Detection and Phylogenetic Analysis of the Hepatitis E Virus in a Canadian Swine Production Network

Viral contamination along the production chain is a significant concern in both food safety and livestock health. Pigs have been reported to act as a reservoir for zoonotic viruses, sometimes emerging ones, and epidemiological studies have shown direct links between the consumption of uncooked pork offal and cases of hepatitis caused by the hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 3 in humans. The presence of HEV in swine herds has been reported, but its dissemination in pork production environments is still unknown. To investigate viral contamination sources in the swine industry, 452 environment and fecal samples, including samples from livestock transportation vehicles, were collected over a period of 11 months from ten farms and one slaughterhouse that together represent a single production network. Hepatitis E virus RNA was detected by nested RT-PCR in 32 samples from both inside and outside farm buildings, on trucks, and, mostly, from fomites collected in the slaughterhouse yard, such as on a utility vehicle. Phylogenetic analysis showed a wide diversity of HEV genotype 3 strains, similar to human and swine strains previously found. According to the results of this study, the movements of trucks and utility vehicles might play an important role in HEV dissemination on a slaughterhouse site and throughout an entire network.     

Rank-dependent hoarding effort in willow tits (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Parus montanus</Emphasis>): a test of theoretical predictions

Many birds and mammals store energy as hoarded food supplies. A supply of stored food is beneficial during periods when food is scarce, but building up and managing such a supply also entails costs. The optimal number of caches will be reached when the net benefit is at its maximum. If dominants can steal more stored food from subordinates than the other way around, the optimum will differ between these categories. A previous theoretical model of hoarding in groups with dominant and subordinate members produced three testable predictions: (1) hoarders should store more food as anticipated future conditions get worse; (2) subordinate flock members should store more food than dominants; and (3) dominants should increase hoarding relatively more than subordinates as conditions get worse. Here we present a field experiment on willow tits (Parus montanus) designed to test these predictions. We found support for all three. Hoarding increased as conditions got worse, subordinates stored at a higher rate than dominants, and dominants increased their hoarding effort relatively more than subordinates as conditions worsened. These results support the incorporation of information on dominance and food availability into models predicting food storage behaviour.Communciated by J. Dickinson     

The Relationship Between Exposure to Arsenic Concentrations in Drinking Water and the Development of Skin Lesions in Farmers from Inner Mongolia, China

Associations between the concentration of arsenic naturally occurring in drinking water and the development of skin lesions in people have been documented for some years at various locations around the world. Data on the exposure-response relationship between concentrations of arsenic in drinking water and prevalence of skin lesions in farmers from five locations in Inner Mongolia, China have been collected from the original publications and re-analysed together as a meta-study. The calculated data show a positive linear exposure-response relationship without a threshold. The reasons for this linear correlation are discussed and compared with the data from Xinjiang, another arsenism area located in a different geographical area of China. Here a different relationship was recorded that involved a threshold concentration before skin lesions developed. The significance of these two different exposure-response scenarios is discussed.     

Application of ‘Landsat’ data to resource management

Over the past few years, a great deal of interest has been focused on the use of remote sensing for resource management. This paper examines one of the most useful systems — Landsat. Included in this paper is a discussion of this remote-sensing technology, its application and its future as a tool for resources planning and management.     

Song repertoires and density assessment in red-winged blackbirds: further tests of the Beau Geste hypothesis

Summary The Beau Geste hypothesis proposes that song repertoires are advantageous in territory defense because nonterritorial males, who are prospecting for territories, use the number of song types they hear to assess the density of territorial males, and then avoid densely-settled areas. A territorial male can then inflate the apparent density of singers on his territory by singing several distinct song type. This hypothesis assumes (1) a positive correlation between the density of song types and the density of territorial males, and (2) a negative correlation between the rate of trespassing and the densities of both song types and territorial males. We studied the behavior of male red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) and found support for the first, but not the second, assumption. Results showing a positive correlation between density of song types and density of territorial males show that the proposed method of density assessment is feasible in this species. However, we could find no support for the assumption that nonterritorial male red-winged blackbirds avoid densely settled areas. In contrast to the assumed negative correlation, rate of trespass per territory was not consistently correlated with male density, and trespass rate per unit area was positively correlated with male density. Further, these relationships were retained when we controlled statistically for the effects of territory quality. We conclude that prospecting male red-winged blackbirds to not attempt to avoid densely settled areas, and that, although they do avoid territories defended by many song types, they do not use song type density to assess the density of territorial males. It is thus unlikely that the Beau Geste hypothesis adequately accounts for the evolution of song repertoires in the red-winged blackbird.     

北京春季城区与远郊区不同大气粒径颗粒物中水溶性离子的分布特征

为比较北京城区与远郊区大气颗粒物中水溶性无机离子的组成特征,2012年4月,利用Andersen分级撞击式采样器同时在2个采样点进行大气颗粒物分级采样,样品采用离子色谱分析.结果表明,城区和上甸子大气颗粒物中水溶性无机离子总浓度分别为(83.7±48.9)μg·m-3和(75.5±52.9)μg·m-3,NO-3、SO2-4和NH+4是最主要的水溶性无机离子,分别占总离子浓度的81.2%和84.2%.粒径分布显示,Mg2+和Ca2+在5.8～9.0μm的粒径范围出现峰值,Na+、NH+4、Cl-在0.43～1.1μm和4.7～9.0μm的粒径范围出现双峰,K+、NO-3和SO2-4在0.65～2.1μm的粒径范围出现峰值.后向轨迹簇分析表明,气团来自南方时,城区和上甸子二次离子浓度分别为(92.4±40.0)μg·m-3和(95.0±35.4)μg·m-3,来自其他方向时,分别为(24.0±10.8)μg·m-3和(13.3±10.6)μg·m-3.     

Worker drift and egg dumping by queens in wild Bombus terrestris colonies

Wild bumblebee colonies are hard to find and often inaccessible, so there have been few studies of the genetic structure of bumblebees within natural colonies, and hence, it is not clear how frequently events such as worker reproduction, worker drift and queen usurpation take place. This study aimed to quantify the occurrence of natal-worker reproduction, worker drift and drifter reproduction within 14 wild colonies of Bombus terrestris in Central Scotland. Four unlinked microsatellites were used to identify patterns of relatedness of the colonies’ adults and broods. In colonies with queens (queenright colonies), worker reproduction accounted for just 0.83 % of males, increasing to 12.11 % in queenless colonies. Four colonies contained a total of six workers which were not daughters of the queen, and were assumed to be drifters, and four male offspring of drifters. Drifting is clearly not common and results in few drifter offspring overall, although drifters produced approximately seven times more offspring per capita than workers that remained in their natal colony. Unexpectedly, two colonies contained clusters of sister workers and juvenile offspring that were not sisters to the rest of the adults or brood found in the colonies, demonstrating probable egg dumping by queens. A third colony contained a queen which was not a sister or daughter to the other bees in the colony. Although usurping of bumblebee colonies by queens in early season is well documented, this appears to be the first record of egg dumping, and it remains unclear whether it is being carried out by old queens or newly mated young queens.     

How age and sex drive the foraging behaviour in the king penguin

As predicted by life history theory, once recruited into the breeding population and with increasing age, long-lived animals should be able to manage more efficiently the conflict between self-maintenance and reproduction. Consequently, breeding performances should improve with age before stabilizing at a certain level. Using temperature–depth recorders and isotopic analysis, we tested how age affects the foraging behaviour of king penguin Aptenodytes patagonicus during one trip in the chick-rearing phase. Depending on sex and age, king penguins expressed two different foraging strategies. Older birds gained more daily mass per unit body mass than younger ones. Older females conducted shorter trips, dived deeper and performed more prey pursuits. They also had higher blood levels of δ¹⁵N than younger individuals and males indicating sex- and age-specific dietary regimes. However, we found no differences in carbon isotopic signature, suggesting that individuals exploited the same foraging areas independently of sex and age. Our results suggest that king penguins are able to increase the quantity of energy extracted with increasing age and that such a strategy is sex-related. Our study is the first to reveal of an interaction between age and sex in determining foraging efficiency in king penguins.     

NGOs come and go but business continues: lessons from co-management institutional arrangements for governance of the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve in Kenya

The objective of this paper is to examine the current institutional arrangements for governance of the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve (ASFR) and show their major contribution in the ASFR co-management business of conserving the forest and providing livelihoods to the poor forest-dependent communities. Despite the fact that funding from non-governmental organizations ended, the ASFR co-management business did not stall. The institutional arrangements for co-management were deemed to be the major component that contributed to the continuation of the ASFR co-management business. To demonstrate this hypothesis, the paper explores four main areas that shape the institutional arrangement of the ASFR co-management regime, informed by common property theories: (1) how governance arrangement structures for the ASFR are organized; (2) villagers’ perceptions and awareness of the co-management structure; (3) co-management arrangement for access, ownership and use of the various forest resources; and (4) importance of the forest resources to the households. The co-management piloting and non-piloting communities adjacent to the forest and who have been depending on the forest as a source of their livelihoods are compared in order to understand the role of the ASFR co-management institutional arrangements in the sustainability of its business.     

Determining the diet of larvae of the red rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) using high-throughput DNA sequencing techniques

The diet of Jasus edwardsii during its ~2-year larval (phyllosoma) phase is largely unknown. High mortalities experienced during larviculture might be reduced if their diet were nutritionally modelled on the natural diet. Here, prey species were identified from phyllosoma midgut glands using 454 pyrosequencing of 18S rDNA. We found that gelatinous zooplankton, particularly Siphonophora and Ctenophora, occurred frequently in the midgut glands of phyllosomas, resolving previous conjecture that these animals are in the diet of J. edwardsii phyllosomas. A high occurrence of sequencing reads from unicellular microbes may also reflect a reliance on scavenging detritus.