First Nationwide Mpox Vaccination Program in the Republic of Korea: Implications for an Enhanced Public Health Response.

On May 1, 2024, the Republic of Korea lifted the infectious disease crisis alert for mpox, almost two years after the first case was reported. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) has led the response, which included diagnosis, epidemiological investigations, treatment, and vaccination. This article particularly reviews the vaccination strategy implemented and proposes suggestions for enhancing future response efforts. Initially, the KDCA recommended pre-exposure prophylaxis for high-risk groups, later expanding to include broader demographics as domestic cases rose. By April 2024, a total of 6,863 individuals had received their first vaccine dose, with 3,875 completing the second dose of third-generation vaccines. Strategies to improve future responses include addressing stigma, securing nationally representative safety data, and conducting vaccine cost-benefit analyses. These measures will help ensure a robust and effective response to future outbreaks.

Comparative genomics reveals the dynamic evolutionary history of cement protein genes of barnacles from intertidal to deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

Thoracican barnacles are a diverse group of marine organisms for which the availability of genome assemblies is currently limited. In this study, we sequenced the genomes of two neolepadoid species (Ashinkailepas kermadecensis, Imbricaverruca yamaguchii) from hydrothermal vents, in addition to two intertidal species. Genome sizes ranged from 481 to 1054 Mb, with repetitive sequence contents of 21.2% to 50.7%. Concordance rates of orthologs and heterozygosity rates were between 82.4% and 91.7% and between 1.0% and 2.1%, respectively, indicating high genetic diversity and heterozygosity. Based on phylogenomic analyses, we revised the nomenclature of cement genes encoding cement proteins that are not homologous to any known proteins. The major cement gene, CP100A, was found in all thoracican species, including vent-associated neolepadoids, and was hypothesised to be essential for thoracican settlement. Duplicated genes, CP100B and CP100C, were found only in balanids, suggesting potential functional redundancy or acquisition of new functions associated with the calcareous base. An ancestor of CP52 genes was duplicated dynamically among lepadids, pollicipedids with multiple copies on a single scaffold, and balanids with multiple sequential repeats of the conserved regions, but no CP52 genes were found in neolepadoids, providing insights into cement gene evolution among thoracican lineages. This study enhances our understanding of the adhesion mechanisms of thoracicans in underwater environments. The newly sequenced genomes provide opportunities for studying their evolution and ecology, shedding light on their adaptation to diverse marine environments, and contributing to our knowledge of barnacle biology with valuable genomic resources for further studies in this field.

Production of Plant-Derived Japanese Encephalitis Virus Multi-Epitope Peptide in Nicotiana benthamiana and Immunological Response in Mice.

The current production of the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) vaccine is based on animal cells, where various risk factors for human health should be resolved. This study used a transient expression system to express the chimeric protein composed of antigenic epitopes from the JEV envelope (E) protein in Nicotiana benthamiana. JEV multi-epitope peptide (MEP) sequences fused with FLAG-tag or 6× His-tag at the C- or N-terminus for the purification were introduced into plant expression vectors and used for transient expression. Among the constructs, vector pSK480, which expresses MEP fused with a FLAG-tag at the C-terminus, showed the highest level of expression and yield in purification. Optimization of transient expression procedures further improved the target protein yield. The purified MEP protein was applied to an ICR mouse and successfully induced an antibody against JEV, which demonstrates the potential of the plant-produced JEV MEP as an alternative vaccine candidate.

Phylogeny and shell form evolution of the hydrothermal vent asymmetrical barnacles (Cirripedia, Thoracicalcarea, Neoverrucidae).

Imbricaverruca and Neoverruca are two genera of hydrothermal vent asymmetrical barnacles in Neoverrucidae, but found in vents of the Southwest Pacific and Northwest Pacific Oceans, respectively. Imbricaverruca has a flattened operculum and the shell base with multiple whorls of imbricating plates, while Neoverruca has an inclined operculum and the shell base with fewer developed imbricating plates. It has been hypothesized that Imbricaverruca has apomorphic shell characters in Neoverrucidae. Although the monophyletic relationship of the vent barnacle members in the superfamily Neolepadoidea were confirmed based on molecular phylogeny, the relationships between Neobrachylepadidae and Neoverrucidae, and between Neoverruca and Imbricaverruca have not been determined because there are no molecular data on Imbricaverruca. In this study, we sequenced three nuclear (18S rDNA, 28S rDNA, histone 3) and one mitochondrial (CO1) genes of I. yamaguchii from the Southwest Pacific. Our phylogenetic results showed that Neobrahchylepadidae is the sister taxon to Neoverrucidae (Imbricaverruca + Neoverruca), and Imbricaverruca and Neoverruca are monophyletic sister taxa each other, which not supporting the previous hypothesis that Neoverruca is sister to the clade containing Neobrahchylepadidae and Neolepadidae. These implied that the differences in shell forms between Neoverruca and Imbricaverruca are a result of independent divergent evolution in different deep-sea basins.

Learning Semantic Correspondence Exploiting an Object-Level Prior.

We address the problem of semantic correspondence, that is, establishing a dense flow field between images depicting different instances of the same object or scene category. We propose to use images annotated with binary foreground masks and subjected to synthetic geometric deformations to train a convolutional neural network (CNN) for this task. Using these masks as part of the supervisory signal provides an object-level prior for the semantic correspondence task and offers a good compromise between semantic flow methods, where the amount of training data is limited by the cost of manually selecting point correspondences, and semantic alignment ones, where the regression of a single global geometric transformation between images may be sensitive to image-specific details such as background clutter. We propose a new CNN architecture, dubbed SFNet, which implements this idea. It leverages a new and differentiable version of the argmax function for end-to-end training, with a loss that combines mask and flow consistency with smoothness terms. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, which significantly outperforms the state of the art on standard benchmarks.

Disentangled Representations for Short-Term and Long-Term Person Re-Identification.

We address the problem of person re-identification (reID), that is, retrieving person images from a large dataset, given a query image of the person of interest. A key challenge is to learn person representations robust to intra-class variations, as different persons could have the same attribute, and persons' appearances look different, e.g., with viewpoint changes. Recent reID methods focus on learning person features discriminative only for a particular factor of variations (e.g., human pose), which also requires corresponding supervisory signals (e.g., pose annotations). To tackle this problem, we propose to factorize person images into identity-related and -unrelated features. Identity-related features contain information useful for specifying a particular person (e.g., clothing), while identity-unrelated ones hold other factors (e.g., human pose). To this end, we propose a new generative adversarial network, dubbed identity shuffle GAN (IS-GAN). It disentangles identity-related and -unrelated features from person images through an identity-shuffling technique that exploits identification labels alone without any auxiliary supervisory signals. We restrict the distribution of identity-unrelated features, or encourage the identity-related and -unrelated features to be uncorrelated, facilitating the disentanglement process. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of IS-GAN, showing state-of-the-art performance on standard reID benchmarks, including Market-1501, CUHK03 and DukeMTMC-reID. We further demonstrate the advantages of disentangling person representations on a long-term reID task, setting a new state of the art on a Celeb-reID dataset. Our code and models are available online: https://cvlab-yonsei.github.io/projects/ISGAN/.

Diversity and characterization of bacterial communities of five co-occurring species at a hydrothermal vent on the Tonga Arc.

Host-symbiont relationships in hydrothermal vent ecosystems, supported by chemoautotrophic bacteria as primary producers, have been extensively studied. However, the process by which densely populated co-occurring invertebrate hosts form symbiotic relationships with bacterial symbionts remains unclear. Here, we analyzed gill-associated symbiotic bacteria (gill symbionts) of five co-occurring hosts, three mollusks ("Bathymodiolus" manusensis, B. brevior, and Alviniconcha strummeri) and two crustaceans (Rimicaris variabilis and Austinograea alayseae), collected together at a single vent site in the Tonga Arc. We observed both different compositions of gill symbionts and the presence of unshared operational taxonomic units (OTUs). In addition, the total number of OTUs was greater for crustacean hosts than for mollusks. The phylogenetic relationship trees of gill symbionts suggest that γ-proteobacterial gill symbionts have coevolved with their hosts toward reinforcement of host specificity, while campylobacterial Sulfurovum species found across various hosts and habitats are opportunistic associates. Our results confirm that gill symbiont communities differ among co-occurring vent invertebrates and indicate that hosts are closely related with their gill symbiont communities. Considering the given resources available at a single site, differentiation of gill symbionts seems to be a useful strategy for obtaining nutrition and energy while avoiding competition among both hosts and gill symbionts.

Association of Participation in Disease Management Programs and Health-Related Quality of Life in Korean Population: Results from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey IV and V (2007-2012).

BACKGROUND: The high prevalence of chronic diseases has been an ongoing public concern. The psychological factors, including lack of social support and perceived lack of control, were found to be highly associated with an increased risk of the diseases. In fact, the effect of disease management programs (DMP) in patients diagnosed with chronic diseases were assessed in multiple studies to measure health-related quality of life (HR = QoL), which measured in the EuroQol 5-Dimension Questionnaire (EQ-5D) index score, also known as self-perceived health. METHODS: The study was conducted using the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) from 2007 to 2012 and through descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression to investigate the association of participation in DMP and the EQ-5D index score. RESULTS: The results revealed that the subjects diagnosed with hypertension were shown to have a lower quality of life to those without the diagnosis (P < .05). Moreover, in the hypertensive Korean population, DMP did not show any statistically significant impact on the EQ-5D index score (P > .05). CONCLUSION: Our study has assessed the association of DMP and EQ-5D index score in hypertensive patients only although it is still uncertain the effect of DMP on other chronic diseases therefore, further studies should be conducted to investigate the importance of DMP in Korea for the patients with such diseases in improving their quality of life.

The mitochondrial genome of hydrothermal vent barnacle Eochionelasmus coreana (Cirripedia: Thoracica) from the Indian Ocean.

Balanomorph Eochionelasmus species are hydrothermal vent endemic barnacles. In the genus Eochionelasmus, three species are known to date and they distribute at three different vent fields in Pacific and Indian Oceans, E. ohtai in the Southwest Pacific Ocean, E. paquensis in the East Pacific Ocean, and E. coreana in the Indian Ocean. Therefore, Eochionelasmus species are considered to be a meaningful model taxon to elucidate the evolutionary history of vent organism in relation to geotectonic events. Here, we characterized the partial mitogenome of a newly described vent barnacle Eochionelasmus coreana Chan et al., 2020 from the Solitaire vent field in the Indian Ocean. The length of mitogenome was 16,804 bp with 64.0% AT content. Its gene content and organization was identical to those of E. ohtai. There was one significant part in the mitogenome of E. coreana, which was a long intergenic region over 2 kb found between tRNAPro and tRNAThr. The phylogenetic tree suggested the monophyly of E. ohtai and E. coreana with high supporting values. In the future, additional mitogenome analysis of the last Eochionelasmus species, E. paquensis, could expand our understanding about the speciation and global distribution of Eochionelasmus species.

OsCBE1, a Substrate Receptor of Cullin4-Based E3 Ubiquitin Ligase, Functions as a Regulator of Abiotic Stress Response and Productivity in Rice.

Ubiquitination is an important environmental stress response, and E3 ubiquitin ligases play a major role in the process. T-DNA insertion mutants of rice, Oscbe1-1, and Oscbe1-2, were identified through the screening of cold stress tolerance at seedling stage. Oscbe1 mutants showed a significantly higher cold stress tolerance in the fresh weight, chlorophyll content, and photosynthetic efficiency than wild type. Molecular prediction showed that OsCBE1 (Oryza sativa Cullin4-Based E3 ubiquitin ligase1) encoded a novel substrate receptor of Cullin4-based E3 ubiquitin ligase complex (C4E3). Whereas Oscbe1 mutants had fewer panicles and grains than wild type in the paddy field, the overexpression lines of OsCBE1 had more panicles and grains, suggesting that OsCBE1 is involved in the regulation of both abiotic stress response and development. Oscbe1 mutants also showed ABA hypersensitivity during seed germination, suggesting OsCBE1 function for the stress response via ABA signaling. In silico analysis of OsCBE1 activity predicted a CCCH-type transcription factor, OsC3H32, as a putative substrate. Co-IP (Co-immunoprecipitation) study showed that OsCBE1 interacts with OsDDB1, an expected binding component of OsCBE1 and OsC3H32. Additionally, expression of OsOLE16, OsOLE18, and OsBURP5 were negatively related with expression of OsCBE1. These results suggest that OsCBE1 functions as a regulator of the abiotic stress response via CCCH as a member of the C4E3.

Inactivation of the ß (1, 2)-xylosyltransferase and the α (1, 3)-fucosyltransferase gene in rice (Oryza sativa) by multiplex CRISPR/Cas9 strategy.

KEY MESSAGE: CRISPR/Cas9-mediated OsXylT and OsFucT mutation caused the elimination of plant-specific ß1,2-xylose and α1,3-fucose residues on glycoproteins in rice, which is the first report of OsXylT/OsFucT double KO mutation in rice. N-glycosylation pathway is the one of post-translational mechanism and is known as highly conserved in eukaryotes. However, the process for complex-N-glycan modification is different between mammals and plants. In plant-specific manner, ß1,2-xylose and α1,3-fucose residues are transferred to N-glycan core structure on glycoproteins by ß1,2-xylosyltransferase (ß1,2-XylT) and α1,3-fucosyltransferase (α1,3-FucT), respectively. As an effort to use plants as a platform to produce biopharmaceuticals, the plant-specific N-glycan genes of rice (Oryza sativa), ß1,2-xylT (OsXylT) and α1,3-FucT (OsFucT), were knocked out using multiplex CRISPR/Cas9 technology. The double knock-out lines were found to have frameshift mutations by INDELs. Both ß1,2-xylose and α1,3-fucose residues in the lines were not detected in Western blot analysis. Consistently, there was no peak corresponding to the N-glycans in MALDI-TOF/MS analysis. Although α1,3-fucose and ß1,2-xylose residues were not detected in the line, other plant-specific residues of ß1,3-galactose and α1,4-fucose were detected. Thus, we suggest that each enzymes working on the process for complex N-glycan biosynthesis might independently act in rice, hence the double knock-out of both OsXylT and OsFucT might be not enough to humanize N-glycan structure in rice.

Population genetic differentiation of the hydrothermal vent crab Austinograea alayseae (Crustacea: Bythograeidae) in the Southwest Pacific Ocean.

To understand the origin, migration, and distribution of organisms across disjunct deep-sea vent habitats, previous studies have documented the population genetic structures of widely distributed fauna, such as gastropods, bivalves, barnacles, and squat lobsters. However, a limited number of investigations has been conducted in the Southwest Pacific Ocean, and many questions remain. In this study, we determined the population structure of the bythograeid crab Austinograea alayseae from three adjacent vent systems (Manus Basin, North Fiji Basin, and Tonga Arc) in the Southwest Pacific Ocean using the sequences of two mitochondrial genes (COI and 16S rDNA) and one nuclear gene (28S rDNA). Populations were divided into a Manus clade and a North Fiji-Tonga clade, with sequence divergence values in the middle of the barcoding gap for bythograeids. We inferred that hydrographic and/or physical barriers act on the gene flow of A. alayseae between the Manus and North Fiji basins. Austinograea alayseae individuals interact freely between the North Fiji Basin and the Lau Basin (Tonga Arc). Although further studies of genetic differentiation over a geological time scale, life-history attributes, and genome-based population genetics are needed to improve our understanding of the evolutionary history of A. alayseae, our results contribute to elucidating the phylogeny, evolution, and biogeography of bythograeids.

Complete mitochondrial genome of the hydrothermal vent stalked barnacle Vulcanolepas fijiensis (Cirripedia, Scalpelliforms, Eolepadidae).

The family Eolepadidae is the only stalked barnacle in hydrothermal vent regions. Here, we determined the mitogenome of the eolepadid Vulcanolepas fijiensis. The mitogenome was 17,374 bp long, with 76.6% AT content. Its protein-coding gene organization was identical to that of the deep-sea scalpellid Arcoscalpellum epeeum. On the mitogenomic tree, two scalpellomorphan families (Eolepadidae and Scalpellidae) were monophyletic while the other scalpellomorphan family Pollicipedidae did not form the monophyletic group with them. Further mitogenomic analysis of undetermined taxa in hydrothermal vents is required to deepen our understanding of their phylogenetic relationships.

Complete mitochondrial genome of the hydrothermal vent shrimp Rimicaris variabilis (Decapoda: Caridea: Alvinocarididae) from the North Fiji basin.

The family Alvinocarididae is the monophyletic taxon which lives restrictively at chemosynthesis-based environments in the deep-sea. Here, for the first time, we report the complete mitogenome of the alvinocaridid vent shrimp Rimicaris variabilis from the North Fiji Basin. The mitogenome was 15,909 bp in length, with 65.6% AT content. Its protein-coding gene organization was typical of other alvinocaridid shrimps. Based on the phylogenetic tree, R. variabilis was most closely related to Shinkaicaris leurokolos, rather than with other Rimicaris species. To resolve this incongruence between traditional morphological classification and molecular analyses, further mitogenomic analysis of undetermined alvinocaridid taxa is necessary.

Relationship between Clinical Outcomes and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Time in Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction Treated by Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation-Assisted Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support is increasingly used in primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to treat acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients who experienced cardiogenic shock. However, to date, there have been no studies on the relationship between clinical outcomes and CPR time in such patients with AMI treated by ECMO-assisted primary PCI. METHODS: From July 2008 to March 2016, we analyzed data from 42 AMI with cardiogenic shock patients who underwent CPR and were treated by ECMO-assisted primary PCI. The primary outcome was 30-day in-hospital mortality after primary PCI. The predictors of mortality were determined using a Cox proportional hazards model. RESULTS: Thirty-day in-hospital mortality was observed for 33 patients (78.6%). The mean CPR time was 37.0±37.3 minutes. The best cut-off CPR time value associated with clinical outcome was calculated to be 12.5 minutes using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Multivariate analysis revealed that CPR time of >12.5 minutes was an independent predictor of 30-day mortality (adjusted hazard ratio, 4.71; 95% confidence interval, 1.30-17.406; p=0.018). CONCLUSIONS: Despite ECMO support, the clinical outcomes of AMI patients with a complication of cardiogenic shock remain poor. Prolonged CPR time is associated with a poor prognosis in patients with AMI treated by ECMO-assisted primary PCI.

A new yeti crab phylogeny: Vent origins with indications of regional extinction in the East Pacific.

The recent discovery of two new species of kiwaid squat lobsters on hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean and in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean has prompted a re-analysis of Kiwaid biogeographical history. Using a larger alignment with more fossil calibrated nodes than previously, we consider the precise relationship between Kiwaidae, Chirostylidae and Eumunididae within Chirostyloidea (Decapoda: Anomura) to be still unresolved at present. Additionally, the placement of both new species within a new "Bristly" clade along with the seep-associated Kiwa puravida is most parsimoniously interpreted as supporting a vent origin for the family, rather than a seep-to-vent progression. Fossil-calibrated divergence analysis indicates an origin for the clade around the Eocene-Oligocene boundary in the eastern Pacific ~33-38 Ma, coincident with a lowering of bottom temperatures and increased ventilation in the Pacific deep sea. Likewise, the mid-Miocene (~10-16 Ma) rapid radiation of the new Bristly clade also coincides with a similar cooling event in the tropical East Pacific. The distribution, diversity, tree topology and divergence timing of Kiwaidae in the East Pacific is most consistent with a pattern of extinctions, recolonisations and radiations along fast-spreading ridges in this region and may have been punctuated by large-scale fluctuations in deep-water ventilation and temperature during the Cenozoic; further affecting the viability of Kiwaidae populations along portions of mid-ocean ridge.

Leucine and glycine dipeptides of porcine placenta ameliorate physical fatigue through enhancing dopaminergic systems.

Fatigue is a common and serious health problem, and various dietary interventions have previously been employed to ameliorate fatigue. The aim of the current study was to investigate the anti­fatigue effects of Danish porcine placenta (DPP) and its major dipeptides, including leucine­glycine (LG) and glycine­leucine (GL). The anti­fatigue effects of orally administered DPP, LG and GL were determined using a treadmill exercise test and a forced swimming test (FST) in mice. Additionally, the anti­inflammatory effects of DPP, LG and GL were investigated in activated splenocytes. The results demonstrated that oral treatment of mice with DPP, LG and GL increased the time to exhaustion during treadmill exercise. Furthermore, DPP, LG and GL enhanced the levels of dopamine, brain­derived neurotrophic factor and phosphorylated-extracellular signal­regulated kinase in the brains of mice with treadmill exercise­induced exhaustive fatigue, and decreased levels of certain proinflammatory cytokines in the serum and spleen, as determined by ELISA and western blot analysis. Following treadmill exercise, commercial kits were employed to demonstrate that DPP, LG and GL reduced the levels of lactate dehydrogenase, lactate, creatine kinase, blood urea nitrogen, alanine transaminase and aspartate transaminase in the muscle and/or serum of mice. In addition, DPP, LG and GL enhanced the muscle and liver glycogen levels, catalase activity in the liver and serum superoxide dismutase activity. DPP, LG and GL also increased the proliferation of splenocytes and inhibited proinflammatory cytokine production by reducing the activation of caspase­1 and nuclear factor­κB in activated splenocytes, as determined by MTT assays, ELISA and western blotting, respectively. Furthermore, DPP, LG and GL reduced immobility time in the FST in mice. In conclusion, DPP may limit intensive exercise­induced fatigue by increasing dopaminergic systems and inhibiting inflammatory responses.

Impact of human activities on changes of ichthyofauna in Dongjin River of Korea in the past 30 years.

Ichthyofauna and fish community were investigated at 17 representative stations of the Dongjin River drainage system from spring to fall in 2014. The survey resulted in a list of 53 species belonging to 14 families structured into 4 distinctive parts along the river: uppermost-stream, upper-stream, mid-stream, and lower-stream. Comparison of species lists with 30-year interval exhibited significant decreases in peripheral freshwater fishes, Acheilognathinae, endemic, and indigeneity species, but increases in exotic, epipelagic, and lentic species. Moreover, in the estuary of the Dongjin River drainage system, peripheral freshwater fish species were replaced by pure freshwater fish species due to the Saemangeum sea-wall project. In the upper region of the river, introduced eight alien species from Seomjin River via water diversion tunnels. In the mid-lower region, the construction of floodgates and numerous small weirs caused expansion of lentic water areas, facilitating the spread of problematic exotic species such as Micropterus salmoides, Lepomis macrochirus, and Carassius cuvieri. Also, water deterioration in this region resulted in an increase of tolerant species and a decrease of sensitive and endemic species. Our results suggest that a recovery strategy for a healthy ecosystem in the Dongjin River drainage system should reflect this compartmentalized cause and effect on the changes of icthyofauna.

The complete chloroplast genome sequence with a novel 24-bp deletion of a Korean solid green-type cucumber variety (Cucumis sativus var. sativus).

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus var. sativus) is one of the economically important vegetable crops. In this study, we characterized the complete chloroplast genome sequence of inbred line ID YHB bred from Korean solid green-type cucumber variety, through de novo assembly using next-generation sequencing. The chloroplast genome is 155,501 bp long and has typical quadripartite structures and gene contents as found in reported cucumber chloroplast genomes. Interestingly, sequence comparison revealed a novel 24-bp deletion present only in the chloroplast genome of the inbred line. Phylogenetic analysis confirmed that the inbred line was closely grouped with cucumber cultivars.

Complete mitochondrial genome of the deep-sea asymmetrical barnacle Altiverruca navicula (Cirripedia, Thoracica, Verrucumorpha).

The hitherto suborder Verrucomorpha contains asymmetrical barnacles of two groups: the true Verrucomorpha (Eoverruca + Verrucidae) and the Neoverrucidae. Here, we determined the mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of Altiverruca navicula, a true Verrucomorpha species. The mitogenome was 15,976 base pairs in length and had the typical pancrustacean gene arrangement. Its protein-coding genes were very similar to those of other thoracican species in terms of length, AT content, and start and stop codons. In phylogenetic trees constructed with 13 protein-coding genes, A. navicula was positioned at an ancestral node of sessile barnacles, consistent with the findings of previous studies.