Survey of treatment of primary breast cancer in Great Britain.

A postal survey of current management of breast cancer among surgeons in Great Britain was carried out. The results showed that there is no consensus among surgeons about the treatment of primary breast cancer. Many different types of primary surgery are practised, and patterns of referral for postoperative radiotherapy vary widely. Adjuvant systemic treatment is given often by some surgeons and not at all by others. Few patients are entered into controlled randomised trials.     

Review of Canadian species of the genera Gnathusa Fenyes,Mniusa Mulsant & Rey and Ocyusa Kraatz (Coleoptera,Staphylinidae, Aleocharinae)

Four species of Gnathusa Fenyes (G. alfacaribou Klimaszewski & Langor, G. caribou Lohse, G. eva Fenyes, and G. tenuicornis Fenyes) occur in the Nearctic and in Canada. Three species of Ocyusa Kraatz (O. asperula Casey, O. californica Bernhauer, O. canadensis Lohse), and three species of Mniusa Mulsant and Ray (M. minutissima (Klimaszewski & Langor), M. yukonensis (Klimaszewski & Godin), and M. odelli Klimaszewski & Webster, sp. n.), are known from the Nearctic and all but O. californica occur in Canada. The recently described Gnathusa minutissima Klimaszewski and Langor and Ocyusa yukonensis Klimaszewski and Godin, are transferred here to the genus Mniusa Mulsant & Rey. New provincial and state records are reported for: G. eva (Alberta), G. tenuicornis (Alberta, Oregon, and New Brunswick), O. canadensis (New Brunswick and Newfoundland), M. minutissima (New Brunswick), and M. yukonensis (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and British Columbia). The female of M. yukonensis was discovered and is illustrated for the first time. The genus Mniusa is reported for the first time from Canada and represents the first confirmed generic record for North America. Keys for identification of all Canadian species, images of body and genital structures, maps showing distribution mainly in Canada, and new bionomics data are provided.     

Displacement sensors in the honeybee pollen basket

The mechanical importance of different groups of corbicular setae to the formation and maintenance of the pollen load was established through ablation experiments. The neurophysiological characteristics of corbicular setae were investigated and it was found that there are three types of response to mechanical displacement of individual setae. At least some of the anterior corbicular setae behave as linear displacement sensors and are capable of measuring the size of the forming pollen load during foraging.     

Large Differences in Livelihood Responses and Outcomes to Increased Conservation Enforcement in a Protected Area

Human Ecology - Despite the popularity of integrated conservation and development approaches to protected area management, adjacent communities increasingly face livelihood dilemmas. Yet...     

Intraspecific trait variability shapes leaf trait response to altered fire regimes

Background and AimsUnderstanding impacts of altered disturbance regimes on community structure and function is a key goal for community ecology. Functional traits link species composition to ecosystem functioning. Changes in the distribution of functional traits at community scales in response to disturbance can be driven not only by shifts in species composition, but also by shifts in intraspecific trait values. Understanding the relative importance of these two processes has important implications for predicting community responses to altered disturbance regimes.MethodsWe experimentally manipulated fire return intervals in replicated blocks of a fire-adapted, longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) ecosystem in North Carolina, USA and measured specific leaf area (SLA), leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and compositional responses along a lowland to upland gradient over a 4 year period. Plots were burned between zero and four times. Using a trait-based approach, we simulate hypothetical scenarios which allow species presence, abundance or trait values to vary over time and compare these with observed traits to understand the relative contributions of each of these three processes to observed trait patterns at the study site. We addressed the following questions. (1) How do changes in the fire regime affect community composition, structure and community-level trait responses? (2) Are these effects consistent across a gradient of fire intensity? (3) What are the relative contributions of species turnover, changes in abundance and changes in intraspecific trait values to observed changes in community-weighted mean (CWM) traits in response to altered fire regime?Key ResultsWe found strong evidence that altered fire return interval impacted understorey plant communities. The number of fires a plot experienced significantly affected the magnitude of its compositional change and shifted the ecotone boundary separating shrub-dominated lowland areas from grass-dominated upland areas, with suppression sites (0 burns) experiencing an upland shift and annual burn sites a lowland shift. We found significant effects of burn regimes on the CWM of SLA, and that observed shifts in both SLA and LDMC were driven primarily by intraspecific changes in trait values.ConclusionsIn a fire-adapted ecosystem, increased fire frequency altered community composition and structure of the ecosystem through changes in the position of the shrub line. We also found that plant traits responded directionally to increased fire frequency, with SLA decreasing in response to fire frequency across the environmental gradient. For both SLA and LDMC, nearly all of the observed changes in CWM traits were driven by intraspecific variation.     

Development of a multi-excitation fluorescence (MEF) imaging method to improve the information content of benthic coral reef surveys

Benthic surveys are a key component of monitoring and conservation efforts for coral reefs worldwide. While traditional image-based surveys rely on manual annotation of photographs to characterise benthic composition, automatic image annotation based on computer vision is becoming increasingly common. However, accurate classification of some benthic groups from reflectance images presents a challenge to local ecologists and computers alike. Most coral reef organisms produce one or a combination of fluorescent pigments, such as Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)-like proteins found in corals, chlorophyll-a found in all photosynthetic organisms, and phycobiliproteins found in red macroalgae, crustose coralline algae (CCA) and cyanobacteria. Building on the potential of these pigments as a target for automatic image annotation, we developed a novel imaging method based on off-the-shelf components to improve classification of coral and other biotic substrates using a multi-excitation fluorescence (MEF) imaging system. We used RGB cameras to image the fluorescence emission of coral and algal pigments stimulated by narrow-waveband blue and green light, and then combined the information into three-channel pseudocolour images. Using a set of a priori rules defined by the relative pixel intensity produced in different channels, the method achieved successful classification of organisms into three categories based on the dominant fluorescent pigment expressed, facilitating discrimination of traditionally problematic groups. This work provides a conceptual foundation for future technological developments that will improve the cost, accuracy and speed of coral reef surveys.