A horizon scan of future threats and opportunities for pollinators and pollination

Background. Pollinators, which provide the agriculturally and ecologically essential service of pollination, are under threat at a global scale. Habitat loss and homogenisation, pesticides, parasites and pathogens, invasive species, and climate change have been identified as past and current threats to pollinators. Actions to mitigate these threats, e.g., agri-environment schemes and pesticide-use moratoriums, exist, but have largely been applied post-hoc. However, future sustainability of pollinators and the service they provide requires anticipation of potential threats and opportunities before they occur, enabling timely implementation of policy and practice to prevent, rather than mitigate, further pollinator declines. Methods.Using a horizon scanning approach we identified issues that are likely to impact pollinators, either positively or negatively, over the coming three decades. Results.Our analysis highlights six high priority, and nine secondary issues. High priorities are: (1) corporate control of global agriculture, (2) novel systemic pesticides, (3) novel RNA viruses, (4) the development of new managed pollinators, (5) more frequent heatwaves and drought under climate change, and (6) the potential positive impact of reduced chemical use on pollinators in non-agricultural settings. Discussion. While current pollinator management approaches are largely driven by mitigating past impacts, we present opportunities for pre-emptive practice, legislation, and policy to sustainably manage pollinators for future generations

Dynamics of tree diversity in undisturbed and logged subtropical rainforest in Australia

In subtropical rainforest in eastern Australia, changes in the diversity of trees were compared under natural conditions and eight silvicultural regimes over 35 years. In the treated plots basal area remaining after logging ranged from 12 to 58 m2 per ha. In three control plots richness differed little over this period. In the eight treated plots richness per plot generally declined after intervention and then gradually increased to greater than original diversity. After logging there was a reduction in richness per plot and an increase in species richness per stem in all but the lightest selective treatments. The change in species diversity was related to the intensity of the logging, however the time taken for species richness to return to pre-logging levels was similar in all silvicultural treatments and was not effected by the intensity of treatment. These results suggest that light selective logging in these forests mainly affects dominant species. The return to high diversity after only a short time under all silvicultural regimes suggests that sustainability and the manipulation of species composition for desired management outcomes is possible

Essential Medicines at the National Level : The Global Asthma Network's Essential Asthma Medicines Survey 2014

Patients with asthma need uninterrupted supplies of affordable, quality-assured essential medicines. However, access in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is limited. The World Health Organization (WHO) Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Global Action Plan 2013-2020 sets an 80% target for essential NCD medicines' availability. Poor access is partly due to medicines not being included on the national Essential Medicines Lists (EML) and/or National Reimbursement Lists (NRL) which guide the provision of free/subsidised medicines. We aimed to determine how many countries have essential asthma medicines on their EML and NRL, which essential asthma medicines, and whether surveys might monitor progress. A cross-sectional survey in 2013-2015 of Global Asthma Network principal investigators generated 111/120 (93%) responses41 high-income countries and territories (HICs); 70 LMICs. Patients in HICs with NRL are best served (91% HICs included ICS (inhaled corticosteroids) and salbutamol). Patients in the 24 (34%) LMICs with no NRL and the 14 (30%) LMICs with an NRL, however no ICS are likely to have very poor access to affordable, quality-assured ICS. Many LMICs do not have essential asthma medicines on their EML or NRL. Technical guidance and advocacy for policy change is required. Improving access to these medicines will improve the health system's capacity to address NCDs.Peer reviewe

Comparison of bird populations in logged and unlogged rain forest at wiangarie state forest, N.S.W

Bird populations were studied in experimental plots of silvicultural treatments in subtropical rainforest. The results of mist-netting in the lower strata of logged and intact forest in May, August, and November/December 1973 showed that the number of insectivorous birds was large in the areas where selective logging occurred several years ago; and that two control areas and one recently logged area had similar compositions and densities of bird fauna. The high density of birds in logged areas was associated with dense undergrowth and this was interpreted as part of their normal response to local tree falls and forest edge conditions. Selective logging, however, causes a much greater degree of disturbance to the forest than natural tree falls, and this has important implications in the management of rainforest for production and conservation

Nutritional Assesment in Cystic Fibrosis Patients( Iran and Newzeland)

Introduction: Patients with Cystic Fibrosis have increased risk of malnutrition. Early detection of nutritional deterioration enables prompt intervention and correction. The aims of this project were to: - Define the nutritional status of CF patients in Iran and New Zealand -    Compare and contrast the MacDonald Nutritional Screening tool  with the Australasian guidelines for Nutrition in Cystic Fibrosis -    Validate these results in comparison with patient’s evaluation by their CF clinical team.   Materials and Methods: 69 CF patients (2-18 years) were assessed during routine outpatient visits over one year. Anthropometric measurements were obtained. Both tools were applied for each patient and the results compared to their clinical evaluation (as gold standard) with calculation of specificity and sensitivity. Results: Under-nutrition was more frequent in Iranian than NZ patients (39% versus 0%, p=0.0001), whereas over-nutrition was more prevalent in NZ children (9% versus 17%, p=0.05). At the first visit, MacDonald and Australasian guidelines were able to recognize 77% and 61% of under-nourished Iranian patients, respectively. The mean sensitivity and specificity for all visits for the MacDonald tool were 83% & 73% (Iran) and 65% & 86% (NZ). Sensitivity and specificity for the Australasian guidelines were 79% & 79% (Iran) and 70% & 90% (NZ). Conclusions: Both tools successfully recognised patients at risk of malnutrition. The MacDonald tool had comparable sensitivity and specificity to that described previously, especially in Iranian patients. This tool may be helpful in recognizing at risk CF patients, particularly in developing countries with fewer resources. Key words: Iran, Cystic Fibrosis Patient, Newzeland, Nutritional Assesment

Side-by-Side Comparison of Post-Entry Quarantine and High Throughput Sequencing Methods for Virus and Viroid Diagnosis

Rapid and safe access to new plant genetic stocks is crucial for primary plant industries to remain profitable, sustainable, and internationally competitive. Imported plant species may spend several years in Post Entry Quarantine (PEQ) facilities, undergoing pathogen testing which can impact the ability of plant industries to quickly adapt to new global market opportunities by accessing new varieties. Advances in high throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies provide new opportunities for a broad range of fields, including phytosanitary diagnostics. In this study, we compare the performance of two HTS methods (RNA-Seq and sRNA-Seq) with that of existing PEQ molecular assays in detecting and identifying viruses and viroids from various plant commodities. To analyze the data, we tested several bioinformatics tools which rely on different approaches, including direct-read, de novo, and reference-guided assembly. We implemented VirusReport, a new portable, scalable, and reproducible nextflow pipeline that analyses sRNA datasets to detect and identify viruses and viroids. We raise awareness of the need to evaluate cross-sample contamination when analyzing HTS data routinely and of using methods to mitigate index cross-talk. Overall, our results suggest that sRNA analyzed using VirReport provides opportunities to improve quarantine testing at PEQ by detecting all regulated exotic viruses from imported plants in a single assay.</p

Implementation of GA-VirReport, a Web-Based Bioinformatics Toolkit for Post-Entry Quarantine Screening of Virus and Viroids in Plants

High-throughput sequencing (HTS) of host plant small RNA (sRNA) is a popular approach for plant virus and viroid detection. The major bottlenecks for implementing this approach in routine virus screening of plants in quarantine include lack of computational resources and/or expertise in command-line environments and limited availability of curated plant virus and viroid databases. We developed: (1) virus and viroid report web-based bioinformatics workflows on Galaxy Australia called GA-VirReport and GA-VirReport-Stats for detecting viruses and viroids from host plant sRNA extracts and (2) a curated higher plant virus and viroid database (PVirDB). We implemented sRNA sequencing with unique dual indexing on a set of plants with known viruses. Sequencing data were analyzed using GA-VirReport and PVirDB to validate these resources. We detected all known viruses in this pilot study with no cross-sample contamination. We then conducted a large-scale diagnosis of 105 imported plants processed at the post-entry quarantine facility (PEQ), Australia. We detected various pathogens in 14 imported plants and discovered that de novo assembly using 21–22 nt sRNA fraction and the megablast algorithm yielded better sensitivity and specificity. This study reports the successful, large-scale implementation of HTS and a user-friendly bioinformatics workflow for virus and viroid screening of imported plants at the PEQ