Identifying reliable indicators of fitness in polar bears.

Animal structural body size and condition are often measured to evaluate individual health, identify responses to environmental change and food availability, and relate food availability to effects on reproduction and survival. A variety of condition metrics have been developed but relationships between these metrics and vital rates are rarely validated. Identifying an optimal approach to estimate the body condition of polar bears is needed to improve monitoring of their response to decline in sea ice habitat. Therefore, we examined relationships between several commonly used condition indices (CI), body mass, and size with female reproductive success and cub survival among polar bears (Ursus maritimus) measured in two subpopulations over three decades. To improve measurement and application of morphometrics and CIs, we also examined whether CIs are independent of age and structural size-an important assumption for monitoring temporal trends-and factors affecting measurement precision and accuracy. Maternal CIs and mass measured the fall prior to denning were related to cub production. Similarly, maternal CIs, mass, and length were related to the mass of cubs or yearlings that accompanied her. However, maternal body mass, but not CIs, measured in the spring was related to cub production and only maternal mass and length were related to the probability of cub survival. These results suggest that CIs may not be better indicators of fitness than body mass in part because CIs remove variation associated with body size that is important in affecting fitness. Further, CIs exhibited variable relationships with age for growing bears and were lower for longer bears despite body length being related to cub survival and female reproductive success. These results are consistent with findings from other species indicating that body mass is a useful metric to link environmental conditions and population dynamics

Cysticercus Antigens in Cerebrospinal Fluid Samples from Patients with Neurocysticercosis

Antigens were detected in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from patients with neurocysticercosis (NC) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using polyclonal sera of rabbit anti-Taenia solium cysticerci (anti-Tso) and anti- Taenia crassiceps cysticerci vesicular fluid (anti-Tcra or anti-Tcra <30 kDa). A group of NC patients (n = 174) were studied (NC), including 40 patients in different phases of the disease. ELISAs carried out with the anti-Tso, anti-Tcra, and anti-Tcra <30 kDa showed sensitivities of 81.2, 90, and 95.8% and specificities of 82, 98, and 100%, respectively. The 14- and 18-kDa low-molecular-weight peptides were only detected in CSF samples from patients with NC by immunoblotting with anti-Tso and anti-Tcra sera. Because of the importance of the diagnosis and prognosis of cysticercosis, the detection of antigens may contribute as an additional marker to the study and clarification of the parasite-host relationship