Evaluating Macroinvertebrate Communities at the Nexus of Freestone and Limestone Streams

The Yellow Breeches, a tributary of the Susquehanna River, is a freestone stream flowing 49 miles through limestone-dominated valleys. The character of the stream changes as limestone streams join it at several points, altering the bedrock, formation and water source. Stream chemistry and macroinvertebrate communities consequently change in conjunction with the physical and chemical transformations. As cornerstones of the food chain and ecosystem, shifts in these populations can have widespread effects on the stream community as a whole. It is essential to determine factors promoting community changes to be able to accurately determine the conservation measures that can be safely taken without changing the overall ecosystem structure. Therefore, this project strives to assess whether there is significant difference between macroinvertebrate communities in the two streams as they join and if one exists, to identify the chemical and physical parameters contributing to that shift. To accomplish this, visual assessments, nutrient analysis, and macroinvertebrate sampling were performed at eleven sites within thirty meters of the mixing site. Preliminary data reveals significant difference in macroinvertebrate communities in the limestone and freestone influenced sites in some keystone species, as well as significant differences nearly all chemical parameters and only one physical parameter, substrate composition. Additional testing will be performed at this site as well as two additional sites to further specify the cause of the change in community structure and composition

Sperm-mediated Effects of Predation Risk on Reproduction in Male Threespined Sticklebacks

Threespined sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus, exhibit male-only parental care, but will decrease paternal care if exposed to predators while given care or if their mate has had prior experiences with predators. The offspring will experience lasting effects based on the experience of their parents (behavior-mediated transgenerational plasticity). While other studies have concluded that male exposure to predators prior to fertilization (sperm-mediated transgenerational plasticity) impacts offspring, whether sperm-mediated effects exist in sticklebacks, and for how many generations the effects persist is unknown. Courtship trials with both predator exposed and predator unexposed females with six male treatment groups shows significant impact of maternal grandfather predation exposure, suggesting that daughters of predator-exposed fathers are passing down cues to their sons

Diagnostic delay for giant cell arteritis – a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Giant cell arteritis (GCA), if untreated, can lead to blindness and stroke. The study’s objectives were to (1) determine a new evidence-based benchmark of the extent of diagnostic delay for GCA and (2) examine the role of GCA-specific characteristics on diagnostic delay. Methods Medical literature databases were searched from inception to November 2015. Articles were included if reporting a time-period of diagnostic delay between onset of GCA symptoms and diagnosis. Two reviewers assessed the quality of the final articles and extracted data from these. Random-effects meta-analysis was used to pool the mean time-period (95% confidence interval (CI)) between GCA symptom onset and diagnosis, and the delay observed for GCA-specific characteristics. Heterogeneity was assessed by I 2 and by 95% prediction interval (PI). Results Of 4128 articles initially identified, 16 provided data for meta-analysis. Mean diagnostic delay was 9.0 weeks (95% CI, 6.5 to 11.4) between symptom onset and GCA diagnosis (I 2 = 96.0%; P < 0.001; 95% PI, 0 to 19.2 weeks). Patients with a cranial presentation of GCA received a diagnosis after 7.7 (95% CI, 2.7 to 12.8) weeks (I 2 = 98.4%; P < 0.001; 95% PI, 0 to 27.6 weeks) and those with non-cranial GCA after 17.6 (95% CI, 9.7 to 25.5) weeks (I 2 = 96.6%; P < 0.001; 95% PI, 0 to 46.1 weeks). Conclusions The mean delay from symptom onset to GCA diagnosis was 9 weeks, or longer when cranial symptoms were absent. Our research provides an evidence-based benchmark for diagnostic delay of GCA and supports the need for improved public awareness and fast-track diagnostic pathways

Multi-Platform Next-Generation Sequencing of the Domestic Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo): Genome Assembly and Analysis

The combined application of next-generation sequencing platforms has provided an economical approach to unlocking the potential of the turkey genome

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

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Simulation files examining ESS and CS

Data from: Dominant and subordinate outside options alter help and eviction in a pay-to-stay negotiation model

In several cooperatively breeding species, subordinates that do not help sufficiently are punished or evicted from the group by dominant individuals. The credibility of dominant eviction threats may vary with the social context beyond the group level: when subordinates can easily breed in a neighboring territory, dominant may be less able to demand help from subordinates. Further, dominant ability to enforce subordinate cooperation may be reduced when it is difficult to replace evicted subordinates or in small groups where each subordinate makes a large contribution to group productivity. Here, we develop a two-player game theoretic model to examine how the social context influences subordinate help and the threshold of help at which dominants evict subordinates. In contract to predictions, we found that dominants demand more help when dominants are less able to replace evicted subordinates, suggesting that dominants punish a dereliction of helping behavior more strongly when they are unable to compensate for the loss of an evicted subordinate. In single sealed-bid games, subordinates help less than the fitness costs they impose on dominants and help does not vary with subordinate breeding opportunities outside the group. However, when subordinates can plastically increase help in response to demanding dominants (akin to pay-to-stay dynamics), subordinates provide more help overall, but decrease their help as breeding opportunities outside of the group increase. Our results demonstrate the importance of incorporating negotiation into theoretical models of helping strategies and demonstrate that plasticity is a key mechanism underlying pay-to-stay mechanisms of cooperation