Sensory pollutants alter bird phenology and fitness across a continent.

Expansion of anthropogenic noise and night lighting across our planet1,2 is of increasing conservation concern3-6. Despite growing knowledge of physiological and behavioural responses to these stimuli from single-species and local-scale studies, whether these pollutants affect fitness is less clear, as is how and why species vary in their sensitivity to these anthropic stressors. Here we leverage a large citizen science dataset paired with high-resolution noise and light data from across the contiguous United States to assess how these stimuli affect reproductive success in 142 bird species. We find responses to both sensory pollutants linked to the functional traits and habitat affiliations of species. For example, overall nest success was negatively correlated with noise among birds in closed environments. Species-specific changes in reproductive timing and hatching success in response to noise exposure were explained by vocalization frequency, nesting location and diet. Additionally, increased light-gathering ability of species' eyes was associated with stronger advancements in reproductive timing in response to light exposure, potentially creating phenological mismatches7. Unexpectedly, better light-gathering ability was linked to reduced clutch failure and increased overall nest success in response to light exposure, raising important questions about how responses to sensory pollutants counteract or exacerbate responses to other aspects of global change, such as climate warming. These findings demonstrate that anthropogenic noise and light can substantially affect breeding bird phenology and fitness, and underscore the need to consider sensory pollutants alongside traditional dimensions of the environment that typically inform biodiversity conservation.

Conserving the evolutionary history of birds.

In the midst of the sixth mass extinction, limited resources are forcing conservationists to prioritize which species and places will receive conservation action. Evolutionary distinctiveness measures the isolation of a species on its phylogenetic tree. Combining a species' evolutionary distinctiveness with its globally endangered status creates an EDGE score. We use EDGE scores to prioritize the places and species that should be managed to conserve bird evolutionary history. We analyzed all birds in all countries and important bird areas. We examined parrots, raptors, and seabirds in depth because these groups are especially threatened and relatively speciose. The three focal groups had greater median threatened evolutionary history than other taxa, making them important for conserving bird evolutionary history. Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar, New Zealand, and the Philippines were especially critical countries for bird conservation because they had the most threatened evolutionary history for endemic birds and are important for parrots, raptors, and seabirds. Increased enforcement of international agreements for the conservation of parrots, raptors, and seabirds is needed because these agreements protect hundreds of millions of years of threatened bird evolutionary history. Decisive action is required to conserve the evolutionary history of birds into the Anthropocene.

En medio de la sexta extinción masiva, los recursos limitados están obligando a los conservacionistas a priorizar cuáles especies y lugares recibirán acciones de conservación. La peculiaridad evolutiva mide el aislamiento de una especie con respecto a su árbol filogenético. La combinación entre la peculiaridad evolutiva de una especie y su estado de conservación mundial genera un puntaje EDGE. Usamos estos puntajes para priorizar los lugares y especies que se deben gestionar para conservar la historia evolutiva ornitológica. Analizamos todas las especies de aves en todos los países y áreas de importancia ornitológica. Estudiamos a profundidad a los psitácidos, rapaces, y aves marinas por el nivel de amenaza que enfrentan estos grupos y porque cuentan con muchas especies. Estos tres grupos tuvieron una mayor mediana de historia evolutiva amenazada que los demás taxones, por lo que son de suma importancia para la conservación de la historia evolutiva ornitológica. Australia, Brasil, Indonesia, Madagascar, Nueva Zelanda y las Filipinas fueron países particularmente críticos para la conservación de las aves pues cuentan con la mayor historia evolutiva amenazada de aves endémicas y son localidades importantes para nuestros tres grupos focales. Se requiere de un incremento en la aplicación de los acuerdos internaciones para la conservación de los psitácidos, rapaces y aves marinas ya que estos acuerdos protegen cientos de millones de años de historia evolutiva ornitológica. Se necesitan acciones decisivas para conservar la historia evolutiva de las aves en el Antropoceno.

A stochastic simulation model for assessing the masking effects of road noise for wildlife, outdoor recreation, and bioacoustic monitoring.

Traffic noise is one of the leading causes of reductions in animal abundances near roads. Acoustic masking of conspecific signals and adventitious cues is one mechanism that likely causes animals to abandon loud areas. However, masking effects can be difficult to document in situ and the effects of infrequent noise events may be impractical to study. Here, we present the Soundscapes model, a stochastic individual-based model that dynamically models the listening areas of animals searching for acoustic resources ("searchers"). The model also studies the masking effects of noise for human detections of the searchers. The model is set in a landscape adjacent to a road. Noise produced by vehicles traveling on that road is represented by calibrated spectra that vary with speed. Noise propagation is implemented using ISO-9613 procedures. We present demonstration simulations that quantify declines in searcher efficiency and human detection of searchers at relatively low traffic volumes, fewer than 50 vehicles per hour. Traffic noise is pervasive, and the Soundscapes model offers an extensible tool to study the effects of noise on bioacoustics monitoring, point-count surveys, the restorative value of natural soundscapes, and auditory performance in an ecological context.

Raptor research during the COVID-19 pandemic provides invaluable opportunities for conservation biology.

Research is underway to examine how a wide range of animal species have responded to reduced levels of human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this perspective article, we argue that raptors (i.e., the orders Accipitriformes, Cariamiformes, Cathartiformes, Falconiformes, and Strigiformes) are particularly well-suited for investigating potential 'anthropause' effects: they are sensitive to environmental perturbation, affected by various human activities, and include many locally and globally threatened species. Lockdowns likely alter extrinsic factors that normally limit raptor populations. These environmental changes are in turn expected to influence - mediated by behavioral and physiological responses - the intrinsic (demographic) factors that ultimately determine raptor population levels and distributions. Using this population-limitation framework, we identify a range of research opportunities and conservation challenges that have arisen during the pandemic, related to changes in human disturbance, light and noise pollution, collision risk, road-kill availability, supplementary feeding, and persecution levels. Importantly, raptors attract intense research interest, with many professional and amateur researchers running long-term monitoring programs, often incorporating community-science components, advanced tracking technology and field-methodological approaches that allow flexible timing, enabling continued data collection before, during, and after COVID-19 lockdowns. To facilitate and coordinate global collaboration, we are hereby launching the 'Global Anthropause Raptor Research Network' (GARRN). We invite the international raptor research community to join this inclusive and diverse group, to tackle ambitious analyses across geographic regions, ecosystems, species, and gradients of lockdown perturbation. Under the most tragic of circumstances, the COVID-19 anthropause has afforded an invaluable opportunity to significantly boost global raptor conservation.

Towards reconciliation of the four world bird lists: hotspots of disagreement in taxonomy of raptors.

There are currently four world bird lists referenced by different stakeholders including governments, academic journals, museums and citizen scientists. Consolidation of these lists is a conservation and research priority. In reconciling lists, care must be taken to ensure agreement in taxonomic concepts-the actual groups of individual organisms circumscribed by a given scientific epithet. Here, we compare species-level taxonomic concepts for raptors across the four lists, highlighting areas of disagreement. Of the 665 species-level raptor taxa observed at least once among the four lists, only 453 (68%) were consistent across all four lists. The Howard and Moore Checklist of the Birds of the World contains the fewest raptor species (528), whereas the International Ornithological Community World Bird List contains the most (580) and these two lists are in the most disagreement. Of the disagreements, 67% involved owls, and Indonesia was the country containing the most disagreed upon species (169). Finally, we calculated the amount of species-level agreement across lists for each avian order and found raptor orders spread throughout the rankings of agreement. Our results emphasize the need to reconcile the four world bird lists for all avian orders, highlight broad disagreements across lists and identify hotspots of disagreement for raptors, in particular.

The epidemiology of platelet transfusions: an analysis of platelet use at 12 US hospitals.

BACKGROUND: Using the Recipient and Donor Epidemiology Study-III (REDS-III) recipient and donor databases, we performed a retrospective analysis of platelet use in 12 US hospitals that were participants in REDS-III. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Data were electronically extracted from participating transfusion service and blood center computer systems and from medical records of the 12 REDS-III hospitals. All platelet transfusions from 2013 to 2016 given to patients aged 18 years and older were included in the analysis. RESULTS: There were 28,843 inpatients and 2987 outpatients who were transfused with 163,719 platelet products (103,371 apheresis, 60,348 whole blood derived); 93.5% of platelets were leukoreduced and 72.5% were irradiated. Forty-six percent were transfused to patients with an International Classification of Diseases, 9th/10th Revision (ICD-9/10) diagnosis of leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), or lymphoma. The general ward and the intensive care unit (ICU) were the most common issue locations. Only 54% of platelet transfusions were ABO identical; and 60.6% of platelet transfusions given to Rh-negative patients were Rh positive. The most common pretransfusion platelet count range for inpatients was 20,000 to 50,000/µL, for outpatients it was 10,000 to 20,000/µL. Among ICU patients, 35% of platelet transfusion episodes had a platelet count of greater than 50,000/µL; this was only 8% for general ward and 2% for outpatients. The median posttransfusion increment, not corrected for platelet dose and/or patient size, ranged from 12,000 to 20,000/µL for inpatients, and from 17,000 to 27,000/µL for outpatients. CONCLUSIONS: These data from one of the largest reviews of platelet transfusion practice to date provide guidance for where to focus future clinical research studies and platelet blood management programs.

Hb S/ß-Thalassemia in the REDS-III Brazil Sickle Cell Disease Cohort: Clinical, Laboratory and Molecular Characteristics.

We described the clinical, laboratory and molecular characteristics of individuals with Hb S (HBB: c.20A>T)/ß-thalassemia (Hb S/ß-thal) participating in the Recipient Epidemiology and Donor Evaluation Study (REDS-III) Brazil Sickle Cell Disease cohort. HBB gene sequencing was performed to genotype each ß-thal mutation. Patients were classified as Hb S/ß0-thal, Hb S/ß+-thal-severe or Hb S/ß+-thal based on prior literature and databases of hemoglobin (Hb) variants. Characteristics of patients with each ß-thal mutation were described and the clinical profile of patients grouped into Hb S/ß0-thal, Hb S/ß+-thal and Hb S/ß+-thal-severe were compared. Of the 2793 patients enrolled, 84 (3.0%) had Hb S/ß0-thal and 83 (3.0%) had Hb S/ß+-thal; 40/83 (48.2%) patients with Hb S/ß+-thal had mutations defined as severe. We identified 19 different ß-thal mutations, eight Hb S/ß0-thal, three Hb S/ß+-thal-severe and eight Hb S/ß+-thal. The most frequent ß0 and ß+ mutations were codon 39 (HBB: c.118C>T) and IVS-I-6 (T>C) (HBB: c.92+6T>C), respectively. Individuals with Hb S/ß0-thal had a similar clinical and laboratory phenotype when compared to those with Hb S/ß+-thal-severe. Individuals with Hb S/ß+-thal-severe had significantly lower total Hb and Hb A levels and higher Hb S, white blood cell (WBC) count, platelets and hemolysis markers when compared to those with Hb S/ß+-thal. Likewise, individuals with Hb S/ß+-thal-severe showed a significantly higher occurrence of hospitalizations, vaso-occlusive events (VOE), acute chest syndrome (ACS), splenic sequestration, blood utilization, and hydroxyurea (HU) therapy.

Elevated risk for iron depletion in high-school age blood donors.

BACKGROUND: High school students 16 to 18 years-old contribute 10% of the US blood supply. Mitigating iron depletion in these donors is important because they continue to undergo physical and neurocognitive development. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Study objectives were to determine the prevalence of iron depletion in 16- to 18-year-old donors and whether their risk for iron depletion was greater than adult donors. Successful, age-eligible donors were enrolled from high school blood drives at two large US blood centers. Plasma ferritin testing was performed with ferritin less than 12 ng/mL as our primary measure of iron depletion and ferritin less than 26 ng/mL a secondary measure. Multivariable repeated-measures logistic regression models evaluated the role of age and other demographic/donation factors. RESULTS: Ferritin was measured from 4265 enrollment donations September to November 2015 and 1954 follow-up donations through May 2016. At enrollment, prevalence of ferritin less than 12 ng/mL in teenagers was 1% in males and 18% in females making their first blood donation, and 8% in males and 33% in females with prior donations. Adjusted odds for ferritin less than 12 ng/mL were 2.1 to 2.8 times greater in 16- to 18-year-olds than in 19- to 49-year-olds, and for ferritin less than 26 ng/mL were 3.3- to 4.7-fold higher in 16- to 18-year-olds. Progression to hemoglobin deferral was twice as likely in 16- to 18-year-old versus 19- to 49-year-old females. CONCLUSION: Age 16 to 18 years-old is an independent risk factor for iron deficiency in blood donors at any donation frequency. Blood centers should implement alternate eligibility criteria or additional safety measures to protect teenage donors from iron depletion.

A phantom road experiment reveals traffic noise is an invisible source of habitat degradation.

Decades of research demonstrate that roads impact wildlife and suggest traffic noise as a primary cause of population declines near roads. We created a "phantom road" using an array of speakers to apply traffic noise to a roadless landscape, directly testing the effect of noise alone on an entire songbird community during autumn migration. Thirty-one percent of the bird community avoided the phantom road. For individuals that stayed despite the noise, overall body condition decreased by a full SD and some species showed a change in ability to gain body condition when exposed to traffic noise during migratory stopover. We conducted complementary laboratory experiments that implicate foraging-vigilance behavior as one mechanism driving this pattern. Our results suggest that noise degrades habitat that is otherwise suitable, and that the presence of a species does not indicate the absence of an impact.

Moth tails divert bat attack: evolution of acoustic deflection.

Adaptations to divert the attacks of visually guided predators have evolved repeatedly in animals. Using high-speed infrared videography, we show that luna moths (Actias luna) generate an acoustic diversion with spinning hindwing tails to deflect echolocating bat attacks away from their body and toward these nonessential appendages. We pit luna moths against big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) and demonstrate a survival advantage of ∼ 47% for moths with tails versus those that had their tails removed. The benefit of hindwing tails is equivalent to the advantage conferred to moths by bat-detecting ears. Moth tails lured bat attacks to these wing regions during 55% of interactions between bats and intact luna moths. We analyzed flight kinematics of moths with and without hindwing tails and suggest that tails have a minimal role in flight performance. Using a robust phylogeny, we find that long spatulate tails have independently evolved four times in saturniid moths, further supporting the selective advantage of this anti-bat strategy. Diversionary tactics are perhaps more common than appreciated in predator-prey interactions. Our finding suggests that focusing on the sensory ecologies of key predators will reveal such countermeasures in prey.

Simulations reveal the power and peril of artificial breeding sites for monitoring and managing animals.

Despite common use, the efficacy of artificial breeding sites (e.g., nest boxes, bat houses, artificial burrows) as tools for monitoring and managing animals depends on the demography of target populations and availability of natural sites. Yet, the conditions enabling artificial breeding sites to be useful or informative have yet to be articulated. We use a stochastic simulation model to determine situations where artificial breeding sites are either useful or disadvantageous for monitoring and managing animals. Artificial breeding sites are a convenient tool for monitoring animals and therefore occupancy of artificial breeding sites is often used as an index of population levels. However, systematic changes in availability of sites that are not monitored might induce trends in occupancy of monitored sites, a situation rarely considered by monitoring programs. We therefore examine how systematic changes in unmonitored sites could bias inference from trends in the occupancy of monitored sites. Our model also allows us to examine effects on population levels if artificial breeding sites either increase or decrease population vital rates (survival and fecundity). We demonstrate that trends in occupancy of monitored sites are misleading if the number of unmonitored sites changes over time. Further, breeding site fidelity can cause an initial lag in occupancy of newly installed sites that could be misinterpreted as an increasing population, even when the population has been continuously declining. Importantly, provisioning of artificial breeding sites only benefits populations if breeding sites are limiting or if artificial sites increase vital rates. There are many situations where installation of artificial breeding sites, and their use in monitoring, can have unintended consequences. Managers should therefore not assume that provision of artificial breeding sites will necessarily benefit populations. Further, trends in occupancy of artificial breeding sites should be interpreted in light of potential changes in the availability of unmonitored sites and the potential of lags in occupancy owing to site fidelity.

Earlier nesting by generalist predatory bird is associated with human responses to climate change.

Warming temperatures cause temporal changes in growing seasons and prey abundance that drive earlier breeding by birds, especially dietary specialists within homogeneous habitat. Less is known about how generalists respond to climate-associated shifts in growing seasons or prey phenology, which may occur at different rates across land cover types. We studied whether breeding phenology of a generalist predator, the American kestrel (Falco sparverius), was associated with shifts in growing seasons and, presumably, prey abundance, in a mosaic of non-irrigated shrub/grasslands and irrigated crops/pastures. We examined the relationship between remotely-sensed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and abundance of small mammals that, with insects, constitute approximately 93% of kestrel diet biomass. We used NDVI to estimate the start of the growing season (SoGS) in irrigated and non-irrigated lands from 1992 to 2015 and tested whether either estimate of annual SoGS predicted the timing of kestrel nesting. Finally, we examined relationships among irrigated SoGS, weather and crop planting. NDVI was a useful proxy for kestrel prey because it predicted small mammal abundance and past studies showed that NDVI predicts insect abundance. NDVI-estimated SoGS advanced significantly in irrigated lands (ß = -1·09 ± 0·30 SE) but not in non-irrigated lands (ß = -0·57 ± 0·53). Average date of kestrel nesting advanced 15 days in the past 24 years and was positively associated with the SoGS in irrigated lands, but not the SoGS in non-irrigated lands. Advanced SoGS in irrigated lands was related to earlier planting of crops after relatively warm winters, which were more common in recent years. Despite different patterns of SoGS change between land cover types, kestrel nesting phenology shifted with earlier prey availability in irrigated lands. Kestrels may preferentially track prey in irrigated lands over non-irrigated lands because of higher quality prey on irrigated lands, or earlier prey abundance may release former constraints on other selective pressures to breed early, such as seasonal declines in fecundity or competition for high-quality mates. This is one of the first examples of an association between human adaptation to climate change and shifts in breeding phenology of wildlife.

Acoustic environments matter: Synergistic benefits to humans and ecological communities.

Protected areas are critical locations worldwide for biodiversity preservation and offer important opportunities for increasingly urbanized humans to experience nature. However, biodiversity preservation and visitor access are often at odds and creative solutions are needed to safeguard protected area natural resources in the face of high visitor use. Managing human impacts to natural soundscapes could serve as a powerful tool for resolving these conflicting objectives. Here, we review emerging research that demonstrates that the acoustic environment is critical to wildlife and that sounds shape the quality of nature-based experiences for humans. Human-made noise is known to affect animal behavior, distributions and reproductive success, and the organization of ecological communities. Additionally, new research suggests that interactions with nature, including natural sounds, confer benefits to human welfare termed psychological ecosystem services. In areas influenced by noise, elevated human-made noise not only limits the variety and abundance of organisms accessible to outdoor recreationists, but also impairs their capacity to perceive the wildlife that remains. Thus soundscape changes can degrade, and potentially limit the benefits derived from experiences with nature via indirect and direct mechanisms. We discuss the effects of noise on wildlife and visitors through the concept of listening area and demonstrate how the perceptual worlds of both birds and humans are reduced by noise. Finally, we discuss how management of soundscapes in protected areas may be an innovative solution to safeguarding both and recommend several key questions and research directions to stimulate new research.

Duration of Dengue Viremia in Blood Donors and Relationships Between Donor Viremia, Infection Incidence and Clinical Case Reports During a Large Epidemic.

BACKGROUND: Dengue viruses (DENV-1-4) pose a transfusion-transmission risk. This study estimated the dengue RNA detection period in asymptomatic blood donors and relationships between donor viremia and dengue incidence during a large epidemic. METHODS: Donor samples from the 2012 dengue transmission season in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were tested for DENV RNA by a transcription-mediated amplification (TMA) assay, with DENV types and viral loads determined by polymerase chain reaction. Samples collected during the first and last weeks of enrollment were tested for DENV immunoglobulin (Ig) G and IgM to estimate incidence during the study period, which was analyzed relative to nucleic acid amplification technology (NAT) yield to estimate the duration of NAT-detectable viremia and compared with reported clinical dengue cases in Rio. RESULTS: Samples from 16 241 donations were tested; 87 (0.54%) were confirmed as DENV-4 RNA positive. Dengue IgM-positive/IgG-positive reactivity increased from 2.8% to 8.8%, indicating a 6.2% incidence (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.2%-9.1%) during the study period. Based on these data, we estimated a 9.1-day period (95% CI, 4.4-13.9 days) of RNA detectable with TMA. With 100 475 reported cases of clinical dengue, 1 RNA-positive donation was identified per 800 DENV cases. CONCLUSIONS: These parameters allow projections of dengue incidence from donor NAT yield data and vice versa, and suggest that viremic donations will be rare relative to clinical disease cases.

Transfusion-Transmitted Dengue and Associated Clinical Symptoms During the 2012 Epidemic in Brazil.

BACKGROUND: A linked donor-recipient study was conducted during epidemics in 2 cities in Brazil to investigate transfusion-transmitted (TT) dengue virus (DENV) by DENV RNA-positive donations. METHODS: During February-June 2012, samples were collected from donors and recipients and retrospectively tested for DENV RNA by transcription-mediated amplification. Recipient chart review, using a case (DENV positive)-control (DENV negative and not known to be exposed) design, was conducted to assess symptoms. RESULTS: Of 39 134 recruited blood donors, DENV-4 viremia was confirmed in 0.51% of donations from subjects in Rio de Janeiro and 0.80% of subjects in Recife. Overall, 42 DENV RNA-positive units were transfused into 35 recipients. Of these, 16 RNA-positive units transfused into 16 susceptible recipients were identified as informative: 5 cases were considered probable TT cases, 1 possible TT case, and 10 nontransmissions. The TT rate was 37.5% (95% confidence interval [CI], 15.2%-64.6%), significantly higher than the viremia rate of 0.93% (95% CI, .11%-3.34%) in nonexposed recipients (P < .0001). Chart review did not find significant differences between cases and controls in symptoms or mortality. CONCLUSIONS: During a large epidemic of DENV-4 infection in Brazil, >0.5% of donations were RNA positive, and approximately one third of components resulted in TT. However, no significant clinical differences were evident between RNA-positive and RNA-negative recipients.

Snake co-occurrence patterns are best explained by habitat and hypothesized effects of interspecific interactions.

Snakes often occur in species-rich assemblages, and sympatry is thought to be facilitated primarily by low diet overlap, not interspecific interactions. We selected, a priori, three species pairs consisting of species that are morphologically and taxonomically similar and may therefore be likely to engage in interspecific, consumptive competition. We then examined a large-scale database of snake detection/nondetection data and used occupancy modelling to determine whether these species occur together more or less frequently than expected by chance while accounting for variation in detection probability among species and incorporating important habitat categories in the models. For some snakes, we obtained evidence that the probabilities that habitat patches are used are influenced by the presence of potentially competing congeneric species. Specifically, timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) were less likely than expected by chance to use areas that also contained eastern diamond-backed rattlesnakes (Crotalus adamanteus) when the proportion of evergreen forest was relatively high. Otherwise, they occurred together more often than expected by chance. Complex relationships were revealed between habitat use, detection probabilities and occupancy probabilities of North American racers (Coluber constrictor) and coachwhips (Coluber flagellum) that indicated the probability of competitive exclusion increased with increasing area of grassland habitat, although there was some model uncertainty. Cornsnakes (Pantherophis guttatus or Pantherophis slowinskii) and ratsnakes (Pantherophis alleghaniensis, Pantherophis spiloides, or Pantherophis obsoletus) exhibited differences in habitat selection, but we obtained no evidence that patterns of use for this species pair were influenced by current interspecific interactions. Overall, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that competitive interactions influence snake assemblage composition; the strength of these effects was affected by landscape-scale habitat features. Furthermore, we suggest that current interspecific interactions may influence snake occupancy, challenging the paradigm that contemporary patterns of snake co-occurrence are largely a function of diet partitioning that arose over evolutionary time.

Increased stress among women following an economic collapse--a prospective cohort study.

There is a scarcity of data on mental health effects of the global economic recession. In this study, we investigated potential change in self-reported levels of psychological stress in the Icelandic population as a result of the major national economic collapse that occurred in 2008. We used a national cohort of 3,755 persons who responded to a survey administered in 2007 and 2009, including demographic questions and a stress measure (the 4-item Perceived Stress Scale). We used repeated-measures analysis of variance and logistic regression models to assess change in mean stress levels and risk of high stress levels (>90th percentile) in 2009 as compared with 2007. Age-adjusted mean stress levels increased between 2007 and 2009 (P = 0.004), though the increase was observed only for women (P = 0.003), not for men (P = 0.34). Similarly, the odds ratios for experiencing high stress levels were increased only among women (odds ratio (OR) = 1.37), especially among women who were unemployed (OR = 3.38), students (OR = 2.01), had middle levels of education (OR = 1.65), or were in the middle income bracket (OR = 1.59). The findings indicate that psychological stress may have increased following the economic collapse in Iceland, particularly among females in economically vulnerable groups.

An experimental investigation into the effects of traffic noise on distributions of birds: avoiding the phantom road.

Many authors have suggested that the negative effects of roads on animals are largely owing to traffic noise. Although suggestive, most past studies of the effects of road noise on wildlife were conducted in the presence of the other confounding effects of roads, such as visual disturbance, collisions and chemical pollution among others. We present, to our knowledge, the first study to experimentally apply traffic noise to a roadless area at a landscape scale-thus avoiding the other confounding aspects of roads present in past studies. We replicated the sound of a roadway at intervals-alternating 4 days of noise on with 4 days off-during the autumn migratory period using a 0.5 km array of speakers within an established stopover site in southern Idaho. We conducted daily bird surveys along our 'Phantom Road' and in a nearby control site. We document over a one-quarter decline in bird abundance and almost complete avoidance by some species between noise-on and noise-off periods along the phantom road and no such effects at control sites-suggesting that traffic noise is a major driver of effects of roads on populations of animals.

Landscape-level influences of terrestrial snake occupancy within the southeastern United States.

Habitat loss and degradation are thought to be the primary drivers of species extirpations, but for many species we have little information regarding specific habitats that influence occupancy. Snakes are of conservation concern throughout North America, but effective management and conservation are hindered by a lack of basic natural history information and the small number of large-scale studies designed to assess general population trends. To address this information gap, we compiled detection/nondetection data for 13 large terrestrial species from 449 traps located across the southeastern United States, and we characterized the land cover surrounding each trap at multiple spatial scales (250-, 500-, and 1000-m buffers). We used occupancy modeling, while accounting for heterogeneity in detection probability, to identify habitat variables that were influential in determining the presence of a particular species. We evaluated 12 competing models for each species, representing various hypotheses pertaining to important habitat features for terrestrial snakes. Overall, considerable interspecific variation existed in important habitat variables and relevant spatial scales. For example, kingsnakes (Lampropeltis getula) were negatively associated with evergreen forests, whereas Louisiana pinesnake (Pituophis ruthveni) occupancy increased with increasing coverage of this forest type. Some species were positively associated with grassland and scrub/shrub (e.g., Slowinski's cornsnake, Elaphe slowinskii) whereas others, (e.g., copperhead, Agkistrodon contortrix, and eastern diamond-backed rattlesnake, Crotalus adamanteus) were positively associated with forested habitats. Although the species that we studied may persist in varied landscapes other than those we identified as important, our data were collected in relatively undeveloped areas. Thus, our findings may be relevant when generating conservation plans or restoration goals. Maintaining or restoring landscapes that are most consistent with the ancestral habitat preferences of terrestrial snake assemblages will require a diverse habitat matrix over large spatial scales.

Developing models for the forage ratios of Culiseta melanura and Culex erraticus using species characteristics for avian hosts.

Studies of mosquito preferences for avian hosts have found that some bird species are at greater risk than others of being fed upon by mosquitoes. The ecological factors that determine this interspecific variation in avian host use by mosquitoes have been little studied, despite the possibility that such variation may influence spatial and temporal patterns of the occurrence of mosquito-borne pathogens. Our objective was to identify ecological variables associated with the avian host forage ratios estimated from a previous study of mosquito feeding patterns in Tuskegee National Forest, AL. We used species' characteristics derived from the literature to develop multiple linear regression models for the forage ratios of Culiseta melanura (Coquillett) and Culex erraticus (Dyar & Knab) for avian hosts. We found that habitat-edge association and body mass of avian host species were the best predictors of forage ratios of Cx. erraticus for avian hosts. Although no avian host traits were inferred to be strong predictors of forage ratios of Cs. melanura, body mass had the greatest importance weight among those considered. Our results suggest that characteristics of avian hosts may predict their levels of use by some mosquito species.