Your baby’s gut is crawling with unknown viruses

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN - FACULTY OF SCIENCE

 

IMAGE: PROFESSOR DENNIS SANDRIS NIELSEN, UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN view more 

CREDIT: EMILIE THEJLL-MADSEN / UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN

Viruses are usually associated with illness. But our bodies are full of both bacteria and viruses that constantly proliferate and interact with each other in our gastrointestinal tract. While we have known for decades that gut bacteria in young children are vital to protect them from chronic diseases later on in life, our knowledge about the many viruses found there is minimal.

A few years back, this gave University of Copenhagen professor Dennis Sandris Nielsen the idea to delve more deeply into this question. As a result, a team of researchers from COPSAC (Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood) and the Department of Food Science at UCPH, among others, spent five years studying and mapping the diaper contents of 647 healthy Danish one-year-olds.

"We found an exceptional number of unknown viruses in the faeces of these babies. Not just thousands of new virus species – but to our surprise, the viruses represented more than 200 families of yet to be described viruses. This means that, from early on in life, healthy children are tumbling about with an extreme diversity of gut viruses, which probably have a major impact on whether they develop various diseases later on in life," says Professor Dennis Sandris Nielsen of the Department of Food Science, senior author of the research paper about the study, now published in Nature Microbiology.

The researchers found and mapped a total of 10,000 viral species in the children's faeces – a number ten times larger than the number of bacterial species in the same children. These viral species are distributed across 248 different viral families, of which only 16 were previously known. The researchers named the remaining 232 unknown viral families after the children whose diapers made the study possible. As a result, new viral families include names like Sylvesterviridae, Rigmorviridae and Tristanviridae.

Bacterial viruses are our allies

"This is the first time that such a systematic an overview of gut viral diversity has been compiled. It provides an entirely new basis for discovering the importance of viruses for our microbiome and immune system development. Our hypothesis is that, because the immune system has not yet learned to separate the wheat from the chaff at the age of one, an extraordinarily high species richness of gut viruses emerges, and is likely needed to protect against chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes later on in life," states Shiraz Shah, first author and a senior researcher at COPSAC.

Ninety percent of the viruses found by the researchers are bacterial viruses – known as bacteriophages. These viruses have bacteria as their hosts and do not attack the children's own cells, meaning that they do not cause disease. The hypothesis is that bacteriophages primarily serve as allies:

"We work from the assumption that bacteriophages are largely responsible for shaping bacterial communities and their function in our intestinal system. Some bacteriophages can provide their host bacterium with properties that make it more competitive by integrating its own genome into the genome of the bacterium. When this occurs, a bacteriophage can then increase a bacterium's ability to absorb e.g. various carbohydrates, thereby allowing the bacterium to metabolise more things," explains Dennis Sandris Nielsen, who continues:

"It also seems like bacteriophages help keep the gut microbiome balanced by keeping individual bacterial populations in check, which ensures that there are not too many of a single bacterial species in the ecosystem. It's a bit like lion and gazelle populations on the savannah."

Shiraz Shah adds:

"Previously, the research community mostly focused on the role of bacteria in relation to health and disease. But viruses are the third leg of the stool and we need to learn more about them. Viruses, bacteria and the immune system most likely interact and affect each other in some type of balance. Any imbalance in this relationship most likely increases the risk of chronic disease."

The remaining ten percent of viruses found in the children are eukaryotic – that is, they use human cells as hosts. These can be both friends and foes for us:

"It is thought-provoking that all children run around with 10-20 of these virus types that infect human cells. So, there is a constant viral infection taking place, which apparently doesn’t make them sick. We just know very little about what’s really at play. My guess is that they’re important for training our immune system to recognise infections later. But it may also be that they are a risk factor for diseases that we have yet to discover," says Dennis Sandris Nielsen.

Could play an important role in inflammatory diseases

The researchers have yet to discover where the many viruses in the one-year-olds come from. Their best answer thus far is the environment:

"Our gut is sterile until we are born. During birth, we are exposed to bacteria from the mother and environment. It is likely that some of the first viruses come along with these initial bacteria, while many others are introduced later via dirty fingers, pets, dirt that kids put in their mouths and other things in the environment," says Dennis Sandris Nielsen.

As Shiraz Shah points out, the entire field of research speaks to a huge global health problem:

"A lot of research suggests that the majority of chronic diseases that we’re familiar with – from arthritis to depression – have an inflammatory component. That is, the immune system is not working as it ought to – which might be because it wasn’t trained properly. So, if we learn more about the role that bacteria and viruses play in a well-trained immune system, it can hopefully lead us to being able to avoid many of the chronic diseases that afflict so many people today."

The research groups have begun investigating the role of gut viruses in relation to a number of different diseases that occur in childhood, such as asthma and ADHD.

 

FACT BOX: ABOUT BACTERIOPHAGES

• There are generally two types of bacteriophages. Virulent bacteriophages take over the bacterium and produce 30-100 new virus particles inside it. After this, the bacterial cell explodes from the inside and the new virus particles escape into the environment. Virulent bacteriophages help to keep the intestinal ecosystem in balance.
   
• So-called temperate bacteriophages can reproduce by integrating their genetic material into the genome of the host bacterial cell. When the cell divides, so does the bacteriophage.  Temperate bacteriophages help transfer new genes to the bacteria so it becomes more competitive. However, there are also studies suggesting that an imbalance in the temperate bacteriophage population is associated with various diseases, e.g., inflammatory bowel disease.

 

FACT BOX: ABOUT VIRUSES

• A virus is a microorganism consisting of a genome – either DNA or RNA – encapsulated in a protein membrane. Viruses cannot multiply. Instead, a virus attacks a host cell, which it uses to make copies of itself.
   
• Viruses are classified into viral families, which are then divided into a larger number of viral genera and viral species. A more well-known example of a viral family is coronavirus, to which the viruses Covid-19, MERS, SARS and several common cold viruses belong.

 

FACT BOX: ABOUT THE STUDY

• The research team mapped the gut "viromes" from the guts of 647 healthy Danish one-year-old children. "Virome" is an umbrella term for all viruses found in a given environment. This includes both viruses that attack bacteria (bacteriophages), as well as those that go after human cells (eukaryotic virus).
   
• The 647 infants are all part of the mother-child cohort Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood (COPSAC2010), that has been followed very closely clinically throughout childhood at COPSAC. The children are now 13 years old.
   
• This interactive atlas allows you to see the diversity of viruses in the children and download information about the individual viral families.
   
• The results have been published in the renowned scientific journal Nature Microbiology.
   
• The researchers behind the study come from COPSAC, University of Copenhagen; Department of Food Science, University of Copenhagen; Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen; Department of Health Technology, DTU; Université Laval, Canada; Université Paris-Saclay, France; Université Clermont, France and the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Biology.

 

 

 

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JOURNAL

Nature Microbiology

DOI

10.1038/s41564-023-01345-7 

ARTICLE TITLE

Hundreds of viral families in the healthy infant gut

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Apr-2023

Gossip influences who gets ahead in different cultures

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

VANCOUVER, Wash. – Gossip influences if people receive advantages whether they work in an office in the U.S. or in India—or even in a remote village in Africa, a Washington State University study found.

In a set of experiments, WSU anthropologists found that positive and negative gossip influenced whether participants were willing to give a person a resource, such as a raise or a family heirloom, especially when the gossip was specific to the circumstance. For instance, positive gossip concerning job-related behavior, such as saying the person worked well under pressure, increased the participants’ willingness to give a work-related benefit compared to gossip about family relationships.

The researchers ran the experiment with 120 online participants workers in the U.S. and India, and after making some culturally appropriate adjustments, with 160 Ngandu horticulturalists, who make a living from small gardens in the Central African Republic. In all three groups, they found similar results.

“Gossip seems context relevant. People don’t just say random things,” said Nicole Hess, a WSU anthropologist and lead author on the study published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. “Gossip that was relevant to the exchange and the relationship had the most impact on whether a person gave a resource, or not.”

Anthropologists consider gossip, defined as exchanging reputational information about other community members, to be a feature of almost every human society, but it is less clear what function it serves. Some argue that talking about other people this way helps enforce social norms or serves as social bonding between the gossipers. This study lends evidence to yet another theory: that gossip is used competitively because it shows a direct relationship between gossip and the likelihood of receiving more resources.

“Up until this study, no one had even really asked ‘what is the end result of gossip?’ Gossip makes a person’s reputation worse or better, so what is the result?” Hess said. “These findings support the competitive evolutionary model: that people are using gossip to compete with each other over valuable resources in their communities.”

For this study, Hess and co-author Ed Hagen, also a WSU anthropologist, developed a set of experiments that provided participants with job- or family-related scenarios. For the office workers in the industrialized countries, the scenarios described a situation where they could either give a raise to one of their co-workers or an inherited painting to a family member.

They then were given a mix of gossip statements about how a theoretical co-worker or relative behaved at work or dealt with their family. For example, the work statement might be about whether the colleague was willing to work late to finish a project, or on the family side, whether they got along well with their siblings.

After reading a mix of these statements, the participants were asked whether they were willing to give that fictional person the resource.

For the Ngandu farmers, the work scenario was adjusted to have them evaluate a fictional worker they hired to help with their garden, and whether they would share some shirts with the worker that a produce buyer had given them. The family scenario involved deciding whether to give a relative some nice clothes the participant had inherited.  

Both surveys showed a similar pattern: participants were more willing to give the resource when exposed to more positive, context-specific gossip statements about them, and less willing when exposed to more negative, context-specific gossip statements.  

In this paper, the researchers also included an observational study of 40 Aka hunter-gatherers who live near the Ngandu horticulturists. This study was designed as a series of questions asked verbally about real people the participants knew, which increased the study’s ecological validity, meaning it shows that the results can be generalized to real-life settings.

While not exactly parallel with the experimental studies, these observational results also indicated that an individual’s positive reputation strongly influenced whether the Aka participants were willing to share a resource with them.

“The cultural contexts are different, but they have the same patterns of responses,” said Hess. “This appears to be the universal psychology in how people evaluate reputation in allocating valuable things from industrial societies to small scale communities.”

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JOURNAL

Evolution and Human Behavior

DOI

10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2023.02.013 

ARTICLE TITLE

The impact of gossip, reputation, and context on resource transfers among Aka hunter-gatherers, Ngandu horticulturalists, and MTurkers

Study recommends greater awareness of biopesticides to help fight locust outbreaks in China

A new study led by scientists from the Chinese MARA-CABI Joint Laboratory for Biosafety suggests greater awareness of biopesticide market availability, efficacy and field application processes could help tackle locust outbreaks in China.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CABI

 

IMAGE: LOCUSTS ATTACKED BY THE FUNGUS METARHIZIUM SP. view more 

CREDIT: CSIRO/VIA SCIENCEIMAGE.CSIRO.AU (CC BY 3.0)

A new study led by scientists from the Chinese MARA-CABI Joint Laboratory for Biosafety suggests greater awareness of biopesticide market availability, efficacy and field application processes could help tackle locust outbreaks in China.

The researchers, who outline their findings in the journal Sustainability, argue that future studies should also focus on modelling the expected impact and cost effectiveness of chemicals verses biopesticides – therefore increasing the evidence base for promoting more environmentally friendly biopesticide use.

Locusts are among the world’s most destructive pests that cause significant financial loss and ecological damage in many parts of the world. In China, the scientists highlight that locust outbreaks have a 3,000-year history and – along with floods and droughts – are considered the three biggest natural disasters for the country.

They add that successes have been achieved by using emerging technologies – including spraying of the locusts using drones, GPS tracking, GIS mapping and satellite data imagery – but chemical pesticides in China and other countries remains the primary method of control for the pests.

Though, China has made great strides with the use of biopesticides, the researchers stress and further highlight that a reason why chemical pesticides are chosen is due to their fast action despite more negative impacts on the environment.

The scientists say that the uptake of biopesticides remains low due to various factors including inconsistent field results, shorter product life, high costs and effectiveness on a smaller range of pests as compared to other products. Despite this, there is increasing evidence of the benefits of biopesticides in general, including for locusts.

Dr Hongmei Li, lead author of the paper and Senior Scientist, based at CABI’s centre in China, said, “Our findings show that China has an integrated national locust response protocol, which involves various institutions from all administrative levels of government.

“The process is inherently highly complex but efficient with multi-sectoral agencies working closely together to prevent and/or manage locust outbreaks.

“In addition, the process has been successful in combating recent outbreaks, due to dedicated government funding, decisive administrative and technical actions as well as the empowerment of local government administration.”

She adds that this is particularly the case with the county level acting as a ‘first responder’ that is financially and technically able to respond to a locust invasion in their jurisdiction.

Co-author, Dr Mariam Kadzamira, Senior Researcher, Agribusiness, based at CABI’s head office in Wallingford, UK, said, “Our research also shows that despite the availability of biopesticides in local markets, their use is dampened by inadequate information about market availability, negative perceptions by decision-makers about their efficacy and concerns about their costs as well as limited knowledge of their application techniques.

“Actions are, therefore, needed by relevant authorities to enhance stakeholder awareness of biopesticide market availability, efficacy and field application processes.”

The researchers stress that to increase the use of biopesticides for locust control there should be evidence-based local exemplars and case studies, and where possible, this should include comparisons with the long-term outcomes of using biopesticides verses chemical pesticides on locust populations.

They further add that since pest outbreaks necessitate quick and decisive actions for success, information packages should be made available to decision-makers on an on-going basis – not just when there is an outbreak.

Dr Hongmei Li added, “In addition, other research should centre around metrics-based process mapping that includes analysing the time lag between strategic actions during a locust outbreak.”

Dr Kadzamira highlighted that this would “facilitate a better understanding and mapping of work flows and would contribute to improving the efficiency of different actors across all relevant administrative structures, in the event of a locust emergency.”

The scientists based their research on Yunnan Province as a case study as it was one of the worst areas affected in the 2020 locust invasion. It was also chosen as efforts to control the locusts during this invasion were relatively successful and, therefore, understanding the processes could inform future management of the pest, for China, as well as for other countries.

 

Additional information

Main image: The desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) is one of the world’s most destructive migratory pests (Credit: Pixabay).

Full paper reference

Li, H.; Kadzamira, M.A.T.J.; Ogunmodede, A.; Finch, E.; Zhu, J.; Romney, D.; Luke, B. Lessons Learned and Challenges of Biopesticide Usage for Locust Management—The Case of China. Sustainability 2023, 15, 6193. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15076193

The paper can be read open access here: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/6193/html

Funding acknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge the funding provided for this research by the following organizations and agencies: the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) (Grant No.ST/V000306/1), and China’s Donation to the CABI Development Fund (Grant No. IVM10051).

CABI is an international intergovernmental organisation, and we gratefully acknowledge the core financial support from our member countries (and lead agencies) including the United Kingdom (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office), China (Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs), Australia (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research), Canada (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), Netherlands (Directorate-General for International Cooperation), and Switzerland (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation). See https://www.cabi.org/about-cabi/who-we-work-with/key-donors/ for full details.

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JOURNAL

Sustainability

DOI

10.3390/su15076193 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Lessons Learned and Challenges of Biopesticide Usage for Locust Management—The Case of China

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

4-Apr-2023

Disclaime

Mutant strains of Salmonella make infection more aggressive in commercial poultry, study shows

The findings reinforce the importance of taking animal health measures as soon as chicks are hatched and until slaughter, as well as care during meat transportation and conservation.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

 

IMAGE: LEFT: SECTION OF BROILER’S CECUM INFECTED BY WILD-TYPE SALMONELLA ENTERITIDIS DISPLAYING REACTIONS IN MACROPHAGES (DARKER PARTS) 14 DAYS AFTER INFECTION. RIGHT: MUTANT STRAINS CAUSED MORE PRONOUNCED IMMUNE RESPONSES view more 

CREDIT: JULIA CABRERA/FCAV-UNESP

In Brazil, a group of researchers supported by FAPESP created mutant forms of Salmonella to understand the mechanisms that favor colonization of the intestinal tract of chickens by these pathogenic bacteria and find better ways to combat the infection they cause.

An article on the study is published in the journal Scientific Reports. In it, the researchers note that, contrary to expectations, the mutant strains caused more severe infections than wild-type bacteria.

In the mutant strains, the genes ttrA and pduA were deleted. In previous research using mice, both genes had been shown to account for the ability of Salmonella to survive in an environment without oxygen, favoring intestinal colonization and dissemination in a production environment.

“This would confer an advantage in competition with other microorganisms that also inhabit the intestinal tract,” said Julia Cabrera, first author of the article. She had a technical training scholarship from FAPESP and is currently conducting doctoral research at São Paulo State University’s School of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences (FCAV-UNESP) in Jaboticabal.

“Salmonella’s genetic apparatus is sufficient to enable it to change behavior in response to not only hosts [commercial poultry] but also other bacteria that compete with it in the same environment. When these two genes were deleted, it found other survival mechanisms and became even more pathogenic to the birds,” said Mauro Saraiva, second author of the article and responsible for leading the study during a postdoctoral fellowship at FCAV-UNESP.

The findings reinforce the importance of taking animal health measures as soon as chicks are hatched and until slaughter, as well as care during meat transportation and conservation. A vaccine to prevent intestinal colonization of poultry by strains of Salmonella responsible for food-borne outbreaks of human salmonellosis lies beyond the horizon for now.

The study is part of a project supported by FAPESP and led by Angelo Berchieri Junior, a professor at FCAV-UNESP (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/29808). 

According to Berchieri Junior, few food-borne human infections have been detected in Brazil, but consumers should not neglect proper food conservation and hygiene. “The Salmonella serotypes known to cause food-borne diseases don’t always make a person sick. Although there are other important routes for these bacteria to be introduced into poultry farms, the greatest danger occurs when very young chicks are exposed, as their immune system isn’t fully formed,” he said.

In these cases, fecal excretion lasts longer and causes more extensive contamination of the chicken shed. As a result, more infected birds are transported to the slaughterhouse. Most contamination of carcasses (chickens ready for sale) occurs during this stage.

Infection

In the study, laying hens and chicks of various ages were first infected with the serotypes of Salmonella enterica most frequently found in Brazil, Enteritidis and Typhimurium, using mutant strains with ttrA and pduA inactivated in the laboratory. The infections were compared with those caused by wild-type strains of the same serotypes, in which all genes were functional.

The cellular immune response was measured using immunochemistry methods, which are based on antigen-antibody reactions and staining of compounds formed in infected tissue. The larger the area stained, the more exacerbated the organism’s cellular response to infection. The researchers analyzed different parts of the intestinal tract (cecal tonsils, cecum and ileum), as well as the liver.

Mutant strains of Enteritidis caused a more pronounced cellular immune response than wild-type strains, except in laying hens. Both mutant and wild-type Typhimurium caused a similar response. 

In all lineages studied, tissue infected by Salmonella was infiltrated by significant quantities of macrophages, immune cells that attack bacteria and other pathogens.

“The next step will entail real-time PCR testing to understand which molecules are involved in this more exacerbated immune response in birds infected by mutant strains,” Saraiva said.

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-023-27741-x 

ARTICLE TITLE

Salmonella enterica serovars in absence of ttrA and pduA genes enhance the cell immune response during chick infections

Rare colored red-tailed hawk found covered in oil in Pennsylvania

Story by Brian Whipkey and Camille Fine,
USA TODAY NETWORK • Yesterday

Mercersburg, Pa. — A Pennsylvania game warden who helped to save an injured bald eagle found coated in oil actually found another bird with a rare condition.

As it turns out, the tannish-white bird wasn’t an eagle — it was a leucistic red-tailed hawk, which means its plumage lacks melanin and pigmentation to provide color in its feathers.

Leucism — which can be discerned from albinism because it does not affect eyes' pigment

cells — causes white coloration, white patches, spots, or splotches on the skin or fur, according to the National Park Service.

As a result, the hawk’s feathers are mostly white as opposed to the typical brown and dark red commonly found on red-tailed hawks.

Red-tailed hawks, which can stand about 2 feet tall and have a wingspan about twice that wide, are believed to be plentiful in Pennsylvania, but this condition is rare.

Philip Bietsch, the Pennsylvania Game Commission warden that learned of the young bald eagle on March 25, said the bird had apparently been sitting along a creek in Mercersburg, near the southern border of the state, for a couple of days and hadn’t moved from that location.

“It’s definitely the first one I’ve seen,” he said.

Bietsch was called to assess the bird's condition after someone who thought it was sick or injured captured the bird and took it home. A lubricant that seemed lighter than car oil coated many of the bird's feathers.

The bird was showing some signs of malnourishment and was probably unable to eat for a few days, Bietsch said.

The Raven Ridge Wildlife Center in Lancaster County where Bietsch took the bird for treatment said it was actually covered in a "cooking" oil substance, which matted its feathers and prevented her from flying.

After a much-needed and thorough cleaning, the center will keep the hawk for observation before releasing it back into the wild.

Bietsch, who recently spoke with the bird’s caregiver, said the raptor is becoming aggressive again, “which is a really good sign" for re-release.

Where did the oil come from?

Bietsch isn’t sure where the oil came from but said the agency hasn’t received any additional reports of oil or injured wildlife in that area.

What to do if you find an animal

If an injured animal or bird is discovered, call the agency’s statewide dispatch center at 833-742-4868.

Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania.

Migratory birds can partially offset climate change

Study examines a key but costly strategy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: SPRING MIGRATION ROUTES FOR AMERICAN REDSTARTS WINTERING IN JAMAICA. view more 

CREDIT: MOTUS WILDLIFE TRACKING SYSTEM.

Ithaca, NY—Deteriorating habitat conditions caused by climate change are wreaking havoc with the timing of bird migration. A new study demonstrates that birds can partially compensate for these changes by delaying the start of spring migration and completing the journey faster. But the strategy comes with a cost—a decline in overall survival. The findings by researchers from Cornell University, the University of Maryland, and Georgetown University are published in the journal Ecology.
 
"We found that our study species, the American Redstart, can migrate up to 43% faster to reach its breeding grounds after delaying departure from wintering grounds in Jamaica by as much as 10 days," said lead author Bryant Dossman. He led the study while a graduate student at Cornell and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown. "But increased migration speed also led to a drop of more than 6% in their overall survival rate."

Tactics for speeding up migration can include flying faster and making fewer or shorter stopovers to refuel along the way. Though migrating faster helps compensate for delayed departures, it can't entirely make up for lost time. In general, for a 10-day delay, Dossman says individuals can recover about 60% of the lost time, but that means still arriving late on the breeding grounds.

Jamaica has become increasingly dry in recent decades and that translates into fewer insects, the mainstay of the redstart diet. Now, it takes the birds longer to get into condition for the rigors of migration, especially from poorer quality habitats. At the same time, plants are greening and insects are coming out sooner on the breeding grounds—also because of climate change.

"On average, migratory songbirds only live a year or two, so keeping to a tight schedule is vital. They’re only going to get one or two chances to breed," said Dossman. "Longer lived birds are less likely to take the risk of speeding up migrations because they have more chances throughout their lives to breed and pass on their genes."

The study is based on 33 years of American Redstart migration departure data at the Fort Hill Nature Preserve in Jamaica. Senior co-author Peter Marra, director of the Earth Commons—Georgetown University's Institute for Environment & Sustainability—oversees the study site. Using this historical data in tandem with automated radio tracking and light-level tags, scientists compared the redstarts' expected departure date with their actual departure date in recent years to see how it’s changed.

"The behavioral shifts documented in this research remind us that the manner in which climate change affects animals can be subtle and, in some cases, able to be detected only after long term study," shared Amanda Rodewald, a co-author on the paper as well as the Garvin Professor and Senior Director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab. 

"Understanding how animals can compensate is an important part of understanding where the impacts of climate change will play out," said Marra. "In this case, we may not lose a species entirely, but it is possible that populations of some species may go extinct locally due to climate change." 

What happens on the redstart wintering grounds carries over into the breeding season. Though the redstart population is stable and increasing in much of its breeding range, detailed eBird Trend maps show the species is declining in the northeastern United States and southern Quebec, Canada.
 
"The good news is that birds are able to respond to changes in their environment," Dossman said. "They have some flexibility and variation in their behaviors to begin with, but the question is, have they reached the limit of their ability to respond to climate change?"
 
Research funding was provided by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Smithsonian Institute, and the National Science Foundation.
 

  

American Redstart male in Jamaica.

CREDIT

Sam Miller, Macaulay Library, Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

eBird Status & Trends Map

American Redstart population trends during breeding seasons 2007-2017. Red indicates a declining population trend. Blue shows an increasing trend.

CREDIT

Source: eBird Status and Trends, Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

JOURNAL

Ecology

DOI

10.1002/ecy.3938 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Migratory birds with delayed spring departure migrate faster but pay the costs.

Senior MCG student edits April edition of American Medical Association Journal of Ethics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MEDICAL COLLEGE OF GEORGIA AT AUGUSTA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: MCG MEDICAL STUDENT ELENA DILLER view more 

CREDIT: MICHAEL HOLAHAN, AUGUSTA UNIVERSITY

AUGUSTA, Ga. (April 11, 2023) – A senior at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University is the guest editor for this month’s edition of the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics, focused on meat production and consumption and the effects of both on people’s health.

Elena Diller, a native of Rome, Georgia, who will graduate from MCG in May and head to an internal medicine residency at the University of Texas’ Medical Branch in Galveston, was selected for the opportunity during her freshman year. With guidance from her mentor Laura Williamson, PhD, director of the AU Center for Bioethics and Health Policy, Diller first had to choose a theme topic and proposed ethical questions around it.

“One of the things I’ve been thoughtful about for a long time is our food system and the way we use meat and dairy products in our diet, and how that is intertangled with our health,” Diller says. “It’s not just about what meat does in our bodies, but also about the health of the workers who are producing the meat and the effects of production on the environment. Food has always been interesting to me. There’s so much to enjoy about it, but there’s a lot we need to understand about the impact.”

Her years-long work on the edition included writing and editing case commentaries that explore a wide range of issues, from what should be considered when providing dietary counseling to patients with low incomes to how hospitals could offer more vegetarian options for patients. She also came up with topics for articles about policy — on topics like whether meat and poultry plants endanger workers and what health professions students should know about industrial agriculture and disease — and sought out expert authors to write them.

Diller, who also completed the AU Institute of Public and Preventive Health’s Graduate Certificate in Bioethics program while she was in medical school, says she has always been interested in ethical issues related to health and hopes to one day sit on the ethics committee for the health care facility she works for.

“I think a lot of times, particularly in health care, we want one right answer to a problem and there’s not always that one right answer,” she says. “There are ways (to approach an issue) that are better than others — and certainly there can be a nuanced debate on either side. But if we are trying to keep changing things in health care and ultimately make people healthier, we should be having discussions about how we best do that.”

The American Medical Association Journal of Ethics’ mission is to help medical students, physicians and all health care professionals make sound ethical decisions in service to patients and society. Founded in 1999, the journal explores ethical questions and challenges that students and clinicians confront in their educational and practice careers.

Read the April edition, Meat and Health online.

Financial toxicity of cancer impacts partners’ quality of life

Partners report pain, fatigue, sleep issues tied to missed work, medical bills

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

ANN ARBOR, Michigan — A cancer diagnosis can cause financial strain on patients as they cope with the cost of treatment and lost work. But what about their partners?

A new study from University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center researchers surveyed the partners of colorectal cancer patients and found the financial impact of a loved one’s diagnosis also impacts the partner’s health-related quality of life.

“We know that financial toxicity or hardship is a significant effect of cancer and its treatment and is associated with poor health issues for patients and survivors. Financial toxicity extends to caregivers or partners too. We wanted to understand how that financial toxicity affects the caregiver’s health outcomes, such as anxiety and depressive symptoms, fatigue, overall quality of life or well-being,” said lead study author Lauren V. Ghazal, Ph.D., FNP-BC, a postdoctoral fellow in cancer care delivery research at the Rogel Cancer Center and the University of Michigan School of Nursing.

“It is important to examine the full effect of financial toxicity on a household in order to develop multilevel interventions that center the patient,” she said.

Researchers surveyed patients who had been treated between one and five years earlier for stage 3 colorectal cancer. They also surveyed patients’ spouses, domestic partners or significant others who lived in the same household. 307 patient-partner pairs responded. Surveys asked about:

• Financial burden, such as cutting down on spending or missing bill payments
• Debt, including unpaid bills, bank loans or borrowing money from family or friends
• Financial worry, focused on current or future financial problems from the cancer treatment

Patients and partners were both asked about health-related qualify of life factors, including physical function, anxiety, depression, fatigue, sleep disturbance, social roles and activities, and pain. Results are published in JAMA Network Open.

Of partners who worked full- or part-time when the patient was diagnosed, 39% missed between one week and one month of work and 38% said they lost income due to the person’s cancer.

Almost two-thirds of partners reported financial burden, including cutting down on expenses, activities, food or clothes, or using savings. About a third of partners had high financial worry, which increased the more they lost income or missed work. And 29% of partners reported debt related to the cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Across the seven health-related quality of life issues, financial toxicity was consistently associated with worse quality of life factors. Partners described financial toxicity as primarily related to health insurance and employment status. But they also reported extra emotional spending, disrupted social lives, having to ask family and friends for help with medical expenses, and worry over what could have been if they hadn’t had insurance.

Younger partners were significantly more likely to report financial burden and debt, which is striking as rates of colorectal cancer among younger adults has increased in recent years.

“When you think of key developmental milestones young adults expect to achieve, they are driven by money: completing education, establishing employment, cultivating romantic relationships, starting a family. All of these milestones impact becoming financially independent, and all are susceptible to disruption. And of course, a cancer diagnosis is a major disruption,” said senior study author Christine M. Veenstra, M.D., MSHP, associate professor of medical oncology at Michigan Medicine.

“As we see colorectal cancer becoming more common at younger ages, it is imperative we assess for financial hardship among patients and their partners and connect them with services and support both within and outside the hospital setting,” Veenstra said.

Future research will analyze the impact of financial toxicity on patients and partners together. The team hopes to identify employer-level considerations or other interventions that could help to mitigate financial toxicity among patients and their partners.

Additional authors: Paul Abrahamse, M.A.; Kevin C. Ward, Ph.D.; Arden M. Morris, M.D., M.P.H.; Sarah T. Hawley, Ph.D.

Funding for this work is from the National Cancer Institute (K07CA196752, P30CA046592, HHSN2612018000031, HHSN26100001, T32CA236621) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (5NU58DP006352-03-00). This work was supported by these Rogel Cancer Center Shared Resources: Cancer Data Science

Disclosure: None

Paper cited: “Financial Toxicity and Its Association with Health-Related Quality of Life Among Partners of Colorectal Cancer Survivors,” JAMA Network Open. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.5897

Resources:

University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, www.rogelcancercenter.org

 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.5897 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Financial Toxicity and Its Association with Health-Related Quality of Life Among Partners of Colorectal Cancer Survivors

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Apr-2023