Corrigendum to “Between improvement and sacrifice: Othering and the (bio)political ecology of climate change” [Political Geography 92 (2022) 102512]:Othering and the (bio)political ecology of climate change” [Political Geography 92 (2022) 102512] (Political Geography (2022) 92, (S0962629821001724), (10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102512))

The authors regret that a funding acknowledgement was omitted in the original article. The Acknowledgments section is restated in full below: Acknowledgements Diego Andreucci's research for this article was funded through a Juan de la Cierva Formación grant of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; and a postdoctoral fellowship by the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, which was co-financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), as part of its support for the Prince Claus Chair 2020–2022 (grant no. W 02.24.111). Christos Zografos received funding from the Ramon y Cajal programme of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. We wish to thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers—as well as Ethemcan Turhan, Marta Camps Calvet and Marien González Hidalgo—for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. All mistakes and omissions remain our own.</p

Resisting austerity in the era of COVID-19.:Between nationwide mobilisation and decentralised organising in Ecuador

Since 2017, the return of a neoliberal government in Ecuador has been characterized by austerity measures designed to lower state debt, particularly through cuts to social and environmental programs and the privatisation of state institutions. These policies have worsened ongoing economic and environmental crises suffered by the country’s poor, leading to massive protests in October 2019, which temporarily blocked further austerity measures. Yet, in subsequent months, the COVID-19 emergency enabled the government to move forward with neoliberal reforms and with policies promoting the expansion of extractive frontiers and the corporate food system. In this chapter, we examine decentralised organising among anti-neoliberal movements during the pandemic, particularly anti-extractivist and peasant agro-ecological collectives. We confirm prior findings regarding austerity that qualify it as a strategy not only to reduce state expenditure, but also to privately appropriate the commons, actively redirecting wealth to capital. Our research highlights that, in a context where mass protests are hindered by the pandemic, anti-neoliberal resistance in Ecuador operates in flexible articulations or assemblages that respond to shifting contexts. In 2019, marginalized sectors converged on urban political centres, concentrating a popular mass to pressure the central government and later, during COVID-19, local organisations advanced forms of decentralised resistance across the country, constructing or expanding solidarity networks, using legal and digital systems, and mobilizing alliances with local governments. Thus, subaltern anti-neoliberal movements continued to advance a politics of solidarity across changing contexts by flexibly articulating organisationally and tactically

First record of damage to a fruit crop by the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) (Passeriformes: Sturnidae) in Argentina

El estornino pinto (Sturnus vulgaris) es un ave exótica invasora que se registró por primera vez en Argentina en 1987 y actualmente se encuentra en expansión en el país. En noviembre de 2014, se observaron en un campo en la localidad de City Bell (La Plata, provincia de Buenos Aires) estorninos consumiendo arándanos en parejas y grupos pequeños. En diciembre de ese año, una bandada de entre 80 y 100 estorninos consumió el 75% de la etapa final de la producción de arándanos. Estas observaciones constituyen el primer registro de daño a un cultivo de frutales por parte del estornino pinto en Argentina.The European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is an exotic invasive bird that was first record in Argentina in 1987 and nowadays it is expanding in the country. In November 2014 we observed pairs and small flocks of starlings eating blueberries for first time in a field placed in the locality of City Bell (La Plata, Buenos Aires province). In December of this year a flock between 80 and 100 starlings consumed the 75% of the last stage of blueberries production. It is the first record of damage to a fruit crop by the starling in Argentina.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

First record of damage to a fruit crop by the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) (Passeriformes: Sturnidae) in Argentina

El estornino pinto (Sturnus vulgaris) es un ave exótica invasora que se registró por primera vez en Argentina en 1987 y actualmente se encuentra en expansión en el país. En noviembre de 2014, se observaron en un campo en la localidad de City Bell (La Plata, provincia de Buenos Aires) estorninos consumiendo arándanos en parejas y grupos pequeños. En diciembre de ese año, una bandada de entre 80 y 100 estorninos consumió el 75% de la etapa final de la producción de arándanos. Estas observaciones constituyen el primer registro de daño a un cultivo de frutales por parte del estornino pinto en Argentina.The European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is an exotic invasive bird that was first record in Argentina in 1987 and nowadays it is expanding in the country. In November 2014 we observed pairs and small flocks of starlings eating blueberries for first time in a field placed in the locality of City Bell (La Plata, Buenos Aires province). In December of this year a flock between 80 and 100 starlings consumed the 75% of the last stage of blueberries production. It is the first record of damage to a fruit crop by the starling in Argentina.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

First record of damage to a fruit crop by the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) (Passeriformes: Sturnidae) in Argentina

El estornino pinto (Sturnus vulgaris) es un ave exótica invasora que se registró por primera vez en Argentina en 1987 y actualmente se encuentra en expansión en el país. En noviembre de 2014, se observaron en un campo en la localidad de City Bell (La Plata, provincia de Buenos Aires) estorninos consumiendo arándanos en parejas y grupos pequeños. En diciembre de ese año, una bandada de entre 80 y 100 estorninos consumió el 75% de la etapa final de la producción de arándanos. Estas observaciones constituyen el primer registro de daño a un cultivo de frutales por parte del estornino pinto en Argentina.The European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is an exotic invasive bird that was first record in Argentina in 1987 and nowadays it is expanding in the country. In November 2014 we observed pairs and small flocks of starlings eating blueberries for first time in a field placed in the locality of City Bell (La Plata, Buenos Aires province). In December of this year a flock between 80 and 100 starlings consumed the 75% of the last stage of blueberries production. It is the first record of damage to a fruit crop by the starling in Argentina.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

An explainable model of host genetic interactions linked to COVID-19 severity

We employed a multifaceted computational strategy to identify the genetic factors contributing to increased risk of severe COVID-19 infection from a Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) dataset of a cohort of 2000 Italian patients. We coupled a stratified k-fold screening, to rank variants more associated with severity, with the training of multiple supervised classifiers, to predict severity based on screened features. Feature importance analysis from tree-based models allowed us to identify 16 variants with the highest support which, together with age and gender covariates, were found to be most predictive of COVID-19 severity. When tested on a follow-up cohort, our ensemble of models predicted severity with high accuracy (ACC = 81.88%; AUCROC = 96%; MCC = 61.55%). Our model recapitulated a vast literature of emerging molecular mechanisms and genetic factors linked to COVID-19 response and extends previous landmark Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS). It revealed a network of interplaying genetic signatures converging on established immune system and inflammatory processes linked to viral infection response. It also identified additional processes cross-talking with immune pathways, such as GPCR signaling, which might offer additional opportunities for therapeutic intervention and patient stratification. Publicly available PheWAS datasets revealed that several variants were significantly associated with phenotypic traits such as "Respiratory or thoracic disease", supporting their link with COVID-19 severity outcome.A multifaceted computational strategy identifies 16 genetic variants contributing to increased risk of severe COVID-19 infection from a Whole Exome Sequencing dataset of a cohort of Italian patients

The polymorphism L412F in TLR3 inhibits autophagy and is a marker of severe COVID-19 in males

The polymorphism L412F in TLR3 has been associated with several infectious diseases. However, the mechanism underlying this association is still unexplored. Here, we show that the L412F polymorphism in TLR3 is a marker of severity in COVID-19. This association increases in the sub-cohort of males. Impaired macroautophagy/autophagy and reduced TNF/TNFα production was demonstrated in HEK293 cells transfected with TLR3L412F-encoding plasmid and stimulated with specific agonist poly(I:C). A statistically significant reduced survival at 28 days was shown in L412F COVID-19 patients treated with the autophagy-inhibitor hydroxychloroquine (p = 0.038). An increased frequency of autoimmune disorders such as co-morbidity was found in L412F COVID-19 males with specific class II HLA haplotypes prone to autoantigen presentation. Our analyses indicate that L412F polymorphism makes males at risk of severe COVID-19 and provides a rationale for reinterpreting clinical trials considering autophagy pathways. Abbreviations: AP: autophagosome; AUC: area under the curve; BafA1: bafilomycin A1; COVID-19: coronavirus disease-2019; HCQ: hydroxychloroquine; RAP: rapamycin; ROC: receiver operating characteristic; SARS-CoV-2: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; TLR: toll like receptor; TNF/TNF-α: tumor necrosis factor

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types

A first update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

peer reviewe

Populism, Hegemony, and the Politics of Natural Resource Extraction in Evo Morales's Bolivia

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Is populism necessary to the articulation of counter-hegemonic projects, as Laclau has long argued? Or is it, as Žižek maintains, a dangerous strategy, which inevitably degenerates into ideological mystification and reactionary postures? In this paper, I address this question by exploring the politics of discourse in Evo Morales's Bolivia. While, in the years leading to the election of Morales, a populist ideological strategy was key to challenging neoliberal forces, once the hegemony of the new power bloc was stabilised, indigenous demands for emancipatory socio-environmental change began to be perceived as a threat to resource-based accumulation. In this context, the populist signifiers that originated in indigenous-popular struggles were used by the Morales government to legitimise repression of the indigenous movement. I argue, therefore, that ideological degeneration signals a problem not with populism per se, but rather with the class projects and shifting correlations of forces that underpin it in changing conjunctures