With accelerating climate variability and change, novel approaches are needed to warn managers of changing ecosystem state and to identify appropriate management actions. One strategy is using indicator species - like seabirds as ecosystem sentinels - to monitor changes in marine environments. Here, we explore the utility of western gullsbreeding on Southeast Farallon Island as a proxy of ecosystem state in coastal California by investigating the interannual variability in gull foraging behavior from 2013-19 in relation to upwelling conditions, prey abundances, and overlap with humpback whales as gulls frequently feed in association with whales. Western gulls have a flexible diet and forage on land and at-sea. We combined gull GPS tracking data during the incubation phase, ecosystem survey data on multiple predator and prey species, and derived oceanographic upwelling products. When foraging at sea, gulls overlapped with cool upwelled waters. During 2015-17, 25% more gull foraging trip
The successive emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants has presented a major challenge in the management of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. There are growing concerns regarding the emerging variants escaping vaccines or therapeutic neutralizing antibodies. In this study, we conducted an epidemiological survey to identify SARS-CoV-2 variants that are sporadically proliferating in vaccine-advanced countries. Subsequently, we created HiBiT-tagged virus-like particles displaying spike proteins derived from the variants to analyze the neutralizing efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine and several therapeutic antibodies. We found that the Mu variant and a derivative of the Delta strain with E484K and N501Y mutations significantly evaded vaccine-elicited neutralizing antibodies. This trend was also observed in the Beta and Gamma variants, although they are currently not prevalent. Although 95.2% of the vaccinees exhibited prominent neutr
In Australia, domestic violence reports are mostly based on data from the police, courts, hospitals, and ad hoc surveys. However, gaps exist in reporting information such as victim injuries, mental health status and abuse types. The police record details of domestic violence events as structured information (e.g., gender, postcode, ethnicity), but also in text narratives describing other details such as injuries, substance use, and mental health status. However, the voluminous nature of the narratives has prevented their use for surveillance purposes. We used a validated text mining methodology on 492,393 police-attended domestic violence event narratives from 2005 to 2016 to extract mental health mentions on persons of interest (POIs) (individuals suspected/charged with a domestic violence offence) and victims, abuse types, and victim injuries. A significant increase was observed in events that recorded an injury type (28.3% in 2005 to 35.6% in 2016). The pattern of injury and abuse t
Background: Effective vaccines against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are available worldwide; however, the longevity of vaccine effectiveness is not known. Objective: We performed a prospective observational study to assess the antibody response of healthcare workers against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) after BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. Methods: SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody (nAb) and spike (S) protein-IgG (S-IgG) antibody titers were examined in participants who received two doses of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in a single center between March 1, 2021, and October 11, 2021. Antibody levels were analyzed at four times: before vaccination (visit 1), 4 weeks after the first vaccination (visit 2), 3 months after the second vaccination (visit 3), and 6 months after the second vaccination (visit 4). Results: A total of 249 healthcare workers at Jeju National University Hospital were enrolled in this study, and 982 blood samples were an
The space-for-time substitution approach provides a valuable empirical assessment to infer temporal effects of disturbance from spatial gradients. Applied to predict the response of different ecosystems under current climate change scenarios, it remains poorly tested in microbial ecology studies, partly due to the trophic complexity of the ecosystems studied. The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica represent a trophically simple polar desert projected to experience drastic changes in water availability under current climate change predictions. We used this ideal model system to develop and validate a microbial space-for-time sampling approach, using the variation of geochemical profiles that follow alterations in water availability and reflect past and future changes in the system. Our framework measured soil electrical conductivity, pH, and water activity in situ to geochemically define 17 space-for-time transects from the shores of four dynamic and two static Dry Valley lakes. We ident