Outcomes in participatory environmental processes are strongly affected by choices about who is engaged. Inclusive engagement diversifies the range of interests and perspectives represented, including those from vulnerable and marginalized groups, ultimately contributing to more socially and environmentally sustainable and equitable outcomes. However, existing "stakeholder analysis" methods often bias participant identification away from disenfranchised groups with limited pre-existing interest or influence, instead favoring the most easily accessed and influential stakeholders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLipid-rich copepods form an essential link between primary producers and higher trophic levels in high-latitude oceans. These zooplankton can take advantage of ephemeral phytoplankton blooms to fuel development and reproduction. However, we have limited understanding of how the physiological condition of these animals varies in relation to environmental factors such as food availability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe passive dissolution of anthropogenically produced CO into the ocean system is reducing ocean pH and changing a suite of chemical equilibria, with negative consequences for some marine organisms, in particular those that bear calcium carbonate shells. Although our monitoring of these chemical changes has improved, we have not developed effective tools to translate observations, which are typically of the pH and carbonate saturation state, into ecologically relevant predictions of biological risks. One potential solution is to develop bioindicators: biological variables with a clear relationship to environmental risk factors that can be used for assessment and management.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA male infant born in a tertiary maternity facility was noted to have microretrognathia, a small mouth and macroglossia at delivery. He was born limp and apnoeic and required multiple attempts at intubation before a definitive airway was eventually sited. Chest X-rays, while in the paediatric intensive care unit, demonstrated dysplastic ribs with associated 'high-riding' clavicles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLarge lipid-storing copepods dominate mesozooplankton biomass in the polar oceans and form a critical link between primary production and higher trophic levels. The ecological success of these species depends on their ability to survive periods of food deprivation in a highly seasonal environment, but the molecular changes that mediate starvation tolerance in these taxa are unknown. We conducted starvation experiments for two dominant Southern Ocean copepods, Calanoides acutus and Calanus propinquus, allowing us to compare the molecular starvation response between species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
April 2024
Women's experiences of military service and transition occur within a highly dominant masculinized culture. The vast majority of research on military veterans reflects men's experiences and needs. Women veterans' experiences, and therefore their transition support needs, are largely invisible.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZooplankton undergo a diel vertical migration (DVM) which exposes them to gradients of light, temperature, oxygen, and food availability on a predictable daily schedule. Disentangling the co-varying and potentially synergistic interactions on metabolic rates has proven difficult, despite the importance of this migration for the delivery of metabolic waste products to the distinctly different daytime (deep) and nighttime (surface) habitats. This study examines the transcriptomic and proteomic profiles of the circumglobal migratory copepod, Pleuromamma xiphias, over the diel cycle.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOil and gas industries in the Northern Atlantic Ocean have gradually moved closer to the Arctic areas, a process expected to be further facilitated by sea ice withdrawal caused by global warming. Copepods of the genus Calanus hold a key position in these cold-water food webs, providing an important energetic link between primary production and higher trophic levels. Due to their ecological importance, there is a concern about how accidental oil spills and produced water discharges may impact cold-water copepods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCircadian clocks infer time of day by integrating information from cyclic environmental factors called zeitgebers, including light and temperature. Single zeitgebers entrain circadian rhythms, but few studies have addressed how multiple, simultaneous zeitgeber cycles interact to affect clock behavior. Misalignment between zeitgebers ('sensory conflict') can disrupt circadian rhythms, or alternatively clocks may privilege information from one zeitgeber over another.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Ending the HIV Epidemic initiatives provide a unique opportunity to use implementation scientific methods to guide implementation of evidence-based practices and evaluate their effectiveness in real-word settings to improve HIV inequities. This report demonstrates our use of Implementation Mapping (IM) to engage participating county health departments, AIDS services organizations, and community-based organizations in the development of a data dashboard to track the PrEP care continuum for the state of Alabama, an Ending the HIV Epidemic hotspot.
Methods: Our project is guided by an overarching Implementation Research Logic Model and by the tenets of IM, a 5-step approach to support researchers and community partners in the systematic selection, development, and/or tailoring of implementation strategies to increase program adoption, implementation, and sustainability.
Crude oil released into the environment undergoes weathering processes that gradually change its composition and toxicity. Co-exposure to petroleum mixtures and other stressors, including ultraviolet (UV) radiation, may lead to synergistic effects and increased toxicity. Laboratory studies should consider these factors when testing the effects of oil exposure on aquatic organisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper presents the first longitudinal study of sex disparities in COVID-19 cases and mortalities across U.S. states, derived from the unique 13-month dataset of the U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOrganisms' survival is associated with the ability to respond to natural or anthropogenic environmental stressors. Frequently, these responses involve changes in gene regulation and expression, consequently altering physiology, development, or behavior. Here, we present modifications in response to heat exposure that mimics extreme summertime field conditions of lab-cultured and field-conditioned .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Inequities in COVID-19 outcomes in the USA have been clearly documented for sex and race: men are dying at higher rates than women, and Black individuals are dying at higher rates than white individuals. Unexplored, however, is how sex and race interact in COVID-19 outcomes.
Objective: Use available data to characterize COVID-19 mortality rates within and between race and sex strata in two US states, with the aim of understanding how apparent sex disparities in COVID-19 deaths vary across race.
Many arthropods undergo a seasonal dormancy termed "diapause" to optimize timing of reproduction in highly seasonal environments. In the North Atlantic, the copepod Calanus finmarchicus completes one to three generations annually with some individuals maturing into adults, while others interrupt their development to enter diapause. It is unknown which, why and when individuals enter the diapause program.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this paper, we define and operationalise three modes of research engagement using qualitative secondary analysis (QSA). We characterise these forms of engagement as , and QSA involves modes of engagement that centre on asking new questions of existing datasets to (re)apprehend empirical evidence, and develop continuous (or contiguous) samples in ways that principally leverage epistemic distance. QSA characteristically involves generating dialogue between members of different research teams to establish comparisons and linkages across studies, and formulate new analytic directions harnessing relational distance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParental effects can prepare offspring for different environments and facilitate survival across generations. We exposed parental populations of the estuarine anemone, , from Massachusetts to elevated temperatures and quantified larval mortality across a temperature gradient. We found that parental exposure to elevated temperatures resulted in a consistent increase in larval thermal tolerance, as measured by the temperature at which 50% of larvae die (LT50), with a mean increase in LT50 of 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCopepods are small crustaceans that dominate most zooplankton communities in terms of both abundance and biomass. In the polar oceans, a subset of large lipid-storing copepods occupy central positions in the food web because of their important role in linking phytoplankton and microzooplankton with higher trophic levels. In this paper, we generated a high-quality de novo transcriptome for Rhincalanus gigas, the largest-and among the most abundant-of the Southern Ocean copepods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPremise: Leaf morphology is dynamic, continuously deforming during leaf expansion and among leaves within a shoot. Here, we measured the leaf morphology of more than 200 grapevines ( spp.) over four years and modeled changes in leaf shape along the shoot to determine whether a composite leaf shape comprising all the leaves from a single shoot can better capture the variation and predict species identity compared with individual leaves.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLate developmental stages of the marine copepods in the genus Calanus can spend extended periods in a dormant stage (diapause) that is preceded by the accumulation of large lipid stores. We assessed how lipid metabolism during development from the C4 stage to adult is altered in response to predation risk and varying food availability, to ultimately understand more of the metabolic processes during development in Calanus copepods. We used RNA sequencing to assess if perceived predation risk in combination with varied food availability affects expression of genes associated with lipid metabolism and diapause preparation in C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Damage to the basal ganglia and thalamus (BGT) can be caused by multiple perinatal factors and may be associated with movement disorders, cognitive delay and visual difficulties. Changes in BGT structure, seen as echogenicity on ultrasound, are difficult to objectively quantify. The aetiology, clinical relevance and developmental outcomes of BGT echogenicity are poorly understood.
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