The Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme (PBMS) Report 2006-7

The Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme (PBMS) examines the levels of certain pollutants in selected wildlife species in Britain. It started in the 1960s to assess the impact of organochlorine pesticides on raptor populations, and the scheme is now the longest-running of its kind in the world. The aims of the PBMS are to monitor the levels of contaminants to determine how and why they vary between species and regions, how they are changing over time, and the risks they may have on individual birds and on their populations. Dead predatory birds are submitted to the PBMS by the public and by wildlife hospitals, veterinarian and zoological organisations. Eggs are collected, under licence, from a range of nests. The majority of these eggs are addled or deserted, although for some species, e.g. northern gannets, fresh egg are sampled. Second generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) are potentially toxic to all mammals and birds, and predators that feed upon rodents are particularly likely to be exposed to these compounds. Since 1983 the PBMS has monitored SGAR residues in barn owls, while kestrels have been monitored since 2001. The proportion of barn owls which have one or more SGARs in their liver increased from less than 10% in the 1980s to approximately 40% in the early 2000s. However, there has been a small decrease in this percentage in the last few years. A higher proportion of kestrels have detectable residues of SGARs in their liver than barn owls with 60% of birds received in the years 2001 to 2006 having one or more SGAR in their liver. There is no evidence of a change over time in the proportion ok kestrels with detectable liver SGAR residues. Overall, the high incidence of exposure amongst monitored species remains of concern. Sparrowhawk livers are analysed for a range of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and heavy metals. Sparrowhawks are studied because they have a wide distribution across the Britain and can be used as a sentinel species for the terrestrial environment. Following restrictions on its use as an agricultural pesticide, mercury concentrations have declined in sparrowhawks. However, despite PCBs being banned in 1981, there has not been any long-term change in polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) liver concentrations in sparrowhawks during the period 1968-2006. In herons, used as a sentinel species for freshwater habitats, both PCB and mercury concentrations have declined. In 2006, mean PCB and mercury concentrations in both species were below those thought to have an adverse effect on individual birds. Pollutants, such as mercury and PCBs, can affect development and hatchability.. Therefore, the PBMS monitors the levels of contaminants in the eggs of a range of species including those of conservation concern such as golden eagle and the re-introduced white-tailed sea eagle. Other species that are monitored are the northern gannet, which are used as a monitor of the marine environment, and merlin that hunt in upland habitats. In general, and specifically in 2006, the residues measured in the eggs of golden eagle and gannets are below those thought to have an adverse effect on bird eggs, but some residues in individual merlin eggs were at concentrations associated with effects in other species. Few white-tailed see eagle eggs are received for analysis by the PBMS but a large proportion of those eggs that have been analysed, including the egg collected in 2006, have DDE, PCB and mercury concentrations above levels associated with adverse effects on bird embryos and the hatching success of eggs. Despite the withdrawal of PCBs from manufacturing over 20 years ago, the evidence for declining PCB concentrations in predatory birds is equivocal, with declines in liver or egg residues in some species but not in others. Mercury concentrations in most species have not significantly changed during the monitoring period

A hidden Goldstone mechanism in the Kagom\'e lattice antiferromagnet

In this paper, we study the phases of the Heisenberg model on the \kagome lattice with antiferromagnetic nearest neighbour coupling $J_1$ and ferromagnetic next neighbour coupling $J_2$. Analysing the long wavelength, low energy effective action that describes this model, we arrive at the phase diagram as a function of $\chi = \frac{J_2}{J_1}$. The interesting part of this phase diagram is that for small $\chi$, which includes $\chi =0$, there is a phase with no long range spin order and with gapless and spin zero low lying excitations. We discuss our results in the context of earlier, numerical and experimental work.Comment: 21 pages, latex file with 5 figure

Nucleic Acid Preservation Card Surveillance Is Effective for Monitoring Arbovirus Transmission on Crocodile Farms and Provides a One Health Benefit to Northern Australia

The Kunjin strain of West Nile virus (WNVKUN) is a mosquito-transmitted flavivirus that can infect farmed saltwater crocodiles in Australia and cause skin lesions that devalue the hides of harvested animals. We implemented a surveillance system using honey-baited nucleic acid preservation cards to monitor WNVKUN and another endemic flavivirus pathogen, Murray Valley encephalitis virus (MVEV), on crocodile farms in northern Australia. The traps were set between February 2018 and July 2020 on three crocodile farms in Darwin (Northern Territory) and one in Cairns (North Queensland) at fortnightly intervals with reduced trapping during the winter months. WNVKUN RNA was detected on all three crocodile farms near Darwin, predominantly between March and May of each year. Two of the NT crocodile farms also yielded the detection of MVE viral RNA sporadically spread between April and November in 2018 and 2020. In contrast, no viral RNA was detected on crocodile farms in Cairns during the entire trapping period. The detection of WNVKUN and MVEV transmission by FTATM cards on farms in the Northern Territory generally correlated with the detection of their transmission to sentinel chicken flocks in nearby localities around Darwin as part of a separate public health surveillance program. While no isolates of WNVKUN or MVEV were obtained from mosquitoes collected on Darwin crocodile farms immediately following the FTATM card detections, we did isolate another flavivirus, Kokobera virus (KOKV), from Culex annulirostris mosquitoes. Our studies support the use of the FTATM card system as a sensitive and accurate method to monitor the transmission of WNVKUN and other arboviruses on crocodile farms to enable the timely implementation of mosquito control measures. Our detection of MVEV transmission and isolation of KOKV from mosquitoes also warrants further investigation of their potential role in causing diseases in crocodiles and highlights a “One Health” issue concerning arbovirus transmission to crocodile farm workers. In this context, the introduction of FTATM cards onto crocodile farms appears to provide an additional surveillance tool to detect arbovirus transmission in the Darwin region, allowing for a more timely intervention of vector control by relevant authorities

Accretion, Outflows, and Winds of Magnetized Stars

Many types of stars have strong magnetic fields that can dynamically influence the flow of circumstellar matter. In stars with accretion disks, the stellar magnetic field can truncate the inner disk and determine the paths that matter can take to flow onto the star. These paths are different in stars with different magnetospheres and periods of rotation. External field lines of the magnetosphere may inflate and produce favorable conditions for outflows from the disk-magnetosphere boundary. Outflows can be particularly strong in the propeller regime, wherein a star rotates more rapidly than the inner disk. Outflows may also form at the disk-magnetosphere boundary of slowly rotating stars, if the magnetosphere is compressed by the accreting matter. In isolated, strongly magnetized stars, the magnetic field can influence formation and/or propagation of stellar wind outflows. Winds from low-mass, solar-type stars may be either thermally or magnetically driven, while winds from massive, luminous O and B type stars are radiatively driven. In all of these cases, the magnetic field influences matter flow from the stars and determines many observational properties. In this chapter we review recent studies of accretion, outflows, and winds of magnetized stars with a focus on three main topics: (1) accretion onto magnetized stars; (2) outflows from the disk-magnetosphere boundary; and (3) winds from isolated massive magnetized stars. We show results obtained from global magnetohydrodynamic simulations and, in a number of cases compare global simulations with observations.Comment: 60 pages, 44 figure

Produtividade e valor nutritivo de pasto de capim-elefante manejado sob princípios agroecológicos.

Objetivou-se avaliar o valor nutritivo do capim-elefante, quanto aos teores de PB e FDN e a digestibilidade in vitro da MS (DIVMS), submetido a algumas práticas agroecológicas. Foram usados dois piquetes (0,15 ha cada), onde foi estabelecido o capim-elefante, em 2001, com espaçamento entrelinhas de três metros. Nas entrelinhas, estabeleceram-se aveia (Avena strigosa Schreb.) e azevém (Lolium multiflorum Lam.) no período hibernal e, no estival, permitiu-se o desenvolvimento de espécies de crescimento espontâneo. A adubação foi feita com fertilizantes orgânicos (150 kg de N /ha). No período experimental (24/04/2004 a 05/05/2005), foram conduzidos sete pastejos. Os animais experimentais foram vacas da raça Holandesa que receberam, como complementação alimentar, 3,5 kg/dia de concentrado. Avaliaram-se a massa de forragem inicial, composição botânica do pasto e os componentes estruturais. Para as análises de valor nutritivo do pasto, foram feitas amostragens simulando o pastejo. O delineamento experimental foi de blocos ao acaso com duas repetições (piquetes) e sete tratamentos (pastejos). Os melhores resultados do valor nutritivo foram obtidos no período hibernal. Foram encontradas correlações negativas da PB e DIVMS e positivas da FDN com a biomassa de lâminas foliares do capim-elefante. O capim-elefante, manejado sob princípios agroecológicos, apresentou alto valor nutritivo e produtividade, tanto no verão quanto no inverno, possibilitando que a produção animal seja mais sustentável no decorrer do ano

Time-Sensitive User Profile for Optimizing Search Personlization

International audienceThanks to social Web services, Web search engines have the opportunity to afford personalized search results that better fit the user’s information needs and interests. To achieve this goal, many personalized search approaches explore user’s social Web interactions to extract his preferences and interests, and use them to model his profile. In our approach, the user profile is implicitly represented as a vector of weighted terms which correspond to the user’s interests extracted from his online social activities. As the user interests may change over time, we propose to weight profiles terms not only according to the content of these activities but also by considering the freshness. More precisely, the weights are adjusted with a temporal feature. In order to evaluate our approach, we model the user profile according to data collected from Twitter. Then, we rerank initial search results accurately to the user profile. Moreover, we proved the significance of adding a temporal feature by comparing our method with baselines models that does not consider the user profile dynamics

Diving into the vertical dimension of elasmobranch movement ecology

Knowledge of the three-dimensional movement patterns of elasmobranchs is vital to understand their ecological roles and exposure to anthropogenic pressures. To date, comparative studies among species at global scales have mostly focused on horizontal movements. Our study addresses the knowledge gap of vertical movements by compiling the first global synthesis of vertical habitat use by elasmobranchs from data obtained by deployment of 989 biotelemetry tags on 38 elasmobranch species. Elasmobranchs displayed high intra- and interspecific variability in vertical movement patterns. Substantial vertical overlap was observed for many epipelagic elasmobranchs, indicating an increased likelihood to display spatial overlap, biologically interact, and share similar risk to anthropogenic threats that vary on a vertical gradient. We highlight the critical next steps toward incorporating vertical movement into global management and monitoring strategies for elasmobranchs, emphasizing the need to address geographic and taxonomic biases in deployments and to concurrently consider both horizontal and vertical movements