Study highlights natural history and conservation importance of Chinese mountain cat

Study highlights the evolutionary uniqueness and premier conservation importance of the elusive Chinese mountain cat

NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY

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IMAGE: CHINESE MOUNTAIN CAT. view more 

CREDIT: SONG DAZHAO, CFCA

FORT LAUDERDALE/DAVIE, Fla. - We know that the domestic cat has distant relatives that roam the earth - lions, tigers, cheetahs and mountain lions. Less familiar are the 38 distinct species in the Family Felidae, many with strange names like pampas cat, kodkod and rusty spotted cat. The new field of genomics - the unravelling of DNA genomes of separate species - is resolving old conundrums and revealing new secrets across the history of evolutionarily related species among cats, dogs, bears and ourselves.

In the largest-ever study undertaken of Chinese cats, genetic detectives highlight the evolutionary uniqueness and premier conservation importance of the elusive Chinese mountain cat (Felis silvestris bieti), found only in the Tibetan plateau of China. Also called Chinese desert cat or Steppe cat, the Chinese mountain cat has a distinctive appearance of sand colored fur, with faint dark stripes a thick tail and light blue pupils.

The research is published in Science Advances.

This new study compared three different felines living in China: the Chinese mountain cat, Felis silvestris bieti, the Asiatic wildcat Felis silvestris ornata, and feral domestic cats Felis silvestris catus. The Asiatic wildcat has distinguishing spotted coat pattern across a wide range extending from the Caspian Sea in the East through western India and southern Mongolia to parts of western China. Approximately 600 million domestic cats are found across the world.

The study was led by the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at Peking University in Beijing and supported by an international team including lead genetic researchers at Nova Southeastern University, USA and in Malaysia. The genomic data resolves a taxonomic classification uncertainty, reveals the timing of evolutionary divergence and pinpoints the prospects for survival of an important endangered species.

Using 270 individual samples, the molecular genetic study finds that the Chinese mountain cat is a unique subspecies of the wide-ranging Wildcat, Felis silvestris. The wildcat species is found throughout Europe, Africa, and much of Western Asia. The Felis silvestris bieti subspecies, however, is found only in China, being adapted to the prey and alpine climate of the Tibetan plateau.

Applying the molecular clock hypotheses, the date of evolutionary split between F. s. bieti and F. s. ornata was a estimated at ~1.5 million years ago while the genetic distance from both to the closest Felis species relative, the black footed cat, Felis nigripes is twice that at 3.0 MY ago. These different times support the classification of F. s. ornata and F. s. bieti as subspecies of Felis silvestris. A closely related subspecies from Central Asia and north Africa, Felis silvestris lybica , is the clear predecessor of the world's domestic cats, including those throughout China. The cat domestication process happened 10-12,000 years ago in the Near East at around the same time and locale, when humankind ancestors morphed from peripatetic hunter-gatherers to sedentary farmers in the Fertile Crescent region.

The Chinese mountain cat faces several major threats, one from modern agricultural practices that divert precious habitat. A second, more existential threat, is from interbreeding with domestic cats brought by the growing human population in the cat's limited habitat. And finally, climate change, that may be expanding the range of neighboring wildcats into the mountain cat's core homeland.

"This study will help conservation scientists to identify threats and decide the best ways to conserve this special cat in its native range," said Stephen J. O'Brien, Ph.D., a world-renowned geneticist and research scientist at NSU's Halmos College of Arts and Sciences.

The study solidifies the taxonomic status of the mountain cat, Felis silvestris lybica, through an analysis of the cat's genome, placing the cat in an evolutionary context relative to other species and subspecies of cats. These arcane taxonomic distinctions are important for conservation because scientists have to be sure they are all talking about the same animal when discussing strategies, and no less important, because legal protections have to be specific to the group in question. Without an agreed-upon taxonomy, legal protections and conservation come to a stop.

Another important result of this study is the finding that domestic cats in China are derived from the same common stock and origin as domestic cats throughout the world, and that there was not an independent origin of domesticity in China. Previous studies have hinted at close associations between early Chinese farming communities and local wild animals, including Asian mountain cats, and that some of these animals may have begun the crossing from the wild to living with people in settled communities.

What the current study shows is that this did not happen with domestic cats; now the focus of research can move to determining - why? Why were some species domesticated in some place but not in others? Why did these processes happen when they did, and what were the conditions obtaining that allowed, maybe even promoted, the integration of wild animals into human societies? Answering these related questions will help us understand the history of early China, indeed helps us understand the history of the ancient anthropocentric world, in more detail.

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CAPTION

Chinese mountain cat.

CREDIT

Song Dazhao, CFCA

The job you want vs. the job you get

Research connects dream jobs with the future of work

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

Research News

IMAGE: KEVIN HOFF, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON REPORTS THE EXISTENCE OF IMPORTANT DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN YOUNG PEOPLE'S DREAM JOBS AND EMPLOYMENT REALITIES. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

When it comes to career aspirations for teenagers, a University of Houston psychology researcher believes it's best to shoot for the moon, so you can at least land in the stars. The truth is the moon may sometimes be unreachable.

In the Journal of Career Assessment, Kevin Hoff, assistant professor of psychology, reports the existence of important discrepancies between young people's dream jobs and employment realities.

"Almost 50% of adolescents aspired to investigative or artistic careers, which together account for only 8% of the U.S. labor market," reports Hoff, whose research examined the career aspirations of 3,367 adolescents (age 13-18 years) from 42 U.S. states. Investigative jobs include those in the field of science and research.

Hoff's team conducted a large-scale coding effort using the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) to compile the automation risk levels, educational requirements, and vocational interests of career aspirations.

"Results revealed that most adolescents aspired to careers with low potential for automation. However, there were large discrepancies between adolescents' aspirations and the number of jobs available in the labor market," said Hoff.

For females, the most popular aspirations were doctors, veterinarians, teachers, and nurses. Doctor was most popular in early adolescence (accounting for around 12% of all female aspirations at ages 13-15), whereas veterinarian, teacher, and nurse were more popular in late adolescence (ages 16-18). For males, athlete was overwhelmingly the most popular aspiration during early adolescence (accounting for 22-32% of male aspirations at ages 13-15) but became less popular in late adolescence (accounting for 5-13% at ages 16-18).

"Both males and females showed a similar pattern of increasing variability in their career aspirations with age, indicating more diverse career goals," said Hoff. Indeed, reality may have set in. Many 13-year-old males who wanted to be professional athletes had changed their minds by 18 to aspire towards more attainable jobs.

One of the most important ways to help children find ambitious, yet realistic career goals is through exposing them to a variety of career types they would not naturally see in their daily lives.

"Young girls often want to become teachers because that is what they see every day," said Hoff. "It's equally important to show them that other occupations exist, especially lesser-known careers with growing employment demands, such as those in the STEM fields." Hoff said teachers often struggle with directing students who have very lofty career ambitions but mediocre grades, although there's an upside to having such ambition.

"Adolescents who want to become doctors may end up with a really good job doing something else in the medical field, and that's a positive outcome. The negatives are they might end up working toward an unattainable career, pursuing education that's a bad fit in interest or ability," said Hoff.

Despite a rapidly changing labor market, little research exists on how youth's career goals correspond to projections about the future of work. "This kind of career development research can make a positive impact in helping individuals and societies prepare for the future of work," said Hoff.

In the end, Hoff's work does not discourage ambition, but amplifies the need for a good back-up plan.

"It's good to encourage students to have prestigious careers, but as they get older, parents, teachers or counselors should also be real with them and help them understand how many people actually work in their dream fields, and how likely it is they will get a job in that field," said Hoff.

Spoiler alert: Only 2% of Americans are employed in the arts.

Hoff's team included Drake Van Egdom, University of Houston; Alexis Hanna, University of Nevada-Reno; Chris Napolitano and James Rounds, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Are zebra mussels eating or helping toxic algae?

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

While invasive zebra mussels consume small plant-like organisms called phytoplankton, Michigan State University researchers discovered during a long-term study that zebra mussels can actually increase Microcystis, a type of phytoplankton known as "blue-green algae" or cyanobacteria, that forms harmful floating blooms.

"Microcystis literally means small cell, but numerous cells cluster together in colonies that can float to the surface to form scums," said Orlando Sarnelle, a professor emeritus with the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. "It is one of the most common causes of nuisance algal blooms in nutrient-enriched waters, including Lake Erie where it is a concern for municipal water supplies."

In the 1990s, researchers observed the appearance of dime-sized zebra mussels in Gull Lake, Michigan. Shortly after the mussels arrived, the researchers noticed an increase in Microcystis, which was surprising because the lake has low levels of phosphorus and Microcystis has a well-documented need for high-nutrient waters.

"Lakes colonized by zebra mussels tend to have about three times more Microcystis," said Stephen Hamilton, a professor at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station and the Department of Integrative Biology within the College of Natural Science, who was also curious to see if there was a relationship between the Microcystis and zebra mussels.

"We observed that zebra mussels can filter out the Microcystis with other particles, but then they spit out the Microcystis because evidently it is unpalatable to them," Hamilton said.

Sarnelle collaborated with Hamilton on a multiyear study that was part of the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research Network. Forty years ago, the NSF recognized the need for research studies that lasted more than a few years and launched the LTER Network. This study is one of five projects highlighted in a recent issue of the Ecological Society of America's journal, Ecosphere.

"Long-term measurements are essential to our understanding of many ecological phenomena," Sarnelle said. "There are many things you can't answer in the typical two- to four-year grant cycle."

The researchers suspected the zebra mussels were consuming competitors of Microcystis, which paved the way for the cyanobacteria to flourish under lower nutrient availability than it usually needs. In 2010, an unexpected summer die-off of zebra mussels in Gull Lake during prolonged warm temperatures provided a whole-lake test of the relationship, an opportunity that scientists sometimes call a "natural experiment."

"Normally, Microcystis thrives in warmer water," said Jeffrey White, who was a graduate student advised by Sarnelle at the time and is now a faculty member at Framingham State University in Framingham, Massachusetts. "Instead, we saw an 80% decrease in the Gull Lake Microcystis population when the zebra mussels died despite optimal temperatures for its growth."

The researchers were able to use the long-term study data to confirm their hypothesis.

"This fortuitous observation following years of sampling strengthens the argument that there is a cause-and-effect relationship, and not just a correlation, between zebra mussels and increased Microcystis," Hamilton said. "Multiyear studies can catch slow, unusual or extreme events that could be making important changes resulting in long-term lasting effects in the ecosystems."

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Spreading of infections = need for collaboration between biology and physics

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN - FACULTY OF SCIENCE

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IMAGE: THE FIGURE SHOWS A MODEL OF A SOCIAL NETWORK. THERE ARE 150 INDIVIDUALS (THE DOTS), WHOSE SOCIAL CONNECTIONS ARE MARKED BY THE LINES BETWEEN THEM. THERE ARE THREE CATEGORIES: 1.... view more 

CREDIT: BJARKE FROST NIELSEN/KIM SNEPPEN

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, together with epidemiologist Lone Simonsen from Roskilde University form part of the panel advising the Danish government on how to tackle the different infection-spreading situations we have all seen unfold over the past year. Researchers have modelled the spread of infections under a variety of scenarios, and the Coronavirus has proven to not follow the older models of disease spreading. An increasingly varied picture of its behaviour and thus its impact on society has emerged. In several scientific articles, researchers have described the knowledge accrued to date, most recently around the concept of "superspreaders". It turns out that only approximately 10% of those infected account for roughly 80% of the spread of the infection. The results have been published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS.

Where does our knowledge of infections spreading stem from?

The data researchers use to" feed" and develop computer models comes from a wide range of different sources. The Danish municipalities have kept inventories of the spread of the infection, and this data has the advantage that it stems from units that are not overly large. There is a high degree of detail and this means that one can trace local development more clearly and thus construct parameters for superspreading, which Postdoc Julius Kirkegaard has contributed to. Contact tracing is another source of information. In that case, the focus is on localising and limiting the individual's transmission of the virus. The third source is slightly more complicated as it seeks to follow the chain of infections via the gene sequence of the virus.

Who are the superspreaders?

Regardless of which source researchers examine, the results deliver roughly the same: 10% of all those infected account for as much as 80% of the spread of the infection. It is therefore crucial, in relation to the spread of the virus to locate the so-called superspreaders and uncover how superspreading occurs. Researchers stress that, at the moment, we are not quite sure what constitutes a person as a superspreader. It may purely be down to personal, physiological characteristics. In addition, there are varying degrees of superspreading in the population, so it is not necessarily just one or the other. Some people simply spread the virus more than others and the variation from persons with almost no transmission to superspreaders is great.

How do researchers model a population of just under 6 million individuals?

Three basic categories are considered important when modelling the population's behaviour, when calculating a scenario for the spread of infection: 1. The family context, 2. Work context and 3. The random contexts people find themselves in - in other words, people in proximity on public transport, at leisure activities etc. The time factor in all three is crucial, as it takes time to infect other people. In terms of time, these three categories are somewhat identical when it comes to common diseases, but not a superpreader coronavirus variant.

But this is where the individual characteristics of the virus come into play: Superspreaders are quite different when handled in a computer model. Methods known from physics become important here, as it is necessary to model individuals and their contacts. Researchers have set up computer models both for scenarios with and without superspreaders, and it transpires that shutting down workspaces as well as sporting events, and public transport has the same effect when the model does not take superspreaders into account. But when we include superspreaders, there is a pronounced difference, and the shutdown of public events has a much greater effect.

Disease modelling faces new challenges and strong interdisciplinary collaboration

Diseases can behave very differently and it is therefore incredibly important to be both ready and capable of rapid change in relation to the development of new models that reflect the characteristics of different diseases as accurately as possible, if we hope to contain them. Professor Kim Sneppen explains:" The biological variation of different viruses is enormous. SARS-CoV-2 contains a special feature in that it is at its most contagious just before one develops symptoms. This is the exact opposite of an earlier disease that threatened to become a pandemic, namely SARS, which is mostly contagious after one displays symptoms. Viruses are extremely advanced machines that each find specific weak points to exploit. A new field of research is rapidly developing, which examines how viruses attack the cells in our body. COVID-19 has proven to lead to very different sickness progressions for different patients. In that senses, it behaves chaotically, as we say in physics.".

Ph.D. student Bjarke Frost Nielsen and Professor Kim Sneppen see a large open field of research within the collaboration between physics and biology. Gathering as much possible information about different viruses is crucial thus enabling physists to deploy this knowledge in mapping scenarios to respond to them.

The potential for research into the spread of infections is great

Bjarke Frost Nielsen says:" We need to create a toolbox that contains a wide variation in the way we tackle the spread of transmission, in our computer programs. This is the immediate perspective we can see in front of us, at the moment. Mathematical disease modelling has been around for almost 100 years, but unfortunately not a lot of headway has been made over that period. To put it bluntly, the same equations from the 1930's are still in use today. In relation to some diseases, they can be correct, but in relation to others they can be way off. This is where, as physicists, we have a completely different approach. There are numerous parameters, i.e., social dynamics and much more varied interactions between individuals that we can build our scenarios upon. This is badly needed, when we see the enormous variations in the different diseases".

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New findings unveil a missing piece of human prehistory

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

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IMAGE: GEOGRAPHICAL AND TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF NEWLY SAMPLED INDIVIDUALS view more 

CREDIT: IVPP

A joint research team led by Prof. FU Qiaomei from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences sequenced the ancient genomes of 31 individuals from southern East Asia, thus unveiling a missing piece of human prehistory.

The study was published in Cell on June 24.

Prof. FU's team used DNA capture techniques to retrieve ancient DNA from Guangxi and Fujian, two provincial-level regions in southern China. They sequenced genome-wide DNA from 31 individuals dating back 11,747 to 194 years ago. Of these, two date back to more than 10,000 years ago, making them the oldest genomes sampled from southern East Asia and Southeast Asia to date.

Previous ancient DNA studies showed that ~8,000-4,000-year-old Southeast Asian Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers possessed deeply divergent Asian ancestry, whereas the first Southeast Asian farmers beginning ~4,000 years ago show a mixture of ancestry associated with Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers and present-day southern Chinese populations. In coastal southern China, ~9,000-4,000-year-old individuals from Fujian province show ancestry not as deeply divergent as the Hòabìnhian.

In Guangxi, FU and her team's sampling showed that the ancestry present was unlike that sampled previously in Fujian and Southeast Asia. Instead, they found a unique East Asian ancestral population (represented by the 11,000-year-old Longlin individual from Guangxi). Their findings highlight that 11,000 years ago, at least three genetically distinct ancestries composed the human landscape in southern East Asia and Southeast Asia: Fujian ancestry, Hòabìnhian ancestry, and Guangxi ancestry.

In addition to sharing Longlin ancestry, the Dushan and Baojianshan individuals in Guangxi also show strong evidence for admixture in southern China ~9,000 to 6,000 years ago. Dushan and Baojianshan were a mixture of local Guangxi ancestry, southern ancestry previously sampled in Fujian, and Deep Asian ancestry related to Southeast Asian Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers.

Previously, it was shown that southern Chinese populations expanded to Southeast Asia, mixing with and eventually replacing Hòabìnhians in Southeast Asia. FU's team showed that the dynamics were more complex, since populations carrying Hòabìnhian ancestry either co-existed with populations carrying Guangxi ancestry in southern China or gene flow upwards from Southeast Asia to southern China also occurred as early as ~8,000-6,000 years ago.

The study fills a research gap in the region connecting East and Southeast Asia, revealing a new genetic ancestry different from that found in coastal areas of southern China and in Southeast Asia.

Furthermore, it shows the impact of migration and admixture of populations at the crossroads of East and Southeast Asia in the last 11,000 years, revealing a long history of intermingling between these two regions.

"While we now have a better understanding of the population history in the last 11,000 years at the crossroads of East and Southeast Asia, future sampling in regions near the Yangtze River and southwest China are needed for a comprehensive understanding of the genetic history of humans in southern China," said Prof. FU.

Genetic samples from ancient humans in these regions will likely further clarify the remarkably diverse genetic prehistory of humans in southeastern Asia, and inform the genetic shifts that occurred between 6,000 and 1,500 years ago and contributed to the genetic composition observed today in southern China.

CAPTION

Overview of population dynamical history at the crossroads of East and Southeast Asia since 11,000 years ago

CREDIT

IVPP

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Phylogenetic tree of early Asian populations

CREDIT

 

People with fibromyalgia are substituting CBD for opioids to manage pain

The cannabis-derived substance provides fewer side effects, with less potential for abuse

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Research News

 

Fibromyalgia is one of many chronic pain conditions that remains stubbornly difficult to treat.

As the ravages of the opioid epidemic lead many to avoid these powerful painkillers, a significant number of people with fibromyalgia are finding an effective replacement in CBD-containing products, finds a new Michigan Medicine study.

CBD, short for cannabidiol, is the second most common cannabinoid in the cannabis plant, and has been marketed for everything from mood stabilization to pain relief, without the intoxicating effects produced by the most common cannabinoid, THC. THC, which stands for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is the ingredient in marijuana that causes people to feel high.

The cannabis industry has exploded, aided by the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana in states around the United States and the removal of hemp-derived CBD from Schedule 1 status--reserved for drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse--at the federal level.

Previous research shows that some people substitute medical cannabis (often with high concentrations of THC) for opioids and other pain medications, reporting that cannabis provides better pain relief and fewer side effects. However, there is far less data on CBD use.

"CBD is less harmful than THC, as it is non-intoxicating and has less potential for abuse," said Kevin Boehnke, Ph.D., a research investigator in the Department of Anesthesiology and the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center. "If people can find the same relief without THC's side effects, CBD may represent a useful as a harm reduction strategy."

Boehnke and his team surveyed people with fibromyalgia about their use of CBD for treatment of chronic pain.

"Fibromyalgia is not easy to treat, often involving several medications with significant side effects and modest benefits," Boehnke explained. "Further, many alternative therapies, like acupuncture and massage, are not covered by insurance."

For this study, the team focused on 878 people with fibromyalgia who said they used CBD to get more insight into how they used CBD products.

The U-M team found that more than 70% of people with fibromyalgia who used CBD substituted CBD for opioids or other pain medications. Of these participants, many reported that they either decreased use or stopped taking opioids and other pain medications as a result.

"I was not expecting that level of substitution," said Boehnke, noting that the rate is quite similar to the substitution rate reported in the medical cannabis literature. People who said they used CBD products that also contained THC had higher odds of substitution and reported greater symptom relief.

Yet the finding that products containing only CBD also provided pain relief and were substituted for pain medications is promising and merits future study, noted Boehnke.

The team noted that much of the widespread use of CBD is occurring without physician guidance and in the absence of relevant clinical trials. "Even with that lack of evidence, people are using CBD, substituting it for medication and doing so saying it's less harmful and more effective," he said.

Boehnke stressed the need for more controlled research into how CBD may provide these benefits, as well as whether these benefits may be due to the placebo effect.

Clinically, opening up lines of discussion around CBD use for chronic pain is imperative, said Boehnke, for medication safety reasons as well as for "enhancing the therapeutic alliance and improving patient care."

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Additional authors include Joel J. Gagnier, Lynne Matallana and David A. Williams.

Paper cited: "Substituting Cannabidiol for Opioids and Pain Medications Among Individuals with Fibromyalgia: A Large Online Survey," The Journal of Pain. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpain.2021.04.011

Race, ethnicity not a factor in recent weapon-carrying behaviors at US schools

The University of Minnesota Medical School study says a school's social climate plays the strongest role when weapon-carrying behaviors increase

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA MEDICAL SCHOOL

Research News

 

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (06/24/2021) -- A study led by researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School sheds new light on boys' weapon-carrying behaviors at U.S. high schools. The results indicate that weapon-carrying is not tied to students' race or ethnicity but rather their schools' social climates.

The study was published in the journal Pediatrics and led by Patricia Jewett, PhD, a researcher in the Department of Medicine at the U of M Medical School.

"Narratives of violence in the U.S. have been distorted by racist stereotyping, portraying male individuals of color as more dangerous than white males," Jewett said. "Instead, our study suggests that school climates may be linked to an increase in weapon-carrying at schools."

The study analyzed self-reported weapon-carrying behaviors among 88,000 young males at U.S. high schools between 1993 and 2019 based on data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. From that data, they identified four key findings:

- Since 1993, weapon-carrying in schools has declined among all males.

- Over the last 20 years, in schools perceived as safer, Non-Hispanic, white males have been more likely to bring weapons into schools than Non-Hispanic Black/African American or Hispanic males.

- Between 2017 and 2019, while comparing all schools, no significant differences in weapon-carrying behaviors existed by race or ethnicity.

- More frequent weapon-carrying is associated with experiences of unsafety or violence at school. Males who experienced violence or felt unsafe at school brought weapons at least twice as often, and such negative school experiences were more common among males of color (8-12%) than among Non-Hispanic white males (4-5%).

"Our work underscores the association of experiences of unsafety at school with weapon-carrying at school and highlights large knowledge gaps in the field of gun violence research in the U.S.," Jewett said. "This is an important foundation for much needed research to disentangle the intertwined phenomena of racism, toxic environments of violence and gun- and weapon-culture in the U.S. We are currently reaching out to other researchers who work in the field to collaborate on this urgent public health topic."

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Co-authors of the study include Iris W. Borowsky, MD, PhD, with the U of M Medical School, Eunice M. Areba, PhD, with the U of M School of Nursing; Ronald E. Gangnon, PhD, and Kristen Malecki, PhD, with the University of Wisconsin, Madison; and Judith Kafka, PhD, with the City University of New York.

About the University of Minnesota Medical School

The University of Minnesota Medical School is at the forefront of learning and discovery, transforming medical care and educating the next generation of physicians. Our graduates and faculty produce high-impact biomedical research and advance the practice of medicine. We acknowledge that the U of M Medical School, both the Twin Cities campus and Duluth campus, is located on traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of the Dakota and the Ojibwe, and scores of other Indigenous people, and we affirm our commitment to tribal communities and their sovereignty as we seek to improve and strengthen our relations with tribal nations. For more information about the U of M Medical School, please visit med.umn.edu.

 

Ethane proxies for methane in oil and gas emissions

PENN STATE

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IMAGE: ONCE THE AMOUNT OF ETHANE EMISSIONS ARE DETERMINED, THE RESEARCHERS COMBINE THAT INFORMATION WITH THE GAS COMPOSITION DATA FROM A PARTICULAR BASIN TO CONVERT THE SOLVED ETHANE EMISSIONS INTO METHANE... view more 

CREDIT: ZACHARY BARKLEY, PENN STATE

Measuring ethane in the atmosphere shows that the amounts of methane going into the atmosphere from oil and gas wells and contributing to greenhouse warming is higher than suggested by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to an international team of scientists who spent three years flying over three areas of the U.S. during all four seasons.

"Ethane is a gas that is related only to certain sources of methane," said Zachary R. Barkley, researcher in meteorology and atmospheric science, Penn State. "Methane, however, is produced by oil, gas and coal fields, but also by cow's digestive systems, wetlands, landfills and manure management. It is difficult to separate out fossil fuel produced and natural methane."

The Atmospheric Carbon and Transport (ACT) America data made it possible to quantify methane emissions from oil, gas and coal sources, because the project measured not only methane, but also ethane. The researchers note that methane identified with ethane can be reliably connected to fossil fuel sources, however, the ratio of ethane to methane does vary with individual sources.

"ACT America was conceived as an effort to improve our ability to diagnose the sources and sinks of global greenhouse gases, to improve the diagnosis," said Kenneth J. Davis, professor of atmospheric and climate science, Penn State. "We wanted to understand how greenhouse gases are moved around by weather systems in the atmosphere. Prior to ACT, there was no data to map out the distribution of gases in weather systems."

From 2017 through 2019, researchers flew data collection missions over three portions of the U.S. -- the central Atlantic states including Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland; the central southern states including Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi; and the central midwestern states including Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The researchers covered all four seasons and tracked how weather systems moved carbon dioxide, methane, ethane and other gases around in the atmosphere.

The researchers are not the first to suggest that estimates of methane are too low, but according to Barkley, they are the first to use ethane solely as a proxy. Ethane, although it will act as a greenhouse gas, only stays in the atmosphere for a few months before breaking down into other compounds, rather than the 10 years that methane remains in the atmosphere. Ethane is more of a problem for air pollution than greenhouse warming.

"We didn't look at any of the methane data at all and we still see the same results as everyone else," he said.

Another difference is that most previous airborne studies looked at small areas, emissions from single sites or fields. ACT-America looked at multistate regions and encompassed over two-thirds of U.S. natural gas production.

"Ethane data consistently exceeds values that would be expected based on (U.S.) EPA Oil and gas leak rate estimates by more than 50%," the researchers report in a recent issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. The researchers add that comparing the combined fall, winter and spring ethane emission estimates to an inventory of oil and gas methane emissions, they estimate that the oil and gas methane emissions are larger than EPA inventory values by 48% to 76%.

The researchers used ethane-to-methane ratios from oil and gas production basins for this study.

While carbon dioxide sources and sinks can be found across the Earth's surface, ethane and methane emissions come from specific locations on the ground that are known. Deserts and oceans and upland ecosystems emit little ethane or methane. Active oil and gas fields have high emissions. When estimating trace gas emissions, researchers usually take their first best guess and then run multiple iterations to minimize the difference between observed and simulated atmospheric concentrations of these gases.

Barkley notes that sometimes signals are hard to interpret, but that that is not the case with this study.

"The data are there," said Barkley. "The smaller plume in the model when increased by a factor of two suddenly matches the real time data."

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Other researchers at Penn State on the project are Sha Feng and Yuyan Chui, assistant research professors of meteorology and atmospheric science.

Additional project members include Alan Fried, senior research associate, Petter Weibring, research associate, Dirk Richter, research associate, and James D. Walega, senior professional research assistant, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder; Scot M. Miller, assistant professor of environmental health and engineering, Johns Hopkins University; and Anke Roiger, M. Eckl, A. Fiehn and Julian Kostinek, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.

NASA supported this project.

 

Russian forests are crucial to global climate mitigation

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

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Russia is the world's largest forest country. Being home to more than a fifth of forests globally, the country's forests and forestry have enormous potential to contribute to making a global impact in terms of climate mitigation. A new study by IIASA researchers, Russian experts, and other international colleagues have produced new estimates of biomass contained in Russian forests, confirming a substantial increase over the last few decades.

Since the dissolution of the USSR, Russia has been reporting almost no changes in its forests, while data obtained from remote sensing products indicate that Russian forests have in fact experienced an increase in vegetation productivity, tree cover, and above-ground biomass in the last few decades. This has led to inconsistencies in available data and a general decline in the reliability of information on Russian forests since 1988, which can be attributed to an information gap that appeared when Russia moved from the Soviet Forest Inventory and Planning system to its current National Forest Inventory (NFI) for the collection of forest information at the national scale. The first cycle of the Russian NFI was finalized in 2020. The authors of a new IIASA-led study published in Nature Scientific Reports have used this data in combination with research forest plots on the ground and remote sensing data, in an advanced analysis to produce a new estimate of the biomass of Russian forests, confirming these forests' climate change impact and their importance for climate change mitigation.

"We set out to determine the live biomass stock and sequestration rate of Russian forests. The joint efforts of our diverse team consisting of representatives from the Russian state forestry agency, forest survey, academic research institutes, and other educational institutions, made it possible for us to produce an important, reproducible scientific result. Even more importantly, our work contributed to building mutual trust, a policy of data sharing, and hopefully, the potential for fruitful future collaboration," says study lead author Dmitry Schepaschenko, a researcher with the IIASA Agriculture, Forestry, and Ecosystem Services Research Group in the Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program.

The team were the first to be given access to a portion of primary NFI plot data with precise location information, which, as in many other countries, is normally restricted for sharing and use, under the condition that the initial data processing was physically undertaken on site at the authorized division ("Roslesinforg") of the Federal Forestry. The researchers used this data in combination with remote sensing data to estimate the growing stock of Russian forests and to assess the relative changes in post-Soviet Russia. They calibrated models relating to two global remote sensing biomass data products and additional remote sensing data layers with around 10,000 ground plots from the NFI and the Forest Observation System to reduce uncertainties and produce an unbiased estimation at jurisdictional level. By combining these two sources of information, the team were able to utilize the advantages of both sources in terms of highly accurate ground measurements and the spatially comprehensive coverage of remote sensing products and methods.

"Quite often, practitioners simply use linear regression by default without checking the underlying statistical assumptions or worrying about the difference between the ability of a model to explain the observed data and the ability to predict the future or unobserved data. Because the aim of this study was to estimate the unobserved biomass, we have used modern computationally intensive methods to focus on the goodness-of-prediction of a range of plausible models," explains study coauthor and long-time IIASA collaborator, Elena Moltchanova from the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

The findings indicate that Russian forests have in fact accumulated a large amount of biomass - in the range of 40% more than the value recorded in the country's State Forest Register and reported to the statistics of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Using the last Soviet Union report as a reference, the results show that the growing stock accumulation rate in Russian forests between 1988 and 2014 is of the same amplitude as the net forest stock losses in tropical countries. The study's estimate of carbon sequestration in live biomass of managed forests between 1988 and 2014 is 47% higher than reported in the National Greenhouse Gases Inventory.

The authors note that while Russian forests and forestry have great potential in terms of global climate mitigation as well as numerous potential co-benefits relating to the green economy and sustainable development, it is important to highlight that as the climate becomes more severe, as in recent years, resulting forest disturbances might nullify these gains. Close collaboration of science and policy would therefore be critical to elaborate and implement adaptive forest management.

"We are talking here about the largest country in the world hosting the largest share of the largest land biome globally - the circumboreal belt of forest - which is highly climate relevant. Imagine what just a few percent up or down with regard to the amount of forest biomass available and its consequent carbon sequestration potential can make globally," says Agriculture, Forestry, and Ecosystem Services Research Group Leader and study coauthor, Florian Kraxner. "This study once again highlights the important work done by researchers of the International Boreal Forest Research Association (IBFRA), which we would like to acknowledge particularly," he concludes.

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Reference

Shchepashchenko, D., Moltchanova, E., Fedorov, S., Karminov, V., Ontikov, P., Santoro, M., See, L., Kositsyn, V., et al. (2021). Russian forest sequesters substantially more carbon than previously reported. Scientific Reports 11 (1) e12825. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-92152-9 [pure.iiasa.ac.at/1720]

About IIASA:

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. http://www.iiasa.ac.at