On a Rare Visit to Texas

<p>Species' sensitivity scores are calculated as their niche breadth*reliance, with higher values indicating species less sensitive to changes in resource abundance or availability. Equivalent, PECBMS-only <i>BREAKPOINT</i> sets for the forest type and region indicators are presented in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0097217#pone.0097217.s014" target="_blank">Table S7</a>. ‘0/1’ identifies species that were interchangeable in any given breakpoint set due to equal sensitivity scores – see specific note for each indicator for further details.</p><p><i>*Species also included in current pan-European forest bird indicator (for full list see</i><a href="http://www.ebcc.info/index.php?ID=459" target="_blank">http://www.ebcc.info/index.php?ID=459</a>).</p>a<p>Either species could be included.</p>b<p>Any one of three could be included.</p>c<p>Any two of three could be included.</p

A Preclinical Assessment of Neural Stem Cells as Delivery Vehicles for Anti-Amyloid Therapeutics

Transplantation of neural stems cells (NSCs) could be a useful means to deliver biologic therapeutics for late-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this study, we conducted a small preclinical investigation of whether NSCs could be modified to express metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9), a secreted protease reported to degrade aggregated Aβ peptides that are the major constituents of the senile plaques. Our findings illuminated three issues with using NSCs as delivery vehicles for this particular application. First, transplanted NSCs generally failed to migrate to amyloid plaques, instead tending to colonize white matter tracts. Second, the final destination of these cells was highly influenced by how they were delivered. We found that our injection methods led to cells largely distributing to white matter tracts, which are anisotropic conduits for fluids that facilitate rapid distribution within the CNS. Third, with regard to MMP9 as a therapeutic to remove senile plaques, we observed high concentrations of endogenous metalloproteinases around amyloid plaques in the mouse models used for these preclinical tests with no evidence that the NSC-delivered enzymes elevated these activities or had any impact. Interestingly, MMP9-expressing NSCs formed substantially larger grafts. Overall, we observed long-term survival of NSCs in the brains of mice with high amyloid burden. Therefore, we conclude that such cells may have potential in therapeutic applications in AD but improved targeting of these cells to disease-specific lesions may be required to enhance efficacy

A Niche-Based Framework to Assess Current Monitoring of European Forest Birds and Guide Indicator Species' Selection

Concern that European forest biodiversity is depleted and declining has provoked widespread efforts to improve management practices. To gauge the success of these actions, appropriate monitoring of forest ecosystems is paramount. Multi-species indicators are frequently used to assess the state of biodiversity and its response to implemented management, but generally applicable and objective methodologies for species' selection are lacking. Here we use a niche-based approach, underpinned by coarse quantification of species' resource use, to objectively select species for inclusion in a pan-European forest bird indicator. We identify both the minimum number of species required to deliver full resource coverage and the most sensitive species' combination, and explore the trade-off between two key characteristics, sensitivity and redundancy, associated with indicators comprising different numbers of species. We compare our indicator to an existing forest bird indicator selected on the basis of expert opinion and show it is more representative of the wider community. We also present alternative indicators for regional and forest type specific monitoring and show that species' choice can have a significant impact on the indicator and consequent projections about the state of the biodiversity it represents. Furthermore, by comparing indicator sets drawn from currently monitored species and the full forest bird community, we identify gaps in the coverage of the current monitoring scheme. We believe that adopting this niche-based framework for species' selection supports the objective development of multi-species indicators and that it has good potential to be extended to a range of habitats and taxa

The future distribution of wetland birds breeding in Europe validated against observed changes in distribution

Wetland bird species have been declining in population size worldwide as climate warming and land-use change affect their suitable habitats. We used species distribution models (SDMs) to predict changes in range dynamics for 64 non-passerine wetland birds breeding in Europe, including range size, position of centroid, and margins. We fitted the SDMs with data collected for the first European Breeding Bird Atlas and climate and land-use data to predict distributional changes over a century (the 1970s-2070s). The predicted annual changes were then compared to observed annual changes in range size and range centroid over a time period of 30 years using data from the second European Breeding Bird Atlas. Our models successfully predicted ca. 75% of the 64 bird species to contract their breeding range in the future, while the remaining species (mostly southerly breeding species) were predicted to expand their breeding ranges northward. The northern margins of southerly species and southern margins of northerly species, both, predicted to shift northward. Predicted changes in range size and shifts in range centroids were broadly positively associated with the observed changes, although some species deviated markedly from the predictions. The predicted average shift in core distributions was ca. 5 km yr(-1) towards the north (5% northeast, 45% north, and 40% northwest), compared to a slower observed average shift of ca. 3.9 km yr(-1). Predicted changes in range centroids were generally larger than observed changes, which suggests that bird distribution changes may lag behind environmental changes leading to 'climate debt'. We suggest that predictions of SDMs should be viewed as qualitative rather than quantitative outcomes, indicating that care should be taken concerning single species. Still, our results highlight the urgent need for management actions such as wetland creation and restoration to improve wetland birds' resilience to the expected environmental changes in the future

Overview structure of SpecSel, the species' selection algorithm, outlining the process to identify the optimal indicator set for each set size.

<p>SpecSel has been implemented in Java and the program, including detailed coding for the search tree component, can be freely downloaded from <a href="https://www.uea.ac.uk/computing/specsel" target="_blank">https://www.uea.ac.uk/computing/specsel</a>.</p

Relationship between the number of species in the indicator and the average sensitivity score of constituent species in the most sensitive combination for that set size for the pan-European and alternative indicators drawn from all possible species.

<p>Average sensitivity scores calculated as average of niche breadth*reliance across constituent species, with higher scores associated with less sensitive indicators. See <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0097217#pone.0097217.s001" target="_blank">Figure S1</a> for the equivalent figure for pan-European and alternative indicators drawn only from species currently covered by PECBMS.</p