Offspring Hormones Reflect the Maternal Prenatal Social Environment: Potential for Foetal Programming?

Females of many species adaptively program their offspring to predictable environmental conditions, a process that is often mediated by hormones. Laboratory studies have shown, for instance, that social density affects levels of maternal cortisol and testosterone, leading to fitness-relevant changes in offspring physiology and behaviour. However, the effects of social density remain poorly understood in natural populations due to the difficulty of disentangling confounding influences such as climatic variation and food availability. Colonially breeding marine mammals offer a unique opportunity to study maternal effects in response to variable colony densities under similar ecological conditions. We therefore quantified maternal and offspring hormone levels in 84 Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) from two closely neighbouring colonies of contrasting density. Hair samples were used as they integrate hormone levels over several weeks or months and therefore represent in utero conditions during foetal development. We found significantly higher levels of cortisol and testosterone (both P < 0.001) in mothers from the high density colony, reflecting a more stressful and competitive environment. In addition, offspring testosterone showed a significant positive correlation with maternal cortisol (P < 0.05). Although further work is needed to elucidate the potential consequences for offspring fitness, these findings raise the intriguing possibility that adaptive foetal programming might occur in fur seals in response to the maternal social environment. They also lend support to the idea that hormonally mediated maternal effects may depend more strongly on the maternal regulation of androgen rather than cortisol levels

Evaluating the Influence of Epidemiological Parameters and Host Ecology on the Spread of Phocine Distemper Virus through Populations of Harbour Seals

Catriona Harris was supported by a grant from the UK Natural Environment Research Council. The funders had no role in study design, data collections and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Background: Outbreaks of phocine distemper virus (PDV) in Europe during 1988 and 2002 were responsible for the death of around 23,000 and 30,000 harbour seals, respectively. These epidemics, particularly the one in 2002, provided an unusual opportunity to estimate epidemic parameters for a wildlife disease. There were marked regional differences in the values of some parameters both within and between epidemics. Methodology and Principal Findings: We used an individual-based model of seal movement that allowed us to incorporate realistic representations of space, time and animal behaviour into a traditional epidemiological modelling framework. We explored the potential influence of a range of ecological (foraging trip duration, time of epidemic onset, population size) and epidemiological (length of infectious period, contact rate between infectious and susceptible individuals, case mortality) parameters on four readily-measurable epidemic characteristics (number of dead individuals, duration of epidemic, peak mortality date and prevalence) and on the probability that an epidemic would occur in a particular region. We analysed the outputs as if they were the results of a series of virtual experiments, using Generalised Linear Modelling. All six variables had a significant effect on the probability that an epidemic would be recognised as an unusual mortality event by human observers. Conclusions: Regional and temporal variation in contact rate was the most likely cause of the observed differences between the two epidemics. This variation could be a consequence of differences in the way individuals divide their time between land and sea at different times of the year.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Clustering of Unhealthy Behaviors in the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study

Background Clustering of unhealthy behaviors has been reported in previous studies; however the link with all-cause mortality and differences between those with and without chronic disease requires further investigation. Objectives To observe the clustering effects of unhealthy diet, fitness, smoking, and excessive alcohol consumption in adults with and without chronic disease and to assess all-cause mortality risk according to the clustering of unhealthy behaviors. Methods Participants were 13,621 adults (aged 20–84) from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study. Four health behaviors were observed (diet, fitness, smoking, and drinking). Baseline characteristics of the study population and bivariate relations between pairs of the health behaviors were evaluated separately for those with and without chronic disease using cross-tabulation and a chi-square test. The odds of partaking in unhealthy behaviors were also calculated. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to assess clustering. Cox regression was used to assess the relationship between the behaviors and mortality. Results The four health behaviors were related to each other. LCA results suggested that two classes existed. Participants in class 1 had a higher probability of partaking in each of the four unhealthy behaviors than participants in class 2. No differences in health behavior clustering were found between participants with and without chronic disease. Mortality risk increased relative to the number of unhealthy behaviors participants engaged in. Conclusion Unhealthy behaviors cluster together irrespective of chronic disease status. Such findings suggest that multi-behavioral intervention strategies can be similar in those with and without chronic disease

Oral abstracts of the 21st International AIDS Conference 18-22 July 2016, Durban, South Africa

The rate at which HIV-1 infected individuals progress to AIDS is highly variable and impacted by T cell immunity. CD8 T cell inhibitory molecules are up-regulated in HIV-1 infection and associate with immune dysfunction. We evaluated participants (n=122) recruited to the SPARTAC randomised clinical trial to determine whether CD8 T cell exhaustion markers PD-1, Lag-3 and Tim-3 were associated with immune activation and disease progression.Expression of PD-1, Tim-3, Lag-3 and CD38 on CD8 T cells from the closest pre-therapy time-point to seroconversion was measured by flow cytometry, and correlated with surrogate markers of HIV-1 disease (HIV-1 plasma viral load (pVL) and CD4 T cell count) and the trial endpoint (time to CD4 count <350 cells/μl or initiation of antiretroviral therapy). To explore the functional significance of these markers, co-expression of Eomes, T-bet and CD39 was assessed.Expression of PD-1 on CD8 and CD38 CD8 T cells correlated with pVL and CD4 count at baseline, and predicted time to the trial endpoint. Lag-3 expression was associated with pVL but not CD4 count. For all exhaustion markers, expression of CD38 on CD8 T cells increased the strength of associations. In Cox models, progression to the trial endpoint was most marked for PD-1/CD38 co-expressing cells, with evidence for a stronger effect within 12 weeks from confirmed diagnosis of PHI. The effect of PD-1 and Lag-3 expression on CD8 T cells retained statistical significance in Cox proportional hazards models including antiretroviral therapy and CD4 count, but not pVL as co-variants.Expression of ‘exhaustion’ or ‘immune checkpoint’ markers in early HIV-1 infection is associated with clinical progression and is impacted by immune activation and the duration of infection. New markers to identify exhausted T cells and novel interventions to reverse exhaustion may inform the development of novel immunotherapeutic approaches

Expansion of a grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) breeding colony: change in pupping site use at the Isle of May, Scotland.

Until the mid 1970s only a few grey seal Halichoerus grypus pups were born each year on the Isle of May, Scotland, but 1408 pups were born there in 1994. We examined changes in overall site use, individual pupping site fidelity and success iu relation to local population density and topography. The area of the island used by seals for breeding has increased as the population increased. Between 1988 and 1994 an index of the proportion of the island's northern area occupied by seals increased from 0.48 to 0.65, while the average population density in these occupied areas decreased over the same period. Although seals have begun to breed in southern parts of the island that were unused previously, other apparently suitable breeding areas on the island remain vacant. Fine scale digital elevation models were constructed using a GIS to evaluate the topographic characteristics of occupied areas and assign topographic 'costs' to areas used by seals for breeding on the Isle of May. Seals were associated generally with areas close to the numerous access points from the sea. New areas occupied in the later years of the study had a higher topographical 'cost' than the traditional sites. Thus, in an expanding colony such as the Isle of May, areas colonized early in the colony's history were those close to access points and/or standing water and at low elevations. Subsequent expansion resulted in an increase in the areas occupied by seals, but these newly colonized areas were less suitable, and their occupiers were subject to increased topographic 'costs'. Pup mortality rates were similar in areas of high and low breeding density. Aggressive behaviour between breeding females is the likely mechanism which acts to limit local animal density. Mothers marked at the Isle of May since 1987 returned there to breed with few exceptions, and most females that returned were faithful to their previous pupping sites (median distance between sites used in consecutive breeding seasons = 25 m). Site fidelity persisted even when a previous pupping was unsuccessful and most individuals' pupping locations did not change gradually with time. Comparison with other colonies suggests that the spatial scale of site fidelity is related to the scale of topographic variation within the breeding site

Breeding site choice fails to explain interannual associations of female grey seals.

Consistent, widespread fine-scale preferences for breeding sites may favour the emergence of intra-sexual associations and hence sociality. Pairwise association was defined for a terrestrially breeding phocid seal in which intraseasonal colony mixing is limited and mothers spend only 3 weeks ashore breeding. Interannual associations may occur between pairs of breeding female grey seals at North Rona, Scotland because of pupping site fidelity, 90% return rates and limited variability in parturition dates that individual mothers show. Associations can occur when mothers are found together irrespective of location, or because of joint preferences for locations. Mothers were sedentary and were unlikely to interact if they are separated by > 20 in. Using spatial and temporal association criteria, 160 of 176 of known mothers had intraseasonal associations with at least one other mother, with 14 of 126 (11.1%) of associations repeated in 2 years. The likelihood of female association in 2 years as a result of site fidelity, parturition date variation and pupping site quality was modelled. Interannual association between mothers that changed their pupping sites by up to the median observed pupping site fidelity ( 40 in from their previous year's pupping sites was almost five times greater than the model predicted. We conclude that active association between adult female grey seals is not determined solely by habitat preference, and argue that examination of simple sociality in temporarily aggregating species can contribute significantly to socioecological models of social evolution

Patterns of space use in sympatric marine colonial predators reveal scales of spatial partitioning

International audienceSpecies distribution maps can provide important information to focus conservation efforts and enable spatial management of human activities. Two sympatric marine predators, grey seals Halichoerus grypus and harbour seals Phoca vitulina, have overlapping ranges on land and at sea but contrasting population dynamics around Britain: whilst grey seals have generally increased, harbour seals have shown significant regional declines. We analysed 2 decades of at-sea movement data and terrestrial count data from these species to produce high resolution, broad-scale maps of distribution and associated uncertainty to inform conservation and management. Our results showed that grey seals use offshore areas connected to their haul-out sites by prominent corridors, and harbour seals primarily stay within 50 km of the coastline. Both species show fine-scale offshore spatial segregation off the east coast of Britain and broad-scale partitioning off western Scotland. These results illustrate that, for broad-scale marine spatial planning, the conservation needs of harbour seals (primarily inshore, the exception being selected offshore usage areas) are different from those of grey seals (up to 100 km offshore and corridors connecting these areas to haul-out sites). More generally, our results illustrate the importance of detailed knowledge of marine predator distributions to inform marine spatial planning; for instance, spatial prioritisation is not necessarily the most effective spatial planning strategy even when conserving species with similar taxonomy