Dwarf minke whale tourism monitoring program (2003--2008)

This report provides a comprehensive account of interactions with dwarf minke whales by swimming-with-whales (SWW) endorsed vessels in the Cairns/Cooktown Management Area of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park over the period 2003 to 2008. Results presented in this report are primarily based on analyses of Great Barrier Reef tourism industry-collected Whale Sighting Sheets. Key management processes and outcomes, arising from bi-annual stakeholder workshops (held pre- and post-season) during the 2003–2008 Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority-funded Dwarf Minke Whale Tourism Monitoring Program are also summarised and discussed. During the latter three years of this program, three PhD studies (by Mangott, Sobtzick and Curnock) contributed significantly to our knowledge of this unique aggregation of dwarf minke whales, their interactions with humans in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and the sustainable management of these interactions. Some of the key findings of these three PhD studies are included in this report

Genomic variations define divergence of water/wildlife-associated Campylobacter jejuni niche specialists from common clonal complexes

Although the major food-borne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni has been isolated from diverse animal, human and environmental sources, our knowledge of genomic diversity in C. jejuni is based exclusively on human or human food-chain-associated isolates. Studies employing multilocus sequence typing have indicated that some clonal complexes are more commonly associated with particular sources. Using comparative genomic hybridization on a collection of 80 isolates representing diverse sources and clonal complexes, we identified a separate clade comprising a group of water/wildlife isolates of C. jejuni with multilocus sequence types uncharacteristic of human food-chain-associated isolates. By genome sequencing one representative of this diverse group (C. jejuni 1336), and a representative of the bank-vole niche specialist ST-3704 (C. jejuni 414), we identified deletions of genomic regions normally carried by human food-chain-associated C. jejuni. Several of the deleted regions included genes implicated in chicken colonization or in virulence. Novel genomic insertions contributing to the accessory genomes of strains 1336 and 414 were identified. Comparative analysis using PCR assays indicated that novel regions were common but not ubiquitous among the water/wildlife group of isolates, indicating further genomic diversity among this group, whereas all ST-3704 isolates carried the same novel accessory regions. While strain 1336 was able to colonize chicks, strain 414 was not, suggesting that regions specifically absent from the genome of strain 414 may play an important role in this common route of Campylobacter infection of humans. We suggest that the genomic divergence observed constitutes evidence of adaptation leading to niche specialization

Efficiency of scanning and attention to faces in infancy independently predict language development in a multiethnic and bilingual sample of 2-year-olds

Efficient visual exploration in infancy is essential for cognitive and language development. It allows infants to participate in social interactions by attending to faces and learning about objects of interest. Visual scanning of scenes depends on a number of factors and early differences in efficiency are likely contributing to differences in learning and language development during subsequent years. Predicting language development in diverse samples is particularly challenging, as additional multiple sources of variability affect infant performance. In this study we tested how the complexity of visual scanning in the presence or absence of a face at 6-7 months of age is related to language development at 2 years of age in a multi-ethnic and predominantly bilingual sample from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. We used Recurrence Quantification Analysis to measure the temporal and spatial distribution of fixations recurring in the same area of a visual scene. We found that in the absence of a face the temporal distribution of re-fixations on selected objects of interest (but not all) significantly predicted both receptive and expressive language scores, explaining 16 - 20% of the variance. Also, lower rate of re-fixations recurring in the presence of a face predicted higher receptive language scores, suggesting larger vocabulary in infants that effectively disengage from faces. Altogether, our results suggest that dynamic measures, which quantify the complexity of visual scanning can reliably and robustly predict language development in highly diverse samples. They suggest that selective attending to objects predicts language independently of attention to faces. As eye-tracking and language assessments were carried out in early intervention centres, our study demonstrates the utility of mobile eye-tracking setups for early detection of risk in attention and language development

Beyond fixation durations: Recurrence quantification analysis reveals spatiotemporal dynamics of infant visual scanning

Standard looking-duration measures in eye-tracking data provide only general quantitative indices, while details of the spatiotemporal structuring of fixation sequences are lost. To overcome this, various tools have been developed to measure the dynamics of fixations. However, these analyses are only useful when stimuli have high perceptual similarity and they require the previous definition of areas of interest (AOIs). Although these methods have been widely applied in adult studies, relatively little is known about the temporal structuring of infant gaze-foraging behaviors such as variability of scanning over time or individual scanning patterns. Thus, to shed more light on the spatiotemporal characteristics of infant fixation sequences we apply for the first time a new methodology for nonlinear time-series analysis—the recurrence quantification analysis (RQA). We present how the dynamics of infant scanning varies depending on the scene content during a "pop-out" search task. Moreover, we show how the normalization of RQA measures with average fixation durations provides a more detailed account of the dynamics of fixation sequences. Finally, we link the RQA measures of temporal dynamics of scanning with the spatial information about the stimuli using heat maps of recurrences without the need for defining a priori AOIs and present how infants’ foraging strategies are driven by the image content. We conclude from our findings that the RQA methodology has potential applications in the analysis of the temporal dynamics of infant visual foraging offering advantages over existing methods

Brain responses and looking behavior during audiovisual speech integration in infants predict auditory speech comprehension in the second year of life

The use of visual cues during the processing of audiovisual (AV) speech is known to be less efficient in children and adults with language difficulties and difficulties are known to be more prevalent in children from low-income populations. In the present study, we followed an economically diverse group of thirty-seven infants longitudinally from 6–9 months to 14–16 months of age. We used eye-tracking to examine whether individual differences in visual attention during AV processing of speech in 6–9 month old infants, particularly when processing congruent and incongruent auditory and visual speech cues, might be indicative of their later language development. Twenty-two of these 6–9 month old infants also participated in an event-related potential (ERP) AV task within the same experimental session. Language development was then followed-up at the age of 14–16 months, using two measures of language development, the Preschool Language Scale and the Oxford Communicative Development Inventory. The results show that those infants who were less efficient in auditory speech processing at the age of 6–9 months had lower receptive language scores at 14–16 months. A correlational analysis revealed that the pattern of face scanning and ERP responses to audiovisually incongruent stimuli at 6–9 months were both significantly associated with language development at 14–16 months. These findings add to the understanding of individual differences in neural signatures of AV processing and associated looking behavior in infants

Monitoring whales within the Reef 2050 Integrated Monitoring and Reporting Program: final report of the whales team in the megafauna expert group

Two species of great whales are commonly encountered on a seasonal basis in the Reef, the humpback, Megaptera novaeangliae, and the dwarf minke, Balaenoptera acutorostrata subsp. This report focuses on these two species, acknowledging that many other large and migratory whales utilise the Reef. Other limitations of this report include spatial and jurisdictional boundaries (i.e. a focus on specific information needs for agencies responsible for protection and management of values within the World Heritage Area). We acknowledge the need for more research to improve our overall understanding of these whale populations (e.g. stock structure and population connectivity through the south Pacific and Southern oceans), and the significance of risks to them through their extended habitat and range outside the World Heritage Area.An accessible copy of this report is not yet available from this repository, please contact [email protected] for more information

Multi-Locus Sequence Analysis Reveals Profound Genetic Diversity among Isolates of the Human Pathogen Bartonella bacilliformis

Bartonella bacilliformis is the aetiological agent of human bartonellosis, a potentially life threatening infection of significant public health concern in the Andean region of South America. Human bartonellosis has long been recognised in the region but a recent upsurge in the number of cases of the disease and an apparent expansion of its geographical distribution have re-emphasized its contemporary medical importance. Here, we describe the development of a multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) scheme for B. bacilliformis and its application to an archive of 43 isolates collected from patients across Peru. MLST identified eight sequence types among these isolates and the delineation of these was generally congruent with those of the previously described typing scheme. Phylogenetic analysis based on concatenated sequence data derived from MLST loci revealed that seven of the eight sequence types were closely related to one another; however, one sequence type, ST8, exhibited profound evolutionary divergence from the others. The extent of this divergence was akin to that observed between other members of the Bartonella genus, suggesting that ST8 strains may be better considered as members of a novel Bartonella genospecies

Bartonella spp. Transmission by Ticks Not Established

A review found no well-documented case of transmission by deer ticks