Contrasting population changes in sympatric penguin species in association with climate warming

Climate warming and associated sea ice reductions in Antarctica have modified habitat conditions for some species. These include the congeneric Adélie, chinstrap and gentoo penguins, which now demonstrate remarkable population responses to regional warming. However, inconsistencies in the direction of population changes between species at different study sites complicate the understanding of causal processes. Here, we show that at the South Orkney Islands where the three species breed sympatrically, the less ice‐adapted gentoo penguins increased significantly in numbers over the last 26 years, whereas chinstrap and Adélie penguins both declined. These trends occurred in parallel with regional long‐term warming and significant reduction in sea ice extent. Periodical warm events, with teleconnections to the tropical Pacific, caused cycles in sea ice leading to reduced prey biomass, and simultaneous interannual population decreases in the three penguin species. With the loss of sea ice, Adélie penguins were less buffered against the environment, their numbers fluctuated greatly and their population response was strong and linear. Chinstrap penguins, considered to be better adapted to ice‐free conditions, were affected by discrete events of locally increased ice cover, but showed less variable, nonlinear responses to sea ice loss. Gentoo penguins were temporarily affected by negative anomalies in regional sea ice, but persistent sea ice reductions were likely to increase their available niche, which is likely to be substantially segregated from that of their more abundant congeners. Thus, the regional consequences of global climate perturbations on the sea ice phenology affect the marine ecosystem, with repercussions for penguin food supply and competition for resources. Ultimately, variability in penguin populations with warming reflects the local balance between penguin adaptation to ice conditions and trophic‐mediated changes cascading from global climate forcing.     

Women cancers in India: Incidence,trends and their clinical extent from the National Cancer Registry Programme

BackgroundTo provide a comprehensive assessment of women cancer in India utilizing the systematically collected data on all cancers by the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP).MethodsThe study examined 10,2287 cancer cases among women cancers providing cancer burden for major anatomical sites. Aggregated data of 28 PBCRs and 58 HBCRs under NCRP for 2012–16 was analysed for incidence rates, trends, cumulative risk of developing cancer, stage at detection and treatments offered.ResultsStudy results have found region –wide variation of women cancers by indicating highest proportions in western followed by southern region of India. North-Eastern region had lowest proportion. It was observed that breast is highest ranking cancer in most registry areas of urban agglomerations of country while cancer cervix was leading site in registries of rural areas like Barshi (15.3) and Osmanabad &Beed (13.1). States of Mizoram (23.2) and Tripura (9.5) along with Pasighat, Cachar and Nagaland. Median age of occurrence for women for these anatomical sites ranged from 45 to 60 years of age. For cancer breast, cervix and ovary –most cases were detected with regional spread. These findings were different for cancer corpus uteri where registries have reported higher proportions (49.3 %) of localized stage at detection. Loco regional cancers had higher proportions of multimodality treatments.ConclusionStudy provides a foundation for assessing the status of women cancers in the country. Variations between geographies would guide appropriate support for action to strengthen efforts to improve cancer prevention and control in underserved areas of the country. This would facilitate advocacy for better investments and research on women cancers.     

A comparative analysis reveals weak relationships between ecological factors and beta diversity of stream insect metacommunities at two spatial levels

The hypotheses that beta diversity should increase with decreasing latitude and increase with spatial extent of a region have rarely been tested based on a comparative analysis of multiple datasets, and no such study has focused on stream insects. We first assessed how well variability in beta diversity of stream insect metacommunities is predicted by insect group, latitude, spatial extent, altitudinal range, and dataset properties across multiple drainage basins throughout the world. Second, we assessed the relative roles of environmental and spatial factors in driving variation in assemblage composition within each drainage basin. Our analyses were based on a dataset of 95 stream insect metacommunities from 31 drainage basins distributed around the world. We used dissimilarity‐based indices to quantify beta diversity for each metacommunity and, subsequently, regressed beta diversity on insect group, latitude, spatial extent, altitudinal range, and dataset properties (e.g., number of sites and percentage of presences). Within each metacommunity, we used a combination of spatial eigenfunction analyses and partial redundancy analysis to partition variation in assemblage structure into environmental, shared, spatial, and unexplained fractions. We found that dataset properties were more important predictors of beta diversity than ecological and geographical factors across multiple drainage basins. In the within‐basin analyses, environmental and spatial variables were generally poor predictors of variation in assemblage composition. Our results revealed deviation from general biodiversity patterns because beta diversity did not show the expected decreasing trend with latitude. Our results also call for reconsideration of just how predictable stream assemblages are along ecological gradients, with implications for environmental assessment and conservation decisions. Our findings may also be applicable to other dynamic systems where predictability is low.     

Dominant climate influences on North American bird distributions

Aim Geographic distributions of species are constrained by several factors acting at different scales, with climate assumed to be a major determinant at broad extents. Recent studies, however, have challenged this statement and indicated that climate may not dominate among the factors governing geographic distributions of species. Here, we argue that these results are misleading due to the lack of consideration of the geographic area that has been accessible to the species. Location North America. Methods We generated null distributions for 75 North American endemic and 19 non‐endemic bird species. For each species, climatic envelopes of observed and null distributions were modelled using neural networks and generalized linear models, and seven climatic predictors. Values of the area under the receiver–operating characteristic curve (AUC) based on models of observed distributions were compared with corresponding AUC values for the null distributions. Results More than 82% of the endemic species showed AUC higher for the observed than for the null distributions, while 63% of the non‐endemic species showed such a pattern. Main conclusions We demonstrate a dominant climatic signal in shaping North American bird distributions. Our results attest to the importance of climate in determining species distributions and support the use of climate‐envelope models for estimating potential distributional areas at the appropriate spatial scales.     

Procedural Steps in Human Risk Assessment for Contaminated Sites: An Italian Case-Study Application with the ARA-CoSSSLs Approach

Within the increased attention to the absolute risk assessment for potentially contaminated sites at the Italian level, the definable ARA-CoS_SSLs modeling approach for human health protection was recently derived with predominant reference to the USEPA SSLs procedure. The basic aim of the ARA-CoS_SSLs applications regards the possible technical-scientific improvement and better understanding of significant aspects in carrying out the human risk assessment at a given site. Particularly, the final reliability of the human risk assessment depends on the scientific plausibility of the procedural steps implemented during the elaboration of the available site investigation and information data. In this perspective, this article deals with the procedural elaboration steps conceived and implemented for the ARA-CoS_SSLs case-study application at a potentially contaminated subarea of a major Italian priority industrial site. Specific indications and aspects are addressed in the paper on the following procedural steps: (1) the usefulness of selection criteria for contaminants of concern; (2) the consideration of the possible soil gas loss (during drilling and/or sampling and/or analytical operations) for a reliable definition of subsurface representative concentrations for organic contaminants; (3) the geostatistical definition of the site areal extent, with a proposed conservative scenario in case of sparse spatial concentration data.