Procambarus virginalis Lyko, 2017: A new threat to Iberian inland waters.

An eco-monitoring programme to assess faunal biodiversity in the main rivers of the northern Iberian Peninsula (Spain) reveals the first occurrence of the marbled crayfish Procambarus virginalis (Decapoda: Cambaridae) in Iberian inland waters. Iberian specimens have been identified by combining morphological and genetic traits. We discuss the most plausible pathways and introduction vectors, its potential invasiveness and subsequent impacts on host localities. Our preliminary results raise concern about the potential threat of P. virginalis to native fauna and ecosystem dynamics, as P. virginalis was found in an area of great cultural and ecological importance with relevant populations of endangered species. Due to the invasive history of the marbled crayfish, eradication of these individuals is urgent. This study confirms the importance of early warning systems for exotic species, keeping the population, forest guards and field technicians informed about potential invasive species to execute a rapid and effective response.

Evaluating the use of non-invasive hair sampling and ddRAD to characterize populations of endangered species: Application to a peripheral population of the European mink.

The application of next-generation sequencing (NGS) to non-invasive samples is one of the most promising methods in conservation genomics, but these types of samples present significant challenges for NGS. The European mink (Mustela lutreola) is critically endangered throughout its range. However, important aspects such as census size and inbreeding remain still unknown in many populations, so it is crucial to develop new methods to monitor this species. In this work, we placed hair tubes along riverbanks in a border area of the Iberian population, which allowed the genetic identification of 76 European mink hair samples. We then applied a reduced representation genomic sequencing (ddRAD) technique to a subset of these samples to test whether we could extract sufficient genomic information from them. We show that several problems with the DNA, including contamination, fragmentation, oxidation, and possibly sample mixing, affected the samples. Using various bioinformatic techniques to reduce these problems, we were able to unambiguously genotype 19 hair samples belonging to six individuals. This small number of individuals showed that the demographic status of the species in this peripheral population is worse than expected. The data obtained also allowed us to perform preliminary analyses of relatedness and inbreeding. Although further improvements in sampling and analysis are needed, the application of the ddRAD technique to non-invasively obtained hairs represents a significant advance in the genomic study of endangered species.

Clinical Profiling and Biomarkers for Post-Operative Atrial Fibrillation Prediction in Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery.

Post-operative atrial fibrillation (POAF) is the most common arrhythmia in the post-operative period after cardiac surgery. We aim to investigate the main clinical, local, and/or peripheral biochemical and molecular predictors for POAF in patients undergoing coronary and/or valve surgery. Between August 2020 and September 2022, consecutive patients undergoing cardiac surgery without previous history of AF were studied. Clinical variables, plasma, and biological tissues (epicardial and subcutaneous fat) were obtained before surgery. Pre-operative markers associated with inflammation, adiposity, atrial stretch, and fibrosis were analyzed on peripheral and local samples with multiplex assay and real-time PCR. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed in order to identify the main predictors for POAF. Patients were followed-up until hospital discharge. Out of 123 consecutive patients without prior AF, 43 (34.9%) developed POAF during hospitalization. The main predictors were cardiopulmonary bypass time (odds ratio (OR) 1.008 (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.002-1.013), p = 0.005), and plasma pre-operative orosomucoid levels (OR 1.008 (1.206-5.761). After studying differences regarding sex, orosomucoid was the best predictor for POAF in women (OR 2.639 (95% CI, 1.455-4.788), p = 0.027) but not in men. The results support the pre-operative inflammation pathway as a factor involved in the risk of POAF, mainly in women.

The Different Fate of the Pyrenean Desman (Galemys pyrenaicus) and the Eurasian Otter (Lutra lutra) under Climate and Land Use Changes.

Climate and land use change can affect biodiversity in different ways, e.g., determining habitat loss, altering reproduction periods or disrupting biotic interactions. Here, we investigate the effects of climate and land use change on the spatial distribution of two semi-aquatic mammals, the Pyrenean desman (Galemys pyrenaicus) and the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra). We first modeled the current potential distribution of the desman and the otter in the Iberian Peninsula, considering topographic, climatic and land use variables. Second, we predicted their potential distribution in 2050 under climate and land use change scenarios. We calculated the percentage of range gain/loss and shift predicted for the two species under such scenarios and quantified the present and future spatial overlap between the two species distribution. Irrespective of the scenario, desman models show loss of suitable habitat, whereas the otter will undergo an opposite trend. Aside from a preponderant habitat loss, the desman is predicted to increase its spatial overlap with otter range under the optimistic scenarios, potentially meaning it will face an exacerbated predation by otters. The potential increase of both habitat loss and otters' predation might represent a major threat for the desman, which may affect the long-term persistence of this endemic species in the Iberian Peninsula.

Coronary Stent Infection: An Unusual Complication After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.

Coronary artery stent infection (CSI) is one of the rarest complications associated with the percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), usually requiring surgical intervention. Reaching and confirming the diagnosis remains the most challenging aspect of this complication. We describe a case of drug-eluting stents (DES) infection after several repeated procedures of primary angioplasty and stent implantation in the context of myocardial infarction. In the current era of growth of coronary stent implantation, it's important for clinicians to consider and to prevent such potentially fatal events. The diagnosis process remains difficult and requires the association of multiple clinical, biological and imaging parameters. Although medical treatment may be the only possible approach in some cases, we present a clinical case where surgical treatment was successful.

Left Atrial Myxoma Infected With Fusobacterium Nucleatum.

Cardiac myxomas are the most common primary cardiac tumours in adults. Clinical presentation is variable, with few cases of infected myxomas reported in the literature. We describe a rare case of a 63-year-old patient who presented with splenic abscesses and a left atrial mass suggestive of emboligen myxoma. The patient underwent a successful emergency sur- gical excision of the atrial mass followed by splenectomy. Blood cultures were positive for Fusobacterium nucleatum, whereas the histopathological examination of the excised mass confirmed the presence of a myxoma with a marked inflammatory infiltrate. All these findings allowed us to confirm the diagnosis of definite infected myxoma. Some aspects related to the aetiology, diagnosis and management of this entity are discussed.

Spatio-temporal variation in the wintering associations of an alpine bird.

Many animals make behavioural changes to cope with winter conditions, being gregariousness a common strategy. Several factors have been invoked to explain why gregariousness may evolve during winter, with individuals coming together and separating as they trade off the different costs and benefits of living in groups. These trade-offs may, however, change over space and time as a response to varying environmental conditions. Despite its importance, little is known about the factors triggering gregarious behaviour during winter and its change in response to variation in weather conditions is poorly documented. Here, we aimed at quantifying large-scale patterns in wintering associations over 23 years of the white-winged snowfinch Montifringilla nivalis nivalis. We found that individuals gather in larger groups at sites with harsh wintering conditions. Individuals at colder sites reunite later and separate earlier in the season than at warmer sites. However, the magnitude and phenology of wintering associations are ruled by changes in weather conditions. When the temperature increased or the levels of precipitation decreased, group size substantially decreased, and individuals stayed united in groups for a shorter time. These results shed light on factors driving gregariousness and points to shifting winter climate as an important factor influencing this behaviour.

Hematic Antegrade Repriming: A Reproducible Method to Decrease the Cardiopulmonary Bypass Insult.

The current practice of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) requires a preoperative priming of the circuit that is frequently performed with crystalloid solutions. Crystalloid priming avoids massive embolism but is unable to eliminate all microbubbles contained in the circuit. In addition, it causes a sudden hemodilution which is correlated with transfusion requirements and an increased risk of cognitive impairment. Several repriming techniques using autologous blood, collectively termed retrograde autologous priming (RAP), have been demonstrated to reduce the hemodilutional impact of CPB. However, the current heterogeneity in the practice of RAP limits its evidence and benefits. Here, we describe hematic antegrade repriming as an easy and reliable method that could be applied with any circuit in the market to decrease transfusion requirements, emboli, and inflammatory responses, reducing costs and the impact of CPB on postoperative recovery.

Publisher Correction: Size increase without genetic divergence in the Eurasian water shrew Neomys fodiens.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Size increase without genetic divergence in the Eurasian water shrew Neomys fodiens.

When a population shows a marked morphological change, it is important to know whether that population is genetically distinct; if it is not, the novel trait could correspond to an adaptation that might be of great ecological interest. Here, we studied a subspecies of water shrew, Neomys fodiens niethammeri, which is found in a narrow strip of the northern Iberian Peninsula. This subspecies presents an abrupt increase in skull size when compared to the rest of the Eurasian population, which has led to the suggestion that it is actually a different species. Skulls obtained from owl pellets collected over the last 50 years allowed us to perform a morphometric analysis in addition to an extensive multilocus analysis based on short intron fragments successfully amplified from these degraded samples. Interestingly, no genetic divergence was detected using either mitochondrial or nuclear data. Additionally, an allele frequency analysis revealed no significant genetic differentiation. The absence of genetic divergence and differentiation revealed here indicate that the large form of N. fodiens does not correspond to a different species and instead represents an extreme case of size increase, of possible adaptive value, which deserves further investigation.

Quantitative analysis of connectivity in populations of a semi-aquatic mammal using kinship categories and network assortativity.

Analysing the impact of anthropogenic and natural river barriers on the dispersal of aquatic and semi-aquatic species may be critical for their conservation. Knowledge of kinship relationships between individuals and reconstructions of pedigrees obtained using genomic data can be extremely useful, not only for studying the social organization of animals, but also inferring contemporary dispersal and quantifying the effect of specific barriers on current connectivity. In this study, we used kinship data to analyse connectivity patterns in a small semi-aquatic mammal, the Pyrenean desman (Galemys pyrenaicus), in an area comprising two river systems with close headwaters and dams of various heights and types. Using a large SNP dataset from 70 specimens, we obtained kinship categories and reconstructed pedigrees. To quantify the barrier effect of specific obstacles, we built kinship networks and devised a method based on the assortativity coefficient, which measures the proportion between observed and expected kinship relationships across a barrier. The estimation of this parameter enabled us to infer that the most important barrier in the area was the watershed divide between the rivers, followed by a dam on one of the rivers. Other barriers did not significantly reduce the expected number of kinship relationships across them. This strategy and the information obtained with it may be crucial in determining the most important connectivity problems in an area and help develop conservation plans aimed at improving genetic exchange between populations of threatened species.

A pipeline for metabarcoding and diet analysis from fecal samples developed for a small semi-aquatic mammal.

Metabarcoding allows the genetic analysis of pooled samples of various sources. It is becoming popular in the study of animal diet, especially because it allows the analysis of the composition of feces without the need of handling animals. In this work, we studied the diet of the Pyrenean desman (Galemys pyrenaicus), a small semi-aquatic mammal endemic to the Iberian Peninsula and the Pyrenees, by sequencing COI minibarcodes from feces using next-generation sequencing techniques. For the identification of assembled sequences, we employed a tree-based identification method that used a reference tree of sequences of freshwater organisms. The comparison of freshly collected fecal samples and older samples showed that fresh samples produced significantly more sequencing reads. They also rendered more operational taxonomical units (OTUs), but not significantly. Our analyses of 41 samples identified 224 OTUs corresponding to species of the reference tree. Ephemeroptera, Diptera excl. Chironomidae, and Chironomidae were the most highly represented groups in terms of reads as well as samples. Other groups of freshwater organisms detected were Plecoptera, Trichoptera, Neuropteroida, Coleoptera, Crustacea, and Annelida. Our results are largely in line with previous morphological and genetic studies on the diet of the Pyrenean desman, but allowed the identification of a higher diversity of OTUs in each sample. Additionally, the bioinformatic pipeline we developed for deep sequencing of fecal samples will enable the quantitative analysis of the diet of this and other species, which can be highly useful to determine their ecological requirements.

Postglacial dispersal patterns and mitochondrial genetic structure of the Pyrenean desman (Galemys pyrenaicus) in the northwestern region of the Iberian Peninsula.

The genetic structure of small semiaquatic animals may be influenced by dispersal across both rivers and land. The relative importance of these two modes of dispersal may vary across different species and with ecological conditions and evolutionary periods. The Pyrenean desman (Galemys pyrenaicus) is an endemic mammal of the Iberian Peninsula with a strong phylogeographic structure and semiaquatic habits, thus making it an ideal model to study the effects of river and overland dispersal on its genetic structure. Thanks to different types of noninvasive samples, we obtained an extensive sampling of the Pyrenean desman from the northwestern region of the Iberian Peninsula and sequenced two mitochondrial DNA fragments. We then analyzed, using an isolation-by-distance approach, the correlation between phylogenetic distances and geographical distances measured along both river networks and land to infer the relative importance of river and overland dispersal. We found that the correlations in the whole area and in a large basin were consistent with an effect of overland dispersal, which may be due to the postglacial colonization of new territories using terrestrial corridors and, possibly, a more extensive fluvial network that may have been present during the Holocene. However, in a small basin, likely to be less influenced by the impact of ancient postglacial dispersal, the correlations suggested significant overall effects of both overland and river dispersal, as expected for a semiaquatic mammal. Therefore, different scales and geographical regions reflect different aspects of the evolutionary history and ecology of this semiaquatic species using this isolation-by-distance method. The results we obtained may have crucial implications for the conservation of the Pyrenean desman because they reinforce the importance of interbasin dispersal for this species in the studied area and the need to protect the whole riverine ecosystem, including rivers, upland streams and terrestrial corridors between basins.

Is obesity related with periprosthetic fractures around the knee?

PURPOSE: Periprosthetic fracture (PPF) is a devastating complication following primary total knee arthroplasty. Obesity is currently considered a risk factor for many complications in orthopaedics, but there is no evidence in literature about the relationship between obesity and PPF around the knee. The objective of this study was to determine whether obesity is associated with a higher incidence of PPF. METHODS: All patients diagnosed of a PPF around the knee from January 2010 to December 2013 were enrolled. Forty-nine PPF (47 women and 2 men) were included, and a total of 97 patients (80 women and 17 men) were randomly obtained as a control group. Body mass index (BMI) was obtained in both groups and classified as <25 (normal), overweight (25-29.9), obese (30-34.9), very obese (35-39.9), or morbid obesity (≥40). Both groups, were also divided into subpopulations depending on the age as follows: <70, 70-75, 75-80 and ≥80. Statistical analysis was performed to determine any difference in BMI ≥30 kg/m² distribution between groups. RESULTS: In the PPF group 61.22 % of the patients had a BMI over 30 kg/m² and likewise 62.88 % of the patients in the control group. No association was found between obesity and a higher risk of PPF (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: As a conclusion, obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m²) does not have any clinical relationship with the appearance of a periprosthetic fracture around the knee (p < 0.05).

Phylogeography and postglacial expansion of the endangered semi-aquatic mammal Galemys pyrenaicus.

BACKGROUND: Species with strict ecological requirements may provide new insights into the forces that shaped the geographic variation of genetic diversity. The Pyrenean desman, Galemys pyrenaicus, is a small semi-aquatic mammal that inhabits clean streams of the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula and is endangered in most of its geographic range, but its genetic structure is currently unknown. While the stringent ecological demands derived from its aquatic habitat might have caused a partition of the genetic diversity among river basins, Pleistocene glaciations would have generated a genetic pattern related to glacial refugia. RESULTS: To study the relative importance of historical and ecological factors in the genetic structure of G. pyrenaicus, we used mitochondrial and intronic sequences of specimens covering most of the species range. We show, first, that the Pyrenean desman has very low levels of genetic diversity compared to other mammals. In addition, phylogenetic and dating analyses of the mitochondrial sequences reveal a strong phylogeographic structure of a Middle Pleistocene origin, suggesting that the main lineages arose during periods of glacial isolation. Furthermore, both the spatial distribution of nuclear and mitochondrial diversity and the results of species distribution modeling suggest the existence of a major glacial refugium in the northwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula. Finally, the main mitochondrial lineages show a striking parapatric distribution without any apparent exchange of mitochondrial haplotypes between the lineages that came into secondary contact (although with certain permeability to nuclear genes), indicating incomplete mixing after the post-glacial recolonization. On the other hand, when we analyzed the partition of the genetic diversity among river basins, the Pyrenean desman showed a lower than expected genetic differentiation among main rivers. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of mitochondrial and intronic markers in G. pyrenaicus showed the predominant effects of Pleistocene glaciations on the genetic structure of this species, while the distribution of the genetic diversity was not greatly influenced by the main river systems. These results and, particularly, the discovery of a marked phylogeographic structure, may have important implications for the conservation of the Pyrenean desman.

Fracture of epicardial resynchronization lead caused by deceleration injury.

A 50-year-old man with heart failure, systolic dysfunction, and abnormal septal motion underwent ventricular resynchronization. Postoperative clinical and echocardiographic improvement was observed. Several months later, he complained of worsening functional class after a traffic accident. Pacing lead fracture was diagnosed. After replacing the lead, improvement of clinical condition and ventricular parameters was achieved. The role of seat belts in causing dysfunction of pacemakers and resynchronization devices after deceleration injury is discussed.

Explorando la relación de la adicción a la compra con otros comportamientos excesivos: un estudio piloto / Exploring the relationship between shopping addiction and other excessive behaviours: a pilot study

Este artículo explora, utilizando una muestra de adultos urbanos de ambos sexos (n = 821; 393 varones y 428 mujeres), la relación de la adicción a la compra con la frecuencia percibida de realización de cinco comportamientos: comer en exceso, fumar en exceso, jugar en exceso, ingerir bebidas alcohólicas de modo problemático y consumir otras sustancias psicoactivas (p. ej., marihuana, éxtasis, etc.J. Los hallazgos sugieren que la adicción a la compra covaría con las mencionadas conductas excesivas conformando, en conjunto, un factor general de "adictividad;' en cuya estructura jerárquica ocupa un lugar "intermedio" con respecto a lós restantes excesos. Estos resultados se discuten en relación a la comunalidad entre adicciones químicas y conductuales, presentándose sugerencias referidas a la investigación e intervención sobre comportamientos adictivos

Using a sample of urban adults of both sexes (n = 821; 393 men and 428 women), this artide explores the association of shopping addiction with the perceived frequency of five behaviours: eating in excess, smoking in excess, gambling in excess, problematic alcohol use and taking other psychoactive substances U.e., marijuana, ecstasy, etc.). The findings suggest that buying addiction covari~s with the abovementioned excessive behaviours shaping, as a whole, a general factor of "addictiveness", in whose hierarchical structure it occupies an "intermediate" place in comparison with the other excesses. These results are discussed in relation to the commonality betweell chemical alld behavioural addictions, presenting suggestions related to research and intervention in addictive behaviours

Cardiac Aspergillosis with pedunculated mass in the left ventricle.

Immunosuppression can allow organisms that are not usually pathogenetic to cause disease; under such circumstances, Aspergillus species frequently form large masses of fungal elements. We describe the case of a 12-year-old girl with hematologic remission of leukemia. She had a left ventricular pedunculated mass that was detected by echocardiographic study; at surgery, the presence of Aspergillus terreus was confirmed.