Migration routes and non-breeding areas of Common Terns (Sterna hirundo) from the Azores

We describe the migration routes and non-breeding areas of Common Terns (Sterna hirundo) from the Azores Archipelago, based on ringing (banding) recoveries and tracking of three birds using geolocators. Over 20 years, there have been 55 transatlantic recoveries of Common Terns from the Azores population: six from Argentina and 49 from Brazil. The three tracked birds migrated south in different months (August, September, November), but the northern migration was more synchronous, with all leaving in April. The birds were tracked to three areas of the South American coast: the male spent November–April on the northern Brazilian coast (13°N–2°S), whereas the two females first spent some time off central-eastern Brazil (4–16°S; one for 1 week, the other for 3 months) and then moved south to the coast of south-eastern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina (24–39°S). Although caution is needed given the small sample size and errors associated with geolocation, the three tracked terns potentially travelled a total of ~23 200 km to and returning from their non-breeding areas, representing an average movement of ~500 km day–1. With the exception of Belém, in northern Brazil, and Lagoa do Peixe, in southern Brazil, the coastal areas used by the tracked birds were also those with concentrations of ringing recoveries, confirming their importance as non-breeding areas for birds from the Azores

Polygenic Risk Scores for Prediction of Breast Cancer and Breast Cancer Subtypes

Stratification of women according to their risk of breast cancer based on polygenic risk scores (PRSs) could improve screening and prevention strategies. Our aim was to develop PRSs, optimized for prediction of estrogen receptor (ER)-specific disease, from the largest available genome-wide association dataset and to empirically validate the PRSs in prospective studies. The development dataset comprised 94,075 case subjects and 75,017 control subjects of European ancestry from 69 studies, divided into training and validation sets. Samples were genotyped using genome-wide arrays, and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were selected by stepwise regression or lasso penalized regression. The best performing PRSs were validated in an independent test set comprising 11,428 case subjects and 18,323 control subjects from 10 prospective studies and 190,040 women from UK Biobank (3,215 incident breast cancers). For the best PRSs (313 SNPs), the odds ratio for overall disease per 1 standard deviation in ten prospective studies was 1.61 (95%CI: 1.57-1.65) with area under receiver-operator curve (AUC) = 0.630 (95%CI: 0.628-0.651). The lifetime risk of overall breast cancer in the top centile of the PRSs was 32.6%. Compared with women in the middle quintile, those in the highest 1% of risk had 4.37- and 2.78-fold risks, and those in the lowest 1% of risk had 0.16- and 0.27-fold risks, of developing ER-positive and ER-negative disease, respectively. Goodness-of-fit tests indicated that this PRS was well calibrated and predicts disease risk accurately in the tails of the distribution. This PRS is a powerful and reliable predictor of breast cancer risk that may improve breast cancer prevention programs.NovartisEli Lilly and CompanyAstraZenecaAbbViePfizer UKCelgeneEisaiGenentechMerck Sharp and DohmeRocheCancer Research UKGovernment of CanadaArray BioPharmaGenome CanadaNational Institutes of HealthEuropean CommissionMinistère de l'Économie, de l’Innovation et des Exportations du QuébecSeventh Framework ProgrammeCanadian Institutes of Health Researc

Biodiversity outcomes of payment for ecosystem services : lessons from páramo grasslands

As payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs grow around the world, so have concerns over whether a focus on ecosystem services will also protect biodiversity. Biodiverse Ecuadorian páramo grasslands have become a hotspot for PES in an effort to protect water supplies, sequester carbon, conserve biodiversity, and improve rural livelihoods. However, the outcomes of PES-incentivized land management, particularly burn exclusion, on plant communities and their associated ecosystem services remain poorly understood. To address this science-policy gap, we evaluated plant richness and number and cover of the ten major páramo growth forms in two study areas with chronosequences of burn exclusion. Both species richness and number of growth forms was highest in sites with intermediate times-since-last burn and the cover of tussock grasses—critical to protecting soils and maintaining hydrologic function—recovered within 3–6 years after fire at both study areas, suggesting that PES programs targeting hydrologic services do not need to exclude burning to ensure adequate vegetation cover over the long-term. However, shrub growth forms were slower to recover, indicating that conserving the plant composition characteristic of less disturbed páramos requires some protection from burning. Findings provide broad lessons for PES programs focused on both biodiversity and ecosystem services and point to the importance of clearly defining PES ecological goals since land-use prescriptions may differ depending on the management objective.</p

Annual occurrence of Red Knot Calidris canutus rufa at Punta Rasa, Samborombón Bay, Argentina, over a 30-year period (1985–2014)

From 1985 to 2014, we monitored numbers of Red Knots Calidris canutus of the subspecies rufa occurring at Punta Rasa, Samborombón Bay, Buenos Aires province, Argentina during northward migration (March to April), and in the austral winter (mid-May to mid-August), when some knots, mainly immatures, remain in South America during the breeding season. Numbers occurring during northward migration declined over the monitoring period from a peak of 3,640 in 1987 to 168 in 2014. This is consistent with the concurrent decline of the main Tierra del Fuego wintering population (though the percentage of the Tierra del Fuego population stopping at Punta Rasa also declined from 5.4% to 1.3%). Numbers occurring at Punta Rasa during the austral winter have also declined, but not to the same extent and for the past decade more have been counted during the austral winter than during northward migration. Among those seen at Punta Rasa during the Arctic breeding season have been some with large amounts of rufous breeding plumage. The percentage of such birds has increased from 10–15% in 1987 to 19–54% during 2011–2014. Moreover, observations of individually marked birds show that some of those showing breeding plumage are mature adults, at least 3–7 years old. Conservation actions are required to manage Punta Rasa for the small but important numbers of Red Knots that occur there. Further research is needed to determine why some mature adults do not go to their Arctic breeding grounds and thereby fail to contribute to reproduction.Fil: Martínez Curci, Natalia Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencia Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras; ArgentinaFil: Bremer, Esteban. Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina; ArgentinaFil: Azpiroz, Adrián B.. Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas "Clemente Estable"; UruguayFil: Battaglia, Gabriel E.. Municipalidad del partido de La Costa; ArgentinaFil: Salerno, Javier C.. Municipalidad del partido de La Costa; ArgentinaFil: Isacch, Juan Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencia Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras; ArgentinaFil: González, Patricia M.. Fundación Inalafquen; ArgentinaFil: Castresana, Gabriel J.. Reserva Natural Bahía Samborombón; ArgentinaFil: Rojas, Pablo. Reserva Natural Bahía Samborombón; Argentin