OPENCRONIC Study. Knowledge and experiences of Spanish patients and carers about chronic disease

Background: Chronic diseases are currently the main cause of morbidity and mortality and represent a major challenge to healthcare systems. The objective of this study is to know Spanish public opinion about chronic disease and how it affects their daily lives. Methods: Through a telephone or online survey of 24 questions, data was gathered on the characteristics of the respondents and their knowledge and experiences of chronic diseases. Results: Of the 2522 survey respondents, 325 had a chronic disease and were carers, 1088 had a chronic disease and were not carers, 140 did not have a chronic disease but were carers, and 969 did not have chronic disease and were not carers. The degree of knowledge on these diseases was good or very good for 69.4%, 56.0%, 62.2%, and 46.7%, respectively, for each group. All the groups agreed that chronic diseases mainly affect mood, quality of life and having to make sacrifices. Conclusions: Knowledge about chronic diseases is relatively good, although it can be improved among the Spanish population, especially among patients who report having a chronic disease and play the role of carers. However, it is important to continue maintaining the level of information and training concerning these diseases.Boehringer Ingelheim España, S.

A common garden experiment supports a genetic component underlying the increased resilience of common cockle (Cerastoderma edule) to the parasite Marteilia cochillia

16 pages, 6 figures, 1 table.-- This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution LicenseThe common cockle is a valuable bivalve species inhabiting the Atlantic European coasts. The parasite Marteilia cochillia has devastated cockle beds in the southern Galician (NW Spain) rias since 2012. Previous data suggested that cockles from Ría de Arousa acquired some resilience to this parasite through natural selection after consecutive annual marteiliosis outbreaks and candidate markers associated with marteiliosis resilience were identified using population genomics and transcriptomics approaches. Here, a common garden experiment was performed using a naïve stock (from Ría de Muros-Noia) and an affected stock (from Ría de Arousa) to test this hypothesis. Breeders from both stocks were used to produce seed cohorts at hatchery, which were pre-grown in a raft (outdoor nursery stage) and deployed in two shellfish beds affected by marteiliosis in Ría de Arousa (growing-out stage). In both beds, the naïve stock showed high marteiliosis prevalence and was fully depleted in a short period, while the affected stock barely showed evidence of marteiliosis. A set of 45 SNPs putatively associated with marteiliosis resilience were fitted for MassARRAY genotyping to check their role in the differential resilience detected between both stocks. Though no significant differentiation was found between the naïve and the affected stocks with neutral markers, 28 SNPs showed significant divergence between them, suggesting that these SNPs were involved in directional selection during eight generations (to the most) of marteiliosis pressure (long-term selection). Furthermore, signals of selection were also detected in the naïve stock along the marteiliosis outbreak in the growing-out stage (short-term selection) and six SNPs, all shared with the long-term evaluation, showed consistent signals of differentiation according to the infection severity. Some of these SNPs were located within immune genes pertaining to families such as proteasome, ubiquitin, tumor necrosis factor, and glutathione S-transferase. These resilience-associated markers will be useful to recover cockle production in GaliciaR.M. Coimbra was supported by a scholarship from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq 202015/2020-3) of the Brazilian Government. This research was funded by the European Union through the project COCKLES within the INTERREG-AA program (EAPA_458/2016), by the Consellería do Mar da Xunta de Galicia, through the project RESMART (CIMA 21/07). This research has been carried out under the framework of the Spain's Recovery and Resilience Plan, and more specifically under the investment line no.1 of its component number 17, where the complementary RTDI plan with the autonomous regions of Spain is foreseen, with one of those being the Complementary RTDI Plan for Marine Science which includes the Marine Science Program for Galicia. The research in this paper corresponds to the Program Work Package n° 6 and activity no. 6.3.A.2 about “Genetic architecture of marteiliosis resistance in common cockle” and has been funded by the Resilience and Recovery FundsPeer reviewe

Atlas de las praderas marinas de España

Knowledge of the distribution and extent of seagrass habitats is currently the basis of management and conservation policies of the coastal zones in most European countries. This basic information is being requested through European directives for the establishment of monitoring programmes and the implementation of specific actions to preserve the marine environment. In addition, this information is crucial for the quantification of the ecological importance usually attributed to seagrass habitats due to, for instance, their involvement in biogeochemical cycles, marine biodiversity and quality of coastal waters or global carbon budgets. The seagrass atlas of Spain represents a huge collective effort performed by 84 authors across 30 Spanish institutions largely involved in the scientific research, management and conservation of seagrass habitats during the last three decades. They have contributed to the availability of the most precise and realistic seagrass maps for each region of the Spanish coast which have been integrated in a GIS to obtain the distribution and area of each seagrass species. Most of this information has independently originated at a regional level by regional governments, universities and public research organisations, which explain the elevated heterogeneity in criteria, scales, methods and objectives of the available information. On this basis, seagrass habitats in Spain occupy a total surface of 1,541,63 km2, 89% of which is concentrated in the Mediterranean regions; the rest is present in sheltered estuarine areas of the Atlantic peninsular regions and in the open coastal waters of the Canary Islands, which represents 50% of the Atlantic meadows. Of this surface, 71.5% corresponds to Posidonia oceanica, 19.5% to Cymodocea nodosa, 3.1% to Zostera noltii (=Nanozostera noltii), 0.3% to Zostera marina and 1.2% to Halophila decipiens. Species distribution maps are presented (including Ruppia spp.), together with maps of the main impacts and pressures that has affected or threatened their conservation status, as well as the management tools established for their protection and conservation. Despite this considerable effort, and the fact that Spain has mapped wide shelf areas, the information available is still incomplete and with weak precision in many regions, which will require an investment of major effort in the near future to complete the whole picture and respond to demands of EU directives

Atlas de las praderas marinas de España

Knowledge of the distribution and extent of seagrass habitats is currently the basis of management and conservation policies of the coastal zones in most European countries. This basic information is being requested through European directives for the establishment of monitoring programmes and the implementation of specific actions to preserve the marine environment. In addition, this information is crucial for the quantification of the ecological importance usually attributed to seagrass habitats due to, for instance, their involvement in biogeochemical cycles, marine biodiversity and quality of coastal waters or global carbon budgets. The seagrass atlas of Spain represents a huge collective effort performed by 84 authors across 30 Spanish institutions largely involved in the scientific research, management and conservation of seagrass habitats during the last three decades. They have contributed to the availability of the most precise and realistic seagrass maps for each region of the Spanish coast which have been integrated in a GIS to obtain the distribution and area of each seagrass species. Most of this information has independently originated at a regional level by regional governments, universities and public research organisations, which explain the elevated heterogeneity in criteria, scales, methods and objectives of the available information. On this basis, seagrass habitats in Spain occupy a total surface of 1,541,63 km2, 89% of which is concentrated in the Mediterranean regions; the rest is present in sheltered estuarine areas of the Atlantic peninsular regions and in the open coastal waters of the Canary Islands, which represents 50% of the Atlantic meadows. Of this surface, 71.5% corresponds to Posidonia oceanica, 19.5% to Cymodocea nodosa, 3.1% to Zostera noltii (=Nanozostera noltii), 0.3% to Zostera marina and 1.2% to Halophila decipiens. Species distribution maps are presented (including Ruppia spp.), together with maps of the main impacts and pressures that has affected or threatened their conservation status, as well as the management tools established for their protection and conservation. Despite this considerable effort, and the fact that Spain has mapped wide shelf areas, the information available is still incomplete and with weak precision in many regions, which will require an investment of major effort in the near future to complete the whole picture and respond to demands of EU directives.Versión del edito

OPENCRONIC Study. Knowledge and Experiences of Spanish Patients and Carers about Chronic Disease

Background: Chronic diseases are currently the main cause of morbidity and mortality and represent a major challenge to healthcare systems. The objective of this study is to know Spanish public opinion about chronic disease and how it affects their daily lives. Methods: Through a telephone or online survey of 24 questions, data was gathered on the characteristics of the respondents and their knowledge and experiences of chronic diseases. Results: Of the 2522 survey respondents, 325 had a chronic disease and were carers, 1088 had a chronic disease and were not carers, 140 did not have a chronic disease but were carers, and 969 did not have chronic disease and were not carers. The degree of knowledge on these diseases was good or very good for 69.4%, 56.0%, 62.2%, and 46.7%, respectively, for each group. All the groups agreed that chronic diseases mainly affect mood, quality of life and having to make sacrifices. Conclusions: Knowledge about chronic diseases is relatively good, although it can be improved among the Spanish population, especially among patients who report having a chronic disease and play the role of carers. However, it is important to continue maintaining the level of information and training concerning these diseases

Global COVID-19 lockdown highlights humans as both threats and custodians of the environment

The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from 89 different studies. Hundreds of reports of unusual species observations from around the world suggest that animals quickly responded to the reductions in human presence. However, negative effects of lockdown on conservation also emerged, as confinement resulted in some park officials being unable to perform conservation, restoration and enforcement tasks, resulting in local increases in illegal activities such as hunting. Overall, there is a complex mixture of positive and negative effects of the pandemic lockdown on nature, all of which have the potential to lead to cascading responses which in turn impact wildlife and nature conservation. While the net effect of the lockdown will need to be assessed over years as data becomes available and persistent effects emerge, immediate responses were detected across the world. Thus initial qualitative and quantitative data arising from this serendipitous global quasi-experimental perturbation highlights the dual role that humans play in threatening and protecting species and ecosystems. Pathways to favorably tilt this delicate balance include reducing impacts and increasing conservation effectiveness