6 research outputs found
The Effects of Governmental Protected Areas and Social Initiatives for Land Protection on the Conservation of Mexican Amphibians
Traditionally, biodiversity conservation gap analyses have been focused on governmental protected areas (PAs). However, an increasing number of social initiatives in conservation (SICs) are promoting a new perspective for analysis. SICs include all of the efforts that society implements to conserve biodiversity, such as land protection, from private reserves to community zoning plans some of which have generated community-protected areas. This is the first attempt to analyze the status of conservation in Latin America when some of these social initiatives are included. The analyses were focused on amphibians because they are one of the most threatened groups worldwide. Mexico is not an exception, where more than 60% of its amphibians are endemic. We used a niche model approach to map the potential and real geographical distribution (extracting the transformed areas) of the endemic amphibians. Based on remnant distribution, all the species have suffered some degree of loss, but 36 species have lost more than 50% of their potential distribution. For 50 micro-endemic species we could not model their potential distribution range due to the small number of records per species, therefore the analyses were performed using these records directly. We then evaluated the efficiency of the existing set of governmental protected areas and established the contribution of social initiatives (private and community) for land protection for amphibian conservation. We found that most of the species have some proportion of their potential ecological niche distribution protected, but 20% are not protected at all within governmental PAs. 73% of endemic and 26% of micro-endemic amphibians are represented within SICs. However, 30 micro-endemic species are not represented within either governmental PAs or SICs. This study shows how the role of land conservation through social initiatives is therefore becoming a crucial element for an important number of species not protected by governmental PAs
Using epidemiological survey data to infer geographic distributions of leishmaniasis vector species Utilização dos dados de levantamentos epidemiológicos para inferir a distribuição geográfica de vetores da leishmaniose
An important aspect of tropical medicine is analysis of geographic aspects of risk of disease transmission, which for lack of detailed public health data must often be reduced to an understanding of the distributions of critical species such as vectors and reservoirs. We examine the applicability of a new technique, ecological niche modeling, to the challenge of understanding distributions of such species based on municipalities in the state of SĂŁo Paulo in which a group of 5 Lutzomyia sandfly species have been recorded. The technique, when tested based on independent occurrence data, yielded highly significant predictions of species' distributions; minimum sample sizes for effective predictions were around 40 municipalities.<br>Um aspecto importante da medicina tropical Ă© a análise de aspectos geográficos relacionados com o risco de transmissĂŁo de doenças. Devido Ă ausĂŞncia de dados detalhados de saĂşde pĂşblica, estas análises sĂŁo freqĂĽentemente reduzidas Ă compreensĂŁo da distribuição de espĂ©cies crĂticas como vetores e reservatĂłrios. Neste trabalho, Ă© examinada a aplicabilidade de uma nova tĂ©cnica, a modelagem de nicho ecolĂłgico, no estudo da distribuição destas espĂ©cies nos municĂpios do Estado de SĂŁo Paulo, onde um grupo de 5 mosquitos do gĂŞnero Lutzomyia foi encontrado. A tĂ©cnica foi testada em conjuntos de dados independentes, resultando em previsões altamente significativas; a amostragem mĂnima para se obter previsões eficazes foi de cerca de 40 municĂpios
A Validated Model for Sudden Cardiac Death Risk Prediction in Pediatric Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
BACKGROUND: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in children and young adults. Our objective was to develop and validate a SCD risk prediction model in pediatric hypertrophic cardiomyopathy to guide SCD prevention strategies. METHODS: In an international multicenter observational cohort study, phenotype-positive patients with isolated hypertrophic cardiomyopathy 70% prediction accuracy and incorporates risk factors that are unique to pediatric hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. An individualized risk prediction model has the potential to improve the application of clinical practice guidelines and shared decision making for implantable cardioverter defibrillator insertion. Registration: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT0403679