Diversity and Evolution of Frog Visual Opsins: Spectral Tuning and Adaptation to Distinct Light Environments.

Visual systems adapt to different light environments through several avenues including optical changes to the eye and neurological changes in how light signals are processed and interpreted. Spectral sensitivity can evolve via changes to visual pigments housed in the retinal photoreceptors through gene duplication and loss, differential and coexpression, and sequence evolution. Frogs provide an excellent, yet understudied, system for visual evolution research due to their diversity of ecologies (including biphasic aquatic-terrestrial life cycles) that we hypothesize imposed different selective pressures leading to adaptive evolution of the visual system, notably the opsins that encode the protein component of the visual pigments responsible for the first step in visual perception. Here, we analyze the diversity and evolution of visual opsin genes from 93 new eye transcriptomes plus published data for a combined dataset spanning 122 frog species and 34 families. We find that most species express the four visual opsins previously identified in frogs but show evidence for gene loss in two lineages. Further, we present evidence of positive selection in three opsins and shifts in selective pressures associated with differences in habitat and life history, but not activity pattern. We identify substantial novel variation in the visual opsins and, using microspectrophotometry, find highly variable spectral sensitivities, expanding known ranges for all frog visual pigments. Mutations at spectral-tuning sites only partially account for this variation, suggesting that frogs have used tuning pathways that are unique among vertebrates. These results support the hypothesis of adaptive evolution in photoreceptor physiology across the frog tree of life in response to varying environmental and ecological factors and further our growing understanding of vertebrate visual evolution.

Skin microbiome disturbance linked to drought-associated amphibian disease.

The onset of global climate change has led to abnormal rainfall patterns, disrupting associations between wildlife and their symbiotic microorganisms. We monitored a population of pumpkin toadlets and their skin bacteria in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest during a drought. Given the recognized ability of some amphibian skin bacteria to inhibit the widespread fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), we investigated links between skin microbiome health, susceptibility to Bd and host mortality during a die-off event. We found that rainfall deficit was an indirect predictor of Bd loads through microbiome disruption, while its direct effect on Bd was weak. The microbiome was characterized by fewer putative Bd-inhibitory bacteria following the drought, which points to a one-month lagged effect of drought on the microbiome that may have increased toadlet susceptibility to Bd. Our study underscores the capacity of rainfall variability to disturb complex host-microbiome interactions and alter wildlife disease dynamics.

Leaf Shelters Facilitate the Colonisation of Arthropods and Enhance Microbial Diversity on Plants.

Shelter-building insects are important ecosystem engineers, playing critical roles in structuring arthropod communities. Nonetheless, the influence of leaf shelters and arthropods on plant-associated microbiota remains largely unexplored. Arthropods that visit or inhabit plants can contribute to the leaf microbial community, resulting in significant changes in plant-microbe interactions. By artificially constructing leaf shelters, we provide evidence that shelter-building insects influence not only the arthropod community structure but also impact the phyllosphere microbiota. Leaf shelters exhibited higher abundance and richness of arthropods, changing the associated arthropod community composition. These shelters also altered the composition and community structure of phyllosphere microbiota, promoting greater richness and diversity of bacteria at the phyllosphere. In leaf shelters, microbial diversity positively correlated with the richness and diversity of herbivores. These findings demonstrate the critical role of leaf shelters in structuring both arthropod and microbial communities through altered microhabitats and species interactions.

Evaluation of mobility recovery after hip fracture: a scoping review of randomized controlled studies.

Few older adults regain their pre-fracture mobility after a hip fracture. Intervention studies evaluating effects on gait typically use short clinical tests or in-lab parameters that are often limited to gait speed only. Measurements of mobility in daily life settings exist and should be considered to a greater extent than today. Less than half of hip fracture patients regain their pre-fracture mobility. Mobility recovery is closely linked to health status and quality of life, but there is no comprehensive overview of how gait has been evaluated in intervention studies on hip fracture patients. The purpose was to identify what gait parameters have been used in randomized controlled trials to assess intervention effects on older people's mobility recovery after hip fracture. This scoping review is a secondary paper that identified relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature from 11 databases. After abstract and full-text screening, 24 papers from the original review and 8 from an updated search and manual screening were included. Records were eligible if they included gait parameters in RCTs on hip fracture patients. We included 32 papers from 29 trials (2754 unique participants). Gait parameters were primary endpoint in six studies only. Gait was predominantly evaluated as short walking, with gait speed being most frequently studied. Only five studies reported gait parameters from wearable sensors. Evidence on mobility improvement after interventions in hip fracture patients is largely limited to gait speed as assessed in a controlled setting. The transition from traditional clinical and in-lab to out-of-lab gait assessment is needed to assess effects of interventions on mobility recovery after hip fracture at higher granularity in all aspects of patients' lives, so that optimal care pathways can be defined.

Non-invasive imaging techniques for diagnosis of pelvic deep endometriosis and endometriosis classification systems: an International Consensus Statement.

The International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG) and International Deep Endometriosis Analysis (IDEA) group, the European Endometriosis League (EEL), the European Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy (ESGE), the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), the International Society for Gynecologic Endoscopy (ISGE), the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists (AAGL) and the European Society of Urogenital Radiology (ESUR) elected an international, multidisciplinary panel of gynecological surgeons, sonographers and radiologists, including a steering committee, which searched the literature for relevant articles in order to review the literature and provide evidence-based and clinically relevant statements on the use of imaging techniques for non-invasive diagnosis and classification of pelvic deep endometriosis. Preliminary statements were drafted based on review of the relevant literature. Following two rounds of revisions and voting orchestrated by chairs of the participating societies, consensus statements were finalized. A final version of the document was then resubmitted to the society chairs for approval. Twenty statements were drafted, of which 14 reached strong and three moderate agreement after the first voting round. The remaining three statements were discussed by all members of the steering committee and society chairs and rephrased, followed by an additional round of voting. At the conclusion of the process, 14 statements had strong and five statements moderate agreement, with one statement left in equipoise. This consensus work aims to guide clinicians involved in treating women with suspected endometriosis during patient assessment, counseling and planning of surgical treatment strategies. © 2024 The Authors. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology, by Universa Press, by The International Society for Gynecologic Endoscopy, by Oxford University Press on behalf of European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists and by Elsevier B.V.

Host immune responses to enzootic and invasive pathogen lineages vary in magnitude, timing, and efficacy.

Infectious diseases of wildlife continue to pose a threat to biodiversity worldwide, yet pathogens are far from uniform in virulence or host disease outcome. Within the same pathogen species, virulence can vary considerably depending on strain or lineage, in turn eliciting variable host responses. One pathogen that has caused extensive biodiversity loss is the amphibian-killing fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), which is comprised of a globally widespread hypervirulent lineage (Bd-GPL), and multiple geographically restricted, enzootic lineages. Whereas host immunogenomic responses to Bd-GPL have been characterized in a number of amphibian species, immunogenomic responses to geographically restricted, enzootic Bd lineages are less clear. To examine lineage-specific host immune responses to Bd, we exposed a species of pumpkin toadlet, Brachycephalus pitanga, which is endemic to Brazil's Southern Atlantic Forest, to either the Bd-GPL or the enzootic Bd-Asia-2/Brazil (hereafter Bd-Brazil) lineage. Using temporal samples from early, mid, and late infection stages, we quantified functional immunogenomic responses over the course of infection using differential gene expression tests and coexpression network analyses. Host immune responses varied significantly with Bd lineage. Relative to controls, toadlet responses to Bd-Brazil were weak at early infection (25 genes significantly differentially expressed), peaked by mid-stage infection (414 genes), and were nearly fully resolved by late-stage infection (nine genes). In contrast, responses to Bd-GPL were magnified and delayed; toadlets significantly differentially expressed 111 genes early, 87 genes at mid-stage infection, and 726 genes by late-stage infection relative to controls. Given that infection intensity did not vary between mid- and late-stage disease in either Bd-Brazil or Bd-GPL treatments, this suggests that pumpkin toadlets may be at least partially tolerant to the enzootic Bd-Brazil lineage. In contrast, late-stage immune activation against Bd-GPL was consistent with immune dysregulation previously observed in other species. Our results demonstrate that both the timing of immune response and the particular immune pathways activated are specific to Bd lineage. Within regions where multiple Bd lineages co-occur, and given continued global Bd movement, these differential host responses may influence not only individual disease outcome, but transmission dynamics at the population and community levels.

Habitat fragmentation in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest is associated with erosion of frog immunogenetic diversity and increased fungal infections.

Habitat fragmentation and infectious diseases threaten wildlife globally, but the interactions of these threats are poorly understood. For instance, while habitat fragmentation can impact genetic diversity at neutral loci, the impacts on disease-relevant loci are less well-studied. We examined the effects of habitat fragmentation in Brazil's Atlantic Forest on amphibian genetic diversity at an immune locus related to antigen presentation and detection (MHC IIB Exon 2). We used a custom high-throughput assay to sequence a fragment of MHC IIB and quantified Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) infections in six frog species in two Atlantic Forest regions. Habitat fragmentation was associated with genetic erosion at MHC IIB Exon 2. This erosion was most severe in forest specialists. Significant Bd infections were detected only in one Atlantic Forest region, potentially due to relatively higher elevation. In this region, forest specialists showed an increase in both Bd prevalence and infection loads in fragmented habitats. Reduced population-level MHC IIB diversity was associated with increased Bd infection risk. On the individual level, MHC IIB heterozygotes exhibited a trend toward reduced Bd infection risk, although this was marginally non-significant. Our results suggest that habitat fragmentation increases Bd infection susceptibility in amphibians, mediated at least in part through erosion of immunogenetic diversity. Our findings have implications for management of fragmented populations in the face of emerging infectious diseases.

Habitat Disturbance Linked with Host Microbiome Dispersion and Bd Dynamics in Temperate Amphibians.

Anthropogenic habitat disturbances can dramatically alter ecological community interactions, including host-pathogen dynamics. Recent work has highlighted the potential for habitat disturbances to alter host-associated microbial communities, but the associations between anthropogenic disturbance, host microbiomes, and pathogens are unresolved. Amphibian skin microbial communities are particularly responsive to factors like temperature, physiochemistry, pathogen infection, and environmental microbial reservoirs. Through a field survey on wild populations of Acris crepitans (Hylidae) and Lithobates catesbeianus (Ranidae), we assessed the effects of habitat disturbance and connectivity on environmental bacterial reservoirs, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) infection, and skin microbiome composition. We found higher measures of microbiome dispersion (a measure of community variability) in A. crepitans from more disturbed ponds, supporting the hypothesis that disturbance increases stochasticity in biological communities. We also found that habitat disturbance limited microbiome similarity between locations for both species, suggesting greater isolation of bacterial assemblages in more disturbed areas. Higher disturbance was associated with lower Bd prevalence for A. crepitans, which could signify suboptimal microclimates for Bd in disturbed habitats. Combined, our findings show that reduced microbiome stability stemming from habitat disturbance could compromise population health, even in the absence of pathogenic infection.

The Cyprus Women's Health Research (COHERE) initiative: normative data from the SF-36v2 questionnaire for reproductive aged women from the Eastern Mediterranean.

PURPOSE: Describe the health-related quality of life for a representative cohort of women aged 18-55 in Northern Cyprus. METHODS: We utilised the SF-36-Health-Survey-version-2 (SF-36v2) questionnaire as part of the COHERE Initiative study to calculate the eight physical and mental subscale scores, as well as the two overall summary measures for physical and mental health, where we present results using Cyprus-specific scoring as well as scores based on the test developers' algorithms. We examined associations between sociodemographic characteristics for both scores. RESULTS: A total of 7089 women fully completed the SF-36v2 questionnaire (mean age = 36.9), which was reliable and valid in this population. We observed better physical health in ages 18-25 compared to 46-55 (53.32 vs. 46.72 (p < 0.001)) and better mental health in women aged 46-55 compared to 18-25 (52.07 vs. 47.95 (p < 0.001)). Women in employment had better physical and mental health compared to those who were unemployed (physical: 50.25 vs 49.95, p < 0.001 and mental: 50.25 vs 49.24, p = 0.083) and scores increased as educational attainment increased (physical: 47.55 for primary to 51.58 for postgraduate, mental: 48.88 to 50.59, p < 0.001). Turkish Cypriot women had higher scores than Turkish women (physical: 50.42 vs 49.30, mental: 50.43 vs 49.10, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: These are the first population normative values published from a large representative sample of women between 18 and 55 years from the Eastern Mediterranean region. We found better physical health in younger women and better mental health in older women. Turkish Cypriot women and non-migrant women had better mental health, and HRQOL was highest in those in paid employment and those with a higher educational achievement.