Camels and Climate Resilience: Adaptation in Northern Kenya

In the drylands of Africa, pastoralists have been facing new challenges, including those related to environmental shocks and stresses. In northern Kenya, under conditions of reduced rainfall and more frequent droughts, one response has been for pastoralists to focus increasingly on camel herding. Camels have started to be kept at higher altitudes and by people who rarely kept camels before. The development has been understood as a climate change adaptation strategy and as a means to improve climate resilience. Since 2003, development organizations have started to further the trend by distributing camels in the region. Up to now, little has been known about the nature of, reasons for, or ramifications of the increased reliance on camels. The paper addresses these questions and concludes that camels improve resilience in this dryland region, but only under certain climate change scenarios, and only for some groups.This study was funded by The Royal Geographical Society with Institute of British Geographers Thesiger-Oman Fellowship

Spatio-Temporal Characteristics of Global Warming in the Tibetan Plateau during the Last 50 Years Based on a Generalised Temperature Zone - Elevation Model

Temperature is one of the primary factors influencing the climate and ecosystem, and examining its change and fluctuation could elucidate the formation of novel climate patterns and trends. In this study, we constructed a generalised temperature zone elevation model (GTEM) to assess the trends of climate change and temporal-spatial differences in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) using the annual and monthly mean temperatures from 1961-2010 at 144 meteorological stations in and near the TP. The results showed the following: (1) The TP has undergone robust warming over the study period, and the warming rate was 0.318°C/decade. The warming has accelerated during recent decades, especially in the last 20 years, and the warming has been most significant in the winter months, followed by the spring, autumn and summer seasons. (2) Spatially, the zones that became significantly smaller were the temperature zones of -6°C and -4°C, and these have decreased 499.44 and 454.26 thousand sq km from 1961 to 2010 at average rates of 25.1% and 11.7%, respectively, over every 5-year interval. These quickly shrinking zones were located in the northwestern and central TP. (3) The elevation dependency of climate warming existed in the TP during 1961-2010, but this tendency has gradually been weakening due to more rapid warming at lower elevations than in the middle and upper elevations of the TP during 1991-2010. The higher regions and some low altitude valleys of the TP were the most significantly warming regions under the same categorizing criteria. Experimental evidence shows that the GTEM is an effective method to analyse climate changes in high altitude mountainous regions

Resource Quantity Affects Benthic Microbial Community Structure and Growth Efficiency in a Temperate Intertidal Mudflat

Estuaries cover <1% of marine habitats, but the carbon dioxide (CO2) effluxes from these net heterotrophic systems contribute significantly to the global carbon cycle. Anthropogenic eutrophication of estuarine waterways increases the supply of labile substrates to the underlying sediments. How such changes affect the form and functioning of the resident microbial communities remains unclear. We employed a carbon-13 pulse-chase experiment to investigate how a temperate estuarine benthic microbial community at 6.5°C responded to additions of marine diatom-derived organic carbon equivalent to 4.16, 41.60 and 416.00 mmol C m−2. The quantities of carbon mineralized and incorporated into bacterial biomass both increased significantly, albeit differentially, with resource supply. This resulted in bacterial growth efficiency increasing from 0.40±0.02 to 0.55±0.04 as substrates became more available. The proportions of diatom-derived carbon incorporated into individual microbial membrane fatty acids also varied with resource supply. Future increases in labile organic substrate supply have the potential to increase both the proportion of organic carbon being retained within the benthic compartment of estuaries and also the absolute quantity of CO2 outgassing from these environments

Evidence that Adaptation in Drosophila Is Not Limited by Mutation at Single Sites

Adaptation in eukaryotes is generally assumed to be mutation-limited because of small effective population sizes. This view is difficult to reconcile, however, with the observation that adaptation to anthropogenic changes, such as the introduction of pesticides, can occur very rapidly. Here we investigate adaptation at a key insecticide resistance locus (Ace) in Drosophila melanogaster and show that multiple simple and complex resistance alleles evolved quickly and repeatedly within individual populations. Our results imply that the current effective population size of modern D. melanogaster populations is likely to be substantially larger (≥100-fold) than commonly believed. This discrepancy arises because estimates of the effective population size are generally derived from levels of standing variation and thus reveal long-term population dynamics dominated by sharp—even if infrequent—bottlenecks. The short-term effective population sizes relevant for strong adaptation, on the other hand, might be much closer to census population sizes. Adaptation in Drosophila may therefore not be limited by waiting for mutations at single sites, and complex adaptive alleles can be generated quickly without fixation of intermediate states. Adaptive events should also commonly involve the simultaneous rise in frequency of independently generated adaptive mutations. These so-called soft sweeps have very distinct effects on the linked neutral polymorphisms compared to the standard hard sweeps in mutation-limited scenarios. Methods for the mapping of adaptive mutations or association mapping of evolutionarily relevant mutations may thus need to be reconsidered

The Comprehensive Post-Acute Stroke Services (COMPASS) study: design and methods for a cluster-randomized pragmatic trial

Background: Patients discharged home after stroke face significant challenges managing residual neurological deficits, secondary prevention, and pre-existing chronic conditions. Post-discharge care is often fragmented leading to increased healthcare costs, readmissions, and sub-optimal utilization of rehabilitation and community services. The COMprehensive Post-Acute Stroke Services (COMPASS) Study is an ongoing cluster-randomized pragmatic trial to assess the effectiveness of a comprehensive, evidence-based, post-acute care model on patient-centered outcomes. Methods: Forty-one hospitals in North Carolina were randomized (as 40 units) to either implement the COMPASS care model or continue their usual care. The recruitment goal is 6000 patients (3000 per arm). Hospital staff ascertain and enroll patients discharged home with a clinical diagnosis of stroke or transient ischemic attack. Patients discharged from intervention hospitals receive 2-day telephone follow-up; a comprehensive clinic visit within 2 weeks that includes a neurological evaluation, assessments of social and functional determinants of health, and an individualized COMPASS Care PlanTM integrated with a community-specific resource database; and additional follow-up calls at 30 and 60 days post-stroke discharge. This model is consistent with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services transitional care management services provided by physicians or advanced practice providers with support from a nurse to conduct patient assessments and coordinate follow-up services. Patients discharged from usual care hospitals represent the control group and receive the standard of care in place at that hospital. Patient-centered outcomes are collected from telephone surveys administered at 90 days. The primary endpoint is patient-reported functional status as measured by the Stroke Impact Scale 16. Secondary outcomes are: caregiver strain, all-cause readmissions, mortality, healthcare utilization, and medication adherence. The study engages patients, caregivers, and other stakeholders (including policymakers, advocacy groups, payers, and local community coalitions) to advise and support the design, implementation, and sustainability of the COMPASS care model. Discussion: Given the high societal and economic burden of stroke, identifying a care model to improve recovery, independence, and quality of life is critical for stroke survivors and their caregivers. The pragmatic trial design provides a real-world assessment of the COMPASS care model effectiveness and will facilitate rapid implementation into clinical practice if successful

Expert consensus document: Clinical and molecular diagnosis, screening and management of Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome: an international consensus statement.

Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS), a human genomic imprinting disorder, is characterized by phenotypic variability that might include overgrowth, macroglossia, abdominal wall defects, neonatal hypoglycaemia, lateralized overgrowth and predisposition to embryonal tumours. Delineation of the molecular defects within the imprinted 11p15.5 region can predict familial recurrence risks and the risk (and type) of embryonal tumour. Despite recent advances in knowledge, there is marked heterogeneity in clinical diagnostic criteria and care. As detailed in this Consensus Statement, an international consensus group agreed upon 72 recommendations for the clinical and molecular diagnosis and management of BWS, including comprehensive protocols for the molecular investigation, care and treatment of patients from the prenatal period to adulthood. The consensus recommendations apply to patients with Beckwith-Wiedemann spectrum (BWSp), covering classical BWS without a molecular diagnosis and BWS-related phenotypes with an 11p15.5 molecular anomaly. Although the consensus group recommends a tumour surveillance programme targeted by molecular subgroups, surveillance might differ according to the local health-care system (for example, in the United States), and the results of targeted and universal surveillance should be evaluated prospectively. International collaboration, including a prospective audit of the results of implementing these consensus recommendations, is required to expand the evidence base for the design of optimum care pathways