Are ant assemblages of Brazilian veredas characterised by location or habitat type?

Wetland areas in the Brazilian Cerrado, known as “veredas”, represent ecosystems formed on sandy soils with high concentrations of peat, and are responsible for the recharge of aquiferous reservoirs. They are currently under threat by various human activities, most notably the clearing of vegetation for Eucalyptus plantations. Despite their ecological importance and high conservation value, little is known about the actual effects of human disturbance on the animal community. To assess how habitat within different veredas, and plantations surrounding them affect ant assemblages, we selected four independent vereda locations, two being impacted by Eucalyptus monoculture (one younger and one mature plantation) and two controls, where the wetland was surrounded by cerrado vegetation. Ant sampling was conducted in May 2010 (dry season) using three complementary methods, namely baits, pitfall traps, and hand collection, in the wetland and in the surrounding habitats. A total of 7,575 ants were sampled, belonging to seven subfamilies, 32 genera and 124 species.Ant species richness and abundance did not differ between vereda locations, but did between the habitats. When impacted by the monoculture, ant species richness and abundance decreased in wetlands, but were less affected in the cerrado habitat. Ant species composition differed between the three habitats and between vereda locations. Eucalyptus plantations had an ant species composition defined by high dominance of Pheidole sp. and Solenopsis invicta, while natural habitats were defined by Camponotus and Crematogaster species. Atta sexdens was strictly confined to native habitats of non-impacted “veredas”. Eucalyptus monocultures require high quantities of water in the early stages, which may have caused a decrease in groundwater level in the wetland, allowing hypogeic ants such as Labidus praedator to colonise this habitat

Single nucleotide polymorphism discovery in rainbow trout by deep sequencing of a reduced representation library

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To enhance capabilities for genomic analyses in rainbow trout, such as genomic selection, a large suite of polymorphic markers that are amenable to high-throughput genotyping protocols must be identified. Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) have been used for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) discovery in salmonids. In those strategies, the salmonid semi-tetraploid genomes often led to assemblies of paralogous sequences and therefore resulted in a high rate of false positive SNP identification. Sequencing genomic DNA using primers identified from ESTs proved to be an effective but time consuming methodology of SNP identification in rainbow trout, therefore not suitable for high throughput SNP discovery. In this study, we employed a high-throughput strategy that used pyrosequencing technology to generate data from a reduced representation library constructed with genomic DNA pooled from 96 unrelated rainbow trout that represent the National Center for Cool and Cold Water Aquaculture (NCCCWA) broodstock population.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The reduced representation library consisted of 440 bp fragments resulting from complete digestion with the restriction enzyme <it>Hae</it>III; sequencing produced 2,000,000 reads providing an average 6 fold coverage of the estimated 150,000 unique genomic restriction fragments (300,000 fragment ends). Three independent data analyses identified 22,022 to 47,128 putative SNPs on 13,140 to 24,627 independent contigs. A set of 384 putative SNPs, randomly selected from the sets produced by the three analyses were genotyped on individual fish to determine the validation rate of putative SNPs among analyses, distinguish apparent SNPs that actually represent paralogous loci in the tetraploid genome, examine Mendelian segregation, and place the validated SNPs on the rainbow trout linkage map. Approximately 48% (183) of the putative SNPs were validated; 167 markers were successfully incorporated into the rainbow trout linkage map. In addition, 2% of the sequences from the validated markers were associated with rainbow trout transcripts.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The use of reduced representation libraries and pyrosequencing technology proved to be an effective strategy for the discovery of a high number of putative SNPs in rainbow trout; however, modifications to the technique to decrease the false discovery rate resulting from the evolutionary recent genome duplication would be desirable.</p

Pooling and expanding registries of familial hypercholesterolaemia to assess gaps in care and improve disease management and outcomes : Rationale and design of the global EAS Familial Hypercholesterolaemia Studies Collaboration

Background: The potential for global collaborations to better inform public health policy regarding major non-hypercholesterolaemia (FH), a common genetic disorder associated with premature cardiovascular disease, is yet to be reliably ascertained using similar approaches. The European Atherosclerosis Society FH Studies Collaboration (EAS FHSC) is a new initiative of international stakeholders which will help establish a global FH registry to generate large-scale, robust data on the burden of FH worldwide. Methods: The EAS FHSC will maximise the potential exploitation of currently available and future FH data (retrospective and prospective) by bringing together regional/national/international data sources with access to individuals with a clinical and/or genetic diagnosis of heterozygous or homozygous FH. A novel bespoke electronic platform and FH Data Warehouse will be developed to allow secure data sharing, validation, cleaning, pooling, harmonisation and analysis irrespective of the source or format. Standard statistical procedures will allow us to investigate cross-sectional associations, patterns of real-world practice, trends over time, and analyse risk and outcomes (e.g. cardiovascular outcomes, all-cause death), accounting for potential confounders and subgroup effects. Conclusions: The EAS FHSC represents an excellent opportunity to integrate individual efforts across the world to tackle the global burden of FH. The information garnered from the registry will help reduce gaps in knowledge, inform best practices, assist in clinical trials design, support clinical guidelines and policies development, and ultimately improve the care of FH patients. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd.Peer reviewe

Marine Biodiversity in the Caribbean: Regional Estimates and Distribution Patterns

This paper provides an analysis of the distribution patterns of marine biodiversity and summarizes the major activities of the Census of Marine Life program in the Caribbean region. The coastal Caribbean region is a large marine ecosystem (LME) characterized by coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrasses, but including other environments, such as sandy beaches and rocky shores. These tropical ecosystems incorporate a high diversity of associated flora and fauna, and the nations that border the Caribbean collectively encompass a major global marine biodiversity hot spot. We analyze the state of knowledge of marine biodiversity based on the geographic distribution of georeferenced species records and regional taxonomic lists. A total of 12,046 marine species are reported in this paper for the Caribbean region. These include representatives from 31 animal phyla, two plant phyla, one group of Chromista, and three groups of Protoctista. Sampling effort has been greatest in shallow, nearshore waters, where there is relatively good coverage of species records; offshore and deep environments have been less studied. Additionally, we found that the currently accepted classification of marine ecoregions of the Caribbean did not apply for the benthic distributions of five relatively well known taxonomic groups. Coastal species richness tends to concentrate along the Antillean arc (Cuba to the southernmost Antilles) and the northern coast of South America (Venezuela – Colombia), while no pattern can be observed in the deep sea with the available data. Several factors make it impossible to determine the extent to which these distribution patterns accurately reflect the true situation for marine biodiversity in general: (1) highly localized concentrations of collecting effort and a lack of collecting in many areas and ecosystems, (2) high variability among collecting methods, (3) limited taxonomic expertise for many groups, and (4) differing levels of activity in the study of different taxa

A922 Sequential measurement of 1 hour creatinine clearance (1-CRCL) in critically ill patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI)

Meeting abstrac

20-Year Risks of Breast-Cancer Recurrence after Stopping Endocrine Therapy at 5 Years

The administration of endocrine therapy for 5 years substantially reduces recurrence rates during and after treatment in women with early-stage, estrogen-receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer. Extending such therapy beyond 5 years offers further protection but has additional side effects. Obtaining data on the absolute risk of subsequent distant recurrence if therapy stops at 5 years could help determine whether to extend treatment

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference