Dynamic Ocean Management: Defining and Conceptualizing Real-Time Management of the Ocean

Most spatial marine management techniques (e.g., marine protected areas) draw stationary boundaries around often mobile marine features, animals, or resource users. While these approaches can work for relatively stationary marine resources, to be most effective marine management must be as fluid in space and time as the resources and users we aim to manage. Instead, a shift towards dynamic ocean management is suggested, defined as management that rapidly changes in space and time in response to changes in the ocean and its users through the integration of near real-time biological, oceanographic, social and/or economic data. Dynamic management can refine the temporal and spatial scale of managed areas, thereby better balancing ecological and economic objectives. Temperature dependent habitat of a hypothetical mobile marine species was simulated to show the efficiency of dynamic management, finding that 82.0 to 34.2 percent less area needed to be managed using a dynamic approach. Dynamic management further complements existing management by increasing the speed at which decisions are implemented using predefined protocols. With advances in data collection and sharing, particularly in remote sensing, animal tracking, and mobile technology, managers are poised to apply dynamic management across numerous marine sectors. Existing examples demonstrate that dynamic management can successfully allow managers to respond rapidly to changes on-the-water, however to implement dynamic ocean management widely, several gaps must be filled. These include enhancing legal instruments, incorporating ecological and socioeconomic considerations simultaneously, developing ‘out-of-the-box’ platforms to serve dynamic management data to users, and developing applications broadly across additional marine resource sectors

Carcass persistence and detectability : reducing the uncertainty surrounding wildlife-vehicle collision surveys

Carcass persistence time and detectability are two main sources of uncertainty on roadkill surveys. In this study, we evaluate the influence of these uncertainties on roadkill surveys and estimates. To estimate carcass persistence time, three observers (including the driver) surveyed 114km by car on a monthly basis for two years, searching for wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC). Each survey consisted of five consecutive days. To estimate carcass detectability, we randomly selected stretches of 500m to be also surveyed on foot by two other observers (total 292 walked stretches, 146 km walked). We expected that body size of the carcass, road type, presence of scavengers and weather conditions to be the main drivers influencing the carcass persistence times, but their relative importance was unknown. We also expected detectability to be highly dependent on body size. Overall, we recorded low median persistence times (one day) and low detectability (<10%) for all vertebrates. The results indicate that body size and landscape cover (as a surrogate of scavengers' presence) are the major drivers of carcass persistence. Detectability was lower for animals with body mass less than 100g when compared to carcass with higher body mass. We estimated that our recorded mortality rates underestimated actual values of mortality by 2±10 fold. Although persistence times were similar to previous studies, the detectability rates here described are very different from previous studies. The results suggest that detectability is the main source of bias across WVC studies. Therefore, more than persistence times, studies should carefully account for differing detectability when comparing WVC studies

Decreased thermal tolerance under recurrent heat stress conditions explains summer mass mortality of the blue mussel Mytilus edulis

Extreme events such as heat waves have increased in frequency and duration over the last decades. Under future climate scenarios, these discrete climatic events are expected to become even more recurrent and severe. Heat waves are particularly important on rocky intertidal shores, one of the most thermally variable and stressful habitats on the planet. Intertidal mussels, such as the blue mussel Mytilus edulis, are ecosystem engineers of global ecological and economic importance, that occasionally suffer mass mortalities. This study investigates the potential causes and consequences of a mass mortality event of M. edulis that occurred along the French coast of the eastern English Channel in summer 2018. We used an integrative, climatological and ecophysiological methodology based on three complementary approaches. We first showed that the observed mass mortality (representing 49 to 59% of the annual commercial value of local recreational and professional fisheries combined) occurred under relatively moderate heat wave conditions. This result indicates that M. edulis body temperature is controlled by non-climatic heat sources instead of climatic heat sources, as previously reported for intertidal gastropods. Using biomimetic loggers (i.e. 'robomussels'), we identified four periods of 5 to 6 consecutive days when M. edulis body temperatures consistently reached more than 30 °C, and occasionally more than 35 °C and even more than 40 °C. We subsequently reproduced these body temperature patterns in the laboratory to infer M. edulis thermal tolerance under conditions of repeated heat stress. We found that thermal tolerance consistently decreased with the number of successive daily exposures. These results are discussed in the context of an era of global change where heat events are expected to increase in intensity and frequency, especially in the eastern English Channel where the low frequency of commercially exploitable mussels already questions both their ecological and commercial sustainability.Funding Agency French Ministere de l'Enseignement Superieur et de la Recherche Region Hauts-de-France European Funds for Regional Economical Development Pierre Hubert Curien PESSOA Felloswhip Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT-MEC, Portugal) IF/01413/2014/CP1217/CT0004 National Research Foundation - South Africa 64801 South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) of the Department of Science and Technology National Research Foundation - South Africainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Body Mass Index Paradox in Head and Neck Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The body mass index (BMI) paradox describes that among patients with certain cancers, higher pretreatment BMI may be associated with improved survival. We examine the impact of BMI on overall survival (OS) in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients. A literature search was performed, and articles using hazard ratios to describe the prognostic impact of BMI on OS in HNSCC were included. Random-effects DerSimonian and Laird methods were employed for meta-analysis. Meta-analysis of OS indicated a lower hazards of death in the overweight (BMI: 25 kg/m2–30 kg/m2) compared to the normal weight (BMI: 18.5 kg/m2–25 kg/m2). This protective relationship loses significance when BMI exceeds 30 kg/m2. Underweight patients (BMI \u3c 18.5 kg/m2) demonstrate higher hazards of death compared to normal weight patients. Compared to HNSCC patients with normal weight, being overweight up to a BMI of 30 kg/m2 is a positive predictor of OS, while being underweight confers a prognostic disadvantage. Further studies are needed to determine the mechanisms by which increased body mass influences survival outcomes in HNSCC

Implementation of fully closed-loop insulin delivery for inpatients with diabetes: Real-world outcomes.

Funder: Addenbrooke's Charitable TrustAIMS: Fully closed-loop insulin delivery has been shown in clinical trials to be safe and improve glucose control compared with standard insulin therapy in the inpatient setting. We investigated the feasibility of implementing the approved CamAPS HX fully closed-loop system in a hospital setting. METHODS: This implementation project was conducted in a large teaching hospital in Cambridge, UK. Healthcare professional training was multimodal including face-to-face workshops, online learning modules and supported by standard operating procedures. Set-up and maintenance of closed-loop devices were undertaken by the inpatient diabetes team. Selection of suitable patients was multidisciplinary and prioritised those with more challenging diabetes management. Demographic and clinical data were collected from electronic health records and diabetes data management platforms. RESULTS: In the 12 months since the closed-loop system was implemented, 32 inpatients (mean ± SD age 61 ± 16 years, 8 females, 24 males) used closed-loop insulin delivery during their admission, across medical and surgical wards in the hospital with a total of 555 days of closed-loop glucose control (median [IQR]: 14 [6, 22] days per inpatient). The time spent in target glucose range 3.9-10.0 mmol/L was 53.3 ± 18.3%. Mean glucose was 10.7 ± 1.9 mmol/L with 46.0 ± 18.2% of time spent with glucose >10.0 mmol/L. Time spent with sensor glucose below 3.9 mmol/L was low (median [IQR]: 0.38 [0.00, 0.85]). There were no episodes of severe hypoglycaemia or diabetic ketoacidosis during closed-loop use. CONCLUSIONS: We have demonstrated that the fully closed-loop system can be safely and effectively implemented by a diabetes outreach team in complex medical and surgical inpatients with challenging glycaemic control

Shaping sustainability of seafood from capture fisheries integrating the perspectives of supply chain stakeholders through combining systems analysis tools

Seafood from capture fisheries can be assessed in many ways and for different purposes, with sometimes divergent views on what characterizes “sustainable use”. Here we use two systems analysis tools—Ecological Risk Assessment for Effects of Fishing (ERAEF) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)—over the historical development of the Australian Patagonian toothfish fishery at Heard and McDonald Islands since the start in 1997. We find that ecological risks have been systematically identified in the management process using ERAEF, and with time have been mitigated, resulting in a lower risk fishery from an ecological impact perspective. LCA inventory data from the industry shows that fuel use per kilo has increased over the history of the fishery. Our results suggest that LCA and ERAEF may provide contrasting and complementary perspectives on sustainability and reveal trade-offs when used in combination. Incorporation of LCA perspectives in assessing impacts of fishing may facilitate refinement of ecosystem-based fisheries management, such as improved integration of the different perspectives of supply chain stakeholders