Zoonotic host diversity increases in human-dominated ecosystems

Land use change—for example, the conversion of natural habitats to agricultural or urban ecosystems—is widely recognized to influence the risk and emergence of zoonotic disease in humans1,2. However, whether such changes in risk are underpinned by predictable ecological changes remains unclear. It has been suggested that habitat disturbance might cause predictable changes in the local diversity and taxonomic composition of potential reservoir hosts, owing to systematic, trait-mediated differences in species resilience to human pressures3,4. Here we analyse 6,801 ecological assemblages and 376 host species worldwide, controlling for research effort, and show that land use has global and systematic effects on local zoonotic host communities. Known wildlife hosts of human-shared pathogens and parasites overall comprise a greater proportion of local species richness (18–72% higher) and total abundance (21–144% higher) in sites under substantial human use (secondary, agricultural and urban ecosystems) compared with nearby undisturbed habitats. The magnitude of this effect varies taxonomically and is strongest for rodent, bat and passerine bird zoonotic host species, which may be one factor that underpins the global importance of these taxa as zoonotic reservoirs. We further show that mammal species that harbour more pathogens overall (either human-shared or non-human-shared) are more likely to occur in human-managed ecosystems, suggesting that these trends may be mediated by ecological or life-history traits that influence both host status and tolerance to human disturbance5,6. Our results suggest that global changes in the mode and the intensity of land use are creating expanding hazardous interfaces between people, livestock and wildlife reservoirs of zoonotic disease

Imaging of z~2 QSO host galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope

We report on deep imaging in 2 filters with the PC2 camera of HST, of five QSOs at redshift ~2, with a range of optical and radio luminosity. The observations included a suite of PSF observations which were used to construct new PSF models, described elsewhere by Dumont et al. The new PSF models were used to remove the QSO nucleus from the images. We find that the host galaxies have resolved flux of order 10% of the QSO nuclei, and are generally luminous and blue, indicating active star-formation. While most have clearly irregular morphologies, the bulk of the flux can be modelled approximately by an r**1/4 law. However, all host galaxies also have an additional approximately exponential luminosity profile beyond a radius about 0.8 arcsec, as also seen in ground-based data with larger telescopes. The QSOs all have a number of nearby faint blue companions which may be young galaxies at the QSO redshift. We discuss implications for evolution of the host galaxies, their spheroidal populations, and central black holes.Comment: 18 pages including 2 tables; to appear in A

[Phe4]somatostatin: a potent, selective inhibitor of growth hormone release.

[Phe4]Somatostatin was twice as active as somatostatin (SS) in suppressing rat growth hormone release in vitro but had only weak activity toward inhibition of insulin and glucagon release in vivo. The ability of this analogue to inhibit growth hormone release more actively than SS was confirmed in vivo by two separately designed bioassays. Further structure/activity studies of position 4 were carried out with [Glu4]SS, [Thr4]SS, and des-Lys4-SS, all of which had negligible inhibiting activity in the pituitary and pancreas. In this context the strikingly selective activity of [Phe4]SS suggests a fundamental difference in the SS receptors of pituitary and pancreas and the normal side-chain basicity of position 4 appears to be more important for action in pancreas than in pituitary. [Phe4]SS has properties that may be useful in the development of agents for the treatment of acromegaly or other disorders associated with increased growth hormone levels

The global distribution and drivers of alien bird species richness

Alien species are a major component of human-induced environmental change. Variation in the numbers of alien species found in different areas is likely to depend on a combination of anthropogenic and environmental factors, with anthropogenic factors affecting the number of species introduced to new locations, and when, and environmental factors influencing how many species are able to persist there. However, global spatial and temporal variation in the drivers of alien introduction and species richness remain poorly understood. Here, we analyse an extensive new database of alien birds to explore what determines the global distribution of alien species richness for an entire taxonomic class. We demonstrate that the locations of origin and introduction of alien birds, and their identities, were initially driven largely by European (mainly British) colonialism. However, recent introductions are a wider phenomenon, involving more species and countries, and driven in part by increasing economic activity. We find that, globally, alien bird species richness is currently highest at midlatitudes and is strongly determined by anthropogenic effects, most notably the number of species introduced (i.e., "colonisation pressure"). Nevertheless, environmental drivers are also important, with native and alien species richness being strongly and consistently positively associated. Our results demonstrate that colonisation pressure is key to understanding alien species richness, show that areas of high native species richness are not resistant to colonisation by alien species at the global scale, and emphasise the likely ongoing threats to global environments from introductions of species.Ellie E. Dyer, Phillip Cassey, David W. Redding, Ben Collen, Victoria Franks, Kevin J. Gaston, Kate E. Jones, Salit Kark, C. David L. Orme, Tim M. Blackbur

Study of Nitrate Stress in Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough Using iTRAQ Proteomics

The response of Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough (DvH),a sulphate-reducing bacterium, to nitrate stress was examined usingquantitative proteomic analysis. DvH was stressed with 105 m M sodiumnitrate(NaNO3), a level that caused a 50 percent inhibition in growth.The protein profile of stressed cells was compared with that of cellsgrown in the absence of nitrate using the iTRAQ peptide labellingstrategy and tandem liquid chromatography separation coupled with massspectrometry (quadrupoletime-of-flight) detection. A total of 737 uniqueproteins were identified by two or more peptides, representing 22 percentof the total DvH proteome and spanning every functional category. Theresults indicate that this was a mild stress, as proteins involved incentral metabolism and the sulphate reduction pathway were unperturbed.Proteins involved in the nitrate reduction pathway increased. Increasesseen in transport systems for proline, glycine^ betaineandglutamateindicate that the NaNO3 exposure led to both salt stress and nitratestress.Up-regulation observed in oxidative stress response proteins (Rbr,RbO, etc.) and a large number of ABC transport systems as well as in iron^ sulphur -cluster-containing proteins, however, appear to be specific tonitrate exposure. Finally, a number of hypothetical proteins were amongthe most significant changers, indicating that there may be unknownmechanisms initiated upon nitrate stress in DvH

Early animal farming and zoonotic disease dynamics: modelling brucellosis transmission in Neolithic goat populations

Zoonotic pathogens are frequently hypothesized as emerging with the origins of farming, but evidence of this is elusive in the archaeological records. To explore the potential impact of animal domestication on zoonotic disease dynamics and human infection risk, we developed a model simulating the transmission of Brucella melitensis within early domestic goat populations. The model was informed by archaeological data describing goat populations in Neolithic settlements in the Fertile Crescent, and used to assess the potential of these populations to sustain the circulation of Brucella. Results show that the pathogen could have been sustained even at low levels of transmission within these domestic goat populations. This resulted from the creation of dense populations and major changes in demographic characteristics. The selective harvesting of young male goats, likely aimed at improving the efficiency of food production, modified the age and sex structure of these populations, increasing the transmission potential of the pathogen within these populations. Probable interactions between Neolithic settlements would have further promoted pathogen maintenance. By fostering conditions suitable for allowing domestic goats to become reservoirs of Brucella melitensis, the early stages of agricultural development were likely to promote the exposure of humans to this pathogen

Adaptive optics performance of a simulated coronagraph instrument on a large, segmented space telescope in steady state

Directly imaging Earth-like exoplanets (``exoEarths'') with a coronagraph instrument on a space telescope requires a stable wavefront with optical path differences limited to tens of picometers RMS during exposure times of a few hours. While the structural dynamics of a segmented mirror can be directly stabilized with telescope metrology, another possibility is to use a closed-loop wavefront sensing and control system in the coronagraph instrument that operates during the science exposures to actively correct the wavefront and relax the constraints on the stability of the telescope. In this paper, we present simulations of the temporal filtering provided using the example of LUVOIR-A, a 15~m segmented telescope concept. Assuming steady-state aberrations based on a finite element model of the telescope structure, we (1)~optimize the system to minimize the wavefront residuals, (2)~ use an end-to-end numerical propagation model to estimate the residual starlight intensity at the science detector, and (3)~predict the number of exoEarth candidates detected during the mission. We show that telescope dynamic errors of 100~pm~RMS can be reduced down to 30~pm~RMS with a magnitude 0 star, improving the contrast performance by a factor of 15. In scenarios where vibration frequencies are too fast for a system that uses natural guide stars, laser sources can increase the flux at the wavefront sensor to increase the servo-loop frequency and mitigate the high temporal frequency wavefront errors. For example, an external laser with an effective magnitude of -4 allows the wavefront from a telescope with 100~pm~RMS dynamic errors and strong vibrations as fast as 16~Hz to be stabilized with residual errors of 10~pm~RMS thereby increasing the number of detected planets by at least a factor of 4.Comment: Published in JATIS. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2108.0640

Laboratory Development

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY 87-1440

Limits on Gravitational-Wave Emission from Selected Pulsars Using LIGO Data

We place direct upper limits on the amplitude of gravitational waves from 28 isolated radio pulsars by a coherent multidetector analysis of the data collected during the second science run of the LIGO interferometric detectors. These are the first direct upper limits for 26 of the 28 pulsars. We use coordinated radio observations for the first time to build radio-guided phase templates for the expected gravitational-wave signals. The unprecedented sensitivity of the detectors allows us to set strain upper limits as low as a few times 10^(-24). These strain limits translate into limits on the equatorial ellipticities of the pulsars, which are smaller than 10^(-5) for the four closest pulsars