Juvenile specimens of the pugnose pipefish, Bryx dunckeri, were collected during a multipurpose research survey conducted within the Sargasso Sea Subtropical Convergence Zone, extending the known ...distribution range of this species to include open ocean areas of the Western North Atlantic. Novel spatial data are of scientific interest as information on the distribution, population structure, and population size of this species is limited. Additionally, we present detailed photographs and morphological data on the collected specimens. The results are discussed in relation to the dispersal abilities and population structure in syngnathids.
ObjectiveIn most developed countries, substantial disparities exist in access to mental health services for black and minority ethnic (BME) populations. We sought to determine perceived barriers to ...accessing mental health services among people from these backgrounds to inform the development of effective and culturally acceptable services to improve equity in healthcare.Design and settingQualitative study in Southeast England.Participants26 adults from BME backgrounds (13 men, 13 women; aged >18 years) were recruited to 2 focus groups. Participants were identified through the registers of the Black and Minority Ethnic Community Partnership centre and by visits to local community gatherings and were invited to take part by community development workers. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify key themes about perceived barriers to accessing mental health services.ResultsParticipants identified 2 broad themes that influenced access to mental health services. First, personal and environmental factors included inability to recognise and accept mental health problems, positive impact of social networks, reluctance to discuss psychological distress and seek help among men, cultural identity, negative perception of and social stigma against mental health and financial factors. Second, factors affecting the relationship between service user and healthcare provider included the impact of long waiting times for initial assessment, language barriers, poor communication between service users and providers, inadequate recognition or response to mental health needs, imbalance of power and authority between service users and providers, cultural naivety, insensitivity and discrimination towards the needs of BME service users and lack of awareness of different services among service users and providers.ConclusionsPeople from BME backgrounds require considerable mental health literacy and practical support to raise awareness of mental health conditions and combat stigma. There is a need for improving information about services and access pathways. Healthcare providers need relevant training and support in developing effective communication strategies to deliver individually tailored and culturally sensitive care. Improved engagement with people from BME backgrounds in the development and delivery of culturally appropriate mental health services could facilitate better understanding of mental health conditions and improve access.
Most studies on the impact of near-future levels of carbon dioxide on fish behaviour report behavioural alterations, wherefore abnormal behaviour has been suggested to be a potential consequence of ...future ocean acidification and therefore a threat to ocean ecosystems. However, an increasing number of studies show tolerance of fish to increased levels of carbon dioxide. This variation among studies in susceptibility highlights the importance of continued investigation of the possible effects of elevated pCO sub(2). Here, we investigated the impacts of increased levels of carbon dioxide on behaviour using the goldsinny wrasse (Ctenolabrus rupestris), which is a common species in European coastal waters and widely used as cleaner fish to control sea lice infestation in commercial fish farming in Europe. The wrasses were exposed to control water conditions (370 mu atm) or elevated pCO sub(2) (995 mu atm) for 1 month, during which time behavioural trials were performed. We investigated the possible effects of CO sub(2) on behavioural lateralization, swimming activity, and prey and predator olfactory preferences, all behaviours where disturbances have previously been reported in other fish species after exposure to elevated CO sub(2). Interestingly, we failed to detect effects of carbon dioxide for most behaviours investigated, excluding predator olfactory cue avoidance, where control fish initially avoided predator cue while the high CO sub(2) group was indifferent. The present study therefore shows behavioural tolerance to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the goldsinny wrasse. We also highlight that individual fish can show disturbance in specific behaviours while being apparently unaffected by elevated pCO sub(2) in other behavioural tests. However, using experiments with exposure times measured in weeks to predict possible effects of long-term drivers, such as ocean acidification, has limitations, and the behavioural effects from elevated pCO sub(2) in this experiment cannot be viewed as proof that these fish would show the same reaction after decades of evolution.
Chemical contaminants (e.g. metals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals) are changing ecosystems via effects on wildlife. Indeed, recent work explicitly performed under environmentally realistic conditions ...reveals that chemical contaminants can have both direct and indirect effects at multiple levels of organization by influencing animal behaviour. Altered behaviour reflects multiple physiological changes and links individual- to population-level processes, thereby representing a sensitive tool for holistically assessing impacts of environmentally relevant contaminant concentrations. Here, we show that even if direct effects of contaminants on behavioural responses are reasonably well documented, there are significant knowledge gaps in understanding both the plasticity (i.e. individual variation) and evolution of contaminant-induced behavioural changes. We explore implications of multi-level processes by developing a conceptual framework that integrates direct and indirect effects on behaviour under environmentally realistic contexts. Our framework illustrates how sublethal behavioural effects of contaminants can be both negative and positive, varying dynamically within the same individuals and populations. This is because linkages within communities will act indirectly to alter and even magnify contaminant-induced effects. Given the increasing pressure on wildlife and ecosystems from chemical pollution, we argue there is a need to incorporate existing knowledge in ecology and evolution to improve ecological hazard and risk assessments.
The partial pressure of CO
in the oceans has increased rapidly over the past century, driving ocean acidification and raising concern for the stability of marine ecosystems
. Coral reef fishes are ...predicted to be especially susceptible to end-of-century ocean acidification on the basis of several high-profile papers
that have reported profound behavioural and sensory impairments-for example, complete attraction to the chemical cues of predators under conditions of ocean acidification. Here, we comprehensively and transparently show that-in contrast to previous studies-end-of-century ocean acidification levels have negligible effects on important behaviours of coral reef fishes, such as the avoidance of chemical cues from predators, fish activity levels and behavioural lateralization (left-right turning preference). Using data simulations, we additionally show that the large effect sizes and small within-group variances that have been reported in several previous studies are highly improbable. Together, our findings indicate that the reported effects of ocean acidification on the behaviour of coral reef fishes are not reproducible, suggesting that behavioural perturbations will not be a major consequence for coral reef fishes in high CO
oceans.
Most studies on the impact of near-future levels of carbon dioxide on fish behaviour report behavioural alterations, wherefore abnormal behaviour has been suggested to be a potential consequence of ...future ocean acidification and therefore a threat to ocean ecosystems. However, an increasing number of studies show tolerance of fish to increased levels of carbon dioxide. This variation among studies in susceptibility highlights the importance of continued investigation of the possible effects of elevated pCO(2). Here, we investigated the impacts of increased levels of carbon dioxide on behaviour using the goldsinny wrasse (Ctenolabrus rupestris), which is a common species in European coastal waters and widely used as cleaner fish to control sea lice infestation in commercial fish farming in Europe. The wrasses were exposed to control water conditions (370 mu atm) or elevated pCO(2) (995 mu atm) for 1 month, during which time behavioural trials were performed. We investigated the possible effects of CO2 on behavioural lateralization, swimming activity, and prey and predator olfactory preferences, all behaviours where disturbances have previously been reported in other fish species after exposure to elevated CO2. Interestingly, we failed to detect effects of carbon dioxide for most behaviours investigated, excluding predator olfactory cue avoidance, where control fish initially avoided predator cue while the high CO2 group was indifferent. The present study therefore shows behavioural tolerance to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the goldsinny wrasse. We also highlight that individual fish can show disturbance in specific behaviours while being apparently unaffected by elevated pCO(2) in other behavioural tests. However, using experiments with exposure times measured in weeks to predict possible effects of long-term drivers, such as ocean acidification, has limitations, and the behavioural effects from elevated pCO(2) in this experiment cannot be viewed as proof that these fish would show the same reaction after decades of evolution.
Most studies on the impact of near-future levels of carbon dioxide on fish behaviour report behavioural alterations, wherefore abnormal behaviour has been suggested to be a potential consequence of ...future ocean acidification and therefore a threat to ocean ecosystems. However, an increasing number of studies show tolerance of fish to increased levels of carbon dioxide. This variation among studies in susceptibility highlights the importance of continued investigation of the possible effects of elevated p CO 2 . Here, we investigated the impacts of increased levels of carbon dioxide on behaviour using the goldsinny wrasse ( Ctenolabrus rupestris ), which is a common species in European coastal waters and widely used as cleaner fish to control sea lice infestation in commercial fish farming in Europe. The wrasses were exposed to control water conditions (370 μatm) or elevated p CO 2 (995 μatm) for 1 month, during which time behavioural trials were performed. We investigated the possible effects of CO 2 on behavioural lateralization, swimming activity, and prey and predator olfactory preferences, all behaviours where disturbances have previously been reported in other fish species after exposure to elevated CO 2 . Interestingly, we failed to detect effects of carbon dioxide for most behaviours investigated, excluding predator olfactory cue avoidance, where control fish initially avoided predator cue while the high CO 2 group was indifferent. The present study therefore shows behavioural tolerance to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the goldsinny wrasse. We also highlight that individual fish can show disturbance in specific behaviours while being apparently unaffected by elevated p CO 2 in other behavioural tests. However, using experiments with exposure times measured in weeks to predict possible effects of long-term drivers, such as ocean acidification, has limitations, and the behavioural effects from elevated p CO 2 in this experiment cannot be viewed as proof that these fish would show the same reaction after decades of evolution.
Anthropogenic pharmaceutical pollutants have been detected in nature across the globe, and recent work has shown negative effects of pharmaceuticals on the health and welfare of many animals. ...However, whether alterations can be reversed has been poorly investigated, although such studies are essential to assess the effects of high-peak exposure events in waterways where pharmaceutical concentrations are usually low. In this study, we investigated the effects of two concentrations (environmentally relevant 1 μg L−1 and high 100 μg L−1) of oxazepam, an anxiolytic commonly detected in aquatic environments, and whether behavioural alterations are reversible after depuration. Specifically, we measured daytime and night-time swimming activity and daytime behaviours related to boldness (foraging, sheltering and routine swimming activity) using the freshwater burbot (Lota lota). We found that both swimming activity and boldness were affected by oxazepam. Fish exposed to the higher level had a higher burst swimming duration (i.e., fast swimming bouts), both in the daytime and night-time trials. Further, fish exposed to the lower oxazepam level spent less time sheltering than control- and high-level exposed fish, but there was no difference between the control and high oxazepam treatments. For routine swimming activity, quantified in the boldness trials, and for latency to forage, there were no treatment effects. When retesting the fish after depuration, the detected behavioural alterations were no longer present. Since the magnitude of these effects were not consistent across endpoints, our study suggests that oxazepam might not be a great concern for this particular, stress tolerant, species, highlighting the importance of evaluating species-specific effects of pharmaceuticals. The observation that the effects we did find were reversible after depuration is encouraging, and indicates that rapid restoration of behaviours after removal from oxazepam contamination is possible.
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•Fish swimming activity and boldness was affected by oxazepam.•Behavioural alterations were no longer present after depuration.•Potential for restoration of behaviours after removal from oxazepam contamination
Sex role reversal in 2 pipefish species, Syngnathus typhle and Nerophis ophidion , is potentially explained by females reproducing twice as fast as males. Moreover, in oceanic populations from the ...Swedish west coast, females compete for males with males pre- ferring to mate with larger females. However, in a brackish Baltic population of S. typhle , males do not prefer larger mates, whereas choosiness remains in the local N. ophidion population. We explore whether this absence of male choice in brackish S. typhle can be explained by males and females having more similar potential reproductive rates here, whereas the sex difference may remain in the local N. ophidion population. Contrary to our expectations, in both species, females out-reproduced males by a factor of more than 2, just as in the oceanic populations. We measured this experimentally as the number of males a female potentially could fill with eggs within the time span of 1 male pregnancy, in relation to males available in nature. Thus, we conclude that sexual selection on females is as strong in brackish as in oceanic populations of both species but that targets of selection via male choice are shifted to traits other than body size in S. typhle . Hence, costs and benefits of choice are probably more important than potential reproductive rates to understand mate choice. We suggest that it may be misleading to use targets of sexual selection, such as choice for large body size, as an indicator of the strength of sexual selection.
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