SLIDES: Reclamation: Managing Water in the West: Elwha River Restoration Project

Presenter: Tim Randle, Manager, Sedimentation and River Hydraulic Group, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation 58 slide

A New Approach Using Modeling to Interpret Measured Changes in Soil Organic Carbon in Forests : The Case of a 200 Year Pine Chronosequence on a Podzolic Soil in Scotland

Discounted APC via the Frontiers Open Access Agreement Acknowledgments: Andy Kennedy for teaching about the podzolic soil sampling and horizon recognition. Rothiemurhus estate owners and the forest manager–Piers Voisey. Forest Research agency Soil Sustainability Research and Forest Mensuration, Modeling and Forecasting Science groups for consultations, practical and financial support. Ron Summers and Samantha Broadmeadow for help with GIS maps. Dr Robert Wilson for the help with finding ancient pine woodland locations in Scotland. We acknowledge the E-OBS dataset from the EU-FP6 project ENSEMBLES (http://ensembles-eu.metoffice.com) and the data providers in the ECA&D project (http://www.ecad.eu). This work contributes to the UKRI-funded Soils-R-GRREAT project (NE/P019455/1). We thank to two reviewers for their insightful comments. Funding: The research was funded by the University of Aberdeen and Forest Research joint PhD training grant. James Hutton Institute provided help in kind. The NERC (Natural Environmental Resources Council) grant NE/P019455/1 was used to pay publishing fees.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Not seeing the carbon for the trees? Why area-based targets for establishing new woodlands can limit or underplay their climate change mitigation benefits

Acknowledgements: The James Hutton Institute is supported by the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS). This research was funded through both ClimatexChange and two strategic Research Programs (2011-16 and 2016-21). The authors acknowledge the assistance provided by other staff – Marie Castellazzi, Nikki Baggaley, Allan Lilly (The James Hutton Institute); Jo Smith (University of Aberdeen); Philip Taylor, Duncan Ray (Forest Research).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Planning, implementation, and monitoring Pacific salmonid recovery following the removal of two hydroelectric dams on Washington\u27s Elwha River

The removal of Elwha and Glines Canyon dams on the Elwha River is the largest existing dam removal project in the United States. Project planning, implementation, and monitoring have occurred over 30 years and has required diverse technical expertise. Because of the size and nature of the project—two high-head dams releasing massive amounts of sediment into the river, estuary, and nearshore ecosystem—the project was unprecedented and required a great deal of technical expertise to plan, execute, and monitor. The relative success of this project required effective collaboration among individuals and organizations with varying missions. Individuals with diverse technical expertise (i.e., engineering, geomorphology, hydrology, botany, wildlife, fisheries, stream ecology, ecological monitoring) have successfully collaborated to develop several technical plans ensuring dam removal was completed, while at the same time protecting a city water supply, infrastructure, and listed and unlisted salmonids in the basin. This collaboration has continued following dam removal through the implementation of a monitoring and adaptive management plan. Our monitoring strategy often uses multiple scientific methods to evaluate metrics or performance indicators to create multiple lines of evidence, reduce uncertainty, and ensure data availability. Employing such diverse methods would not have been possible without multidisciplinary and multiagency collaboration. Collaboration and extensive monitoring has allowed project partners to identify potential barriers, assess the rate and extent of recolonization, estimate abundance, life history attributes, and productivity. This collaborative multidisciplinary approach has allowed us to monitor salmonid recovery, while also improving our understanding of ecosystem response and linkages. This has resulted in the Elwha River being one of the best studied dam removal projects in history

COVID-19: Third dose booster vaccine effectiveness against breakthrough coronavirus infection, hospitalisations and death in patients with cancer: A population-based study

Purpose: People living with cancer and haematological malignancies are at increased risk of hospitalisation and death following infection with acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Coronavirus third dose vaccine boosters are proposed to boost waning immune responses in immunocompromised individuals and increase coronavirus protection; however, their effectiveness has not yet been systematically evaluated. Methods: This study is a population-scale real-world evaluation of the United Kingdom’s third dose vaccine booster programme for cancer patients from 8th December 2020 to 7th December 2021. The cancer cohort comprises individuals from Public Health England’s national cancer dataset, excluding individuals less than 18 years. A test-negative case-control design was used to assess third dose booster vaccine effectiveness. Multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to compare risk in the cancer cohort relative to the general population. Results: The cancer cohort comprised of 2,258,553 tests from 361,098 individuals. Third dose boosters were evaluated by reference to 87,039,743 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) coronavirus tests. Vaccine effectiveness against breakthrough infections, symptomatic infections, coronavirus hospitalisation and death in cancer patients were 59.1%, 62.8%, 80.5% and 94.5% respectively. Lower vaccine effectiveness was associated with a cancer diagnosis within 12 months, lymphoma, recent systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT) or radiotherapy. Lymphoma patients had low levels of protection from symptomatic disease. In spite of third dose boosters, following multivariable adjustment, individuals with cancer remain at increased risk of coronavirus hospitalisation and death compared to the population control (OR 3.38, 3.01 respectively. p<0.001 for both). Conclusions: Third dose boosters are effective for most individuals with cancer, increasing protection from coronavirus. However, their effectiveness is heterogenous, and lower than the general population. Many patients with cancer will remain at increased risk of coronavirus infections, even after 3 doses. In the case of patients with lymphoma, there is a particularly strong disparity of vaccine effectiveness against breakthrough infection and severe disease. Breakthrough infections will disrupt cancer care and treatment with potentially adverse consequences on survival outcomes. The data support the role of vaccine boosters in preventing severe disease, and further pharmacological intervention to prevent transmission and aid viral clearance to limit disruption of cancer care as the delivery of care continues to evolve during the coronavirus pandemic

The PTEN and INK4A/ARF tumor suppressors maintain myelolymphoid homeostasis and cooperate to constrain histiocytic sarcoma development in humans.

Histiocytic sarcoma (HS) is a rare malignant proliferation of histiocytes of uncertain molecular pathogenesis. Here, genetic analysis of coincident loss of Pten and Ink4a/Arf tumor suppressors in the mouse revealed a neoplastic phenotype dominated by a premalignant expansion of biphenotypic myelolymphoid cells followed by the development of HS. Pten protein loss occurred only in the histiocytic portion of tumors, suggesting a stepwise genetic inactivation in the generation of HS. Similarly, human HS showed genetic or epigenetic inactivation of PTEN, p16(INK4A), and p14(ARF), supporting the relevance of this genetically engineered mouse model of HS. These genetic and translational observations establish a cooperative role of Pten and Ink4a/Arf in the development of HS and provide mechanistic insights into the pathogenesis of human HS

The P323L substitution in the SARS-CoV-2 polymerase (NSP12) confers a selective advantage during infection

Background The mutational landscape of SARS-CoV-2 varies at the dominant viral genome sequence and minor genomic variant population. During the COVID-19 pandemic, an early substitution in the genome was the D614G change in the spike protein, associated with an increase in transmissibility. Genomes with D614G are accompanied by a P323L substitution in the viral polymerase (NSP12). However, P323L is not thought to be under strong selective pressure. Results Investigation of P323L/D614G substitutions in the population shows rapid emergence during the containment phase and early surge phase during the first wave. These substitutions emerge from minor genomic variants which become dominant viral genome sequence. This is investigated in vivo and in vitro using SARS-CoV-2 with P323 and D614 in the dominant genome sequence and L323 and G614 in the minor variant population. During infection, there is rapid selection of L323 into the dominant viral genome sequence but not G614. Reverse genetics is used to create two viruses (either P323 or L323) with the same genetic background. L323 shows greater abundance of viral RNA and proteins and a smaller plaque morphology than P323. Conclusions These data suggest that P323L is an important contribution in the emergence of variants with transmission advantages. Sequence analysis of viral populations suggests it may be possible to predict the emergence of a new variant based on tracking the frequency of minor variant genomes. The ability to predict an emerging variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the global landscape may aid in the evaluation of medical countermeasures and non-pharmaceutical interventions

SLIDES: Reclamation: Managing Water in the West: Elwha River Restoration Project

Presenter: Tim Randle, Manager, Sedimentation and River Hydraulic Group, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation 58 slide