Population origin and heritable effects mediate road salt toxicity and thermal stress in an amphibian.

Human impacts on wild populations are numerous and extensive, degrading habitats and causing population declines across taxa. Though these impacts are often studied individually, wild populations typically face suites of stressors acting concomitantly, compromising the fitness of individuals and populations in ways poorly understood and not easily predicted by the effects of any single stressor. Developing understanding of the effects of multiple stressors and their potential interactions remains a critical challenge in environmental biology. Here, we focus on assessing the impacts of two prominent stressors associated with anthropogenic activities that affect many organisms across the planet - elevated salinity (e.g., from road de-icing salt) and temperature (e.g. from climate change). We examined a suite of physiological traits and components of fitness across populations of wood frogs originating from ponds that differ in their proximity to roads and thus their legacy of exposure to pollution from road salt. When experimentally exposed to road salt, wood frogs showed reduced survival (especially those from ponds adjacent to roads), divergent developmental rates, and reduced longevity. Family-level effects mediated these outcomes, but high salinity generally eroded family-level variance. When combined, exposure to both temperature and salt resulted in very low survival, and this effect was strongest in roadside populations. Taken together, these results suggest that temperature is an important stressor capable of exacerbating impacts from a prominent contaminant confronting many freshwater organisms in salinized habitats. More broadly, it appears likely that toxicity might often be underestimated in the absence of multi-stressor approaches.

Increasing WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program Redemption Rates: Results and Policy Recommendations.

BACKGROUND: WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) aims to increase consumption of fresh produce among Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) participants while supporting local farmers. Area stakeholders are addressing the existing barriers to FMNP use that keep participation low. OBJECTIVES: Increase FMNP check redemption by participants in a Pittsburgh WIC office. METHODS: Quasiexperimental design including cooking demonstrations, tours of FMs, and community garden visits. Program participation and check redemption rates were tracked. RESULTS: The redemption rate of FMNP checks among research participants and nonparticipants was 46.5% and 39.0% (P < .001), respectively. Lessons learned point to needed changes on the local, state, and federal levels. CONCLUSIONS: Barriers to the use of WIC FMNP checks were consistent with the literature. Allowing mobile markets to accept FMNP checks may address barriers to FM shopping while supporting the local farmer. Our stakeholder group continues to recommend multilevel policy changes to improve the redemption rate.