Global determinants of freshwater and marine fish genetic diversity

Genetic diversity is estimated to be declining faster than species diversity under escalating threats, but its spatial distribution remains poorly documented at the global scale. Theory predicts that similar processes should foster congruent spatial patterns of genetic and species diversity, but empirical studies are scarce. Using a mined database of 50,588 georeferenced mitochondrial DNA barcode sequences (COI) for 3,815 marine and 1,611 freshwater fish species respectively, we examined the correlation between genetic diversity and species diversity and their global distributions in relation to climate and geography. Genetic diversity showed a clear spatial organisation, but a weak association with species diversity for both marine and freshwater species. We found a predominantly positive relationship between genetic diversity and sea surface temperature for marine species. Genetic diversity of freshwater species varied primarily across the regional basins and was negatively correlated with average river slope. The detection of genetic diversity patterns suggests that conservation measures should consider mismatching spatial signals across multiple facets of biodiversity

Підвищення інвестиційної привабливості підприємств житлово-комунального господарства України на основі використання закордонного досвіду

Мета роботи - підвищення інвестиційної привабливості підприємств житлово-комунального господарства на основі можливостей використання закордонного досвіду реформування

Functional diversity of sharks and rays is highly vulnerable and supported by unique species and locations worldwide

Elasmobranchs (sharks, rays and skates) are among the most threatened marine vertebrates, yet their global functional diversity remains largely unknown. Here, we use a trait dataset of >1000 species to assess elasmobranch functional diversity and compare it against other previously studied biodiversity facets (taxonomic and phylogenetic), to identify species- and spatial- conservation priorities. We show that threatened species encompass the full extent of functional space and disproportionately include functionally distinct species. Applying the conservation metric FUSE (Functionally Unique, Specialised, and Endangered) reveals that most top-ranking species differ from the top Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) list. Spatial analyses further show that elasmobranch functional richness is concentrated along continental shelves and around oceanic islands, with 18 distinguishable hotspots. These hotspots only marginally overlap with those of other biodiversity facets, reflecting a distinct spatial fingerprint of functional diversity. Elasmobranch biodiversity facets converge with fishing pressure along the coast of China, which emerges as a critical frontier in conservation. Meanwhile, several components of elasmobranch functional diversity fall in high seas and/or outside the global network of marine protected areas. Overall, our results highlight acute vulnerability of the world’s elasmobranchs’ functional diversity and reveal global priorities for elasmobranch functional biodiversity previously overlooked

Maximizing regional biodiversity requires a mosaic of protection levels

Protected areas are the flagship management tools to secure biodiversity from anthropogenic impacts. However, the extent to which adjacent areas with distinct protection levels host different species numbers and compositions remains uncertain. Here, using reef fishes, European alpine plants, and North American birds, we show that the composition of species in adjacent Strictly Protected, Restricted, and Non-Protected areas is highly dissimilar, whereas the number of species is similar, after controlling for environmental conditions, sample size, and rarity. We find that between 12% and 15% of species are only recorded in Non-Protected areas, suggesting that a non-negligible part of regional biodiversity occurs where human activities are less regulated. For imperiled species, the proportion only recorded in Strictly Protected areas reaches 58% for fishes, 11% for birds, and 7% for plants, highlighting the fundamental and unique role of protected areas and their environmental conditions in biodiversity conservation

Identification of 12 new susceptibility loci for different histotypes of epithelial ovarian cancer.

To identify common alleles associated with different histotypes of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), we pooled data from multiple genome-wide genotyping projects totaling 25,509 EOC cases and 40,941 controls. We identified nine new susceptibility loci for different EOC histotypes: six for serous EOC histotypes (3q28, 4q32.3, 8q21.11, 10q24.33, 18q11.2 and 22q12.1), two for mucinous EOC (3q22.3 and 9q31.1) and one for endometrioid EOC (5q12.3). We then performed meta-analysis on the results for high-grade serous ovarian cancer with the results from analysis of 31,448 BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, including 3,887 mutation carriers with EOC. This identified three additional susceptibility loci at 2q13, 8q24.1 and 12q24.31. Integrated analyses of genes and regulatory biofeatures at each locus predicted candidate susceptibility genes, including OBFC1, a new candidate susceptibility gene for low-grade and borderline serous EOC

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

The specificity of marine ecological indicators to fishing in the face of environmental change: A multi-model evaluation

Shin, Yunne-Jai ... et al.-- This is a contribution to the IndiSeas Working Group, co-funded by IOC-UNESCO and the Euromarine Consortium in 2015.-- 10 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, supplementary data https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.01.010Ecological indicators are widely used to characterise ecosystem health. In the marine environment, indicators have been developed to assess the ecosystem effects of fishing to support an ecosystem approach to fisheries. However, very little work on the performance and robustness of ecological indicators has been carried out. An important aspect of robustness is that indicators should respond specifically to changes in the pressures they are designed to detect (e.g. fishing) rather than changes in other drivers (e.g. environment). We adopted a multi-model approach to compare and test the specificity of commonly used ecological indicators to capture fishing effects in the presence of environmental change and under different fishing strategies. We tested specificity in the presence of two types of environmental change: “random” representing interannual climate variability and “directional” representing climate change. We used phytoplankton biomass as a proxy of the environmental conditions, as this driver was comparable across all ecosystem models, then applied a signal-to-noise ratio analysis to test the specificity of indicators with random environmental change. For directional change, we used mean gradients to apportion the quantity of change in the indicators due to fishing and the environment. We found that depending on the fishing strategy and environmental change, ecological indicators could range from high to low specificity to fishing. As expected, the specificity of indicators to fishing almost always decreased as environmental variability increased. In 55–76% of the scenarios run with directional change in phytoplankton biomass across fishing strategies and ecosystem models, indicators were significantly more responsive to changes in fishing than to changes in phytoplankton biomass. This important result makes the tested ecological indicators good candidates to support fisheries management in a changing environment. Among the indicators, the catch over biomass ratio was most often the most specific indicator to fishing, whereas mean length was most often the most sensitive to change in phytoplankton biomass. However, the responses of indicators were highly variable depending on the ecosystem and fishing strategy under consideration. We therefore recommend that indicators should be tested in the particular ecosystem before they are used for monitoring and management purposesL.J.S was supported through the South African Research Chair Initiative, funded through the South African Department of Science and Technology and administered by the South African National Research Foundation. J.E.H., L.V., and Y.J.S were funded by the EMIBIOS project (FRB Fondation pour la Recherche sur la Biodiversité, contract n°APP-SCEN-2010-II). J.E.H. was supported by a Beaufort Marine Research Award carried out under the Sea Change Strategy and the Strategy for Science Technology and Innovation (2006–2013), with the support of the Marine Institute, funded under the Marine Research Sub-Programme of the Irish National Development Plan 2007–2013. L.J.S and Y.J.S. were funded by the European project MEECE (FP7, contract n°212085). M.C. was supported by a Marie Curie CIG grant to BIOWEB project and the Spanish Research Program Ramon y Cajal. Funding from CSIRO and the Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation on behalf of the Australian Government supported the development of Atlantis-SE. J.J.H was supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs under the project MERP: Grant No. NE/L003279/1, Marine Ecosystems Research ProgrammePeer Reviewe

Inferring food web structure from predator-prey body size relationships

1. Current global changes make it important to be able to predict which interactions will occur in the emerging ecosystems. Most of the current methods to infer the existence of interactions between two species require a good knowledge of their behaviour or a direct observation of interactions. In this paper, we overcome these limitations by developing a method, inspired from the niche model of food web structure, using the statistical relationship between predator and prey body size to infer the matrix of potential interactions among a pool of species.\ud \ud 2. The novelty of our approach is to infer, for any species of a given species pool, the three species-specific parameters of the niche model. The method applies to both local and metaweb scales. It allows one to evaluate the feeding interactions of a new species entering the community.\ud \ud 3. We find that this method gives robust predictions of the structure of food webs and that its efficiency is increased when the strength of the body-size relationship between predators and preys increases.\ud \ud 4. We finally illustrate the potential of the method to infer the metaweb structure of pelagic fishes of the Mediterranean sea under different global change scenarios

The Risky Decrease of Fishing Reference Points Under Climate Change

In Europe, implementation of sustainable fisheries management has been reinforced in the latest common fisheries policy, and presently marine fish stocks are mostly managed through assessment of their exploitation and ecological status compared to reference points such as Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY). However, MSY and its associated fishing mortality rate FMSY are sensitive to both stock characteristics and environment conditions. In parallel, climate change impacts are increasingly affecting fish stocks directly and indirectly but might also change the exploitation reference points and the associated level of catch. Here we explored the variability of MSY reference points under climate change by using a multi-species model applied to the Eastern English Channel, a highly exploited semi-continental sea. The spatial individual-based OSMOSE explicitly represents the entire fish life cycle of 14 species interacting through size-based opportunistic predation. The model was first parameterized and run to fit the historical situation (2000–2009) and then used to assess the ecosystem state for the 2050–2059 period, using two contrasting climate change scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). For each condition, a monospecific MSY estimation routine was performed by varying species fishing mortality independently and allowed estimation of reference points for each species. The FMSY estimated with OSMOSE were mostly in accordance with available values derived from stock assessment and used for fishing advice. Evolution of reference points with climate change was compared across species and highlighted that overexploited cold-water species are likely to have both MSY and FMSY declining with climate warming. Considering all species together, MSY under RCP scenarios was expected to be higher than historical MSY for half of them, with no clear link with species temperature preferences, exploitation status or trophic level, but in relation with expected change of species biomass under climate change. By contrast, for 80% of cases FMSY projections showed consistent decreasing pattern as climate conditions changed from historical to RCP scenarios in the Eastern English Channel. This result constitutes a risk for fisheries management, and anticipation of climate change impacts on fish community would require targeting a smaller fishing mortality than FMSY to ensure sustainable exploitation of marine stocks

The last hotspots of structural complexity as conservation targets in the Mesoamerican Coral Reef

Coral reefs are highly diverse marine ecosystems offering invaluable services to hundreds of million people worldwide. These ecosystems are currently threatened by global and local stressors, particularly affecting structurally complex coral species in depauperate zones such as the Caribbean. Marine protected areas (MPAs) can counteract climatic and local human stressors and offer a source of ecosystem resilience in the Anthropocene. Yet, their protective effect on structurally complex corals is still under scrutiny, while this could give light to management strategies towards the protection of such remaining “hotspots”. This study examined the combined effects of local stressors (human gravity) and thermal stress (maximum Degree Heating Week) on scleractinian corals' community structure over 158 sites located in the Mesoamerican Reef and evaluated how MPAs can mitigate these stressors. Our results suggest that MPAs can buffer the impacts of local human stressors on coral reefs, yet there is a spatial mismatch between hotspots of structural complexity and the level of protection since 41% of these sites were not protected in 2016. We recommend these last hotspots of structural complexity as priority areas for increased protection coverage and enforcement in the Mesoamerican Reef