Biodiversity Loss and the Taxonomic Bottleneck: Emerging Biodiversity Science

Human domination of the Earth has resulted in dramatic changes to global and local patterns of biodiversity. Biodiversity is critical to human sustainability because it drives the ecosystem services that provide the core of our life-support system. As we, the human species, are the primary factor leading to the decline in biodiversity, we need detailed information about the biodiversity and species composition of specific locations in order to understand how different species contribute to ecosystem services and how humans can sustainably conserve and manage biodiversity. Taxonomy and ecology, two fundamental sciences that generate the knowledge about biodiversity, are associated with a number of limitations that prevent them from providing the information needed to fully understand the relevance of biodiversity in its entirety for human sustainability: (1) biodiversity conservation strategies that tend to be overly focused on research and policy on a global scale with little impact on local biodiversity; (2) the small knowledge base of extant global biodiversity; (3) a lack of much-needed site-specific data on the species composition of communities in human-dominated landscapes, which hinders ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation; (4) biodiversity studies with a lack of taxonomic precision; (5) a lack of taxonomic expertise and trained taxonomists; (6) a taxonomic bottleneck in biodiversity inventory and assessment; and (7) neglect of taxonomic resources and a lack of taxonomic service infrastructure for biodiversity science. These limitations are directly related to contemporary trends in research, conservation strategies, environmental stewardship, environmental education, sustainable development, and local site-specific conservation. Today’s biological knowledge is built on the known global biodiversity, which represents barely 20% of what is currently extant (commonly accepted estimate of 10 million species) on planet Earth. Much remains unexplored and unknown, particularly in hotspots regions of Africa, South Eastern Asia, and South and Central America, including many developing or underdeveloped countries, where localized biodiversity is scarcely studied or described. ‘‘Backyard biodiversity’’, defined as local biodiversity near human habitation, refers to the natural resources and capital for ecosystem services at the grassroots level, which urgently needs to be explored, documented, and conserved as it is the backbone of sustainable economic development in these countries. Beginning with early identification and documentation of local flora and fauna, taxonomy has documented global biodiversity and natural history based on the collection of ‘‘backyard biodiversity’’ specimens worldwide. However, this branch of science suffered a continuous decline in the latter half of the twentieth century, and has now reached a point of potential demise. At present there are very few professional taxonomists and trained local parataxonomists worldwide, while the need for, and demands on, taxonomic services by conservation and resource management communities are rapidly increasing. Systematic collections, the material basis of biodiversity information, have been neglected and abandoned, particularly at institutions of higher learning. Considering the rapid increase in the human population and urbanization, human sustainability requires new conceptual and practical approaches to refocusing and energizing the study of the biodiversity that is the core of natural resources for sustainable development and biotic capital for sustaining our life-support system. In this paper we aim to document and extrapolate the essence of biodiversity, discuss the state and nature of taxonomic demise, the trends of recent biodiversity studies, and suggest reasonable approaches to a biodiversity science to facilitate the expansion of global biodiversity knowledge and to create useful data on backyard biodiversity worldwide towards human sustainability

Ovarian Activity and Oestrous Signs among Group-Housed, Lactating Sows: Influence of Behaviour, Environment and Production

Animal welfare concerns require the development of housing systems that allow the animals to express their natural behaviour. One example of this is the group-housing system for lactating sows. The present study aimed at exploring ovarian activity in such a system. Thirty-eight sows farrowing individually outdoors during spring and summer, and indoors during autumn and winter, and group-housed in groups of four during weeks 3–7 of the lactation period, were monitored regarding reproductive functions, behaviour and production during their first to fourth lactation period. Average ovulation frequency during lactation was 47%. Only 50% of these ovulating cases were accompanied by a standing oestrus. Lactational ovulation frequency was higher in later parities (p < 0.001). Ovulation frequency was higher (p < 0.05) during winter (74%) and spring (69%), than during summer (10%) and autumn (23%). Occurrence of lactational ovulation was associated with some aspects of suckling behaviour and also with litter weight gain (p < 0.05). Forty-nine per cent of the lactational ovulations occurred during the seventh week of lactation. Timing of ovulation seemed positively (p = 0.08) associated with weight loss during lactation. Compared with the sows that were anoestrus during lactation, oestradiol-17β values were higher (p < 0.05) only in the week before occurrence of lactational ovulation. Weaning-to-oestrous interval was prolonged (p < 0.05) among the sows that ovulated during lactation. The present study identifies several factors influencing ovarian activity among group-housed sows, thereby providing tools for the control of lactational ovulation in group-housing systems

Magnetism, FeS colloids, and Origins of Life

A number of features of living systems: reversible interactions and weak bonds underlying motor-dynamics; gel-sol transitions; cellular connected fractal organization; asymmetry in interactions and organization; quantum coherent phenomena; to name some, can have a natural accounting via $physical$ interactions, which we therefore seek to incorporate by expanding the horizons of `chemistry-only' approaches to the origins of life. It is suggested that the magnetic 'face' of the minerals from the inorganic world, recognized to have played a pivotal role in initiating Life, may throw light on some of these issues. A magnetic environment in the form of rocks in the Hadean Ocean could have enabled the accretion and therefore an ordered confinement of super-paramagnetic colloids within a structured phase. A moderate H-field can help magnetic nano-particles to not only overcome thermal fluctuations but also harness them. Such controlled dynamics brings in the possibility of accessing quantum effects, which together with frustrations in magnetic ordering and hysteresis (a natural mechanism for a primitive memory) could throw light on the birth of biological information which, as Abel argues, requires a combination of order and complexity. This scenario gains strength from observations of scale-free framboidal forms of the greigite mineral, with a magnetic basis of assembly. And greigite's metabolic potential plays a key role in the mound scenario of Russell and coworkers-an expansion of which is suggested for including magnetism.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figures, to be published in A.R. Memorial volume, Ed Krishnaswami Alladi, Springer 201

MR imaging in sports-related glenohumeral instability

Sports-related shoulder pain and injuries represent a common problem. In this context, glenohumeral instability is currently believed to play a central role either as a recognized or as an unrecognized condition. Shoulder instabilities can roughly be divided into traumatic, atraumatic, and microtraumatic glenohumeral instabilities. In athletes, atraumatic and microtraumatic instabilities can lead to secondary impingement syndromes and chronic damage to intraarticular structures. Magnetic resonance (MR) arthrography is superior to conventional MR imaging in the diagnosis of labro-ligamentous injuries, intrinsic impingement, and SLAP (superior labral anteroposterior) lesions, and thus represents the most informative imaging modality in the overall assessment of glenohumeral instability. This article reviews the imaging criteria for the detection and classification of instability-related injuries in athletes with special emphasis on the influence of MR findings on therapeutic decisions

An Early Cambrian Rift to Post-Rift Transition in the Cordillera of Western North America

The upper Proterozoic and lower Palaeozoic wedge of miogeoclinal strata in the North American Cordillera is widely regarded as evidence for a proto-Pacific passive margin. The rifting history of this margin appears to have been protracted, possibly spanning more than 200 Myr in a tectonic setting that is not well understood. Quantitative subsidence analyses of lower Palaeozoic strata between British Columbia and Utah, however, provide indirect evidence that the transition from rifting to post-rift cooling occurred within a relatively short interval of time, although probably not synchronously, between 600 and 555 Myr. This age is significantly younger than that implied in previous studies. We describe here new field data, which, together with published geological data, provide direct evidence of a latest Proterozoic or early Cambrian age for the rift to post-rift transition. The data support recent arguments for widespread initiation of passive margins around the edge of the North American craton close to the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary

α-Actinin and Filamin Cooperatively Enhance the Stiffness of Actin Filament Networks

BACKGROUND: The close subcellular proximity of different actin filament crosslinking proteins suggests that these proteins may cooperate to organize F-actin structures to drive complex cellular functions during cell adhesion, motility and division. Here we hypothesize that alpha-actinin and filamin, two major F-actin crosslinking proteins that are both present in the lamella of adherent cells, display synergistic mechanical functions. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using quantitative rheology, we find that combining alpha-actinin and filamin is much more effective at producing elastic, solid-like actin filament networks than alpha-actinin and filamin separately. Moreover, F-actin networks assembled in the presence of alpha-actinin and filamin strain-harden more readily than networks in the presence of either alpha-actinin or filamin. SIGNIFICANCE: These results suggest that cells combine auxiliary proteins with similar ability to crosslink filaments to generate stiff cytoskeletal structures, which are required for the production of internal propulsive forces for cell migration, and that these proteins do not have redundant mechanical functions

Resident physician and hospital pharmacist familiarity with patient discharge medication costs

Objective Cost-related medication non-adherence is associated with increased health-care resource utilization and poor patient outcomes. Physicians-in-training generally receive little education regarding costs of prescribed therapy and may rely on hospital pharmacists for this information. However, little is documented regarding either of these health care providers’ familiarity with out-of pocket medication expenses borne by patients in the community. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare resident physician and hospital pharmacist familiarity with what patients pay for medications prescribed once discharged. Setting A major tertiary patient care and medical teaching centre in Canada. Method Internal medicine residents and hospital pharmacists within a specific health care organization were invited to participate in an online survey. Eight patient case scenarios and associated discharge therapeutic regimens were outlined and respondents asked to identify the costs patients would incur when having the prescription filled once discharged. Main Outcome Measure Total number and proportion of estimates above and below actual cost were calculated and compared between the groups using χ2 tests. Responses ±10% of the true cost were considered correct. Mean absolute values and standard deviation estimated costs, as well as cost increments above and below 10%, were calculated to assess the magnitude of the discrepancy between the respondent estimates and the actual total cost. Results Forty-four percent of physician residents and 26% of hospital pharmacists accessed the survey. Overall 39% and 47% of medication costs were under-estimated, 32% and 33% were overestimated, and 29% and 21% were correctly estimated by residents and pharmacists, respectively (P = NS). Incorrect estimates were evident across all therapeutic classes and medical indications presented in the survey. The greatest absolute cost discrepancy for both groups was under-estimation of linezolid ($800 and$400) and over-estimation of clopidogrel ($80) and bisoprolol therapy ($22) by residents and pharmacists, respectively. Conclusion Resident physicians and hospital pharmacists are unfamiliar with what patients must pay for drug therapy once discharged

How does study quality affect the results of a diagnostic meta-analysis?

Background: The use of systematic literature review to inform evidence based practice in diagnostics is rapidly expanding. Although the primary diagnostic literature is extensive, studies are often of low methodological quality or poorly reported. There has been no rigorously evaluated, evidence based tool to assess the methodological quality of diagnostic studies. The primary objective of this study was to determine the extent to which variations in the quality of primary studies impact the results of a diagnostic meta-analysis and whether this differs with diagnostic test type. A secondary objective was to contribute to the evaluation of QUADAS, an evidence-based tool for the assessment of quality in diagnostic accuracy studies. Methods: This study was conducted as part of large systematic review of tests used in the diagnosis and further investigation of urinary tract infection (UTI) in children. All studies included in this review were assessed using QUADAS, an evidence-based tool for the assessment of quality in systematic reviews of diagnostic accuracy studies. The impact of individual components of QUADAS on a summary measure of diagnostic accuracy was investigated using regression analysis. The review divided the diagnosis and further investigation of UTI into the following three clinical stages: diagnosis of UTI, localisation of infection, and further investigation of the UTI. Each stage used different types of diagnostic test, which were considered to involve different quality concerns. Results: Many of the studies included in our review were poorly reported. The proportion of QUADAS items fulfilled was similar for studies in different sections of the review. However, as might be expected, the individual items fulfilled differed between the three clinical stages. Regression analysis found that different items showed a strong association with test performance for the different tests evaluated. These differences were observed both within and between the three clinical stages assessed by the review. The results of regression analyses were also affected by whether or not a weighting (by sample size) was applied. Our analysis was severely limited by the completeness of reporting and the differences between the index tests evaluated and the reference standards used to confirm diagnoses in the primary studies. Few tests were evaluated by sufficient studies to allow meaningful use of meta-analytic pooling and investigation of heterogeneity. This meant that further analysis to investigate heterogeneity could only be undertaken using a subset of studies, and that the findings are open to various interpretations. Conclusion: Further work is needed to investigate the influence of methodological quality on the results of diagnostic meta-analyses. Large data sets of well-reported primary studies are needed to address this question. Without significant improvements in the completeness of reporting of primary studies, progress in this area will be limited