The compendium of self-enactable techniques to change and self-manage motivation and behaviour v.1.0

Behaviour change techniques describe the content of behaviour change interventions, but do not adequately account for the actions that people must themselves undertake to successfully change or self-manage motivation or behaviour. This paper describes the development of a compendium of self-enactable techniques, combining behaviour- and motivation-regulation techniques across six existing classifications of behaviour change techniques and three scoping reviews. The compendium includes 123 techniques, each of which is labelled, defined and presented with instructive examples to facilitate self-enactment. Qualitative feedback was gathered from intervention developers and the general public to improve the utility, congruence and ease of self-enactability of the techniques. This integrative index of self-enactable techniques can assist intervention developers in selecting appropriate self-directed techniques to help people self-manage their motivation and behaviour. Future research with this compendium can expand on the number of behaviours covered by the instructive examples and link techniques with their potential impacts on factors that influence behaviours.Peer reviewe

White Paper: Open Digital Health - accelerating transparent and scalable health promotion and treatment

In this White Paper, we outline recommendations from the perspective of health psychology and behavioural science, addressing three research gaps: (1) What methods in the health psychology research toolkit can be best used for developing and evaluating digital health tools? (2) What are the most feasible strategies to reuse digital health tools across populations and settings? (3) What are the main advantages and challenges of sharing (openly publishing) data, code, intervention content and design features of digital health tools? We provide actionable suggestions for researchers joining the continuously growing Open Digital Health movement, poised to revolutionise health psychology research and practice in the coming years. This White Paper is positioned in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, exploring how digital health tools have rapidly gained popularity in 2020-2022, when world-wide health promotion and treatment efforts rapidly shifted from face-to-face to remote delivery. This statement is written by the Directors of the not-for-profit Open Digital Health Initiative (n = 6), Experts attending the European Health Psychology Society Synergy Expert Meeting (n = 17), and the initiative consultant following a two-day meeting (19-20th August 2021).Output Status: Forthcoming/Available Online Additional co-authors: Judith Nalukwago, Efrat Neter, Johanna Nurmi, Manuel Spitschan, Samantha B. Van Beurden, L. Nynke Van der Laan, Kathrin Wunsch, Jasper J. J. Levink & Robbert Sanderma

Genome sequencing and population genomic analyses provide insights into the adaptive landscape of silver birch

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Genome sequencing and population genomic analyses provide insights into the adaptive landscape of silver birch

Silver birch (Betula pendula) is a pioneer boreal tree that can be induced to flower within 1 year. Its rapid life cycle, small (440-Mb) genome, and advanced germplasm resources make birch an attractive model for forest biotechnology. We assembled and chromosomally anchored the nuclear genome of an inbred B. pendula individual. Gene duplicates from the paleohexaploid event were enriched for transcriptional regulation, whereas tandem duplicates were overrepresented by environmental responses. Population resequencing of 80 individuals showed effective population size crashes at major points of climatic upheaval. Selective sweeps were enriched among polyploid duplicates encoding key developmental and physiological triggering functions, suggesting that local adaptation has tuned the timing of and cross-talk between fundamental plant processes. Variation around the tightly-linked light response genes PHYC and FRS10 correlated with latitude and longitude and temperature, and with precipitation for PHYC. Similar associations characterized the growth-promoting cytokinin response regulator ARR1, and the wood development genes KAK and MED5A.Peer reviewe

Author Correction: Genome sequencing and population genomic analyses provide insights into the adaptive landscape of silver birch.

In the version of this article initially published, there was a mistake in the calculation of the nucleotide mutation rate per site per generation: 1 × 10−9 mutations per site per generation was used, whereas 9.5 × 10−9 was correct. This error affects the interpretation of population-size changes over time and their possible correspondence with known geological events, as shown in the original Fig. 4 and supporting discussion in the text, as well as details in the Supplementary Note. Neither the data themselves nor any other results are affected. Figure 4 has been revised accordingly. Images of the original and corrected figure panels are shown in the correction notice

Challenging DNA samples are valuable sources for genetic information of populations and individuals

Abstract In my PhD thesis, I have focused on studying challenging DNA-samples. In common to all the sub-projects is that the target DNA is badly preserved and the contamination risk from modern samples is high. All the samples under study have been in varying environmental conditions for varying amounts of time. In my research I therefore employed ancient DNA methods that have been developed to extract and amplify poor quality DNA. In all the sub-projects, we were able to gain information that would not have been possible to obtain by studying more conventional biological samples. In article I, we studied whether non-invasively collected placentas of the Saimaa ringed seal (Pusa hispida saimensis) could be utilized in individual identification and population monitoring. The umbilical cord proved to give a reliable genotype of the pup and therefore placentas can be used in genetic monitoring of the population. In article II, I investigated the geographical origin of poorly documented tiger samples from the Finnish museum of natural history. All the samples under investigation could be identified to subspecies levels, and among them I observed for example a Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica), which is extinct. In article III, I studied the domestication history of goose (Anser anser) using bones collected from archaeological sites in Russia. The majority of the studied samples belonged to genetic lines that are typical for domestic goose, but I also observed lines that have not been observed among domestic geese. In article IV, I studied what kind of role reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) has had in the contacts of the Sámi and the Swedes in the Middle Ages, by studying DNA from samples originating from archaeological sites. The genetic results suggest that the samples under investigation are more likely to originate from wild forest reindeer than domestic reindeer. In article V, I investigated whether the reindeer population that lived in the forest region in Tatarstan 4000 years ago had gone extinct or whether there is genetic continuation from this population among modern populations. I observed genetic continuity between the historical reindeer from Tatarstan and the wild reindeer from the taiga zone of northeastern part of European Russia.Tiivistelmä Olen väitöskirjatutkimuksessani keskittynyt haastavien DNA-näytteiden tutkimiseen. Yhteistä kaikille osatöilleni on se, että tutkimuksen kohteena olevien näytteiden DNA on huonosti säilynyttä, ja kontaminaatioriski moderneista näytteistä niihin on suuri. Kaikki tutkimuksen kohteena olevat näytteet ovat olleet vaihtelevissa ympäristöolosuhteissa pidempiä tai lyhyempiä aikoja. Tutkimuksissani sovellettiinkin huonolaatuisen DNA:n käyttöön kehitettyjä muinais-DNA:n eristys- ja monistusmenetelmiä. Kaikissa osatutkimuksissa onnistuttiin hankkimaan tutkimustietoa, jota ei olisi saatu tutkimalla tavanomaisempia biologisia näytteitä. Artikkelissa I selvitettiin luonnosta kerättyjen saimaannorpan (Pusa hispida saimensis) istukoiden soveltuvuutta yksilöntunnistukseen ja populaation seurantaan. Istukan napanuoran kohdalta otetun näytteen todettiin soveltuvan luotettavasti poikasen genotyypin määrittämiseen ja täten istukkanäytteet soveltuvat hyvin populaation geneettiseen seurantaan. Artikkelissa II selvitin Suomen luonnontieteellisen keskusmuseon kokoelmissa puutteellisilla löytöpaikkatiedoilla olevien tiikerinäytteiden alkuperää. Kaikki tutkimuksen kohteena olevat näytteet onnistuttiin määrittämään alalajilleen, ja joukossa todettiin olevan mm. jo sukupuuttoon kuollut jaavantiikeri (Panthera tigris sondaica). Artikkelissa III tutkittiin hanhen (Anser anser) domestikaation historiaa venäläisiltä arkeologisilta kohteilta peräisin olevista luista. Suurin osa tutkituista näytteistä kuului geneettisiin linjoihin, jotka ovat tyypillisiä kesyhanhella, mutta näytteistä löytyi myös linjoja, joita ei kesyhanhella ole tavattu. Artikkelissa IV tutkittiin peuran (Rangifer tarandus) roolia saamelaisten ja ruotsalaisten välisissä kontakteissa keskiajalla mm. tutkimalla DNA:ta arkeologisilta kohteilta peräisin olevista peuran luista. Geneettiset tulokset viittaavat, että tutkimuksen kohteena olevat näytteet ovat todennäköisemmin peräisin villistä metsäpeurasta kuin kesytetystä porosta. Artikkelissa V selvitettiin ovatko Tatarstanin metsäalueella 4000 vuotta sitten esiintynyt peurapopulaatio kuollut sukupuuttoon, vai löytyykö tästä populaatiosta jatkumoa jossain nykyisessä populaatiossa. Tatarstanin historiallisten peurojen ja Venäjän puolisen koillis-Europan taigavyöhykkeen villien metsäpeurojen välillä havaittiin geneettistä jatkumoa

Tangled worlds:the Swedish, the Sámi, and the reindeer

Abstract Reindeer pastoralism developed among the indigenous Sámi of northern Fennoscandia, but the established colonial relationship with Sweden brought on an expanded use of reindeer. Tradesmen, priests, and officials of Swedish origin benefited from domesticated reindeer in many ways — trading reindeer products and using reindeer as transport during winter trips to marketplaces. Reindeer were, therefore, in many ways focal in the encounters between the Sámi and the Swedish. In this paper, we use zooarchaeology, stable isotope analysis, and ancient DNA analysis to interpret reindeer remains from towns, marketplaces, and agrarian settlements in medieval and early modern northern Fennoscandia. We argue that reindeer played important roles in contacts and encounters. The Sámi, the Swedish, and the reindeer formed a multispecies community. The exploration of the relationships in this multispecies community captures the complexity of human and human-animal relationships in colonial encounters. Moreover, it emphasizes the importance and agency of animals in colonial histories

Understanding environmental change through the lens of trait-based, functional, and phylogenetic biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems

Abstract In the era of the Anthropocene, environmental change is accelerating biodiversity loss across ecosystems on Earth, among which freshwaters are likely the most threatened. Different biodiversity facets in the freshwater realm suffer from various environmental changes that jeopardize the ecosystem functions and services important for humankind. In this work we examine how environmental changes (e.g., climate change, eutrophication, or invasive species) affect trait-based, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of biological communities. We first developed a simple conceptual model of the possible relationships between environmental change and these three diversity facets in freshwaters and, secondly, systematically reviewed articles where these relationships had been investigated in different freshwater ecosystems. Finally, we highlighted research gaps from the perspectives of organisms, ecosystems, stressors, and geographical locations. Our conceptual model suggested that both natural factors and global change operating at various spatial scales influence freshwater community structure and ecosystem functioning. The relationships between biodiversity and environmental change depend on geographical region, organism group, spatial scale, and environmental change gradient length. The systematic review revealed that environmental change impacts biodiversity patterns in freshwaters, but there is no single type of biodiversity response to the observed global changes. Natural stressors had different, even contradictory, effects (i.e., multiple, negative, and positive) on biodiversity compared with anthropogenic stressors. Anthropogenic stressors more often decreased biodiversity, although eutrophication and climate change affected freshwater ecosystems in a complex, more multi-dimensional way. The research gaps we identified were related, for example, to the low number of community-based biodiversity studies, the lack of information on true phylogenies for all freshwater organism groups, the missing evaluations whether species traits are phylogenetically conserved, and the geographical biases in research (i.e., absence of studies from Africa, Southern Asia, and Russia). We hope that our review will stimulate more research on the less well-known facets and topics of biodiversity loss in highly vulnerable freshwater ecosystems