Thursday, January 12, 2023

COVID-19 vaccine acceptance increased globally in 2022

Findings from new 23-country survey can help policymakers address vaccine hesitancy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CUNY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH POLICY

New York, NY, January 9 – Global willingness to accept a COVID-19 vaccine increased from 75.2% in 2021 to 79.1% in 2022, according to a new survey of 23 countries that represent more than 60% of the world’s population, published today in Nature Medicine. Vaccine acceptance decreased in eight countries however, and nearly one in eight vaccinated respondents were hesitant about receiving a booster dose.

This third annual study, led by a team of researchers from the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), reveals a wide variability between countries and suggests a need to tailor communication strategies to effectively address vaccine hesitancy.

“The pandemic is not over, and authorities must urgently address vaccine hesitancy and resistance as part of their COVID-19 prevention and mitigation strategy,” says CUNY SPH Senior Scholar Jeffrey V. Lazarus. “But to do so effectively, policymakers need solid data on vaccine hesitancy trends and drivers.”

To provide these data, an international collaboration led by Lazarus and CUNY SPH Dean Ayman El-Mohandes performed a series of surveys starting in 2020 in 23 highly populated countries which were impacted significantly by the pandemic (Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States).

Of the 23,000 respondents (1000 per country surveyed), 79.1% were willing to accept vaccination, up 5.2% from June 2021. The willingness of parents to vaccinate their children also increased slightly, from 67.6% in 2021 to 69.5% in 2022. However, eight countries saw an increase in hesitancy (from 1.0% in the U.K. to 21.1% in South Africa). Worryingly, almost one in eight (12.1%) vaccinated respondents were hesitant about booster doses, and booster hesitancy was higher among the younger age groups (18-29).

“We must remain vigilant in tracking this data, containing COVID-19 variants and addressing hesitancy, which may challenge future routine COVID-19 immunization programs,” says Dean El-Mohandes, the study’s senior author.

The survey also provides new information on COVID-19 treatments received. Globally, ivermectin was used as frequently as other approved medications, despite the fact that it is not recommended by the WHO or other agencies to prevent or treat COVID-19.  

Also of note, almost 40% of respondents reported paying less attention to new COVID-19 information than before, and there was less support for vaccine mandates. 

In some countries, vaccine hesitancy was associated with being female (for example in China, Poland, Russia), having no university degree (in France, Poland, South Africa, Sweden, or the U.S.), or lower income (in Canada, Germany, Turkey or the U.K.). Also, the profile of people paying less attention to the pandemic varied between countries.

“Our results show that public health strategies to enhance booster coverage will need to be more sophisticated and adaptable for each setting and target population,” says Lazarus, also head of the Health Systems Research Group at ISGlobal. “Strategies to enhance vaccine acceptance should include messages that emphasize compassion over fear and use trusted messengers, particularly healthcare workers.”

The data provided by these surveys may offer insight to policymakers and public health officials in addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. The study follows on the heels of a global consensus statement on ending COVID-19 as a public health threat that Lazarus, El-Mohandes and 364 co-authors from 112 countries published in Nature in November.

Lazarus JV, Wyka K, White TM, Picchio C, et al. A survey of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance across 23 countries in 2022. Nature Medicine. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-02185-4  

Also see:

Lazarus JV, Wyka K, White TM, Picchio CA, et al. Revisiting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy around the world using data from 23 countries in 2021. Nature Comms. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31441-x

For media inquiries, contact:

Ariana Costakes

Communications Editorial Manager

ariana.costakes@sph.cuny.edu  

About CUNY SPH

The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) is committed to promoting and sustaining healthier populations in New York City and around the world through excellence in education, research and service in public health and by advocating for sound policy and practice to advance social justice and improve health outcomes for all. sph.cuny.edu

Studies identify new strategies for insect control

UC Riverside research shows how ammonia and amine odorants could be used to combat insect-driven diseases

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - RIVERSIDE

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Mosquitoes spread several diseases, such as malaria and dengue. In 2020 about 241 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide, with a few more million cases occurring in 2021. Nearly half the world’s population lives in regions where contracting dengue virus is a risk. Insects also destroy a third of agriculture. 

New research by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, has potential in insect control through volatile repellents that could be applied on surfaces such as windowsills, eaves of huts, house entryways, backyards, outside produce storage areas, entryways of livestock shelters, and next to crops in a field.

The researchers focused on ammonia, a basic volatile compound found in insect environments. At low concentrations, such as in human sweat, ammonia is an attractant for mosquitoes and other insects. At high concentrations, however, for example the concentrations found in household cleaners, ammonia is no longer attractive to insects. The researchers inquired into what happens to the olfactory (smell) system and gustatory (taste) system of fruit flies and mosquitoes in the presence of ammonia.

“We found the olfactory neurons seem to have a burst of activity and then they become silent for a while,” said Anandasankar Ray, a professor of molecular, cell and systems biology, who led the study that appears in iScience, a journal. “During the silent period, the neurons are not able to detect any odorants, which means insects cannot effectively find human skin odor.” 

When Ray’s team tested the taste system of fruit flies and mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti), they found a similar response. 

“Where taste is concerned, we found ammonia and ‘amines’ — derivatives of ammonia that make up many synthetic odorants — don’t produce the flash type of activity we see in the olfactory system,” Ray said. “But they do show the inhibition we found in the olfactory system. We were able to show that ammonia silences the sugar and salt response in insects.”

After most insects find a location to land on via their smell system, their taste system is executed. Mosquitoes use the labella — sensory probes that aid in searching for a good place to bite — on their legs to taste food. Fine hairs, called sensilla, on the labella of fruit flies enable the flies to taste potential foods without eating them.

According to Ray, the discovery could be used to make effective insect repellents in the future. 

“While compounds like ammonia, which have a high pH and are basic, cannot be used on skin due to their corrosive properties, they can be used in other ways,” he said. “Many biting insects fly into homes from outside. In most parts of the world, insects bite humans and pets indoors and often at night. For example, if walls, where insects land and wait, had a high pH material in them, mosquitoes would be affected. Similarly, if a high pH compound, such as an amine, were dispensed around entryways of homes and animal sheds, it could keep mosquitoes away.”

The study was supported by grants from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, a member of the National Institutes of Health.

Ray was joined in the study by Jonathan Trevorrow Clark, Anindya Ganguly, Jadrian Ejercito, Matthew Luy, and Anupama Dahanukar. 

The research paper is titled “Chemosensory detection of aversive concentrations of ammonia and basic volatile amines in insects.”

It’s the humidity

In a separate paper, published in the journal Scientific Reports, Ray’s lab studied behavior modification to humidity in the Asian citrus psyllid, or ACP, which transmits citrus greening disease, and mosquitoes. Although insects can sense humidity, little research has been done on disrupting their humidity-sensing neurons.

“We found amine odorants inhibit the humidity response,” Ray said. “We identified neurons in the ACP that detect humidity and found that certain amines could inhibit their humidity sensing. We then showed this was conserved in fruit flies. This is probably the first time that researchers have shown that humidity sensing can be inhibited by odorants.”

The researchers then tested humidity sensing in gravid mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti and Anopheles coluzzi) that are attracted to water bodies to lay eggs. In the lab, blood-fed mosquitoes that were ready to lay eggs were presented with two cups of water. One cup contained a small vial of odor that inhibits humidity sensing. The researchers found the mosquitoes avoided laying eggs there and preferred instead the untreated cup.  

“This suggests it is possible to block the humidity sensing neurons in insects by using a volatile chemical and lower the level of egg laying,” Ray said. 

He also explained that ACPs appear to avoid high humidity. To test their humidity sensing, his lab used a Y shaped tube with high humidity in both arms. The ACPs preferred neither arm at first. But when the researchers introduced a humidity inhibiting odorant in one arm, the ACPs began to prefer it because they could not sense the humidity anymore.

“This means that by blocking the insects’ ability to sense water using a volatile odorant, we can manipulate their humidity sensing pathway and alter their behavior in a predictable manner,” Ray said. “In the future it may be possible to engineer amines to prevent insect egg laying in certain areas.”

The research has implications for regions where mosquitoes spread diseases. After they take a blood meal, mosquitoes look for water in which to lay down their eggs. A single female mosquito can lay up to 300 eggs in a single night. 

“Because of this extremely high reproductive potential, from spring to summer we see an explosion of mosquitoes,” Ray said. “Where you have water with mosquito larvae, it is extremely difficult to control the mosquito population. This is why in tropical countries it is impossible to kill off all the mosquitoes. Even if a few mosquitoes are left over, they reproduce very fast.”

The study was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health.

Ray, the founder of two startups, Sensorygen Inc. and Remote Epigenetics Inc., was joined in the study by Coutinho‐Abreu and Trevorrow Clark of UCR.

The title of the research paper is “Pentylamine inhibits humidity detection in insect vectors of human and plant borne pathogens.” 

The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.

Climate ‘presses’ and ‘pulses’ impact Magellanic penguins — a marine predator — with guidance for conservationists

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Punta Tombo in summer 

IMAGE: A SUMMER SCENE AT THE MAGELLANIC PENGUIN COLONY AT PUNTA TOMBO IN ARGENTINA. view more 

CREDIT: DEE BOERSMA/UW CENTER FOR ECOSYSTEM SENTINELS

Climate change will reshape ecosystems worldwide through two types of climate events: short-term, extreme events — like a heat wave — and long-term changes, like a shift in ocean currents. Ecologists call the short-term events “pulses,” and the long-term changes “presses.”

Presses and pulses will likely have different effects on animal species. But how? And how will animals respond? Answering these questions is no easy feat because individual events can have dramatically divergent impacts on an animal species. Yet understanding the effects of presses and pulses is essential as conservationists and policymakers try to preserve ecosystems and safeguard biodiversity.

Researchers at the University of Washington have discovered how different presses and pulses impacted Magellanic penguins — a migratory marine predator — over nearly four decades at their historically largest breeding site in Punta Tombo, Argentina. In a paper published the week of Jan. 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team from the UW’s Center for Ecosystem Sentinels reports that, though individual presses and pulses impacted penguins in a variety of ways, both were equally important for the future survival of the penguin population. They also found that these types of climate changes, taken together, are leading to an overall population decline at this particular site.

“We found that penguin survival doesn’t rest solely — or even largely — on one or a few climate effects,” said lead author T.J. Clark-Wolf, a UW postdoctoral researcher in biology and center scientist. “Instead, many different presses and pulses impact penguin reproduction and survival over time.”

The study analyzed data collected at Punta Tombo from 1982 to 2019 by co-author Dee Boersma, founder of the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels and a UW professor of biology, and collaborators. The data include:

  • survival and reproductive success for nearly 54,000 penguins at the site, which historically is where hundreds of thousands of Magellanic penguins have come to breed each summer
  • climate conditions during each breeding season
  • ocean conditions off the coast of Punta Tombo, where adults feed during the breeding season and bring food back to the nest to feed their chicks
  • offshore ocean conditions along the coast of South America, where adults and juveniles feed when migrating outside of the breeding season

Clark-Wolf and senior author Briana Abrahms, a UW assistant professor of biology, folded these data into an integrated population model that parsed out the effects of separate presses and pulses on penguin survival over time. They found that different climate effects had distinct impacts on the Punta Tombo population. For example, heat waves — a climate pulse — have a detrimental effect on the population by killing both adults and chicks, as illustrated by a 2019 single-day heat wave at Punta Tombo that killed more than 350 penguins. A climate press, increased rainfall at the site, also negatively impacted the population, because storms during the breeding season kill chicks due to exposure.

The gradual weakening of the plume of silt expelled into the ocean by the Río de la Plata, the second largest river basin in South America, is one press that positively affected penguin survival. This press impacts the penguins' winter feeding waters off the coast of northern Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Past research by Ginger Rebstock, a co-author on the new study and a UW research scientist, has indicated that a weaker plume may make it easier for penguins, particularly females, to catch enough food each winter and return to the breeding site in prime condition.

But the positive effects of a weakening plume could not overcome the negative effects of other climate events at Punta Tombo, which over nearly four decades has become warmer and wetter. The number of breeding pairs at the site has declined from a high of approximately 400,000 in the early 1980s to about 150,000 in 2019.

“This colony will be 100 years old in 2024, but we finished another on-the-ground survey in late October at Punta Tombo and its numbers continue to decline,” said Boersma. “The penguins are instead moving north to be closer to their food.”

Surveys have reported that Magellanic penguins are establishing other breeding sites farther north on the South American coast in search of better foraging opportunities.

Understanding how these presses and pulses shape this population is crucial for informing conservation efforts, the researchers said.

“For conservation to be most effective, we need to know where, when and how to apply our limited resources,” said Abrahms. “Information generated by this study tells us which climate effects we need to worry about and which ones we don’t — and therefore can help us focus on measures that we know will have a positive impact.”

The decades of data faithfully collected at Punta Tombo made it possible for the team to consider the effects of long-term climate changes and extreme events in combination, and as a result, to better predict how climate will impact this population in the future. It is this same approach, they believe, that can help conservationists and scientists understand how climate shifts will shape other long-lived animal species across our warming globe.

Fieldwork over the years at Punta Tombo has been funded by the Wildlife Conservation Society; the ExxonMobil Foundation; the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation; the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund; the Chase, Cunningham, CGMK, Offield, Peach, Thorne, Tortuga and Kellogg Foundations; the Wadsworth Endowed Chair in Conservation Science at the UW; the Friends of the Penguins fund; and private donations to the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels.

Rain soaks the down plumage of a Magellanic chick, left, that is still too young to have the waterproof plumage of its parent, right.

CREDIT

Dee Boersma/UW Center for Ecosystem Sentinels

2019 heat wave at Punta Tombo 

For more information, contact Clark-Wolf at tc130053@uw.edu and Abrahms at abrahms@uw.edu.

Reference: "Climate presses and pulses mediate the decline of a migratory predator," PNAS manuscript number 2022-09821RR

Copies of the study are available for registered journalists through EurekAlert or by contacting the PNAS News Office at pnasnews@nas.edu or +1 202-334-1310. The University of Washington news office is prohibited from sharing copies of the study before the PNAS embargo lifts.

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Urban lizards share genomic markers not found in forest-dwellers

Studying Anolis cristatellus lizards in Puerto Rican cities and their surrounding forests, researchers find parallel physical differences and genomic signatures in urban populations

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Anolis cristatellus 

IMAGE: ANOLIS CRISTATELLUS LIZARDS—A SMALL-BODIED SPECIES ALSO KNOWN AS THE PUERTO RICAN CRESTED ANOLE—ARE COMMONLY FOUND IN BOTH URBAN AND FORESTED AREAS OF PUERTO RICO. view more 

CREDIT: KRISTIN WINCHELL

Lizards living in different cities have parallel genomic markers when compared to neighboring forest lizards, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

 

The genetic variations linked to urbanization underlie physical differences in the urban lizards, including longer limbs and larger toe pads that show how these lizards have evolved to adapt to city environments.

 

Urbanization has dramatically transformed landscapes around the world—changing how animals interact with nature, creating “heat islands” with higher temperatures, and hurting local biodiversity. Yet many organisms survive and even thrive in these urban environments, taking advantage of new types of habitat created by humans. Researchers studying evolutionary changes in urban species have found that some populations, for example, undergo metabolic changes from new diets or develop an increased tolerance of heat.

 

“Urbanization impacts roughly two-thirds of the Earth and is expected to continue to intensify, so it’s important to understand how organisms might be adapting to changing environments,” said Kristin Winchell, assistant professor of biology at NYU and the study’s first author. “In many ways, cities provide us with natural laboratories for studying adaptive change, as we can compare urban populations with their non-urban counterparts to see how they respond to similar stressors and pressures over short periods of time.”

 

Anolis cristatellus lizards—a small-bodied species also known as the Puerto Rican crested anole—are commonly found in both urban and forested areas of Puerto Rico. Prior studies by Winchell and her colleagues found that urban Anolis cristatellus have evolved certain traits to live in cities: they have larger toe pads with more specialized scales that allow them to cling to smooth surfaces like walls and glass, and have longer limbs that help them sprint across open areas.

 

In the PNAS study, the researchers looked at 96 Anolis cristatellus lizards from three regions of Puerto Rico—San Juan, Arecibo, and Mayagüez—comparing lizards living in urban centers with those living in forests surrounding each city. 

 

They first confirmed that the lizard populations in the three regions were genetically distinct from one another, so any similarities they found among lizards across the three cities could be attributed to urbanization. They then measured their toe pads and legs and found that urban lizards had significantly longer limbs and larger toe pads with more specialized scales on their toes, supporting their earlier research that these traits have evolved to enable urban lizards to thrive in cities. 

 

To understand the genetic basis of these trait differencesthe researchers conducted several genomic analyses on exomic DNAthe regions of the genome that code for proteins. They identified a set of 33 genes found in three regions of the lizard genome that were repeatedly associated with urbanization across populations, including genes related to immune function and metabolism.

 

“While we need further analysis of these genes to really know what this finding means, we do have evidence that urban lizards get injured more and have more parasites, so changes to immune function and wound healing would make sense. Similarly, urban anoles eat human food, so it is possible that they could be experiencing changes to their metabolism,” said Winchell.

 

In an additional analysis, they found 93 genes in the urban lizards that are important for limb and skin development, offering a genomic explanation for the increases in their legs and toe pads. 

 

“The physical differences we see in the urban lizards appear to be mirrored at the genomic level,” said Winchell. “If urban populations are evolving with parallel physical and genomic changes, we may even be able to predict how populations will respond to urbanization just by looking at genetic markers.”

 

“Understanding how animals adapt to urban environments can help us focus our conservation efforts on the species that need it the most, and even build urban environments in ways that maintain all species,” added Winchell.

 

Do the differences in urban lizards apply to people living in cities? Not necessarily, according to Winchell, as humans aren’t at the whim of predators like lizards are. But humans are subject to some of the same urban factors, including pollution and higher temperatures, that seem to be contributing to adaptation in other species.

 

Additional study authors include Shane Campbell-Staton of Princeton University, Jonathan Losos of Washington University in St. Louis, Liam Revell of the University of Massachusetts Boston and Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción in Chile, Brian Verrelli of Virginia Commonwealth University, and Anthony Geneva of Rutgers University-Camden. The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (DEB 1354044, DEB 1927194, DEB 1701706), and by the University of Massachusetts Boston Bollinger Memorial Research Grant.

Warming oceans have decimated marine parasites — but that’s not a good thing

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Dissecting Sample 

IMAGE: A RESEARCHER HOLDS OPEN A PRESERVED FISH SPECIMEN THAT HAS BEEN INSPECTED FOR PARASITES. THE STUDY INCLUDED EIGHT FISH SPECIES AND 699 FISH SPECIMENS, WHICH YIELDED MORE THAN 17,000 PARASITES. view more 

CREDIT: KATHERINE MASLENIKOV/UW BURKE MUSEUM

More than a century of preserved fish specimens offer a rare glimpse into long-term trends in parasite populations. New research from the University of Washington shows that fish parasites plummeted from 1880 to 2019, a 140-year stretch when Puget Sound — their habitat and the second largest estuary in the mainland U.S. — warmed significantly.

The study, published the week of Jan. 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the world’s largest and longest dataset of wildlife parasite abundance. It suggests that parasites may be especially vulnerable to a changing climate.

“People generally think that climate change will cause parasites to thrive, that we will see an increase in parasite outbreaks as the world warms,” said lead author Chelsea Wood, a UW associate professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. “For some parasite species that may be true, but parasites depend on hosts, and that makes them particularly vulnerable in a changing world where the fate of hosts is being reshuffled.”

While some parasites have a single host species, many parasites travel between host species. Eggs are carried in one host species, the larvae emerge and infect another host and the adult may reach maturity in a third host before laying eggs.

For parasites that rely on three or more host species during their lifecycle — including more than half the parasite species identified in the study’s Puget Sound fish — analysis of historic fish specimens showed an 11% average decline per decade in abundance. Of 10 parasite species that had disappeared completely by 1980, nine relied on three or more hosts.

“Our results show that parasites with one or two host species stayed pretty steady, but parasites with three or more hosts crashed,” Wood said. “The degree of decline was severe. It would trigger conservation action if it occurred in the types of species that people care about, like mammals or birds.”

And while parasites inspire fear or disgust — especially for people who associate them with illness in themselves, their kids or their pets — the result is worrying news for ecosystems, Wood said.

“Parasite ecology is really in its infancy, but what we do know is that these complex-lifecycle parasites probably play an important role in pushing energy through food webs and in supporting top apex predators,” Wood said. She is one of the authors of a 2020 report laying out a conservation plan for parasites.

Wood’s study is among the first to use a new method for resurrecting information on parasite populations of the past. Mammals and birds are preserved with taxidermy, which retains parasites only on skin, feathers or fur. But fish, reptile and amphibian specimens are preserved in fluid, which also preserves any parasites living inside the animal at the time of its death.

The study focused on eight species of fish that are common in the behind-the-scenes collections of natural history museums. Most came from the UW Fish Collection at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. The authors carefully sliced into the preserved fish specimens and then identified and counted the parasites they discovered inside before returning the specimens to the museums.

“It took a long time. It’s certainly not for the faint of heart,” Wood said. “I’d love to stick these fish in a blender and use a genomic technique to detect their parasites’ DNA, but the fish were first preserved with a fluid that shreds DNA. So what we did was just regular old shoe-leather parasitology.”

Among the multi-celled parasites they found were arthropods, or animals with an exoskeleton, including crustaceans, as well as what Wood describes as “unbelievably gorgeous tapeworms:” the Trypanorhyncha, whose heads are armed with hook-covered tentacles. In total, the team counted 17,259 parasites, of 85 types, from 699 fish specimens.

To explain the parasite declines, the authors considered three possible causes: how abundant the host species was in Puget Sound; pollution levels; and temperature at the ocean’s surface. The variable that best explained the decline in parasites was sea surface temperature, which rose by 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in Puget Sound from 1950 to 2019.

A parasite that requires multiple hosts is like a delicate Rube Goldberg machine, Wood said. The complex series of steps they face to complete their lifecycle makes them vulnerable to disruption at any point along the way.

“This study demonstrates that major parasite declines have happened in Puget Sound. If this can happen unnoticed in an ecosystem as well studied as this one, where else might it be happening?” Wood said. “I hope our work inspires other ecologists to think about their own focal ecosystems, identify the right museum specimens, and see whether these trends are unique to Puget Sound, or something that is occurring in other places as well.

“Our result draws attention to the fact that parasitic species might be in real danger,” Wood added. “And that could mean bad stuff for us — not just fewer worms, but less of the parasite-driven ecosystem services that we’ve come to depend on.”

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the UW-based Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the University of Washington and the Washington Research Foundation.

These monogenean worms (Microcotyle sebastis) were dissected from the gills of a preserved copper rockfish specimen from the UW Fish Collection at the Burke Museum

CREDIT

Katie Leslie/University of Washington

Co-authors are Rachel Welicky at Pennsylvania’s Neumann University, who did this work as a UW postdoctoral researcher; Whitney Preisser at Georgia’s Kennesaw State University, who did this work as a UW postdoctoral researcher; Katie Leslie, a UW Research Technologist; Natalie Mastick, a UW doctoral student; Katherine Maslenikov, manager of the UW Fish Collection at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture; Luke Tornabene and Timothy Essington, faculty members in aquatic and fishery sciences at the UW; Correigh Greene at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center; and John M. Kinsella at HelmWest Laboratory in Missoula, Montana.

 

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For more information, contact Wood at chelwood@uw.edu