Case study on the short-term impacts of fireworks on marine species
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ORGANISM(S): Hartlaub's gull Cape fur seal
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PROVIDER: S-BSST1440 | biostudies-other |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:In this article, the recently published SPOTTER approach, which allows for identifying potential supply disruption impacts along the entire supply chain within life cycle sustainability assessment in the short term (i.e., < 5 years), is applied to a case study addressing the cobalt and aluminum supply chains of electric vehicles (EVs) used in Switzerland. Existing studies within the field assessing supply disruption impacts for EVs and other technologies focus on impacts related to raw material supply and thus neglect impacts along full supply chains. The present study identifies hotspots and overall impacts along the full supply chains by analyzing six supply disruption events (i.e., geopolitical instability, child labor restrictions, trade barriers, price volatility, limited recyclability, and economic resource depletion) for two impact categories (i.e., cost variability and limited availability). Identified hotspots suggest that supply chains are potentially disrupted mainly through events occurring in Asian, African, or other developing countries and affecting the Western economies. The highest risks are indicated in relation to the supply of EVs, EV wiring, traction batteries, cobalt powder, and cobalt ore. Suitable measures to mitigate these supply risks are suggested showing that some of the suggestions could not have been made based on the results of existing studies.
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Project description:Transposable elements (TEs) are considered to be genomic parasites and their interactions with their hosts have been likened to the coevolution between host and other nongenomic, horizontally transferred pathogens. TE families, however, are vertically inherited as integral segments of the nuclear genome. This transmission strategy has been suggested to weaken the selective benefits of host alleles repressing the transposition of specific TE variants. On the other hand, the elevated rates of TE transposition and high incidences of deleterious mutations observed during the rare cases of horizontal transfers of TE families between species could create at least a transient process analogous to the influence of horizontally transmitted pathogens. Here, we formally address this analogy, using empirical and theoretical analysis to specify the mechanism of how host-TE interactions may drive the evolution of host genes. We found that host TE-interacting genes actually have more pervasive evidence of adaptive evolution than immunity genes that interact with nongenomic pathogens in Drosophila. Yet, both our theoretical modeling and empirical observations comparing Drosophila melanogaster populations before and after the horizontal transfer of P elements, which invaded D. melanogaster early last century, demonstrated that horizontally transferred TEs have only a limited influence on host TE-interacting genes. We propose that the more prevalent and constant interaction with multiple vertically transmitted TE families may instead be the main force driving the fast evolution of TE-interacting genes, which is fundamentally different from the gene-for-gene interaction of host-pathogen coevolution.
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Project description:Consumption of a Western-style diet impairs the ovarian follicular microenvironment and preimplantation development without changes in insulin resistance and body fat percentage in non-human primates.
2021-02-15 | GSE162817 | GEO
Project description:BackgroundHuman well-being has been linked to the composition and functional capacity of the intestinal microbiota. As regular exercise is known to improve human health, it is not surprising that exercise was previously described to positively modulate the gut microbiota, too. However, most previous studies mainly focused on either elite athletes or animal models. Thus, we conducted a randomised intervention study that focused on the effects of different types of training (endurance and strength) in previously physically inactive, healthy adults in comparison to controls that did not perform regular exercise. Overall study duration was ten weeks including six weeks of intervention period. In addition to 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing of longitudinally sampled faecal material of participants (six time points), detailed body composition measurements and analysis of blood samples (at baseline and after the intervention) were performed to obtain overall physiological changes within the intervention period. Activity tracker devices (wrist-band wearables) provided activity status and sleeping patterns of participants as well as exercise intensity and heart measurements.ResultsDifferent biometric responses between endurance and strength activities were identified, such as a significant increase of lymphocytes and decrease of mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC) only within the strength intervention group. In the endurance group, we observed a significant reduction in hip circumference and an increase in physical working capacity (PWC). Though a large variation of microbiota changes were observed between individuals of the same group, we did not find specific collective alterations in the endurance nor the strength groups, arguing for microbiome variations specific to individuals, and therefore, were not captured in our analysis.ConclusionsWe could show that different types of exercise have distinct but moderate effects on the overall physiology of humans and very distinct microbial changes in the gut. The observed overall changes during the intervention highlight the importance of physical activity on well-being. Future studies should investigate the effect of exercise on a longer timescale, investigate different training intensities and consider high-resolution shotgun metagenomics technology.Trial registrationDRKS, DRKS00015873 . Registered 12 December 2018; Retrospectively registered.
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Project description:Microplastics are recognised as a potential global threat to marine ecosystems, but the biological mechanisms determining their impact on marine life are still largely unknown. Here, we investigated the effects of microplastics on the red coral, a long-lived habitat-forming organism belonging to the Corallium genus, which is present at almost all latitudes from shallow-water to deep-sea habitats. When exposed to microplastics, corals preferentially ingest polypropylene, with multiple biological effects, from feeding impairment to mucus production and altered gene expression. Microplastics can alter the coral microbiome directly and indirectly by causing tissue abrasions that allow the proliferation of opportunistic bacteria. These multiple effects suggest that microplastics at the concentrations present in some marine areas and predicted for most oceans in the coming decades, can ultimately cause coral death. Other habitat-forming suspension-feeding species are likely subjected to similar impacts, which may act synergistically with climate-driven events primarily responsible for mass mortalities.
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Project description:Understanding historical roles of species in ecosystems can be crucial for assessing long term human impacts on environments, providing context for management or restoration objectives, and making conservation evaluations of species status. In most cases limited historical abundance data impedes quantitative investigations, but harvested species may have long-term data accessible from hunting records. Here we make use of annual hunting records for Caspian seals (Pusa caspica) dating back to the mid-19(th) century, and current census data from aerial surveys, to reconstruct historical abundance using a hind-casting model. We estimate the minimum numbers of seals in 1867 to have been 1-1.6 million, but the population declined by at least 90% to around 100,000 individuals by 2005, primarily due to unsustainable hunting throughout the 20(th) century. This collapse is part of a broader picture of catastrophic ecological change in the Caspian over the 20(th) Century. Our results combined with fisheries data show that the current biomass of top predators in the Caspian is much reduced compared to historical conditions. The potential for the Caspian and other similar perturbed ecosystems to sustain natural resources of much greater biological and economic value than at present depends on the extent to which a number of anthropogenic impacts can be harnessed.
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Project description:ObjectiveTo determine whether COVID-19 has a significant impact on adequacy of household income to meet basic needs (primary outcome) and work absence due to sickness (secondary outcome), both at the onset of illness (short term) and subsequently (long term).DesignMultilevel mixed regression analysis of self-reported data from monthly online questionnaires, completed 1 May 2020 to 28 October 2021, adjusting for baseline characteristics including age, sex, socioeconomic status and self-rated health.Setting and participantsParticipants (n=16 910) were UK residents aged 16 years or over participating in a national longitudinal study of COVID-19 (COVIDENCE UK).ResultsIncident COVID-19 was independently associated with increased odds of participants reporting household income as being inadequate to meet their basic needs in the short term (adjusted OR (aOR) 1.39, 95% CI 1.12 to 1.73) though this did not persist in the long term (aOR 1.00, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.16). Exploratory analysis revealed a stronger short-term association among those who reported long COVID, defined as the presence of symptoms lasting more than 4 weeks after disease onset, than those reporting COVID-19 without long COVID (p for trend 0.002). Incident COVID-19 associated with increased odds of reporting sickness absence from work in the long term (aOR 4.73, 95% CI 2.47 to 9.06) but not in the short term (aOR 1.34, 95% CI 0.52 to 3.49).ConclusionsWe demonstrate an independent association between COVID-19 and increased risk of economic vulnerability among COVIDENCE participants, measured by both household income sufficiency and sickness absence from work. Taking these findings together with pre-existing research showing that socioeconomic disadvantage increases the risk of developing COVID-19, this may suggest a 'vicious cycle' of impaired health and poor economic outcomes.Trial registration numberNCT04330599.
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Project description:BackgroundThis paper suggests a method to assess the extent to which ultra-short Heart Rate Variability (HRV) features (less than 5?min) can be considered as valid surrogates of short HRV features (nominally 5?min). Short term HRV analysis has been widely investigated for mental stress assessment, whereas the validity of ultra-short HRV features remains unclear. Therefore, this study proposes a method to explore the extent to which HRV excerpts can be shortened without losing their ability to automatically detect mental stress.MethodsECGs were acquired from 42 healthy subjects during a university examination and resting condition. 23 features were extracted from HRV excerpts of different lengths (i.e., 30?s, 1?min, 2?min, 3?min, and 5?min). Significant differences between rest and stress phases were investigated using non-parametric statistical tests at different time-scales. Features extracted from each ultra-short length were compared with the standard short HRV features, assumed as the benchmark, via Spearman's rank correlation analysis and Bland-Altman plots during rest and stress phases. Using data-driven machine learning approaches, a model aiming to detect mental stress was trained, validated and tested using short HRV features, and assessed on the ultra-short HRV features.ResultsSix out of 23 ultra-short HRV features (MeanNN, StdNN, MeanHR, StdHR, HF, and SD2) displayed consistency across all of the excerpt lengths (i.e., from 5 to 1?min) and 3 out of those 6 ultra-short HRV features (MeanNN, StdHR, and HF) achieved good performance (accuracy above 88%) when employed in a well-dimensioned automatic classifier.ConclusionThis study concluded that 6 ultra-short HRV features are valid surrogates of short HRV features for mental stress investigation.
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Project description:A growing body of research indicates benefits of cognitive training in older adults, but the neuronal mechanisms underlying the effect of cognitive intervention remains largely unexplored. Neuroimaging methods are sensitive to subtle changes in brain structure and show potential for enhancing our understanding of both aging- and training-related neuronal plasticity. Specifically, studies using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) suggest substantial changes in white matter (WM) in aging, but it is not known whether cognitive training might modulate these structural alterations. We used tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) optimized for longitudinal analysis to delineate the effects of 8 weeks intensive memory training on WM microstructure. 41 participants (mean age 61 years) matched for age, sex and education were randomly assigned to an intervention or control group. All participants underwent MRI-scanning and neuropsychological assessments at the beginning and end of the study. Longitudinal analysis across groups revealed significant increase in frontal mean diffusivity (MD), indicating that DTI is sensitive to WM structural alterations over a 10-week interval. Further, group analysis demonstrated positive effects of training on the short-term changes. Participants in the training group showed a relative increase in fractional anisotropy (FA) compared with controls. Further, a significant relationship between memory improvement and change in FA was found, suggesting a possible functional significance of the reported changes. The training effect on FA seemed to be driven by a relative decrease in radial diffusivity, which might indicate a role for myelin-related processes in WM plasticity.
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Project description:A maternal Western-style diet (WSD) is associated with poor reproductive outcomes, but whether this is from the diet itself or underlying metabolic dysfunction is unknown. Here, we performed a longitudinal study using regularly cycling female rhesus macaques (n = 10) that underwent 2 consecutive in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles, one while consuming a low-fat diet and another 6-8 months after consuming a high-fat WSD. Metabolic data were collected from the females prior to each IVF cycle. Follicular fluid (FF) and oocytes were assessed for cytokine/steroid levels and IVF potential, respectively. Although transition to a WSD led to weight gain and increased body fat, no difference in insulin levels was observed. A significant decrease in IL-1RA concentration and the ratio of cortisol/cortisone was detected in FF after WSD intake. Despite an increased probability of isolating mature oocytes, a 44% reduction in blastocyst number was observed with WSD consumption, and time-lapse imaging revealed delayed mitotic timing and multipolar divisions. RNA sequencing of blastocysts demonstrated dysregulation of genes involved in RNA binding, protein channel activity, mitochondrial function and pluripotency versus cell differentiation after WSD consumption. Thus, short-term WSD consumption promotes a proinflammatory intrafollicular microenvironment that is associated with impaired preimplantation development in the absence of large-scale metabolic changes.
| S-EPMC7934943 | biostudies-literature