How seaweed became multicellular

CELL PRESS

A deep dive into macroalgae genetics has uncovered the genetic underpinnings that enabled macroalgae, or “seaweed,” to evolve multicellularity. Three lineages of macroalgae developed multicellularity independently and during very different time periods by acquiring genes that enable cell adhesion, extracellular matrix formation, and cell differentiation, researchers report April 12 in the journal Molecular Plant. Surprisingly, many of these multicellular-enabling genes had viral origins. The study, which increased the total number of sequenced macroalgal genomes from 14 to 124, is the first to investigate macroalgal evolution through the lens of genomics.

“This is a big genomic resource that will open the door for many more studies,” says co-first author and algal biologist Alexandra Mystikou of New York University Abu Dhabi and the Technology Innovation Institute, United Arab Emirates. “Macroalgae play an important role in global climate regulation and ecosystems, and they have numerous commercial and ecoengineering applications, but until now, there wasn't a lot of information about their genomes.”

Macroalgae live in both fresh and seawater and are complex multicellular organisms with distinct organs and tissues, in contrast to microalgae, which are microscopic and unicellular. There are three main groups of macroalgae—red (Rhodophyta), green (Chlorophyta), and brown (Ochrophyta)—that independently evolved multicellularity at very different times and in very different environmental conditions. Rhodophytes and Chlorophytes both evolved multicellularity over a billion years ago, while Ochrophytes only became multicellular in the past 200,000 years.

To investigate the evolution of macroalgal multicellularity, the researchers sequenced 110 new macroalgal genomes from 105 different species originating from fresh and saltwater habitats in diverse geographies and climates.

The researchers identified several metabolic pathways that distinguish macroalgae from microalgae, some of which may be responsible for the success of invasive macroalgal species. Many of these metabolic genes appear to have been donated by algae-infecting viruses, and genes with a viral origin were especially prevalent in the more recently evolved brown algae.

They found that macroalgae acquired many new genes that are not present in microalgae on their road to multicellularity. For all three lineages, key acquisitions included genes involved in cell adhesion (which enables cells to stick together), cell differentiation (which allows different cells to develop specialized functions), cell communication, and inter-cellular transport.

“Many brown algal genes associated with multicellular functions had signature motifs that were only otherwise present in the viruses that infect them,” says co-first author and bioinformatician David Nelson of New York University Abu Dhabi. “It's kind of a wild theory that’s only been hinted at in the past, but from our data it looks like these horizontally transferred genes were critical factors for evolving multicellularity in the brown algae.”

The team also identified other features that were distinct between the macroalgal lineages. They observed much more diversity between different species of Rhodophyte, which evolved multicellularity first and have thus had longer to diverge. They also found that Chlorophytes share many genomic features with land plants, suggesting that these genes may have already been present in the last common ancestor of Chlorophytes and plants.

“By no means have we exhaustively explored all that there is in these genomes,” says senior author and systems biologist Kourosh Salehi-Ashtiani of New York University Abu Dhabi. “There is a ton of information that we have not touched in the present paper that can be mined by whoever who is interested.”

The researchers are already digging into the dataset to investigate environmental and habitat adaptations amongst macroalgae. In future, they hope to sequence and analyze even more macroalgal genomes.

“We want to explore some of these features in more detail, meaning more genomes if we can get our hands on them,” says Salehi-Ashtiani.

###

This research was supported by the NYUAD Faculty Research Funds and Tamkeen.

Molecular Plant, Nelson and Mystikou et al., “Macroalgal deep genomics illuminate multiple paths to aquatic, photosynthetic multicellularity” https://www.cell.com/molecular-plant/fulltext/S1674-2052(24)00084-4

Molecular Plant, published by Cell Press for the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences (Shanghai), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Chinese Society of Plant Biology, is a monthly journal that focuses broadly on plant science, including cellular biology, physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, development, plant-microbe interaction, genomics, bioinformatics, and molecular evolution. All contents are freely available starting 12 months after publication. Visit http://www.cell.com/molecular-plant. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

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JOURNAL

Molecular Plant

DOI

10.1016/j.molp.2024.03.011 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Macroalgal deep genomics illuminate multiple paths to aquatic, photosynthetic multicellularity

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2024

 

Africa’s iconic flamingos threatened by rising lake levels, study shows

KING'S COLLEGE LONDON

It is one of the world’s most spectacular sights – huge flocks or “flamboyances” of flamingos around East Africa’s lakes – as seen in the film Out of Africa or David Attenborough’s A Perfect Planet.

But new research led by King’s College London has revealed how the lesser flamingo is at danger of being flushed out of its historic feeding grounds, with serious consequences for the future of the species.

For the first time satellite earth observation data has been used to study all the key flamingo feeding lakes in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania over two decades and it identified how rising water levels are reducing the birds’ main food source.

The authors warn the birds are likely to be pushed into new unprotected areas in the search for food, especially given predicted higher levels of rainfall linked to climate change.

They are now calling for coordinated conservation action across international borders, improved monitoring and more sustainable management of land surrounding important flamingo lakes.

Lead author Aidan Byrne, a PhD student jointly supervised by King’s College London and the Natural History Museum, said the region was home to more than three quarters of the global population of lesser flamingos, but their numbers are declining.

“Lesser flamingos in East Africa are increasingly vulnerable, particularly with increased rainfall predicted for the region under climate change. Without improved lake monitoring and catchment management practices, the highly specialised species found in soda lake ecosystems – including lesser flamingos - could be lost,” he said.

The study, published in the journal Current Biology, is the first in which satellite earth observation data has been used to study all 22 key flamingo feeding soda lakes in East Africa. This analysis was combined with climate records and bird observation data over more than two decades.

By studying on this large scale, for the first time researchers were able to see changing food availability across the whole network of lakes, including significant declines in recent years, and how bird numbers decreased as lake surface area increased. They also identified the lakes the birds might move to in the future.

Co-author, Dr Emma Tebbs, from King’s College London said whilst flamingos naturally travel in search of food, the degradation of their historic feeding and breeding sites was a serious concern.

“East African populations could potentially move north or south away from the equator in search of food resources. And whilst six study lakes increased in habitat suitability from 2010 to 2022, only three of those have some level of conservation protection.

“Increases in water levels could lead to lesser flamingos becoming more reliant on lakes that are unprotected, outside of current nature reserves and protected sites, which has implications for conservation and ecotourism revenues.”

Soda lakes are some of the harshest environments on Earth, being both highly saline and very alkaline. Despite this, many species have evolved to thrive in these conditions, including the flamingo and its phytoplankton prey, which they filter from the water using their sieve-like beaks.

The research found rising water levels across the region’s soda lakes were diluting their normally salty and alkaline nature, leading to a decline in populations of phytoplankton, which was measured by the amount of a photosynthetic pigment called chlorophyll-a present in the lakes.

The team found that phytoplankton levels have been declining over the 23 years of study and linked this to increases in the surface areas of the lakes over the same period.

The largest losses in phytoplankton biomass occurred in the equatorial Kenyan lakes, notably at the important tourist lakes Bogoria, Nakuru and Elmenteita, and in the northern Tanzanian lakes that saw the largest increases in surface area.

Nakuru is one of the most important flamingo feeding lakes in East Africa, historically supporting over one million birds at a time. The lake increased in surface area by 91% from 2009 to 2022 whilst its mean chlorophyll-a concentrations halved.

Natron in Tanzania is the only regular breeding site for lesser flamingos in East Africa and it has experienced declining productivity alongside rising water levels in recent years. If phytoplankton biomass continues to decline there and at other nearby feeding lakes, it will no longer be a suitable breeding site.

In addition to scientists from the Department of Geography, King’s College London and the Natural History Museum, the team also included researchers from National Museums of Kenya, the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, the Zoological Society of London, the University of Leicester, and the Freshwater Biological Association.

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. The paper will be available online at Current Biology once the embargo lifts
2. If you have any queries, want a copy of the paper under embargo or wish to interview Aidan Byrne, please contact julie.wheldon@kcl.ac.uk.

 

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JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2024.03.006 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Productivity declines threaten East African soda lakes and the iconic Lesser Flamingo

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2024

 

First national study of Dobbs ruling’s effect on permanent contraception among young adults

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

The first study to evaluate the effect of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling on permanent contraception procedures among young adults nationwide was published today in a JAMA Health Forum research letter.

The study, authored by policy researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and Boston University, underscores how the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling changed preferences for permanent contraception among people ages 18 to 30, who are more likely to have abortions and are also more likely to experience sterilization regret compared to people over 30.

The study is also the first to assess how the Dobbs ruling changed permanent contraception procedures among females relative to males.

Following the Dobbs decision, the authors found, permanent sterilization procedures among young adults abruptly increased nationwide. The magnitude of this increase was twice as high for tubal sterilizations relative to vasectomies. Over time, tubal sterilizations continued to increase; for vasectomies, however, the initial jump was not sustained.

Compared to vasectomy, tubal ligation procedures are far more complex and are anywhere from two to six times more expensive, said lead author Jacqueline Ellison, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Pitt School of Public Health. Tubal ligation reversal requires major surgery, whereas vasectomy reversal is much less invasive, she added.

“The major difference in patterns of these two procedures likely reflects the fact that young women are overwhelmingly responsible for preventing pregnancy and disproportionately experience the health, social and economic consequences of abortion bans,” she said.

The other authors on the study are Brittany Brown-Podgorski, Ph.D., of Pitt and Jake Morgan, Ph.D., of Boston University.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Health Forum

DOI

10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.0424 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Changes in Permanent Contraception Procedures Among Young Adults Following the Dobbs Decision

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2024

Changes in permanent contraception procedures among young adults following the Dobbs decision

JAMA Health Forum

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: Researchers observed an abrupt increase in permanent contraception procedures among adults ages 18 to 30 following Dobbs. The increase in procedures for female patients was double that for male patients. These patterns offer insights into the gendered dynamics of permanent contraceptive use and may reflect the disproportionate health, social, and economic consequences of compulsory pregnancy on women and people with the capacity to become pregnant. 

Authors: Jacqueline E. Ellison, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.0424)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.0424?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=041224

About JAMA Health Forum: JAMA Health Forum is an international, peer-reviewed, online, open access journal that addresses health policy and strategies affecting medicine, health and health care. The journal publishes original research, evidence-based reports and opinion about national and global health policy; innovative approaches to health care delivery; and health care economics, access, quality, safety, equity and reform. Its distribution will be solely digital and all content will be freely available for anyone to read.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Health Forum

 

Study reveals potential to reverse lung fibrosis using the body’s own healing technique

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

The most common type of lung fibrosis — scarring of the lungs -- is idiopathic, meaning of unknown cause. 

Researchers are urgently trying to find ways to prevent or slow idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and related lung conditions, which can cause worsening shortness of breath, dry cough, and extreme fatigue. Average survival following diagnosis of IPF is just three to five years, and the disease has no cure.

A recent U-M study from a team led by Sean Fortier, M.D. and Marc Peters-Golden, M.D. of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at U-M Medical School uncovers a pathway used during normal wound healing that has the potential to reverse IPF.

Using a mouse model, they simulated IPF by administering bleomycin, a chemotherapy agent that causes cell injury and confirmed that the resulting lung scarring resolved itself over the span of about six weeks. 

Because of this, “studying fibrosis is kind of tough,” said Fortier.  “If we’re going to give experimental drugs to try and resolve fibrosis, we have to do it before it resolves on its own. 

Otherwise, we will not be able to tell if the resolution was the action of the drug or natural repair mechanisms of the body.”

However, he said, “there’s actually a lot to learn about how the mouse gets better on its own. If we can learn the molecular mechanisms by which this occurs, we may uncover new targets for IPF.”

The process by which lung injury either leads to healing or fibrosis relies in part on what happens to a cell called a fibroblast, which forms connective tissue. 

During injury or illness, fibroblasts are activated, becoming myofibroblasts that form scar tissue by secreting collagen. When the job is done, these fibroblasts must be deactivated, or de-differentiated, to go back to their quiet state or undergo programmed cell death and be cleared. 

“This is the major distinction between normal wound healing and fibrosis – the persistence of activated myofibroblasts,” explained Fortier. That deactivation is controlled by molecular brakes. The study examined one of these brakes, called MKP1 – which the team found was expressed at lower levels in fibroblasts from patients with IPF.

By genetically eliminating MKP1 in fibroblasts of mice after establishing lung injury, the team saw that fibrosis continued uncontrolled.

“Instead of at day 63, seeing that nice resolution, you still see fibrosis,” said Fortier. 

“We argued by contradiction: when you knock out this brake, fibrosis that would otherwise naturally disappear, persists and therefore MKP1 is necessary for spontaneous resolution of fibrosis.”

They performed several additional studies using CRISPR techniques to demonstrate how MKP1 applies the brakes, mainly by deactivating the enzyme p38α, which is implicated in a cell’s reaction to stress.

Furthermore, they demonstrated that neither of the two current FDA approved drugs for lung fibrosis, pirfenidone and nintedanib, are able to turn off myofibroblasts.

“That’s totally in keeping with the fact that they do slow the progression, but they don’t halt or reverse disease,” said Fortier.

Fortier hopes the discovery that this pathway reverses fibrosis leads to exploration of additional brakes on fibrosis. 

“So much work on fibrosis has focused on how we can prevent it, but when a patient presents to my clinic with a dry cough, shortness of breath, and low oxygen as a result of underlying IPF, the scarring is already present. Of course, we’d love a way to prevent the scarring from getting worse, but the Holy Grail is to reverse it.”

Additional authors: Natalie Walker, Loka R. Penke, Jared Baas, Qinxue Shen, Jennifer Speth, Steven K. Huang, Rachel L. Zemans, and Anton M. Bennett

Citation: “MAP kinase phosphatase-1 inhibition of p38α within lung myofibroblasts is essential for spontaneous fibrosis resolution,” Journal of Clinical Investigation. DOI: 10.1172/JCI172826

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JOURNAL

Journal of Clinical Investigation

DOI

10.1172/JCI172826 

ARTICLE TITLE

MAP kinase phosphatase-1 inhibition of p38α within lung myofibroblasts is essential for spontaneous fibrosis resolution

 

International team co-led by a BSC researcher discovers more than 50 new deep-sea species in one of the most unexplored areas of the planet

The role of BSC and supercomputing in the expedition is to provide climate modelling data through different future scenarios to determine the distribution of species in the area

Reports and Proceedings

BARCELONA SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER

 

IMAGE: 

A CHAUNAX DOCUMENTED ON THE SOUTHWESTERN FLANK OF RAPA NUIA CHAUNAX (GENUS OF BONY FISH IN THE SEA TOAD FAMILY) DOCUMENTED DURING DIVE 664, A TRANSECT IS LOCATED ON THE SOUTHWESTERN FLANK OF RAPA NUI. THE DIVE BEGAN AT ~600 M DEPTH AND TRAVELED UPSLOPE TO ~200-300 M. THE ISLAND IS LOCATED NEAR THE WESTERN EXTENT OF THE SALAS Y GÓMEZ RIDGE OF UNDERWATER MOUNTAINS.

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CREDIT: ROV SUBASTIAN / SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE

An international group of scientists, co-led by researcher Ariadna Mechó of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), observed 160 species on seamounts off the coast of Chile that had not yet been known to live in the region and suspect that at least 50 of these species are new to science. The recent Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition to the underwater mountains of the Salas y Gómez Ridge, a remote and underexplored area that stretches from offshore Chile to Rapa Nui, resulted in identifying deep-sea corals, glass sponges, sea urchins, squids, fishes, molluscs, crabs, sea stars, squat lobsters, and other species likely never-before observed by scientists.

Mechó, a researcher in the Climate Variability and Change group at the BSC’s Earth Sciences Department, presented the results of the 40-day scientific cruise ‘Unexplored Seamounts of the Salas y Gómez Ridge’ and the current negotiations to create a blue corridor in the area at the “Ocean Decade MPA Forum: Progress, obstacles and solutions”, an off-site event organised in the framework of the UN Ocean Decade Conference held in Barcelona from 10-12 April 2024.

“The main results of this campaign are that we have found between 50 and 60 potentially new species at first sight, a number that is likely to increase as we have many samples to work on in the laboratory. We also found one of the deepest mesophotic corals in the world, extending the distribution of this Polynesian fauna by several hundred kilometres. And at depth, we have found fields of sponges and corals, habitats that are considered vulnerable and in need of protection”, said Mechó.

The expedition took place from 24 February to 4 April with an international team of 25 scientists from 14 organisations in five countries (Chile, United States, Italy, Spain, Netherlands), including the first Rapa Nui marine biologist, Emilia Ra'a Palma Tuki, a recent graduate of the Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile. The Rapa Nui Sea Council, or Koro Nui o te Vaikava, supported the expedition, providing the main permit to work in the area, and collaborated by providing a Koro Nui observer and a local sailing expert to bring to the expedition their perspectives as members of the Rapa Nui community.

The information collected during this research expedition will provide the scientific basis to inform the management of existing marine protected areas and potentially expand them, especially around the island of Rapa Nui.

ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean InstituteAn octopus documented during Dive 674, an exploration transect on the southeastern flank of an unexplored and unnamed seamount located within the national jurisdiction of Chile, east of Motu Motiro Hiva, an uninhabited island along the Salas y Gómez Ridge. The dive started at ~800 m depth and traveled upslope to ~270 m. This island is located near the western-central extent of the Salas y Gómez Ridge.

CREDIT

ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

One of the most unexplored areas of the planet

Funded by the Schmidt Ocean Institute, the cruise is devoted to studying the ecosystems of one of the most unexplored areas of the world, the submarine mountains and oceanic islands of the Salas y Gómez Ridge, which is a 2,900-kilometre-long underwater mountain chain comprising more than 200 seamounts from offshore Chile to Rapa Nui, otherwise known as Easter Island (or Isla de Pascua).

This ridge hosts one of the most unique and biodiverse seascapes on Earth, with an extremely high rate of endemism, critical habitats for benthic organisms, essential migration corridors for highly mobile species, and the presence of over 80 threatened or endangered species.

In addition, the Salas y Gómez Ridge possesses a rich cultural and maritime heritage with profound connections to Indigenous islander and mainland communities and other nations. This remote, underexplored region likely harbours pristine and unexploited habitats with abundant biodiversity that require international cooperation to protect them before they are lost.

A deep-sea dragon fish, an apex predator with enormous jaws filled with fang-like teeth, seen during Dive 674 along a transect on the southeastern flank of an unexplored and unnamed seamount located within the national jurisdiction of Chilé, east of Motu Motiro Hiva, an uninhabited island along the Salas y Gómez Ridge. The dive started at ~800 m depth and traveled upslope to ~270 m. This island is located near the western-central extent of the Salas y Gómez Ridge.

CREDIT

ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

Modelling the ocean with supercomputing

The role of BSC and supercomputing in the campaign is to provide climate modelling data through different scenarios to establish the distribution of key species in the area. This will help us understand how these species will be impacted by future changes, depending on each possible scenario.

“But first, we need to better understand the biodiversity and connectivity of the region to know which keystone species are found there and on which mountains exactly, as well as potential faunal breaks (where communities change or stop connecting with each other). Basically, it is a unique exploration in places where practically everything is unexplored”, said Mechó.

The aim is to provide the critical information to support the designation of the Salas y Gomez Ridge as an ecologically and biologically significant marine area (EBSA) by the Convention on Biological Diversity and an ecological and socioeconomic ‘priority area’ for international protection, by the High Seas Treaty (2023).

This cruise was strongly connected with an earlier campaign deployed between January and February 2024 and focused on studying the junction between the Salas y Gomez and the Nazca Ridge, and the Desventuradas Islands. During the 2 cruises, more than 100 new species have been discovered on the Salas y Gomez and the Nazca Ridge (SyGR), as well as coral and sponge gardens. That will emphasise the need for a blue corridor along the Salas y Gómez and Nazca Ridges, creating one of the first and larger high-seas marine protected areas in the world.

[Ariadna Mechó received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No GA 101107435]

 

Where have all the right whales gone?

Statistical models, hydrophone network deployed to fight right whale extinction threat

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

THREE RIGHT WHALES OBSERVED FROM THE AIR. (NMFS PERMIT #21482 2)

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CREDIT: MARK COTTER/HDR

DURHAM, N.C. – Marine researchers have mapped the density of one of the most endangered large whale species worldwide, the North Atlantic right whale, using newly analyzed data to predict and help avoid whales’ harmful, even fatal, exposure to commercial fishing and vessel strikes.

Duke University’s Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab led a collaboration of 11 institutions in the United States that pooled 17 years of available visual survey data covering 9.7 million square kilometers of the U.S. Atlantic – roughly the same area as the entire contiguous United States.

This information was coupled with auditory data from almost 500 hydrophone recorders in US Atlantic waters that captured whales’ calls. Lining up visual and acoustic datasets for the first time, researchers built a statistical model to estimate the number of whales per square kilometer at different points in time. Researchers published their findings on March 20, 2024 in Marine Ecology Progress Series.

“The more accurate and detailed the mapping, the better chance we have to save dwindling numbers of right whales from preventable injury and fatality,” said Patrick Halpin, director of Duke’s Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab. The lab studies marine ecology, resource management, and ocean conservation, using data to inform ocean management and governance.

Other current real-time efforts to track and protect the whales from deadly encounters with human activities have been incomplete or ineffective. Electronic tagging can harm whale health, and it is infeasible to continuously monitor more than a small fraction of the population that way.

The statistical model is a revision of a 2016 model that predicts whale density from environmental data, like sea surface temperature. This latest version incorporates new data to reflect whales’ changing migration and feeding patterns, including their presence in new areas that lack protection measures for marine life.

“With nearly three times more aerial survey data than we had before, and confirming evidence from the hydrophones, we were able to show how strongly the population has shifted its distribution,” said Jason Roberts, a Duke research associate and lead author of the study.

Right whales maintain the health and balance of marine environments and the entire food web through their feeding habits. As climate change has reduced the population of their prey, whale migration patterns have become more unpredictable, increasing the chances that human activities, like commercial fishing, may harm whale health and chances of reproduction.

Using maps obtained by satellite ocean monitoring, or from physical ocean models like the recently published one, researchers can more accurately predict whale density across the U.S. east coast.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, known as NOAA Fisheries, a federal agency within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, uses this model to assess and mitigate risks to large whales posed by activities such as trap and pot fishing, vessel traffic, naval testing and training, and offshore energy activities.

This research supports NOAA Fisheries’ overarching North Atlantic Right Whale Road to Recovery, which describes the agency’s efforts to address threats to the species, and monitor recovery progress. In the United States, the Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits intentional harming or disturbance (known as “takes”) of marine mammals by human activity, and limits takes that happen incidentally.

NOAA Fisheries estimates the number of accidental occurrences of whales harmed, and implements measures to minimize harm. Endangered North Atlantic right whales are approaching extinction. Elevated right whale deaths triggered an Unusual Mortality Event  in 2017. In recent years, 125 whales have died or been seriously injured, mostly from entanglements in fishing gear and being struck by vessels in both U.S. and Canadian waters.

NOAA Fisheries and the US Navy co-funded the study.

An aerial survey plane circles above a right whale. (NMFS permit #14233)

CREDIT

Esther Quintana/NEAQ

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JOURNAL

Marine Ecology Progress Series

DOI

10.3354/meps14547 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

North Atlantic Right Whale Density Surface Model for the US Atlantic Evaluated With Passive Acoustic Monitoring

 

Theories that explain the crisis in democracy are inadequate for Latin America, experts say

Countries in the region are experiencing a different phenomenon from that observed in the United States and Europe, where increased social inequality may have been the cause of the advance of political polarization.

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

 

IMAGE: 

MARTA ARRETCHE DURING HER LECTURE AT FAPESP WEEK ILLINOIS 

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CREDIT: ELTON ALISSON/AGÊNCIA FAPESP

The theories offered by the dominant literature in political science today to try to explain the sources of the political polarization that has endangered democracy around the world are adequate for the United States and Europe, but do not make sense for the countries of Latin America. For this reason, greater collaboration among political scientists is needed to identify other, more plausible hypotheses for the phenomenon that the region is also experiencing.

The assessment was made by researchers participating in a panel discussion on democracy and social inclusion held on April 9 in Chicago (United States) during FAPESP Week Illinois https://fapesp.br/week/2024/illinois.

“There’s an avenue for possible research collaboration between Latin American and North American political scientists, for example, to advance in identifying the sources of political polarization in the two regions and to overcome this challenge in the literature. We have a lot of data and interest in working together to better understand this phenomenon,” said Marta Arretche, professor at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil and researcher at the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM) – a FAPESP Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center (RIDC).

According to the researcher, the most influential literature in the social sciences today, mainly in the United States and Europe, establishes a positive link between social inequality and political polarization to explain the rise in electoral strength of extreme right-wing parties and the threats to democratic institutions.

According to this theory, wealthier democracies have experienced an increase in social inequality, which would be the cause of voter support for the proposals of far-right parties.

“According to this theory, the left-wing parties have somehow abandoned their traditional electorate and implemented pro-rich policies, and so the right-wing parties have exploited the discontent of the poorest, who have lost out in the current democratic regimes. But recent research in Latin America, and Brazil in particular, provides good evidence that this may not be true for countries in the region,” Arretche said.

Ongoing postdoctoral research at the CEM on the determinants of political polarization in Latin America shows that although the Gini index (a measure of social inequality) has decreased since the early 2000s, political polarization in Latin American countries has increased over the same period.

“There’s evidence for Latin America that doesn’t confirm the positive association between increases in inequality and increases in polarization. On the contrary, it shows a negative association,” Arretche said.

Another study, also conducted by Brazilian political scientists, on how the perception of gaining or losing social status influences the political positions of the Brazilian electorate, showed that those who vote for left-wing parties in the country are those who believe they have gained centrality in the political arena in the last 20 years. On the other hand, those who voted for right-wing parties perceive themselves as having lost centrality in recent years.

“The conclusion of the authors of this study also goes in the opposite direction of the dominant literature on the United States and Europe. They conclude that the progressive policies implemented by left-wing parties in Brazil since the early 2000s have shaped the political divide that exists today,” Arretche explains.

On the other hand, another ongoing study conducted by the researcher and her collaborators also provides some evidence of disenchantment among Workers’ Party (PT) voters in recent years.

“The party has lost support among its own voters during the crises that Brazil has gone through in the last five years,” Arretche said.

Political crisis

The changes that have taken place in Brazil since 2013, marked by a very intense political crisis, have changed the behavior of actors and generated instability in the pillars of coalition presidentialism in the country, pointed out Andrea Freitas, coordinator of the Center for Public Opinion Studies at the State University of Campinas (CESOP-UNICAMP).

This parliamentary regime that exists in Brazil and other countries, in which the president tries to form coalitions because he doesn’t have a majority in the legislature, could change its configuration in the country, the researcher said.

“My hypothesis is that given the long period of political crisis that Brazil has gone through in the last ten years, there’s been a real change in the behavior of political actors in the country, and we’re no longer going back to the same institutional bases of coalition presidentialism. We’re going to have to build a different relationship,” Freitas said.

Health inequalities

Brazil and other countries have also undergone transformations in other areas, such as health, that may contribute to increasing levels of inequality in the country, explained Rudi Rocha, a professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in São Paulo.

One of these changes is the aging of the population, which means that health systems not only in Brazil but in many other countries will have to deal with an increasing number of chronic diseases and other conditions that are more expensive to treat, Rocha noted.

“In the past, health systems in countries like Brazil only had to deal with childhood infectious diseases, which are cheap to treat through vaccination, for example. Now, in low- and middle-income countries, inequalities will eventually increase if they don’t have the capacity to meet the challenges of an aging population,” he said.

The public sector’s difficulty in raising sufficient funds to meet healthcare needs opens up opportunities for the private sector to enter and expand its presence, the researcher pointed out.

“This is already happening in many places around the world, and it could also be a vector of inequality. Ultimately, only those who can afford it will have access to private health care,” Rocha said.

Another vector of social inequality in the country is climate change, which has a more direct impact on poor people, who don’t have access to health care, the researcher stressed.

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