Plasma proteomics of green turtles (\u3cem\u3eChelonia mydas\u3c/em\u3e) reveals pathway shifts and potential biomarker candidates associated with health and disease

Evaluating sea turtle health can be challenging due to an incomplete understanding of pathophysiologic responses in these species. Proteome characterization of clinical plasma samples can provide insights into disease progression and prospective biomarker targets. A TMT-10-plex-LC–MS/MS platform was used to characterize the plasma proteome of five, juvenile, green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and compare qualitative and quantitative protein changes during moribund and recovered states. The 10 plasma samples yielded a total of 670 unique proteins. Using ≥1.2-fold change in protein abundance as a benchmark for physiologic upregulation or downregulation, 233 (34.8%) were differentially regulated in at least one turtle between moribund and recovered states. Forty-six proteins (6.9%) were differentially regulated in all five turtles with two proteins (0.3%) demonstrating a statistically significant change. A principle component analysis showed protein abundance loosely clustered between moribund samples or recovered samples and for turtles that presented with trauma (n = 3) or as intestinal floaters (n = 2). Gene Ontology terms demonstrated that moribund samples were represented by a higher number of proteins associated with blood coagulation, adaptive immune responses and acute phase response, while recovered turtle samples included a relatively higher number of proteins associated with metabolic processes and response to nutrients. Abundance levels of 48 proteins (7.2%) in moribund samples significantly correlated with total protein, albumin and/or globulin levels quantified by biochemical analysis. Differentially regulated proteins identified with immunologic and physiologic functions are discussed for their possible role in the green turtle pathophysiologic response and for their potential use as diagnostic biomarkers. These findings enhance our ability to interpret sea turtle health and further progress conservation, research and rehabilitation programs for these ecologically important species

Species and population specific gene expression in blood transcriptomes of marine turtles

Background: Transcriptomic data has demonstrated utility to advance the study of physiological diversity and organisms’ responses to environmental stressors. However, a lack of genomic resources and challenges associated with collecting high-quality RNA can limit its application for many wild populations. Minimally invasive blood sampling combined with de novo transcriptomic approaches has great potential to alleviate these barriers. Here, we advance these goals for marine turtles by generating high quality de novo blood transcriptome assemblies to characterize functional diversity and compare global transcriptional profiles between tissues, species, and foraging aggregations. Results: We generated high quality blood transcriptome assemblies for hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), loggerhead (Caretta caretta), green (Chelonia mydas), and leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) turtles. The functional diversity in assembled blood transcriptomes was comparable to those from more traditionally sampled tissues. A total of 31.3% of orthogroups identified were present in all four species, representing a core set of conserved genes expressed in blood and shared across marine turtle species. We observed strong species-specific expression of these genes, as well as distinct transcriptomic profiles between green turtle foraging aggregations that inhabit areas of greater or lesser anthropogenic disturbance. Conclusions: Obtaining global gene expression data through non-lethal, minimally invasive sampling can greatly expand the applications of RNA-sequencing in protected long-lived species such as marine turtles. The distinct differences in gene expression signatures between species and foraging aggregations provide insight into the functional genomics underlying the diversity in this ancient vertebrate lineage. The transcriptomic resources generated here can be used in further studies examining the evolutionary ecology and anthropogenic impacts on marine turtles

Evaluation of Musical Creativity and Musical Metacreation Systems

The field of computational creativity, including musical metacreation, strives to develop artificial systems that are capable of demonstrating creative behavior or producing creative artefacts. But the claim of creativity is often assessed, subjectively only on the part of the researcher and not objectively at all. This article provides theoretical motivation for more systematic evaluation of musical metacreation and computationally creative systems and presents an overview of current methods used to assess human and machine creativity that may be adapted for this purpose. In order to highlight the need for a varied set of evaluation tools, a distinction is drawn among three types of creative systems: those that are purely generative, those that contain internal or external feedback, and those that are capable of reflection and self-reflection. To address the evaluation of each of these aspects, concrete examples of methods and techniques are suggested to help researchers (1) evaluate their systems' creative process and generated artefacts, and test their impact on the perceptual, cognitive, and affective states of the audience, and (2) build mechanisms for reflection into the creative system, including models of human perception and cognition, to endow creative systems with internal evaluative mechanisms to drive self-reflective processes. The first type of evaluation can be considered external to the creative system and may be employed by the researcher to both better understand the efficacy of their system and its impact and to incorporate feedback into the system. Here we take the stance that understanding human creativity can lend insight to computational approaches, and knowledge of how humans perceive creative systems and their output can be incorporated into artificial agents as feedback to provide a sense of how a creation will impact the audience. The second type centers around internal evaluation, in which the system is able to reason about its own behavior and generated output. We argue that creative behavior cannot occur without feedback and reflection by the creative/metacreative system itself. More rigorous empirical testing will allow computational and metacreative systems to become more creative by definition and can be used to demonstrate the impact and novelty of particular approaches

Evaluating prevalence of external injuries on nesting loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta in southeastern Florida, USA

Sea turtles face both anthropogenic and natural threats including boat strikes, fisheries, pollution, and predator attacks. Injuries from anthropogenic sources are more common than naturally caused injuries. The goal of this study was to determine prevalence and cause (e.g. boat strike, entanglement, hook, shark bite) of injuries on nesting loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta on Juno and Jupiter beaches, Florida, USA. During the 2019 and 2020 nesting seasons, 450 loggerhead females were examined for external injuries. Injuries were categorized by anatomic location, condition, and cause. We found that 24% of loggerheads had at least 1 injury. Of the 111 injuries found on 107 nesting females, 88% were healed, 9% were partially healed with some scarred tissue, and 3% were fresh injuries. Most injuries (55%) were lateral injuries on the carapace or appendages. We were able to attribute 60 injuries to a specific cause. Boat strikes accounted for 75% of the 60 injuries, shark bites accounted for 15%, fishing hooks accounted for 7%, and entanglements accounted for the remaining 3%. This study provides new insight into the prevalence of anthropogenic injuries relative to natural injuries in loggerhead sea turtles nesting in the most densely nested beach in the Western Hemisphere and can be used to improve conservation management plans through implementation of fishing and/or boating restrictions in the nesting and foraging areas most commonly frequented by sea turtles

Protocol for the development of a core outcome set for neonatal sepsis (NESCOS).

Neonatal sepsis is a serious public health problem; however, there is substantial heterogeneity in the outcomes measured and reported in research evaluating the effectiveness of the treatments. Therefore, we aim to develop a Core Outcome Set (COS) for studies evaluating the effectiveness of treatments for neonatal sepsis. Since a systematic review of key outcomes from randomised trials of therapeutic interventions in neonatal sepsis was published recently, we will complement this with a qualitative systematic review of the key outcomes of neonatal sepsis identified by parents, other family members, parent representatives, healthcare providers, policymakers, and researchers. We will interpret the outcomes of both studies using a previously established framework. Stakeholders across three different groups i.e., (1) researchers, (2) healthcare providers, and (3) patients' parents/family members and parent representatives will rate the importance of the outcomes in an online Real-Time Delphi Survey. Afterwards, consensus meetings will be held to agree on the final COS through online discussions with key stakeholders. This COS is expected to minimize outcome heterogeneity in measurements and publications, improve comparability and synthesis, and decrease research waste

Additional file 9 of Species and population specific gene expression in blood transcriptomes of marine turtles

Additional file 9: Table S9. Functional enrichment analysis results. Functional enrichment analysis results for contrasts between green turtle foraging aggregations

Additional file 8 of Species and population specific gene expression in blood transcriptomes of marine turtles

Additional file 8: Table S8. Differential gene expression analyses results for comparisons between green turtle foraging aggregations. Log fold change and adjusted p-values are listed for the California and Hawai’i, California and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), and Hawai’i and CNMI Islands comparisons

Additional file 5 of Species and population specific gene expression in blood transcriptomes of marine turtles

Additional file 5: Table S5. Species-specific orthogroups. Orthogroups and the transcripts that belong to each orthogroup from each species-specific blood transcriptome