Ecohydrological consequences of tree removal in an urban park evaluated using open data, free software and a minimalist measuring campaign

With ongoing global climate change and an increasingly urbanized population, the importance of city parks and other forms of urban vegetation increases. Trees in urban parks can play an important role in mitigating runoff and delivering other ecosystem services. Park managers, E-NGOs, citizen scientists and others are increasingly called upon to evaluate the possible consequences of changes in park management such as, e.g., tree removal. Here, we present an unorthodox approach to hydrological modelling and its potential use in local policy making regarding urban greenery. The approach consists of a minimalist field campaign to characterize vegetation and soil moisture status combined with a novel model calibration using freely available data and software. During modelling, we were able to obtain coefficients of determination (R-2) of 0.66 and 0.73 for probe-measured and simulated soil moisture under tree stand and park lawn land covers respectively. The results demonstrated that tree cover had a significant positive effect on the hydrological regime of the locality through interception, transpiration and effects on soil moisture. Simulations suggested that tree cover was twice as effective at mitigating runoff than park lawn and almost seven times better than impervious surfaces. In the case of a potential replacement of tree vegetation in favour of park lawn or impervious surfaces an increase in runoff of 14% and 81% respectively could be expected. The main conclusion drawn from our study was that such an approach can be a very useful tool for supporting local decision-making processes as it offers a freely available, cheap and relatively easy-to-use way to describe the hydrological consequences of landcover change (e.g., tree removal) with sufficient accuracy. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V

Hyperinvasive approach to out-of hospital cardiac arrest using mechanical chest compression device, prehospital intraarrest cooling, extracorporeal life support and early invasive assessment compared to standard of care. A randomized parallel groups ...

Out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) has a poor outcome. Recent non-randomized studies of ECLS (extracorporeal life support) in OHCA suggested further prospective multicenter studies to define population that would benefit from ECLS. We aim to perform a prospective randomized study comparing prehospital intraarrest hypothermia combined with mechanical chest compression device, intrahospital ECLS and early invasive investigation and treatment in all patients with OHCA of presumed cardiac origin compared to a standard of care. Methods This paper describes methodology and design of the proposed trial. Patients with witnessed OHCA without ROSC (return of spontaneous circulation) after a minimum of 5 minutes of ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) by emergency medical service (EMS) team and after performance of all initial procedures (defibrillation, airway management, intravenous access establishment) will be randomized to standard vs. hyperinvasive arm. In hyperinvasive arm, mechanical compression device together with intranasal evaporative cooling will be instituted and patients will be transferred directly to cardiac center under ongoing CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). After admission, ECLS inclusion/exclusion criteria will be evaluated and if achieved, veno-arterial ECLS will be started. Invasive investigation and standard post resuscitation care will follow. Patients in standard arm will be managed on scene. When ROSC achieved, they will be transferred to cardiac center and further treated as per recent guidelines. Primary outcome 6 months survival with good neurological outcome (Cerebral Performance Category 1–2). Secondary outcomes will include 30 day neurological and cardiac recovery. Discussion Authors introduce and offer a protocol of a proposed randomized study comparing a combined “hyper invasive approach” to a standard of care in refractory OHCA. The protocol is opened for sharing by other cardiac centers with available ECLS and cathlab teams trained to admit patients with refractory cardiac arrest under ongoing CPR. A prove of concept study will be started soon. The aim of the authors is to establish a net of centers for a multicenter trial initiation in future

The Solar Activity Monitor Network – SAMNet

The Solar Activity Magnetic Monitor (SAMM) Network (SAMNet) is a future UK-led international network of ground-based solar telescope stations. SAMNet, at its full capacity, will continuously monitor the Sun’s intensity, magnetic, and Doppler velocity fields at multiple heights in the solar atmosphere (from photosphere to upper chromosphere). Each SAMM sentinel will be equipped with a cluster of identical telescopes each with a different magneto-optical filter (MOFs) to take observations in K I, Na D, and Ca I spectral bands. A subset of SAMM stations will have white-light coronagraphs and emission line coronal spectropolarimeters. The objectives of SAMNet are to provide observational data for space weather research and forecast. The goal is to achieve an operationally sufficient lead time of e.g., flare warning of 2–8 h and provide many sought-after continuous synoptic maps (e.g., LoS magnetic and velocity fields, intensity) of the lower solar atmosphere with a spatial resolution limited only by seeing or diffraction limit, and with a cadence of 10 min. The individual SAMM sentinels will be connected to their master HQ hub where data received from all the slave stations will be automatically processed and flare warning issued up to 26 h in advance

Environmental Barcoding Reveals Massive Dinoflagellate Diversity in Marine Environments

Rowena F. Stern is with University of British Columbia, Ales Horak is with University of British Columbia, Rose L. Andrew is with University of British Columbia, Mary-Alice Coffroth is with State University of New York at Buffalo, Robert A. Andersen is with the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, Frithjof C. Küpper is with the Scottish Marine Institute, Ian Jameson is with CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Mona Hoppenrath is with the German Center for Marine Biodiversity Research, Benoît Véron is with University of Caen Lower Normandy and the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Fumai Kasai is with the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Jerry Brand is with UT Austin, Erick R. James is with University of British Columbia, Patrick J. Keeling is with University of British Columbia.Background -- Dinoflagellates are an ecologically important group of protists with important functions as primary producers, coral symbionts and in toxic red tides. Although widely studied, the natural diversity of dinoflagellates is not well known. DNA barcoding has been utilized successfully for many protist groups. We used this approach to systematically sample known “species”, as a reference to measure the natural diversity in three marine environments. Methodology/Principal Findings -- In this study, we assembled a large cytochrome c oxidase 1 (COI) barcode database from 8 public algal culture collections plus 3 private collections worldwide resulting in 336 individual barcodes linked to specific cultures. We demonstrate that COI can identify to the species level in 15 dinoflagellate genera, generally in agreement with existing species names. Exceptions were found in species belonging to genera that were generally already known to be taxonomically challenging, such as Alexandrium or Symbiodinium. Using this barcode database as a baseline for cultured dinoflagellate diversity, we investigated the natural diversity in three diverse marine environments (Northeast Pacific, Northwest Atlantic, and Caribbean), including an evaluation of single-cell barcoding to identify uncultivated groups. From all three environments, the great majority of barcodes were not represented by any known cultured dinoflagellate, and we also observed an explosion in the diversity of genera that previously contained a modest number of known species, belonging to Kareniaceae. In total, 91.5% of non-identical environmental barcodes represent distinct species, but only 51 out of 603 unique environmental barcodes could be linked to cultured species using a conservative cut-off based on distances between cultured species. Conclusions/Significance -- COI barcoding was successful in identifying species from 70% of cultured genera. When applied to environmental samples, it revealed a massive amount of natural diversity in dinoflagellates. This highlights the extent to which we underestimate microbial diversity in the environment.This project was funded by Genome Canada and the Canadian Barcode of Life Network. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Biological Sciences, School o