Understanding the threats posed by non-native species: public vs. conservation managers.

Public perception is a key factor influencing current conservation policy. Therefore, it is important to determine the influence of the public, end-users and scientists on the prioritisation of conservation issues and the direct implications for policy makers. Here, we assessed public attitudes and the perception of conservation managers to five non-native species in the UK, with these supplemented by those of an ecosystem user, freshwater anglers. We found that threat perception was not influenced by the volume of scientific research or by the actual threats posed by the specific non-native species. Media interest also reflected public perception and vice versa. Anglers were most concerned with perceived threats to their recreational activities but their concerns did not correspond to the greatest demonstrated ecological threat. The perception of conservation managers was an amalgamation of public and angler opinions but was mismatched to quantified ecological risks of the species. As this suggests that invasive species management in the UK is vulnerable to a knowledge gap, researchers must consider the intrinsic characteristics of their study species to determine whether raising public perception will be effective. The case study of the topmouth gudgeon Pseudorasbora parva reveals that media pressure and political debate has greater capacity to ignite policy changes and impact studies on non-native species than scientific evidence alone

Introduced Pathogens and Native Freshwater Biodiversity: A Case Study of Sphaerothecum destruens

A recent threat to European fish diversity was attributed to the association between an intracellular parasite, Sphaerothecum destruens, and a healthy freshwater fish carrier, the invasive Pseudorasbora parva originating from China. The pathogen was found to be responsible for the decline and local extinction of the European endangered cyprinid Leucaspius delineatus and high mortalities in stocks of Chinook and Atlantic salmon in the USA. Here, we show that the emerging S. destruens is also a threat to a wider range of freshwater fish than originally suspected such as bream, common carp, and roach. This is a true generalist as an analysis of susceptible hosts shows that S. destruens is not limited to a phylogenetically narrow host spectrum. This disease agent is a threat to fish biodiversity as it can amplify within multiple hosts and cause high mortalities

Search for sterile neutrino mixing in the MINOS long-baseline experiment

A search for depletion of the combined flux of active neutrino species over a 735 km baseline is reported using neutral-current interaction data recorded by the MINOS detectors in the NuMI neutrino beam. Such a depletion is not expected according to conventional interpretations of neutrino oscillation data involving the three known neutrino flavors. A depletion would be a signature of oscillations or decay to postulated noninteracting sterile neutrinos, scenarios not ruled out by existing data. From an exposure of 3.18×1020 protons on target in which neutrinos of energies between ~500¿¿MeV and 120 GeV are produced predominantly as ¿µ, the visible energy spectrum of candidate neutral-current reactions in the MINOS far detector is reconstructed. Comparison of this spectrum to that inferred from a similarly selected near-detector sample shows that of the portion of the ¿µ flux observed to disappear in charged-current interaction data, the fraction that could be converting to a sterile state is less than 52% at 90% confidence level (C.L.). The hypothesis that active neutrinos mix with a single sterile neutrino via oscillations is tested by fitting the data to various models. In the particular four-neutrino models considered, the mixing angles ¿24 and ¿34 are constrained to be less than 11° and 56° at 90% C.L., respectively. The possibility that active neutrinos may decay to sterile neutrinos is also investigated. Pure neutrino decay without oscillations is ruled out at 5.4 standard deviations. For the scenario in which active neutrinos decay into sterile states concurrently with neutrino oscillations, a lower limit is established for the neutrino decay lifetime t3/m3>2.1×10-12¿¿s/eV at 90% C.L

Predicting growth and curve progression in the individual patient with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: design of a prospective longitudinal cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Scoliosis is present in 3-5% of the children in the adolescent age group, with a higher incidence in females. Treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is mainly dependent on the progression of the scoliotic curve. There is a close relationship between curve progression and rapid (spinal) growth of the patient during puberty. However, until present time no conclusive method was found for predicting the timing and magnitude of the pubertal growth spurt in total body height, or the curve progression of the idiopathic scoliosis.</p> <p>The goal of this study is to determine the predictive value of several maturity indicators that reflect growth or remaining growth potential, in order to predict timing of the peak growth velocity of total body height in the individual patient with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. Furthermore, different parameters are evaluated for their correlation with curve progression in the individual scoliosis patient.</p> <p>Methods/design</p> <p>This prospective, longitudinal cohort study will be incorporated in the usual care of patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. All new patients between 8 and 17 years with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (Cobb angle >10 degrees) visiting the outpatient clinic of the University Medical Center Groningen are included in this study. Follow up will take place every 6 months. The present study will use a new ultra-low dose X-ray system which can make total body X-rays. Several maturity indicators are evaluated like different body length dimensions, secondary sexual characteristics, skeletal age in hand and wrist, skeletal age in the elbow, the Risser sign, the status of the triradiate cartilage, and EMG ratios of the paraspinal muscle activity.</p> <p>Correlations of all dimensions will be calculated in relationship to the timing of the pubertal growth spurt, and to the progression of the scoliotic curve. An algorithm will be made for the optimal treatment strategy in the individual patient with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This study will determine the value of many maturity indicators and will be useful as well for other clinicians treating children with disorders of growth. Since not all clinicians have access to the presented new 3D X-ray system or have the time to make EMG's, for example, all indicators will be correlated to the timing of the peak growth velocity of total body height and curve progression in idiopathic scoliosis. Therefore each clinician can chose which indicators can be used best in their practice.</p> <p>Trial registration number</p> <p>NTR2048</p

First observations of separated atmospheric nu_mu and bar{nu-mu} events in the MINOS detector

The complete 5.4 kton MINOS far detector has been taking data since the beginning of August 2003 at a depth of 2070 meters water-equivalent in the Soudan mine, Minnesota. This paper presents the first MINOS observations of nuµ and [overline nu ]µ charged-current atmospheric neutrino interactions based on an exposure of 418 days. The ratio of upward- to downward-going events in the data is compared to the Monte Carlo expectation in the absence of neutrino oscillations, giving Rup/downdata/Rup/downMC=0.62-0.14+0.19(stat.)±0.02(sys.). An extended maximum likelihood analysis of the observed L/E distributions excludes the null hypothesis of no neutrino oscillations at the 98% confidence level. Using the curvature of the observed muons in the 1.3 T MINOS magnetic field nuµ and [overline nu ]µ interactions are separated. The ratio of [overline nu ]µ to nuµ events in the data is compared to the Monte Carlo expectation assuming neutrinos and antineutrinos oscillate in the same manner, giving R[overline nu ][sub mu]/nu[sub mu]data/R[overline nu ][sub mu]/nu[sub mu]MC=0.96-0.27+0.38(stat.)±0.15(sys.), where the errors are the statistical and systematic uncertainties. Although the statistics are limited, this is the first direct observation of atmospheric neutrino interactions separately for nuµ and [overline nu ]µ

The consequences of reservoir host eradication on disease epidemiology in animal communities.

Non-native species have often been linked with introduction of novel pathogens that spill over into native communities, and the amplification of the prevalence of native parasites. In the case of introduced generalist pathogens, their disease epidemiology in the extant communities remains poorly understood. Here, Sphaerothecum destruens, a generalist fungal-like fish pathogen with bi-modal transmission (direct and environmental) was used to characterise the biological drivers responsible for disease emergence in temperate fish communities. A range of biotic factors relating to both the pathogen and the surrounding host communities were used in a novel susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (SEIR) model to test how these factors affected disease epidemiology. These included: (i) pathogen prevalence in an introduced reservoir host (Pseudorasbora parva); (ii) the impact of reservoir host eradication and its timing and (iii) the density of potential hosts in surrounding communities and their connectedness. These were modelled across 23 combinations and indicated that the spill-over of pathogen propagules via environmental transmission resulted in rapid establishment in adjacent fish communities (<1 year). Although disease dynamics were initially driven by environmental transmission in these communities, once sufficient numbers of native hosts were infected, the disease dynamics were driven by intra-species transmission. Subsequent eradication of the introduced host, irrespective of its timing (after one, two or three years), had limited impact on the long-term disease dynamics among local fish communities. These outputs reinforced the importance of rapid detection and eradication of non-native species, in particular when such species are identified as healthy reservoirs of a generalist pathogen

Reconstruction of metabolic pathways for the cattle genome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Metabolic reconstruction of microbial, plant and animal genomes is a necessary step toward understanding the evolutionary origins of metabolism and species-specific adaptive traits. The aims of this study were to reconstruct conserved metabolic pathways in the cattle genome and to identify metabolic pathways with missing genes and proteins. The MetaCyc database and PathwayTools software suite were chosen for this work because they are widely used and easy to implement.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>An amalgamated cattle genome database was created using the NCBI and Ensembl cattle genome databases (based on build 3.1) as data sources. PathwayTools was used to create a cattle-specific pathway genome database, which was followed by comprehensive manual curation for the reconstruction of metabolic pathways. The curated database, CattleCyc 1.0, consists of 217 metabolic pathways. A total of 64 mammalian-specific metabolic pathways were modified from the reference pathways in MetaCyc, and two pathways previously identified but missing from MetaCyc were added. Comparative analysis of metabolic pathways revealed the absence of mammalian genes for 22 metabolic enzymes whose activity was reported in the literature. We also identified six human metabolic protein-coding genes for which the cattle ortholog is missing from the sequence assembly.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>CattleCyc is a powerful tool for understanding the biology of ruminants and other cetartiodactyl species. In addition, the approach used to develop CattleCyc provides a framework for the metabolic reconstruction of other newly sequenced mammalian genomes. It is clear that metabolic pathway analysis strongly reflects the quality of the underlying genome annotations. Thus, having well-annotated genomes from many mammalian species hosted in BioCyc will facilitate the comparative analysis of metabolic pathways among different species and a systems approach to comparative physiology.</p

Measurement of single π0 production by coherent neutral-current ν Fe interactions in the MINOS Near Detector

Forward single π0 production by coherent neutral-current interactions, νA→νAπ0, is investigated using a 2.8×1020 protons-on-target exposure of the MINOS Near Detector. For single-shower topologies, the event distribution in production angle exhibits a clear excess above the estimated background at very forward angles for visible energy in the range 1-8 GeV. Cross sections are obtained for the detector medium comprised of 80% iron and 20% carbon nuclei with =48, the highest- target used to date in the study of this coherent reaction. The total cross section for coherent neutral-current single π0 production initiated by the νμ flux of the NuMI low-energy beam with mean (mode) Eν of 4.9 GeV (3.0 GeV), is 77.6±5.0(stat)-16.8+15.0(syst)×10-40 cm2 pernucleus. The results are in good agreement with predictions of the Berger-Sehgal model