Human impact and species richness of terrestrial vertebrate: a review at different macroecological scales

El impacto humano es una variable fundamental en biogeografía de la conservación. Para explorar su efecto sobre la riqueza de especies revisamos la literatura científica para vertebrados terrestres (anfibios, reptiles, mamíferos y aves) sobre este tema. Se realizó una búsqueda de bibliografía en inglés para el período 2000-2013 en la base de datos “ISI Web of Knowledge” filtrando por palabras claves. Analizamos la distribución de publicaciones por área biogeográfica, la influencia del tamaño de grano, extensión geográfica, grupo taxonómico y del signo de los coeficientes de correlación impacto humano-riqueza de especies. Encontramos 30 publicaciones que cumplían nuestros criterios de búsqueda. Estas se concentran mayoritariamente en el Paleártico. Aves y mamíferos son los grupos con mayor disponibilidad de publicaciones. Los estudios más frecuentes se ubican a una extensión regional y continental. Por último, la distribución de frecuencias de las correlaciones entre impacto humano y riqueza de especies muestra que dominan las correlaciones positivas, sobre todo a extensiones amplias. A tamaño de grano <1000 km2, encontramos una correlación negativa dominante, que podría estar mediada por procesos de pérdida y fragmentación de hábitat o cambios del uso del suelo. Estos resultados sirven para orientar aquellas regiones biogeográficas, grupos taxonómicos y escalas que precisan de mayor atención a la hora de planificar estudios futuros, que serán de vital interés para comprender las respuestas de la biodiversidad ante escenarios de cambio global.Human impact is a fundamental variable in conservation biogeography. To explore its effect on species richness, we reviewed the scientific literature for terrestrial vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds) on this topic. The search was conducted using literature in English for the period 2000-2013 in the "ISI Web of Knowledge" database and filtering keywords. We analyze the distribution of publications by biogeographical area, the role of grain size, geographical extent, taxonomic group and the sign of the correlation coefficients in the relationships between humans-species richness. We found 30 publications that met our criteria. These are mainly concentrated in the Palearctic. Birds and mammals are the groups with higher availability of publications. Most studies are found at regional and continental level. Finally, the frequency distribution of correlations between human impact and species richness shows that positive correlations dominate at large scales. At a grain size <1000 km2, we find a dominantly negative correlation, which could be mediated by processes of habitat loss and fragmentation and/or land use changes. These results will serve to orient future studies to be focused on those biogeographic regions, taxonomic groups and scales that remain underrepresented and of vital interest to understand the responses of biodiversity to global change scenarios

GlobTherm, a global database on thermal tolerances for aquatic and terrestrial organisms

This database includes thermal tolerance metrics for 2,133 species of multicellular algae, plants, fungi, and animals in 43 classes, 203 orders and 525 families from both aquatic, and terrestrial realms, extracted from published studies. Abbreviated citations are included in the 'REF_min' and 'REF_max' variable in the data file. For full citations, please see the attached workbook, "References_1_09_2017.xlsx". The data are available in both Excel and CSV formats in the Dryad Digital Repository (doi:10.5061/dryad.1cv08). Updates to the data and metadata will be curated through the iDiv data portal (https://idata.idiv.de/). For example, in the future we plan to include interspecific variation in the dataset, to provide multiple estimates of thermal tolerance limits for a given species where estimates determined using the best possible methods will be more highly ranked

Coefficient shifts in geographical ecology: an empirical evaluation of spatial and non-spatial regression

Copyright © 2009 The Authors. Copyright © ECOGRAPHY 2009.A major focus of geographical ecology and macro ecology is to understand the causes of spatially structured ecological patterns. However, achieving this understanding can be complicated when using multiple regressions, because the relative importance of explanatory variables, as measured by regression coefficients, can shift depending on whether spatially explicit or non-spatial modelling is used. However, the extent to which coefficients may shift and why shifts occur are unclear. Here, we analyze the relationship between environmental predictors and the geographical distribution of species richness, body size, range size and abundance in 97 multi-factorial data sets. Our goal was to compare standardized partial regression coefficients of non-spatial ordinary least squares regressions (i.e. models fitted using ordinary least squares without taking autocorrelation into account; “OLS models” hereafter) and eight spatial methods to evaluate the frequency of coefficient shifts and identify characteristics of data that might predict when shifts are likely. We generated three metrics of coefficient shifts and eight characteristics of the data sets as predictors of shifts. Typical of ecological data, spatial autocorrelation in the residuals of OLS models was found in most data sets. The spatial models varied in the extent to which they minimized residual spatial autocorrelation. Patterns of coefficient shifts also varied among methods and datasets, although the magnitudes of shifts tended to be small in all cases. We were unable to identify strong predictors of shifts, including the levels of autocorrelation in either explanatory variables or model residuals. Thus, changes in coefficients between spatial and non-spatial methods depend on the method used and are largely idiosyncratic, making it difficult to predict when or why shifts occur. We conclude that the ecological importance of regression coefficients cannot be evaluated with confidence irrespective of whether spatially explicit modelling is used or not. Researchers may have little choice but to be more explicit about the uncertainty of models and more cautious in their interpretation

Long runs of homozygosity are associated with Alzheimer's disease

Altres ajuts: The Genome Research at Fundació ACE project (GR@ACE) is supported by Fundación bancaria "La Caixa," Grifols SA and Fundació ACE. L.M.R. is supported by Consejería de Salud de la Junta de Andalucía (Grant PI-0001/2017).Long runs of homozygosity (ROH) are contiguous stretches of homozygous genotypes, which are a footprint of inbreeding and recessive inheritance. The presence of recessive loci is suggested for Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, their search has been poorly assessed to date. To investigate homozygosity in AD, here we performed a fine-scale ROH analysis using 10 independent cohorts of European ancestry (11,919 AD cases and 9181 controls.) We detected an increase of homozygosity in AD cases compared to controls [ β (CI 95%) = 0.070 (0.037-0.104); P = 3.91 × 10 −5 ; β (CI95%) = 0.043 (0.009-0.076); P = 0.013]. ROHs increasing the risk of AD (OR > 1) were significantly overrepresented compared to ROHs increasing protection (p < 2.20 × 10 −16). A significant ROH association with AD risk was detected upstream the HS3ST1 locus (chr4:11,189,482‒11,305,456), (β (CI 95%) = 1.09 (0.48 ‒ 1.48), p value = 9.03 × 10 −4), previously related to AD. Next, to search for recessive candidate variants in ROHs, we constructed a homozygosity map of inbred AD cases extracted from an outbred population and explored ROH regions in whole-exome sequencing data (N = 1449). We detected a candidate marker, rs117458494, mapped in the SPON1 locus, which has been previously associated with amyloid metabolism. Here, we provide a research framework to look for recessive variants in AD using outbred populations. Our results showed that AD cases have enriched homozygosity, suggesting that recessive effects may explain a proportion of AD heritability

Use of life cycle assessment methodology in the analysis of ecological footprint assessment results to evaluate the environmental performance of universities

The assessment of the environmental performance of an organization is an essential part of the decision making process of an Environmental Management System. Having robust indicators enables a reliable assessment. The Ecological Footprint Assessment is used in different types of organizations, including universities. Its ability to clearly communicate over-consumption by using a land-base unit is an advantage when involving the university community in achieving better environmental performance. However, its lack of standardization makes it difficult to use as an indicator. It is believed that Life Cycle Assessment offers a framework with which to standardize the Ecological Footprint Assessment. In this paper, an Ecological Footprint Assessment considering Life Cycle Assessment methodology is developed as a case study for Universitat Politecnica de Valencia. Findings regarding the critical decisions of the methodology are compared with 23 Ecological Footprint Assessments of universities using a Life Cycle Assessment framework. Only 26% of the studies analyzed reference the Life Cycle Assessment methodology. Critical decisions such as defining a Functional Unit were relevant but not standardized, while the definition of the product system was the most standardized and homogeneous decision. The difficulty of gathering information when Environmental Management Systems are not available makes the Ecological Footprint Assessment a weak indicator. Nevertheless, results show that Life Cycle Assessment can guide an Ecological Footprint Assessment methodology where comparability and reliability is possible. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Lo-Iacono-Ferreira, VG.; Torregrosa López, JI.; Capuz-Rizo, SF. (2016). Use of life cycle assessment methodology in the analysis of ecological footprint assessment results to evaluate the environmental performance of universities. Journal of Cleaner Production. 133:45-53. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.05.046S455313

Genome-wide association analysis of dementia and its clinical endophenotypes reveal novel loci associated with Alzheimer's disease and three causality networks : The GR@ACE project

Introduction: Large variability among Alzheimer's disease (AD) cases might impact genetic discoveries and complicate dissection of underlying biological pathways. Methods: Genome Research at Fundacio ACE (GR@ACE) is a genome-wide study of dementia and its clinical endophenotypes, defined based on AD's clinical certainty and vascular burden. We assessed the impact of known AD loci across endophenotypes to generate loci categories. We incorporated gene coexpression data and conducted pathway analysis per category. Finally, to evaluate the effect of heterogeneity in genetic studies, GR@ACE series were meta-analyzed with additional genome-wide association study data sets. Results: We classified known AD loci into three categories, which might reflect the disease clinical heterogeneity. Vascular processes were only detected as a causal mechanism in probable AD. The meta-analysis strategy revealed the ANKRD31-rs4704171 and NDUFAF6-rs10098778 and confirmed SCIMP-rs7225151 and CD33-rs3865444. Discussion: The regulation of vasculature is a prominent causal component of probable AD. GR@ACE meta-analysis revealed novel AD genetic signals, strongly driven by the presence of clinical heterogeneity in the AD series