Integrando escalas y métodos LTER para comprender la dinámica global de un espacio protegido de montaña: el Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido

Los espacios protegidos, por el hecho de albergar una gran geo-biodiversidad y asegurar una baja intervención humana, constituyen lugares muy adecuados para el seguimiento de organismos y procesos a escala ecológica, así como para la obtención de series temporales largas a escala geológica. En el marco de la red LTER-España, el Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido (PNOMP) y el Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología-CSIC están impulsando estudios para la detección de cambios a distintas escalas mediante variados métodos y aproximaciones. Destacamos aquí los más consolidados, entre los que se encuentran los análisis de registros de sedimentos en lagos, espeleotemas en cuevas, la dinámica de uno de los pocos glaciares activos de la Península ibérica, el análisis físico-químico de aguas corrientes e ibones de alta montaña, el registro del cambio climático actual en árboles longevos, la afección que éste ejerce sobre masas actuales de pinos en el límite superior del bosque y de abetales en zonas húmedas, la matorralización de algunos pastos y los procesos mecanicistas que subyacen, la reorganización de la diversidad florística en pastos tras el abandono paulatino o drástico de la ganadería, la biodiversidad de las comunidades alpinas y la dinámica poblacional de especies amenazadas o indicadoras de hábitats o de motores de cambio global. Los seguimientos ecológicos actuales muestran que tanto el cambio climático como el de usos del suelo están teniendo una considerable trascendencia en la fisionomía y la estructura de algunos de los ambientes más icónicos y frecuentes del parque (deterioro del glaciar, termofilización de la flora en cumbres alpinas, densificación del bosque en su límite superior, pérdida de productividad en algunos pastos supraforestales, etc.). También sugieren una importante variabilidad espacial en los procesos (por ej. en el PNOMP conviven pastos matorralizados y pastos muy estables), y evidencian que los cambios observados no siempre siguen los paradigmas establecidos (por ej., las especies amenazadas mantienen dinámicas poblacionales estables). La integración de resultados parciales proporcionados por cada aproximación relativiza la importancia de las percepciones que cada estudio destaca por separado, y permite medir los cambios actuales en el marco de referencia de los cambios a escala geológica. Predecir la resistencia y resiliencia de los ecosistemas o las poblaciones de seres vivos para enfrentarse a los futuros cambios ambientales es complicado, no sólo por la falta de conocimientos disponibles sino también porque las respuestas que observamos no siempre son tan rápidas o lineales como se espera. La modelización constituye una herramienta cada vez más utilizada, pero requiere de evidencias reales para validar sus pronósticos, por lo que la observación de los procesos que actúan en el PNOMP ha de incluir un esfuerzo continuado de monitorización multiescalar y multidisciplinar de los distintos componentes de la geo, hidro-, crio- y biosfera, sin olvidar el componente humano. Entender la complejidad supone conectar las interacciones que existen entre todos los sistemas y ponderar sus efectos según las escalas de trabajo.Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, EspañaEmpresa pública SARGA, EspañaJOLUBE Consultor Botánico, Editor y Fotógrafo, EspañaDepartament d’Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona, EspañaUnidad de Tres Cantos, Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, EspañaInstitut de Recerca de Biodiversitat, Universitat de Barcelona, EspañaParque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido, Españ

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Tropical tree growth driven by dry-season climate variability

Interannual variability in the global land carbon sink is strongly related to variations in tropical temperature and rainfall. This association suggests an important role for moisture-driven fluctuations in tropical vegetation productivity, but empirical evidence to quantify the responsible ecological processes is missing. Such evidence can be obtained from tree-ring data that quantify variability in a major vegetation productivity component: woody biomass growth. Here we compile a pantropical tree-ring network to show that annual woody biomass growth increases primarily with dry-season precipitation and decreases with dry-season maximum temperature. The strength of these dry-season climate responses varies among sites, as reflected in four robust and distinct climate response groups of tropical tree growth derived from clustering. Using cluster and regression analyses, we find that dry-season climate responses are amplified in regions that are drier, hotter and more climatically variable. These amplification patterns suggest that projected global warming will probably aggravate drought-induced declines in annual tropical vegetation productivity. Our study reveals a previously underappreciated role of dry-season climate variability in driving the dynamics of tropical vegetation productivity and consequently in influencing the land carbon sink.We acknowledge financial support to the co-authors provided by Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica, Argentina (PICT 2014-2797) to M.E.F.; Alberta Mennega Stichting to P.G.; BBVA Foundation to H.A.M. and J.J.C.; Belspo BRAIN project: BR/143/A3/HERBAXYLAREDD to H.B.; Confederação da Agricultura e Pecuária do Brasil - CNA to C.F.; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES, Brazil (PDSE 15011/13-5 to M.A.P.; 88881.135931/2016-01 to C.F.; 88887.199858/2018-00 to G.A.-P.; Finance Code 001 for all Brazilian collaborators); Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq, Brazil (ENV 42 to O.D.; 1009/4785031-2 to G.C.; 311874/2017-7 to J.S.); CONACYT-CB-2016-283134 to J.V.-D.; CONICET to F.A.R.; CUOMO FOUNDATION (IPCC scholarship) to M.M.; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - DFG (BR 1895/15-1 to A.B.; BR 1895/23-1 to A.B.; BR 1895/29-1 to A.B.; BR 1895/24-1 to M.M.); DGD-RMCA PilotMAB to B.T.; Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico of the UNAM (Mexico) to R.B.; Elsa-Neumann-Scholarship of the Federal State of Berlin to F.S.; EMBRAPA Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation to C.F.; Equatorian Dirección de Investigación UNL (21-DI-FARNR-2019) to D.P.-C.; São Paulo Research Foundation FAPESP (2009/53951-7 to M.T.-F.; 2012/50457-4 to G.C.; 2018/01847‐0 to P.G.; 2018/24514-7 to J.R.V.A.; 2019/08783-0 to G.M.L.; 2019/27110-7 to C.F.); FAPESP-NERC 18/50080-4 to G.C.; FAPITEC/SE/FUNTEC no. 01/2011 to M.A.P.; Fulbright Fellowship to B.J.E.; German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to M.I. and M.R.; German Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Technology (FRG 0339638) to O.D.; ICRAF through the Forests, Trees, and Agroforestry research programme of the CGIAR to M.M.; Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI-SGP-CRA 2047) to J.V.-D.; International Foundation for Science (D/5466-1) to M.I.; Lamont Climate Center to B.M.B.; Miquelfonds to P.G.; National Geographic Global Exploration Fund (GEFNE80-13) to I.R.; USA’s National Science Foundation NSF (IBN-9801287 to A.J.L.; GER 9553623 and a postdoctoral fellowship to B.J.E.); NSF P2C2 (AGS-1501321) to A.C.B., D.G.-S. and G.A.-P.; NSF-FAPESP PIRE 2017/50085-3 to M.T.-F., G.C. and G.M.L.; NUFFIC-NICHE programme (HEART project) to B.K., E.M., J.H.S., J.N. and R. Vinya; Peru ‘s CONCYTEC and World Bank (043-2019-FONDECYT-BM-INC.INV.) to J.G.I.; Peru’s Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico, Tecnológico y de Innovación Tecnológica (FONDECYT-BM-INC.INV 039-2019) to E.J.R.-R. and M.E.F.; Programa Bosques Andinos - HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation to M.E.F.; Programa Nacional de Becas y Crédito Educativo - PRONABEC to J.G.I.; Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future to J.N.; Sigma Xi to A.J.L.; Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to R. Alfaro-Sánchez.; Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs AECID (11-CAP2-1730) to H.A.M. and J.J.C.; UK NERC grant NE/K01353X/1 to E.G.Peer reviewe

Optimal Control for Haptic Rendering: Fast Energy Dissipation and Minimum Overshoot

Controlling haptic devices in an optimal way is crucial to achieve both, best performance and most realistic haptic feedback. The present article investigates control design of a single degree of freedom haptic device that is interacting with a human operator and rendering a virtual wall affected by time delay. To this end, it suggests different optimization criteria based on the step response of the haptic system. These criteria cover fundamental requirements for efficiently using haptic devices, particularly fast settling and minimum overshoot. For each criterion an optimal path and point inside the stable region of the virtual wall parameters is derived. These optima depend mainly on the system mass, sampling time and time delay. This approach is supported by experiments on two devices, a Falcon haptic device and a DLR/KUKA Light-Weight Robot arm

The STAMAS Simulator: A Kinematics and Dynamics Simulator for an Astronaut's Leg and Hand Exoskeleton

In the scope of the European project STAMAS, novel exoskeleton based exercise and support devices for an astronaut's leg and hand are developed. The STAMAS simulator is capable of simulating the dynamic interaction between the astronaut and these two exoskeleton prototypes. It comprises components for the calculation of the kinematics and dynamics of the device and the astronaut's extremities, as well as a virtual reality viewer for visualization. The simulator not only offers efficient and inexpensive access to the behavior of the systems, but also is a veritable key element towards the assessment of the safety for the astronaut, for the equipment and for the mission. Simulations that have been conducted could confirm the concepts of both exoskeletons and reveal the mechanical strain and the required actuator forces

Dynamic Simulation and Control of Exoskeletal Devices for an Astronaut’s Hand and Leg

Humanity is in the edge of space exploration, but severe health problems arise as space missions increase in time. The STAMAS European project focuses on two relevant problems, hand fatigue during extravehicular Activities (EVAs) and lower libs chronic physiological degradation. To counteract these health conditions it proposes two demonstrators, an astronaut semi-passive leg exercising device and an EVA hand support exoskeleton. In the current research project controller strategies have been analysed to determine a suitable control architecture for both devices and an interactive simulation tool was developed to simulate and visualize the device behaviour. The main features of the interactive tool include the astronaut hand, leg and device actuator dynamics, the device kinematics with the force attack points and a simulation of the air pressure during EVAs. The chosen controller uses an impedance feedforward control architecture. The torque controlled human simulation includes an accurate 22 degrees of freedom representation of the human hand and an 8 degrees of freedom leg, that were modelled as serial robots with rotational joints, actual link lengths, mass and moments of inertia. Denavit-Hartenberg's recursive method was used for kinematics analysis and the recursive Newton-Euler formulation was used to calculate on-line the dynamics of the system

Monitorización de la Biodiversidad vegetal y sus distintos componentes en un parque nacional de montaña

[EN] National Parks, and mountain parks in particular, are biodiversity reservoirs, and constitute very suitable areas for monitoring changes in species abundance, richness, and community composition. Our project has been carried out in the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park, a topographically complex area that shelters about 1400 vascular plants belonging to biogeographically contrasted groups: from Mediterranean to boreoalpine. Despite part of the Park has been protected for about 100 years, it is not safe from global factors affecting other mountains, like climate warming and shifts of land-use. This project had two main objectives: 1) to characterize the spatial diversity of the Park from different points of view besides classical richness, and 2) to describe the dynamics of plant richness and community structure in the richest areas of the Park: alpine pastures, and their limit with the subalpine forest. We first analysed the distribution of more than 44.000 records of vascular plants, georeferenced at a 1 km 2 scale, and estimated diversity using different approaches: species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and abundance of vulnerable plants. The most representative and distinctive areas were also identified, considering the whole flora of the National Park. Richness was also correlated to different biotic and abiotic variables in the Park. Sampling effort was included in that correlation to avoid bias due to the number of prospections at each place. It was estimated from a new model we generated (FIDEGAM), and served to correct for the uncertainty of richness estimations. FIDEGAM can be used for any other database, in order to correct for bias in biodiversity analysis. The second objective was undertaken by relocating and resurveying the same places studied 10 (ecotone Pinus uncinatapasture) and 20 years ago (6 pastures located between 1900-2750 m.a.s.l.). At the ecotone, a slight increase of the forest has been detected, with no consequences on the structure and composition of the herbaceous layer yet. In the pastures, a slight increase of graminoids was also recorded. Overall, the project served to identify the most interesting areas of plant diversity from different points of view (not always overlapped), and establish permanent plots for monitoring the impact of global change on mountain biodiversity.Queremos mostrar nuestro agradecimiento al Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido, y especialmente a Elena Villagrasa y Ramón Antor por facilitar el trabajo en todo momento. A Pedro Sánchez, María Jarne, Jesús Villellas, Gabriel Sangüesa y Marc Talavera por su ayuda en la toma de datos en campo durante el desarrollo del proyecto. Financiación recibida a través del Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales (Referencia del proyecto: 018/2008).Peer Reviewe

La desigual contribución de las poblaciones andaluza y castellanoleonesa al aumento de la longevidad española

El descenso secular de la mortalidad en los países desarrollados, y sus niveles mínimos actuales, actúa como una especie de niebla que invade todo el paisaje social, homogeneizándolo, velando la existencia de desigualdades en su interior e, incluso, el incremento de las mismas. Tomando como referencia el marco teórico de la Transición Sanitaria, en este artículo se realiza un análisis comparativo de la mortalidad en Andalucía y Castilla y León entre 1977 y 1990. Las dos poblaciones tienen muy avanzadas sus respectivas transiciones de mortalidad ; sin embargo, el análisis dinámico de la mortalidad por edad, sexo y causas de muerte, muestra que existe un desfase favorable para Castilla y León, que tiene más avanzada su Transición Epidemiológica. Como consecuencia, ambas poblaciones contribuyen de forma desigual al aumento de la longevidad española y esa contribución es además crecientemente desigual

La desigual contribución de las poblaciones andaluza y castellanoleonesa al aumento de la longevidad española

El descenso secular de la mortalidad en los países desarrollados, y sus niveles mínimos actuales, actúa como una especie de niebla que invade todo el paisaje social, homogeneizándolo, velando la existencia de desigualdades en su interior e, incluso, el incremento de las mismas. Tomando como referencia el marco teórico de la Transición Sanitaria, en este artículo se realiza un análisis comparativo de la mortalidad en Andalucía y Castilla y León entre 1977 y 1990. Las dos poblaciones tienen muy avanzadas sus respectivas transiciones de mortalidad ; sin embargo, el análisis dinámico de la mortalidad por edad, sexo y causas de muerte, muestra que existe un desfase favorable para Castilla y León, que tiene más avanzada su Transición Epidemiológica. Como consecuencia, ambas poblaciones contribuyen de forma desigual al aumento de la longevidad española y esa contribución es además crecientemente desigual