Magpies as Hosts for West Nile Virus, Southern France

European magpies (Pica pica) from southern France were tested for antibodies to West Nile virus (WNV) and viral shedding in feces during spring–autumn 2005. Results suggest that this peridomestic species may be a suitable sentinel species and a relevant target for additional investigations on WNV ecology in Europe

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Princely Funerals in Europe 1400–1700: Commemoration, Diplomacy and Political Propaganda ed. by Monique Chatenet, Murielle Gaude-Ferragu, and Gérard Sabatier (review)

International audienceIn the aftermath of Brexit, is it wise to leave English-language scholarship about the history of early modern Europe’s principal funeral ceremonies in the hands of the European Union? This coffee-table book from a Belgian firm with three French co-editors offers a salutary warning. Its subtitle contains the word diplomacy, which one rarely encounters in its sixteen articles. It has two hallmarks of pretentious ornamental books—abundant illustrations (twenty-one roman-numeral color plates and sixty black/white figures) and redundant scholarship (sixteen separate bibliographies, with many overlapping titles)—which imperfectly conceal its academic limitations. Its organization by centuries seems almost quaint, and its footnotes reveal that most of the contributors reworked earlier publications about related topics.Most of these articles describe funeral practices in Francophone regions or the Italian peninsula. None of the contributors comes from Germany, the fifteenth-century princely funerals of which receive their interpretations from Moscow. Although two color plates (VII, XIV) come from Viennese archives, the funeral practices of the Austrian Habsburgs from Maximilian I to Leopold I remain unexplored. More seriously, England, which originated and still preserves Europe’s best collection of royal funeral effigies, disappears from the volume after a calamitous fifteenth century with three royal murders and two re-burials; the corpse of another royal (Richard III) was famously discovered under an urban car park (and similarly re-buried) only a few years ago (103). This dismal record is almost equaled two chapters later by the quattrocento dukes of Milan, whose founder was officially buried seventy years after his death (126–129). Two of his early successors were murdered, one in church [End Page 440] and the third (probably) poisoned by his uncle and successor about a decade after England’s Edward V was secretly murdered by his uncle and successor (131–132).The book seldom emphasizes the fundamental religious dimensions of early modern Europe’s princely funeral ceremonies. The post-Tridentine Catholic Reformation makes a belated appearance in the book’s final section with the French funeral ceremonies for Louis XIII and XIV, followed by the ceremony for their ultra-Catholic Spanish cousin Philip IV. The earlier Protestant Reformation remains invisible, however, until a retrospective sketch of a century of Protestant funeral practices introduces two minor princely Protestant funerals that form the rearguard of this academic procession (315–320).The book’s sixteen bibliographies inadvertently suggest the continuing importance of Giesey’s application of Kantorowicz’s theory about the king’s two bodies to early modern French royal funerals.1 It makes an appearance in exactly half of the bibliographies (56, 72, 152, 182, 207, 220, 271, 325), invariably in its much later French translation but is discussed, briefly, only twice.2 Chatenet dismisses its main argument as “extremely simplistic” (185), although the next chapter sketches the international spread of crowned funeral effigies as offering “a way . . . of confirming instantaneous dynastic succession” through a physical Doppelgänger (210–211). It immediately offers vivid confirmation of the continuing use of such royal Doppelgängers at English state funerals by noting Westminster Abbey’s preservation of clothing for the 1603 effigy of Europe’s first deceased female Protestant monarch (211, n.3). This item cannot be found among the book’s eighty-plus illustrations, although an online search soon located an image of the girdle for Elizabeth I’s effigy.Given such shortcomings, why might readers wish to purchase and use this book? Its more stimulating parts include scattered information about the medieval custom of bringing the deceased prince’s horses into church for his funeral service (114–115), a practice begun in mid-thirteenth-century England and Flanders and later limited in the 1430 Savoyard law code to ten horses for princes and four for barons (146–147). The subsequent elaborately equipped but riderless “funeral horses” (Klagross or Leibross) of imperial princes and..

Introduction

International audienc

Introduction

International audienc

Satellite-tracking migrating juvenile Purple herons <i>Ardea purpurea</i> from the Camargue Area, France

International audienc

The importance of ticks in Q fever transmission: what has (and has not) been demonstrated?

International audienceQ fever is a widespread zoonotic disease caused by Coxiella burnetii, a ubiqui- tous intracellular bacterium infecting humans and a variety of animals. Transmission is primarily but not exclusively airborne, and ticks are usually thought to act as vectors. We argue that, although ticks may readily transmit C. burnetii in experimental systems, they only occasionally transmit the pathogen in the field. Furthermore, we underscore that many Coxiella-like bacteria are widespread in ticks and may have been misidentified as C. burnetii. Our recommendation is to improve the methods currently used to detect and characterize C. burnetii, and we propose that further knowledge of Coxiella-like bacteria will yield new insights into Q fever evolutionary ecology and C. burnetii virulence factor

Prevalence of West Nile virus neutralizing antibodies in wild birds from the Camargue Area, Southern France

International audienceThe Camargue area of southern France experienced the re-emergence of West Nile Virus (WNV) ill the late summer of 2000 and 2004. Immediately preceding the 2004 outbreak, samples we're Collected from 432 birds of 32 different species captured in mist nets and From 201 Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) nestlings sampled in their nests between 1 April and 12 little 2004. West Nile virus neutralizing titers of >= 40 were detected in 4.8% (95% confidence limit, 2.9-7.5%) of the adult birds and in 1.6% (0.3-4.6%) of the egret nestlings. Migratory passerines had a higher prevalence of WNV neutralizing antibodies (7.0%) than did resident and short-distance, migratory passerines (0.8%), suggesting exposure to WNV or a related flavivirus during overwintering in Africa

Impact of the H274Y Substitution on N1, N4, N5, and N8 Neuraminidase Enzymatic Properties and Expression in Reverse Genetic Influenza A Viruses

International audienceThe H274Y substitution (N2 numbering) in neuraminidase (NA) N1 confers oseltamivir resistance to A(H1N1) influenza viruses. This resistance has been associated with reduced N1 expression using transfected cells, but the effect of this substitution on the enzymatic properties and on the expression of other group-1-NA subtypes is unknown. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the antiviral resistance, enzymatic properties, and expression of wild-type (WT) and H274Y-substituted NA for each group-1-NA. To this end, viruses with WT or H274Y-substituted NA (N1pdm09 or avian N4, N5 or N8) were generated by reverse genetics, and for each reverse-genetic virus, antiviral susceptibility, NA affinity (Km), and maximum velocity (Vm) were measured. The enzymatic properties were coupled with NA quantification on concentrated reverse genetic viruses using mass spectrometry. The H274Y-NA substitution resulted in highly reduced inhibition by oseltamivir and normal inhibition by zanamivir and laninamivir. This resistance was associated with a reduced affinity for MUNANA substrate and a conserved Vm in all viruses. NA quantification was not significantly different between viruses carrying WT or H274Y-N1, N4 or N8, but was lower for viruses carrying H274Y-N5 compared to those carrying a WT-N5. In conclusion, the H274Y-NA substitution of different group-1-NAs systematically reduced their affinity for MUNANA substrate without a significant impact on NA Vm. The impact of the H274Y-NA substitution on viral NA expression was different according to the studied NA