SNAPSHOT USA 2021: A third coordinated national camera trap survey of the United States.

SNAPSHOT USA is a multicontributor, long-term camera trap survey designed to survey mammals across the United States. Participants are recruited through community networks and directly through a website application (https://www.snapshot-usa.org/). The growing Snapshot dataset is useful, for example, for tracking wildlife population responses to land use, land cover, and climate changes across spatial and temporal scales. Here we present the SNAPSHOT USA 2021 dataset, the third national camera trap survey across the US. Data were collected across 109 camera trap arrays and included 1711 camera sites. The total effort equaled 71,519 camera trap nights and resulted in 172,507 sequences of animal observations. Sampling effort varied among camera trap arrays, with a minimum of 126 camera trap nights, a maximum of 3355 nights, a median 546 nights, and a mean 656 ± 431 nights. This third dataset comprises 51 camera trap arrays that were surveyed during 2019, 2020, and 2021, along with 71 camera trap arrays that were surveyed in 2020 and 2021. All raw data and accompanying metadata are stored on Wildlife Insights (https://www.wildlifeinsights.org/), and are publicly available upon acceptance of the data papers. SNAPSHOT USA aims to sample multiple ecoregions in the United States with adequate representation of each ecoregion according to its relative size. Currently, the relative density of camera trap arrays varies by an order of magnitude for the various ecoregions (0.22-5.9 arrays per 100,000 km2), emphasizing the need to increase sampling effort by further recruiting and retaining contributors. There are no copyright restrictions on these data. We request that authors cite this paper when using these data, or a subset of these data, for publication. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.

The ecology of human-caused mortality for a protected large carnivore.

Mitigating human-caused mortality for large carnivores is a pressing global challenge for wildlife conservation. However, mortality is almost exclusively studied at local (within-population) scales creating a mismatch between our understanding of risk and the spatial extent most relevant to conservation and management of wide-ranging species. Here, we quantified mortality for 590 radio-collared mountain lions statewide across their distribution in California to identify drivers of human-caused mortality and investigate whether human-caused mortality is additive or compensatory. Human-caused mortality, primarily from conflict management and vehicles, exceeded natural mortality despite mountain lions being protected from hunting. Our data indicate that human-caused mortality is additive to natural mortality as population-level survival decreased as a function of increasing human-caused mortality and natural mortality did not decrease with increased human-caused mortality. Mortality risk increased for mountain lions closer to rural development and decreased in areas with higher proportions of citizens voting to support environmental initiatives. Thus, the presence of human infrastructure and variation in the mindset of humans sharing landscapes with mountain lions appear to be primary drivers of risk. We show that human-caused mortality can reduce population-level survival of large carnivores across large spatial scales, even when they are protected from hunting.

Improvement of Parasomnias After Treatment of Restless Leg Syndrome/ Periodic Limb Movement Disorder in Children.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Previous studies have shown that non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep parasomnias commonly coexist with restless legs syndrome (RLS) and periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD) in children, leading to speculation that RLS/PLMD may precipitate or worsen parasomnias. However, there are limited data about the effect of the treatment of RLS/PLMD on parasomnias in children. Hence, we performed this study to determine whether the treatment of RLS/PLMD with oral iron therapy is associated with improvement of parasomnias in children. METHODS: A retrospective database was created for children with RLS/PLMD who were treated with iron therapy. These participants were followed for at least 1 year at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. All participants had ferritin level testing and were treated with iron therapy. In addition, all participants underwent polysomnography before starting iron therapy for RLS/PLMD except for one participant who was already on iron but required a higher dose. Most participants underwent polysomnography after iron therapy. RESULTS: A total of 226 participants were identified with the diagnosis of RLS/PLMD. Of these, 50 had parasomnias and 30 of them were treated with iron therapy. Of the 30 participants, RLS symptoms improved in 15 participants (50%) and resolution of parasomnias was noted in 12 participants (40%) participants after iron therapy. Repeat polysomnography after iron therapy was performed in 21 participants (70%). After iron therapy, there was a significant decrease in periodic limb movement index (17.2 ± 8.8 [before] versus 6.7 ± 7.3 [after] events/h, P < .001). In addition, there were significant decreases in PLMS (24.52 ± 9.42 [before] versus 7.50 ± 7.18 [after] events/h, P < .0001), PLMS-related arousals (4.71 ± 1.81 [before] versus 1.35 ± 1.43 [after] events/h, P < .0001), and total arousals (11.65 ± 5.49 [before] versus 8.94 ± 3.65 [after] events/h, P < .01) after iron therapy. CONCLUSIONS: Parasomnias are common in our cohort of children with RLS/PLMD. Iron therapy was associated with a significant improvement in periodic limb movement index, RLS symptoms, and resolution of a significant proportion of NREM sleep parasomnias, suggesting that RLS/PLMD may precipitate NREM sleep parasomnia.