Activity of loggerhead turtles during the U-shaped dive: insights using angular velocity metrics

Understanding the behavioural ecology of endangered taxa can inform conservation strategies. The activity budgets of the loggerhead turtle Caretta caretta are still poorly understood because many tracking methods show only horizontal displacement and ignore dives and associated behaviours. However, time-depth recorders have enabled researchers to identify flat, U-shaped dives (or type 1a dives) and these are conventionally labelled as resting dives on the seabed because they involve no vertical displacement of the animal. Video- and acceleration-based studies have demonstrated this is not always true. Focusing on sea turtles nesting on the Cabo Verde archipelago, we describe a new metric derived from magnetometer data, absolute angular velocity, that integrates indices of angular rotation in the horizontal plane to infer activity. Using this metric, we evaluated the variation in putative resting behaviours during the bottom phase of type 1a dives for 5 individuals over 13 to 17 d at sea during a single inter-nesting interval (over 75 turtle d in total). We defined absolute resting within the bottom phase of type 1a dives as periods with no discernible acceleration or angular movement. Whilst absolute resting constituted a significant proportion of each turtle’s time budget for this 1a dive type, turtles allocated 16−38% of their bottom time to activity, with many dives being episodic, comprised of intermittent bouts of rest and rotational activity. This implies that previously considered resting behaviours are complex and need to be accounted for in energy budgets, particularly since energy budgets may impact conservation strategies. © The authors 2021. Open Access under Creative Commons by Attribution Licence. Use, distribution and reproduction are unrestricted. Authors and original publication must be credite

Behavioral Biomarkers for Animal Health: A Case Study Using Animal-Attached Technology on Loggerhead Turtles

Vertebrates are recognized as sentient beings. Consequently, urgent priority is now being given to understanding the needs and maximizing the welfare of animals under human care. The general health of animals is most commonly determined by physiological indices e.g., blood sampling, but may also be assessed by documenting behavior. Physiological health assessments, although powerful, may be stressful for animals, time-consuming and costly, while assessments of behavior can also be time-consuming, subject to bias and suffer from a poorly defined link between behavior and health. However, behavior is recognized as having the potential to code for stress and well-being and could, therefore, be used as an indicator of health, particularly if the process of quantifying behavior could be objective, formalized and streamlined to be time efficient. This study used Daily Diaries (DDs) (motion-sensitive tags containing tri-axial accelerometers and magnetometers), to examine aspects of the behavior of bycaught loggerhead turtles, Caretta caretta in various states of health. Although sample size limited statistical analysis, significant behavioral differences (in terms of activity level and turn rate) were found between “healthy” turtles and those with external injuries to the flippers and carapace. Furthermore, data visualization (spherical plots) clearly showed atypical orientation behavior in individuals suffering gas emboli and intestinal gas, without complex data analysis. Consequently, we propose that the use of motion-sensitive tags could aid diagnosis and inform follow-up treatment, thus facilitating the rehabilitation process. This is particularly relevant given the numerous rehabilitation programs for bycatch sea turtles in operation. In time, tag-derived behavioral biomarkers, TDBBs for health could be established for other species with more complex behavioral repertoires such as cetaceans and pinnipeds which also require rehabilitation and release. Furthermore, motion-sensitive data from animals under human care and wild conspecifics could be compared in order to define a set of objective behavioral states (including activity levels) for numerous species housed in zoos and aquaria and/or wild species to help maximize their welfare

Surveillance and control of meningococcal disease in the COVID-19 era: A Global Meningococcal Initiative review

RevisiónThis review article incorporates information from the 4th Global Meningococcal Initiative summit meeting. Since the introduction of stringent COVID-19 infection control and lockdown measures globally in 2020, there has been an impact on IMD prevalence, surveillance, and vaccination compliance. Incidence rates and associated mortality fell across various regions during 2020. A reduction in vaccine uptake during 2020 remains a concern globally. In addition, several Neisseria meningitidis clonal complexes, particularly CC4821 and CC11, continue to exhibit resistance to antibiotics, with resistance to ciprofloxacin or beta-lactams mainly linked to modifications of gyrA or penA alleles, respectively. Beta-lactamase acquisition was also reported through horizontal gene transfer (blaROB-1) involving other bacterial species. Despite the challenges over the past year, progress has also been made on meningococcal vaccine development, with several pentavalent (serogroups ABCWY and ACWYX) vaccines currently being studied in late-stage clinical trial programmes.Medical writing support was funded by Sanofi Pasteur.S

The Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment (IMaX) for the Sunrise balloon-borne solar observatory

The Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment (IMaX) is a spectropolarimeter built by four institutions in Spain that flew on board the Sunrise balloon-borne telesocope in June 2009 for almost six days over the Arctic Circle. As a polarimeter IMaX uses fast polarization modulation (based on the use of two liquid crystal retarders), real-time image accumulation, and dual beam polarimetry to reach polarization sensitivities of 0.1%. As a spectrograph, the instrument uses a LiNbO3 etalon in double pass and a narrow band pre-filter to achieve a spectral resolution of 85 mAA. IMaX uses the high Zeeman sensitive line of Fe I at 5250.2 AA and observes all four Stokes parameters at various points inside the spectral line. This allows vector magnetograms, Dopplergrams, and intensity frames to be produced that, after reconstruction, reach spatial resolutions in the 0.15-0.18 arcsec range over a 50x50 arcsec FOV. Time cadences vary between ten and 33 seconds, although the shortest one only includes longitudinal polarimetry. The spectral line is sampled in various ways depending on the applied observing mode, from just two points inside the line to 11 of them. All observing modes include one extra wavelength point in the nearby continuum. Gauss equivalent sensitivities are four Gauss for longitudinal fields and 80 Gauss for transverse fields per wavelength sample. The LOS velocities are estimated with statistical errors of the order of 5-40 m/s. The design, calibration and integration phases of the instrument, together with the implemented data reduction scheme are described in some detail.Comment: 17 figure

STAT1 Hyperphosphorylation and Defective IL12R/IL23R Signaling Underlie Defective Immunity in Autosomal Dominant Chronic Mucocutaneous Candidiasis

We recently reported the genetic cause of autosomal dominant chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis (AD-CMC) as a mutation in the STAT1 gene. In the present study we show that STAT1 Arg274Trp mutations in the coiled-coil (CC) domain is the genetic cause of AD-CMC in three families of patients. Cloning and transfection experiments demonstrate that mutated STAT1 inhibits IL12R/IL-23R signaling, with hyperphosphorylation of STAT1 as the likely underlying molecular mechanism. Inhibition of signaling through the receptors for IL-12 and IL-23 leads to strongly diminished Th1/Th17 responses and hence to increased susceptibility to fungal infections. The challenge for the future is to translate this knowledge into novel strategies for the treatment of this severe immunodeficiency

An “orientation sphere” visualization for examining animal head movements

Animal behavior is elicited, in part, in response to external conditions, but understanding how animals perceive the environment and make the decisions that bring about these behavioral responses is challenging. Animal heads often move during specific behaviors and, additionally, typically have sensory systems (notably vision, smell, and hearing) sampling in defined arcs (normally to the front of their heads). As such, head‐mounted electronic sensors consisting of accelerometers and magnetometers, which can be used to determine the movement and directionality of animal heads (where head “movement” is defined here as changes in heading [azimuth] and/or pitch [elevation angle]), can potentially provide information both on behaviors in general and also clarify which parts of the environment the animals might be prioritizing (“environmental framing”). We propose a new approach to visualize the data of such head‐mounted tags that combines the instantaneous outputs of head heading and pitch in a single intuitive spherical plot. This sphere has magnetic heading denoted by “longitude” position and head pitch by “latitude” on this “orientation sphere” (O‐sphere). We construct the O‐sphere for the head rotations of a number of vertebrates with contrasting body shape and ecology (oryx, sheep, tortoises, and turtles), illustrating various behaviors, including foraging, walking, and environmental scanning. We also propose correcting head orientations for body orientations to highlight specific heading‐independent head rotation, and propose the derivation of O‐sphere‐metrics, such as angular speed across the sphere. This should help identify the functions of various head behaviors. Visualizations of the O‐sphere provide an intuitive representation of animal behavior manifest via head orientation and rotation. This has ramifications for quantifying and understanding behaviors ranging from navigation through vigilance to feeding and, when used in tandem with body movement, should provide an important link between perception of the environment and response to it in free‐ranging animals.Deanship of Scientific Research at the King Saud University through Vice Deanship of Research Chairs; The National Geographic Global Exploration Fund. Grant Number: #GEFNE89‐13; European Research Council under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program Grant. Grant Number: 715874; Royal Society/Wolfson Lab refurbishment scheme; Royal Society. Grant Number: 2009/R3 JP090604; Natural Environment Research Council. Grant Numbers: NE/I002030/1, NE/R001669/1; King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. Grant Number: CAASE.http://www.ecolevol.orghj2020Mammal Research InstituteZoology and Entomolog

Fas Signalling Promotes Intercellular Communication in T Cells

Cell-to-cell communication is a fundamental process for development and maintenance of multicellular organisms. Diverse mechanisms for the exchange of molecular information between cells have been documented, such as the exchange of membrane fragments (trogocytosis), formation of tunneling nanotubes (TNTs) and release of microvesicles (MVs). In this study we assign to Fas signalling a pivotal role for intercellular communication in CD4+ T cells. Binding of membrane-bound FasL to Fas expressing target cells triggers a well-characterized pro-apoptotic signalling cascade. However, our results, pairing up flow cytometric studies with confocal microscopy data, highlight a new social dimension for Fas/FasL interactions between CD4+ T cells. Indeed, FasL enhances the formation of cell conjugates (8 fold of increase) in an early time-frame of stimulation (30 min), and this phenomenon appears to be a crucial step to prime intercellular communication. Our findings show that this communication mainly proceeds along a cytosolic material exchange (ratio of exchange >10, calculated as ratio of stimulated cells signal divided by that recorded in control cells) via TNTs and MVs release. In particular, inhibition of TNTs genesis by pharmacological agents (Latruculin A and Nocodazole) markedly reduced this exchange (inhibition percentage: >40% and >50% respectively), suggesting a key role for TNTs in CD4+ T cells communication. Although MVs are present in supernatants from PHA-activated T cells, Fas treatment also leads to a significant increase in the amount of released MVs. In fact, the co-culture performed between MVs and untreated cells highlights a higher presence of MVs in the medium (1.4 fold of increase) and a significant MVs uptake (6 fold of increase) by untreated T lymphocytes. We conclude that Fas signalling induces intercellular communication in CD4+ T cells by different mechanisms that seem to start concomitantly with the main pathway (programmed cell death) promoted by FasL

Functional and proteomic analysis of a full thickness filaggrin-deficient skin organoid model

Background: Atopic eczema is an itchy inflammatory disorder characterised by skin barrier dysfunction. Loss-of-function mutations in the gene encoding filaggrin (FLG) are a major risk factor, but the mechanisms by which filaggrin haploinsufficiency leads to atopic inflammation remain incompletely understood. Skin as an organ that can be modelled using primary cells in vitro provides the opportunity for selected genetic effects to be investigated in detail. Methods: Primary human keratinocytes and donor-matched primary fibroblasts from healthy individuals were used to create skin organoid models with and without siRNA-mediated knockdown of FLG. Biological replicate sets of organoids were assessed using histological, functional and biochemical measurements. Results: FLG knockdown leads to subtle changes in histology and ultrastructure including a reduction in thickness of the stratum corneum and smaller, less numerous keratohyalin granules. Immature organoids showed some limited evidence of barrier impairment with FLG knockdown, but the mature organoids showed no difference in transepidermal water loss, water content or dye penetration. There was no difference in epidermal ceramide content. Mass spectrometry proteomic analysis detected >8000 proteins per sample. Gene ontology and pathway analyses identified an increase in transcriptional and translational activity but a reduction in proteins contributing to terminal differentiation, including caspase 14, dermokine, AKT1 and TGF-beta-1. Aspects of innate and adaptive immunity were represented in both the up-regulated and down-regulated protein groups, as was the term ‘axon guidance’. Conclusions: This work provides further evidence for keratinocyte-specific mechanisms contributing to immune and neurological, as well as structural, aspects of skin barrier dysfunction. Individuals with filaggrin deficiency may derive benefit from future therapies targeting keratinocyte-immune crosstalk and neurogenic pruritus