Monday, October 04, 2021

Canadian scientist receives University of Oklahoma International Water Prize

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

Cultural anthropologist Dawn Martin-Hill, Ph.D., has been named the 2022 University of Oklahoma International Water Prize recipient for her commitment to improving water security for the people of the Six Nations of the Grand River, the largest Native reserve in Canada.

Martin-Hill, an associate professor at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, was recognized at the OU International WaTER Symposium for her contributions to understanding how water quality and security are linked to Indigenous community culture, livelihood and health.

Jim Chamberlain, Ph.D., interim director of the OU WaTER Center, says “Dr. Martin-Hill is deeply committed to bringing water to the underserved in North America. We had five excellent nominees for this prize and a panel of her peers determined that Dr. Martin-Hill’s work stood out as exemplary and representative of the WaTER Center’s mission to bring water and sanitation to communities in need.”

The symposium brings together a group of expert panelists from across the world with multiple disciplines whose work is based on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal of providing water security to emerging regions. They nominate and select a prize recipient who is honored at the following year’s conference and awarded a waterdrop sculpture and $25,000.

Martin-Hill’s research examines the impact of contamination and water scarcity on humans, fish and wildlife at Six Nations of the Grand River. She says the community’s water treatment plant pipeline reaches only 10% of the community, yet the reservation is surrounded by major cities Toronto, Hamilton and Brantford, she says.

“Those cities have access to clean water and we do not. I would like to see that changed,” Martin-Hill said.

OU senior vice president and provost André-Denis Wright, Ph.D., gave opening remarks at the virtual symposium. During his speech, he noted that he has both professional and personal appreciation for the work done by the OU WaTER Center.

“The International Water Prize makes OU unique in that it honors someone in the field of water who specifically works on water security on behalf of disadvantaged communities in the U.S. and abroad. I was born and raised in one of those disadvantaged communities outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I was 16 before we had running water in our home – indoor plumbing, steady electricity and public transport. My mom carried water daily from a well that we shared with five other families,” Wright said.

Martin-Hill will give the address at the International WaTER Conference set for Sept. 26-28, 2022, in Norman, Oklahoma (USA).

Learn more about previous recipients and the Gallogly College of Engineering Water Center at the University of Oklahoma.

US Dialysis facility closures linked to patient hospitalizations and deaths

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NEPHROLOGY

Highlights

Patients with kidney failure who were affected by dialysis facility closures between 2001 and 2014 experienced 7% to 9% higher rates of hospitalizations compared with similar patients at facilities that did not close.
Also, patients affected by closures may have faced an 8% higher risk of dying within 6 months.

Washington, DC (October 4, 2021) — Some experts fear that recent reforms instated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may lead to the closure of some dialysis facilities that treat patients with kidney failure. When investigators analyzed data from past dialysis facility closures, they found that patients affected by the closures experienced higher rates of hospitalizations. The findings, which appear in an upcoming issue of JASN, highlight the need for policies that reduce the risk of dialysis facility closures to help safeguard patients’ health.

More than 500,000 patients in the United States receive dialysis for the treatment of kidney failure at 7,100 dialysis facilities. When a dialysis facility closes, a patient may have difficulty traveling to a new facility or may temporarily receive sub-optimal care as the staff of a new facility establishes rapport with the patient and addresses common challenges that occur during dialysis treatments.

A team led by Kevin Erickson, MD, MS (Baylor College of Medicine) examined dialysis facility closures between 2001 and 2014 to assess the effects of closures on patient health outcomes. The researchers identified 8,386 patients affected by 521 dialysis facility closures. In different models, patients who were affected by dialysis facility closures experienced 7% to 9% higher rates of hospitalizations compared with similar patients at facilities that did not close. Also, patients affected by closures may have faced an 8% higher risk of dying within 6 months.

“Ongoing efforts to contain high costs of in-center hemodialysis, including recent national policy reforms, could increase the risk that some dialysis facilities will close. It is important to understand how dialysis facility closures impact the health of patients,” said Dr. Erickson. “We previously demonstrated that hospital-based dialysis facilities, which disproportionately care for vulnerable patient populations, are at increased risk of closures. Facility closures could exacerbate inequities in U.S. dialysis care.”

Study co-authors include Jingbo Niu MD, DSc, Maryam Saeed, MD, and Wolfgang Winkelmayer MD, ScD.

Disclosures: Dr. Erickson provides consulting services for Acumen LLC.

The article, titled “Patient Health Outcomes Following Dialysis Facility Closures in the United States,” is available at https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/32/10/2613.

The content of this article does not reflect the views or opinions of The American Society of Nephrology (ASN). Responsibility for the information and views expressed therein lies entirely with the authors. ASN does not offer medical advice. All content in ASN publications is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to cover all possible uses, directions, precautions, drug interactions, or adverse effects. This content should not be used during a medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. Please consult your doctor or other qualified health care provider if you have any questions about a medical condition, or before taking any drug, changing your diet or commencing or discontinuing any course of treatment. Do not ignore or delay obtaining professional medical advice because of information accessed through ASN. Call 911 or your doctor for all medical emergencies.

Since 1966, ASN has been leading the fight to prevent, treat, and cure kidney diseases throughout the world by educating health professionals and scientists, advancing research and innovation, communicating new knowledge, and advocating for the highest quality care for patients. ASN has more than 21,000 members representing 131 countries. For more information, visit www.asn-online.org.

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JOURNAL

Journal of the American Society of Nephrology

END FOR PROFIT CARE #MEDICAREFORALL

Medicaid expansion closed health gaps for low-income adults across racial and ethnic groups, study shows

Michigan data show improvements in access to care and overall health, and could inform non-expansion states

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Michiganders from multiple racial and ethnic backgrounds say their health has improved and they have access to regular care through a doctor’s office, after enrolling in the state’s Medicaid expansion for low-income adults, a new study finds.

The improvements were especially pronounced among low-income white, Black and Latino Michiganders. Some improvements were seen among low-income members of the state’s sizable Arab-American and Chaldean population, and among those of other backgrounds.

The study, published in the October issue of Health Affairs, is based on three years of data from detailed surveys of enrollees in the Healthy Michigan Plan, which is available to low-income adults in Michigan. It was performed by a team from the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

The Healthy Michigan Plan began covering low-income adults in spring 2014. Created under the Affordable Care Act, it now covers nearly one in 10 residents of the state. IHPI is conducting the required formal evaluation of the Healthy Michigan Plan for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and has published multiple reports and papers on its impact.

“It’s striking to see the sizable gains across all groups in access to a regular source of care through a doctor’s office or clinic, rather than emergency rooms, urgent care centers and walk-in clinics, supporting our past findings that the Healthy Michigan Plan is fostering use of primary and preventive care,” said Susan Goold, M.D., MHSA, M.A., the study’s senior author and a professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School.

“Nearly all groups reported a steady decrease over three years in the percentage who said they were in fair or poor health,” she added. “We hope these findings will help inform other states’ discussions of Medicaid expansion.” Twelve states, with an estimated eligible population of 4 million people, have not expanded Medicaid.

Goold led a team that analyzed data from surveys conducted in 2016 through 2018, and included participants’ recollections of their health and health care access before they gained coverage through the Healthy Michigan Plan. The study’s first author is Melinda Lee, a recent graduate of the U-M College of Pharmacy who participated in an IHPI health equity fellowship program.

More about the findings

Before they got coverage, only 49% of the study population said they had a regular doctor’s office where they could get care, 23% regularly relied on walk-in care options including ERs, and more than 25% said they had no regular source of care. Black and Latino respondents were much more likely to use walk-in care locations, and white and Arab-American/Chaldean Michiganders were more likely to lack any regular source of care.

By 2018, 83% of Healthy Michigan Plan enrollees said they had a regular doctor’s office to go to. The percentage of Black Michiganders who said this had more than doubled, and the percentage of white, Latino and Arab-American/Chaldean respondents who said this had grown by double digits.

People who identified as members of another racial or ethnic group, or more than one group, also experienced a large jump in access to a doctor’s office; because of sample size the study does not include separate analyses of data for individuals with Asian American/Pacific Islander, Native American or mixed-race backgrounds.

When it came to their overall health status, the percentage of the entire survey population that said their health was fair or poor started at 30% in 2016, and fell to 25% in 2018.

Low-income Arab-American/Chaldean Michiganders were least likely to say they were in fair or poor health at the start, and did not show major change over time.

But the percentage of low-income Black, white and Latino Michiganders saying they were in fair or poor health declined steadily, with the biggest gains seen among Latinos (30% to 18%) followed by Black (33% to 25%) and white (30% to 27%) respondents. Those of other racial and ethnic backgrounds, or mixed backgrounds, were mostly likely to report being in fair or poor health in 2016, and though this number dropped from 2016 to 2017, it went back up in 2018.

The study also shows a decline between 2016 and 2018 in the average number of days of poor physical health in the past month among people in most of the racial and ethnic groups studied. There was no change in average days of poor mental health.

Goold notes that 20% of the study population had gotten coverage through conventional Medicaid before changing over to the Healthy Michigan Plan, while many of the rest had been uninsured.

In order to be eligible for the Healthy Michigan Plan, residents of the state of Michigan must have incomes less than 133% of the federal poverty rate (up to $17,700 in 2021 for a single individual).

Learn more about findings from IHPI’s evaluation of the Healthy Michigan Plan, which recently received approval from the state and federal government under a new evaluation design to guide continued work on this topic.

In addition to Goold and Lee, the study’s authors are Zachary Rowe of Friends of Parkside in Detroit, and HMP evaluation team members Erin Beathard, M.P.H., M.S.W., Matthias Kirch, M.S., Erica Solway, Ph.D., M.S.W., M.P.H., Renu Tipirneni, M.D., M.Sc., Minal Patel, Ph.D., M.P.H., and former team member Maryn Lewallen, M.P.H.

JOURNAL

Health Affairs

DOI

10.1377/hlthaff.2020.02296

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Self-Reported Health Status Improved For Racial And Ethnic Minority Groups After Michigan Medicaid Expansion

INCOME INEQUALITY KILLS

Excess deaths disproportionally occurred among Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Latino males and females during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic

Embargoed News from Annals of Internal Medicine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS

1. Excess deaths disproportionally occurred among Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Latino males and females during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-2134

URL goes live when the embargo lifts

A large study of surveillance data found that excess deaths during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately occurred among Black, American Indian (AI)/Alaskan Native (AN), and Latino males and females in the U.S., compared to White and Asian males and females. According to the authors, these overwhelming disparities highlight the urgent need to address long-standing structural inequities affecting health and longevity. The findings are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers from the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities, and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, used data from the CDC National Center for Health Statistics to estimate deaths by month, year, sex, age group, race/ethnicity, and cause from March 1, 2020 (the first full month of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.) to December 31, 2020. They found that compared with the number expected, based on 2019 data, 477,200 excess deaths occurred during the study period: 74% from COVID-19. The remaining fraction were attributed to causes including diabetes, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and Alzheimer disease. Black, AI/AN, and Latino males and females had more than double the number of excess deaths than White and Asian males and females, after standardizing by population size.

According to the authors, differences in COVID-19 risk, hospitalization, and death by race/ethnicity can be attributed to structural and social determinants of health with established and deep roots in structural racism. Studies have shown that Black and Latino persons are more likely to have occupational exposure to COVID-19, live in multigenerational households and/or more densely populated neighborhoods, and have less access to health care and private transportation, compared to White persons. Prior to a successful mass-vaccination program, AI/AN reservation–based communities were at further risk for infection due to a lack of infrastructure and chronically underfunded health care facilities.

The authors suggest that equitable vaccine distribution is needed to prevent further exacerbation of racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 risk and mortality. Inequities need to be addressed with urgency and cultural competence, as has been done by tribal communities.

JOURNAL

Annals of Internal Medicine

DOI

10.7326/M21-2134

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Excess Deaths During the COVID-19 Pandemic, March to December 2020

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

5-Oct-2021

NCI study highlights pandemic’s disproportionate impact on Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Latino adults

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NIH/NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE

The global COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Latino individuals in the United States, causing more deaths by population size, both directly and indirectly, in these groups compared with white or Asian individuals. The findings, from a large surveillance study led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), appeared October 5, 2021, in Annals of Internal Medicine.

“Focusing on COVID-19 deaths alone without examining total excess deaths—that is, deaths due to non-COVID-19 causes as well as to COVID-19—may underestimate the true impact of the pandemic,” said Meredith S. Shiels, Ph.D., M.H.S., senior investigator in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch in NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, who led the study. “These data highlight the profound impact of long-standing inequities.”

Scientists at NCI have a long history of tracking mortality trends in the United States, mainly focusing on cancer death rates. More recently, these investigators have been applying their expertise in analyzing national surveillance data to better understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on excess deaths by racial and ethnic group.

In this new study, scientists from NCI, NIH’s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation used provisional death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, to compare excess deaths by race/ethnicity, sex, age group, and cause of death during March to December 2020 with data for the same months in 2019. Excess deaths are the number of deaths in a specific period of time over what would have been expected to occur based on deaths in the same months in previous years, after adjustment for population changes.

Dr. Shiels noted that because the study period did not include a full year of data, the investigators could not present the number of excess deaths as a rate. Instead, they calculated the number of excess deaths in each racial/ethnic group according to each group’s population size (i.e., deaths per 100,000 people).

Roughly 2.9 million people died in the United States between March 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020. Compared with the same period in 2019, there were 477,200 excess deaths, with 74% of them due to COVID-19. The scientists found that, after adjusting for age, the number of excess deaths by population size among Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Latino men and women were more than double those in white and Asian men and women.

Looking more closely at the excess deaths where COVID-19 was not listed as the cause, the scientists found that excess deaths by population were three to four times higher among Black and American Indian/Alaska Native men and women compared with white men and women. And Latino men and women had nearly two times the number of excess non-COVID-19 deaths by population, compared with white men and women.

These data do not explain the reasons for the excess non-COVID mortality. “It is possible that fear of seeking out health care during the pandemic or misattribution of causes of death from COVID-19 are responsible for a majority of the excess non-COVID-19 deaths,” said Dr. Shiels.

Excess deaths during the pandemic have resulted in growing disparities in overall U.S. mortality, with the disparities in age-standardized all-cause deaths increasing between 2019 and 2020 for Black and American Indian/Alaska Native men and women compared with white men and women. For example, in 2019, total mortality by population among Black men was 26% higher than in white men, but in 2020 it was 45% higher. Similarly, in 2019, total mortality by population among Black women was 15% higher than in white women, but in 2020 it was 32% higher.

“Our efforts at NIH to help mitigate these COVID disparities have been heavily focused on promoting testing and vaccine uptake through community-engaged research. However, vaccine hesitancy poses a real threat, so we are addressing the misinformation and distrust through collaborative partnerships with trusted community stakeholders,” said study coauthor Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., director of NIMHD.

The study was funded by the Intramural Research Programs of NCI and NIMHD.

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About the National Cancer Institute (NCI): NCI leads the National Cancer Program and NIH’s efforts to dramatically reduce the prevalence of cancer and improve the lives of cancer patients and their families, through research into prevention and cancer biology, the development of new interventions, and the training and mentoring of new researchers. For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI website at cancer.gov or call NCI’s contact center, the Cancer Information Service, at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237).

About the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD): NIMHD leads scientific research to improve minority health and eliminate health disparities by conducting and supporting research; planning, reviewing, coordinating, and evaluating all minority health and health disparities research at NIH; promoting and supporting the training of a diverse research workforce; translating and disseminating research information; and fostering collaborations and partnerships. For more information about NIMHD, visit https://www.nimhd.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit nih.gov.

JOURNAL

Annals of Internal Medicine

DOI

10.7326M2134

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Excess Deaths During the Covid-19 Pandemic, March to December 2020

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

4-Oct-2021

“Magic mushroom” anti-depressive psychedelic affects perception of music

Reports and Proceedings

EUROPEAN COLLEGE OF NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY

Scientists have found that the psychedelic drug psilocybin, in development as an anti-depressive treatment, changes the emotional state of people listening to music. Psilocybin is the active psychedelic ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms’. Clinical trials of psilocybin generally use selected music playlists to support the drug-induced psychedelic experience, and this work shows that enhanced emotional processing may be a positive outcome of combining psilocybin with music, suggesting that music should be an active component of psilocybin therapy. This work is presented at the ECNP Congress in Lisbon.

There has been considerable interest in the use of psychedelics in the treatment of hard-to-treat depression and other mental health conditions. Psilocybin, found naturally in several species of mushrooms, is the psychedelic most suitable for clinical development, in part because the psilocybin ‘trip’ can be contained within a working day, which is important for a supervised clinical treatment. In the treatment of depression, psilocybin is normally administered with psychological support, and with accompanying music. Previous studies have shown that the psychedelic LSD interacts with music*, and of course in the 1960’s psychedelics were intimately related to the experience of music for many. Now for the first time a group of Danish scientists have shown that psilocybin affects the way that music elicits emotions.

In the study, 20 healthy participants (50% women) were tested on their emotional response to music before and after given psilocybin; 14 of these participants were also tested after being given ketanserin (ketanserin is an anti-hypertension drug, commonly used to as a comparison in psychedelic experiments). Whether ketanserin or psilocybin was given first was randomly selected and each person was thus able to report on the changes effected by both psilocybin and ketanserin. At the peak of drug effects participants listened to a short music programme and rated their emotional response.

The emotional response to the music was rated according to the Geneva Emotional Music Scale. The music used was a short programme comprising Elgar’s Enigma Variations no 8 and 9, and Mozart’s Laudate Dominum, together lasting around 10 minutes.

According to lead researcher, Associate Professor Dea Siggaard Stenbæk (University of Copenhagen):

“We found that psilocybin markedly enhanced the emotional response to music, when compared to the response before taking the drugs. On the measurement scale we used, psilocybin increased the emotional response to music by around 60%. This response was even greater when compared to ketanserin. In fact, we found that ketanserin lessens the emotional response to music. This shows that combination of psilocybin and music has a strong emotional effect, and we believe that this will be important for the therapeutic application of psychedelics if they are approved for clinical use. Psilocybin is under development as a drug to treat depression, and this work implies that music needs to be considered as a therapeutic part of the treatment.

Our next step is to look at the effect of music on the brain while under the influence of psilocybin in data material we have already collected, using an MRI”.

She continued:

“Interestingly, some of the music we used, Elgar famous ‘Nimrod’ variation (the 9th variation) describes his close friend Augustus Jaeger. Jaeger encouraged Elgar to write the variations as a way out of depression, so we’re pleased to see it used again to help understand more about mental health”.

Commenting, Professor David J Nutt (Imperial College, London) said:

“This is further evidence of the potential of using music to facilitate treatment efficacy with psychedelics. What we need to do now is optimise this approach probably through individualising and personalising music tracks in therapy”.

This is an independent comment; Professor Nutt was not involved in this work

There is evidence that Magic mushrooms have been taken by humans for over 6000 years. Psilocybin was first isolated and synthesised in 1958, by the Swiss Chemist Albert Hoffman, the same man who first synthesised LSD. There was extensive early research into medical uses of psychedelics, but this became difficult after the US introduced a ban on their use in 1970. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/end-the-ban-on-psychoactive-drug-research/ for background.

*See: LSD enhances the emotional response to music, Kaelen et al, Psychopharmacology 232, 3607–3614 (2015). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-015-4014-y

The 34th ECNP Annual conference takes place in Lisbon and online from 2-5 October, see https://www.ecnp.eu/Congress2021/ECNPcongress . The European College of Neuropsychopharmacology is Europe’s main organisation working in applied neuroscience.

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Bigleaf maple decline tied to hotter, drier summers in Washington state

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Bigleaf maple declining — IMAGE: A BIGLEAF MAPLE IN DECLINE IN WASHINGTON’S CENTRAL CASCADES REGION. view more
CREDIT: JACOB BETZEN/UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

As its name suggests, the bigleaf maple tree’s massive leaves are perhaps its most distinctive quality. A native to the Pacific Northwest’s wet westside forests, these towering trees can grow leaves up to 1.5 feet across — the largest of any maple.

But since 2011, scientists, concerned hikers and residents have observed more stressed and dying bigleaf maple across urban and suburban neighborhoods as well as in forested areas. Often the leaves are the first to shrivel and die, eventually leaving some trees completely bare. While forest pathologists have ruled out several specific diseases, the overall cause of the tree’s decline has stumped experts for years.

A new study led by the University of Washington, in collaboration with Washington Department of Natural Resources, has found that bigleaf maple die-off in Washington is linked to hotter, drier summers that predispose this species to decline. These conditions essentially weaken the tree’s immune system, making it easier to succumb to other stressors and diseases. The findings were published Sept. 16 in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.

“These trees can tolerate a lot, but once you start throwing in other factors, particularly severe summer drought as in recent years, it stresses the trees and can lead to their death,” said co-author Patrick Tobin, associate professor in the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.

In addition to warmer, drier weather, the researchers found that bigleaf maple are more likely to decline near roads and other development — especially in hotter urban areas. Across multiple years and sites in Western Washington, they weren’t able to find any single pest or pathogen responsible for the mass decline; rather, all signs point to climate change and human development as the drivers behind the regional die-off.

“Managing, protecting and utilizing our urban and wild ecosystems in the face of climate change and human population growth is and will continue to be one of the major challenges facing us,” said lead author Jacob Betzen, a biological technician with the U.S. Forest Service who completed this work as a UW graduate student. “This research investigating bigleaf maple is one small piece of that larger puzzle.”

From field sampling and lab work, the researchers found that bigleaf maple grew less in summers that were hot and dry, both in their overall mass as well as leaf size. One of the signature signs of distress, they found, was significantly smaller leaves. In drought conditions, trees use more energy trying to survive and defend themselves from diseases and other threats.

CAPTION

A healthy bigleaf maple leaf, left, next to an abnormally small leaf from a bigleaf maple tree in decline.

CREDIT

Amy Ramsey/Washington Department of Natural Resource

“These results show that summer heat and drought impact the health of iconic tree species of Washington, like bigleaf maple, even in Western Washington, a region known for abundant precipitation. Health impacts to our forests and tree species are likely to continue as we have increased periods of drought each year,” said co-author Amy Ramsey, an environmental planner and forest pathologist with Washington DNR.

For this study, the research team revisited a selection of sites around Western Washington where DNR in 2014 and 2015 had taken samples and performed testing on trees in decline. They also chose 36 roadside sites where maples were present. Finally, they randomly selected an additional 59 sites on public land across the region where bigleaf maple are known to exist. Across these randomly chosen sites, they found that nearly a quarter of the bigleaf maple trees showed signs of decline.

From each study site, they collected soil, leaves, stems and tree cores, which they analyzed in the lab. Tree cores allow scientists to learn about the age and growth rate of a tree — as well as weather history at that location — without having to cut it down.

From the analysis of the tree cores, the team found that the growth of bigleaf maple has varied significantly since 2011, and was especially lower in years with hotter, drier summers. They compared this growth to that of Douglas fir trees, which they also cored, and found their annual growth was consistent — meaning that bigleaf maple are especially sensitive to dry, hot weather.

CAPTION

A healthy bigleaf maple tree. The species is found in across urban, suburban and forested areas in western Washington.

CREDIT

Jacob Betzen/University of Washington

“For us, these analyses were a big piece of the puzzle,” Tobin said. “This helped us determine that their decline is a recent phenomenon that is linked to weather conditions.”

These findings will likely change the way foresters manage bigleaf maple in both urban and wild settings. This might mean planting the trees in different locations, watering more in urban areas or using seed stock better adapted to the projected future conditions of a site, Betzen said. In forests, it might mean a focus on keeping intact landscapes free from more urbanization.

Other co-authors are Gregory Ettl of the UW and Daniel Omdal of Washington DNR. This research was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture NIFA McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Program, Washington DNR and the David R.M. Scott Endowed Professorship in Forest Resources.

For more information, contact Tobin at pctobin@uw.edu and Betzen at jacob.betzen@usda.gov.

Related: When trees are stressed, they can succumb to diseases that normally wouldn’t bother them. Researchers found this was this case in a recent sudden outbreak of powdery mildew on the leaves of bigleaf maple trees on the University of Washington campus.

CAPTION

A bigleaf maple tree that has nearly died in Washington state.

CREDIT

Washington Department of Natural Resources

CAPTION

Processed tree cores used in analyses to estimate the timing of decline in bigleaf maple trees.

CREDIT

Jacob Betzen/University of Washington

JOURNAL

Forest Ecology and Management

DOI

10.1016/j.foreco.2021.119681

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Bigleaf maple, Acer macrophyllum Pursh, decline in western Washington, USA

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

16-Sep-2021

Fungal transplants from close relatives help endangered plants fight off disease

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN PHYTOPATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Myrtle rust on the leaves of Eugenia koolauensis — IMAGE: MYRTLE RUST ON THE LEAVES OF EUGENIA KOOLAUENSIS, A CRITICALLY ENDANGERED ENDEMIC HAWAIIAN TREE. view more
CREDIT: M. K. CHOCK

For the endangered Hawaiian plant, Eugenia koolauensis, fungi could be both its demise and its savior. The fungal pathogen myrtle rust (Austropuccinia psidii) has been devastating populations of the endemic tree, along with many other native and cultivated plants. However, researcher Mason Kamalani Chock thinks part of the solution might be . . . more fungi.

Endophytic fungi, which reside inside leaves, often protect plants from pathogens. In a paper recently published in Phytobiomes Journal, Chock along with fellow University of Hawaii researchers Benjamin Hoyt and Anthony Amend, treated E. koolauensis plants with endophytic fungi isolated from the leaves of closely related plant species, then assessed the resistance of these inoculated plants against myrtle rust. Although some individual strains of fungi seemed to decrease the pathogen severity, plants were most protected against the pathogen when treated with a complex mixture of microbes prepared from homogenized leaves of these related plants.

This finding suggests that microbiome-based treatments could be a promising avenue of myrtle rust management for these endangered plants and emphasizes the beneficial effects microbiomes can have on their host plants. “We need to be thinking about the entire microbial community rather than any individual player,” noted lead author Chock.

While beneficial microbes have been applied as biological control agents in agriculture, this new research suggests they could also be an important tool for plant conservation. Diseases pose one of the biggest challenges for endangered plants, especially since low genetic variation in their small populations limits efforts to breed them for disease resistance. Other solutions are temporary or potentially harmful in other ways, such as pesticide applications, which have to be continually applied to be effective and can have deleterious effects on soil health.

Thus, mining plant microbiomes for beneficial strains or communities that can confer disease resistance may be a promising strategy for combating disease-driven declines of endangered plants. And even if these microbial treatments are not strong enough to make their hosts completely disease resistant, every little bit of protection can help these endangered plants. While Chock does not think the study’s findings indicate that microbiome transplants are “a silver bullet to stopping myrtle rust’s worldwide spread,” he thinks they may provide an “extra push for those plant species that are holding on to dear life due to the introduction of deleterious pathogens.''

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To learn more about this research, see the original article published in Phytobiomes Journal: “Mycobiome Transplant Increases Resistance to Austropuccinia psidii in an Endangered Hawaiian Plant.”

Lead researcher Mason K. Chock (@kamalanichock) is currently a Ph.D. student in the Koskella Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, who is interested in the factors that affect the assembly and succession of plant microbial communities. He is currently focusing on maternal effects and the assembly of plant microbiomes.

Author bio: Dr. Mia Howard (@mia_how) is an assistant feature editor for Phytobiomes Journal and a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Jen Lau’s lab at Indiana University. She is fascinated by how plants—often with help from microbes—protect themselves from herbivores with toxic chemicals.

CAPTION

Scanning electron microscope image of myrtle rust.

CREDIT

Mason K. Chock

JOURNAL

Phytobiomes Journal

DOI

10.1094/PBIOMES-09-20-0065-R

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Mycobiome Transplant Increases Resistance to Austropuccinia psidii in an Endangered Hawaiian Plant

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Sep-2021