The Paper Trail: An Arid Connection & A Book of a Thousand Plants

Following my Ph.D., I moved on to Nebraska, where as a beginning faculty member I was able to start a research program in ecology and continue to study what intrigued me most: plant competition and stress. It was during this time that I came across the paper by Peter Alpert (see his article below) and his colleagues on “Invasiveness, invasibility, and the role of environmental stress in preventing the spread of non-native plants” (Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 3:52–66). It was an “aha” moment in reading about biological invasion research and the current consensus at that time regarding invasiveness and invasibility in plant species and communities. I had seen first-hand or at least I had thought about things like nonnatives remaining noninvasive for long periods, the relationship between plasticity and invasiveness, and the “unlike invader” hypothesis, which were all touched on in the paper. Add to this the discussion on the topic of stress (e.g., drought) affecting invasibility and the conceptual diagrams showing hypothetical responses of native and nonnatives under minimum and maximum levels, and I was convinced that my ideas were similar to those of others. For the first time, I did not feel alone in my thinking. In a way, it was a newfound freedom that allowed me to ponder more deeply the effects of stress on invasive plants. Extreme drought is a type of stress or selection pressure imposed on plants and communities of plants that can reveal fitness and plasticity differences that if understood could have profound impacts on invasion and community assembly theory

Giving patients granular control of personal health information: Using an ethics ‘Points to Consider’ to inform informatics system designers

Objective: There are benefits and risks of giving patients more granular control of their personal health information in electronic health record (EHR) systems. When designing EHR systems and policies, informaticists and system developers must balance these benefits and risks. Ethical considerations should be an explicit part of this balancing. Our objective was to develop a structured ethics framework to accomplish this. Methods: We reviewed existing literature on the ethical and policy issues, developed an ethics framework called a “Points to Consider” (P2C) document, and convened a national expert panel to review and critique the P2C. Results: We developed the P2C to aid informaticists designing an advanced query tool for an electronic health record (EHR) system in Indianapolis. The P2C consists of six questions (“Points”) that frame important ethical issues, apply accepted principles of bioethics and Fair Information Practices, comment on how questions might be answered, and address implications for patient care. Discussion: The P2C is intended to clarify whatis at stake when designers try to accommodate potentially competing ethical commitments and logistical realities. The P2C was developed to guide informaticists who were designing a query tool in an existing EHR that would permit patient granular control. While consideration of ethical issues is coming to the forefront of medical informatics design and development practices, more reflection is needed to facilitate optimal collaboration between designers and ethicists. This report contributes to that discussion

Comparative Invasion Ecology of Carpobrotus From Four Continents: Responses to Nutrients and Competition

[Abstract] Two key hypotheses in invasion biology are that certain traits underlie invasiveness in introduced species, and that these traits are selected for during or after introduction. We tested these hypotheses by focusing on two traits likely to confer invasiveness, high increase in growth in response to increase in nutrients and low decrease in growth in response to competition. We compared four species of Carpobrotus that differ in invasiveness, using species from four continents: Africa, Australia, Europe and North America. To test for selection for these traits in Carpobrotus edulis, a highly invasive species, we compared plants from its native range in South Africa to plants from the other three regions, where C. edulis has been introduced. Plants were propagated in a common garden. Offspring were then grown alone with or without added nutrients, and together with another species of Carpobrotus or with the grass Ammophila arenaria (a co-occurring native species in Europe) without added nutrients. Response to nutrients did not differ between species of Carpobrotus, nor was competitive response less negative in more invasive species. However, increase in growth in response to added nutrients was greater in introduced than in native C. edulis. Moreover, fresh mass per ramet at the start of treatments was higher in the two invasive species than in the two non-invasive ones. We provide new evidence that introduction can select for response to nutrient enrichment in invasive species and add to the evidence for an association between size and invasiveness in introduced plants.[摘要] 四大洲食用昼花属的比较入侵生态学：对养分和竞争的响应 入侵生物学的两个关键假设是，某些特征是外来物种入侵的基础，且这些特征是在引入期间或之后选择的。我们通过关注两个可能赋予入侵性的特征来检验这些假设，即营养增加引起的较高生长加速和竞争引起的较低生长减速。我们对采自非洲、澳洲、欧洲和北美洲的4个食用昼花属(Carpobrotus)品 种进行了比较。为了测试高入侵物种莫邪菊(Carpobrotus edulis)对这些特征的选择，我们将原产于南非 的植株与入侵其他3个地区的植株进行了比较。在一个同质园中繁殖植株。然后，在添加或不添加养分的情况下单独培育子代，并在不添加养分的情况下将子代与另一个食用昼花属品种一起、或与欧洲的一种共生本土物种马兰草(Ammophila arenaria)一起培育。不同品种的食用昼花属对营养物质的反应并无差异，在入侵性更强的物种中，竞争反应的负面性也没有减弱。然而，与本土莫邪菊相比，添加营养物质引起外来莫邪菊更高的生长加速。此外，在处理开始时，两种入侵物种每分株的鲜质量高于两种非入侵物种。我们的研究结果表明，引种可以选择入侵物种对营养富集的反应进行选择，也证明了外来植物的体积和入侵性之间的关联。Australian samples were collected under licenses SW018396 and CE005442 issued by the Western Australian Department of Parks and Wildlife. This paper is a contribution from the Alien Species Network (Ref. ED431D 2017/20—Xunta de Galicia, Autonomous Government of Galicia). Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Grant CGL2013-44519-R, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, to S.R.R.) and CSIRO Julius Career Award (to B.L.W.)Xunta de Galicia; ED431D 2017/2

Points to consider in ethically constructing patient-controlled electronic health records

Patient advocates and leaders in informatics have long proposed that patients should have greater ability to control the information in their electronic health record (EHR), including how it can be accessed by their health care providers. The value of such “granular” control, as it has been termed, has been supported prominently in an influential report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) funded several projects to study key components of EHR systems, including exploring ways to allow granular control. This “Points to Consider” document provides an overview of the benefits, risks and challenges of granular control of EHRs; a review of the key ethical principles, values, and Fair Information Practices that ought to guide development of an EHR that accommodates granular control, and seven detailed Points to Consider to guide decision making.Award No: 90HT0054/01, a cooperative agreement program from the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to Indiana Health Information Technology, Inc. (IHIT) under the State HIE – Challenge Grant Program to the Indiana University School of Medicine and Regenstrief Institute, Inc

Patient Preferences in Controlling Access to Their Electronic Health Records: a Prospective Cohort Study in Primary Care

Introduction: Previous studies have measured individuals’ willingness to share personal information stored in electronic health records (EHRs) with health care providers, but none has measured preferences among patients when they are allowed to determine the parameters of provider access. Methods: Patients were given the ability to control access by doctors, nurses, and other staff in a primary care clinic to personal information stored in an EHR. Patients could restrict access to all personal data or to specific types of sensitive information, and could restrict access for a specific time period. Patients also completed a survey regarding their understanding of and opinions regarding the process. Results: Of 139 eligible patients who were approached, 105 (75.5 %) were enrolled, and preferences were collected from all 105 (100 %). Sixty patients (57 %) did not restrict access for any providers. Of the 45 patients (43 %) who chose to limit the access of at least one provider, 36 restricted access only to all personal information in the EHR, while nine restricted access of some providers to a subset of the their personal information. Thirty-four (32.3 %) patients blocked access to all personal information by all doctors, nurses, and/or other staff, 26 (24.8 %) blocked access by all doctors and/or nurses, and five (4.8 %) denied access to all doctors, nurses, and staff. Conclusions: A significant minority of patients chose to restrict access by their primary care providers to personal information contained in an EHR, and few chose to restrict access to specific types of information. More research is needed to identify patient goals and understanding of the implications when facing decisions of this sort, and to identify the impact of patient education regarding information contained in EHRs and their use in the clinical care settin

Effects of Orientation on Survival and Growth of Small Fragments of the Invasive, Clonal Plant Alternanthera philoxeroides

BACKGROUND: The ability of small clonal fragments to establish and grow after disturbance is an important ecological advantage of clonal growth in plants and a major factor in the invasiveness of some introduced, clonal species. We hypothesized that orientation in the horizontal position (typical for stoloniferous plants) can increase the survival and growth of dispersed clonal fragments, and that this effect of orientation can be stronger when fragments are smaller and thus have fewer reserves to support initial growth. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To test these hypotheses, we compared performance of single-node pieces of stolon fragments of Alternanthera philoxeroides planted at angles of 0, 45 or 90° away from the horizontal position, with either the distal or the proximal end of the fragment up and with either 1 or 3 cm of stolon left attached both distal and proximal to the ramet. As expected, survival and growth were greatest when fragments were positioned horizontally. Contrary to expectations, some of these effects of orientation were stronger when attached stolons were longer. Orientation had smaller effects than stolon length on the performance of fragments; survival of fragments was about 60% with shorter stolons and 90% with longer stolons. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Results supported the hypothesis that orientation can affect establishment of small clonal fragments, suggested that effects of orientation can be stronger in larger rather than smaller fragments, and indicated that orientation may have less effect on establishment than amount of stored resources