Agroecosystems and conservation of migratory waterbirds: importance of coastal pastures and factors influencing their use by wintering shorebirds

Coastal pastures are common agroecosystems adjacent to estuarine areas that can provide valuable habitat for wildlife, particularly for migratory shorebirds. Disentangling the factors that influence coastal pasture use by wintering shorebirds will provide new insights into its role for buffering human disturbances and habitat loss in intertidal areas. We examined whether numbers of two shorebirds (Eurasian curlew and Black-tailed godwit) foraging actively on coastal pastures was affected by weather conditions, tidal stage (low/high tide) and number of harvesters at intertidal areas throughout winter. Both species frequently used coastal pastures and most individuals foraged actively there. The average percentage of the total wintering population of curlews and godwits foraging on coastal pastures was 27.4 and 7.8 %, respectively, and was significantly higher during high tide compared to low tide. The number of harvesters on mudflats also had a positive significant effect in explaining the presence of curlews, and to a lesser extent for godwits, on coastal pastures, and accumulated rainfall had a positive effect for both species too. These supratidal areas were consistently used as alternative foraging grounds during low tide by curlews, as well as supplementary foraging areas during high tide by wintering populations of both large shorebirds. By supplementary foraging, wintering curlews, and probably godwits, seemed to compensate for a negative effect of the presence of harvesters on their foraging activity. We recommend managing of those coastal agricultural fields adjacent to intertidal foraging grounds in order to increase the availability of supratidal foraging habitats for declining shorebird populations. These habitats may thus have a beneficial role in sustaining populations of wintering shorebirds, but further studies are needed to estimate if birds can compensate for any shortfall in daily energy budget by supplementary foraging on coastal pastures, thus providing insights into whether they are involved in large-scale population regulation of migratory birds.     

Marker-assisted introgression (MAI) of almond genes into the peach background: a fast method to mine and integrate novel variation from exotic sources in long intergeneration species

This paper proposes a new breeding strategy, marker-assisted introgression (MAI), to obtain lines of perennial species with a single introgressed fragment from a compatible species two generations after the interspecific hybrid. MAI allows enrichment of the genome of a species with genes from a wild or exotic relative in a short timeframe and with an intermediate step that allows a first exploration of genes/QTLs that the donor species can provide to the target crop. This method has three phases: (1) creating a large backcross one (BC1) population to select, with markers, a reduced number of individuals (15–30, called the prIL set) with a low number of introgressions; (2) phenotyping the prIL set for the traits of interest and inferring the inheritance and map position of segregating major genes/QTLs based on the known genotypes of the prILs; and (3) advancing selected lines carrying the traits of interest to a next generation of backcross or selfing to obtain individuals with a single introgression in the background of the elite commercial germplasm. The proof of concept of this strategy was implemented by using peach as the recurrent species and almond as the donor. The whole process can be done in 9–10 years as the identification of the first line with one introgression was after 5 years (2006–2011), and 4–5 additional years are needed for phenotypic evaluation of selected lines. The expansion of this method to other perennial clonally propagated crops and to other species of Prunus compatible with peach is discussed.     

Guideline Adherence in Outpatient Clinics for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Results from a Clinical Audit

Objectives

Previous clinical audits of COPD have provided relevant information about medical intervention in exacerbation admissions. The present study aims to evaluate adherence to current guidelines in COPD through a clinical audit.

Methods

This is a pilot clinical audit performed in hospital outpatient respiratory clinics in Andalusia, Spain (eight provinces with more than 8 million inhabitants), including 9 centers (20% of the public centers in the area) between 2013 and 2014. Cases with an established diagnosis of COPD based on risk factors, clinical symptoms, and a post-bronchodilator FEV₁/FVC ratio of less than 0.70 were deemed eligible. The performance of the outpatient clinics was benchmarked against three guidance documents available at the time of the audit. The appropriateness of the performance was categorized as excellent (>80%), good (60−80%), adequate (40−59%), inadequate (20−39%), and highly inadequate (<20%).

Results

During the audit, 621 clinical records were audited. Adherence to the different guidelines presented a considerable variability among the different participating hospitals, with an excellent or good adherence for symptom recording, MRC or CAT use, smoking status evaluation, spirometry, or bronchodilation therapy. The most outstanding areas for improvement were the use of the BODE index, the monitoring of treatments, the determination of alpha1-antitrypsin, the performance of exercise testing, and vaccination recommendations.

Conclusions

The present study reflects the situation of clinical care for COPD patients in specialized secondary care outpatient clinics. Adherence to clinical guidelines shows considerable variability in outpatient clinics managing COPD patients, and some aspects of the clinical care can clearly be improved.     

The Allometry of Bee Proboscis Length and Its Uses in Ecology

Allometric relationships among morphological traits underlie important patterns in ecology. These relationships are often phylogenetically shared; thus quantifying allometric relationships may allow for estimating difficult-to-measure traits across species. One such trait, proboscis length in bees, is assumed to be important in structuring bee communities and plant-pollinator networks. However, it is difficult to measure and thus rarely included in ecological analyses. We measured intertegular distance (as a measure of body size) and proboscis length (glossa and prementum, both individually and combined) of 786 individual bees of 100 species across 5 of the 7 extant bee families (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila). Using linear models and model selection, we determined which parameters provided the best estimate of proboscis length. We then used coefficients to estimate the relationship between intertegular distance and proboscis length, while also considering family. Using allometric equations with an estimation for a scaling coefficient between intertegular distance and proboscis length and coefficients for each family, we explain 91% of the variance in species-level means for bee proboscis length among bee species. However, within species, individual-level intertegular distance was a poor predictor of individual proboscis length. To make our findings easy to use, we created an R package that allows estimation of proboscis length for individual bee species by inputting only family and intertegular distance. The R package also calculates foraging distance and body mass based on previously published equations. Thus by considering both taxonomy and intertegular distance we enable accurate estimation of an ecologically and evolutionarily important trait.     

Linking species functional roles to their network roles

Species roles in ecological networks combine to generate their architecture, which contributes to their stability. Species trait diversity also affects ecosystem functioning and resilience, yet it remains unknown whether species’ contributions to functional diversity relate to their network roles. Here, we use 21 empirical pollen transport networks to characterise this relationship. We found that, apart from a few abundant species, pollinators with original traits either had few interaction partners or interacted most frequently with a subset of these partners. This suggests that narrowing of interactions to a subset of the plant community accompanies pollinator niche specialisation, congruent with our hypothesised trade‐off between having unique traits vs. being able to interact with many mutualist partners. Conversely, these effects were not detected in plants, potentially because key aspects of their flowering traits are conserved at a family level. Relating functional and network roles can provide further insight into mechanisms underlying ecosystem functioning.     

Self-incompatibility genotypes in almond re-evaluated by PCR,stylar ribonucleases,sequencing analysis and controlled pollinations

As part of the almond breeding programme at IRTA, we investigated the S genotypes of several cultivars using a combination of RNase zymograms, testcrosses, pollen-tube growth analysis and molecular identification by PCR analysis. For some of the cultivars examined, discrepancies appeared between their S alleles as reported in the literature and those found in this investigation, leading to a re-evaluation of their S genotypes. Analysis of the stylar ribonucleases (RNases), which are known to correlate with S alleles, of cvs. Achaak, Ardechoise, Desmayo Largueta, Ferrastar, Gabaix, Garbí, Glorieta, Languedoc, Primorskiy and Texas revealed inconsistencies with respect to the S₅ and S₁₀ alleles. However, PCR with the conserved primer pair AS1II/AmyC5R failed to detect any of these inconsistencies. When the S alleles from Desmayo Largueta, Gabaix, Primorskiy and Texas were sequenced, Texas and Primorskiy were found to carry the reported S₅ allele, while Desmayo Largueta and Gabaix carried a new allele, which has been tentatively denoted as S₂₅ This new S allele, previously reported to be S₁₀, was also identified in Achaak, Ardechoise and Ferrastar. The proposed new S genotypes are Achaak (S₂S₂₅), Ardechoise (S₁S₂₅), Desmayo Largueta (S₁S₂₅), Ferrastar (S₂S₂₅) and Gabaix (S₁₀S₂₅). The S alleles of Garbí, Glorieta, Languedoc, Texas and Primorskiy remain as reported in the literature. Testcrosses in the field and laboratory confirmed the new S genotypes. One cultivar (Gabaix) could be assigned to the existing cross-incompatibility group O of unique genotypes, and two new groups were established (XVI and XVII) consisting of two cultivars each. The clarification of these S alleles will be useful in almond breeding programmes and for planning new commercial orchards in the future.