The United States Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 set a precedent for biodiversity conservation across the globe. A key requirement of protections afforded by the ESA is the accurate delimitation of imperiled species. We present a comparative reference-based taxonomic approach to species delimitation that integrates genomic and morphological data for objectively assessing the distinctiveness of species targeted for protection by governmental agencies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Institutional trauma registries, which contribute data to the National Trauma Data Bank, are a fundamental resource for trauma research, though may have significant deficits in data accuracy. We hypothesize that inaccuracies in shooting intent exist at institutional registries of pediatric trauma centers.
Methods: Pediatric firearm injuries (ages 0-17 years) in a single county between 2018 and 2020 were identified from three Level I trauma centers.
Humans have been driving a global erosion of species richness for millennia, but the consequences of past extinctions for other dimensions of biodiversity-functional and phylogenetic diversity-are poorly understood. In this work, we show that, since the Late Pleistocene, the extinction of 610 bird species has caused a disproportionate loss of the global avian functional space along with ~3 billion years of unique evolutionary history. For island endemics, proportional losses have been even greater.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCountries in the Americas play a vital role in global livestock and aquaculture production. With international trade of livestock and aquaculture products becoming an important source of income for countries, there has been an increased interest in using animal health economics for advocacy and allocation of resources. This article discusses the development of a new Collaborating Centre for the Economics of Animal Health and the applications of the Global Burden of Animal Diseases (GBADs) framework in the Americas region.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF