The Kirtland's warbler () is a rare migratory passerine species and habitat specialist of the North American Jack Pine Forests. Their near extinction in the 1970s classified them as endangered and protected under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. After decades of intense conservation management, their population size recovered, and they were delisted from federal protection in 2019.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVertebrates host complex microbiomes that impact their physiology. In many taxa, including colourful wood-warblers, gut microbiome similarity decreases with evolutionary distance. This may suggest that as host populations diverge, so do their microbiomes, because of either tight coevolutionary dynamics, or differential environmental influences, or both.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The World Health Organization is coordinating an international project aimed at systematically reviewing the evidence regarding the association between radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure and adverse health effects. Reproductive health outcomes have been identified among the priority topics to be addressed.
Objectives: To evaluate the effect of RF-EMF exposure on male fertility of experimental mammals and on human sperm exposed in vitro.
Background: The World Health Organization is coordinating an international project aimed at systematically reviewing the evidence regarding the association between radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure and adverse health effects. Within the project, 6 topics have been prioritized by an expert group, which include reproductive health outcomes.
Objectives: According to the protocol published in 2021, a systematic review and meta-analyses on the adverse effects of RF-EMF exposure during pregnancy in offspring of experimental animals were conducted.
Bachman's warbler (Vermivora bachmanii)-last sighted in 1988-is one of the only North American passerines to recently go extinct. Given extensive ongoing hybridization of its two extant congeners-the blue-winged warbler (V. cyanoptera) and golden-winged warbler (V.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnderstanding the factors that shape microbiomes can provide insight into the importance of host-symbiont interactions and on co-evolutionary dynamics. Unlike for mammals, previous studies have found little or no support for an influence of host evolutionary history on avian gut microbiome diversity and instead have suggested a greater influence of the environment or diet due to fast gut turnover. Because effects of different factors may be conflated by captivity and sampling design, examining natural variation using large sample sizes is important.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUsing low-coverage whole-genome sequencing, analysis of vocalizations, and inferences from natural history, we document a first-generation hybrid between a rose-breasted grosbeak () and a scarlet tanager (). These two species occur sympatrically throughout much of eastern North America, although were not previously known to interbreed. Following the field identification of a putative hybrid, we use genetic and bioacoustic data to show that a rose-breasted grosbeak was the maternal parent and a scarlet tanager was the paternal parent of the hybrid, whose song was similar to the latter species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The carcinogenicity of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF EMF) has been evaluated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2011. Based on limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and in animals, RF EMF were classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B). In 2018, based on a survey amongst RF experts, WHO prioritized six major topics of potential RF EMF related human health effects for systematic reviews.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Int
December 2021
Background: Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields (RF-EMF) at environmental level have been reported to induce adverse effects on the male reproductive system and developing embryos. However, despite the number of experiments conducted since the 1970s, the diversity of testing approaches and exposure conditions, inconsistencies among results, and dosimetric flaws have not yet permitted a solid assessment of the relationship between RF-EMF exposure and such effects, warranting a more systematic and methodologically rigorous approach to the evaluation of available data.
Objectives: This study aims at evaluating the effects of RF-EMF exposure on male fertility and pregnancy outcomes by a systematic review (SR) of experimental studies, conducted in compliance with international guidelines.
Mol Phylogenet Evol
August 2021
Conidae is a hyperdiverse family of marine snails that has many hallmarks of adaptive radiation. Hybridization and introgression may contribute to such instances of rapid diversification by generating novel gene combinations that facilitate exploitation of distinct niches. Here we evaluated whether or not these mechanisms may have contributed to the evolutionary history of a subgenus of Conidae (Virroconus).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpecies radiations have long served as model systems in evolutionary biology. However, it has only recently become possible to study the genetic bases of the traits responsible for diversification and only in a small number of model systems. Here, we use genomes of 36 species of North, Central, and South American warblers to highlight the role of pigmentation genes-involved in melanin and carotenoid processing-in the diversification of this group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomed Opt Express
January 2020
Applications using terahertz (THz) frequency radiation will inevitably lead to increased human exposure. The power density and specific absorption rate (SAR) simulations of thin skin at 0.45 THz show the bulk of the energy being absorbed in the upper stratum spinosum, and the maximal temperature rise is in the lower stratum spinosum.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe issues of real or suspected health effects of radiofrequency fields, produced by cellphones, their base stations and many other devices, are complex and controversial. We believe that the most balanced and valid assessments of these issues are given by the extensive reports produced by reputable, multidisciplinary, expert groups. These use the principles of a comprehensive review to assess all available published literature and form their conclusions by consideration of the strength of the evidence from the available studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioelectromagnetics
February 2019
Terahertz radiation (THz) is highly absorbed by liquid water. This creates the possibility of medical imaging on the basis of the water content difference between normal and diseased tissue. The effective penetration of THz is limited, however, to a tissue depth of 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study considers the computationally determined thermal profile of a finely discretized, heterogeneous human body model, simulating a radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) worker wearing protective clothing subject to RF-EMF exposure, and subject to various environmental conditions including high ambient temperature and high humidity, with full thermoregulatory mechanisms in place. How the human body responds in various scenarios was investigated, and the information was used to consider safety limits in current international RF-EMF safety guidelines and standards. It was found that different environmental conditions had minimal impact on the magnitude of the thermal response due to RF-EMF exposure, and that the current safety factor of 10 applied in international RF-EMF safety guidelines and standards for RF-EMF workers is generally conservative, though it is only narrowly so when workers are subjected to the most adverse environmental conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Psychosoc Oncol
August 2017
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of stigma on prostate cancer (PCa) survivors' quality of life. Stigma for lung cancer survivors has been the focus of considerable research (Else-Quest & Jackson, 2014); however, gaps remain in understanding the experience of PCa stigma. A cross-sectional correlational study was designed to assess the incidence of PCa stigma and its influence on the quality of life of survivors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClimate change poses major challenges for conservation and management because it alters the area, quality, and spatial distribution of habitat for natural populations. To assess species' vulnerability to climate change and target ongoing conservation investments, researchers and managers often consider the effects of projected changes in climate and land use on future habitat availability and quality and the uncertainty associated with these projections. Here, we draw on tools from hydrology and climate science to project the impact of climate change on the density of wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region of the USA, a critical area for breeding waterfowl and other wetland-dependent species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioelectromagnetics
December 2016
As the availability of Terahertz (THz) sources and their application expands, interaction with biological material needs to be well-understood. In order to accurately estimate the energy absorption pattern in skin and other tissues in the THz and far Infrared regions, values of dielectric parameters ϵ and σ are required. We present an approach for tissue water, which uses literature values of complex refractive index for pure water together with some considerations regarding the effects of dissolved salts.
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