Inconsistent efficacy of water-soluble amphotericin B for the treatment of Macrorhabdus ornithogaster in a budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus) aviary.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the efficacy of a commercially available in-water amphotericin B treatment for Macrorhabdus ornithogaster. DESIGN: Clinical treatment trial. METHODS: Faecal shedding of 16 naturally infected budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) was monitored while they were being treated using in-water amphotericin B, as per the manufacturer's instructions, for 10 days. Any birds that remained positive after 10 days received a further 10 day course of treatment. All birds were rechecked 16 days after the end of the second treatment period. RESULTS: At the conclusion of treatment, 11 birds had stopped shedding M. ornithogaster, and 5 birds were still shedding. Sixteen days after the conclusion of the second treatment period, four birds that were negative after 10 days of treatment were shedding again, and two of the birds that were treated for 20 days were shedding. In addition, one bird from each treatment group died after treatment and before follow-up testing. CONCLUSION: These findings represent a 36% treatment failure, suggesting that treatment with the commercially available, water-soluble amphotericin B has inconsistent efficacy against M. ornithogaster in some budgerigars in Australia and is not effective for eliminating it from budgerigar aviaries.

A Unifying Model for Capture-Recapture and Distance Sampling Surveys of Wildlife Populations.

A fundamental problem in wildlife ecology and management is estimation of population size or density. The two dominant methods in this area are capture-recapture (CR) and distance sampling (DS), each with its own largely separate literature. We develop a class of models that synthesizes them. It accommodates a spectrum of models ranging from nonspatial CR models (with no information on animal locations) through to DS and mark-recapture distance sampling (MRDS) models, in which animal locations are observed without error. Between these lie spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) models that include only capture locations, and a variety of models with less location data than are typical of DS surveys but more than are normally used on SECR surveys. In addition to unifying CR and DS models, the class provides a means of improving inference from SECR models by adding supplementary location data, and a means of incorporating measurement error into DS and MRDS models. We illustrate their utility by comparing inference on acoustic surveys of gibbons and frogs using only capture locations, using estimated angles (gibbons) and combinations of received signal strength and time-of-arrival data (frogs), and on a visual MRDS survey of whales, comparing estimates with exact and estimated distances. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Separation and qualitative recovery of major proteins from a single sample of skeletal muscle.

The major soluble and myofibrillar proteins of skeletal muscle were separated into five fractions by extracting a single sample with solutions of increasing ionic strength and pH. After separation of myoglobin, other soluble proteins, and myosin, an acetone powder was prepared from the residue; the extractions were continued to yield actin and the troponin-tropomyosin complex. From 200 g of skeletal muscle the average recoveries were: total sarcoplasmic proteins, 4.5 g; myoglobin, 0.55 g; myosin, 2.7 g; actin, 0.1 g; and troponin-tropomyosin complex, 17.5 mg. The method was designed for investigating the effects of physical or chemical treatment of whole muscle or whole animals by monitoring changes in individual muscle proteins. This is particularly desirable for comparisons of amino acid composition, since naturally occurring levels of methylated histidine and lysine vary in vertebrate muscle among species, among individual members of a species, and among muscle types.