Der ökologische Indikatorwert mitteleuropäischer Pisidium-Arten (Mollusca, Eulamellibranchiata)

Eine Kurzübersicht über bisher bekannte ökologische Valenzen und Ansprüche der rezenten Muschelarten der Gattung Pisidium C. Pfeiffer in Mitteleuropa stellt Arten mit geringem Indikatorwert (z. B. P. subtruncatum, milium) solchen mit hohem Indikatorwert (z. B. P. supinum, P. lilljehorgii) gegenüber. Die Notwendigkeit, über bloße Präsenz hinaus die Dominanzverhältnisse zu berücksichtigen, wird betont.researc

Fiscal and monetary policies: the cutting edge of advocacy and research on population health and climate change

This article outlines the likely mechanisms through which fiscal and monetary policies affect health and the environment, summarising innovative policies that may hold promise for planetary and population health

Economics for people and planet—moving beyond the neoclassical paradigm

Despite substantial attention within the fields of public and planetary health on developing an economic system that benefits both people's health and the environment, heterodox economic schools of thought have received little attention within these fields. Ecological economics is a school of thought with particular relevance to public and planetary health. In this article, we discuss implications of key ecological economics ideas for public and planetary health, especially those related to critiques of gross domestic product as a measure of progress and economic growth as the dominant goal for economic and policy decision making. We suggest that ecological economics aligns well with public health goals, including concern for equality and redistribution. Ecological economics offers an opportunity to make the transition to an economic system that is designed to promote human and planetary health from the outset, rather than one where social and environmental externalities must be constantly corrected after the fact. Important ideas from ecological economics include the use of a multidimensional framework to evaluate economic and social performance, the prioritisation of wellbeing and environmental goals in decision making, policy design and evaluation that take complex relationships into account, and the role of provisioning systems (the physical and social systems that link resource use and social outcomes). We discuss possible interventions at the national scale that could promote public health and that align with the prioritisation of social and ecological objectives, including universal basic income or services and sovereign money creation. Overall, we lay the foundations for additional integration of ecological economics principles and pluralist economic thinking into public and planetary health scholarship and practice

Effects of food type, feeding frequency, and temperature on juvenile survival and growth of Marisa cornuarietis (Mollusca: Gastropoda)

The present experiments are part of a larger study designed to investigate the influence of husbandry parameters on the life history of the ramshorn snail, Marisa cornuarietis, in order to identify suitable husbandry conditions for maintaining multi-generation populations in the laboratory for use in ecotoxicological testing. In this paper we focus on the effects of a combination of food types and feeding frequencies (i.e., the frequency with which the snails were offered food) on juvenile growth and survival at different temperatures. Offspring produced in the laboratory by wild specimens of M. cornuarietis, from Puerto Rico, were used to test the effects of three types of food (lettuce, alginate with fish food, alginate with snail mix) fed at three frequencies (given ad libitum on 4/4, 2/4, or 1/4 d) on juvenile survival and growth. The 4-d feeding regimens were repeated four times, giving a total of 16 d for the experiments. The experiments were conducted at two temperatures (22° and 25°C) under a 12 h light:12 h dark photoperiod. Juvenile growth rates increased with increasing feeding frequency for all food types. The most rapid growth rates occurred in the high-frequency lettuce treatments and the slowest growth rates in the low-frequency lettuce and alginate with snail mix treatments. Juvenile snails grew faster at 25° than at 22°C, and mortality was about twice as high at the lower temperature. Growth rates were used to provide a rough estimate of time to maturity, which was determined to take about twice as long at 22° than at 25°C. The results showed that lettuce is the best food if supplied in abundance, but effects on growth are very dependent on feeding frequency and temperature. We conclude that 25°C is a more appropriate temperature for maintaining populations than 22°C, that lettuce provides a suitable food source, and that food should be supplied continuously for husbandry and toxicity testing of populations of M. cornuarietis

Insights into the relationships of Palearctic and Nearctic lymnaeids (Mollusca : Gastropoda) by rDNA ITS-2 sequencing and phylogeny of stagnicoline intermediate host species of Fasciola hepatica

Fascioliasis by Fasciola hepatica is the vector-borne disease presenting the widest latitudinal, longitudinal and altitudinal distribution known. F. hepatica shows a great adaptation power to new environmental conditions which is the consequence of its own capacities together with the adaptation and colonization abilities of its specific vector hosts, freshwater snails of the family Lymnaeidae. Several lymnaeid species only considered as secondary contributors to the liver fluke transmission have, however, played a very important role in the geographic expansion of this disease. Many of them belong to the so-called "stagnicoline" type group. Stagnicolines have, therefore, a very important applied interest in the Holarctic region, to which they are geographically restricted. The present knowledge on the genetics of stagnicolines and on their parasite-host interrelationships is, however, far from being sufficient. The present paper analyses the relationships between Palaearctic and Nearctic stagnicoline species on the base of the new light furnished by the results obtained in nuclear rDNA ITS-2 sequencing and corresponding phylogenetic studies of the lymnaeid taxa Lymnaea (Stagnicola) occulta, L. (S.) palustris palustris (topotype specimens) and L. (S.) p. turricula from Europe. Natural infections with F. hepatica have been reported in all of them. Surprisingly, ITS-2 length and GC content of L. occulta were similar and perfectly fitted within the respective ranges known in North American stagnicolines. Nucleotide differences and genetic distances were higher between L. occulta and the other European stagnicolines than between L. occulta and the North American ones. The ITS-2 sequence of L. p. turricula from Poland differed from the other genotypes known from turricula in Europe. The phylogenetic trees using the maximum-parsimony, distance and maximum-likelihood methods confirmed (i) the inclusion of L. occulta in the branch of North American stagnicolines, (ii) the link between the North American stagnicolines-L. occulta group with Galba truncatula, and (iii) the location of the L. p. turricula genotype from Poland closer to L. p. palustris than to other European L. p. turricula genotypes. The Palaearctic species occulta is included in the genus Catascopia, together with the Nearctic species catascopium, emarginata and elodes. The results suggest a potential of transmission capacity for C. occulta higher than that of other European stagnicolines or Omphiscola glabra. The relatively low genetic distances between C. occulta and G. truncatula and the clustering of both species in the same clade suggest that C. occulta may be potentially considered as the second lymnaeid intermediate host species of F. hepatica in importance in eastern and northern Europe, and probably also western and central Asia, after G. truncatula. L. p. turricula may be considered as a potential secondary vector of F. hepatica, at a level similar to that of L. p. palustris.(VLID)221360

Galaxy Formation Theory

We review the current theory of how galaxies form within the cosmological framework provided by the cold dark matter paradigm for structure formation. Beginning with the pre-galactic evolution of baryonic material we describe the analytical and numerical understanding of how baryons condense into galaxies, what determines the structure of those galaxies and how internal and external processes (including star formation, merging, active galactic nuclei etc.) determine their gross properties and evolution. Throughout, we highlight successes and failings of current galaxy formation theory. We include a review of computational implementations of galaxy formation theory and assess their ability to provide reliable modelling of this complex phenomenon. We finish with a discussion of several "hot topics" in contemporary galaxy formation theory and assess future directions for this field.Comment: 58 pages, to appear in Physics Reports. This version includes minor corrections and a handful of additional reference

Phylogenetic analysis of the Sphaeriidae (Mollusca: Bivalvia) based on partial mitochondrial 16s rDNA gene sequences

We have constructed molecular phylogenetic trees for members of the Sphaeriidae in order to test proposed generic level relationships, and to reconstruct the evolutionary pattern of parental care, in this exclusively freshwater family of heterodont bivalves. An ∼480 nucleotide fragment of the mitochondrial large ribosomal subunit (16s rDNA) was sequenced for 4 corbiculid outgroups in addition to 19 sphaeriid ingroup taxa. Ingroup species were obtained from North and South America, Europe, and Australasia and included representatives of the main sphaeriid genera. Our analyses support four primary conclusions: 1) the Sphaeriinae are robustly monophyletic with respect to Eupera platensis ; 2) the genus Pisidium is paraphyletic and P. sterkianum is sister to the 17 other sphaeriine taxa in our dataset; 3) synchronous brooding is the ancestral reproductive pattern in the Sphaeriinae; 4) the sequential brooders form a clade in which Musculium taxa are monophyletic and nested among lineages of Sphueriunz. Our gene trees reveal an evolutionary progression in parental care complexity from the relatively simple pattern in the Euperinae, to the origin of brood sacs and of extraoogonial embryonic nutrition in the common ancestor of the Sphaeriinae, and ultimately to the development of sequential brooding in Sphaerium/Musculium taxa.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72942/1/j.1744-7410.2000.tb00016.x.pd

Differential branching fraction and angular analysis of the decay B0→K∗0μ+μ−

The angular distribution and differential branching fraction of the decay B 0→ K ∗0 μ + μ − are studied using a data sample, collected by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at s√=7 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1. Several angular observables are measured in bins of the dimuon invariant mass squared, q 2. A first measurement of the zero-crossing point of the forward-backward asymmetry of the dimuon system is also presented. The zero-crossing point is measured to be q20=4.9±0.9GeV2/c4 , where the uncertainty is the sum of statistical and systematic uncertainties. The results are consistent with the Standard Model predictions

Search for CP violation in D+→ϕπ+ and D+s→K0Sπ+ decays

A search for CP violation in D + → ϕπ + decays is performed using data collected in 2011 by the LHCb experiment corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1 at a centre of mass energy of 7 TeV. The CP -violating asymmetry is measured to be (−0.04 ± 0.14 ± 0.14)% for candidates with K − K + mass within 20 MeV/c 2 of the ϕ meson mass. A search for a CP -violating asymmetry that varies across the ϕ mass region of the D + → K − K + π + Dalitz plot is also performed, and no evidence for CP violation is found. In addition, the CP asymmetry in the D+s→K0Sπ+ decay is measured to be (0.61 ± 0.83 ± 0.14)%

Model-independent search for CP violation in D0→K−K+π−π+ and D0→π−π+π+π− decays

A search for CP violation in the phase-space structures of D0 and View the MathML source decays to the final states K−K+π−π+ and π−π+π+π− is presented. The search is carried out with a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1 collected in 2011 by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. For the K−K+π−π+ final state, the four-body phase space is divided into 32 bins, each bin with approximately 1800 decays. The p-value under the hypothesis of no CP violation is 9.1%, and in no bin is a CP asymmetry greater than 6.5% observed. The phase space of the π−π+π+π− final state is partitioned into 128 bins, each bin with approximately 2500 decays. The p-value under the hypothesis of no CP violation is 41%, and in no bin is a CP asymmetry greater than 5.5% observed. All results are consistent with the hypothesis of no CP violation at the current sensitivity