, there are signs that capture fisheries are fully exploited or overfished. Management of fisheries in the region is often hampered by lack of information on the status of fisheries in terms of biological, social, economic, policy and governance aspects. This regional project documents an alarming decline on coastal fishery resources, based on historic research surveys in South and Southeast Asia. Socio-economic analyses and policy reviews highlight the importance of the fisheries sector but also the challenges facing it. Potential interventions to improve fisheries management in the countries are outlined and defined with environmental, socioeconomic and institutional objectives.Fishery management, Fishery resources, Coasts, Demersal fisheries, Socioeconomic aspects, Marine fisheries, Economic analysis, Ecosystems, Trophic relationships, Southeast Asia, South China Sea, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Thailand Gulf, Bengal Bay, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Viet Nam,

Integrated cgh/wes analyses advance understanding of aggressive neuroblastoma evolution: A case study

Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most common extra-cranial malignancy in preschool children. To portray the genetic landscape of an overly aggressive NB leading to a rapid clinical progression of the disease, tumor DNA collected pre-and post-treatment has been analyzed. Array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH), whole-exome sequencing (WES), and pharmacogenetics approaches, respectively, have identified relevant copy number alterations (CNAs), single nucleotide variants (SNVs), and polymorphisms (SNPs) that were then combined into an integrated analysis. Spontaneously formed 3D tumoroids obtained from the recurrent mass have also been characterized. The results prove the power of combining CNAs, SNVs, and SNPs analyses to assess clonal evolution during the disease progression by evidencing multiple clones at disease onset and dynamic genomic alterations during therapy administration. The proposed molecular and cytogenetic integrated analysis empowers the disease follow-up and the prediction of tumor recurrence

Accessing novel conoidean venoms: Biodiverse lumun-lumun marine communities, an untapped biological and toxinological resource

Cone snail venoms have yielded pharmacologically active natural products of exceptional scientific interest. However, cone snails are a small minority of venomous molluscan biodiversity, the vast majority being tiny venomous morphospecies in the family Turridae. A novel method called lumun-lumun opens access to these micromolluscs and their venoms. Old fishing nets are anchored to the sea bottom for a period of 1-6 months and marine biotas rich in small molluscs are established. In a single lumun-lumun community, we found a remarkable gastropod biodiversity (155 morphospecies). Venomous predators belonging to the superfamily Conoidea (36 morphospecies) were the largest group, the majority being micromolluscs in the family Turridae. We carried out an initial analysis of the most abundant of the turrid morphospecies recovered, Clathurella (Lienardia) cincta (Dunker, 1871). In contrast to all cDNA clones characterized from cone snail venom ducts, one of the C. cincta clones identified encoded two different peptide precursors presumably translated from a single mRNA. The prospect of easily accessing so many different morphospecies of venomous marine snails raises intriguing toxinological possibilities: the 36 conoidean morphospecies in this one net alone have the potential to yield thousands of novel pharmacologically active compounds. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd