Development of a Specific Anti-capsid Antibody- and Magnetic Bead-Based Immunoassay to Detect Human Norovirus Particles in Stool Samples and Spiked Mussels via Flow Cytometry

Food and Environmental Virology - Human noroviruses impose a considerable health burden globally. Here, a flow cytometry approach designed for their detection in biological waste and food samples...     

(Z)-Dodec-3-en-1-ol, a common major component of the trail-following pheromone in the termites Kalotermitidae

(Z)-Dodec-3-en-1-ol has been identified as the major component of the trail-following pheromone of nine species of Kalotermitidae belonging to six different genera, suggesting that this compound represents a common signal in this family of termites. The homogeneous nature of trail-following pheromones of Kalotermitidae well agrees with the monophyly of this family. It also supports the postulated position of this family as a sister group of the Rhinotermitidae and Termitidae, which also secrete C12-alcohols as trail-following pheromones. The significance of a trail pheromone in termites of the ‘one-piece’ life type, which spend their whole life within the same piece of wood, is discussed.     

Pruning waste management and climate change in Sierra Mágina’s olive groves (Andalusia,Spain)

Regional Environmental Change - In the context of climate change, concern is raising about the negative effects of some pruning waste management practices. On the one hand, burning of pruning...     

A new C12 alcohol identified as a sex pheromone and a trail-following pheromone in termites: the diene (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Z</Emphasis>,<Emphasis Type="Italic">Z</Emphasis>)-dodeca-3,6-dien-1-ol

The diunsaturated C12 alcohol (Z,Z)-dodeca-3,6-dien-1-ol (dodecadienol) has been characterized by GC-MS and FTIR as a novel releaser pheromone in termites. This alcohol identified in Ancistrotermes pakistanicus (Termitidae, Macrotermitinae) possesses a double pheromonal function which again illustrates the chemical parsimony of termites compared with other social insects. In workers, dodecadienol elicits trail-following at a very low concentration (activity threshold at 0.1 pg/cm of trail); in male alates it induces trail-following at a low concentration (1–10 pg/cm) and sexual attraction at a higher concentration (about 1 ng). Traces of the monounsaturated C12 alcohol (Z)-dodec-3-en-1-ol (dodecenol), known as a trail pheromone of several Macrotermitinae, were also found in the sternal gland extracts of A. pakistanicus, although only dodecadienol was present at the surface of the sternal gland. Workers of A. pakistanicus are not sensitive to dodecenol, but they are as sensitive to dodecatrienol as to dodecadienol. However, in the study area (Vietnam), A. pakistanicus is living in sympatry only with those Macrotermitinae using dodecenol as a trail pheromone, the foraging populations therefore being well isolated through their respective trail pheromones. The presence of three types of unsaturated C12 alcohols as releaser pheromones in the only Macrotermitinae subfamily is discussed, and a possible biosynthetic pathway from linoleic acid is proposed for dodecadienol.     

Sexual conflict over sperm ejection in monogamous pairs of kittiwakes<Emphasis Type="Italic"> Rissa tridactyla</Emphasis>

Socially monogamous partners suffer conflicting interests concerning various aspects of reproduction such as parental care, copulation and fertilization. Female black-legged kittiwakes commonly eject their mates' sperm immediately following copulations. Because sperm ejection reduces male sperm competitiveness and paternity assurance, males and females have conflicting interests as regards sperm ejection. Males whose mates ejected their sperm at least once remained longer on their mates' backs after the last insemination which apparently prevented the females from ejecting sperm. These results suggest that compelling females to retain their sperm may be a previously unidentified tactic employed by males to assure their paternity. Females tried to prevent their mates from witnessing sperm ejection by ejecting sperm after their mates departed from the nest. Females were more likely to eject sperm when they terminated the copulations by unbalancing the male. The conflict over sperm ejection was related to the ability of the females to end the copulations which covaried with the body mass of their mates. These findings suggest that conflicts in monogamous pairs also exist over the disposition of sperm.Communicated by C.R. Brown     

Correction to: Assessing local climate vulnerability and winegrowers’ adaptive processes in the context of climate change

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change - Section 3.4.2: Reference “Nicholas and Durham 2012” should have been cited in the last sentence. That is “Using a list of...     

FMEA and consideration of real work situations for safer design of production systems

Production equipment designers must ensure the health and safety of future users; in this regard, they augment requirements for standardizing and controlling operator work. This contrasts with the ergonomic view of the activity, which recommends leaving operators leeway (margins for manoeuvre) in performing their task, while safeguarding their health. Following a brief analysis of design practices in the car industry, we detail how the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) approach is implemented in this sector. We then suggest an adaptation that enables designers to consider real work situations. This new protocol, namely, work situation FMEA, allows experience feedback to be used to defend the health standpoint during designer project reviews, which usually only address quality and performance issues. We subsequently illustrate the advantage of this approach using two examples of work situations at car parts manufacturers: the first from the literature and the second from an in-company industrial project.     

Virucidal Efficacy of a Hydrogen Peroxide Nebulization Against Murine Norovirus and Feline Calicivirus,Two Surrogates of Human Norovirus

Human noroviruses (HuNoV) are amongst the leading causes of acute non-bacterial gastroenteritis in humans and can be transmitted via person-to-person contact, via contact with contaminated surfaces or by consumption of contaminated food. Contaminated surfaces in healthcare settings contribute to the transmission of viruses. No-touch automated room disinfection systems might prevent such a spread of contamination and thus their virucidal effect needs to be evaluated. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of a nebulization system spraying hydrogen peroxide on two main surrogates of HuNoV, namely murine norovirus (MNV) and feline calicivirus (FCV). The viruses were dried on cover glasses and on stainless steel discs and exposed to nebulization. The number of infectious viral particles and genomic copies before and after the nebulization was compared. The efficacy in reducing infectivity of both surrogates was demonstrated. For the infectious viral titre of MNV and FCV, a log₁₀ reduction factor ≥4.84 and 4.85 was observed after nebulization, respectively, for tests on cover glasses and ≥3.90 and 5.30, respectively, for tests on stainless steel discs. Only low reductions in genomic copy numbers were observed for both surrogates. The nebulization of hydrogen peroxide showed a clear virucidal effect on both HuNoV surrogates, MNV and FCV, on two different carriers and the use of nebulization should be promoted in complementarity with conventional disinfection methods in healthcare settings and food processing facilities to reduce viral load and spread of contamination.     

Modelling spatial zero-inflated continuous data with an exponentially compound Poisson process

A parsimonious model is presented as an alternative to delta approaches to modelling zero-inflated continuous data. The data model relies on an exponentially compound Poisson process, also called the law of leaks (LOL). It represents the process of sampling resources that are spatially distributed as Poisson distributed patches, each containing a certain quantity of biomass drawn from an exponential distribution. In an application of the LOL, two latent structures are proposed to account for spatial dependencies between zero values at different scales within a hierarchical Bayesian framework. The LOL is compared to the delta-gamma (ΔΓ) distribution using bottom-trawl survey data. Results of this case study emphasize that the LOL provides slightly better fits to learning samples with a very high proportion of zero values and small strictly positive abundance data. Additionally, it offers better predictions of validation samples.     

Ecological Impact Assessment in Data-Poor Systems: A Case Study on Metapopulation Persistence

Legislation on the protection of biodiversity (e.g., European Union Habitat and Bird Directives) increasingly requires ecological impact assessment of human activities. However, knowledge and understanding of relevant ecological processes and species responses to different types of impact are often incomplete. In this paper we demonstrate with a case study how impact assessment can be carried out for situations where data are scarce but some expert knowledge is available. The case study involves two amphibian species, the great crested newt (Triturus cristatus) and the natterjack toad (Bufo calamita) in the nature reserve the Meinweg in the Netherlands, for which plans are being developed to reopen an old railway track called the Iron Rhine. We assess the effects of this railway track and its proposed alternatives (scenarios) on the metapopulation extinction time and the occupancy times of the patches for both species using a discrete-time stochastic metapopulation model. We quantify the model parameters using expert knowledge and extrapolated data. Because of our uncertainty about these parameter values, we perform a Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis. This yields an estimate of the probability distribution of the model predictions and insight into the contribution of each distinguished source of uncertainty to this probability distribution. We show that with a simple metapopulation model and an extensive uncertainty analysis it is possible to detect the least harmful scenario. The ranking of the different scenarios is consistent. Thus, uncertainty analysis can enhance the role of ecological impact assessment in decision making by making explicit to what extent incomplete knowledge affects predictions.