Paper addresses fieldwork safety for minority scientists

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

ITHACA, N.Y. - Scientists and graduate students with minority identities who conduct fieldwork report being stalked, followed, sexually assaulted, harassed, threatened, having guns pulled on them and police called on them.

These issues threaten minority-identity researchers' physical health and safety during fieldwork, while also affecting their mental health, productivity and professional development.

A paper on the topic, "Safe fieldwork strategies for at-risk individuals, their supervisors and institutions," was recently published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. The article - written by Amelia-Juliette Demery and Monique Pipkin, graduate students in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology - describes how peers, mentors, departments and institutions can all help to address these problems.

"When we solicited input from students in our department, we found that a lot of these personal experiences and the associated proactive measures that they took following those experiences were pretty universal and extended beyond just the color of someone's skin," Demery said.

The paper was originally intended as an internal document for the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, but feedback from department graduate student, postdoctoral and faculty reviewers encouraged Demery and Pipkin to widen the scope to apply more universally inside and outside of academia. The authors queried and received feedback from their department sources, and from sources at diversity and inclusion committees at the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the American Ornithological Society.

"Amelia Demery and Monique Pipkin have done such an important service to outline and explain strategies to keep field researchers safe, particular those who are at risk because of their minority identity," said Jeremy Searle, chair and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. "We have to do everything possible to ensure individuals are not hindered from doing field research because of identity prejudice, and this paper is a really important contribution for ensuring that," he said.

In their responses, researchers described feeling threatened based on their race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion and/or disability. Such experiences can also occur when American scientists travel internationally.

"Field safety is an issue for everyone," Pipkin said. "There is a lack of general field safety training."

In addition, such experiences take a toll on a scientist's or student's ability to do their work.

"If you have two graduate students, one may not perform as highly as another simply because they can't collect as much data because they are trying to mediate issues of being a woman in the field alone, being a person of color in the field alone, and having to always look over their shoulder," Pipkin said.

"It's an immense emotional and mental strain," Demery said.

These problems can be compounded, she said, by supervisors and advisers of different backgrounds who lack experiences of being 'othered,' and may respond with disbelief and skepticism.

Addressing these problems, Pipkin said, is everyone's responsibility. Individuals should prepare themselves by notifying others where and when they are collecting data, and conduct research with others when possible. Peers may check in on lab mates when they know they are in the field and be prepared to get help in emergencies. And supervisors must educate themselves, understand the specific field risks their students face and prepare their researchers ahead of time.

On department and institutional levels, fieldwork safety presents systemic challenges requiring standardizing safety protocols, Demery said. Such measures can include: developing and mandating field safety, harassment and first aid training; training supervisors; evaluating institutional practices and removing barriers to entry in the sciences; understanding and addressing risks at specific field sites; and hiring diverse faculty.

Demery and Pipkin plan to continue leading discussions across campus, hold workshop seminars and webinars, and design a template for how others can lead conversations on fieldwork safety issues.

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For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

 

Plot twist

Eradicating black rats on Palmyra Atoll uncovers eye-opening indirect effects

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA

Research News

 

The black rats weren't supposed to be there, on Palmyra Atoll. Likely arriving at the remote Pacific islet network as stowaways with the U.S. Navy during World War II, the rodents, with no natural predators, simply took over. Omnivorous eating machines, they dined on seabird eggs, native crabs and whatever seed and seedling they could find.

When the atoll's managers -- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy and Island Conservation -- were planning to conduct a rat eradication project, UC Santa Barbara community ecologist Hillary Young and her research group saw it as an unusual opportunity. They had already been visiting Palmyra regularly to track another non-native species -- the coconut palm -- to see whether it was spreading invasively in the area, potentially impacting the nesting seabird population and changing the island's soil composition. They had plots where they were monitoring trees in various stages of growth and survival; how would the vegetation respond to the eradication of the island's main seed and seedling eater?

"Prior to the eradication, most of the understory of Palmyra was either bare ground -- sandy soil or coral rubble -- or covered in a carpet of ferns," said Ana Miller-ter Kuile, a graduate student researcher in the Young Group and lead author of a study that appears in the journal Biotropica. The rats were quick to eat seeds and young plants coming out of the ground, and they frequented the canopy as well, often nesting in the coconut palms and eating coconuts.

Eradication of the rats -- which was conducted in 2011 -- did in fact result in a resurgence of vegetation on Palmyra. And not only that. The Asian tiger mosquito was wiped out, while two species of land crab emerged, adding to the atoll's biodiversity.

But rarely is ecology easily untangled. In the years that followed eradication, Palmyra's understory did indeed fill with juvenile trees as seeds that hit the ground were allowed to take root. Only they were often not the Pisonia or other native trees that would have been the more ideal forests for the native seabirds and animals of Palmyra.

"I was on the island in 2012, just after the eradication and could easily navigate through the open jungle understory," Miller-ter Kuile said. "Two years later when I went back, I was wading through an infuriating carpet of seedlings that were taller than me, tripping over piles of coconuts." While the researchers found a 14-fold increase in seedling biomass, most of these new seedlings were juvenile coconut palms, their proliferation left unchecked by the removal of the rats.

"Rats were basically eating almost every nut before it even reached the forest floor," Miller-ter Kuile said. "I knew that rats could have an impact, I just didn't expect it to be this large." In the absence of rats, according to a population model the researchers built based on a decades' worth of data on coconut seed production, growth and survival, the coconut palms' population growth rate increased by 10% -- enough to eventually overtake the island, had the managers not stepped in with an aggressive coconut palm removal project.

The coconut palm invasion is a problem for places like Palmyra Atoll, as it shifts the island's ecology away from native plants and animals.

"Coconuts have a very different 'nutritional' profile from the native tree species on this island, with much more carbon and less nitrogen," Miller-ter Kuile said. "When these trees die, because they have different nutrient profiles from native plants, they are likely to break down differently -- and more slowly -- and influence rates of decomposition." In addition, she said, native seabirds do not nest in coconut palms, which would deprive the atoll of the nutrients in their guano, which, in turn, "would lead to what would likely be a fairly nutrient-poor system, which discourages other native plants from growing in those areas."

Continuing their restoration of the island, Palmyra's managers were working to remove the vast majority of the island's millions of coconut palms to give local species a chance to dominate, a project that is currently on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anticipating the indirect downstream effects, such as potential shifts in ecology toward other invasive species, could become part of a more holistic island rodent eradication effort, Miller-ter Kuile said.

"Wildlife management, in particular, has a history of being single-species focused, which often means that a lot of time and energy is put into producing or controlling a species without considering the broader effects of that management effort on all of the rest of the species in that ecosystem," she said. According to the study, "documenting the variation in invasive rodent diet items, along with long-term surveys, can help prioritize island eradications where restoration is most likely to be successful."

"The 'accidental experiment' of our long-term monitoring of trees in this project I think provides a rare opportunity to quantify the immediate and longer-term effects of eradication," she said.

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New research traces the origins of trench fever

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA (USF INNOVATION)

Research News

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS ANALYZED BONE FRAGMENTS AND THE TEETH OF 145 INDIVIDUALS ALIVE BETWEEN THE 1ST AND 19TH CENTURIES. APPROXIMATELY 20% OF THOSE REMAINS CONTAINED TRACES OF BARTONELLA QUINTANA, THE BACTERIA RESPONSIBLE... view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA

First observed among British Expeditionary Forces in 1915, trench fever sickened an estimated 500,000 soldiers during World War I. Since then, the disease has become synonymous with the battlefield. But now, new research from an international team of scientists has uncovered evidence challenging this long-held belief.

The research, published this week in "PLOS ONE", outlines the discovery of DNA evidence of the disease in civilian remains predating WWI by thousands of years. In total, the team analyzed bone fragments and teeth of 145 individuals alive between the 1st and 19th centuries. Approximately 20% of those remains contained traces of Bartonella quintana, the bacteria responsible for trench fever.

Davide Tanasi, an associate professor with USF's History Department and member of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Culture and the Environment, excavated remains for this project from a Roman cemetery in Syracuse, Sicily. Tanasi, who is also the director of USF's Institute for Digital Exploration, first began work at the site to better understand the dietary habits and health of the Christian population living there during the 3rd and 4th centuries. Through a collaboration with French epidemiologists, researchers used real-time polymerase chain reaction testing to detect B. quintana DNA within the remains.

"Once contracted, there are diseases, like trench fever, that can leave traces within your DNA and can integrate your DNA with further information," Tanasi said. "This means that once a person dies, even as far back as 2,000 years ago, it is still possible to find traces of the bacterium that infected them."

Tanasi says the discovery sheds light on the complex history of trench fever and begins answering historical questions about the lives of Christian citizens in this region during the 3rd and 4th centuries.

"Archaeology isn't just the study of the past, but it's something that can make the present better through the study of the past," he said. "The more we understand about the behavior of these bacteria in the past, the more we can design plans to address them, contain them and eliminate them in the present."

While most associate this disease with WWI and WWII, occurrences of trench fever are still reported today, most prominently within homeless populations. The bacteria are spread to humans through contact with body lice (Pediculus humanus corporis), making poor personal hygiene a primary factor in its spread and infection rate. Researchers hope that by tracing the progression of B. quintana through history, they're able to identify ways to better manage the spread of the disease today.

For Tanasi, his work with the remains excavated in Sicily continues. Through stable-isotope analysis, his research group examines the diet and lives of those who once lived in the region. He hopes this work will further answer questions about the lifestyle and health of the Christian community of Roman Syracuse.

CAPTION

USF Associate Professor Davide Tanasi leading the excavation of remains from a Roman cemetery in Syracuse, Sicily.

 

Strain of rhizobacteria shown to naturally and sustainably promote rice growth

AMERICAN PHYTOPATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Research News

 

IMAGE: WORKING IN THE LAB view more 

CREDIT: ZHIGANG WANG

Large amounts of chemical fertilizers can lead to severe environmental pollution. Biofertilizers are a preferred and sustainable alternative technology that can promote plant health without damaging ecological impacts. Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs) can be used as biofertilizers and reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides while also ensuring sustainable and increased production.

While scientists know the benefits of PGPRs, they are still unclear on how these bacteria function. In a recent study published in the Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (MPMI) journal, a group of scientists in China studied the Bacillus pumilus LZP02 strain. Using proteomic, transcriptomic and metabolomics techniques, they found that the bacteria could beneficially colonize the rice root surface and promote growth.

"Our study has demonstrated that B. pumilus LZP02 colonizes rice roots and promotes growth by improving carbohydrate metabolism and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis," explained Zhigang Wang, one of the scientists involved in the research. "These findings show a new light on how microbes and plants communicate in a friendly way."

For more information about this research, read "Bacillus pumilus LZP02 Promotes Rice Root Growth by Improving Carbohydrate Metabolism and Phenylpropanoid Biosynthesis" published in the October issue of MPMI.

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Stanford engineers have developed a genetic microlab that can detect COVID-19 in minutes

Using "lab on a chip" technology, Stanford engineers have created a microlab half the size of a credit card that can detect COVID-19 in just 30 minutes.

STANFORD SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

Research News

 

Throughout the pandemic, infectious disease experts and frontline medical workers have asked for a faster, cheaper and more reliable COVID-19 test. Now, leveraging the so-called "lab on a chip" technology and the cutting-edge genetic editing technique known as CRISPR, researchers at Stanford have created a highly automated device that can identify the presence of the novel coronavirus in just a half-hour.

"The microlab is a microfluidic chip just half the size of a credit card containing a complex network of channels smaller than the width of a human hair," said the study's senior author, Juan G. Santiago, the Charles Lee Powell Foundation Professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford and an expert in microfluidics, a field devoted to controlling fluids and molecules at the microscale using chips.

The new COVID-19 test is detailed in a study published on Nov. 4 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Our test can identify an active infection relatively quickly and cheaply. It's also not reliant on antibodies like many tests, which only indicates if someone has had the disease, and not whether they are currently infected and therefore contagious," explained Ashwin Ramachandran, a Stanford graduate student and the study's first author.

The microlab test takes advantage of the fact that coronaviruses like SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, leaves behind tiny genetic fingerprints wherever they go in the form of strands of RNA, the genetic precursor of DNA. If the coronavirus's RNA is present in a swab sample, the person from whom the sample was taken is infected.

To initiate a test, liquid from a nasal swab sample is dropped into the microlab, which uses electric fields to extract and purify any nucleic acids like RNA that it might contain. The purified RNA is then converted into DNA and then replicated many times over using a technique known as isothermal amplification.

Next, the team used an enzyme called CRISPR-Cas12 - a sibling of the CRISPR-Cas9 enzyme associated with this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry - to determine if any of the amplified DNA came from the coronavirus.

If so, the activated enzyme triggers fluorescent probes that cause the sample to glow. Here also, electric fields play a crucial role by helping concentrate all of the important ingredients - the target DNA, the CRISPR enzyme and the fluorescent probes - together into a tiny space smaller than the width of a human hair, dramatically increasing the chances they will interact.

"Our chip is unique in that it uses electric fields to both purify nucleic acids from the sample and to speed up chemical reactions that let us know they are present," Santiago said.

The team created its device on a shoestring budget of about $5,000. For now, the DNA amplification step must be performed outside of the chip, but Santiago expects that within months his lab will integrate all the steps into a single chip.

Several human-scale diagnostic tests use similar gene amplification and enzyme techniques, but they are slower and more expensive than the new test, which provides results in just 30 minutes. Other tests can require more manual steps and can take several hours.

The researchers say their approach is not specific to COVID-19 and could be adapted to detect the presence of other harmful microbes, such as E. coli in food or water samples, or tuberculosis and other diseases in the blood.

"If we want to look for a different disease, we simply design the appropriate nucleic acid sequence on a computer and send it over email to a commercial maker of synthetic RNA. They mail back a vial with the molecule that completely reconfigures our assay for a new disease," Ramachandran said.

The researchers are working with the Ford Motor Company to further integrate the steps and develop their prototype into a marketable product.

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Climate change will give rise to more cancers

UCSF study focuses on global impact for major cancers and steps needed to lessen risks

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN FRANCISCO

Research News

 

Climate change will bring an acute toll worldwide, with rising temperatures, wildfires and poor air quality, accompanied by higher rates of cancer, especially lung, skin and gastrointestinal cancers, according to a new report from UC San Francisco.

In an analysis of nearly five dozen published scientific papers, the researchers provided a synopsis of future effects from global warming on major cancers, from environmental toxins to ultraviolet radiation, air pollution, infectious agents and disruptions in the food and water supply.

Ultimately, the most profound challenge to the global cancer picture could come from the disruption of the complex health care systems required for cancer diagnosis, treatment, and care, the authors wrote. The review appears in The Lancet Oncology.

"In the worldwide battle to mitigate climate change, the international community is not on track to slow emissions of greenhouses gases," said lead author Robert A. Hiatt, MD, PhD, UCSF professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, and associate director for population science at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. "2015-2019 were the five warmest years on record, and 2020 has seen tremendous climate impacts, from wildfires to hurricanes."

The impacts of climate change on health are large and are expected to continue growing without rapid action. High temperatures, poor air quality and wildfires cause higher rates of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Warmer temperatures and changing rainfall patterns raise the risk and spread of vector-borne disease, such as malaria and dengue. "Extreme weather events cause death, injury, displacement, and disrupt health-care delivery," the authors wrote.

Cancer is widely predicted to be the leading cause of death in the 21st century. Worldwide, there were 24.5 million new cases of cancer and 9.6 million deaths in 2017, a striking increase from 2008 with 12.7 million cases and 7.6 million deaths.

The authors said the biggest cancer threats are likely to be from air pollution, exposure to ultraviolent radiation and industrial toxins, and disruptions in food and water supply. Lung cancer, already the primary cause of cancer deaths worldwide, is expected to increase as a result of escalating exposure to particulate matter in air pollution, estimated to be responsible for as much as 15 percent of new cases.

While the overall effects of climate change on nutrition-related cancers are difficult to determine, the authors said, one comprehensive modeling study predicted more than half a million climate-related deaths worldwide, including cancer deaths, as a result of changes in food supply by 2050, such as reduced consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Climate change is already exacerbating social and economic inequities, leading to higher rates of migration and poverty. The authors note that poor people and communities of color are disproportionately affected by cancer and have a higher cancer mortality. World Bank estimates that climate change will push 100 million people globally back into poverty by 2030.

Major disruptions are also expected to take place in the infrastructure of health care systems for cancer control, which could affect all cancers. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a clear example of this disruption, shifting medical resources away from cancer and causing thousands of patients to delay cancer screenings out of fear of contracting the virus.

"Extreme weather events such as storms and flooding can destroy or damage health-care infrastructure, reducing health care quality and availability," said the authors. These events also interrupt service delivery by causing power shortages, disrupting supply chains, transportation, and communication, and resulting in staff shortages. Ironically, COVID-19 also revealed a ray of hope in reversing the damage.

"The early pandemic response resulted in a striking reduction in air pollution," Hiatt said, "showing the potential of extreme measures to result in rapid environmental change."

It could take decades to fully understand the impact of climate change on cancer, given a sometimes lengthy delay from exposure to clinical diagnosis. But the authors said that shouldn't prevent acting now, as the harmful impacts from air pollution and other climate risks will continue to grow during that time.

"There is a lot we can be doing to mitigate climate change and to mitigate the impact on cancer," said co-author Naomi Beyeler, MPH, co-director of the Evidence to Policy Initiative and Lead for Climate and Health at the UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences. "We should be doing both, and we should be doing both with urgency."

By reducing pollution, deaths from lung cancer could decline, the authors said, and there are numerous clinical, behavioral, and policy solutions to slow climate change, and prevent cancer cases and deaths.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us the importance of science and public health," said Beyeler, "and we have seen over the past months that as a global health community, we are able to mobilize the investments, research, and collective action needed to solve health problems on a global scale. Now is the time to apply this ambition to tackling the climate crisis."

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About UCSF:

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. Learn more at ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.

 

Rare ancient child burial reveals 8,000-year-old secrets of the dead

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Research News

IMAGE: ENTRANCE TO MAKPAN CAVE, ALOR ISLAND, WHERE THE BURIAL WAS DISCOVERED view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE: DR SHIMONA KEALY, ANU

Archaeologists from The Australian National University (ANU) have discovered a rare child burial dating back 8,000 years on Alor Island, Indonesia.

The one-of-its-kind burial for the region is from the early mid-Holocene and gives important insights into burial practices of the time.

Lead researcher Dr Sofia Samper Carro said the child, aged between four and eight, was laid to rest with some kind of ceremony.

"Ochre pigment was applied to the cheeks and forehead and an ochre-coloured cobble stone was placed under the child's head when they were buried," she said.

"Child burials are very rare and this complete burial is the only one from this time period," Dr Samper Carro said.

"From 3,000 years ago to modern times, we start seeing more child burials and these are very well studied. But, with nothing from the early Holocene period, we just don't know how people of this era treated their dead children. This find will change that."

Notably, the child's arm and leg bones were removed before interment and disposed of elsewhere.

"The lack of long bones is a practice that has been documented in several other burials from a similar time period in Java, Borneo and Flores, but this is the first time we have seen it in a child's burial," Dr Samper Carro said.

"We don't know why long bone removal was practised, but it's likely some aspect of the belief system of the people who lived at this time."

The estimated age of the child based on teeth correspond to a six- to eight-year-old child, but the skeleton is that of a four- to five-year-old child.

"We want to do some further paleo-health research to find out if this smaller skeleton is related to diet or the environment or possibly to being genetically isolated on an island," Dr Samper Carro said.

"My earlier work from Alor showed adult skulls were also small. These hunter-gatherers had a mainly marine diet and there is evidence to suggest protein saturation from a single food source can cause symptoms of mal-nourishment, which affects growth. However, they could have been eating other terrestrial resources such as tubers.

"By comparing other adult burials we have found from the same time period with this child burial in a future project, we hope to build a chronology and general view of burial practices in this region from between 12,000 to 7,000 years ago which at the moment is still scant."

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Dr Samper Carro's paper, Burial practices in the early mid-Holocene of the Wallacean Islands: A sub-adult burial from Gua Makpan, Alor Island, Indonesia, is published in Quaternary International.

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Articulated left foot (bottom left) and right foot (centre) excavated in the ANU laboratory. Image: Ms Tahlia Stewart, ANU

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Fragmented mandible and cranial vault. The temporo-mandibular joint appears articulated

Social media can guide public pandemic policy: QUT research

Social media analytics now a valuable tool in understanding the thoughts and actions of the public during a pandemic

QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

: LED BY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR TAN YIGITCANLAR FROM QUT'S SCHOOL OF BUILT ENVIRONMENT, AND IN COLLABORATION WITH RESEACHERS IN AFGHANISTAN, IRAN AND ITALY, THE RESEARCHERS COLLECTED 96,666 GEOTAGGED TWEETS ORIGINATING FROM... view more


With 2020 hijacked by COVID-19, a team of QUT researchers in Brisbane, Australia, say social media analytics can capture the attitudes and perceptions of the public during a pandemic. They also suggest social media is now the best way to encourage people to follow measures and restrictions.

Led by Associate Professor Tan Yigitcanlar from QUT's School of Built Environment, and in collaboration with researchers in Afghanistan, Iran and Italy, the researchers collected 96,666 geotagged tweets originating from Australia between 1 January and 4 May 2020, and analysed 35,969 of them after data cleaning to remove automated messages, irrelevant messages and web links.

The resultant paper - How can social media analytics assist authorities in pandemic-related policy decisions? Insights from Australian states and territories - has been published by Springer journal Health Information Science and Systems.

"From the Plague of Athens in 430 B.C., to the Black Death of the 1300s, through to the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 and the Swine Flu outbreak in 2009, pandemics are not new. However, increased globalisation since the 1980s has accelerated their spread, as we have seen this year with COVID-19," said Professor Yigitcanlar.

"What started late last year in Wuhan, China was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March. Global cases are heading towards 50 million and there have been more than 1.2 million deaths so far.

"The pandemic has led to many countries introducing lockdowns and limited citizen movements. These restrictions in turn have triggered an increased use of digital technologies and platforms by the public.

"Our aim was to generate insights into how social media analytics can assist authorities in pandemic-related policy decisions.

"We chose Australia as our case study because it has been highly successful in flattening the curve and social media analytics are increasingly used by the health sector here.

"Australia is also an advanced nation with a diverse culture that adapts the technological trends of the world, with the largest being social media. In 2018, 79 per cent of Australians used social media."

Professor Yigitcanlar said the study concluded social media analytics are a valuable tool in understanding the thoughts and actions of the public during a pandemic. Co-author and QUT PhD student Nayomi Kankanamge added that crowdsourced social media data could guide interventions and decisions of authorities during a pandemic.

"We also found that effective use of government social media channels, such as Twitter or Facebook, can help enhance public health education and awareness concerning social distancing restrictions and other measures or restrictions such as the latest lockdown in the UK and much of Europe. This is the best way to reach people in the 21st century", she said.

"In this digital age, local community perceptions and suggestions about social distancing policies, self-isolation, quarantines, movement control, travel restrictions, lockdowns and other changes are well reflected through social media messages.

"A thorough analysis of such social media data helps us understand the community demands, issues, and reflections."

Associate Professor Yigitcanlar said the researchers chose Twitter because it has become the fastest growing social media platform source in the world. It also offers an Application Programming Interface (API) to researchers and practitioners to conduct analysis.

"Social media analytics can help assist policy- and decision-makers to review community perceptions about COVID-19, and to identify the key requirements of the community to cope with the pandemic situation", he said.

"Our analysis has shown that the Australian public was not happy at the early stage of the pandemic curve as they seemed to believe that the Australian government was not responding appropriately.

"As such, people were in a panic mode, and tried to prepare to face the pandemic at their capacity. The words, 'toilet/paper' were very common in Twitter in all states/territories during this stage. This was because consumer panic buying patterns took place in Australia, where people tried to stock toilet paper, hand sanitisers, food, and other commodities. This indicated how Australian people act when the government does not provide confidence.

"From February 2020 onwards, the Australian government started to add travel restrictions to combat COVID-19 which built trust. Popular words like 'testing' and 'shutdown' among positively classified tweets showed people were generally happy about the actions taken by the government to combat the virus dispersion in Australia.

"For instance, the tweets circulated in Queensland emphasised the significance of expanding the number of testing per day at the early stage to stop spreading the virus rapidly. Most of the tweets discussed the importance of wearing masks."

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Seabirds' response to abrupt climate change transformed sub-Antarctic island ecosystems

New study finds seabirds' response to abrupt climate change 5,000 years ago transformed sub-Antarctic island ecosystems

THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Research News

 

IMAGE: A ROOKERY OF BLACK-BROWED ALBATROSS (THALASSARCHE MELANOPHRIS) NEST AT A WINDY, EXPOSED TUSSAC GRASSLAND ON WEST POINT ISLAND, FALKLAND ISLANDS. view more 

CREDIT: DULCINEA GROFF

The Falkland Islands are a South Atlantic refuge for some of the world's most important seabird species, including five species of penguins, Great Shearwaters, and White-chinned Petrels. In recent years, their breeding grounds in the coastal tussac (Poa flabellata) grasslands have come under increasing pressure from sheep grazing and erosion. And unlike other regions of the globe, there has been no long-term monitoring of the responses of these burrowing and ground nesting seabirds to climate change.

A 14,000-year paleoecological reconstruction of the sub-Antarctic islands done by an international research team led by The University of Maine (UMaine) including Dr Moriaki YASUHARA from the School of Biological Sciences and The Swire Institute of Marine Science, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has found that seabird establishment occurred during a period of regional cooling 5,000 years ago. Their populations, in turn, shifted the Falkland Island ecosystem through the deposit of high concentrations of guano that helped nourish tussac, produce peat and increase the incidence of fire. The findings were recently published in the journal Science Advances.

Nutrient inputs from seabirds

"This terrestrial-marine link is critical to the islands' grasslands conservation efforts going forward," says Dulcinea GROFF, who led the research as a PhD student in UMaine. "The connection of nutrients originating in the marine ecosystem that are transferred to the terrestrial ecosystem enrich the islands' nutrient-poor soil, thereby making the Falkland Islands sensitive to changes in climate and land use.

"Our work emphasizes just how important the nutrients in seabird poop are for the ongoing efforts to restore and conserve their grassland habitats. It also raises the question about where seabirds will go as the climate continues to warm," said Groff, who conducted the research in the Falkland Islands during expeditions in 2014 and 2016 led by Jacquelyn GILL, an Associate Professor of paleoecology and plant ecology in the UMaine Climate Change Institute.

The UMaine expedition team collected a 476-centimeter peat column from Surf Bay, East Falkland. The 14,000-year record revealed in the undecomposed tussac leaves of the peat column captures the development of a terrestrial-marine linkage that supports some of the most important breeding colonies of seabirds in the Southern Ocean today.

The absence of seabirds at the East Falklands site prior to 5,000 years ago suggests that seabirds may be sensitive to warmer mediated sea surface temperatures, which can impact their food supply, according to the research team. With a warming South Atlantic today, the question is whether the Falkland Islands, about 300 miles east of South America, will continue to be a seabird breeding "hot spot". The research team suggests that as the Southern Ocean continues to warm in the coming decades, the Falkland Islands seabird communities may undergo abrupt turnover or collapse, which could happen on the order of decades.

The 14,000-year record from East Falkland revealed that for 9,000 years before the arrival of seabirds, the region was dominated by low levels of grasses, a heathland of ferns and dwarf Ericaceous shrubs. About 5,000 years ago, the researchers says, an "abrupt transition" appears to occur. Concentrations in bio-elements such as phosphorus and zinc increase. Grass pollen accumulation rates skyrocket, indicating the establishment of tussac grasslands within 200 years of the establishment of seabird colonies on the island. Also found in the core: increased accumulation rates of peat and charcoal. "This timing is consistent with that of the Southern Ocean cooling that known paleoclimatic records consistently indicate.", said Yasuhara, a paleoecologist and paleoclimatologist in HKU, who is familiar with polar paleoclimatology and paleoceanography.

It is clear that the addition of seabird populations bringing nutrients from the marine environment to the island drove changes in the terrestrial plant community structure, composition and function, as well as increased fire activity and nutrient cycling. What remains unclear is what drove the abrupt ecosystem shift, including the impacts of climate change and extinction, and the geographical distribution of living things through space and time.

"Our study is also a powerful reminder of why we need to understand how different ecosystems are connected as the world warms," says Gill. "Such understanding is especially important in polar regions and ecosystems that are known to be sensitive to climate change," continues Yasuhara. Gill concluded, "We know that many seabirds in the South Atlantic rely on these unique coastal grasslands, but it turns out that the grasses also depend on the nutrients seabirds provide. Because they rely on ecosystems in the ocean and on land for their survival, seabirds are really excellent sentinels of global change. We just don't have good long-term monitoring data for most of these species, so we don't know enough about how sensitive they are to climate change. The fossil record can help us fill in the gaps."

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Link of the journal paper: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/43/eabb2788

Images download and captions: https://www.scifac.hku.hk/press

 

When new males take over, these female primates hurry up and mature

CELL PRESS

Research News

 

IMAGE: THIS PHOTO SHOWS A YOUNG FEMALE GELADA GROOMING THE DOMINANT BREEDING MALE OF HER GROUP. view more 

CREDIT: RACHEL PERLMAN)

Most mammals--including humans and other primates--reach sexual maturity early or late depending on lots of different factors, such as how much food there is to eat. Now, researchers studying close primate relatives of baboons known as geladas have shown for the first time that females of this species suddenly hurry up and mature when a new male enters the picture. Their findings are reported in the journal Current Biology on November 5th.

"We found that prepubertal females are more likely to mature right after a new breeding male arrives in the group - even if it means maturing earlier than expected," said senior author Jacinta Beehner (@jcbeehner), a Professor of Psychology and Anthropology at the University of Michigan. "We also noticed that some of these maturing females were maturing much later than expected."

Many of those late bloomers were the daughters of the primary breeding male prior to the new male's arrival, the researchers report. Their observations suggest that females can both speed up and slow down their maturity to avoid inbreeding with their fathers.

"Once their father is ousted by the new male, they appear to lift this suppression and immediately mature," Beehner said. "Taken together, we see that a new male causes a really obvious increase in the number of maturations in a group - whether early, on-time, or late."

The findings have been a long time coming, the research team says. About a decade ago, they started to notice that--right after a new male arrived--a few females would suddenly mature, all at the same time. That was striking because the researchers typically see only half a dozen or so females mature in any given year. But getting enough data to prove that the timing of maturation was tied to the arrival of a new male took some time.

In the Current Biology study, Beehner along with first author Amy Lu (@sbululab) of Stony Brook University and their colleagues kept track of the age at maturity for 80 females over 14 years of research in the highlands of Ethiopia, the only place geladas are found in nature. It's easy to tell when a gelada matures because they have very conspicuous "sexual swellings" surrounding a patch of skin on their chest and neck.

To understand better how this was happening, the researchers looked at the females' estrogen levels, which they can measure in their feces. They knew that estrogen levels rise just before the females visibly mature. Surprisingly, however, their data showed that estrogen levels surged in immature females of all ages just after a new male took over. In fact, that estrogen boost occurred even in females far too young to mature.

"Females usually mature around 4.5 years old, but we saw that even females as young as one year old exhibited a temporary surge in estrogen," Beehner said. "We suspect that this boost in estrogen causes females to mature, but that some females are just too young for this boost to actually work."

The findings suggest that maturation in many primates is a lot more sensitive to social environments than scientists had thought before. The discovery may even have implications for humans, according to the researchers.

"Many New World monkeys such as the marmosets and tamarins have long been known to be highly sensitive to social variables - with a dominant female suppressing the reproduction of all of the other females in the group," she says. "But, until now, we had no evidence that Old World monkeys or apes were similarly sensitive to the presence or absence of particular individuals. If an Old World monkey, like geladas, can suppress maturation in response to the presence of their biological fathers and lift this suppression in response to the arrival of a novel male, it's possible that such a process could be present in apes, and possibly even in humans."

However, they caution against taking the results in geladas too far in terms of what they might mean for humans since there are so many additional factors at play. In future studies, they hope to identify the costs and benefits associated with maturing early, on-time, or late for their gelada population.

"Once again," Beehner says, "this means we have to be patient and wait until these females, now matured, live out their reproductive lives. So, stay tuned, and we'll get back to you on that in another 14 years."

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This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Fulbright Scholars Program, the University of Michigan, Stony Brook University, and Arizona State University.

Current Biology, Lu et al.: "Male-Mediated Maturation in Wild Geladas" https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31507-4

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that fea-tures papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit: http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

CAPTION

When there is a new dominant male in a gelada group, even females as young as 3.5 years old (pictured here) can mature.