Overcoming deer management challenges

Red deer populations normally range freely over estate boundaries, meaning problems can arise when adjacent estates have divergent management objectives. Estates wishing to manage primarily for biodiversity by regenerating native woodland or conserving peatland with minimal use of fencing often reduce deer populations through enhanced culling, which can negatively impact on the interests and business of adjacent traditional deer stalking estates. Issues between neighbours can hamper the ability of estates to carry out their management aims. The issues can be contentious; this study seeks to shed light not heat on the topic. West Highland case study estates were sought by word of mouth. We looked for case study pairs where issues between neighbours had been resolved or were on-going. Five case studies were carried out: two pairs of estates and one unpaired estate. Information was collected to allow characterisation of the estates, the nature of the issue with the neighbour, along with supporting information on the Habitat Impact Assessment (HIA) process, Deer Management Groups (DMGs), the participants’ views on fencing, and the key challenges faced by participants in relation to deer management. We found the deer management issues were only partially resolved, or were unresolved, with participants resigned to the problem. HIAs were being carried out in-house on the three ‘non traditional’ estates and by contract surveyors on the two ‘traditional stalking’ estates. Participants from the ‘traditional stalking’ estates felt positive about the use of deer fencing, while those from the ‘non-traditional’ estates held a variety of different views on fencing, from pragmatic support to being ‘anti-fence’. Participants from ‘traditional stalking’ estates felt the key challenge facing them was government interference, while those from ‘non-traditional’ estates were concerned by getting trees to regenerate, maintaining fences, and maintaining high levels of deer culling

Exclusive ρ0\rho^0 electroproduction on the proton at CLAS

The $e p\to e^\prime p \rho^0$ reaction has been measured, using the 5.754 GeV electron beam of Jefferson Lab and the CLAS detector. This represents the largest ever set of data for this reaction in the valence region. Integrated and differential cross sections are presented. The $W$, $Q^2$ and $t$ dependences of the cross section are compared to theoretical calculations based on $t$-channel meson-exchange Regge theory on the one hand and on quark handbag diagrams related to Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) on the other hand. The Regge approach can describe at the $\approx$ 30% level most of the features of the present data while the two GPD calculations that are presented in this article which succesfully reproduce the high energy data strongly underestimate the present data. The question is then raised whether this discrepancy originates from an incomplete or inexact way of modelling the GPDs or the associated hard scattering amplitude or whether the GPD formalism is simply inapplicable in this region due to higher-twists contributions, incalculable at present.Comment: 29 pages, 29 figure

Estimation of the national disease burden of influenza-associated severe acute respiratory illness in Kenya and Guatemala : a novel methodology

Background: Knowing the national disease burden of severe influenza in low-income countries can inform policy decisions around influenza treatment and prevention. We present a novel methodology using locally generated data for estimating this burden. Methods and Findings: This method begins with calculating the hospitalized severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) incidence for children <5 years old and persons ≥5 years old from population-based surveillance in one province. This base rate of SARI is then adjusted for each province based on the prevalence of risk factors and healthcare-seeking behavior. The percentage of SARI with influenza virus detected is determined from provincial-level sentinel surveillance and applied to the adjusted provincial rates of hospitalized SARI. Healthcare-seeking data from healthcare utilization surveys is used to estimate non-hospitalized influenza-associated SARI. Rates of hospitalized and non-hospitalized influenza-associated SARI are applied to census data to calculate the national number of cases. The method was field-tested in Kenya, and validated in Guatemala, using data from August 2009–July 2011. In Kenya (2009 population 38.6 million persons), the annual number of hospitalized influenza-associated SARI cases ranged from 17,129–27,659 for children <5 years old (2.9–4.7 per 1,000 persons) and 6,882–7,836 for persons ≥5 years old (0.21–0.24 per 1,000 persons), depending on year and base rate used. In Guatemala (2011 population 14.7 million persons), the annual number of hospitalized cases of influenza-associated pneumonia ranged from 1,065–2,259 (0.5–1.0 per 1,000 persons) among children <5 years old and 779–2,252 cases (0.1–0.2 per 1,000 persons) for persons ≥5 years old, depending on year and base rate used. In both countries, the number of non-hospitalized influenza-associated cases was several-fold higher than the hospitalized cases. Conclusions: Influenza virus was associated with a substantial amount of severe disease in Kenya and Guatemala. This method can be performed in most low and lower-middle income countries

π+\pi^+ photoproduction on the proton for photon energies from 0.725 to 2.875 GeV

Differential cross sections for the reaction $\gamma p \to n \pi^+$ have been measured with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) and a tagged photon beam with energies from 0.725 to 2.875 GeV. Where available, the results obtained here compare well with previously published results for the reaction. Agreement with the SAID and MAID analyses is found below 1 GeV. The present set of cross sections has been incorporated into the SAID database, and exploratory fits have been made up to 2.7 GeV. Resonance couplings have been extracted and compared to previous determinations. With the addition of these cross sections to the world data set, significant changes have occurred in the high-energy behavior of the SAID cross-section predictions and amplitudes.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Whole mitochondrial genomes unveil the impact of domestication on goat matrilineal variability

Background: The current extensive use of the domestic goat (Capra hircus) is the result of its medium size and high adaptability as multiple breeds. The extent to which its genetic variability was influenced by early domestication practices is largely unknown. A common standard by which to analyze maternally-inherited variability of livestock species is through complete sequencing of the entire mitogenome (mitochondrial DNA, mtDNA). Results: We present the first extensive survey of goat mitogenomic variability based on 84 complete sequences selected from an initial collection of 758 samples that represent 60 different breeds of C. hircus, as well as its wild sister species, bezoar (Capra aegagrus) from Iran. Our phylogenetic analyses dated the most recent common ancestor of C. hircus to ~460,000 years (ka) ago and identified five distinctive domestic haplogroups (A, B1, C1a, D1 and G). More than 90 % of goats examined were in haplogroup A. These domestic lineages are predominantly nested within C. aegagrus branches, diverged concomitantly at the interface between the Epipaleolithic and early Neolithic periods, and underwent a dramatic expansion starting from ~12–10 ka ago. Conclusions: Domestic goat mitogenomes descended from a small number of founding haplotypes that underwent domestication after surviving the last glacial maximum in the Near Eastern refuges. All modern haplotypes A probably descended from a single (or at most a few closely related) female C. aegagrus. Zooarchaelogical data indicate that domestication first occurred in Southeastern Anatolia. Goats accompanying the first Neolithic migration waves into the Mediterranean were already characterized by two ancestral A and C variants. The ancient separation of the C branch (~130 ka ago) suggests a genetically distinct population that could have been involved in a second event of domestication. The novel diagnostic mutational motifs defined here, which distinguish wild and domestic haplogroups, could be used to understand phylogenetic relationships among modern breeds and ancient remains and to evaluate whether selection differentially affected mitochondrial genome variants during the development of economically important breeds