Accounting for pastoralists in Argentina

No official statistics exist on pastoralism in Argentina, so their number is not known. Between 30,000 to 35,000 households practise pastoralism, estimates Red Chaco based on the 2018 National Census. In some areas, pastoralism is alive as a mobile, extensive production system. Despite the uncertainty about the precise numbers, pastoralists play a significant role in Argentinian agriculture and society. Argentina is a large but highly urbanized country, with 92% of the population living in towns and cities. Only 13.2% of the country is agriculturally well endowed; 70% of the land is semi-arid, and much of the rest is mountainous or too cold for growing crops. Livestock-raising is the main form of agriculture in such marginal areas, either as ranching or as pastoralism.Estación Experimental Agropecuaria BarilocheFil: Lanari, Maria Rosa. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA). Estacion Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Perez Centeno, Marcelo. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA). Área de Investigación para la Agricultura Familiar Región Patagonia; ArgentinaFil: Preda, Graciela Maria. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA). Área de Investigación para la Agricultura Familiar Región Patagonia; ArgentinaFil: Quiroga Mendiola, Mariana. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA). Área de Investigación para la Agricultura Familiar Región Patagonia; ArgentinaFil: Ejarque, Mercedes. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA). Área de Investigación para la Agricultura Familiar Región Patagonia; ArgentinaFil: Lammel, Sofía Ailén. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA). Área de Investigación para la Agricultura Familiar Región Patagonia; ArgentinaFil: Moronta, Martin Nestor. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA). Área de Investigación para la Agricultura Familiar Región Patagonia; ArgentinaFil: Quiroga Rogers, Juan. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA). Área de Investigación para la Agricultura Familiar Región NOA; ArgentinaFil: Losardo, Pablo Gustavo. Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Pesca de la Nación; ArgentinaFil: Frere, Pablo. Fundación Gran Chaco; Argentin

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

The impact of surgical delay on resectability of colorectal cancer: An international prospective cohort study

AimThe SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to explore the impact of surgical delays on cancer resectability. This study aimed to compare resectability for colorectal cancer patients undergoing delayed versus non-delayed surgery.MethodsThis was an international prospective cohort study of consecutive colorectal cancer patients with a decision for curative surgery (January-April 2020). Surgical delay was defined as an operation taking place more than 4 weeks after treatment decision, in a patient who did not receive neoadjuvant therapy. A subgroup analysis explored the effects of delay in elective patients only. The impact of longer delays was explored in a sensitivity analysis. The primary outcome was complete resection, defined as curative resection with an R0 margin.ResultsOverall, 5453 patients from 304 hospitals in 47 countries were included, of whom 6.6% (358/5453) did not receive their planned operation. Of the 4304 operated patients without neoadjuvant therapy, 40.5% (1744/4304) were delayed beyond 4 weeks. Delayed patients were more likely to be older, men, more comorbid, have higher body mass index and have rectal cancer and early stage disease. Delayed patients had higher unadjusted rates of complete resection (93.7% vs. 91.9%, P = 0.032) and lower rates of emergency surgery (4.5% vs. 22.5%, P ConclusionOne in 15 colorectal cancer patients did not receive their planned operation during the first wave of COVID-19. Surgical delay did not appear to compromise resectability, raising the hypothesis that any reduction in long-term survival attributable to delays is likely to be due to micro-metastatic disease