Addressing priority questions of conservation science with palaeontological data

Palaeontologists often ask identical questions to those asked by ecologists. Despite this, ecology is considered a core discipline of conservation biology, while palaeontologists are rarely consulted in the protection of species, habitats and ecosystems. The recent emergence of conservation palaeobiology presents a big step towards better integration of palaeontology in conservation science, although its focus on historical baselines may not fully capture the potential contributions of geohistorical data to conservation science. In this essay we address previously defined priority questions in conservation and consider which of these questions may be answerable using palaeontological data. Using a statistical assessment of surveys, we find that conservation biologists and younger scientists have a more optimistic view of potential palaeontological contributions to the field compared to experienced palaeontologists. Participants considered questions related to climate change and marine ecosystems to be the best addressable with palaeontological data. As these categories are also deemed most relevant by ecologists and receive the greatest research effort in conservation, they are the natural choice for future academic collaboration

Addressing priority questions of conservation science with palaeontological data

Palaeontologists often ask identical questions to those asked by ecologists. Despite this, ecology is considered a core discipline of conservation biology, while palaeontologists are rarely consulted in the protection of species, habitats and ecosystems. The recent emergence of conservation palaeobiology presents a big step towards better integration of palaeontology in conservation science, although its focus on historical baselines may not fully capture the potential contributions of geohistorical data to conservation science. In this essay we address previously defined priority questions in conservation and consider which of these questions may be answerable using palaeontological data. Using a statistical assessment of surveys, we find that conservation biologists and younger scientists have a more optimistic view of potential palaeontological contributions to the field compared to experienced palaeontologists. Participants considered questions related to climate change and marine ecosystems to be the best addressable with palaeontological data. As these categories are also deemed most relevant by ecologists and receive the greatest research effort in conservation, they are the natural choice for future academic collaboration

Hysteretic Dynamics of Multi-Stable Early Afterdepolarisations with Repolarisation Reserve Attenuation: A Potential Dynamical Mechanism for Cardiac Arrhythmias

Abstract Some cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular drugs frequently cause excessive prolongation of the cardiac action potential (AP) and lead to the development of early afterdepolarisations (EADs), which trigger lethal ventricular arrhythmias. Combining computer simulations in APs with numerical calculations based on dynamical system theory, we investigated stability changes of APs observed in a paced human ventricular myocyte model by decreasing and/or increasing the rapid (I Kr) and slow (I Ks) components of delayed rectifying K+ current. Upon reducing I Kr, the APs without EADs (no-EAD response) showed gradual prolongation of AP duration (APD), and were annihilated without AP configuration changes due to the occurrence of saddle-node bifurcations. This annihilation caused a transition to an AP with EADs as a new stable steady state. Furthermore, reducing repolarisation currents (repolarisation reserve attenuation) evoked multi-stable states consisting of APs with different APDs, and caused multiple hysteretic dynamics. Depending on initial ion circumstances within ventricular myocytes, these multi-stable AP states might increase the local/global heterogeneity of AP repolarisations in the ventricle. Thus, the EAD-induced arrhythmias with repolarisation reserve attenuation might be attributed to the APD variability caused by multi-stability in cardiac AP dynamics