Fluid intelligence is important for successful functioning in the modern world, but much evidence suggests that fluid intelligence is largely immutable after childhood. Recently, however, researchers ...have reported gains in fluid intelligence after multiple sessions of adaptive working memory training in adults. The current study attempted to replicate and expand those results by administering a broad assessment of cognitive abilities and personality traits to young adults who underwent 20 sessions of an adaptive dual n-back working memory training program and comparing their post-training performance on those tests to a matched set of young adults who underwent 20 sessions of an adaptive attentional tracking program. Pre- and post-training measurements of fluid intelligence, standardized intelligence tests, speed of processing, reading skills, and other tests of working memory were assessed. Both training groups exhibited substantial and specific improvements on the trained tasks that persisted for at least 6 months post-training, but no transfer of improvement was observed to any of the non-trained measurements when compared to a third untrained group serving as a passive control. These findings fail to support the idea that adaptive working memory training in healthy young adults enhances working memory capacity in non-trained tasks, fluid intelligence, or other measures of cognitive abilities.
Impacts of Salmon on Riparian Plant Diversity Hocking, Morgan D.; Reynolds, John D.
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
03/2011, Volume:
331, Issue:
6024
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The study of natural gradients in nutrient subsidies between ecosystems allows for predictions of how changes in one system can affect biodiversity in another. We performed a large-scale empirical ...test of the role of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) in structuring riparian plant communities. A comparison of 50 watersheds in the remote Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia's central coast in Canada shows that salmon influence nutrient loading to plants, shifting plant communities toward nutrient-rich species, which in turn decreases plant diversity. These effects are mediated by interactions between salmon density and the physical characteristics of watersheds. Predicting how salmon affect terrestrial ecosystems is central to conservation plans that aim to better integrate ecosystem values into resource management.
The annual migration and spawning event of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) can lead to cross-boundary delivery of marine-derived nutrients from their carcasses into adjacent terrestrial ...ecosystems. The densities of some passerine species, including Pacific wrens (Troglodytes pacificus), have been shown to be positively correlated with salmon abundance along streams in Alaska and British Columbia, but mechanisms maintaining these densities remain poorly understood. Riparian areas near salmon streams could provide higher quality habitat for birds through greater food availability and more suitable vegetation structure for foraging and breeding, resulting in wrens maintaining smaller territories. We examined relationships between salmon biomass and Pacific wren territory size, competition, and habitat selection along 11 streams on the coast of British Columbia, Canada. We show that male wren densities increase and territory sizes decrease as salmon-spawning biomass increases. Higher densities result in higher rates of competition as male wrens countersing more frequently to defend their territories along streams with more salmon. Wrens were also more selective of the habitats they defended along streams with higher salmon biomass; they were 68% less likely to select low-quality habitat on streams with salmon compared with 46% less likely at streams without salmon. This suggests a potential trade-off between available high-quality habitat and the cost of competition that structures habitat selection. Thus, the marine-nutrient subsidies provided by salmon carcasses to forests lead to higher densities of wrens while shifting the economics of territorial defence toward smaller territories being defended more vigorously in higher quality habitats.
The exponential growth and interest in community science programs is producing staggering amounts of biodiversity data across broad temporal and spatial scales. Large community science datasets such ...as iNaturalist and eBird are allowing ecologists and conservation biologists to answer novel questions that were not possible before. However, the opportunistic nature of many of these enormous datasets leads to biases. Spatial bias is a common problem, where observations are biased towards points of access like roads and trails. iNaturalist-a popular biodiversity community science platform-exhibits strong spatial biases, but it is unclear how these biases affect the quality of biodiversity data collected. Thus, we tested whether fine-scale spatial bias due to sampling from trails affects taxonomic richness estimates. We compared timed transects with experienced iNaturalist observers on and off trails in British Columbia, Canada. Using generalized linear mixed models, we found higher overall taxonomic richness on trails than off trails. In addition, we found more exotic as well as native taxa on trails than off trails. There was no difference between on and off trail observations for species that are rarely observed. Thus, fine-scale spatial bias from trails does not reduce the quality of biodiversity measurements, a promising result for those interested in using iNaturalist data for research and conservation management.
Rapid declines threaten the persistence of many marine fish. Data from more than 230 populations reveal a median reduction of 83% in breeding population size from known historic levels. Few ...populations recover rapidly; most exhibit little or no change in abundance up to 15 years after a collapse. Reductions in fishing pressure, although clearly necessary for population recovery, are often insufficient. Persistence and recovery are also influenced by life history, habitat alteration, changes to species assemblages, genetic responses to exploitation, and reductions in population growth attributable to the Allee effect, also known as depensation. Heightened extinction risks were highlighted recently when a Canadian population of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) was listed as endangered, on the basis of declines as high as 99.9% over 30 years. Unprecedented reductions in abundance and surprisingly low rates of recovery draw attention to scientists' limited understanding of how fish behavior, habitat, ecology, and evolution affect population growth at low abundance. Failure to prevent population collapses, and to take the conservation biology of marine fishes seriously, will ensure that many severely depleted species remain ecological and numerical shadows in the ecosystems that they once dominated.
We show that the distributions of both exploited and nonexploited North Sea fishes have responded markedly to recent increases in sea temperature, with nearly two-thirds of species shifting in mean ...latitude or depth or both over 25 years. For species with northerly or southerly range margins in the North Sea, half have shown boundary shifts with warming, and all but one shifted northward. Species with shifting distributions have faster life cycles and smaller body sizes than nonshifting species. Further temperature rises are likely to have profound impacts on commercial fisheries through continued shifts in distribution and alterations in community interactions.
Resource subsidies across ecosystems can have strong and unforeseen ecological impacts. Marine-derived nutrients from Pacific salmon (Onchorhycus spp.) can be transferred to streams and riparian ...forests through diverse food web pathways, fertilizing forests and increasing invertebrate abundance, which may in turn affect breeding birds. We quantified the influence of salmon on the abundance and composition of songbird communities across a wide range of salmon-spawning biomass on 14 streams along a remote coastal region of British Columbia, Canada. Point-count data spanning two years were combined with salmon biomass and 13 environmental covariates in riparian forests to test for correlates with bird abundance, foraging guilds, individual species, and avian diversity. We show that bird abundance and diversity increase with salmon biomass and that watershed size and forest composition are less important predictors. This work provides new evidence for the importance of salmon to terrestrial ecosystems and information that can inform ecosystem-based management.
Myocarditis is an uncommon, but potentially fatal, toxicity of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). Myocarditis after ICI has not been well characterized.
The authors sought to understand the ...presentation and clinical course of ICI-associated myocarditis.
After observation of sporadic ICI-associated myocarditis cases, the authors created a multicenter registry with 8 sites. From November 2013 to July 2017, there were 35 patients with ICI-associated myocarditis, who were compared to a random sample of 105 ICI-treated patients without myocarditis. Covariates of interest were extracted from medical records including the occurrence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE), defined as the composite of cardiovascular death, cardiogenic shock, cardiac arrest, and hemodynamically significant complete heart block.
The prevalence of myocarditis was 1.14% with a median time of onset of 34 days after starting ICI (interquartile range: 21 to 75 days). Cases were 65 ± 13 years of age, 29% were female, and 54% had no other immune-related side effects. Relative to controls, combination ICI (34% vs. 2%; p < 0.001) and diabetes (34% vs. 13%; p = 0.01) were more common in cases. Over 102 days (interquartile range: 62 to 214 days) of median follow-up, 16 (46%) developed MACE; 38% of MACE occurred with normal ejection fraction. There was a 4-fold increased risk of MACE with troponin T of ≥1.5 ng/ml (hazard ratio: 4.0; 95% confidence interval: 1.5 to 10.9; p = 0.003). Steroids were administered in 89%, and lower steroids doses were associated with higher residual troponin and higher MACE rates.
Myocarditis after ICI therapy may be more common than appreciated, occurs early after starting treatment, has a malignant course, and responds to higher steroid doses.
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