Critical ecosystem profile for the tropical Andes - engaging civil society to conserve a biodiversity hotspot

Moderator: David Anderson.Presented at the 8th international congress for wildlife and livelihoods on private and communal lands: livestock, tourism, and spirit, that was held on September 7-12, 2014 in Estes Park, Colorado.The Tropical Andes is among the top of the list of worldwide hotspots for endemic species. This region also supports exceptional cultural diversity and large populations of indigenous peoples. Home to some of the earliest recorded human civilizations, the Andes are also where numerous crops, including potatoes, beans, quinoa, amaranth, tobacco, and coca were first domesticated. Indigenous populations today play important roles in economic activities, politics, and land use and stewardship, and therefore can be important allies in biodiversity conservation. This biodiversity hotspot is identified as one of the most severely threatened areas in the tropics. The numerous threats to the tropical Andes' biodiversity have been compounded in recent years by the manifold impacts of climate change. A Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) aims to ensure that civil society is engaged in efforts to conserve biodiversity in the hotspots, and to this end, CEPF provides civil society with an agile and flexible funding mechanism complementing funding currently available to government agencies. In 2013, CEPF began exploring an investment program in the Tropical Andes Hotspot, extending from Venezuela to northern Argentina. NatureServe led a team to delineate Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) areas in most critical need of protection to limit species extinction. Regional threats analyses and workshops were conducted, documenting strategies for civil society to pursue around each KBA. CEPF promotes working alliances among community-based organizations (CBOs), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), government, academic institutions and the private sector, combining unique capacities and eliminating duplicative efforts for a comprehensive approach to conservation

Multi-fluid cosmology: An illustration of fundamental principles

Our current understanding of the Universe depends on the interplay of several distinct "matter" components, which interact mainly through gravity, and electromagnetic radiation. The nature of the different components, and possible interactions, tends to be based on the notion of coupled perfect fluids (or scalar fields). This approach is somewhat naive, especially if one wants to be able to consider issues involving heat flow, dissipative mechanisms, or Bose-Einstein condensation of dark matter. We argue that a more natural starting point would be the multi-purpose variational relativistic multi-fluid system that has so far mainly been applied to neutron star astrophysics. As an illustration of the fundamental principles involved, we develop the formalism for determining the non-linear cosmological solutions to the Einstein equations for a general relativistic two-fluid model for a coupled system of matter (non-zero rest mass) and "radiation" (zero rest mass). The two fluids are allowed to interpenetrate and exhibit a relative flow with respect to each other, implying, in general, an anisotropic Universe. We use initial conditions such that the massless fluid flux dominates early on so that the situation is effectively that of a single fluid and one has the usual Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) spacetime. We find that there is a Bianchi I transition epoch out of which the matter flux dominates. The situation is then effectively that of a single fluid and the spacetime evolves towards the FLRW form. Such a transition opens up the possibility of imprinting observable consequences at the specific scale corresponding to the transition time.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, version taking account of referee remark

Assessment of Discordance Between Surrogate Care Goals and Medical Treatment Provided to Older Adults With Serious Illness

Importance: An important aspect of high-quality care is ensuring that treatments are in alignment with patient or surrogate decision-maker goals. Treatment discordant with patient goals has been shown to increase medical costs and prolong end-of-life difficulties. Objectives: To evaluate discordance between surrogate decision-maker goals of care and medical orders and treatments provided to hospitalized, incapacitated older patients. Design, setting, and participants: This prospective cohort study included 363 patient-surrogate dyads. Patients were 65 years or older and faced at least 1 major medical decision in the medical and medical intensive care unit services in 3 tertiary care hospitals in an urban Midwestern area. Data were collected from April 27, 2012, through July 10, 2015, and analyzed from October 5, 2018, to December 5, 2019. Main outcomes and measures: Each surrogate's preferred goal of care was determined via interview during initial hospitalization and 6 to 8 weeks after discharge. Surrogates were asked to select the goal of care for the patient from 3 options: comfort-focused care, life-sustaining treatment, or an intermediate option. To assess discordance, the preferred goal of care as determined by the surrogate was compared with data from medical record review outlining the medical treatment received during the target hospitalization. Results: A total of 363 dyads consisting of patients (223 women [61.4%]; mean [SD] age, 81.8 [8.3] years) and their surrogates (257 women [70.8%]; mean [SD] age, 58.3 [11.2] years) were included in the analysis. One hundred sixty-nine patients (46.6%) received at least 1 medical treatment discordant from their surrogate's identified goals of care. The most common type of discordance involved full-code orders for patients with a goal of comfort (n = 41) or an intermediate option (n = 93). More frequent in-person contact between surrogate and patient (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 0.43; 95% CI, 0.23-0.82), patient residence in an institution (AOR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.23-0.82), and surrogate-rated quality of communication (AOR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.96-0.99) were associated with lower discordance. Surrogate marital status (AOR for single vs married, 1.92; 95% CI, 1.01-3.66), number of family members involved in decisions (AOR for ≥2 vs 0-1, 1.84; 95% CI, 1.05-3.21), and religious affiliation (AOR for none vs any, 4.87; 95% CI, 1.12-21.09) were associated with higher discordance. Conclusions and relevance: This study found that discordance between surrogate goals of care and medical treatments for hospitalized, incapacitated patients was common. Communication quality is a modifiable factor associated with discordance that may be an avenue for future interventions

Human Spotted Fever Rickettsial Infections

Serum specimens from patients at 4 sites in Peru were tested for evidence of spotted fever group rickettsial infection. Results showed that 30 (18%) of 170 patients had spotted fever group rickettsial infections, which likely caused their illnesses. These findings document laboratory-confirmed spotted fever from diverse areas of Peru

Chapare Virus, a Newly Discovered Arenavirus Isolated from a Fatal Hemorrhagic Fever Case in Bolivia

A small focus of hemorrhagic fever (HF) cases occurred near Cochabamba, Bolivia, in December 2003 and January 2004. Specimens were available from only one fatal case, which had a clinical course that included fever, headache, arthralgia, myalgia, and vomiting with subsequent deterioration and multiple hemorrhagic signs. A non-cytopathic virus was isolated from two of the patient serum samples, and identified as an arenavirus by IFA staining with a rabbit polyvalent antiserum raised against South American arenaviruses known to be associated with HF (Guanarito, Machupo, and Sabiá). RT-PCR analysis and subsequent analysis of the complete virus S and L RNA segment sequences identified the virus as a member of the New World Clade B arenaviruses, which includes all the pathogenic South American arenaviruses. The virus was shown to be most closely related to Sabiá virus, but with 26% and 30% nucleotide difference in the S and L segments, and 26%, 28%, 15% and 22% amino acid differences for the L, Z, N, and GP proteins, respectively, indicating the virus represents a newly discovered arenavirus, for which we propose the name Chapare virus. In conclusion, two different arenaviruses, Machupo and Chapare, can be associated with severe HF cases in Bolivia

Parent and child agreement for acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychopathology in a prospective study of children and adolescents exposed to single-event trauma

Examining parent-child agreement for Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents is essential for informing the assessment of trauma-exposed children, yet no studies have examined this relationship using appropriate statistical techniques. Parent-child agreement for these disorders was examined by structured interview in a prospective study of assault and motor vehicle accident (MVA) child survivors, assessed at 2-4 weeks and 6 months post-trauma. Children were significantly more likely to meet criteria for ASD, as well as other ASD and PTSD symptom clusters, based on their own report than on their parent's report. Parent-child agreement for ASD was poor (Cohen's κ = -.04), but fair for PTSD (Cohen's κ = .21). Agreement ranged widely for other emotional disorders (Cohen's κ = -.07-.64), with generalised anxiety disorder found to have superior parent-child agreement (when assessed by phi coefficients) relative to ASD and PTSD. The findings support the need to directly interview children and adolescents, particularly for the early screening of posttraumatic stress, and suggest that other anxiety disorders may have a clearer presentation post-trauma

EcoVeg: a new approach to vegetation description and classification

A vegetation classification approach is needed that can describe the diversity of terrestrial ecosystems and their transformations over large time frames, span the full range of spatial and geographic scales across the globe, and provide knowledge of reference conditions and current states of ecosystems required to make decisions about conservation and resource management. We summarize the scientific basis for EcoVeg, a physiognomic-floristic-ecological classification approach that applies to existing vegetation, both cultural (planted and dominated by human processes) and natural (spontaneously formed and dominated by nonhuman ecological processes). The classification is based on a set of vegetation criteria, including physiognomy (growth forms, structure) and floristics (compositional similarity and characteristic species combinations), in conjunction with ecological characteristics, including site factors, disturbance, bioclimate, and biogeography. For natural vegetation, the rationale for the upper levels (formation types) is based on the relation between global-scale vegetation patterns and macroclimate, hydrology, and substrate. The rationale for the middle levels is based on scaling from regional formations (divisions) to regional floristic-physiognomic types (macrogroup and group) that respond to meso-scale biogeographic, climatic, disturbance, and site factors. Finally, the lower levels (alliance and association) are defined by detailed floristic composition that responds to local to regional topo-edaphic and disturbance gradients. For cultural vegetation, the rationale is similar, but types are based on distinctive vegetation physiognomy and floristics that reflect human activities. The hierarchy provides a structure that organizes regional/continental vegetation patterns in the context of global patterns. A formal nomenclature is provided, along with a descriptive template that provides the differentiating criteria for each type at all levels of the hierarchy. Formation types have been described for the globe; divisions and macrogroups for North America, Latin America and Africa; groups, alliances and associations for the United States, parts of Canada, Latin America and, in partnership with other classifications that share these levels, many other parts of the globe

Conserving Ecosystem Diversity in the Tropical Andes

Documenting temporal trends in the extent of ecosystems is essential to monitoring their status but combining this information with the degree of protection helps us assess the effectiveness of societal actions for conserving ecosystem diversity and related ecosystem services. We demonstrated indicators in the Tropical Andes using both potential (pre-industrial) and recent (~2010) distribution maps of terrestrial ecosystem types. We measured long-term ecosystem loss, representation of ecosystem types within the current protected areas, quantifying the additional representation offered by protecting Key Biodiversity Areas. Six (4.8%) ecosystem types (i.e., measured as 126 distinct vegetation macrogroups) have lost >50% in extent across four Andean countries since pre-industrial times. For ecosystem type representation within protected areas, regarding the pre-industrial extent of each type, a total of 32 types (25%) had higher representation (>30%) than the post-2020 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) draft target in existing protected areas. Just 5 of 95 types (5.2%) within the montane Tropical Andes hotspot are currently represented with >30% within the protected areas. Thirty-nine types (31%) within these countries could cross the 30% CBD 2030 target with the addition of Key Biodiversity Areas. This indicator is based on the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBV) and responds directly to the needs expressed by the users of these countries

Human Febrile Illness Caused by Encephalomyocarditis Virus Infection, Peru

Encephalomyocarditis virus was identified in the serum of 2 febrile patients in Peru