Progress in Precursor Skills and Front Crawl Swimming in Children With and Without Developmental Coordination Disorder

This study investigated swimming performance and the influence of task complexity among children with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Two groups of children were matched by age - 11 controls without DCD and 11 children with DCD. Repeated measures ANOVA showed that children with DCD performed significantly lower level than age-matched controls for all the water competency tasks and front crawl. Both groups improved significantly in water competency and front crawl over 10 lessons. Significant interactions suggested that children with DCD showed different rates of change during the acquisition of the glide and front crawl. Both groups regressed with increased task complexity. Awareness of motor learning difficulties experienced by children enables teachers, parents, and children to have realistic expectations. A supportive environments for children with DCD will enable them to achieve the important swimming skill competencies and reduce drop-out rates in learn-to-swim programs

Managing farmed landscapes for pollinating insects

Increasing floral resources and improving habitat conditions can benefit pollinating insect species, wildflowers and crop production

Examining the Evidence for Chytridiomycosis in Threatened Amphibian Species

Extinction risks are increasing for amphibians due to rising threats and minimal conservation efforts. Nearly one quarter of all threatened/extinct amphibians in the IUCN Red List is purportedly at risk from the disease chytridiomycosis. However, a closer look at the data reveals that Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (the causal agent) has been identified and confirmed to cause clinical disease in only 14% of these species. Primary literature surveys confirm these findings; ruling out major discrepancies between Red List assessments and real-time science. Despite widespread interest in chytridiomycosis, little progress has been made between assessment years to acquire evidence for the role of chytridiomycosis in species-specific amphibian declines. Instead, assessment teams invoke the precautionary principle when listing chytridiomycosis as a threat. Precaution is valuable when dealing with the world's most threatened taxa, however scientific research is needed to distinguish between real and predicted threats in order to better prioritize conservation efforts. Fast paced, cost effective, in situ research to confirm or rule out chytridiomycosis in species currently hypothesized to be threatened by the disease would be a step in the right direction. Ultimately, determining the manner in which amphibian conservation resources are utilized is a conversation for the greater conservation community that we hope to stimulate here

Red hot frogs:Identifying the Australian frogs most at risk of extinction

More than a third of the world’s amphibian species are listed as Threatened or Extinct, with a recent assessment identifying 45 Australian frogs (18.4% of the currently recognised species) as ‘Threatened’ based on IUCN criteria. We applied structured expert elicitation to 26 frogs assessed as Critically Endangered and Endangered to estimate their probability of extinction by 2040. We also investigated whether participant experience (measured as a self-assigned categorical score, i.e. ‘expert’ or ‘non-expert’) influenced the estimates. Collation and analysis of participant opinion indicated that eight species are at high risk (>50% chance) of becoming extinct by 2040, with the disease chytridiomycosis identified as the primary threat. A further five species are at moderate–high risk (30–50% chance), primarily due to climate change. Fourteen of the 26 frog species are endemic to Queensland, with many species restricted to small geographic ranges that are susceptible to stochastic events (e.g. a severe heatwave or a large bushfire). Experts were more likely to rate extinction probability higher for poorly known species (those with <10 experts), while non-experts were more likely to rate extinction probability higher for better-known species. However, scores converged following discussion, indicating that there was greater consensus in the estimates of extinction probability. Increased resourcing and management intervention are urgently needed to avert future extinctions of Australia’s frogs. Key priorities include developing and supporting captive management and establishing or extending in-situ population refuges to alleviate the impacts of disease and climate change

Protecting an ecosystem service: approaches to understanding and mitigating threats to wild insect pollinators

Insect pollination constitutes an ecosystem service of global importance, providing significant economic and aesthetic benefits as well as cultural value to human society, alongside vital ecological processes in terrestrial ecosystems. It is therefore important to understand how insect pollinator populations and communities respond to rapidly changing environments if we are to maintain healthy and effective pollinator services. This paper considers the importance of conserving pollinator diversity to maintain a suite of functional traits to provide a diverse set of pollinator services. We explore how we can better understand and mitigate the factors that threaten insect pollinator richness, placing our discussion within the context of populations in predominantly agricultural landscapes in addition to urban environments. We highlight a selection of important evidence gaps, with a number of complementary research steps that can be taken to better understand: i) the stability of pollinator communities in different landscapes in order to provide diverse pollinator services; ii) how we can study the drivers of population change to mitigate the effects and support stable sources of pollinator services; and, iii) how we can manage habitats in complex landscapes to support insect pollinators and provide sustainable pollinator services for the future. We advocate a collaborative effort to gain higher quality abundance data to understand the stability of pollinator populations and predict future trends. In addition, for effective mitigation strategies to be adopted, researchers need to conduct rigorous field-testing of outcomes under different landscape settings, acknowledge the needs of end-users when developing research proposals and consider effective methods of knowledge transfer to ensure effective uptake of actions

Dynamic plasticity of large-scale chromatin structure revealed by self-assembly of engineered chromosome regions

Folding of gene loci organized in tandem arrays reveals variation of chromatin structure as a function of cell differentiation

A cross-sectional survey of the prevalence of environmental tobacco smoke preventive care provision by child health services in Australia

Background: Despite the need for a reduction in levels of childhood exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) being a recognised public health goal, the delivery of ETS preventive care in child health service settings remains a largely unstudied area. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of ETS preventive care in child health services; differences in the provision of care by type of service; the prevalence of strategies to support such care; and the association between care support strategies and care provision. Method: One-hundred and fifty-one (83%) child health service managers within New South Wales, Australia completed a questionnaire in 2002 regarding the: assessment of parental smoking and child ETS exposure; the provision of parental smoking cessation and ETS-exposure reduction advice; and strategies used to support the provision of such care. Child health services were categorised based on their size and case-mix, and a chi-square analysis was performed to compare the prevalence of ETS risk assessment and ETS prevention advice between service types. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine associations between the existence of care support strategies and the provision of ETS risk assessment and ETS exposure prevention advice. Results: A significant proportion of services reported that they did not assess parental smoking status (26%), and reported that they did not assess the ETS exposure (78%) of any child. Forty four percent of services reported that they did not provide smoking cessation advice and 20% reported they did not provide ETS exposure prevention advice. Community based child and family health services reported a greater prevalence of ETS preventive care compared to other hospital based units. Less than half of the services reported having strategies to support the provision of ETS preventive care. The existence of such support strategies was associated with greater odds of care provision. Conclusions: The existence of major gaps in recommended ETS preventive care provision suggests a need for additional initiatives to increase such care delivery. The low prevalence of strategies that support such care delivery suggests a potential avenue to achieve this outcome

Rare and low-frequency coding variants alter human adult height

Height is a highly heritable, classic polygenic trait with ~700 common associated variants identified so far through genome - wide association studies . Here , we report 83 height - associated coding variants with lower minor allele frequenc ies ( range of 0.1 - 4.8% ) and effects of up to 2 16 cm /allele ( e.g. in IHH , STC2 , AR and CRISPLD2 ) , >10 times the average effect of common variants . In functional follow - up studies, rare height - increasing alleles of STC2 (+1 - 2 cm/allele) compromise d proteolytic inhibition of PAPP - A and increased cleavage of IGFBP - 4 in vitro , resulting in higher bioavailability of insulin - like growth factors . The se 83 height - associated variants overlap genes mutated in monogenic growth disorders and highlight new biological candidates ( e.g. ADAMTS3, IL11RA, NOX4 ) and pathways ( e.g . proteoglycan/ glycosaminoglycan synthesis ) involved in growth . Our results demonstrate that sufficiently large sample sizes can uncover rare and low - frequency variants of moderate to large effect associated with polygenic human phenotypes , and that these variants implicate relevant genes and pathways

Genome-wide association identifies nine common variants associated with fasting proinsulin levels and provides new insights into the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE: Proinsulin is a precursor of mature insulin and C-peptide. Higher circulating proinsulin levels are associated with impaired β-cell function, raised glucose levels, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Studies of the insulin processing pathway could provide new insights about T2D pathophysiology. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We have conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association tests of ∼2.5 million genotyped or imputed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and fasting proinsulin levels in 10,701 nondiabetic adults of European ancestry, with follow-up of 23 loci in up to 16,378 individuals, using additive genetic models adjusted for age, sex, fasting insulin, and study-specific covariates. RESULTS: Nine SNPs at eight loci were associated with proinsulin levels (P < 5 × 10(-8)). Two loci (LARP6 and SGSM2) have not been previously related to metabolic traits, one (MADD) has been associated with fasting glucose, one (PCSK1) has been implicated in obesity, and four (TCF7L2, SLC30A8, VPS13C/C2CD4A/B, and ARAP1, formerly CENTD2) increase T2D risk. The proinsulin-raising allele of ARAP1 was associated with a lower fasting glucose (P = 1.7 × 10(-4)), improved β-cell function (P = 1.1 × 10(-5)), and lower risk of T2D (odds ratio 0.88; P = 7.8 × 10(-6)). Notably, PCSK1 encodes the protein prohormone convertase 1/3, the first enzyme in the insulin processing pathway. A genotype score composed of the nine proinsulin-raising alleles was not associated with coronary disease in two large case-control datasets. CONCLUSIONS: We have identified nine genetic variants associated with fasting proinsulin. Our findings illuminate the biology underlying glucose homeostasis and T2D development in humans and argue against a direct role of proinsulin in coronary artery disease pathogenesis