21 research outputs found
Overview of the fifth international conference on the effects of noise on aquatic life
The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life took place in Den Haag, the Netherlands, in July 2019. The potential effects on animals ranging from plankton, shrimps, crabs, and lobsters, to fishes, seals, dolphins, and whales were discussed. Reported effects include behavioral responses, auditory masking, cardiac rate changes, stress, a temporary loss of hearing, and perhaps more serious tissue and organ damage. Short-term and long-term, individual and population-level effects were portrayed. Several studies also looked at the fundamentals of animal sound production and perception. One session dealt with the regulation and management of underwater noise. Another integral part of the meeting focused on the sounds and sound sources that might affect aquatic life. As a consequence, underwater noise from pile driving, seismic surveying, shipping, and sonars, as well as from non-anthropogenic sources such as wind and waves was examined. The social program was intended to encourage more leisurely discussions amongst conference participants in order to facilitate networking and the strengthening of relationships. The feedback from conference delegates (submitted via an online survey after the meeting) was very positive
Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for cattle stature identifies common genes that regulate body size in mammals
peer-reviewedH.D.D., A.J.C., P.J.B. and B.J.H. would like to acknowledge the Dairy Futures
Cooperative Research Centre for funding. H.P. and R.F. acknowledge funding
from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the
AgroClustEr âSynbreedâSynergistic Plant and Animal Breedingâ (grant 0315527B).
H.P., R.F., R.E. and K.-U.G. acknowledge the Arbeitsgemeinschaft SĂŒddeutscher
RinderzĂŒchter, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ăsterreichischer FleckviehzĂŒchter
and ZuchtData EDV Dienstleistungen for providing genotype data. A. Bagnato
acknowledges the European Union (EU) Collaborative Project LowInputBreeds
(grant agreement 222623) for providing Brown Swiss genotypes. Braunvieh Schweiz
is acknowledged for providing Brown Swiss phenotypes. H.P. and R.F. acknowledge
the German Holstein Association (DHV) and the ConfederaciĂłn de Asociaciones
de Frisona Española (CONCAFE) for sharing genotype data. H.P. was financially
supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG) (grant PA 2789/1-1). D.B. and D.C.P. acknowledge funding from the
Research Stimulus Fund (11/S/112) and Science Foundation Ireland (14/IA/2576).
M.S. and F.S.S. acknowledge the Canadian Dairy Network (CDN) for providing the
Holstein genotypes. P.S. acknowledges funding from the Genome Canada project
entitled âWhole Genome Selection through Genome Wide Imputation in Beef Cattleâ and acknowledges WestGrid and Compute/Calcul Canada for providing
computing resources. J.F.T. was supported by the National Institute of Food and
Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture, under awards 2013-68004-20364 and
2015-67015-23183. A. Bagnato, F.P., M.D. and J.W. acknowledge EU Collaborative
Project Quantomics (grant 516 agreement 222664) for providing Brown Swiss
and Finnish Ayrshire sequences and genotypes. A.C.B. and R.F.V. acknowledge
funding from the publicâprivate partnership âBreed4Foodâ (code BO-22.04-011-
001-ASG-LR) and EU FP7 IRSES SEQSEL (grant 317697). A.C.B. and R.F.V.
acknowledge CRV (Arnhem, the Netherlands) for providing data on Dutch and
New Zealand Holstein and Jersey bulls.Stature is affected by many polymorphisms of small effect in humans1. In contrast, variation in dogs, even within breeds, has been suggested to be largely due to variants in a small number of genes2,3. Here we use data from cattle to compare the genetic architecture of stature to those in humans and dogs. We conducted a meta-analysis for stature using 58,265 cattle from 17 populations with 25.4 million imputed whole-genome sequence variants. Results showed that the genetic architecture of stature in cattle is similar to that in humans, as the lead variants in 163 significantly associated genomic regions (P < 5 Ă 10â8) explained at most 13.8% of the phenotypic variance. Most of these variants were noncoding, including variants that were also expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) and in ChIPâseq peaks. There was significant overlap in loci for stature with humans and dogs, suggesting that a set of common genes regulates body size in mammals
Density reduction and diffusion in driven two-dimensional colloidal systems through microchannels
The behavior of particles driven through a narrow constriction is investigated in experiment and simulation. The system of particles adapts to the confining potentials and the interaction energies by a self-consistent arrangement of the particles. It results in the formation of layers throughout the channel and of a density gradient along the channel. The particles accommodate to the density gradient by reducing the number of layers one by one when it is energetically favorable. The position of the layer reduction zone fluctuates with time while the particles continuously pass this zone. The flow behavior of the particles is studied in detail. The velocities of the particles and their diffusion behavior reflect the influence of the self-organized order of the system
Genetic parameters for semen production traits in Swiss dairy bulls
Variance components (VC) were estimated for the semen production trait ejaculate volume, sperm concentration and sperm motility in the Swiss cattle breeds Brown Swiss (BS), Original Braunvieh (OB), Holstein (HO), RedâFactorâCarrier (RF), Red Holstein (RH), Swiss Fleckvieh (SF) and Simmental (SI). For this purpose, semen production traits from 2,617 bulls with 124,492 records were used. The data were collected in the years 2000â2012. The model for genetic parameter estimation across all breeds included the fixed effects age of bull at collection, year of collection, month of collection, number of collection per bull and day, interval between consecutive collections, semen collector, bull breed as well as a random additive genetic component and a permanent environmental effect. The same model without a fixed breed effect was used to estimate VC and repeatabilities separately for each of the breeds BS, HO, RH, SF and SI. Estimated heritabilities across all breeds were 0.42, 0.25 and 0.09 for ejaculate volume, sperm concentration and sperm motility, respectively. Different heritabilities were estimated for ejaculate volume (0.42; 0.45; 0.49; 0.40; 0.10), sperm concentration (0.34; 0.30; 0.20; 0.07; 0.23) and number of semen portions (0.18; 0.30; 0.04; 0.14; 0.04) in BS, HO, RH, SF and SI breed, respectively. The phenotypic and genetic correlations across all breeds between ejaculate volume and sperm concentration were negative (â0.28; â0.56). The other correlations across all breeds were positive. The phenotypic and genetic correlations were 0.01 and 0.19 between sperm motility and ejaculate volume, respectively. Between sperm motility and sperm concentration, the phenotypic and genetic correlations were 0.20 and 0.36, respectively. The results are consistent with other analyses and show that genetic improvement through selection is possible in bull semen production traits
Introduction to the special issue on the effects of sound on aquatic life
The effects of anthropogenic (man-made) underwater sound on aquatic life have become an important environmental issue. One of the focal ways to present and to share knowledge on the topic has been the international conference on The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life ("Aquatic Noise"). The conferences have brought together people from diverse interests and backgrounds to share information and ideas directed at understanding and solving the challenges of the potential effects of sound on aquatic life. The papers published here and in a related special issue of Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics present a good overview of the many topics and ideas covered at the meeting. Indeed, the growth in studies on anthropogenic sound since the first meeting in 2007 reflects the increasing use of oceans, lakes, rivers, and other waterways by humans. However, there are still very substantial knowledge gaps about the effects of sound on all aquatic animals, and these gaps lead to there being a substantial need for a better understanding of the sounds produced by various sources and how these sounds may affect animals
Evolution of âThe Effects of Noise on Aquatic Lifeâ meetings: 2007 to 2022
The effects of anthropogenic underwater sound on aquatic and marine life are an
important environmental topic that has expanded considerably over the past
decades. Since the first meeting in Nyborg, Denmark, in 2007. The Effects of
Noise on Aquatic Life (AN) has emerged as a distinctive conference on this topic
by bringing together experts from a variety of scientific fields, as well as those
from the regulatory and industry communities.</p
Introduction to the special issue on the effects of sound on aquatic life
The effects of anthropogenic (man-made) underwater sound on aquatic life have become an important environmental issue. One of the focal ways to present and to share knowledge on the topic has been the international conference on The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life ("Aquatic Noise"). The conferences have brought together people from diverse interests and backgrounds to share information and ideas directed at understanding and solving the challenges of the potential effects of sound on aquatic life. The papers published here and in a related special issue of Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics present a good overview of the many topics and ideas covered at the meeting. Indeed, the growth in studies on anthropogenic sound since the first meeting in 2007 reflects the increasing use of oceans, lakes, rivers, and other waterways by humans. However, there are still very substantial knowledge gaps about the effects of sound on all aquatic animals, and these gaps lead to there being a substantial need for a better understanding of the sounds produced by various sources and how these sounds may affect animals