The use of veterinary drugs is of similar importance to that of human drugs in addressing health challenges. In this context, pharmaceuticals and their metabolites inevitably enter soil and water in ...unknown quantities. Therefore, this study collects and analyzes drug data from 2020 for 50 dairy farms located in Germany. The most frequently used substance group is antibiotics (40.13%), followed by antiphlogistics (18.86%), antiparasitics (13.09%), and hormones (9.29%). Treatment frequencies record the number of days per year on which an average animal on a farm was treated with a substance. The calculated values range from 0.94 to 21.69 d/yr and are distributed heterogeneously across farms. In this study, on average, a cow was treated on 6 d in 2020: 2.34 d with antibiotics, 1.07 d with antiphlogistics, 0.76 d with antiparasitics, and 0.41 d with hormones. In addition to individual farm management practices, other factors are related to treatment frequency. Farms with a veterinary care contract used more hormonal substances than farms without a care contract. In addition, higher milk yield coincides with more frequent treatments with antiphlogistic or hormonal substances. Other related factors include grazing, longevity, farm size, and use of a claw bath. Our study represents an important first step in describing the amounts and determinants of veterinary drugs used in livestock farming. Such insights on magnitudes and farm parameters are essential to estimate potential environmental effects and derive strategies to reduce veterinary drug use.
Given the potential vulnerability of sea turtles to climate change, a growing number of studies are predicting how various climatic processes will affect their nesting grounds. However, these studies ...are limited by scale, because they predict how a single climatic process will affect sea turtles but processes are likely to occur simultaneously and cause cumulative effects. This study addresses the need for a structured approach to investigate how multiple climatic processes may affect a turtle population. Here, we use a vulnerability assessment framework to assess the cumulative impact of various climatic processes on the nesting grounds used by the northern Great Barrier Reef (nGBR) green turtle population. Further, we manipulate the variables from this framework to allow users to investigate how mitigating different climatic processes individually or simultaneously can influence the vulnerability of the nesting grounds. Our assessment indicates that nesting grounds closer to the equator, such as Bramble Cay and Milman Island, are the most vulnerable to climate change. In the short-term (by 2030), sea level rise will cause the most impact on the nesting grounds used by the nGBR green turtle population. However, in the longer term, by 2070 sand temperatures will reach levels above the upper transient range and the upper thermal threshold and cause relatively more impact on the nGBR green turtle population. Thus, in the long term, a reduction of impacts from sea-level rise may not be sufficient, as rookeries will start to experience high vulnerability values from increased temperature. Thus, in the long term, reducing the threats from increased temperature may provide a greater return in conservation investment than mitigating the impacts from other climatic processes. Indeed, our results indicate that if the impacts from increased temperature are mitigated, the vulnerability values of almost all rookeries will be reduced to low levels.
Abstract
The La Jolla Canyon System (LJCS) is a small, steep, shelf-incising canyon offshore of San Diego, California. Observations conducted in the fall of 2016 capture the dynamics of internal ...tides and turbulence patterns. Semidiurnal (D
2
) energy flux was oriented up-canyon; 62% ± 20% of the signal was contained in mode 1 at the offshore mooring. The observed mode-1 D
2
tide was partly standing based on the ratio of group speed times energy
c
g
E
and energy flux
F
. Enhanced dissipation occurred near the canyon head at middepths associated with elevated strain arising from the standing wave pattern. Modes 2–5 were progressive, and energy fluxes associated with these modes were oriented down-canyon, suggesting that incident mode-1 waves were back-reflected and scattered. Flux integrated over all modes across a given canyon cross section was always onshore and generally decreased moving shoreward (from 240 ± 15 to 5 ± 0.3 kW), with a 50-kW increase in flux occurring on a section inshore of the canyon’s major bend, possibly due to reflection of incident waves from the supercritical sidewalls of the bend. Flux convergence from canyon mouth to head was balanced by the volume-integrated dissipation observed. By comparing energy budgets from a global compendium of canyons with sufficient observations (six in total), a similar balance was found. One exception was Juan de Fuca Canyon, where such a balance was not found, likely due to its nontidal flows. These results suggest that internal tides incident at the mouth of a canyon system are dissipated therein rather than leaking over the sidewalls or siphoning energy to other wave frequencies.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The accumulation of floating anthropogenic debris in marine and coastal areas has environmental, economic, aesthetic, and human health impacts. Until now, modelling the transport of such debris has ...largely been restricted to the large-scales of open seas. We used oceanographic modelling to identify potential sites of debris accumulation along a rugged coastline with headlands, islands, rocky coasts and beaches. Our study site was the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area that has an emerging problem with debris accumulation. We found that the classical techniques of modelling the transport of floating debris models are only moderately successful due to a number of unknowns or assumptions, such as the value of the wind drift coefficient, the variability of the oceanic forcing and of the wind, the resuspension of some floating debris by waves, and the poorly known relative contribution of floating debris from urban rivers and commercial and recreational shipping. Nevertheless the model was successful in reproducing a number of observations such as the existence of hot spots of accumulation. The orientation of beaches to the prevailing wind direction affected the accumulation rate of debris. The wind drift coefficient and the exact timing of the release of the debris at sea affected little the movement of debris originating from rivers but it affected measurably that of debris originating from ships. It was thus possible to produce local hotspot maps for floating debris, especially those originating from rivers. Such modelling can be used to inform local management decisions, and it also identifies likely priority research areas to more reliably predict the trajectory and landing points of floating debris.
Leatherback turtles Dermochelys coriacea are a pelagic species, globally endangered due to multiple anthropogenic impacts. Although protected under Australian legislation, species-specific practical ...protection has been hampered by sparse information about leatherback distribution in Australian waters. To fill this gap, we obtained records of leatherback interactions with fisheries gear, opportunistic sightings at sea, beach stranding events and non-target capture in shark control programs. We evaluated the temporal and geographic distribution of records and assessed potential bias in observation opportunity based on human population density and fishery activity. Based on 1073 leatherback observations from 1990 to 2022, we found that sightings were unevenly distributed right around Australia, encompassing longitudes from 105.4°E to 165.1°E and latitudes from 43.7°S to 10°S. In the extreme southeast of Australia, hotspots were apparent during December to March (austral summer). In temperate and subtropical latitudes to the west and east of Australia, hotspots appeared predominantly during June, July and August (austral winter), but were also apparent, albeit weaker, to the east in all other months. Our results confirm that the species is present around Australia in all months of the year and has a much wider geographic and offshore distribution around Australia than previously reported. Hence, we inferred that Australian waters are highly important for migrating and foraging leatherbacks from subpopulations breeding in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, all of which are at high risk of extinction, and we suggest that Australian management agencies have crucial roles in protecting these endangered animals.
Cerebellar granule cells are inhibited phasically by GABA released synaptically from Golgi cells, but are inhibited more powerfully
by tonic activity of high affinity α 6 subunit-containing GABA A ...receptors. During development the tonic activity is generated by the accumulation of GABA released by action potentials,
but in the adult the tonic activity is independent of action potentials. Here we show that in adult rats the tonic activation
of GABA A receptors is produced by non-vesicular transmitter release and is reduced by the activity of GAT-1 and GAT-3 GABA transporters,
demonstrating that alterations of GABA uptake will modulate information flow through granule cells. Acetylcholine (ACh) evokes
a large Ca 2+ -dependent but action potential-independent release of GABA, which activates α 6 subunit-containing GABA A receptors. These data show that three separate modes of transmitter release can activate GABA A receptors in adult cerebellar granule cells: action potential-evoked exocytotic GABA release, non-vesicular release, and
ACh-evoked Ca 2+ -dependent release independent of action potentials. The relative magnitudes of the inhibitory charge transfers generated
by action potential-evoked release (during high frequency stimulation of the mossy fibres), tonic inhibition and superfused
ACh are 1:3:12, indicating that tonic and ACh-mediated inhibition may play a major role in regulating granule cell firing.
Home range analysis is a powerful tool for identifying priority areas for conservation, but estimating the home range for many species is still challenging. In particular, highly mobile species may ...use different areas at different times (e.g. summer or winter), so temporally biased location data may only partially represent their home range. We investigated the temporal patterns in habitat use of green turtles Chelonia mydas (n = 52) and loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta (n = 20) at longer (>1 yr) and shorter (<1 yr) scales. The study was conducted in subtropical and tropical foraging habitats along the Queensland coast of Australia between 1991 and 2015. Each turtle was tracked by a satellite-linked tag for the effective life of the device; 3 turtles were tracked twice. Mark–recapture studies were also conducted intermittently. Single satellite-tag deployments confirmed site fidelity to a foraging habitat for up to 2.5 yr in green turtles and 2.7 yr in loggerhead turtles. Further, combining satellite telemetry and mark–recapture records indicated much longer periods of foraging residency, up to 17 yr for green turtles and 23 yr for loggerhead turtles. No tracked turtles made substantial changes in their foraging range between years. Within the long-term home range, subtropical turtles tended to shift their foraging areas seasonally. Consequently, for many turtles, the existing conservation legislation provided protection in some seasons but not others. Our results emphasise the importance of protecting areas according to the turtles’ use of space, with careful consideration given to identify temporal trends in their habitat selection.
Background and Objectives
To compare the detection rates of sentinel lymph nodes after converting the tracer technique from blue dye to indocyanine green (ICG).
Methods
Patients with uterine or ...cervical cancer were enrolled for sentinel lymph node (SLN) dissection. A total of 109 consecutive patients were analyzed and compared to a historical cohort of 109 consecutive patients with the sentinel blue dye technique. SLNs were analyzed by ultrastaging.
Results
The bilateral mapping rate of sentinel nodes was significantly higher with the ICG (78%; n = 85) compared to the blue dye tracer (61%; n = 67; p = .006). Neither the mean number of SLN nor the rate of low volume metastases showed significant differences between both cohorts. In the subgroup of endometrial cancer patients, the number of systematic lymph node dissection (LND) was significantly lower in the ICG cohort compared to the blue dye cohort (9% vs. 28%, p = .001).
Conclusions
ICG improved the detection rate of pelvic SLN compared to blue dye and may be considered as the superior technique. In clinical practice, the rate of systematic LND further decreased after incorporating SLN mapping with ICG. Reliable safety data are still pending.
Migratory marine species present challenges for conservation because of complex threats within their pelagic dispersal zones, including coastal foraging areas and extensive migration pathways, or at ...breeding grounds. To better understand the connectivity between green turtle rookeries and foraging populations, we sequenced the mtDNA control region of 987 turtles from 6 major foraging grounds on a ~2300 km longitudinal transect off eastern Australia, and used mixed stock analysis (MSA) to estimate their natal origins. We investigated variation in natal origins within different size classes and over spatial and temporal scales and compared this to approximately 30 yr of mark–recapture data. For adult turtles, we found that the northern Great Barrier Reef (nGBR) genetic stock dominated in the northern feeding grounds while the southern Great Barrier Reef (sGBR) and Coral Sea stocks dominated in the south, with a changeover of dominating stock occurring between 14° and 20° S. However, at the 3 most northern feeding grounds, we found an unexpected decrease (17–30%) in the proportion of nGBR turtles among small immature turtles relative to large immatures and adults. Four possible hypotheses were explored, with the 2 most plausible being that (1) small immature turtles from the sGBR and other rookeries first settle in nGBR feeding grounds, but later shift to other feeding grounds as they mature, or (2) a reduced hatching success for decades from the main nGBR rookery at Raine Island has resulted in reduced recruitment into the nGBR feeding ground from this stock. These results may indicate an alarming reduction in hatching success at the largest known green turtle rookery in the world.
Fast acquisition GPS technologies such as Fastloc GPS have been commonly used in recent years to study fine scale spatio-temporal ecology of marine vertebrates. While Fastloc GPS gives more accurate ...locations than earlier methods, it remains important to identify and remove locations with high error because some location fixes are much less accurate than others. Increasing the number of source satellites required for a valid fix is a simple filter method but it comes at the cost of great data loss. Using data sets acquired from loggerhead turtlesCaretta caretta, we explored an alternative filtering approach, based on speed between successive locations, angles created by 3 consecutive locations, manufacturer’s quality index, and number of satellites used for location calculation. The performance of the proposed filter method was evaluated by conducting terrestrial, mobile tests. When our filter method was used, the linear error (mean ± SD) of Fastloc GPS data decreased from 2645.5 ± 29 458.2 m (n = 1328) to 47.1 ± 61.0 m (n = 1246), while retaining more than 94% of data. Our filter method also led to more accurate home range estimates than the simple filter method. Improvements in data retention and home range estimates will give more reliable information for marine spatial planning and habitat protection.
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