Increasing crop heterogeneity enhances multitrophic diversity across agricultural regions.

Agricultural landscape homogenization has detrimental effects on biodiversity and key ecosystem services. Increasing agricultural landscape heterogeneity by increasing seminatural cover can help to mitigate biodiversity loss. However, the amount of seminatural cover is generally low and difficult to increase in many intensively managed agricultural landscapes. We hypothesized that increasing the heterogeneity of the crop mosaic itself (hereafter "crop heterogeneity") can also have positive effects on biodiversity. In 8 contrasting regions of Europe and North America, we selected 435 landscapes along independent gradients of crop diversity and mean field size. Within each landscape, we selected 3 sampling sites in 1, 2, or 3 crop types. We sampled 7 taxa (plants, bees, butterflies, hoverflies, carabids, spiders, and birds) and calculated a synthetic index of multitrophic diversity at the landscape level. Increasing crop heterogeneity was more beneficial for multitrophic diversity than increasing seminatural cover. For instance, the effect of decreasing mean field size from 5 to 2.8 ha was as strong as the effect of increasing seminatural cover from 0.5 to 11%. Decreasing mean field size benefited multitrophic diversity even in the absence of seminatural vegetation between fields. Increasing the number of crop types sampled had a positive effect on landscape-level multitrophic diversity. However, the effect of increasing crop diversity in the landscape surrounding fields sampled depended on the amount of seminatural cover. Our study provides large-scale, multitrophic, cross-regional evidence that increasing crop heterogeneity can be an effective way to increase biodiversity in agricultural landscapes without taking land out of agricultural production.

Relative effects of landscape-scale wetland amount and landscape matrix quality on wetland vertebrates: a 'meta-analysis.

Conservation management of wetland-dependent species generally focuses on preserving or increasing wetland habitat. However, the quality of the landscape matrix (the intervening non-wetland portion of the landscape) has been shown to be more important than wetland availability for some wetland-dependent species. We used meta-analysis to compare the effects of wetland amount (measured as the area of wetland habitat in a landscape) and matrix quality (measured as the area of forest cover in the same landscape) on the population abundance of wetland-dependent vertebrates. We combined data across 63 studies conducted in forested ecoregions worldwide and extracted 330 population responses for 155 species, at the spatial scale that best predicted the effects of wetland. amount and forest amount for each response. In addition, to ensure that our results were not biased by the scale selected, we assessed whether the relative effects of wetland and forest amount were scale dependent. We found that the amount of wetland in a landscape had a larger effect than the amount of forest on the abundance of mammals and birds whereas, surprisingly, for amphibians the amount of forest in a landscape was more important than the amount of wetland. For reptiles, both wetland amount and forest amount showed only weak,effects on abundance. These results were not scale dependent, i.e., they were consistent across spatial scales. Our results suggest that the population distribution of wetland-dependent amphibians is more strongly related to landscape matrix quality than to wetland availability in a landscape, likely due to their requirement for access to terrestrial resources. We conclude that conservation policies for wetland biodiversity that focus only on wetland habitat will be ineffective in conserving many of these species. In addition, population viability analyses based only on wetland amount may overestimate the capacity of a landscape to support populations of wetland-dependent species.

Generation of priority research questions to inform conservation policy and management at a national level.

Integrating knowledge from across the natural and social sciences is necessary to effectively address societal tradeoffs between human use of biological diversity and its preservation. Collaborative processes can change the ways decision makers think about scientific evidence, enhance levels of mutual trust and credibility, and advance the conservation policy discourse. Canada has responsibility for a large fraction of some major ecosystems, such as boreal forests, Arctic tundra, wetlands, and temperate and Arctic oceans. Stressors to biological diversity within these ecosystems arise from activities of the country's resource-based economy, as well as external drivers of environmental change. Effective management is complicated by incongruence between ecological and political boundaries and conflicting perspectives on social and economic goals. Many knowledge gaps about stressors and their management might be reduced through targeted, timely research. We identify 40 questions that, if addressed or answered, would advance research that has a high probability of supporting development of effective policies and management strategies for species, ecosystems, and ecological processes in Canada. A total of 396 candidate questions drawn from natural and social science disciplines were contributed by individuals with diverse organizational affiliations. These were collaboratively winnowed to 40 by our team of collaborators. The questions emphasize understanding ecosystems, the effects and mitigation of climate change, coordinating governance and management efforts across multiple jurisdictions, and examining relations between conservation policy and the social and economic well-being of Aboriginal peoples. The questions we identified provide potential links between evidence from the conservation sciences and formulation of policies for conservation and resource management. Our collaborative process of communication and engagement between scientists and decision makers for generating and prioritizing research questions at a national level could be a model for similar efforts beyond Canada.

Antibiotic duration and postoperative infection rates in mandibular fractures.

BACKGROUND: Although the use of preoperative antibiotics has been proven effective, the value of postoperative antibiotics in the setting of mandibular fracture remains in question as does the appropriate duration of therapy. METHODS: A retrospective study of all patients 18 years and older who presented with mandibular fractures to St Louis University Hospital between December 2001 and July 2006 was conducted. Collected variables included age, injury severity score, fracture type and location, preoperative antibiotic administration, antibiotic type, duration of antibiotic course, and postoperative infection. Infections were statistically compared with each. RESULTS: Of 253 identified patients, 197 qualified for study inclusion. A total of 9 postoperative infections were documented. When comparing individuals with postoperative infection to those without, age was the only significant difference between infected and uninfected groups, with older patients more likely to acquire infection. Injury severity score, fracture type, duration of antibiotic course, and antibiotic type were not significantly different. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that patient factors make a greater contribution to postoperative infection when compared with iatrogenic factors in the treatment of mandibular fractures. We found no evidence to support prolonged postoperative antibiotic therapy. Our findings bring into question the need for postoperative antibiotics for the treatment of mandibular fractures.

Disparities in Deceased Organ Donor Research Authorization: Experience at One Organ Procurement Organization and Call for National Conversations.

INTRODUCTION: Research with deceased donor organs can provide an important platform for studying interventions to improve organ use and outcomes after authorization from the next-of-kin (NOK) or before death by the decedent (i.e., first-person authorization [FPA]). To date, information on authorization rates across donor subgroups is lacking. METHODS: We performed a retrospective chart review of all 690 deceased organ donors from January 2017 to December 2019 at a midsized Midwestern organ procurement organization (OPO). Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess associations between donor factors and research decline (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 95% confidence interval [CI]). RESULTS: Electronic records for all 690 deceased donors were reviewed. Of these, 659 (95.5%) yielded at least one transplanted organ. Overall, research was declined in 10.8% of donations. Compared to White donors, research decline was higher for Black (16.0% vs. 8.9%; aOR, 1.87; 95% CI, 1.03-3.40; P = 0.04) and other non-White donors (24.0% vs. 8.9%; aOR, 4.21; 95% CI, 1.02-17.39; P = 0.05). Unadjusted research decline trended higher for Hispanic donors versus non-Hispanic donors (23.1% vs. 10.5%; P = 0.14). Compared to donors age <40 years, research decline trended higher for donors age ≥65 years (16.7% vs. 11.8%; aOR, 4.87; 95% CI, 1.12-21.05; P = 0.03), whereas research decline was 55% lower when donors provided FPA (7.3% vs 15.0%; aOR, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.27-0.76; P = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: Deceased donor research authorization decline is higher for Black, other non-White, and older donors, but lower when the descendent provides FPA. Identification of disparities in research authorization may stimulate educational strategies to reduce barriers to scientific investigations directed at optimizing the outcomes of organ donation.

Refractory Sexual Arousal Subsequent to Sacral Neuromodulation.

BACKGROUND: Sacral neuromodulation has become a widely used treatment for lower urinary tract symptom and dysfunction. It has been observed to benefit sexual function in the domains of arousal and desire. Studies have yet to report markedly increased arousal symptoms as an adverse effect. CASE: We present the case of a 57-year-old woman who developed symptomatic persistent genital arousal following implantation of a neuromodulator. Despite device reprogramming, a trial of the device being shut off, and eventual device removal, she continued to have residual new-onset undesired genital hyper-arousal symptoms. CONCLUSION: Our patient demonstrated markedly increased and persistent arousal symptoms that may be the result of upregulated or alternative activation of sacral nerve pathways. While other case reports describe improvement in persistent genital arousal disorder symptoms through neuromodulation, no studies mention hyperarousal symptoms as an adverse side effect after sacral neuromodulator placement nor persistence despite removal of the implant.

Low reproductive rate predicts species sensitivity to habitat loss: a meta-analysis of wetland vertebrates.

We tested the hypotheses that species with greater mobility and/or higher reproductive rates are less sensitive to habitat loss than species with lower mobility and/or reproductive rates by conducting a meta-analysis of wetland vertebrate responses to wetland habitat loss. We combined data from 90 studies conducted worldwide that quantified the relationship between wetland amount in a landscape and population abundance of at least one wetland species to determine if mobility (indexed as home range size and body length) and annual reproductive rate influence species responses to wetland loss. When analyzed across all taxa, animals with higher reproductive rates were less sensitive to wetland loss. Surprisingly, we did not find an effect of mobility on response to wetland loss. Overall, wetland mammals and birds were more sensitive to wetland loss than were reptiles and amphibians. Our results suggest that dispersal between habitat patches is less important than species' reproductive rates for population persistence in fragmented landscapes. This implies that immigration and colonization rate is most strongly related to reproduction, which determines the total number of potential colonists.