Pregnancy does not affect progression of mild experimental asthma in sheep.

Asthma is the most common respiratory condition during pregnancy and increases the risks of adverse pregnancy and perinatal outcomes. Asthma symptoms change in ∼60% of pregnancies, but whether this is due to pregnancy itself is unclear. We tested the hypothesis that physiological changes during pregnancy worsen asthma severity in an ovine experimental model of allergic asthma.

Spatiotemporal interactions between ocelots and agoutis in Neotropical protected forests.

Understanding how predators and their prey coexist in space and time is a core interest in ecology. Vast amounts of photographic detection data are now available from a growing number of camera-trap studies worldwide. These data boost our ability to study an elusive yet important topic in ecology: species interactions in space and time.

Environmental variability across space and time drives the recolonization pattern of a historically persecuted large carnivore.

Wildlife populations are not static. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect individuals, which lead to spatiotemporal variation in population density and range. Yet, dynamics in density and their drivers are rarely documented, due in part to the inherent difficulty of studying long-term population-level phenomena at ecologically meaningful scales.

In utero exposure to experimental maternal asthma alters fetal airway development in sheep.

The mechanisms linking maternal asthma (MA) exposure in utero and subsequent risk of asthma in childhood are not fully understood. Pathological airway remodelling, including reticular basement membrane thickening, has been reported in infants and children who go on to develop asthma later in childhood. This suggests altered airway development before birth as a mechanism underlying increased risk of asthma in children exposed in utero to MA.

Betamethasone improved near-term neonatal lamb lung maturation in experimental maternal asthma.

Maternal asthma is associated with increased rates of neonatal lung disease, and fetuses from asthmatic ewes have fewer surfactant-producing cells and lower surfactant-protein B gene (SFTPB) expression than controls. Antenatal betamethasone increases lung surfactant production in preterm babies, and we therefore tested this therapy in experimental maternal asthma. Ewes were sensitised to house dust mite allergen, and an asthmatic phenotype induced by fortnightly allergen lung challenges; controls received saline.