Post-COVID recovery is faster after an infection with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant: a population-based cohort study.

Purpose: Post-COVID-19 condition (PCC) poses a substantial burden to affected individuals, health care systems, and society as a whole. We examined factors associated with recovery from PCC, focusing on the vaccination status prior to infection and the virus variant.

Methods: Our analyses are based on the population-based cohort study for digital health research in Germany (DigiHero).

Likelihood of Post-COVID Condition in people with hybrid immunity; data from the German National Cohort (NAKO).

Objectives: The risk of Post-COVID-19 condition (PCC) under hybrid immunity remains unclear.

Methods: Using data from the German National Cohort (NAKO Gesundheitsstudie), we investigated risk factors for self-reported post-infection symptoms (any PCC is defined as having at least one symptom, and high symptom burden PCC as having nine or more symptoms).

Results: Sixty percent of 109,707 participants reported at least one previous SARS-CoV-2 infection; 35% reported having had any symptoms 4-12 months after infection; among them 23% reported nine or more symptoms.

The contribution of SARS-CoV-2 to the burden of acute respiratory infections in winter season 2022/2023: results from the DigiHero study.

Objectives: In winter of 2022/2023 SARS-CoV-2 had developed into one of many seasonal respiratory pathogens, causing an additional burden of acute respiratory infections (ARIs). Although testing was still widely used, many positive tests were not reported for the official statistics. Using data from a population-based cohort, we aimed to investigate the contribution of SARS-CoV-2 to the burden of ARI.

Insights into early recovery from Long COVID-results from the German DigiHero Cohort.

65 million people worldwide are estimated to suffer from long-term symptoms after their SARS-CoV-2 infection (Long COVID). However, there is still little information about the early recovery among those who initially developed Long COVID, i.e.

To Remind or Not to Remind During Recruitment? An Analysis of an Online Panel in Germany.

To explore the role of reminders in recruiting and maintaining participation in an online panel. 50,045 individuals from five German federal states were invited by regular mail to participate in the online study "Health-Related Beliefs and Healthcare Experiences in Germany." Those who did not respond to the first attempt received a postal reminder.

Association between virus variants, vaccination, previous infections, and post-COVID-19 risk.

Objectives: The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant has spread rapidly and has been the dominant variant since 2022. The course of acute infection, in a vaccinated population, with Omicron is milder compared with earlier variants. However, little is known about how the occurrence of long-term symptoms after Omicron infection compared with other variants is modulated by previous infections and/or vaccinations.

T cell repertoire breadth is associated with the number of acute respiratory infections in the LoewenKIDS birth cohort.

We set out to gain insight into peripheral blood B and T cell repertoires from 120 infants of the LoewenKIDS birth cohort to investigate potential determinants of early life respiratory infections. Low antigen-dependent somatic hypermutation of B cell repertoires, as well as low T and B cell repertoire clonality, high diversity, and high richness especially in public T cell clonotypes reflected the immunological naivety at 12 months of age when high thymic and bone marrow output are associated with relatively few prior antigen encounters. Infants with inadequately low T cell repertoire diversity or high clonality showed higher numbers of acute respiratory infections over the first 4 years of life.

Anxiety, depressive symptoms, and distress over the course of the war in Ukraine in three federal states in Germany.

Introduction: The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting consequences are in the center of political discussions, media, and likely individual thinking of the population in Germany. Yet, the impact of this prolonged exposure on mental health is not known hitherto.

Methods: Using the population based cohort study DigiHero from three federal states (Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, and Bavaria), we assessed anxiety levels (GAD-7), depressive symptoms (PHQ-9), and distress (modified PDI) in the first weeks of war and 6 months later.

[BeoNet-Halle-development of a multifunctional database for the automated extraction of healthcare data from general practitioner and specialist practices].

The Beobachtungspraxennetzwerk Halle (BeoNet-Halle) is an innovative database of outpatient care that has been collecting patient data from participating primary care and specialty practices throughout Germany since 2020 and making it available for research and care. The database is set up and maintained by the Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biometrics and Informatics and the Institute of General Practice and Family Medicine of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Furthermore, the Data Integration Center of the University Medical Center Halle is involved in the project.

Mental health in Germany in the first weeks of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Background: In the connected world, although societies are not directly involved in a military conflict, they are exposed to media reports of violence.

Aims: We assessed the effects of such exposures on mental health in Germany during the military conflict in Ukraine.

Method: We used the German population-based cohort for digital health research, DigiHero, launching a survey on the eighth day of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Symptom Burden and Factors Associated with Acute Respiratory Infections in the First Two Years of Life-Results from the LoewenKIDS Cohort.

Acute respiratory infections (ARIs) are the most common childhood illnesses worldwide whereby the reported frequency varies widely, often depending on type of assessment. Symptom diaries are a powerful tool to counteract possible under-reporting, particularly of milder infections, and thus offer the possibility to assess the full burden of ARIs. The following analyses are based on symptom diaries from participants of the German birth cohort study LoewenKIDS.

Disturbed habitats locally reduce the signal of deep evolutionary history in functional traits of plants.

The functioning of present ecosystems reflects deep evolutionary history of locally cooccurring species if their functional traits show high phylogenetic signal (PS). However, we do not understand what drives local PS. We hypothesize that local PS is high in undisturbed and stressful habitats, either due to ongoing local assembly of species that maintained ancestral traits, or to past evolutionary maintenance of ancestral traits within habitat species-pools, or to both.

The risk of indoor sports and culture events for the transmission of COVID-19.

Nearly all mass gathering events worldwide were banned at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as they were suspected of presenting a considerable risk for the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. We investigated the risk of transmitting SARS-CoV-2 by droplets and aerosols during an experimental indoor mass gathering event under three different hygiene practices, and used the data in a simulation study to estimate the resulting burden of disease under conditions of controlled epidemics. Our results show that the mean number of measured direct contacts per visitor was nine persons and this can be reduced substantially by appropriate hygiene practices.

Author Correction: A global database for metacommunity ecology, integrating species, traits, environment and space.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Similar factors underlie tree abundance in forests in native and alien ranges.

Aim: Alien plant species can cause severe ecological and economic problems, and therefore attract a lot of research interest in biogeography and related fields. To identify potential future invasive species, we need to better understand the mechanisms underlying the abundances of invasive tree species in their new ranges, and whether these mechanisms differ between their native and alien ranges. Here, we test two hypotheses: that greater relative abundance is promoted by (a) functional difference from locally co-occurring trees, and (b) higher values than locally co-occurring trees for traits linked to competitive ability.

Embracing scale-dependence to achieve a deeper understanding of biodiversity and its change across communities.

Because biodiversity is multidimensional and scale-dependent, it is challenging to estimate its change. However, it is unclear (1) how much scale-dependence matters for empirical studies, and (2) if it does matter, how exactly we should quantify biodiversity change. To address the first question, we analysed studies with comparisons among multiple assemblages, and found that rarefaction curves frequently crossed, implying reversals in the ranking of species richness across spatial scales.

Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning relations in European forests depend on environmental context.

The importance of biodiversity in supporting ecosystem functioning is generally well accepted. However, most evidence comes from small-scale studies, and scaling-up patterns of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (B-EF) remains challenging, in part because the importance of environmental factors in shaping B-EF relations is poorly understood. Using a forest research platform in which 26 ecosystem functions were measured along gradients of tree species richness in six regions across Europe, we investigated the extent and the potential drivers of context dependency of B-EF relations.

Climate warming promotes species diversity, but with greater taxonomic redundancy, in complex environments.

Climate warming is predicted to alter species interactions, which could potentially lead to extinction events. However, there is an ongoing debate whether the effects of warming on biodiversity may be moderated by biodiversity itself. We tested warming effects on soil nematodes, one of the most diverse and abundant metazoans in terrestrial ecosystems, along a gradient of environmental complexity created by a gradient of plant species richness.

Land-use intensification causes multitrophic homogenization of grassland communities.

Land-use intensification is a major driver of biodiversity loss. Alongside reductions in local species diversity, biotic homogenization at larger spatial scales is of great concern for conservation. Biotic homogenization means a decrease in β-diversity (the compositional dissimilarity between sites).

The Evolutionary Legacy of Diversification Predicts Ecosystem Function.

Theory suggests that the structure of evolutionary history represented in a species community may affect its functioning, but phylogenetic diversity metrics do not allow for the identification of major differences in this structure. Here we propose a new metric, ELDERness (for Evolutionary Legacy of DivERsity) to estimate evolutionary branching patterns within communities by fitting a polynomial function to lineage-through-time (LTT) plots. We illustrate how real and simulated community branching patterns can be more correctly described by ELDERness and can successfully predict ecosystem functioning.

Tree phylogenetic diversity promotes host-parasitoid interactions.

Evidence from grassland experiments suggests that a plant community's phylogenetic diversity (PD) is a strong predictor of ecosystem processes, even stronger than species richness per se This has, however, never been extended to species-rich forests and host-parasitoid interactions. We used cavity-nesting Hymenoptera and their parasitoids collected in a subtropical forest as a model system to test whether hosts, parasitoids, and their interactions are influenced by tree PD and a comprehensive set of environmental variables, including tree species richness. Parasitism rate and parasitoid abundance were positively correlated with tree PD.

A guide to phylogenetic metrics for conservation, community ecology and macroecology.

The use of phylogenies in ecology is increasingly common and has broadened our understanding of biological diversity. Ecological sub-disciplines, particularly conservation, community ecology and macroecology, all recognize the value of evolutionary relationships but the resulting development of phylogenetic approaches has led to a proliferation of phylogenetic diversity metrics. The use of many metrics across the sub-disciplines hampers potential meta-analyses, syntheses, and generalizations of existing results.

Interactive effects of landscape history and current management on dispersal trait diversity in grassland plant communities.

Plant communities and their ecosystem functions are expected to be more resilient to future habitat fragmentation and deterioration if the species comprising the communities have a wide range of dispersal and persistence strategies. However, the extent to which the diversity of dispersal and persistence traits in plant communities is determined by the current and historical characteristics of sites and their surrounding landscape has yet to be explored.Using quantitative information on long-distance seed dispersal potential by wind and animals (dispersal in space) and on species' persistence/longevity (dispersal in time), we (i) compared levels of dispersal and persistence trait diversity (functional richness, FRic, and functional divergence, FDiv) in seminatural grassland plant communities with those expected by chance, and (ii) quantified the extent to which trait diversity was explained by current and historical landscape structure and local management history - taking into account spatial and phylogenetic autocorrel.