Do new Access and Benefit Sharing procedures under the Convention on Biological Diversity threaten the future of biological control?

Under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) countries have sovereign rights over their genetic resources. Agreements governing the access to these resources and the sharing of the benefits arising from their use need to be established between involved parties [i.e. Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS)]. This also applies to species collected for potential use in biological control. Recent applications of CBD principles have already made it difficult or impossible to collect and export natural enemies for biological control research in several countries. If such an approach is widely applied it would impede this very successful and environmentally safe pest management method based on the use of biological diversity. The CBD is required to agree a comprehensive Access and Benefit Sharing process in 2010, in preparation for which the IOBC (International Organization for Biological Control of Noxious Animals and Plants) Global Commission on Biological Control and Access and Benefit Sharing has prepared this position paper. Here, we first describe the practice of biological control in relation to the principles of ABS, illustrated extensively by case studies and successes obtained with biological control. Next, we emphasise the very limited monetary benefits generated in biological control when compared to other fields of ABS such as the collection of germplasm for development of human drugs, chemical pesticides or crop cultivars. Subsequently, we inform the biological control community of good ABS practice and challenges, and we hope to make clear to the community involved in ABS under the CBD the special situation with regard to biological control. Finally, based on the non-commercial academic research model, we make recommendations which would facilitate the practice of collection and exchange of biological control agents, propose a workable framework to assist policy makers and biological control practitioners, and urge biological control leaders in each country to get involved in the discussions with their national ABS contact point to take their needs into consideration.     

What Do You Mean, “Epigenetic”?

Interest in the field of epigenetics has increased rapidly over the last decade, with the term becoming more identifiable in biomedical research, scientific fields outside of the molecular sciences, such as ecology and physiology, and even mainstream culture. It has become increasingly clear, however, that different investigators ascribe different definitions to the term. Some employ epigenetics to explain changes in gene expression, others use it to refer to transgenerational effects and/or inherited expression states. This disagreement on a clear definition has made communication difficult, synthesis of epigenetic research across fields nearly impossible, and has in many ways biased methodologies and interpretations. This article discusses the history behind the multitude of definitions that have been employed since the conception of epigenetics, analyzes the components of these definitions, and offers solutions for clarifying the field and mitigating the problems that have arisen due to these definitional ambiguities.     

Do Horses Have a Concept of Person?

Background

Animals'' ability for cross-modal recognition has recently received much interest. Captive or domestic animals seem able to perceive cues of human attention and appear to have a multisensory perception of humans.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Here, we used a task where horses have to remain immobile under a vocal order to test whether they are sensitive to the attentional state of the experimenter, but also whether they behave and respond differently to the familiar order when tested by a familiar or an unknown person. Horses'' response varied according to the person''s attentional state when the order was given by an unknown person: obedience levels were higher when the person giving the order was looking at the horse than when he was not attentive. More interesting is the finding that whatever the condition, horses monitored much more and for longer times the unknown person, as if they were surprised to hear the familiar order given by an unknown voice.

Conclusion/Significance

These results suggest that recognition of humans may lie in a global, integrated, multisensory representation of specific individuals, that includes visual and vocal identity, but also expectations on the individual''s behaviour in a familiar situation.     

Under What Circumstances Do Wood Products from Native Forests Benefit Climate Change Mitigation?

Climate change mitigation benefits from the land sector are not being fully realised because of uncertainty and controversy about the role of native forest management. The dominant policy view, as stated in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, is that sustainable forest harvesting yielding wood products, generates the largest mitigation benefit. We demonstrate that changing native forest management from commercial harvesting to conservation can make an important contribution to mitigation. Conservation of native forests results in an immediate and substantial reduction in net emissions relative to a reference case of commercial harvesting. We calibrated models to simulate scenarios of native forest management for two Australian case studies: mixed-eucalypt in New South Wales and Mountain Ash in Victoria. Carbon stocks in the harvested forest included forest biomass, wood and paper products, waste in landfill, and bioenergy that substituted for fossil fuel energy. The conservation forest included forest biomass, and subtracted stocks for the foregone products that were substituted by non-wood products or plantation products. Total carbon stocks were lower in harvested forest than in conservation forest in both case studies over the 100-year simulation period. We tested a range of potential parameter values reported in the literature: none could increase the combined carbon stock in products, slash, landfill and substitution sufficiently to exceed the increase in carbon stock due to changing management of native forest to conservation. The key parameters determining carbon stock change under different forest management scenarios are those affecting accumulation of carbon in forest biomass, rather than parameters affecting transfers among wood products. This analysis helps prioritise mitigation activities to focus on maximising forest biomass. International forest-related policies, including negotiations under the UNFCCC, have failed to recognize fully the mitigation value of native forest conservation. Our analyses provide evidence for decision-making about the circumstances under which forest management provides mitigation benefits.     

Do we Underestimate the Importance of Leaf Size in Plant Economics? Disproportional Scaling of Support Costs Within the Spectrum of Leaf Physiognomy

BACKGROUND: Broad scaling relationships between leaf size and function do not take into account that leaves of different size may contain different fractions of support in petiole and mid-rib. METHODS: The fractions of leaf biomass in petiole, mid-rib and lamina, and the differences in chemistry and structure among mid-ribs, petioles and laminas were investigated in 122 species of contrasting leaf size, life form and climatic distribution to determine the extent to which differences in support modify whole-lamina and whole-leaf structural and chemical characteristics, and the extent to which size-dependent support investments are affected by plant life form and site climate. KEY RESULTS: For the entire data set, leaf fresh mass varied over five orders of magnitude. The percentage of dry mass in mid-rib increased strongly with lamina size, reaching more than 40 % in the largest laminas. The whole-leaf percentage of mid-rib and petiole increased with leaf size, and the overall support investment was more than 60 % in the largest leaves. Fractional support investments were generally larger in herbaceous than in woody species and tended to be lower in Mediterranean than in cool temperate and tropical plants. Mid-ribs and petioles had lower N and C percentages, and lower dry to fresh mass ratio, but greater density (mass per unit volume) than laminas. N percentage of lamina without mid-rib was up to 40 % higher in the largest leaves than the total-lamina (lamina and mid-rib) N percentage, and up to 60 % higher than whole-leaf N percentage, while lamina density calculated without mid-rib was up to 80 % less than that with the mid-rib. For all leaf compartments, N percentage was negatively associated with density and dry to fresh mass ratio, while C percentage was positively linked to these characteristics, reflecting the overall inverse scaling between structural and physiological characteristics. However, the correlations between N and C percentages and structural characteristics differed among mid-ribs, petioles and laminas, implying that the mass-weighted average leaf N and C percentage, density, and dry to fresh mass ratio can have different functional values depending on the importance of within-leaf support investments. CONCLUSIONS: These data demonstrate that variation in leaf size is associated with major changes in within-leaf support investments and in large modifications in integrated leaf chemical and structural characteristics. These size-dependent alterations can importantly affect general leaf structure vs. function scaling relationships. These data further demonstrate important life-form effects on and climatic differentiation in foliage support costs.     

What is the function of the claustrum?

The claustrum is a thin, irregular, sheet-like neuronal structure hidden beneath the inner surface of the neocortex in the general region of the insula. Its function is enigmatic. Its anatomy is quite remarkable in that it receives input from almost all regions of cortex and projects back to almost all regions of cortex. We here briefly summarize what is known about the claustrum, speculate on its possible relationship to the processes that give rise to integrated conscious percepts, propose mechanisms that enable information to travel widely within the claustrum and discuss experiments to address these questions.     

Multisensory Control of Multimodal Behavior: Do the Legs Know What the Tongue Is Doing?

Understanding of adaptive behavior requires the precisely controlled presentation of multisensory stimuli combined with simultaneous measurement of multiple behavioral modalities. Hence, we developed a virtual reality apparatus that allows for simultaneous measurement of reward checking, a commonly used measure in associative learning paradigms, and navigational behavior, along with precisely controlled presentation of visual, auditory and reward stimuli. Rats performed a virtual spatial navigation task analogous to the Morris maze where only distal visual or auditory cues provided spatial information. Spatial navigation and reward checking maps showed experience-dependent learning and were in register for distal visual cues. However, they showed a dissociation, whereby distal auditory cues failed to support spatial navigation but did support spatially localized reward checking. These findings indicate that rats can navigate in virtual space with only distal visual cues, without significant vestibular or other sensory inputs. Furthermore, they reveal the simultaneous dissociation between two reward-driven behaviors.     

What Does It Mean to Be Musical?

Music can be seen as a model system for understanding gene × environment interactions and how these can influence neurocognitive development. The concept of musicality, however, is underspecified and not well understood. Here, I propose a framework for defining musicality to provide a foundation for studying the contributions of biological and environmental factors.     

What to Do with Race? Changing Notions of Race in the Social Sciences

The Supplement to the Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health documents that race, ethnicity, and culture are linked to the use of mental health services and the receipt of quality mental health care. The Supplement provides an elaborate discussion on how culture affects mental health care without a corresponding level of discourse on race. How race is handled in the Supplement suggests that it is still a sensitive topic and one that is difficult to address in a public report. This sensitivity parallels the difficulties that the social sciences have had in investigating issues of race. In this paper, we highlight some perspectives that have influenced the way race has been studied in the past and how these views reflect the general political climates of the eras that produced them.     

C-Reactive Protein and Hemogram Parameters for the Non-Sepsis Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome and Sepsis: What Do They Mean?

Objectives

Sepsis is one of the most common reasons of increased mortality and morbidity in the intensive care unit. The changes in CRP levels and hemogram parameters and their combinations may help to distinguish sepsis from non-sepsis SIRS. The aim of this study is to investigate the CRP and hemogram parameters as an indicator of sepsis.

Methods

A total of 2777 patients admitted to the ICU of two centers between 2006–2013 were evaluated retrospectively. The patients were diagnosed as SIRS (-), non-sepsis SIRS and sepsis. The patients who were under 18 years old, re-admitted, diagnosed with hematological disease, on corticosteroid and immunosuppressive therapy, SIRS (-), culture negative, undocumented laboratory values and outcomes were excluded. 1257 patients were divided into 2 groups as non-sepsis SIRS and sepsis. The patients’ demographic data, CRP levels, hemogram parameters, length of ICU stay and mortality were recorded.

Results

1257 patients were categorized as non-sepsis SIRS (816, 64.9%) and sepsis (441, 35.1%). In the multivariate analysis, the likelihood of sepsis was increased 3.2 (2.2–4.6), 1.7 (1.2–2.4), 1.6 (1.2–2.1), 2.3 (1.4–3.8), 1.5 (1.1–2.1) times by the APACHE II≥13, SOFA score≥4, CRP≥4.0, Lym_C<0.45 and PLT_C<150 respectively (p<0.001 p = 0.007 p = 0.004 p<0.001 p = 0.027). The likelihood of sepsis was increased 18.1 (8.4–38.7) times by the combination of CRP≥4.0, lym_C<0.45 and PLT_C<150 (P<0.001).

Conclusions

While WBC_C, Neu_C, Neu%, NLCR and Eo_C are far from being the indicators to distinguish sepsis from non-sepsis SIRS, the combinations of CRP, Lym_C and PLT_C can be used to determine the likelihood of sepsis.