Feather mite species related to the Laysan albatross discovered in Japan

Scientists present morphological redescriptions and new genetic information on two feather mite species associated with an endangered seabird species

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HOSEI UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: TWO SPECIES OF FEATHER MITES (BOTH MALES) FROM THE LAYSAN ALBATROSS. A) ECHINACARUS PETALIFERUS (TROUESSART, 1898) AND B) DIOMEDACARUS GIGAS (TROUESSART, 1895). view more 

CREDIT: TSUKASA WAKI FROM TOHO UNIVERSITY, JAPAN.

Phoebastria immutabilis, commonly known as the Laysan Albatross, is a large seabird native to the North Pacific Ocean. Owing to the decrease in their population size, this species has been listed as “Near Threatened” in the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Laysan Albatrosses, like other birds, have a symbiotic relationship with feather mites, a species of highly host-specific parasites that inhabit the feathers of the birds. 

Now, with the threat of extinction looming over P. immutabilis, the feather mites could be in danger, too. Changes in the population dynamics of either host or their symbiont (the organism living in symbiosis with the host) can lead to an ecological imbalance. However, their current population and infection status remains ambiguous in Japan. To bridge this gap, Professor Satoshi Shimano from Hosei University, along with Associate Professor Tsukasa Waki from Toho University and Professor Masaki Eda from Hokkaido University, all in Japan, investigated the current status of P. Immutabilis feather mites. They studied bird specimens from in and around Japanese coastal waters. Their recent work was published in Volume 28, Issue 1 of the journal Systematic and Applied Acarology on 19 January 2023.
 
Sharing the motivation behind their investigation, Prof. Shimano states, “The feather mite Compressalges nipponiae, which infects the Crested Ibis, is known to have become extinct with the disappearance of its host population in Japan. Therefore, information on the mite symbionts, thought to clean the host’s feathers, could be helpful in conserving the Layasan Albatross.” Their study and findings were published in the journal Systematic and Applied Acarology. 

Feather mites from three preserved P. immutabilis wing feathers were studied using microscopy and molecular analyses. The team identified 603 members of Diomedacarus gigas, and two adult males of Echinacarus petaliferus. Remarkably, this is the first study to report on the occurrence of D. gigas in Japan in the last 50 years, and the first-ever on E. petaliferus. The team provided a detailed morphological redescription of the isolated mites. Twenty D. giga and one E. petraliferus mites were selected for analysis of haplotype network – a method to determine genetic diversity and lineage.

Every organism has a unique set of genes that do not undergo much variation over time, which makes them a molecular fingerprint. Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit I (COI) was used as the target gene for haplotype analysis of D. gigas. The COI parsimony network revealed seven different haplotypes, of which six were unique to their hosts. The large proportion of unique COI haplotypes pointed to a greater genetic diversity and stable population of D. gigas. On the other hand, genetic information could not be obtained for E. petaliferus and additional research is expected for this species. The team concluded that E. petaliferus was a rare species in Japan, with a high risk of extinction. 

In summary, these findings highlight the strong correlation between the ecology of the mites and the population of P. immutabilis. Foreseeing possible future avenues for their work, Dr. Waki speculates, “We believe that the information on the Laysan Albatross and the distribution of its symbionts will enable better conservation planning and extinction risk assessment for this species. This knowledge will ultimately lead to a better preservation of ecosystems for future generations.” 

And we certainly hope his visions come true! 

Two species of feather mites (both males) from the Laysan Albatross. A) Echinacarus petaliferus (Trouessart, 1898) and B) Diomedacarus gigas (Trouessart, 1895).

CREDIT

Tsukasa Waki from Toho University, Japan

Reference

Authors: Tsukasa Waki1, Masaki Eda2, and Satoshi Shimano3

Title of original paper: Two feather mite species (Alloptidae, Freyanidae) associated with the Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis (Rothschild, 1893) (Diomedeidae) from Japanese coastal water

Journal: Systematic and Applied Acarology

Abstract URL: https://www.biotaxa.org/saa/article/view/74995

Article URL: http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:C2AC09A5-E630-4863-B9F6-011006832E38

Affiliations:
1Faculty of Science, Toho University
2Hokkaido University Museum, Hokkaido University
3Science Research Center, Hosei University

About Professor Satoshi Shimano
Satoshi Shimano is an acarologist and a Professor at the Science Research Center at Hosei University in Japan. He obtained his master’s degree from Nagoya University and his doctoral degree from Yokohama National University, both in Japan. His research interests include systematics, taxonomy, soil zoology, acarology, and protistology. He has published 177 papers with over 1800 citations to his credit. Additionally, he is a recipient of several awards and has a patent to his name. 

About Associate Professor Tsukasa Waki
Tsukasa Waki is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Science at Toho University, Japan. He earned his PhD from The University of Tokyo, and is currently pursuing research across field ecology, population ecology, pathogens and virulence, infection, and mortality. He has published 55 articles on diverse topics in the biological sciences since 2009.

About Hosei University
Hosei University is one of the leading private universities in Tokyo, Japan. The university offers international courses in many disciplines and has a long and rich history. Hosei University was founded as a school of Law in 1880 and evolved into a private university by 1920.
It is also home to multiple research centers, which conduct advanced research on various fields, including nanotechnology, sustainability, ecology, and more.
The university has three main campuses—Ichigaya, Koganei, and Tama, located across Tokyo.

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JOURNAL

Systematic and Applied Acarology

DOI

10.11158/saa.28.1.7 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Two feather mite species (Alloptidae, Freyanidae) associated with the Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis (Rothschild, 1893) (Diomedeidae) from Japanese coastal waters

1.5-degree goal not plausible: social change more important than physical tipping points

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG

 

IMAGE: COVER ILLUSTRATION view more 

CREDIT: CLICCS/UNIVERSITÄT HAMBURG

Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is currently not plausible, as is shown in a new, central study released by Universität Hamburg’s Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS). Climate policy, protests, and the Ukraine crisis: the participating researchers systematically assessed to what extent social changes are already underway – while also analyzing certain physical processes frequently discussed as tipping points. Their conclusion: social change is essential to meeting the temperature goals set in Paris. But what has been achieved to date is insufficient. Accordingly, climate adaptation will also have to be approached from a new angle.

The interdisciplinary team of researchers addressed ten important drivers of social change: “Actually, when it comes to climate protection, some things have now been set in motion. But if you look at the development of social processes in detail, keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees still isn’t plausible,” says CLICCS Speaker Prof. Anita Engels. According to the Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook, especially consumption patterns and corporate responses are slowing urgently needed climate protection measures. Other key factors like UN climate policy, legislation, climate protests and divestment from the fossil fuels are supporting efforts to meet the climate goals. As the analysis shows, however, this positive dynamic alone won’t suffice to stay within the 1.5-degree limit. “The deep decarbonization required is simply progressing too slowly,” says Engels.

In addition, the team assesses certain physical processes that are frequently discussed as tipping points: the loss of the Arctic sea ice and melting ice sheets are serious developments – as are regional climate changes. But they will have very little influence on the global temperature until 2050. In this regard, a thawing permafrost, weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), and the loss of the Amazon Forest are more important factors – albeit only moderately. “The Fact is: these feared tipping points could drastically change the conditions for life on Earth – but they’re largely irrelevant for reaching the Paris Agreement temperature goals,” explains CLICCS Co-Speaker Prof. Jochem Marotzke from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology.

The study also coveres COVID-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine: economic reconstruction programs have reinforced dependence on fossil fuels, which means the necessary changes are now less plausible than previously assumed. In contrast, whether efforts to safeguard Europe’s power supply and the international community’s attempts to become independent of Russian gas will undermine or accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuels in the long run remains unclear.

Importance of human agency, new approach to adaptation

The Outlook is currently the only assessment that interlinks social sciences and natural sciences analysis in an integrated study to assess the plausibility of certain climate futures. More than 60 experts have contributed. According to the study, the best hope for shaping a positive climate future lies in the ability of society to make fundamental changes (“human agency”). In addition, the Outlook reveals a range of conditions for doing so, for instance that transnational initiatives and non-government actors continue to support climate protection, and that protests keep up the pressure on politicians.

“The question of what is not just theoretically possible, but also plausible, that is, can realistically be expected, offers us new points of departure,” says Anita Engels. “If we fail to meet the climate goals, adapting to the impacts will become all the more important.” In this regard, the Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook introduces a new tool for testing the long-term effects of various measures. They need to do more than provide support once the crisis strikes: “In order to be equipped for a warmer world, we have to anticipate changes, get the affected parties on board, and take advantage of local knowledge. Instead of just reacting, we need to begin an active transformation here and now.”

CAPTION

The path toward climate goals. The plausibility assessments indicate where social drivers and physical processes position themselves on the path toward the climate future scenario in which global climate mitigation goals are attained. Drivers and processes situated in the gray area are ambivalent with regard to reaching deep decarbonization by 2050 (social drivers), or do not affect the plausibility of attaining the Paris Agreement temperature goals (PAtg) (physical processes). Several social drivers are positioned closer to the goals as they support decarbonization (light blue area). However, the path toward climate goals is obstructed by physical processes which moderately inhibit the plausibility of attaining the Paris Agreement temperature goals (light red hexagon), and even more by social drivers which inhibit decarbonization (red hexagon). Currently, no social driver positions itself on the path of supporting deep decarbonization. More information can be found in Tables 1 and 2 and in the assessments in Chapter 6.

CREDIT

CLICCS/Universität Hamburg

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DOI

10.25592/uhhfdm.11230 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Content analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The plausibility of a 1.5°C limit to global warming—Social drivers and physical processes

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Feb-2023

Plastic is moving quickly from our shops to our bins

Coastal city residents would like to do more to reduce their single-use plastic waste and they are trying to recycle more, even trying to recycle items that simply can’t be recycled, often called “wish-cycling”.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH

Coastal city residents would like to do more to reduce their single-use plastic waste and they are trying to recycle more, even trying to recycle items that simply can’t be recycled, often called “wish-cycling”.

But they feel unable to do so due to the current infrastructure challenges and accessibility barriers they face, a new report has found.  

The study has also found that whilst young people are concerned about the use of plastic, their consumer behaviour often contradicts their beliefs. 

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth’s Revolution Plastics initiative surveyed 400 permanent residents in the city. They were questioned on their plastic consumption, purchase, use and disposal habits.  

Researchers examined what influenced people’s attitudes and behaviours towards plastic and what motivated or constrained their ability to reduce, reuse and recycle what they use. 

90 per cent of people agreed it was important to recycle and 83 per cent felt that littering was a serious problem that needed addressing in Portsmouth. Results indicate that if there were more recycling options available, 79 per cent would recycle more.   

However, there were obvious barriers to recycling, and people felt there was a lack of information and opportunity for recycling, with 65 per cent of people admitting they often did not know how or where to recycle plastic items. 

Portsmouth is a densely populated coastal city, with 5315 people per sq. km in 2020 (Office for National Statistics 2021). This makes it the second most densely populated city in the UK after London (5727 people per sq. km in 2020; Office for National Statistics 2021). 

Portsmouth is also the UK’s only island city, and the immediate proximity of the city to the ocean carries multiple pollution risks, including the erosion of historic landfill sites and beach litter. 

Portsmouth has a limited recycling kerbside collection system. Currently, only paper, card, plastic bottles, metal cans, tins and aerosols are recycled (Portsmouth City Council 2022). The current recycling rate of all waste for Portsmouth is 24.7 per cent, one of the lowest in the UK and considerably lower than the national average of 46.2 per cent (Letsrecycle 2021; DEFRA 2021).

Professor Steve Fletcher, Director of the Global Plastics Policy Centre and Revolution Plastics at the University of Portsmouth says: “As both a coastal city and the second most densely populated environment in the UK, Portsmouth can provide critical insights into the role of plastics in everyday life.  

“These include the challenges of managing plastic waste in a tightly packed urban setting. Understanding how people use plastic items within households is important to inform effective policy development, particularly with the emerging and developing global plastic treaty.”

Another important finding was the impact of age on the results. The 31–50 years age group were found to be more regularly shopping in Portsmouth zero-waste shops than their counterparts, while the oldest age group (over 50 years) reported being less aware and less willing to shop in these retailers. Younger respondents (less than 30 years) were more concerned about plastic waste entering the ocean than their older counterparts (over 50 years).  

Broadly speaking the younger residents were more concerned about the issue of single use plastic waste, however this was not backed up by their plastic purchase and use habits. Conversely, the older generation, who claimed not to be as concerned, often purchased fewer plastic items, particularly plastic bags. 85 per cent of respondents aged 51 years and above purchased zero plastic bags in an average week, compared to 39 per cent of the youngest age group (less than 30 years). 

Other social and economic demographic variables such as a resident’s location within Portsmouth, income and vehicle ownership were potential indicators of individuals' attitudes, accessibility and incentives towards reducing plastic purchases and recycling their plastic waste. 

Lead researcher, Stephanie Northen from Revolution Plastics at the University of Portsmouth, says: “Our findings show that although consumers have a role to play in plastic use and recycling, their behaviour is heavily influenced by factors which are largely out of their control, such as price and availability. 

“Ultimately it is not consumers who should be responsible for systemic change. This responsibility lies with those who are in charge of plastic policy.”

Full report available here. 

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JOURNAL

Sustainability Science

DOI

10.1007/s11625-022-01261-5 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

From shops to bins: a case study of consumer attitudes and behaviours towards plastics in a UK coastal city

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

30-Jan-2023

UMass Lowell plastics recycling,

engineering workforce initiatives

awarded $1M

Projects aim to redirect recyclable materials

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL

 

IMAGE: PLASTICS ENGINEERING MASTER’S STUDENT AND RESEARCH ASSISTANT SARAH PERRY, LEFT, WORKS WITH PROFESSOR MEG SOBKOWICZ-KLINE IN THE LAB AT BALL HALL ON UMASS LOWELL’S NORTH CAMPUS IN LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS. view more 

CREDIT: EDWIN AGUIRRE FOR UMASS LOWELL

Jan. 31, 2023

For Immediate Release

At least 85%, a staggering figure, of plastic waste generated in the U.S. went to landfills in 2021 while just 5 to 6% was recycled. Two UMass Lowell researchers want to reverse these statistics.

 

Plastics Engineering Professor Meg Sobkowicz-Kline and Assistant Teaching Professor Akshay Kokil are embarking on campaigns to redirect these recyclable materials with the help of a combined $1 million in research grants. Sobkowicz-Kline and Kokil were each awarded $500,000 grants – National Science Foundation and National Institute of Standards and Technology, respectively – at the close of 2022.

 

Sobkowicz-Kline won a two-year, $500,000 NSF award for her project, “Melt Mastication for Upcycling of Polyolefins,” which will help advance the development of a new manufacturing process to ease the recycling of plastic film packaging – the ubiquitous thin, flexible material used in grocery bags, zip-top storage bags, dry-cleaning bags among other applications.

 

She explained current plastic films cannot be recycled because they consist of multiple layers of different plastics and thus are challenging to collect, separate, clean and reprocess.

 

“While chemical recycling methods are rapidly evolving, these approaches require high energy input, and the materials’ intrinsic value is lost,” she said. “New concepts are needed to increase the recycling rate and reduce the amount of waste plastic films ending up in landfills, incinerators and the environment,” she says.

 

A team of UMass Lowell researchers, headed by Sobkowicz-Kline, is studying a new process to produce plastic film made of a single polymer, but retains the properties that make plastic packaging so attractive, including its low cost, light weight, toughness and effective barrier protection against oxygen and moisture to help maintain food quality and flavor. 

 

She added: “Our research has the potential to increase the plastics recycling rate, especially for films, while also maintaining the important benefits of flexible plastic packaging, including food safety, convenience and low carbon footprint.” 

 

Fellow UMass Lowell plastics engineering Professor Dave Kazmer is a co-principal investigator in the project, along with professors E. Bryan Coughlin and Alan Lesser of UMass Amherst.

 

Awarded a three-year, $500,000 NIST grant, Kokil’s research will support his ongoing effort to develop a future workforce to grow a circular economy for plastics. The focus will be on moving away from single-use plastics in favor of a “closed loop” system in which the lifetime of plastic materials is prolonged as they are used repeatedly, repaired and recycled. In this perspective, the materials are discarded only as a last resort.

 

“Making plastics more sustainable and transitioning them to a functioning circular economy has become all the more important, considering the scope of their use in our modern society,” said Kokil. His project, Plastics Adaptable for Circular Economy (PACE), aims to create, test and disseminate cross-disciplinary, hands-on modules about plastics sustainability and circularity. 

 

“These modules, developed by all plastics engineering faculty members, will help expand the knowledge base and improve critical thinking skills of the nation’s undergraduate and graduate students,” said Kokil. “With a technically knowledgeable workforce, people will be empowered to make prudent choices and systemic changes in the plastics industry, such that even in a market-driven condition, this important class of material can become truly sustainable.”

 

Kokil is among the scientists and engineers from five research institutions across the country who each received $500,000 in funding from NIST under its first Training for Improving Plastics Circularity Grant Program. In addition to UMass Lowell, the other awardees include Arizona State University, Pittsburg State University in Kansas, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Southern California.

 

The PACE project is co-led by members of the UMass Lowell plastics engineering department including Sobkowicz-Kline, Kazmer and Assistant Professor Davide Masato. Jill Lohmeier, UMass Lowell School of Education associate professor, will perform in-classroom learning outcome evaluations for PACE.

China’s stricter clean heating policies may have saved thousands of lives – study

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

China’s stricter clean heating policies have improved air quality in northern China, particularly in Beijing and surrounding cities– potentially reducing  23,000 premature deaths due to air pollution in 2021 than in 2015, a new study reveals.

From 2015 to 2021, the impact of winter heating on China’s capital and 27 other cities saw concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from heating activities reduce by 41.3% - compared with a drop of 12.9% in other northern Chinese cities which use lower levels of clean fuels than the ‘2+26’ cities.

China’s centralised winter heating strategy is one of the world’s largest energy-consumption systems - providing free or heavily subsidised heating to urban residents. The system is  usually switched on from mid-November to March.

Whilst coal has been the main heating energy source in northern China - accounting for 83% of the total heating area in 2016 – new policies have encouraged the use of cleaner fuels such as gas and electricity, reducing the dependence of urban areas on coal and rural areas on biomass.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Nankai University, China, published their findings in Environmental Science & Technology today, noting clear air quality benefits from the stricter clean heating policies in the ‘2 + 26’ cities – Beijing and Tianjin, plus 26 cities across Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong and Henan provinces.  

Corresponding Professor Zongbo Shi, from the University of Birmingham, commented: “Using a novel approach combining machine learning with causal inference, we showed that heating in northern China was a major source of air pollution, increasing annual PM2.5 concentrations by 8.9 µg m-3 in 2015. However, clean heating policies have caused the annual PM2.5  in mainland China to reduce significantly between 2015 and 2021, with significant public health benefits.

“Our research demonstrates the effectiveness of China’s clean winter heating policies on reducing PM2.5  – with particular success for the stricter clean heating policies in ‘2 + 26’ cities, which also led to a reduced impact of heating emissions on sulphur dioxide (SO2). These results demonstrate clear air quality benefits from the stricter clean heating policies in ‘2 + 26’ cities.”

In addition to central heating, biomass burning was often used for heating in rural areas - coal and biomass burning were often associated with severe haze episodes during the heating periods in northern China.

In 2013, China introduced the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan, which accelerated the use of centralised and district heating - encouraging the switch to cleaner fuels.

In 2017, the Chinese central government issued its Clean Winter Heating Plan for Northern China, which aimed to increase the region’s share of clean heating to 50% by 2019 and 70% by 2021 compared to the base scenario in 2016.

Additionally, the share of clean heating in ‘2 + 26’ cities was to exceed 90% in urban areas, reaching 100% by 2021.  In 2018, a three-year action plan to fight air pollution was issued. All these plans led to substantial air pollutant emission from the residential sector.

Co-author Professor Robert Elliott noted “Clean heating policies in northern China not only reduced air pollution but also greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to China’s push for carbon neutrality. However, we found that heating remains an important source of air pollution in northern China, particularly in cities that are not part of the “2+26” cluster. Decarbonising heating should remain a key part of China’s carbon neutrality strategy that not only reduces air pollution but also provide significant public health benefits.”

ENDS

Notes for editors

• The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions, its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 8,000 international students from over 150 countries.
• ‘Attribution of Air Quality Benefits to Clean Winter Heating Polices in China: Combining Machine Learning with Causal Inference” - Congbo Song, Bowen Liu, Kai Cheng, Matthew A. Cole, Qili Dai, Robert J. R. Elliott, and Zongbo Shi is published in Environmental Science & Technology.

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JOURNAL

Environmental Science & Technology

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Attribution of Air Quality Benefits to Clean Winter Heating Polices in China: Combining Machine Learning with Causal Inference

The quail could be the unknown reservoir of Tuscany and Sicilian viruses

Viruses in migratory birds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

 

IMAGE: THE EXPERT JORDI SERRA-COBO, PROFESSOR AT THE FACULTY OF BIOLOGY AND THE BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH INSTITUTE (IRBIO) OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

The quail could be the unknown reservoir of the Toscana virus (TOSV) and the Sandfly Fever Sicilian virus (SFSV), mosquito-borne pathogens that can infect domestic animals and also cause disease in humans. This conclusion is drawn from a study published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, and which is led by Jordi Serra-Cobo, professor at the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona, and Remi Charrel, from the Aix-Marseille University (France).

 

This is the first time that researchers find neutralising antibodies to TOSV and SFSV in wild birds. "To date, the reservoir for these two viruses was unknown, although they have been sought for years. Dogs and bats had been proposed as reservoirs, but the results showed that neither of them were", says Jordi Serra-Cobo, an expert in epidemiological studies with bats as natural reservoirs of infectious agents such as coronaviruses.

The study, whose first author is Nazli Ayhan, from Aix-Marseille University, includes the participation of José Domingo Rodríguez Teijeiro, Marc López-Roig, Dolors Vinyoles and Abir Monastiri (UB Faculty of Biology and IRBio) and Josep Anton Ferreres (UB Faculty of Biology).

Emerging viruses in the Mediterranean basin

TOSV and SFSV belong to the Phlebovirus genus and are considered emerging pathogens. They are spherical, single-stranded RNA viruses with a high mutation rate and are transmitted by mosquito bites (Phlebotomus genus), insects found mainly in the warmer, drier areas of the Iberian Peninsula. These viruses are distributed in most Mediterranean countries in Western Europe, as well as Cyprus and Turkey. With no actual vaccine against infection, epidemiological surveillance, control, and prevention measures to avoid phlebotomine sandfly bites are crucial to avoid viral infections.

"Both TOSV and SFSV have been detected in a variety of domestic animals (dogs, cats, goats, horses, pigs, cows), but they can also infect humans and cause diseases", says the researcher, a member of the UB Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

In humans, feblovirus infections are usually symptomless and often result in a three-day fever —pappatasis feve— which is very similar to influenza. "SFSV can cause a period of short-length high fever, accompanied by headache, rash, photophobia, eye pain, myalgia and general weakness. TOSV can cause the same manifestations as SFSV, but it can also be responsible for various central or peripheral neurological signs, such as meningitis and encephalitis. In fact, part of the encephalitis that occurs in summer is caused by TOSV", Serra-Cobo notes.

Viruses in migratory birds

The results of the new study suggest that birds could be the reservoir or amplifying agents of these viruses. From infected birds, mosquitoes can become infected and then bite animals or humans. In particular, the study highlights the important role of quails (Coturnix coturnix) in the infection dynamics of phleboviruses.

"Migratory birds play an important role in disease transmission due to their high mobility from one area to another, which makes them potential vectors of diseases that can affect domestic animals and human health", Serra-Cobo stresses.

"The quail is a migratory and also a hunter species, which enhances the potential transmission of diseases by direct contact through the food chain. In this context, regular pathogen detection is of great importance to predict future disease risks for both wildlife and humans", concludes the researcher.

 

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Microbiology

DOI

10.3389/fmicb.2022.1091908 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

«High rates of antibodies against Toscana and Sicilian phleboviruses in common quail Coturnix coturnix birds

To know where the birds are going, researchers turn to citizen science and machine learning

Scientists at UMass Amherst and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology unveil BirdFlow, a new predictive model that anticipates migratory patterns

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

 

IMAGE: THE AMERICAN WOODCOCK, ONE OF THE SPECIES MODELED BY THE BIRDFLOW TEAM. view more 

CREDIT: GUIZMO_68, CC BY 2.0

AMHERST, Mass. – Computer scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in collaboration with biologists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, recently announced in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution a new, predictive model that is capable of accurately forecasting where a migratory bird will go next—one of the most difficult tasks in biology. The model is called BirdFlow, and while it is still being perfected, it should be available to scientists within the year and will eventually make its way to the general public.

“Humans have been trying to figure out bird migration for a really long time,” says Dan Sheldon, professor of information and computer sciences at UMass Amherst, the paper’s senior author and a passionate amateur birder. “But,” adds Miguel Fuentes, the paper’s lead author and graduate student in computer science at UMass Amherst, “it’s incredibly difficult to get precise, real-time information on which birds are where, let alone where, exactly, they are going.”

There have been many efforts, both previous and ongoing, to tag and track individual birds, which have yielded invaluable insights. But it’s difficult to physically tag birds in large enough numbers—not to mention the expense of such an undertaking—to form a complete enough picture to predict bird movements. “It’s really hard to understand how an entire species moves across the continent with tracking approaches,” says Sheldon, “because they tell you the routes that some birds caught in specific locations followed, but not how birds in completely different locations might move.”

In recent years, there’s been an explosion in the number of citizen scientists who monitor and report sightings of migratory birds. Birders around the world contribute more than 200 million annual bird sightings through eBird, a project managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and international partners. It’s one of the largest biodiversity-related science projects in existence and has hundreds of thousands of users, facilitating state-of-the-art species distribution modeling through the Lab’s eBird Status & Trends project. “eBird data is amazing because it shows where birds of a given species are every week across their entire range,” says Sheldon, “but it doesn’t track individuals, so we need to infer what routes individual birds follow to best explain the species-level patterns.”

BirdFlow draws on eBird’s Status & Trends database and its estimates of relative bird abundance and then runs that information through a probabilistic machine-learning model. This model is tuned with real-time GPS and satellite tracking data so that it can “learn” to predict where individual birds will move next as they migrate.

The researchers tested BirdFlow on 11 species of North American birds—including the American Woodcock, Wood Thrush and Swainson’s Hawk—and found that not only did BirdFlow outperform other models for tracking bird migration, it can accurately predict migration flows without the real-time GPS and satellite tracking data, which makes BirdFlow a valuable tool for tracking species that may literally fly under the radar.

“Birds today are experiencing rapid environmental change, and many species are declining,” says Benjamin Van Doren, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and a co-author of the study. “Using BirdFlow, we can unite different data sources and paint a more complete picture of bird movements,” Van Doren adds, “with exciting applications for guiding conservation action.”

With an $827,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Sheldon and his colleagues are improving BirdFlow and plan to release a software package for ecologists to use later this year, with future development aimed at visualization products geared towards the general public.

(a) Simulated spring migration trajectories. (b) Timing of spring migration departure and (c) arrival derived from simulated trajectories. (d) Migratory connectivity: square cells show breeding origins of individuals in the northwest (orange) and northeast (blue) parts of the breeding range. Filled density contours show the predicted wintering distributions of individuals breeding in those respective regions.

Observed movements of GPS-tracked woodcocks (single thick path) and simulated trajectories (thin paths) for 2500 simulated birds originating at the same starting location as observed birds

Each heatmap shows the predicted movement distribution of a GPS-tracked individual originating within the circle at the base of the arrow. Darker colors indicate a higher predicted likelihood of movement to that area. The point of the arrow shows the observed ending location. Shown are examples of 3-week (h), 6-week (i), and 12-week (j) conditional forecasts.

CREDIT

Fuentes et al., 10.1111/2041-210X.14052

JOURNAL

Methods in Ecology and Evolution

DOI

10.1111/2041-210X.14052 

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Feb-2023