Dataset Information

Toward a Deuterium Feather Isoscape for Sub-Saharan Africa: Progress, Challenges and the Path Ahead.

ABSTRACT: A key challenge to the application of continent-wide feather isoscapes for geographic assignment of migrant birds is the lack of ground-truthed samples. This is especially true for long-distance Palearctic-Afrotropical migrants. We used spatially-explicit information on the ?2H composition of archived feathers from Green-backed/Grey-backed Camaroptera, to create a feather ?2H isoscape for sub-Saharan Africa. We sampled from 34 out of 41 sub-Saharan countries, totaling 205 sampling localities. Feather samples were obtained from museum collections (n = 224, from 1950 to 2014) for ?2H assay. Region, altitude, annual rainfall and seasonal patterns in precipitation were revealed as relevant explanatory variables for spatial patterns in feather ?2H. Predicted feather ?2H values ranged from -4.0 ‰ to -63.3 ‰, with higher values observed in the Great Rift Valley and South Africa, and lower values in central Africa. Our feather isoscape differed from that modelled previously using a precipitation ?2H isoscape and an assumed feather-to-precipitation calibration, but the relatively low model goodness fit (F10,213 = 5.98, p<0.001, R2 = 0.18) suggests that other, non-controlled variables might be driving observed geographic patterns in feather ?2H values. Additional ground-truthing studies are therefore recommended to improve the accuracy of the African feather ?2H isoscape.

SUBMITTER: Gutierrez-Exposito C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4565548 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Toward a Deuterium Feather Isoscape for Sub-Saharan Africa: Progress, Challenges and the Path Ahead.

Gutiérrez-Expósito Carlos C Ramírez Francisco F Afán Isabel I Forero Manuela G MG Hobson Keith A KA

PloS one 20150910 9

A key challenge to the application of continent-wide feather isoscapes for geographic assignment of migrant birds is the lack of ground-truthed samples. This is especially true for long-distance Palearctic-Afrotropical migrants. We used spatially-explicit information on the δ2H composition of archived feathers from Green-backed/Grey-backed Camaroptera, to create a feather δ2H isoscape for sub-Saharan Africa. We sampled from 34 out of 41 sub-Saharan countries, totaling 205 sampling localities. Fe ...[more]

PMID: 26356677

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Project description:Sub-Saharan Africa represents 69% of the total number of individuals living with HIV infection worldwide and 72% of AIDS deaths globally. Pulmonary infection is a common and frequently fatal complication, though little is known regarding the lower airway microbiome composition of this population. Our objectives were to characterize the lower airway microbiome of Ugandan HIV-infected patients with pneumonia, to determine relationships with demographic, clinical, immunological, and microbiological variables and to compare the composition and predicted metagenome of these communities to a comparable cohort of patients in the US (San Francisco). Bronchoalveolar lavage samples from a cohort of 60 Ugandan HIV-infected patients with acute pneumonia were collected. Amplified 16S ribosomal RNA was profiled and aforementioned relationships examined. Ugandan airway microbiome composition and predicted metagenomic function were compared to US HIV-infected pneumonia patients. Among the most common bacterial pulmonary pathogens, Pseudomonas aeruginosa was most prevalent in the Ugandan cohort. Patients with a richer and more diverse airway microbiome exhibited lower bacterial burden, enrichment of members of the Lachnospiraceae and sulfur-reducing bacteria and reduced expression of TNF-alpha and matrix metalloproteinase-9. Compared to San Franciscan patients, Ugandan airway microbiome were significantly richer, and compositionally distinct with predicted metagenomes that encoded a multitude of distinct pathogenic pathways e.g secretion systems. Ugandan pneumonia-associated airway microbiome is compositionally and functionally distinct from those detected in comparable patients in developed countries, a feature which may contribute to adverse outcomes in this population. Please note that the data from the comparable cohort of patients in the USUS data was published as supplemental material of PMID: 22760045 but not submitted to GEO The 'patient_info.txt' contains 12 clinical, 7 immunological and 3 microbiological variables for each patient.

Dataset Information

Toward a Deuterium Feather Isoscape for Sub-Saharan Africa: Progress, Challenges and the Path Ahead.

Publications

Toward a Deuterium Feather Isoscape for Sub-Saharan Africa: Progress, Challenges and the Path Ahead.

Similar Datasets

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