Widespread detection of human- and ruminant-origin Bacteroidales markers in subtidal waters of the Salish Sea in Washington State.

Rising populations around coastal systems are increasing the threats to marine water quality. To assess anthropogenic fecal influence, subtidal waters were examined monthly for human- and ruminant-sourced Bacteroidales markers at 80 sites across six oceanographic basins of the Salish Sea (Washington State) from April through October, 2011. In the basins containing cities with individual populations>190,000, >50% of sites were positive for the human marker, while in the basins with high densities of dairy and cattle operations, ∼30% of sites were positive for the ruminant marker. Marker prevalence was elevated in spring (April and May) and fall (October) and reduced during summer (June through September), corresponding with seasonal precipitation. By logistic regression, the odds of human marker detection increased with percentage of adjacent catchment impervious surface, dissolved nitrate concentration, and abundance of low nucleic acid bacteria, but decreased with salinity and chlorophyll fluorescence. The odds of ruminant marker detection increased with dissolved ammonium concentration, mean flow rate for the nearest river, and adjacent shoreline length. These relationships are consistent with terrestrial to marine water flow as a transport mechanism. Thus, Bacteroidales markers traditionally used for identifying nearby sources can be used for assessing anthropogenic fecal inputs to regional marine ecosystems.

Improved viability of populations with diverse life-history portfolios.

A principle shared by both economists and ecologists is that a diversified portfolio spreads risk, but this idea has little empirical support in the field of population biology. We found that population growth rates (recruits per spawner) and life-history diversity as measured by variation in freshwater and ocean residency were negatively correlated across short time periods (one to two generations), but positively correlated at longer time periods, in nine Bristol Bay sockeye salmon populations. Further, the relationship between variation in growth rate and life-history diversity was consistently negative. These findings strongly suggest that life-history diversity can both increase production and buffer population fluctuations, particularly over long time periods. Our findings provide new insights into the importance of biocomplexity beyond spatio-temporal aspects of populations, and suggest that maintaining diverse life-history portfolios of populations may be crucial for their resilience to unfavourable conditions like habitat loss and climate change.

Large river habitat complexity and productivity of Puget Sound Chinook salmon.

While numerous studies have shown that floodplain habitat complexity can be important to fish ecology, few quantify how watershed-scale complexity influences productivity. This scale mismatch complicates population conservation and recovery strategies that evaluate recovery at regional or multi-basin scales. We used outputs from a habitat status and trends monitoring program for ten of Puget Sound's large river systems to examine whether juvenile Chinook salmon productivity relates to watershed-scale habitat complexity. We derived habitat complexity metrics that quantified wood jam densities, side and braid to main channel ratios, and node densities from a remote sensing census of Puget Sound's large river systems. Principal component analysis revealed that 91% of variance in these metrics could be explained by two principal components. These metrics revealed gradients in habitat complexity across Puget Sound which were sensitive to changes in complexity as a result of restoration actions in one watershed. Mixed effects models revealed that the second principle component term (PC2) describing habitat complexity was positively related to log transformed subyearling Chinook per spawner productivity rates from 6-18 cohorts per watershed. Total subyearling productivity (subyearlings per spawner) and fry productivity (subyearling fry per spawner) rates were best described by models that included a positive effect of habitat complexity (PC2) and negative relationships with log transformed peak flow recurrence interval, suggestive of reduced survival due to egg destruction during floods. Total subyearling productivity (subyearlings per spawner) and parr productivity (subyearling parr per spawner) rates were best described by models that included a positive effect of habitat complexity (PC2) and negative relationships with log transformed spawner density, suggestive of density dependent limits on juvenile rearing habitat. We also found that coefficient of variation for log transformed subyearling productivity and subyearling fry productivity rates declined with increasing habitat complexity, supporting the idea that habitat complexity buffers populations from annual variation in environmental conditions. Therefore, we conclude that our watershed-scale census-based approach provided habitat complexity metrics that explained some of the variability in productivity of subyearling juveniles among Chinook salmon populations. Furthermore, this approach may provide a useful means to track and evaluate aggregate effects of habitat changes on the productivity of Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed Chinook salmon populations over time.

How relative size and abundance structures the relationship between size and individual growth in an ontogenetically piscivorous fish.

While individual growth ultimately reflects the quality and quantity of food resources, intra and interspecific interactions for these resources, as well as individual size, may have dramatic impacts on growth opportunity. Out-migrating anadromous salmonids make rapid transitions between habitat types resulting in large pulses of individuals into a given location over a short period, which may have significant impact on demand for local resources. We evaluated the spatial and temporal variation in IGF-1 concentrations (a proxy for growth rate) and the relationship between size and concentration for juvenile Chinook salmon in Puget Sound, WA, USA, as a function of the relative size and abundance of both Chinook salmon and Pacific herring, a species which commonly co-occurs with salmonids in nearshore marine habitats. The abundance of Chinook salmon and Pacific herring varied substantially among the sub-basins as function of outmigration timing and spawn timing, respectively, while size varied systematically and consistently for both species. Mean IGF-1 concentrations were different among sub-basins, although patterns were not consistent through time. In general, size was positively correlated with IGF-1 concentration, although the slope of the relationship was considerably higher where Pacific herring were more abundant than Chinook salmon; specifically where smaller individual herring, relative to Chinook salmon, were more abundant. Where Pacific herring were less abundant than Chinook salmon, IGF-1 concentrations among small and large Chinook salmon were more variable and showed no consistent increase for larger individuals. The noticeable positive effect of relative Pacific herring abundance on the relationship between size and individual growth rates likely represents a shift to predation based on increased IGF-1 concentrations for individual Chinook salmon that are large enough to incorporate fish into their diet and co-occur with the highest abundances of Pacific herring.

Epidemiology of Patient Harms in New Zealand: Protocol of a General Practice Records Review Study.

BACKGROUND: Knowing where and why harm occurs in general practice will assist patients, doctors, and others in making informed decisions about the risks and benefits of treatment options. Research to date has been unable to verify the safety of primary health care and epidemiological research about patient harms in general practice is now a top priority for advancing health systems safety. OBJECTIVE: We aim to study the incidence, distribution, severity, and preventability of the harms patients experience due to their health care, from the whole-of-health-system lens afforded by electronic general practice patient records. METHODS: "Harm" is defined as disease, injury, disability, suffering, and death, arising from the health system. The study design is a stratified, 2-level cluster, retrospective records review study. Both general practices and patients will be randomly selected so that the study's results will apply nationally, after weighting. Stratification by practice size and rurality will allow comparisons between 6 study groups (large, medium-sized, small; urban and rural practices). Records of equal numbers of patients from each study group will be included in the study because there may be systematic differences in patient harms in different types of practices. Eight general practitioner investigators will review 3 years of electronic general practice health records (consultation notes, prescriptions, investigations, referrals, and summaries of hospital care) from 9000 patients registered in 60 general practices. Double-blinded reviews will check the concordance of reviewers' assessments. Study data will comprise demographic data of all 9000 patients and reviewers' assessments of whether patients experienced harm arising from health care. Where patient harm is identified, their types, preventability, severity, and outcomes will be coded using the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) 18.0. RESULTS: We have recruited practices and collected electronic records from 9078 patients. Reviews of these records are under way. The study is expected to be completed in August 2017. CONCLUSIONS: The design of this complex study is presented with discussion on data collection methods, sampling weights, power analysis, and statistical approach. This study will show the epidemiology of patient harms recorded in general practice records for all of New Zealand and will show whether this epidemiology differs by rural location and clinic size.

Stable isotope-based trophic structure of pelagic fish and jellyfish across natural and anthropogenic landscape gradients in a fjord estuary.

Identifying causes of structural ecosystem shifts often requires understanding trophic structure, an important determinant of energy flow in ecological communities. In coastal pelagic ecosystems worldwide, increasing jellyfish (Cnidaria and Ctenophora) at the expense of small fish has been linked to anthropogenic alteration of basal trophic pathways. However, this hypothesis remains untested in part because baseline description of fish-jellyfish trophic dynamics, and the environmental features that influence them are lacking. Using stable isotopes of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N), we examined spatiotemporal patterns of fish and jellyfish trophic structure in greater Puget Sound, an urbanizing fjord estuary in the NW United States. We quantified niche positions of constituent species, niche widths and trophic overlap between fish and jellyfish assemblages, and several community-level trophic diversity metrics (resource diversity, trophic length, and niche widths) of fish and jellyfish combined. We then related assemblage- and community-level measures to landscape gradients of terrestrial-marine connectivity and anthropogenic influence in adjacent catchments. Relative niche positions among species varied considerably and displayed no clear pattern except that fish generally had higher δ15N and lower δ13C relative to jellyfish, which resulted in low assemblage-level trophic overlap. Fish assemblages had larger niche widths than jellyfish in most cases and, along with whole community trophic diversity, exhibited contrasting seasonal patterns across oceanographic basins, which was positively correlated to landscape variation in terrestrial connectivity. In contrast, jellyfish niche widths were unrelated to terrestrial connectivity, but weakly negatively correlated to urban land use in adjacent catchments. Our results indicate that fish-jellyfish trophic structure is highly heterogeneous and that disparate processes may underlie the trophic ecology of these taxa; consequently, they may respond divergently to environmental change. In addition, spatiotemporal variation in ecosystem connectivity, in this case through freshwater influence, may influence trophic structure across heterogeneous landscapes.