Urbanization is an increasingly important dimension of global change, and urban areas likely impose significant natural selection on the species that reside within them. Although many species of ...plants and animals can survive in urban areas, so far relatively little research has investigated whether such populations have adapted (in an evolutionary sense) to their newfound milieu. Even less of this work has taken place in tropical regions, many of which have experienced dramatic growth and intensification of urbanization in recent decades. In the present study, we focus on the neotropical lizard, Anolis cristatellus. We tested whether lizard ecology and morphology differ between urban and natural areas in three of the most populous municipalities on the island of Puerto Rico. We found that environmental conditions including temperature, humidity, and substrate availability differ dramatically between neighboring urban and natural areas. We also found that lizards in urban areas use artificial substrates a large proportion of the time, and that these substrates tend to be broader than substrates in natural forest. Finally, our morphological data showed that lizards in urban areas have longer limbs relative to their body size, as well as more subdigital scales called lamellae, when compared to lizards from nearby forested habitats. This shift in phenotype is exactly in the direction predicted based on habitat differences between our urban and natural study sites, combined with our results on how substrates are being used by lizards in these areas. Findings from a common-garden rearing experiment using individuals from one of our three pairs of populations provide evidence that trait differences between urban and natural sites may be genetically based. Taken together, our data suggest that anoles in urban areas are under significant differential natural selection and may be evolutionarily adapting to their human-modified environments.
Hurricane María severely disturbed Puerto Rico's forests, including their vegetation and animal communities. One of the main links on the trophic chains of these forests is amphibians of the ...Eleutherodactylus genus. This study quantifies the effect that Hurricane María had on the Eleutherodactylus communities by using passive acoustic monitoring. Methods included species richness and calling activity comparisons of each species present in the studied sites. Because of how energetically costly vocalizing is for anurans, calling activity can be used as a measurement of how these frogs are recovering after the disturbance. Results showed that the species’ responses to the disturbance were heterogeneous and site‐dependent. Eleutherodactylus antillensis and E. brittoni were the only colonizer species increasing in both calling activity (52% and 28%) and occurrence. E. wightmanae and E. coqui appeared in the same number of sites both before and after the hurricane, but did reduce their calling activity (11% and 6%). E. richmondi and E. cochranae decreased their calling activity (7.5% and 43%) and appeared in fewer sites post‐hurricane. The only species that did not change its activity or occurrence post‐hurricane was E. portoricensis. This study shows that passive acoustic monitoring can be a useful tool to survey the effect of large‐scale disturbances on amphibian communities. This is the first study quantifying the effects of a Category 4 hurricane on the Eleutherodactylus communities of southeastern Puerto Rico.
in Spanish is available with online material.
Resumen
El Huracán María cambió la estructura de los bosques de Puerto Rico, incluyendo su vegetación y comunidades de animales. Uno de los principales enlaces de las cadenas tróficas de estos bosques son los anfibios del género Eleutherodactylus. Este estudio cuantifica el efecto que tuvo el Huracán María en las comunidades de estos anuros mediante la utilización de monitoreo acústico pasivo. Los métodos incluyen la comparación de riqueza en cada sitio de estudio y la actividad de canto de las especies presentes. Los resultados mostraron que las especies de anuros respondieron a los efectos del huracán de manera heterogénea y que estas respuestas dependieron de cada uno de los sitios de estudio. Un análisis más a fondo mostró que E. antillensis y E. brittoni fueron las únicas especies que aumentaron su actividad de canto (52% y 28% respectivamente) y ocurrencia. E. wightmanae y E. coqui estuvieron presentes en la misma cantidad de sitios antes y después del huracán, pero redujeron su actividad de canto (11% y 6% respectivamente). E. richmondi y E. cochranae disminuyeron su actividad de canto (7.5% y 43% respectivamente) y estuvieron presentes en menos sitios en el 2018. La única especie de anuro que no cambió su actividad de canto ni su ocurrencia después del huracán fue E. portoricensis. Este estudio prueba que el monitoreo acústico pasivo es una buena herramienta para el estudio de los efectos de los disturbios de gran escala en las comunidades de anfibios. Este es el primer estudio que cuantifica los efectos que causó un huracán categoría 4 sobre las comunidades de Eleutherodactylus al sureste de Puerto Rico.
Hurricane María severely disturbed Puerto Rico’s forests, including their vegetation and animal communities. This is the first study quantifying the effects of a Category 4 hurricane on the Eleutherodactylus communities of southeastern Puerto Rico.
The composition and biodiversity of insect community assemblages are mediated by a complex set of biotic and abiotic factors. Among these factors are forest structure and atmospheric variables (like ...temperature and humidity), which are heavily influenced by frequent hurricane activity in the Caribbean. Despite this, changes in Caribbean insect assemblages as forests recover from hurricane disturbance are poorly documented. Butterflies represent a charismatic model taxon in biodiversity and conservation, and are thus an ideal subject for exemplifying these shifts in insect abundances and diversity across ecological succession. Here, we monitored butterfly communities in two Puerto Rican forests differing in structure (i.e., canopy height, tree size) to assess butterfly diversity, abundances, and community level wing traits (size and color) over 1 year, beginning 6 months after Hurricane Maria. Monthly sampling over the course of 1 year revealed no relationships between abundances and canopy openness or humidity; instead, species abundances fluctuated seasonally and were nonlinearly correlated with temperature. In contrast, wing size and color were linearly correlated with abiotic variables. Specifically, wings were larger in cooler and more open conditions. Wing color saturation and brightness were negatively correlated with humidity. Our results suggest that, first, a functional approach may provide better insight into the factors mediating species responses to disturbances. Second, further disentangling abundance seasonality from impacts of extreme disturbances necessitates long‐term monitoring.
in Spanish is available with online material.
RESUMEN
La composición y biodiversidad de las comunidades de insectos se ven mediadas por un conjunto complejo de factores bióticos y abióticos. Entre estos se encuentran la estructura del bosque y las variables atmosféricas (como temperatura y humedad), fuertemente influenciadas por la actividad frecuente de huracanes en el Caribe. A pesar de esto, los cambios en las comunidades de insectos del Caribe a medida que los bosques se recuperan del paso de huracanes están poco documentados. Las mariposas son un taxón modelo carismático en estudios de biodiversidad y conservación, lo que las convierte en un sujeto ideal para ejemplificar estos cambios en la abundancia y diversidad de insectos a lo largo de la sucesión ecológica. Monitoreamos comunidades de mariposas en dos bosques puertorriqueños con estructuras diferentes (i.e., altura de las copas de los árboles, tamaño de los árboles) para evaluar la diversidad, abundancia y características de las alas (tamaño y color) a nivel comunitario durante un año, comenzando seis meses después del huracán María. El muestreo mensual a lo largo de un año no reveló relación entre la abundancia y la apertura del dosel o la humedad; por el contrario, la abundancia de especies fluctuó estacionalmente y tuvo una correlación no lineal con la temperatura. En contraste, el tamaño y el color de las alas se correlacionaron linealmente con variables abióticas. Específicamente, las alas eran más grandes en condiciones más frías y abiertas. La saturación y el brillo del color de las alas se correlacionaron negativamente con la humedad. Nuestros resultados sugieren que, en primer lugar, un enfoque funcional puede proporcionar una mejor comprensión de los factores que median las respuestas de las especies a las perturbaciones. En segundo lugar, para desenredar la estacionalidad de la abundancia de los impactos de las perturbaciones extremas, se necesita un monitoreo a largo plazo.
Butterfly communities were monitored in two nearby Puerto Rican forests for 1 year, beginning 6 months after Hurricane Maria. Neither abundances nor taxonomic diversity followed unidirectional trends during this early stage of succession; instead, seasonal peaks, and valleys were more prevalent. Key functional traits (i.e., wing size, shape, and color) were correlated with abiotic factors like temperature and humidity.
Divergent habitat use of two urban lizard species Winchell, Kristin M.; Carlen, Elizabeth J.; Puente‐Rolón, Alberto R. ...
Ecology and evolution,
January 2018, Letnik:
8, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Faunal responses to anthropogenic habitat modification represent an important aspect of global change. In Puerto Rico, two species of arboreal lizard, Anolis cristatellus and A. stratulus, are ...commonly encountered in urban areas, yet seem to use the urban habitat in different ways. In this study, we quantified differences in habitat use between these two species in an urban setting. For each species, we measured habitat use and preference, and the niche space of each taxon, with respect to manmade features of the urban environment. To measure niche space of these species in an urban environment, we collected data from a total of six urban sites across four different municipalities on the island of Puerto Rico. We quantified relative abundance of both species, their habitat use, and the available habitat in the environment to measure both microhabitat preference in an urban setting, as well as niche partitioning between the two different lizards. Overall, we found that the two species utilize different portions of the urban habitat. Anolis stratulus tends to use more “natural” portions of the urban environment (i.e., trees and other cultivated vegetation), whereas A. cristatellus more frequently uses anthropogenic structures. We also found that aspects of habitat discrimination in urban areas mirror a pattern measured in prior studies for forested sites in which A. stratulus was found to perch higher than A. cristatellus and preferred lower temperatures and greater canopy cover. In our study, we found that the multivariate niche space occupied by A. stratulus did not differ from the available niche space in natural portions of the urban environment and in turn represented a subset of the niche space occupied by A. cristatellus. The unique niche space occupied by A. cristatellus corresponds to manmade aspects of the urban environment generally not utilized by A. stratulus. Our results demonstrate that some species are merely tolerant of urbanization while others utilize urban habitats in novel ways. This finding has implications for long‐term persistence in urban habitats and suggests that loss of natural habitat elements may lead to nonrandom species extirpations as urbanization intensifies.
We quantified differences in habitat use and niche space between two species of arboreal lizards (Anolis cristatellus and A. stratulus) in an urban setting. Overall, we found that the two species utilize different portions of the urban habitat with one species using more “natural” portions of the habitat and the other exploiting manmade portions of the habitat. Our results demonstrate that some species are merely tolerant of urbanization while others use urban habitats in novel ways, which has implications for adaptation and long‐term persistence in urban habitats.
Colonization of islands can dramatically influence the evolutionary trajectories of organisms, with both deterministic and stochastic processes driving adaptation and diversification. Some island ...colonists evolve extremely large or small body sizes, presumably in response to unique ecological circumstances present on islands. One example of this phenomenon, the Greater Antillean boas, includes both small (<90 cm) and large (4 m) species occurring on the Greater Antilles and Bahamas, with some islands supporting pairs or trios of body-size divergent species. These boas have been shown to comprise a monophyletic radiation arising from a Miocene dispersal event to the Greater Antilles, though it is not known whether co-occurrence of small and large species is a result of dispersal or in situ evolution. Here, we provide the first comprehensive species phylogeny for this clade combined with morphometric and ecological data to show that small body size evolved repeatedly on separate islands in association with specialization in substrate use. Our results further suggest that microhabitat specialization is linked to increased rates of head shape diversification among specialists. Our findings show that ecological specialization following island colonization promotes morphological diversity through deterministic body size evolution and cranial morphological diversification that is contingent on island- and species-specific factors.
The Puerto Rican Boa (Chilabothrus inornatus) was placed on the US Endangered Species List in 1970. Progress has been made since to clarify the recovery status of this species, though the design of a ...new recovery plan must include information regarding genetic variation within and among populations of this species. While measures of genetic diversity in wild populations of this species are finally becoming available, relative genetic diversity represented in ex situ populations is unknown, which hampers efforts to develop an ex situ species management plan. Here, we provide an analysis of genetic diversity in US public and private collections (zoos and breeders) using mitochondrial sequence data and five highly polymorphic nuclear microsatellite loci. We analyzed 50 boas from the US ex situ population and determined overall genetic diversity and relatedness among these individuals. We then compared these data to mitochondrial and microsatellite data obtained from 176 individuals from wild populations across the native range of the species. We found little inbreeding and a large amount of retained genetic diversity in the US ex situ population of C. inornatus relative to wild populations. Genetic diversity in the ex situ population is similar to that found in wild populations. Ours is only the second explicit attempt to characterize genetic diversity at the molecular level in ex situ populations of boid snakes. We anticipate that these results will inform current breeding strategies as well as offer additional information that will facilitate the continuation of ex situ conservation breeding or management in boas.
Endangered Puerto Rican boas are kept in a number of ex situ facilities. We show that the US ex situ population is a better‐than‐expected representation of genetic diversity among wild populations.
Research Highlights
We use a multilocus approach to assay genetic diversity in an ex situ boa population.
We find high genetic diversity on par with that found in wild populations.
This is the second study to characterize genetic diversity in captive boid snakes.
Display omitted
•We present a multilocus (10-gene) phylogenetic analysis of the boid genus Epicrates in the West Indies.•This group forms a monophyletic clade that originated from an Oligocene ...dispersal event from South America to the Caribbean.•We recognize the group in the West Indies as a separate genus with the epithet Chilabothrus.•We recognize an additional boa species in the Bahamas (C. strigilatus), a finding of significant conservation concern.•Our analysis reconstructs the history of lineage isolation among islands in the Caribbean.
The evolutionary and biogeographic history of West Indian boid snakes (Epicrates), a group of nine species and 14 subspecies, was once thought to be well understood; however, new research has indicated that we are missing a clear understanding of the evolutionary relationships of this group. Here, we present the first multilocus, species-tree based analyses of the evolutionary relationships, divergence times, and historical biogeography of this clade with data from 10 genes and 6256bp. We find evidence for a single colonization of the Caribbean from mainland South America in the Oligocene or early Miocene, followed by a radiation throughout the Greater Antilles and Bahamas. These findings support the previous suggestion that Epicrates sensu lato Wagler is paraphyletic with respect to the anacondas (Eunectes Wagler), and hence we restrict Epicrates to the mainland clade and use the available name Chilabothrus Duméril and Bibron for the West Indian clade. Our results suggest some diversification occurred within island banks, though most species divergence events seem to have occurred in allopatry. We also find evidence for a remarkable diversification within the Bahamian archipelago suggesting that the recognition of another Bahamian endemic species C. strigilatus is warranted.
The endemic Puerto Rican boa (Epicrates inornatus) has spent 42 years on the Endangered Species List with little evidence for recovery. One significant impediment to effective conservation planning ...has been a lack of knowledge of the distribution of genetic variability in the species. It has previously been suggested that boas might best be protected around caves that harbor large populations of bats. Prior study has found Puerto Rican boas at relatively high densities in and around bat caves, which they use both to feed and seek shelter. However, it is unknown whether these behaviorally distinctive populations represent a distinct evolutionary lineage, or (conversely) whether caves harbor representative genetic diversity for the species across the island. We provide the first genetic study of the Puerto Rican boa, and we examine and compare genetic diversity and divergence among two cave populations and two surface populations of boas. We find three haplogroups and an apparent lack of phylogeographic structure across the island. In addition, we find that the two cave populations appear no less diverse than the two surface populations, and harbor multiple mtDNA lineages. We discuss the conservation implications of these findings, including a call for the immediate protection of the remaining cave-associated populations of boas.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Predictors of short-term COPD readmission Quintana, Jose M.; Anton-Ladislao, Ane; Orive, Miren ...
Internal and emergency medicine,
08/2022, Letnik:
17, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
COPD readmissions have a great impact on patients’ quality of life and mortality. Our goal was to identify factors related to 60-day readmission. We conducted a prospective observational cohort study ...with a nested case–control study, with 60 days of follow-up after the index admission. Patients readmitted were matched, by age, baseline forced expiratory volume in 1 s and month at admission, with patients admitted in the same period but not readmitted at 2 months. Data were collected on sociodemographic and clinical characteristics and health-related quality of life data at the index admission and events from discharge to readmission within 60 days. Conditional logistic (60-day readmission) and Cox (days to readmission) regression models were constructed. Both multivariable analyses identified the following as predictors: any admission in the preceding 2 months (OR: 2.366; HR: 1.918), hematocrit at ED arrival ≤ 35% (OR: 2.949; HR: 1.570), pre-existing cardiovascular disease (valvular disease or myocardial infarction) (OR: 1.878; HR: 1.490); NIMV at discharge (OR: 0.547; HR: 0.70); no appointment with a specialist after discharge (OR: 5.785; HR: 3.373) and patient-reported need for help at home (OR: 2.978; HR: 2.061). The AUC for the logistic model was 0.845 and the c-index for the Cox model was 0.707. EuroQol EQ-5D score before the admission was correlated with a lower risk of readmission (OR: 0.383; HR: 0.670). As conclusions, we have identified factors related to 60-day readmission and summarized the findings in easy-to-use scoring scales that could be incorporated into the daily clinical routine and may help establish preventive measures to reduce future readmissions.
Registration: Clinical Trial Registration NCT03227211.
FUNDAMENTOS // El consumo de alcohol es un problema de Salud Pública que impacta en la esfera de la salud, tanto como a nivel social y económico. Fueron objetivos del presente estudio describir las ...características de las Urgencias hospitalarias relacionadas con consumo de alcohol (RCA) en una zona de alto turismo lúdico, y las implicaciones de la pandemia de la COVID-19 en dicha actividad.
MÉTODOS // Se realizó un estudio transversal descriptivo de periodo de la actividad de Urgencias RCA en el Área Hospitalaria Costa del Sol durante los años 2019 a 2021. Se realizó un análisis descriptivo estratificado según el periodo de la pandemia de la COVID-19, incluyendo el cálculo de la incidencia de Urgencias RCA atendidas diariamente. Se realizó análisis descriptivo evaluando diferencias entre los tres periodos mediante el test de Ji-Cuadrado para variables cualitativas, y el test de Kruskal-Wallis para las cuantitativas.
RESULTADOS // En el periodo de estudio se registraron 479.204 Urgencias hospitalarias, de las cuales el 0,51% se identificaron como urgencia RCA, con un promedio de 2,2 diarias. Dicha cifra osciló entre 2,7 urgencias diarias en periodo de Normalidad, 1 durante el Confinamiento y 2,1 en periodo de nueva normalidad. La tasa de Urgencias RCA del periodo evaluado fue de 16,5 por cada 10.000 habitantes/año.
CONCLUSIONES // Las personas atendidas por consumo de alcohol de nuestra serie tienen un perfil habitual en cuanto a edad (adulto) y sexo (varones), aunque con un peso relativamente elevado de pacientes extranjeros. Las restricciones por el confinamiento durante la pandemia por la COVID-19 tienen un impacto positivo en la atención urgente de pacientes RCA, aunque correlacionado con un descenso generalizado de la actividad asistencial no relacionada con la COVID-19.
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