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Cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of death in women. 10‐year likelihood for a cardiovascular event is determined by the American College of Cardiology Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular disease risk score calculator (ASVCD); however, this does not encompass risk factors unique to women. Breast arterial calcifications (BAC) detected on screening mammography may serve as a proxy for coronary atherosclerosis (CAC) in women. Our purpose was to investigate the correlation between BAC and CAC on imaging in women without a diagnosis of atherosclerosis to determine the potential clinical impact. Retrospective review was performed on a cohort of females evaluated by internists at our institution in 2019. Study patients had a screening mammogram within 1 year of a noncardiac chest CT. Clinical data were collected to determine ASCVD risk score. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of BAC in detecting CAC were determined. 222 women met inclusion criteria, ranging from 41 to 77 years of age, among which 25% (56/222) had BAC. 84% (47/56) of women with BAC had CAC on CT, yielding a sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV of 51%, 93%, 84%, and 72%, respectively. Of the 47 patients who had both BAC and CAC, 66% had an unknown or low‐to‐borderline ASCVD score. Women with BACs have a high specificity for CAC. The reporting of BACs should prompt clinicians to risk stratify women for atherosclerotic disease. These women may otherwise be undetected by conventional risk calculators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short‐term, sublethal response variables are increasingly used to provide rapid indications of whole organism responses to future climate conditions. Accumulating evidence suggests, however, that these response variables may not consistently reflect whole organism responses which manifest over longer time scales. Here, we consider the effect of moderate warming on longer‐term whole organism fitness, as reflected by survival, as well as two shorter‐term response variables, feeding rate and oxygen consumption, for two tropical gastropod species. We found a significant reduction in survival under warming, despite no significant effect of warming on feeding or oxygen consumption rates. This result demonstrates that the maintenance of physiological rates alone is not sufficient to sustain organism survival under elevated temperatures; rather an increase in physiological process rates is likely required. Consequently, isolated short‐term physiological processes may not adequately reflect longer‐term whole organism responses to altered climate. For improved understanding, both short‐ and long‐term responses need to be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding and predicting responses of ectothermic animals to temperature are essential for decision-making and management. The thermal performance curve (TPC), which quantifies the thermal sensitivity of traits such as metabolism, growth and feeding rates in laboratory conditions, is often used to predict responses of wild populations. However, central assumptions of this approach are that TPCs are relatively static between populations and that curves measured under stable temperature conditions can predict performance under variable conditions. We test these assumptions using two latitudinally matched populations of the ecosystem engineer Mytilus trossulus that differ in their experienced temperature variability regime. We acclimated each population in a range of constant or fluctuating temperatures for six weeks and measured a series of both short term (feeding rate, byssal thread production) and long-term (growth, survival) metrics to test the hypothesis that performance in fluctuating temperatures can be predicted from constant temperatures. We find that this was not true for any metric, and that there were important interactions with the population of origin. Our results emphasize that responses to fluctuating conditions are still poorly understood and suggest caution must be taken in the use of TPCs generated under constant temperature conditions for the prediction of wild population responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ocean acidification, chemical changes to the carbonate system of seawater, is emerging as a key environmental challenge accompanying global warming and other humaninduced perturbations. Considerable research seeks to define the scope and character of potential outcomes from this phenomenon, but a crucial impediment persists. Ecological theory, despite its power and utility, has been only peripherally applied to the problem. Here we sketch in broad strokes several areas where fundamental principles of ecology have the capacity to generate insight into ocean acidification's consequences. We focus on conceptual models that, when considered in the context of acidification, yield explicit predictions regarding a spectrum of population- and community-level effects, from narrowing of species ranges and shifts in patterns of demographic connectivity, to modified consumer-resource relationships, to ascendance of weedy taxa and loss of species diversity. Although our coverage represents only a small fraction of the breadth of possible insights achievable from the application of theory, our hope is that this initial foray will spur expanded efforts to blend experiments with theoretical approaches. The result promises to be a deeper and more nuanced understanding of ocean acidification and the ecological changes it portends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central current debate in community ecology concerns the relative importance of deterministic versus stochastic processes underlying community structure. However, the concept of stochasticity presents several profound philosophical, theoretical and empirical challenges, which we address here. The philosophical argument that nothing in nature is truly stochastic can be met with the following operational concept of neutral stochasticity in community ecology: change in the composition of a community (i.e. community dynamics) is neutrally stochastic to the degree that individual demographic events - birth, death, immigration, emigration - which cause such changes occur at random with respect to species identities. Empirical methods for identifying the stochastic component of community dynamics or structure include null models and multivariate statistics on observational species-by-site data (with or without environmental or trait data), and experimental manipulations of 'stochastic' species colonization order or relative densities and frequencies of competing species. We identify the fundamental limitations of each method with respect to its ability to allow inferences about stochastic community processes. Critical future needs include greater precision in articulating the link between results and ecological inferences, a comprehensive theoretical assessment of the interpretation of statistical analyses of observational data, and experiments focusing on community size and on natural variation in species colonization order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seaweed and seagrass communities in the northeast Atlantic have been profoundly impacted by humans, and the rate of change is accelerating rapidly due to runaway CO2 emissions and mounting pressures on coastlines associated with human population growth and increased consumption of finite resources. Here, we predict how rapid warming and acidification are likely to affect benthic flora and coastal ecosystems of the northeast Atlantic in this century, based on global evidence from the literature as interpreted by the collective knowledge of the authorship. We predict that warming will kill off kelp forests in the south and that ocean acidification will remove maerl habitat in the north. Seagrasses will proliferate, and associated epiphytes switch from calcified algae to diatoms and filamentous species. Invasive species will thrive in niches liberated by loss of native species and spread via exponential development of artificial marine structures. Combined impacts of seawater warming, ocean acidification, and increased storminess may replace structurally diverse seaweed canopies, with associated calcified and noncalcified flora, with simple habitats dominated by noncalcified, turf-forming seaweeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seaweeds are ecologically important primary producers, competitors, and ecosystem engineers that play a central role in coastal habitats ranging from kelp forests to coral reefs. Although seaweeds are known to be vulnerable to physical and chemical changes in the marine environment, the impacts of ongoing and future anthropogenic climate change in seaweed-dominated ecosystems remain poorly understood. In this review, we describe the ways in which changes in the environment directly affect seaweeds in terms of their physiology, growth, reproduction, and survival. We consider the extent to which seaweed species may be able to respond to these changes via adaptation or migration. We also examine the extensive reshuffling of communities that is occurring as the ecological balance between competing species changes, and as top-down control by herbivores becomes stronger or weaker. Finally, we delve into some of the ecosystem-level responses to these changes, including changes in primary productivity, diversity, and resilience. Although there are several key areas in which ecological insight is lacking, we suggest that reasonable climate-related hypotheses can be developed and tested based on current information. By strategically prioritizing research in the areas of complex environmental variation, multiple stressor effects, evolutionary adaptation, and population, community, and ecosystem-level responses, we can rapidly build upon our current understanding of seaweed biology and climate change ecology to more effectively conserve and manage coastal ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines how manifestations of antisocial adolescent behavior affect individuals' future labor market opportunities and decisions. Coverage of relevant literature in occupational choice; Source of data; Estimation techniques and model specification used; Empirical results; Summary and implications of findings; Table of Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimates.