Global climate change is driving species' distributions towards the poles and mountain tops during both non‐breeding and breeding seasons, leading to changes in the composition of natural ...communities. However, the degree of season differences in climate‐driven community shifts has not been thoroughly investigated at large spatial scales.
We compared the rates of change in the community composition during both winter (non‐breeding season) and summer (breeding) and their relation to temperature changes.
Based on continental‐scale data from Europe and North America, we examined changes in bird community composition using the community temperature index (CTI) approach and compared the changes with observed regional temperature changes during 1980–2016.
CTI increased faster in winter than in summer. This seasonal discrepancy is probably because individuals are less site‐faithful in winter, and can more readily shift their wintering sites in response to weather in comparison to the breeding season. Regional long‐term changes in community composition were positively associated with regional temperature changes during both seasons, but the pattern was only significant during summer due to high annual variability in winter communities. Annual changes in community composition were positively associated with the annual temperature changes during both seasons.
Our results were broadly consistent across continents, suggesting some climate‐driven restructuring in both European and North American avian communities. Because community composition has changed much faster during the winter than during the breeding season, it is important to increase our knowledge about climate‐driven impacts during the less‐studied non‐breeding season.
The authors provide compelling evidence that climate‐driven changes in natural communities are much faster during the less‐studied winter season. They found that regional changes in community composition were linked with regional temperatures both annually and over the long term.
North American populations of aerial insectivorous birds are in steep decline. Aerial insectivores (AI) are a group of bird species that feed almost exclusively on insects in flight, and include ...swallows, swifts, nightjars, and flycatchers. The causes of the declines are not well understood. Indeed, it is not clear when the declines began, or whether the declines are shared across all species in the group (e.g., caused by changes in flying insect populations) or specific to each species (e.g., caused by changes in species' breeding habitat). A recent study suggested that population trends of aerial insectivores changed for the worse in the 1980s. If there was such a change point in trends of the group, understanding its timing and geographic pattern could help identify potential causes of the decline. We used a hierarchical Bayesian, penalized regression spline, change point model to estimate group-level change points in the trends of 22 species of AI, across 153 geographic strata of North America. We found evidence for group-level change points in 85% of the strata. Change points for flycatchers (FC) were distinct from those for swallows, swifts and nightjars (SSN) across North America, except in the Northeast, where all AI shared the same group-level change points. During the 1980s, there was a negative change point across most of North America, in the trends of SSN. For FC, the group-level change points were more geographically variable, and in many regions there were two: a positive change point followed by a negative change point. This group-level synchrony in AI population trends is likely evidence of a response to a common environmental factor(s) with similar effects on many species across broad spatial extents. The timing and geographic patterns of the change points that we identify here should provide a spring-board for research into the causes behind aerial insectivore declines.
The vision of Chandler (Chan) S. Robbins for a continental-scale omnibus survey of breeding birds led to the development of the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). Chan was uniquely suited to ...develop the BBS. His position as a government scientist had given him experience with designing and implementing continental-scale surveys, his research background made him an effective advocate of the need for a survey to monitor pesticide effects on birds, and his prominence in the birding community gave him connections to infrastructure—a network of qualified volunteer birders who could conduct roadside surveys with standardized point counts. Having started in the eastern United States and the Atlantic provinces of Canada in 1966, the BBS now provides population change information for ∼546 species in the continental United States and Canada, and recently initiated routes in Mexico promise to greatly expand the areas and species covered by the survey. Although survey protocols have remained unchanged for 50 years, the BBS remains relevant in a changing world. Several papers that follow in this Special Section of The Condor: Ornithological Advances review how the BBS has been applied to conservation assessments, especially in combination with other large-scale survey data. A critical feature of the BBS program is an active research program into field and analytical methods to enhance the quality of the count data and to control for factors that influence detectability. Papers in the Special Section also present advances in BBS analyses that improve the utility of this expanding and sometimes controversial survey. In this Perspective, we introduce the Special Section by reviewing the history of the BBS, describing current analyses, and providing summary trend results for all species, highlighting 3 groups of conservation concern: grassland-breeding birds, aridland-breeding birds, and aerial insectivorous birds.
The enhancement of immune responses upon treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors can have the desired outcome of reinvigorating antitumour immune surveillance, but often at the expense of ...immune-related adverse events (irAEs). This novel disease entity often prompts comparisons with, and extrapolation of treatment approaches from, primary autoimmune disorders. Accordingly, current treatment guidelines for irAEs make generic recommendations adapted from the literature describing primary autoimmune diseases, without taking into consideration the substantial disparity of the immunohistopathological findings within each organ affected by an irAE. The treatment modalities themselves are complex and have many potential drawbacks, such as serious and rarely fatal infections, drug toxicities overlapping with irAEs and the risk of compromising cancer immune surveillance. Herein, we provide an overview of key cellular and soluble immunological factors mediating irAEs and propose a model integrating this knowledge with the immunohistopathological findings of the affected organs for a personalized decision-making process for each patient.
Objective
To develop a clinical decision rule to predict the presence of interstitial lung disease (ILD) in systemic sclerosis (SSc; scleroderma) and to estimate the prevalence of SSc‐ILD.
Methods
...Patient data were extracted from the Canadian Scleroderma Research Group registry. Three algorithms for the clinical decision rule were considered based on lung auscultation, chest radiography (CXR), and % predicted forced vital capacity (FVC). High‐resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scans were used as the gold standard to determine the diagnostic properties of the 3 algorithms. Multiple imputation was used to impute HRCT data when missing, thereby avoiding bias due to differential referral for HRCT.
Results
This study included 1,168 patients. Of the patients with HRCT scans, 65% had evidence of ILD, compared to 26% by physical examination and 22% by CXR. The FVC of those who did not have HRCT was 8.8% greater than those who did (95% confidence interval 95% CI 6.0–11.6%). Algorithm A, which identified the presence of ILD based on crackles on lung auscultation and/or findings on CXR, had a likelihood ratio of 3.9, compared to 3.2 for Algorithm B (which included patients with FVC <70%) and 2.2 for Algorithm C (which included patients with FVC <80%). The prevalence of ILD in the cohort was estimated to be 52% (95% CI 46–59%).
Conclusion
We developed a simple clinical decision rule to predict SSc‐ILD with good test characteristics. The prevalence of ILD in a large, unselected SSc cohort was estimated to be 52%.
•Avian diversity is more negatively affected by arable crop than forage agriculture.•Avian diversity more sensitive to agriculture than avian abundance.•Agriculture-tolerant species may compensate ...for losses of non-tolerant species.•Riparian strips and hedgerows enhance avian diversity at landscape scales.•Avian community shows a mixed response to higher crop diversity.
Agriculture is a primary factor underlying world-wide declines in biodiversity. However, different agricultural systems vary in their effects depending on their resemblance to the natural ecosystem, coverage across the landscape, and operational intensity. We combined data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey with remotely sensed measures of crop type and linear woody feature (LWF) density to study how agricultural type, woody structure and crop heterogeneity influenced the avian community at landscape scales across a broad agricultural region of eastern Canada. Specifically, we examined whether 1) avian diversity and abundance differed between arable crop agriculture (e.g., corn, soy) and forage (e.g., hay) and pastoral agriculture, 2) whether increasing the density of LWF enhances avian diversity and abundance, and 3) whether increasing the heterogeneity of arable crop types can reduce negative effects of arable crop amount. Avian diversity was lower in landscapes dominated by arable crop compared to forage agriculture likely due to a stronger negative correlation between arable cropping and the amount of natural land cover. In contrast, total avian abundance did not decline with either agricultural type, suggesting that species tolerant to agriculture are compensating numerically for the loss of non-tolerant species. This indicates that bird diversity may be a more sensitive response than bird abundance to crop cover type in agricultural landscapes. Higher LWF densities had positive effects on the diversity of forest and shrub bird communities as predicted. Higher crop heterogeneity did not reduce the negative effects of high crop amount as expected except for wetland bird abundance. In contrast, greater crop heterogeneity actually strengthened the negative effects of high crop amount on forest bird abundance, shrub-forest edge bird diversity and total bird diversity. We speculate that this was due to negative correlations between crop heterogeneity and the amount of shrub and forest habitat patches in crop-dominated landscapes in our study region. The variable response to crop heterogeneity across guilds suggests that policies aimed at crop diversification may not enhance avian diversity on their own and that management efforts aimed at the retention of natural forest and shrub patches, riparian corridors, and hedge-rows would be more directly beneficial.
Item 9 of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) queries about thoughts of death and self-harm, but not suicidality. Although it is sometimes used to assess suicide risk, most positive responses ...are not associated with suicidality. The PHQ-8, which omits Item 9, is thus increasingly used in research. We assessed equivalency of total score correlations and the diagnostic accuracy to detect major depression of the PHQ-8 and PHQ-9.
We conducted an individual patient data meta-analysis. We fit bivariate random-effects models to assess diagnostic accuracy.
16 742 participants (2097 major depression cases) from 54 studies were included. The correlation between PHQ-8 and PHQ-9 scores was 0.996 (95% confidence interval 0.996 to 0.996). The standard cutoff score of 10 for the PHQ-9 maximized sensitivity + specificity for the PHQ-8 among studies that used a semi-structured diagnostic interview reference standard (N = 27). At cutoff 10, the PHQ-8 was less sensitive by 0.02 (-0.06 to 0.00) and more specific by 0.01 (0.00 to 0.01) among those studies (N = 27), with similar results for studies that used other types of interviews (N = 27). For all 54 primary studies combined, across all cutoffs, the PHQ-8 was less sensitive than the PHQ-9 by 0.00 to 0.05 (0.03 at cutoff 10), and specificity was within 0.01 for all cutoffs (0.00 to 0.01).
PHQ-8 and PHQ-9 total scores were similar. Sensitivity may be minimally reduced with the PHQ-8, but specificity is similar.
Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in systemic sclerosis (SSc). We performed a systematic review to characterise the use and validation of pulmonary ...function tests (PFTs) as surrogate markers for systemic sclerosis-associated interstitial lung disease (SSc-ILD) progression.Five electronic databases were searched to identify all relevant studies. Included studies either used at least one PFT measure as a longitudinal outcome for SSc-ILD progression (
outcome studies) and/or reported at least one classical measure of validity for the PFTs in SSc-ILD (
validation studies).This systematic review included 169 outcome studies and 50 validation studies. Diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (
) was cumulatively the most commonly used outcome until 2010 when it was surpassed by forced vital capacity (FVC). FVC (% predicted) was the primary endpoint in 70.4% of studies, compared to 11.3% for % predicted
Only five studies specifically aimed to validate the PFTs: two concluded that
was the best measure of SSc-ILD extent, while the others did not favour any PFT. These studies also showed respectable validity measures for total lung capacity (TLC).Despite the current preference for FVC, available evidence suggests that
and TLC should not yet be discounted as potential surrogate markers for SSc-ILD progression.
Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) use remains a challenge in patients with solid organ allografts as most would undergo rejection. In a melanoma patient in whom programmed-death 1 (PD-1) blockade ...resulted in organ rejection and colitis, the addition of the mTOR inhibitor sirolimus resulted in ongoing anti-tumor efficacy while promoting allograft tolerance. Strong granzyme B
, interferon (IFN)-γ
CD8
cytotoxic T cell and circulating regulatory T (T
) cell responses were noted during allograft rejection, along with significant eosinophilia and elevated serum IL-5 and eotaxin levels. Co-treatment with sirolimus abated cytotoxic T cell numbers and eosinophilia, while elevated T
cell numbers in the peripheral blood were maintained. Interestingly, numbers of IFN-γ
CD4
T cells and serum IFN-γ levels increased with the addition of sirolimus treatment likely promoting ongoing anti-PD-1 efficacy. Thus, our results indicate that sirolimus has the potential to uncouple anti-PD-1 therapy toxicity and efficacy.
Objective
To determine mortality and causes of death in a multinational inception cohort of subjects with systemic sclerosis (SSc).
Methods
We quantified mortality as standardized mortality ratio ...(SMR), years of life lost, and percentage mortality in the first decade of disease. The inception cohort comprised subjects recruited within 4 years of disease onset. For comparison, we used a prevalent cohort, which included all subjects irrespective of disease duration at recruitment. We determined a single primary cause of death (SSc related or non–SSc related) using a standardized case report form, and we evaluated predictors of mortality using multivariable Cox regression.
Results
In the inception cohort of 1,070 subjects, there were 140 deaths (13%) over a median follow‐up of 3.0 years (interquartile range 1.0–5.1 years), with a pooled SMR of 4.06 (95% confidence interval 95% CI 3.39–4.85), up to 22.4 years of life lost in women and up to 26.0 years of life lost in men, and mortality in the diffuse disease subtype of 24.2% at 8 years. In the prevalent cohort of 3,218 subjects, the pooled SMR was lower at 3.39 (95% CI 3.06–3.71). In the inception cohort, 62.1% of the primary causes of death were SSc related. Malignancy, sepsis, cerebrovascular disease, and ischemic heart disease were the most common non–SSc‐related causes of death. Predictors of early mortality included male sex, older age at disease onset, diffuse disease subtype, pulmonary arterial hypertension, and renal crisis.
Conclusion
Early mortality in SSc is substantial, and prevalent cohorts underestimate mortality in SSc by failing to capture early deaths, particularly in men and those with diffuse disease.
PDF
