Species-habitat networks reveal conservation implications that other community analyses do not detect.

Grassland restoration is an important conservation intervention supporting declining insect pollinators in threatened calcareous grassland landscapes. While the success of restoration is often quantified using simple measures of diversity or similarity to target communities, these measures do not capture all fundamental aspects of community reconstruction. Here, we develop species-habitat networks that aim to define habitat-level foraging dependencies of pollinators across restored grassland landscapes and compare their value to these more conventional measures of community restoration.

Crop and landscape heterogeneity increase biodiversity in agricultural landscapes: A global review and meta-analysis.

Agricultural intensification not only increases food production but also drives widespread biodiversity decline. Increasing landscape heterogeneity has been suggested to increase biodiversity across habitats, while increasing crop heterogeneity may support biodiversity within agroecosystems. These spatial heterogeneity effects can be partitioned into compositional (land-cover type diversity) and configurational heterogeneity (land-cover type arrangement), measured either for the crop mosaic or across the landscape for both crops and semi-natural habitats.

Functional trait trade-offs define plant population stability across different biomes.

Ecological theory posits that temporal stability patterns in plant populations are associated with differences in species' ecological strategies. However, empirical evidence is lacking about which traits, or trade-offs, underlie species stability, especially across different biomes. We compiled a worldwide collection of long-term permanent vegetation records (greater than 7000 plots from 78 datasets) from a large range of habitats which we combined with existing trait databases.

Invertebrate biodiversity continues to decline in cropland.

Modern agriculture has drastically changed global landscapes and introduced pressures on wildlife populations. Policy and management of agricultural systems has changed over the last 30 years, a period characterized not only by intensive agricultural practices but also by an increasing push towards sustainability. It is crucial that we understand the long-term consequences of agriculture on beneficial invertebrates and assess if policy and management approaches recently introduced are supporting their recovery.

Evidence that oral immunoglobulins (KMP01) suppress pro-tumor inflammation in rectal carcinoma: Case report and treatment concept.

Background: A female patient aged 49 years with a rectal adenocarcinoma underwent tumor resection and multiple follow-up surgical operations whilst receiving compassionate therapy with polyvalent immunoglobulins derived from bovine colostrum (KMP01), a potential modulator of the pro-tumor inflammatory response.

Aims: Assessment of safety of the treatment, effect on tumor recurrence, and effect on parameters associated with the pro-tumor inflammatory response.

Materials And Methods: The dose of KMP01 varied from 72 g daily in the perioperative period to 12 - 24 g daily thereafter.

Citizen science monitoring reveals links between honeybee health, pesticide exposure and seasonal availability of floral resources.

We use a national citizen science monitoring scheme to quantify how agricultural intensification affects honeybee diet breadth (number of plant species). To do this we used DNA metabarcoding to identify the plants present in 527 honey samples collected in 2019 across Great Britain. The species richness of forage plants was negatively correlated with arable cropping area, although this was only found early in the year when the abundance of flowering plants was more limited.

CropPol: A dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination.

Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions.

Integration of DNA extraction, metabarcoding and an informatics pipeline to underpin a national citizen science honey monitoring scheme.

Worldwide honeybees ( L.) are one of the most widely kept domesticated animals, supporting domestic and commercial livelihoods through the production of honey and wax, as well as in the delivery of pollination services to crops. Quantifying which plant species are foraged upon by honeybees provides insights into their nutritional status as well as patterns of landscape scale habitat utilization.

Patterns of invertebrate functional diversity highlight the vulnerability of ecosystem services over a 45-year period.

Declines in invertebrate biodiversity pose a significant threat to key ecosystem services. Current analyses of biodiversity often focus on taxonomic diversity (e.g.

COVID-19: Effect-modelling of vaccination in Germany with regard to the mutant strain B.1.1.7 and occupancy of ICU facilities.

Background: The characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe have changed since the initial outbreak in 2019 due to the emergence of more contagious mutant strains, notably the B.1.1.

COVID-19: Predictions for SARS-CoV-2 vaccination on the course of the pandemic and critical occupancy of intensive-care facilities in Germany.

Aims Of The Study: To obtain predictions using the Modified Bateman SIZ Model for the effects of vaccination on the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

Materials And Methods: Start parameters for the model were obtained from observational data after data-smoothing to reduce between-day variation. Three scenarios, 1) no vaccination, 2) vaccination of 60% of the population over 12 months, 3) vaccination of 60% of the population over 7 months were examined.

COVID-19: Cytokine storm modulation/blockade with oral polyvalent immunoglobulins (PVIG, KMP01D): A potential and safe therapeutic agent ().

Although medication treatment in COVID-19 patients would have no direct effect on the spread of the disease, a shortening of the period of hospitalization by only a few days would release 25 - 30% of critical-care resources. However, there appears to be no well-established medication treatment available that can do this reliably at the present time. Anti-malarials currently being evaluated, i.

Synchrony matters more than species richness in plant community stability at a global scale.

The stability of ecological communities is critical for the stable provisioning of ecosystem services, such as food and forage production, carbon sequestration, and soil fertility. Greater biodiversity is expected to enhance stability across years by decreasing synchrony among species, but the drivers of stability in nature remain poorly resolved. Our analysis of time series from 79 datasets across the world showed that stability was associated more strongly with the degree of synchrony among dominant species than with species richness.

Predictions for the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany using the modified Bateman SIZ model.

Aims Of The Study: To obtain predictions for the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany using the modified Bateman SIZ model and input variables based on the status quo in July 2020. To predict the effect of a change in t on the course of the pandemic. To evaluate the robustness and sensitivity of the model in response to a change in the input parameters.