Vulnerability of agro-ecological zones in India under the earth system climate model scenarios

India being a developing economy dependent on climate-sensitive sector like agriculture is highly vulnerable to impacts of global climate change. Vulnerability to climate change, however, differs spatially within the country owing to regional differences in exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The study uses the Hadley Centre Global Environment Model version 2-Earth System (HadGEM-ES) climate projections to assess the dynamics in vulnerability across four climate change exposure scenarios developed using Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The analysis was carried out at subnational (district) level; the results were interpreted and reported for their corresponding agro-ecological zones. Vulnerability of each district was quantified using indicators capturing climatic variability, ecological and demographic sensitivity, and socio-economic capacity. Our analysis further assigns probabilities to vulnerability classes of all the 579 districts falling under different agro-ecological zones. The results of the vulnerability profile show that Western plains, Northern plains, and central highlands of the arid and semi-arid agro-ecological zones are the most vulnerable regions in the current scenario (1950–2000). In the future scenario (2050), it extends along districts falling within Deccan plateau and Central (Malwa) highlands, lying in the arid and semi-arid zones, along with regions vulnerable in the current scenario, recording the highest vulnerability score across all exposure scenarios. These regions exhibit highest degree of variation in climatic parameters, ecological fragility, socio-economic marginality, and limited accessibility to resources, generating conditions of high vulnerability. The study emphasizes on the priority to take up adaptive management actions in the identified vulnerable districts to not only reduce risks of climate change, but also enhance their inherent capacity to withstand any future changes in climate. It provides a systematic approach to explicitly identify vulnerable regions, where regional planners and policy makers can build on existing adaptation decision-making by utilizing an interdisciplinary approach in the context of global change scenario.     

Use of ATP Readings to Predict a Successful Hygiene Intervention in the Workplace to Reduce the Spread of Viruses on Fomites

The purpose of this study was to validate the use of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for evaluating hygiene intervention effectiveness in reducing viral dissemination in an office environment. The bacterial virus MS-2 was used to evaluate two scenarios, one where the hand of an individual was contaminated and another where a fomite was contaminated. MS-2 was selected as a model because its shape and size are similar to many human pathogenic viruses. Two separate experiments were conducted, one in which the entrance door push plate was inoculated and the other in which the hand of one selected employee was inoculated. In both scenarios, 54 selected surfaces in the office were tested to assess the dissemination of the virus within the office. Associated surface contamination was also measured employing an ATP meter. More than half of the tested hands and surfaces in the office were contaminated with MS-2 within 4 h. Next, an intervention was conducted, and each scenario was repeated. Half of the participating employees were provided hand sanitizer, facial tissues, and disinfecting wipes, and were instructed in their use. A significant (p < 0.05) reduction was observed in the number of surfaces contaminated with virus. This reduction in viral spread was evident from the results of both viral culture and the surface ATP measurements, although there was no direct correlation between ATP measurements with respect to viral concentration. Although ATP does not measure viruses, these results demonstrate that ATP measurements could be useful for evaluating the effectiveness of hygiene interventions aimed at preventing viral spread in the workplace.     

Use of Preservative Agents and Antibiotics for Increased Poliovirus Survival on Positively Charged Filters

Environmental surveillance of poliovirus (PV) and other non-enveloped viruses can help identify silent circulation and is necessary to certify eradication. The bag-mediated filtration system is an efficient method to filter large volumes of environmental waters at field sites for monitoring the presence of viruses. As filters may require long transit times to off-site laboratories for processing, viral inactivation or overgrowth of bacteria and fungi can interfere with virus detection and quantification (Miki and Jacquet in Aquatic Microb Ecol 51(2):195–208, 2008). To evaluate virus survival over time on ViroCap^? filters, the filters were seeded with PV type 1 (PV1) and/or MS2 and then dosed with preservatives or antibiotics prior to storage and elution. These filters were stored at various temperatures and time periods, and then eluted for PV1 and MS2 recovery quantification. Filters dosed with the preservative combination of 2% sodium benzoate and 0.2% calcium propionate had increased virus survival over time when stored at 25 °C, compared to samples stored at 25 °C with no preservatives. While elution within 24 h of filtration is recommended, if storage or shipping is required then this preservative mixture can help preserve sample integrity. Addition of an antibiotic cocktail containing cephapirin, gentamicin, and Proclin^? 300 increased recovery after storage at 4 and 25 °C, when compared to storage with no antibiotics. The antibiotic cocktail can aid sample preservation if access to appropriate antibiotics storage is available and sample cold chain is unreliable. This study demonstrated that the use of preservatives or antibiotics is a simple, cost-effective method to improve virus detection from ViroCap cartridge filters over time.     

Metabolomic analysis of the selection response of Drosophila melanogaster to environmental stress: are there links to gene expression and phenotypic traits?

We investigated the global metabolite response to artificial selection for tolerance to stressful conditions such as cold, heat, starvation, and desiccation, and for longevity in Drosophila melanogaster. Our findings were compared to data from other levels of biological organization, including gene expression, physiological traits, and organismal stress tolerance phenotype. Overall, we found that selection for environmental stress tolerance changes the metabolomic ¹H NMR fingerprint largely in a similar manner independent of the trait selected for, indicating that experimental evolution led to a general stress selection response at the metabolomic level. Integrative analyses across data sets showed little similarity when general correlations between selection effects at the level of the metabolome and gene expression were compared. This is likely due to the fact that the changes caused by these selection regimes were rather mild and/or that the dominating determinants for gene expression and metabolite levels were different. However, expression of a number of genes was correlated with the metabolite data. Many of the identified genes were general stress response genes that are down-regulated in response to selection for some of the stresses in this study. Overall, the results illustrate that selection markedly alters the metabolite profile and that the coupling between different levels of biological organization indeed is present though not very strong for stress selection at this level. The results highlight the extreme complexity of environmental stress adaptation and the difficulty of extrapolating and interpreting responses across levels of biological organization.     

Context dependency and generality of fever in insects

Fever can reduce mortality in infected animals. Yet, despite its fitness-enhancing qualities, fever often varies among animals. We used several approaches to examine this variation in insects. Texas field crickets (Gryllus texensis) exhibited a modest fever (1 °C increase in preferred body temperature, T _pref) after injection of prostaglandin, which putatively mediates fever in both vertebrates and invertebrates, but they did not exhibit fever during chronic exposure to heat-killed bacteria. Further, chronic food limitation and mating status did not affect T _pref or the expression of behavioural fever, suggesting limited context dependency of fever in G. texensis. Our meta-analysis of behavioural fever studies indicated that behavioural fever occurs in many insects, but it is not ubiquitous. Thus, both empirical and meta-analytical results suggest that the fever response in insects ‘is widespread, although certainly not inevitable’ (Moore 2002). We highlight the need for future work focusing on standardizing an experimental protocol to measure behavioural fever, understanding the specific mechanism(s) underlying fever in insects, and examining whether ecological or physiological costs often outweigh the benefits of fever and can explain the sporadic nature of fever in insects.     

The effect of flower-like and non-flower-like visual properties on choice of unrewarding patterns by bumblebees

How do distinct visual stimuli help bumblebees discover flowers before they have experienced any reward outside of their nest? Two visual floral properties, type of a pattern (concentric vs radial) and its position on unrewarding artificial flowers (central vs peripheral on corolla), were manipulated in two experiments. Both visual properties showed significant effects on floral choice. When pitted against each other, pattern was more important than position. Experiment 1 shows a significant effect of concentric pattern position, and experiment 2 shows a significant preference towards radial patterns regardless of their position. These results show that the presence of markings at the center of a flower are not so important as the presence of markings that will direct bees there.     

Pollination syndromes ignored: importance of non-ornithophilous flowers to Neotropical savanna hummingbirds

Generalization prevails in flower–animal interactions, and although animal visitors are not equally effective pollinators, most interactions likely represent an important energy intake for the animal visitor. Hummingbirds are nectar-feeding specialists, and many tropical plants are specialized toward hummingbird-pollination. In spite of this, especially in dry and seasonal tropical habitats, hummingbirds may often rely on non-ornithophilous plants to meet their energy requirements. However, quantitative studies evaluating the relative importance of ornithophilous vs. non-ornithophilous plants for hummingbirds in these areas are scarce. We here studied the availability and use of floral resources by hummingbirds in two different areas of the Cerrado, the seasonal savannas in Central Brazil. Roughly half the hummingbird visited plant species were non-ornithophilous, and these contributed greatly to increase the overall nectar availability. We showed that mean nectar offer, at the transect scale, was the only parameter related to hummingbird visitation frequency, more so than nectar offer at single flowers and at the plant scale, or pollination syndrome. Centrality indices, calculated using hummingbird–plant networks, showed that ornithophilous and non-ornithophilous plants have similar importance for network cohesion. How this foraging behaviour affects reproduction of non-ornithophilous plants remains largely unexplored and is probably case specific, however, we suggest that the additional energy provided by non-ornithophilous plants may facilitate reproduction of truly ornithophilous flowers by attracting and maintaining hummingbirds in the area. This may promote asymmetric hummingbird–plant associations, i.e., pollination depends on floral traits adapted to hummingbird morphology, but hummingbird visitation is determined more by the energetic "reward" than by pollination syndromes.