Study reveals how young children’s immune systems tame SARS-CoV-2

NIH-supported research finds key differences between children & adults with COVID-19

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NIH/NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

 

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COLORIZED SCANNING ELECTRON MICROGRAPH OF A CELL (PURPLE) INFECTED WITH THE OMICRON STRAIN OF SARS-COV-2 VIRUS PARTICLES (GREEN), ISOLATED FROM AN INDIVIDUAL. IMAGE CAPTURED AT THE NIAID INTEGRATED RESEARCH FACILITY IN FORT DETRICK, MARYLAND. 

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CREDIT: NIAID

WHAT:
New research helps explain why young children have lower rates of severe COVID-19 than adults. A study of infants and young children found those who acquired SARS-CoV-2 had a strong, sustained antibody response to the virus and high levels of inflammatory proteins in the nose but not in the blood. This immune response contrasts with that typically seen in adults with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Co-funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, the research appears in the journal Cell.  

The investigation involved 81 full-term infants and young children whose mothers enrolled in a NIAID-supported cohort study at Cincinnati Children’s during their third trimester of pregnancy. The study team trained mothers to collect weekly nasal swabs from their infants starting when the babies were 2 weeks old. The team also drew blood from the babies regularly, starting at age 6 weeks, as well as when the children became infected with SARS-CoV-2 and during subsequent weeks and months.

These samples enabled the scientists to study the children’s immune responses before, during and after they were exposed to the virus for the first time. Fifty-four of the children became infected and had mild COVID-19, while 27 who tested negative through the study period served as matched controls. At the time of infection, the children were 1 month to nearly 4 years old, and half were 9 months or younger. The study also included weekly nasal swabs from 19 mothers with COVID-19 and 19 healthy mothers as controls, as well as blood samples from 89 adults with COVID-19 and 13 healthy controls.

The researchers examined many aspects of the babies’ and adults’ immune responses to the virus through an approach called systems immunology. The study revealed that young children’s antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 differs from that of adults. Typically, adults produce antibodies to the virus at levels that spike for a few weeks, then decline. In contrast, the infants and young children in the study produced protective antibodies at levels that spiked and remained high for up to the full 300-day observation period. 

The scientists also found that the blood of adults with SARS-CoV-2 infection typically had high levels of proteins called inflammatory cytokines, which are associated with severe COVID-19 and death, while the blood of babies and children did not. However, the children’s noses had high levels of inflammatory cytokines and a potent antiviral cytokine.

According to the researchers, these findings suggest that cytokines snuffed out SARS-CoV-2 infection right at the site where the virus entered the children’s bodies, potentially explaining the mildness of their COVID-19 disease. The findings also suggest it may be possible to devise vaccine adjuvants that mimic the immune responses observed in young children by stimulating persistently high antibody levels without causing dangerous excess inflammation in the blood.   

Children aged 6 months to 4 years who got COVID-19 vaccines before September 12, 2023, should get one or two doses of updated COVID-19 vaccine, depending on which vaccine and how many doses they previously received. Children aged 6 months to 4 years who have not been vaccinated should get two or three doses of updated COVID-19 vaccine, depending on which vaccine they receive. 

Bali Pulendran, Ph.D., and Mary Allen Staat, M.D., M.P.H., led the study. Dr. Pulendran is the Violetta L. Horton Professor and co-director of the Institute for Immunology, Transplantation and Infection at Stanford University in California. Dr. Staat is the Kulkarni Endowed Chair in Infectious Diseases and a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Cincinnati Children’s.

ARTICLE:
F Wimmers et al. Multi-omics analysis of mucosal and systemic immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after birth. Cell DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.08.044 (2023).

WHO:
Mercy R. Prabhudas, Ph.D., M.B.A., a program officer in the NIAID Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation, is available to discuss this study.

CONTACT:
To schedule interviews, please contact Laura Leifman, (301) 402-1663, NIAIDnews@niaid.nih.gov. 

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NIAID conducts and supports research—at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

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 https://www.nih.gov/. 

NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health®

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JOURNAL

Cell

DOI

10.1016/j.cell.2023.08.044 

 

We can respond to verbal stimuli while sleeping

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUT DU CERVEAU (PARIS BRAIN INSTITUTE)

 

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AWARENESS DURING SLEEP.

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CREDIT: NICOLAS DECAT

Sleep is generally defined as a period during which the body and mind are at rest—as if disconnected from the world. However, a new study led by Delphine Oudiette, Isabelle Arnulf, and Lionel Naccache at Paris Brain Institute shows that the frontier between wakefulness and sleep is much more porous than it seems.

The researchers have shown that ordinary sleepers can pick up verbal information transmitted by a human voice and respond to it by contracting their facial muscles. This astonishing ability occurs intermittently during almost all stages of sleep—like windows of connection with the outside world were temporarily opened on this occasion.

These new findings suggest that it may be possible to develop standardized communication protocols with sleeping individuals to understand better how mental activity changes during sleep. On the horizon: a new tool to access the cognitive processes that underlie both normal and pathological sleep.

A Thousand and One Variations of Consciousness

“Even if it seems familiar because we indulge in it every night, sleep is a highly complex phenomenon. Our research has taught us that wakefulness and sleep are not stable states: on the contrary, we can describe them as a mosaic of conscious and seemingly unconscious moments”, Lionel Naccache, a neurologist at Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital and a neuroscientist, explains.

It is essential to decipher the brain mechanisms underlying these intermediate states between wakefulness and sleep. “When they are dysregulated, they can be associated with disorders such as sleepwalking, sleep paralysis, hallucinations, the feeling of not sleeping all night, or on the contrary of being asleep with your eyes open,” Isabelle Arnulf, head of the Sleep Pathology Department at Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital, says.

To distinguish between wakefulness and the different stages of sleep, researchers usually use physiological indicators such as specific brain waves made visible through electroencephalography. Unfortunately, these indicators do not provide a detailed picture of what is happening in the minds of sleepers; sometimes, they even contradict their testimonies. “We need finer physiological measurements that align with the sleepers’ experience. It would help us define their level of alertness during sleep”, Delphine Oudiette, a cognitive neuroscience researcher, adds.

A play between unconsciousness and lucidity

To explore this avenue, the researchers recruited 22 people without sleep disorders and 27 patients with narcolepsy—that is, people who experience uncontrollable episodes of daytime sleepiness. People with narcolepsy have the particularity of having many lucid dreams, in which they are aware of being asleep; some can sometimes even shape their dream scenario as they wish. In addition, they easily and quickly enter REM sleep (the stage where lucid dreaming occurs) during the day, making them good candidates for studying consciousness during sleep under experimental conditions.

“One of our previous studies showed that two-way communication, from the experimenter to the dreamer and vice versa, is possible during lucid REM sleep,” Delphine Oudiette explains. Now, we wanted to find out whether these results could be generalized to other stages of sleep and to individuals who do not experience lucid dreams.”

Participants in the study were asked to take a nap. The researchers gave them a “lexical decision” test, in which a human voice pronounced a series of real and made-up words. Participants had to react by smiling or frowning to categorize them into one or the other of these categories. Throughout the experiment, they were monitored by polysomnography—a comprehensive recording of their brain and heart activity, eye movements, and muscle tone. Upon waking up, participants had to report whether they had or had not had a lucid dream during their nap and whether they remembered interacting with someone.

“Most of the participants, whether narcoleptic or not, responded correctly to verbal stimuli while remaining asleep. These events were certainly more frequent during lucid dreaming episodes, characterized by a high level of awareness. Still, we observed them occasionally in both groups during all phases of sleep", Isabelle Arnulf says.

Challenging the dogma of disconnected sleep

By cross-referencing these physiological and behavioral data and the participants’ subjective reports, the researchers also showed that it is possible to predict the opening of these windows of connection with the environment, i.e., the moments when sleepers were able to respond to stimuli. They were announced by an acceleration in brain activity and by physiological indicators usually associated with rich cognitive activity.

“In people who had a lucid dream during their nap, the ability to respond to words and to report this experience upon waking up was also characterized by a specific electrophysiological signature. Our data suggests that lucid dreamers have privileged access to their inner world and that this heightened awareness extends to the outside world”, Lionel Naccache explains.

Further research is needed to determine whether the frequency of these windows is correlated with sleep quality and whether they could be exploited to improve certain sleep disorders or facilitate learning. “Advanced neuroimaging techniques, such as magnetoencephalography and intracranial recording of brain activity, will help us better understand the brain mechanisms that orchestrate sleepers' behavior,” Delphine Oudiette concludes.

Finally, these new data could help revise the definition of sleep, a state that is ultimately very active, perhaps more conscious than we imagined, and open to the world and to others.

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JOURNAL

Nature Neuroscience

DOI

10.1038/s41593-023-01449-7 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Behavioral and brain responses to verbal stimuli reveal transient periods of cognitive integration of the external world during sleep

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Oct-2023

 

New research sheds fresh light on mystery of infant consciousness

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

There is evidence that some form of conscious experience is present by birth, and perhaps even in late pregnancy, an international team of researchers from Trinity College Dublin and colleagues in Australia, Germany and the USA has found. 

The findings, published today in the peer-reviewed journal Trends in Cognitive Science, have important clinical, ethical and potentially legal implications, according to the authors. 

In the study, entitled ‘Consciousness in the cradle: on the emergence of infant experience’, the researchers argue that by birth the infant’s developing brain is capable of conscious experiences that can make a lasting imprint on their developing sense of self and understanding of their environment.

The team comprised neuroscientists and philosophers from Monash University, in Australia, University of Tübingen, in Germany, University of Minnesota, in the USA, and Trinity College Dublin.

Although each of us was once a baby, infant consciousness remains mysterious, because infants cannot tell us what they think or feel, explains one of the two lead authors of the paper Dr Tim Bayne, Professor of Philosophy at Monash University (Melbourne). 

“Nearly everyone who has held a newborn infant has wondered what, if anything, it is like to be a baby. But of course we cannot remember our infancy, and consciousness researchers have disagreed on whether consciousness arises ‘early’ (at birth or shortly after) or ‘late’ ­– by one year of age, or even much later.”

To provide a new perspective on when consciousness first emerges, the team built upon recent advances in consciousness science. In adults, some markers from brain imaging have been found to reliably differentiate consciousness from its absence, and are increasingly applied in science and medicine. This is the first time that a review of these markers in infants has been used to assess their consciousness.

Co-author of the study, Lorina Naci, Associate Professor in the School of Psychology, who leads Trinity’s ‘Consciousness and Cognition Group, explained: “Our findings suggest that newborns can integrate sensory and developing cognitive responses into coherent conscious experiences to understand the actions of others and plan their own responses.”

The paper also sheds light into ‘what it is like’ to be a baby. We know that seeing is much more immature in babies than hearing, for example. Furthermore, this work suggests that, at any point in time, infants are aware of fewer items than adults, and can take longer to grasp what’s in front of them, but they can easily process more diverse information, such as sounds from other languages, than their older selves.

The paper, Consciousness in the Cradle: On the Emergence of Infant Experience, Bayne T, Frohlich J, Cusack R, Moser J, Naci L, Trends in Cognitive Science, is available on the journal website.

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JOURNAL

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

DOI

10.1016/j.tics.2023.08.018 

ARTICLE TITLE

Consciousness in the cradle: on the emergence of infant exp

 

Peregrine falcons set off false alarms to make prey easier to catch

Scientists find that peregrine falcons use feint attacks to force prey birds to take more risks

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FRONTIERS

Predators must eat to survive — and to survive, prey must avoid being eaten. One theory, the Wolf-Mangel model, suggests predators could use false attacks to tire prey out or force them to take bigger risks, but this has been hard to show in practice. Now, scientists observing peregrine falcons have found evidence that they deliberately exhaust their prey to improve later hunting success. 

“Although predators are imagined as clever in novels and movies, like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, empirical biologists are generally not inclined to give much credence to such ideas,” said Dr Ronald Ydenberg of Simon Fraser University, lead author of the study in Frontiers in Ethology. “I have often been puzzled when watching raptors by aspects of their behavior, such as prominent perching or otherwise making evident that they are present. The theoretical paper by Wolf and Mangel offered an explanation.”

On the wing 

Pacific dunlins spend their winters in large flocks on temperate mudflats, like Boundary Bay in British Columbia, Canada. The peregrine falcons that hunt them find hunting easier when the tide drives the dunlins closer to land, because dunlins usually roost at high tide and the shore vegetation makes it easier to ambush them. 

However, during the 1990s, the presence of peregrine falcons increased at Boundary Bay, and the dunlins began to replace roosting with over-ocean flocking — flying as a group over the waves. This stops the peregrines ambushing them but costs energy and foraging time.  

The Wolf-Mangel model suggests that hungry prey will invest more effort in foraging than avoiding predators, and that predators can exploit this. Ydenberg and his colleagues sought to test this, using decades of data provided by Dr Dick Dekker, to whom the study is dedicated on his 90th birthday.

“I first worked with Dick in 2003,” said Ydenberg. “He was an independent, self-financed scientist with an obsessive interest in watching peregrines that started as a teenager.  There was just no other source in the world for the sort of information he collected.”

Flocking to safety

Peregrines could use false attacks to make dunlins flock, but even experienced observers cannot be sure which attacks are serious. So the researchers looked at the dunlins’ behavior instead. 

The scientists watched them from dawn to dusk for 34 days and analyzed a six-hour period centering on high tide. They also drew on 151 days of data recording peregrine attacks, to estimate the risk of predation at different times of day. 

If dunlins flocked over the ocean — which they did on 68% of observation days — they did so for about three hours a day. They did not flock when conditions made it energetically costlier or when there were other safe options. They also did not flock at night, when falcons don’t hunt.

Trying out tactics or trying their luck?

The hunting data showed that dunlins were at greatest risk of predation just before and just after high tide, and spent most of the riskiest period flocking. However, there was a sharp increase in kills two hours after high tide, because the dunlins were not flocking despite elevated risk. 

Over-ocean flocking reduces the risk to the dunlins, whereas high tide improves the peregrines’ chances. Dunlins should wait to flock — optimizing their flocking could reduce mortality by up to 45% — but they don’t, because the peregrines are a threat. By provoking the dunlins into flocking early, the peregrines deprive them of opportunities to forage and the energy they need to continue flocking later in the day. 

The scientists considered whether more skilled peregrines wait until the dunlins are tired to hunt, but could not test this. However, they did find that a different species of bird in a different bay also flocks when threatened by peregrines. The same pattern of early flocking and later kills appears, suggesting that this is down to a hunting strategy rather than variations in skill. 

“There are other hypotheses that might explain these results. Testing those requires detailed tracking of individual peregrines,” cautioned Ydenberg. “That doesn't seem feasible in this system, but as the basic ideas should apply more widely testing could happen in other systems.”  

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Ethology

DOI

10.3389/fetho.2023.1256380 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Gaming the system: how predators induce prey to make themselves more vulnerable

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Oct-2023 

 

Commonly used herbicide is harmful to adolescent brain function

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO

 

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UC SAN DIEGO HERBERT WERTHEIM SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN LONGEVITY SCIENCE RESEARCHERS MEASURED CONCENTRATIONS OF POPULAR HERBICIDES AND THE INSECT REPELLENT DEET IN URINE SAMPLES OF ADOLESCENTS LIVING IN THE AGRICULTURAL COUNTY OF PEDRO MONCAYO, ECUADOR TO EVALUATE THEIR IMPACT ON THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN.

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CREDIT: BRIANA CHRONISTER, UC SAN DIEGO

Herbicides are the most used class of pesticides worldwide, with uses in agriculture, homes and industry. Exposures to two of the most popular herbicides were associated with worse brain function among adolescents, according to a study led by researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego.

In the Oct. 11, 2023 online issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, the researchers reported measuring metabolite concentrations of two commonly used herbicides — glyphosate and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) — and the insect repellent DEET in urine samples collected in 2016 from 519 adolescents, aged 11 to 17, living in the agricultural county of Pedro Moncayo, Ecuador. Researchers also assessed neurobehavioral performance in five areas: attention and inhibitory control, memory and learning, language, visuospatial processing, and social perception.

“Many chronic diseases and mental health disorders in adolescents and young adults have increased over the last two decades worldwide, and exposure to neurotoxic contaminants in the environment could explain a part of this increase,” said senior author Jose Ricardo Suarez, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health.

Among the findings:

• Glyphosate, a nonselective herbicide used in many crops, including corn and soy, and for vegetation control in residential settings, was detected in 98 percent of participants.
• 2,4-D, a broadleaf herbicide used on lawns, aquatic sites, and agricultural crops, was detected in 66 percent of participants.
• Higher amounts of 2,4-D in urine were associated with lower neurobehavioral performance in the domains of attention and inhibitory control, memory and learning, and language.
• Glyphosate concentration in urine was associated with lower scores in social perception only, while DEET metabolites were not associated with neurobehavioral performance.

Following the introduction of genetically modified, glyphosate-resistant “Roundup-ready” crops in 1996 and 2,4-D resistant crops in 2014, there have been substantial increases in glyphosate and 2,4-D use, making them the most widely used herbicides in the world, wrote the authors.

“There is considerable use of herbicides and insecticides in agricultural industries in both developed and developing nations around the world, raising exposure potential for children and adults, especially if they live in agricultural areas, but we don’t know how it impacts each stage of life,” said first author Briana Chronister, doctoral candidate in the UC San Diego – San Diego State University Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health.

Previous studies have linked exposure to some of the most used insecticides to altered neurocognitive performance while other insecticides may also affect mood and brain development. Today, 20 percent of adolescents and 26 percent of young adults have diagnosable mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, impulsivity, aggression or learning disorders.

The authors reported that 2,4-D was negatively associated with performance in all five neurobehavioral areas, but statistically significant associations were observed with attention and inhibitory control, memory and learning, and language. Glyphosate had a significant negative association only with social perception, a test that measures the ability to recognize emotions, while DEET metabolites were not associated with neurobehavioral alterations.

“Hundreds of new chemicals are released into the market each year, and more than 80,000 chemicals are registered for use today,” said Suarez. “Sadly, very little is known about the safety and long-term effects on humans for most of these chemicals. Additional research is needed to truly understand the impact.”

This research is a study within ESPINA: The Study of Secondary Exposures to Pesticides Among Children and Adolescents, a prospective cohort study funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and other private funding sources. ESPINA aims to understand the effect of pesticide exposures on the development of humans from childhood thru adulthood.

In 2022, Suarez and his team completed year 14 of follow-up of study participants with plans to evaluate whether the observed associations persist into early adulthood.

Co-authors include: Kun Yang, Audrey R. Yang, Tuo Lin, Xin Tu, Harvey Checkoway, Jose Suarez-Torres, Sheila Gahagan, and Raeanne C. Moore, UC San Diego; Dolores Lopez-Paredes and Danilo Martinez, Fundación Cimas del Ecuador; and Dana Barr, Emory University.

This research was funded, in part, by the National Institutes of Health (R01ES025792, R01ES030378, R21ES026084, U2CES026560, P30ES019776, 5T32MH122376).

Disclosures: The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to report.

DOI: 10.1289/EHP11383

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JOURNAL

Environmental Health Perspectives

DOI

10.1289/EHP11383 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Urinary glyphosate, 2,4-D and DEET biomarkers in relation to neurobehavioral performance in Ecuadorian adolescents in the ESPINA cohort

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Oct-2023

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Equine feeding methods: Study examines effects on health, well-being

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MORRIS ANIMAL FOUNDATION

 

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MORRIS ANIMAL FOUNDATION-FUNDED RESEARCHERS STUDIED HOW CHANGING A HORSE'S ACCESS TO FOOD AFFECTS THEIR NATURAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADS TO HEALTH PROBLEMS.

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CREDIT: NICK FEWINGS

DENVER/Oct. 11, 2023 – A Morris Animal Foundation-funded study sheds light on how to better care for horses by evaluating the effects different feeding methods have on equine health and well-being, with the results published in the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science.

Feral and wild horses can spend about 16 hours per day grazing. Changing their access to food can affect their natural behavior and lead to health problems. To understand these changes better, Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers looked at several feeding methods including free-choice feeding or unlimited food access, slow-feeder, which also allows unlimited hay access but requires the horse to pull hay through a net, and an automatic box feeder.

“Taking care of horses means more than just giving them a place to stay, food and water,” said Jéssica Carvalho Seabra, a researcher involved in this study. “It means giving them an environment where they can do things that are part of their natural behavior like grazing.”

Researchers found that horses using automatic boxes and slow feeders consumed less and exhibited slower weight gain. Both methods effectively regulated food intake. Horses with the freedom to choose when to eat had the highest hay utilization and weight gain rates, suggesting that this approach might not be optimal for overweight horses.

Horses with access to free choice feeding or a slow feeder spent more than half their day doing natural activities such as foraging. Conversely, horses using the box feeder spent only about a quarter of their day eating, and this treatment increased the time that horses spent standing, sniffing the ground and ingesting their own feces. Furthermore, horses using the box feeder displayed more signs of aggression. During the study, the researchers noticed that horses became more aggressive as the feeders' size became smaller and access to the food became more difficult. To mitigate this, researchers suggest that if horses are given a limited amount of food, it's important to ensure enough space for each of them to eat without feeling crowded.

"Selecting the right feeding technique can extend the time horses engage in natural behaviors, reducing the incidence of chronic stress and potentially curbing the emergence of abnormal and stereotypic behaviors in the long run," Carvalho Seabra said.

About Morris Animal Foundation
Morris Animal Foundation’s mission is to bridge science and resources to advance the health of animals. Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Denver, it is one of the largest nonprofit animal health research organizations in the world, funding nearly $160 million in more than 3,000 critical animal health studies to date across a broad range of species. Learn more at morrisanimalfoundation.org.

 

Bouldering in south-central Madagascar: a new “rock-climbing” gecko species of the genus Paroedura

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PENSOFT PUBLISHERS

 

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THE NEWLY DESCRIBED PAROEDURA MANONGAVATO.

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CREDIT: JAVIER LOBÓN-ROVIRA

Named after its habitat preference, Paroedura manongavato, from the Malagasy words “manonga” (to climb) and “vato” (rock), is a bouldering expert. Part of its “home range” is also very well-known to rock climbers for its massive granitic domes. “Its description represents another step into the crux (in climbing jargon, the most difficult section of a bouldering problem) of resolving the taxonomy of the recently revised P. bastardi group, where the new species belongs, and reaching a total of 25 described species in this genus, all exclusively living in Madagascar and Comoros,” says C. Piccoli from CIBIO - Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, Portugal. She and her team just published a paper describing the new gecko.

Thus far, this species has only been found in Anja Reserve and Tsaranoro, both of which are isolated forest patches in the arid south-central plateau of Madagascar. These sites, at a distance of ca. 25 km, have a peculiar conformation, with huge granitic boulders close to rocky cliffs and surrounded by vegetation. The survival of P. manongavato, defined as microendemic for being restricted to a very narrow distributional range, thus depends on the preservation of these small forest patches. Subsequently, the authors proposed an evaluation of its conservation status as Critically Endangered, a category designated for species threatened of extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Its discovery history is long, starting during the Malagasy summer of 2010, when the first evidence of another Paroedura species was found in Anja, together with the recently described P. rennerae in 2021. Distinguishing these two species on the field is a difficult task. Both species have prominent dorsal-enlarged keeled scales and a similar dorsal pattern, although adults of P. manongavato have an overall less spiky appearance, less contrasted dorsal markings, and a smaller body size compared to P. rennerae. The need to collect more samples brought researchers A. Crottini, F. Andreone, and G. M. Rosa to return to Anja in 2014, and collect the future holotype (i.e. the name-bearing and description reference individual) of this new species. Later in 2018, F. Belluardo, J. Lobón-Rovira, and M. Rasoazanany, visited Anja and Tsaranoro again and were able to collect several tissue samples and high-resolution photos of the reptiles living in the area, including the new gecko species. This cumulative data collection was fundamental to advance with its description.

Published in the open access journal ZooKeys, this study highlights the importance of conducting herpetological inventories in Madagascar to improve our understanding of species diversity and progress with species conservation assessments. “The description of this species shows the importance of collaborative efforts when documenting biodiversity, especially for those range-restricted and isolated species at greatest risk of disappearing,” points out the leading author of this study C. Piccoli.

The newly described Paroedura manongavato.

Habitat of Paroedura manongavato at Anja Reserve

CREDIT

Javier Lobón-Rovira

Original source

Piccoli C, Belluardo F, Lobón-Rovira J, Oliveira Alves I, Rasoazanany M, Andreone F, Rosa GM, Crottini A (2023) Another step through the crux: a new microendemic rock-dwelling Paroedura (Squamata, Gekkonidae) from south-central Madagascar. ZooKeys 1181: 125-154. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1181.108134

 

Funding information

Fieldwork was funded by National Geographic Society (grant number EC–50656R–18 to FB) and by Portuguese National Funds through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) (grant number PTDC/BIA-EVL/31254/2017 to AC).

Portuguese National Funds through FCT supported the research contract to AC (2020.00823.CEECIND/CP1601/CT0003) and the PhD studentships through the Biodiversity, Genetics & Evolution Doctoral Programme (BIODIV) of CP (SFRH/BD/144342/2019), FB (PD/BD/128493/2017), and JLR (PD/BD/140808/2018). JLR is currently supported by Fundação BIOPOLIS (contract BIOPOLIS 2022-18), co-funded by the project NORTE-01-0246-FEDER-000063 supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

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JOURNAL

ZooKeys

DOI

10.3897/zookeys.1181.108134 

ARTICLE TITLE

Another step through the crux: a new microendemic rock-dwelling Paroedura (Squamata, Gekkonidae) from south-central Madagascar