Shuttle-box systems for studying preferred environmental ranges by aquatic animals

Animals’ selection of environments within a preferred range is key to understanding their habitat selection, tolerance to stressors and responses to environmental change. For aquatic animals, preferred environmental ranges can be studied in so-called shuttle-boxes, where an animal can choose its ambient environment by shuttling between separate choice chambers with differences in an environmental variable. Over time, researchers have refined the shuttle-box technology and applied them in many different research contexts, and we here review the use of shuttle-boxes as a research tool with aquatic animals over the past 50 years. Most studies on the methodology have been published in the latest decade, probably due to an increasing research interest in the effects of environmental change, which underlines the current popularity of the system. The shuttle-box has been applied to a wide range of research topics with regards to preferred ranges of temperature, CO2, salinity and O2 in a vast diversity of species, showing broad applicability for the system. We have synthesized the current state-of-the-art of the methodology and provided best practice guidelines with regards to setup, data analyses, experimental design and study reporting. We have also identified a series of knowledge gaps, which can and should be addressed in future studies. We conclude with highlighting directions for research using shuttle-boxes within evolutionary biology and behavioural and physiological ecology

Genome-Wide Association Study in BRCA1 Mutation Carriers Identifies Novel Loci Associated with Breast and Ovarian Cancer Risk

BRCA1-associated breast and ovarian cancer risks can be modified by common genetic variants. To identify further cancer risk-modifying loci, we performed a multi-stage GWAS of 11,705 BRCA1 carriers (of whom 5,920 were diagnosed with breast and 1,839 were diagnosed with ovarian cancer), with a further replication in an additional sample of 2,646 BRCA1 carriers. We identified a novel breast cancer risk modifier locus at 1q32 for BRCA1 carriers (rs2290854, P = 2.7×10-8, HR = 1.14, 95% CI: 1.09-1.20). In addition, we identified two novel ovarian cancer risk modifier loci: 17q21.31 (rs17631303, P = 1.4×10-8, HR = 1.27, 95% CI: 1.17-1.38) and 4q32.3 (rs4691139, P = 3.4×10-8, HR = 1.20, 95% CI: 1.17-1.38). The 4q32.3 locus was not associated with ovarian cancer risk in the general population or BRCA2 carriers, suggesting a BRCA1-specific associat