Infrared thermography in the study of animals’ emotional responses: A critical review

Whether animals have emotions was historically a long-lasting question but, today, nobody disputes that they do. However, how to assess them and how to guarantee animals their welfare have become important research topics in the last 20 years. Infrared thermography (IRT) is a method to record the electromagnetic radiation emitted by bodies. It can indirectly assess sympathetic and parasympathetic activity via the modification of temperature of different body areas, caused by different phenomena such as stress-induced hyperthermia or variation in blood flow. Compared to other emotional activation assessment methods, IRT has the advantage of being noninvasive, allowing use without the risk of influencing animals’ behavior or physiological responses. This review describes general principles of IRT functioning, as well as its applications in studies regarding emotional reactions of domestic animals, with a brief section dedicated to the experiments on wildlife; it analyzes potentialities and possible flaws, confronting the results obtained in different taxa, and discusses further opportunities for IRT in studies about animal emotions

Distinct mechanisms mediate X chromosome dosage compensation in Anopheles and Drosophila

Sex chromosomes induce potentially deleterious gene expression imbalances that are frequently corrected by dosage compensation (DC). Three distinct molecular strategies to achieve DC have been previously described in nematodes, fruit flies, and mammals. Is this a consequence of distinct genomes, functional or ecological constraints, or random initial commitment to an evolutionary trajectory? Here, we study DC in the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae. The Anopheles and Drosophila X chromosomes evolved independently but share a high degree of homology. We find that Anopheles achieves DC by a mechanism distinct from the Drosophila MSL complex–histone H4 lysine 16 acetylation pathway. CRISPR knockout of Anopheles msl-2 leads to embryonic lethality in both sexes. Transcriptome analyses indicate that this phenotype is not a consequence of defective X chromosome DC. By immunofluorescence and ChIP, H4K16ac does not preferentially enrich on the male X. Instead, the mosquito MSL pathway regulates conserved developmental genes. We conclude that a novel mechanism confers X chromosome up-regulation in Anopheles. Our findings highlight the pluralism of gene-dosage buffering mechanisms even under similar genomic and functional constraints

An On-Line Solid Phase Extraction-Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry Method for the Determination of Perfluoroalkyl Acids in Drinking and Surface Waters

An UHPLC-MS/MS multiresidue method based on an on-line solid phase extraction (SPE) procedure was developed for the simultaneous determination of 9 perfluorinated carboxylates (from 4 to 12 carbon atoms) and 3 perfluorinated sulphonates (from 4 to 8 carbon atoms). This work proposes using an on-line solid phase extraction before chromatographic separation and analysis to replace traditional methods of off-line SPE before direct injection to LC-MS/MS. Manual sample preparation was reduced to sample centrifugation and acidification, thus eliminating several procedural errors and significantly reducing time-consuming and costs. Ionization suppression between target perfluorinated analytes and their coeluting SIL-IS were detected for homologues with a number of carbon atoms less than 9, but the quantitation was not affected. Total matrix effect corrected by SIL-IS, inclusive of extraction efficacy, and of ionization efficiency, ranged between −34 and +39%. The percentage of recoveries, between 76 and 134%, calculated in different matrices (tap water and rivers impacted by different pollutions) was generally satisfactory. LODs and LOQs of this on-line SPE method, which also incorporate recovery losses, ranged from 0.2 to 5.0 ng/L and from 1 to 20 ng/L, respectively. Validated on-line SPE-LC/MS/MS method has been applied in a wide survey for the determination of perfluoroalkyl acids in Italian surface and ground waters

What is it like to be a jealous dog? Commentary on Cook et al. on Dog Jealousy

Abstract: Jealousy is a good candidate for comparative studies due to its clear adaptive value in protecting social bonds and affective relationships. Dogs are suitable subjects for investigating the evolution of jealousy, thanks to their rather sophisticated socio-cognitive abilities \u2014 which in some cases parallel those reported for human infants \u2014 and thanks to their long-lasting relationship with humans. The work of Cook and colleagues (2018) addresses the issue of jealousy in dogs through the lens of neuroscience, examining the relationship between the amygdala and jealousy. Their experiment has a number of methodological flaws that prevent distinguishing jealousy from other internal states; it also lacks behavioral indicators that could help in this endeavor. Nevertheless, it is an admirable step towards a multidisciplinary approach to the investigation of non-basic emotions in nonhuman species

Community-based population recovery of overexploited Amazonian wildlife

The Amazon Basin experienced a pervasive process of resource overexploitation during the 20th-century, which induced severe population declines of many iconic vertebrate species. In addition to biodiversity loss and the ecological consequences of defaunation, food security of local communities was relentlessly threatened because wild meat had a historically pivotal role in protein acquisition by local dwellers. Here we discuss the urgent need to regulate subsistence hunting by Amazonian semi-subsistence local communities, which are far removed from the market and information economy. Following positive examples from community-based management of aquatic and terrestrial resources, we advocate that hunting practices, based on modern scientific principles firmly grounded in population ecology, represent a strong window of opportunity to recover viable populations of previously overexploited wildlife

Longitudinal tear protein changes correlate with ocular chronic gvhd development in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients

Ocular graft-versus-host disease (oGVHD) is a manifestation of chronic GVHD, frequently occurring in patients after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). We analyzed tear protein changes before and after allogeneic HSCT, and correlated their levels with the oGVHD development. This retrospective study included 102 patients, and data were recorded before the conditioning treatment, and after 3 to 6 months postoperatively. Tear protein analysis was performed with the Agilent-2100 Bioanalyzer on individual tears sampled by aspiration. Total protein (TP), Lysozyme-C (LYS-C), Lactoferrin (LACTO), Lipocalin-1 (LIPOC-1), Transferrin (TRANSF), Albumin (ALB), and Zinc-alpha-2-glycoprotein (ZAG-2) levels were retrieved and statistically analyzed. Following HSCT forty-three patients developed oGVHD. TP, LACTO, LYS-C, and ZAG-2 levels significantly decreased post-HSCT as compared to pre HSCT levels. In univariate analysis, TP, LACTO, and ZAG-2 decrease was associated with an increased development of oGVHD (OR = 4.49; 95% CI, 1.9 to 10.5; p < 0.001; OR = 3.08; 95% CI 1.3 to 7.6; p = 0.01; OR = 11.1; 95% CI 2.7 to 46.6; p < 0.001, respectively). TRANSF post-HSCT levels significantly increased (OR 15.7; 95% CI, 4.1 to 52.2; p = 0.0001). No pre-post-HSCT changes were shown in ALB and LIPOC-1 levels. Data suggest that TP content, LACTO, TRANSF, and ZAG-2 pre-post changes might be significant predictors of oGVHD development