Global trends in aquatic animal tracking with acoustic telemetry

Acoustic telemetry (AT) is a rapidly evolving technique used to track the movements of aquatic animals. As the capacity of AT research expands it is important to optimize its relevance to management while still pursuing key ecological questions. A global review of AT literature revealed region-specific research priorities underscoring the breadth of how AT is applied, but collectively demonstrated a lack of management-driven objectives, particularly relating to fisheries, climate change, and protection of species. In addition to the need for more research with direct pertinence to management, AT research should prioritize ongoing efforts to create collaborative opportunities, establish long-term and ecosystem-based monitoring, and utilize technological advancements to bolster aquatic policy and ecological understanding worldwide

Key Questions in Marine Megafauna Movement Ecology

It is a golden age for animal movement studies and so an opportune time to assess priorities for future work. We assembled 40 experts to identify key questions in this field, focussing on marine megafauna, which include a broad range of birds, mammals, reptiles, and fish. Research on these taxa has both underpinned many of the recent technical developments and led to fundamental discoveries in the field. We show that the questions have broad applicability to other taxa, including terrestrial animals, flying insects, and swimming invertebrates, and, as such, this exercise provides a useful roadmap for targeted deployments and data syntheses that should advance the field of movement ecolog

Key Questions in Marine Megafauna Movement Ecology

It is a golden age for animal movement studies and so an opportune time to assess priorities for future work. We assembled 40 experts to identify key questions in this field, focussing on marine megafauna, which include a broad range of birds, mammals, reptiles, and fish. Research on these taxa has both underpinned many of the recent technical developments and led to fundamental discoveries in the field. We show that the questions have broad applicability to other taxa, including terrestrial animals, flying insects, and swimming invertebrates, and, as such, this exercise provides a useful roadmap for targeted deployments and data syntheses that should advance the field of movement ecology

Animal-borne telemetry: An integral component of the ocean observing toolkit

Animal telemetry is a powerful tool for observing marine animals and the physical environments that they inhabit, from coastal and continental shelf ecosystems to polar seas and open oceans. Satellite-linked biologgers and networks of acoustic receivers allow animals to be reliably monitored over scales of tens of meters to thousands of kilometers, giving insight into their habitat use, home range size, the phenology of migratory patterns and the biotic and abiotic factors that drive their distributions. Furthermore, physical environmental variables can be collected using animals as autonomous sampling platforms, increasing spatial and temporal coverage of global oceanographic observation systems. The use of animal telemetry, therefore, has the capacity to provide measures from a suite of essential ocean variables (EOVs) for improved monitoring of Earth's oceans. Here we outline the design features of animal telemetry systems, describe current applications and their benefits and challenges, and discuss future directions. We describe new analytical techniques that improve our ability to not only quantify animal movements but to also provide a powerful framework for comparative studies across taxa. We discuss the application of animal telemetry and its capacity to collect biotic and abiotic data, how the data collected can be incorporated into ocean observing systems, and the role these data can play in improved ocean management

Congenic NOD mouse strains exhibit different diabetes incidences and localize <i>Idd5</i>.<i>4</i>.

<p>The cumulative incidence of diabetes was determined for age-matched cohorts for NOD and NOD.B6-Chr1 R7 females (A) and males (B); and age-matched cohorts for NOD, NOD.B6-Chr1 R0 and NOD.B6-Chr1 R2 females (C) and males (D). Congenic NOD mouse strains were homozygous for their respective B6-derived intervals. Pairwise comparisons of diabetes incidence curves were performed using the log-rank test: (A) ** P = 0.001; (B) *** P = 4.7x10^-6. For panel (C) and (D), the P values were corrected for multiple testing (i.e. three comparisons): (C) 1: Holm-adjusted P = 0.09, 2: Holm-adjusted P = 0.09, 3**: P = 0.0002; (D) 1: Holm-adjusted P = 0.15, 2: Holm-adjusted P > 0.2, 3*: Holm adjusted P = 0.04.</p

Schematic diagram of mouse chromosome 1 and congenic intervals.

<p>Congenic strains names are abbreviated: R0 = NOD.B6-Chr1^{D1Mit48-D1Mit348}Pigr^-/-, R2 = NOD.B6-Chr1^{Pigr-D1Mit348}Pigr^-/-, R7 = NOD.B6-Chr1^{<i>D1Mit48-D1Mit495</i>}. Diabetes incidence for congenic strains is described relative to NOD mice (>NOD or < NOD, based on Figs <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0121979#pone.0121979.g001" target="_blank">1</a> and <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0121979#pone.0121979.g003" target="_blank">3</a>). <i>Idd5</i>.<i>4^a</i> represents the B10-derived interval defined by Hunter <i>et al</i>. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0121979#pone.0121979.ref025" target="_blank">25</a>]; <i>Idd5</i>.<i>4^b</i> represents the B6-derived interval, defined by the R7 congenic strain, that confers increased susceptibility to diabetes; <i>IddX</i> represents the B6-derived interval harboring the <i>Pigr</i> null allele, defined by the R2 congenic strain, that confers protection against diabetes. Marker and gene positions are based on NCBI Bld37, mm9.</p

pIgR-deficient NOD mice exhibit altered IgA levels and increased diabetes incidence.

<p>IgA concentration in fecal extracts (A) and serum (B) from female NOD and pIgR-deficient NOD mice are shown, mean values are represented by horizontal bars, and statistical significance is represented by ** P = 0.001. The cumulative incidence of diabetes was determined for age-matched female (C) and male (D) cohorts. The statistical significance of pairwise comparisons of diabetes incidence curves are (C) *** P = 7.6x10^-6, (D) ** P = 0.001.</p

The Genotype and Phenotype (GaP) registry: a living biobank for the analysis of quantitative traits

We describe the development of the Genotype and Phenotype (GaP) Registry, a living biobank of normal volunteers who are genotyped for genetic markers related to human disease. Participants in the GaP can be recalled for hypothesis driven study of disease associated genetic variants. The GaP has facilitated functional studies of several autoimmune disease associated loci including Csk, Blk, PDRM1 (Blimp-1) and PTPN22. It is likely that expansion of such living biobank registries will play an important role in studying and understanding the function of disease associated alleles in complex disease