Neuropsychiatric Symptoms Are Associated with Dementia in Parkinson's Disease but Not Predictive of it.

Background: Neuropsychiatric symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD) may increase dementia (PDD) risk. The predictive value of these symptoms, however, has not been compared to clinical and demographic predictors of future PDD.

Objectives: Determine if neuropsychiatric symptoms are useful markers of PDD risk.

Comprehensive analysis of SARS-CoV-2 antibody dynamics in New Zealand.

Objectives: Circulating antibodies are important markers of previous infection and immunity. Questions remain with respect to the durability and functionality of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. This study explored antibody responses in recovered COVID-19 patients in a setting where the probability of re-exposure is effectively nil, owing to New Zealand's successful elimination strategy.

A landscape-scale assessment of the relationship between grassland functioning, community diversity, and functional traits.

Livestock farmers rely on a high and stable grassland productivity for fodder production to sustain their livelihoods. Future drought events related to climate change, however, threaten grassland functionality in many regions across the globe. The introduction of sustainable grassland management could buffer these negative effects.

Spatially explicit models for exploring COVID-19 lockdown strategies.

This article describes two spatially explicit models created to allow experimentation with different societal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We outline the work to date on modeling spatially explicit infective diseases and show that there are gaps that remain important to fill. We demonstrate how geographical regions, rather than a single, national approach, are likely to lead to better outcomes for the population.

Changes of plasma cGP/IGF-1 molar ratio with age is associated with cognitive status of Parkinson disease.

Objective: Cognitive impairment is a common feature of Parkinson disease (PD), for which age is a major contributing factor. Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) declines with age and contributes to age-related cognitive impairment in PD. Cyclic glycine-proline (cGP) is a metabolite of IGF-1 and normalizes bioavailable IGF-1.

Caterpillars on a phytochemical landscape: The case of alfalfa and the Melissa blue butterfly.

Modern metabolomic approaches that generate more comprehensive phytochemical profiles than were previously available are providing new opportunities for understanding plant-animal interactions. Specifically, we can characterize the phytochemical landscape by asking how a larger number of individual compounds affect herbivores and how compounds covary among plants. Here we use the recent colonization of alfalfa () by the Melissa blue butterfly () to investigate the effects of indivdiual compounds and suites of covarying phytochemicals on caterpillar performance.

Population genomic response to geographic gradients by widespread and endemic fishes of the Arabian Peninsula.

Genetic structure within marine species may be driven by local adaptation to their environment, or alternatively by historical processes, such as geographic isolation. The gulfs and seas bordering the Arabian Peninsula offer an ideal setting to examine connectivity patterns in coral reef fishes with respect to environmental gradients and vicariance. The Red Sea is characterized by a unique marine fauna, historical periods of desiccation and isolation, as well as environmental gradients in salinity, temperature, and primary productivity that vary both by latitude and by season.

A comparison of pedigree, genetic and genomic estimates of relatedness for informing pairing decisions in two critically endangered birds: Implications for conservation breeding programmes worldwide.

Conservation management strategies for many highly threatened species include conservation breeding to prevent extinction and enhance recovery. Pairing decisions for these conservation breeding programmes can be informed by pedigree data to minimize relatedness between individuals in an effort to avoid inbreeding, maximize diversity and maintain evolutionary potential. However, conservation breeding programmes struggle to use this approach when pedigrees are shallow or incomplete.

Toleration and prejudice-reduction: Two ways of improving intergroup relations.

While a large body of social psychological research has shed light on the nature of prejudice and how to reduce it, we argue that such work does not address situations of cultural or religious outgroup beliefs and practices that are considered incompatible with one's own. The present theoretical article contrasts a prejudice-reduction approach with a toleration-based approach to consider the differences each have with regard to the attitude object they focus upon, the perceived reasonableness of the attitude, and the behavioral consequences each may lead to. In doing so, we consider the psychological processes involved in whether the negative attitude leads to negative actions.

Flying south: Foraging locations of the Hutton's shearwater () revealed by Time-Depth Recorders and GPS tracking.

The Hutton's shearwater is an endangered seabird endemic to Kaikōura, New Zealand, but the spatial and temporal aspects of its at-sea foraging behavior are not well known.To identify foraging areas and estimate trip durations, we deployed Global Positioning Systems (GPS) devices and Time-Depth Recorders (TDR) on 26 adult Hutton's shearwaters during the chick-rearing period in 2017 and 2018.We found Hutton's shearwaters traveled much further from their breeding grounds at Kaikōura than previously considered, with most individuals foraging in coastal and oceanic areas 125-365 km south and near Banks Peninsula.

Sexual conflict in action: An antagonistic relationship between maternal and paternal sex allocation in the tammar wallaby, .

Sex ratio biases are often inconsistent, both among and within species and populations. While some of these inconsistencies may be due to experimental design, much of the variation remains inexplicable. Recent research suggests that an exclusive focus on mothers may account for some of the inconsistency, with an increasing number of studies showing variation in sperm sex ratios and seminal fluids.

Introduction of mammalian seed predators and the loss of an endemic flightless bird impair seed dispersal of the New Zealand tree .

Understanding the mutualistic services provided by species is critical when considering both the consequences of their loss or the benefits of their reintroduction. Like many other Pacific islands, New Zealand seed dispersal networks have been changed by both significant losses of large frugivorous birds and the introduction of invasive mammals. These changes are particularly concerning when important dispersers remain unidentified.

Testing the predictions of sex allocation hypotheses in dimorphic, cooperatively breeding riflemen.

Evolutionary theory predicts that parents should invest equally in the two sexes. If one sex is more costly, a production bias is predicted in favour of the other. Two well-studied causes of differential costs are size dimorphism, in which the larger sex should be more costly, and sex-biased helping in cooperative breeders, in which the more helpful sex should be less costly because future helping "repays" some of its parents' investment.

A modeling framework for the establishment and spread of invasive species in heterogeneous environments.

Natural and human-induced events are continuously altering the structure of our landscapes and as a result impacting the spatial relationships between individual landscape elements and the species living in the area. Yet, only recently has the influence of the surrounding landscape on invasive species spread started to be considered. The scientific community increasingly recognizes the need for broader modeling framework that focuses on cross-study comparisons at different spatiotemporal scales.

The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project.

The PREDICTS project-Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.

A sixth-level habitat cascade increases biodiversity in an intertidal estuary.

Many studies have documented habitat cascades where two co-occurring habitat-forming species control biodiversity. However, more than two habitat-formers could theoretically co-occur. We here documented a sixth-level habitat cascade from the Avon-Heathcote Estuary, New Zealand, by correlating counts of attached inhabitants to the size and accumulated biomass of their biogenic hosts.

Doppler assessment of the ductus venosus and the tricuspid valve at 11-13 weeks: Reference ranges and development of sonographic quality assurance standards.

Objective: To develop reference ranges for the ductus venosus (DV) and tricuspid valve (TV) waveforms at 11-14 weeks and define auditable standards to assess operator measurement performance.

Materials And Methods: A single operator prospectively obtained quantitative measurements of a number of DV and TV Doppler indices to develop medians and 90% reference intervals (RIs). Measurement agreement studies between two experienced operators were also performed.