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Andrés Martín-Aspas, Francisca M Guerrero-Sánchez, Francisco García-Colchero, Sebastián Rodríguez-Roca, José-Antonio Girón-González Infectious Diseases Unit, Hospital Universitario Puerta del Mar, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Cádiz, Instituto para la Investigación e Innovación en Ciencias Biomédicas de Cádiz (INiBICA), Cádiz, Spain Objectives: The objectives of this study were to detect those characteristics that were specifically associated with infection or colonization by Acinetobacter baumannii, describe the clinical manifestations of those patients in whom the infection was detected in intensive care unit (ICU) or non-ICU wards, and analyze the prognosis-associated factors in patients from whom A. baumannii was isolated.Patients and methods: A sample of 122 patients from whom A. baumannii was recovered during an endemic period in a teaching hospital was included. Only those cases in which A. baumannii was recovered as the unique microbe were considered. Demographic data; ward of admission; intrinsic and extrinsic risk factors for infection or colonization; chronic underlying condition severity, as evaluated by the McCabe classification or Charlson index and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II score; and clinical manifestations were analyzed to differentiate specific characteristics of colonized or infected patients. Factors independently associated with the mortality at 30 days were also analyzed by Cox regression.Results: A total of 73 (60%) patients were colonized and 49 (40%) individuals were infected with A. baumannii. A non-fatal McCabe class (when compared to ultimately and rapidly fatal), days of hospitalization prior to isolation of A. baumannii, and present ICU admission were associated with the diagnosis of infection. The more frequent clinical picture was respiratory infection (tracheobronchitis, 16 [33%] cases; pneumonia, 27 [55%] cases). Mortality at 30 days was 24% (n=29). A non-fatal McCabe class (Exp[B] 2.44, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.05–5.66, p=0.039) and the absence of infection (Exp[B] 2.75, 95% CI 1.18–6.38, p=0.019) were independently associated with survival.Conclusion: Parameters associated with infection by A. baumannii in an endemic situation are the admission at ICU and the number of days of hospitalization. Mortality of patients from whom A. baumannii was isolated was independently influenced by the chronic underlying basal state and the presence of infection by A. baumannii. Keywords: Acinetobacter baumannii, colonization, infection, mortality, tracheobronchitis, pneumonia, care unit

Road-induced habitat fragmentation is one of the greatest threats to large carnivores. Wildlife passes have been used to reduce fragmentation by mitigating the effects of roads as barriers to animal movement. However, direct observations of animals crossing roads are extremely rare and thus indirect methods are necessary to locate crossings. Yet, current methods fail to incorporate the animals' movement behavior and thus have little predictive power. Based on the principles of resource selection functions and state-space modeling, we developed a Bayesian movement model applied to radio-telemetry and GPS data to infer the movement behavior of jaguars Panthera onca as a response to vegetation, roads and human population density in the Mayan Forests of Mexico and Guatemala. We used the results of the model to simulate jaguars moving along a road that bisects the major reserve system in the area. The aim of the simulations was to identify suitable locations for wildlife passes. We found that jaguars move preferentially to undisturbed forests and that females avoid moving close to roads and to areas with even low levels of human occupation. Males also avoid roads, but to a lesser degree, and appear undisturbed by human population density. Simulations reflected these differences: potential crossing sites for females are limited to a strip of a few kilometers, whereas males are able to cross at many different sites. Still, we identified a 1 km strip along the road where the likelihood of crossing for both sexes is highest, ideal for the construction of a wildlife pass. Our study contributes to the ecology of one of the world's least-studied large carnivores and provides a modeling framework that greatly improves the location of wildlife passes. Moreover, our approach can greatly advance region-wide conservation plans for the location of corridors and conservation units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last few years have seen a surge of interest from field ecologists and evolutionary biologists to study neoplasia and cancer in wildlife. This contributes to the One Health Approach, which investigates health issues at the intersection of people, wild and domestic animals, together with their changing environments. Nonetheless, the emerging field of wildlife cancer is currently constrained by methodological limitations in detecting cancer using non-invasive sampling. In addition, the suspected differential susceptibility and resistance of species to cancer often make the choice of a unique model species difficult for field biologists. Here, we provide an overview of the importance of pursuing the study of cancer in non-model organisms and we review the currently available methods to detect, measure and quantify cancer in the wild, as well as the methodological limitations to be overcome to develop novel approaches inspired by diagnostic techniques used in human medicine. The methodology we propose here will help understand and hopefully fight this major disease by generating general knowledge about cancer, variation in its rates, tumour-suppressor mechanisms across species as well as its link to life history and physiological characters. Moreover, this is expected to provide key information about cancer in wildlife, which is a top priority due to the accelerated anthropogenic change in the past decades that might favour cancer progression in wild populations., (© 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.)

Premise: There is mounting evidence that age matters in plant demography, but also indications that relationships between age and demographic rates may vary significantly among species. Age-based plant demographic data, however, are time-consuming to collect and still lacking for most species, and little is known about general patterns across species or what may drive differences., Methods: We used individual birth and death records for 12 Rhododendron species from botanic gardens and conducted Bayesian survival trajectory analyses to assess how mortality changed with age. We calculated the demographic measures of aging rate, life-span equality, and life expectancy for each species, and assessed their relationships with the climatic conditions at species' sites of ancestral origin and with taxonomic group (subgenus)., Results: We found substantial among-species variation in survival trajectories, with mortality increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant with advancing age. Moreover, we found no relationships between demographic measures and ancestral climatic conditions but there were statistically significant differences among taxonomic groups in the rate of change in mortality with age (aging rate)., Conclusions: We conclude that demographic consequences of aging can differ qualitatively, even among species in the same genus. In addition, taxonomic trends in aging rates indicate they may be genetically determined, though evolutionary drivers are still unclear. Furthermore, we suggest there is untapped potential in using botanic garden records in future studies on plant life history., (© 2023 Botanical Society of America.)

An intense public debate has fuelled governmental bans on marine mammals held in zoological institutions. The debate rests on the assumption that survival in zoological institutions has been and remains lower than in the wild, albeit the scientific evidence in support of this notion is equivocal. Here, we used statistical methods previously applied to assess historical improvements in human lifespan and data on 8864 individuals of four marine mammal species (harbour seal, Phoca vitulina ; California sea lion, Zalophus californianus ; polar bear, Ursus maritimus ; common bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus ) held in zoos from 1829 to 2020. We found that life expectancy increased up to 3.40 times, and first-year mortality declined up to 31%, during the last century in zoos. Moreover, the life expectancy of animals in zoos is currently 1.65-3.55 times longer than their wild counterparts. Like humans, these improvements have occurred concurrently with advances in management practices, crucial for population welfare. Science-based decisions will help effective legislative changes and ensure better implementation of animal care.

Is senescence inevitable and universal for all living organisms, as evolutionary theories predict? Although evidence generally supports this hypothesis, it has been proposed that certain species, such as turtles and tortoises, may exhibit slow or even negligible senescence-i.e., avoiding the increasing risk of death from gradual deterioration with age. In an extensive comparative study of turtles and tortoises living in zoos and aquariums, we show that ~75% of 52 species exhibit slow or negligible senescence. For ~80% of species, aging rates are lower than those in modern humans. We find that body weight positively relates to adult life expectancy in both sexes, and sexual size dimorphism explains sex differences in longevity. Unlike humans and other species, we show that turtles and tortoises may reduce senescence in response to improvements in environmental conditions.

Cancer is a ubiquitous disease of metazoans, predicted to disproportionately affect larger, long-lived organisms owing to their greater number of cell divisions, and thus increased probability of somatic mutations 1,2 . While elevated cancer risk with larger body size and/or longevity has been documented within species 3-5 , Peto's paradox indicates the apparent lack of such an association among taxa 6 . Yet, unequivocal empirical evidence for Peto's paradox is lacking, stemming from the difficulty of estimating cancer risk in non-model species. Here we build and analyse a database on cancer-related mortality using data on adult zoo mammals (110,148 individuals, 191 species) and map age-controlled cancer mortality to the mammalian tree of life. We demonstrate the universality and high frequency of oncogenic phenomena in mammals and reveal substantial differences in cancer mortality across major mammalian orders. We show that the phylogenetic distribution of cancer mortality is associated with diet, with carnivorous mammals (especially mammal-consuming ones) facing the highest cancer-related mortality. Moreover, we provide unequivocal evidence for the body size and longevity components of Peto's paradox by showing that cancer mortality risk is largely independent of both body mass and adult life expectancy across species. These results highlight the key role of life-history evolution in shaping cancer resistance and provide major advancements in the quest for natural anticancer defences., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

The current COVID-19 pandemic has created unmeasurable damages to society at a global level, from the irreplaceable loss of life, to the massive economic losses. In addition, the disease threatens further biodiversity loss. Due to their shared physiology with humans, primates, and particularly great apes, are susceptible to the disease. However, it is still uncertain how their populations would respond in case of infection. Here, we combine stochastic population and epidemiological models to simulate the range of potential effects of COVID-19 on the probability of extinction of mountain gorillas. We find that extinction is sharply driven by increases in the basic reproductive number and that the probability of extinction is greatly exacerbated if the immunity lasts less than 6 months. These results stress the need to limit exposure of the mountain gorilla population, the park personnel and visitors, as well as the potential of vaccination campaigns to extend the immunity duration., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Theoretical and empirical research has shown that increased variability in demographic rates often results in a decline in the population growth rate. In order to reduce the adverse effects of increased variability, life-history theory predicts that demographic rates that contribute disproportionately to population growth should be buffered against environmental variation. To date, evidence of demographic buffering is still equivocal and limited to analyses on a reduced number of age classes (e.g. juveniles and adults), and on single sex models. Here we used Bayesian inference models for age-specific survival and fecundity on a long-term dataset of wild mountain gorillas. We used these estimates to parameterize two-sex, age-specific stochastic population projection models that accounted for the yearly covariation between demographic rates. We estimated the sensitivity of the long-run stochastic population growth rate to reductions in survival and fecundity on ages belonging to nine sex-age classes for survival and three age classes for female fecundity. We found a statistically significant negative linear relationship between the sensitivities and variances of demographic rates, with strong demographic buffering on young adult female survival and low buffering on older female and silverback survival and female fecundity. We found moderate buffering on all immature stages and on prime-age females. Previous research on long-lived slow species has found high buffering of prime-age female survival and low buffering on immature survival and fecundity. Our results suggest that the moderate buffering of the immature stages can be partially due to the mountain gorilla social system and the relative stability of their environment. Our results provide clear support for the demographic buffering hypothesis and its predicted effects on species at the slow end of the slow-fast life-history continuum, but with the surprising outcome of moderate social buffering on the survival of immature stages. We also demonstrate how increasing the number of sex-age classes can greatly improve the detection of demographic buffering in wild populations., (© 2021 British Ecological Society.)

Is it possible to slow the rate of ageing, or do biological constraints limit its plasticity? We test the 'invariant rate of ageing' hypothesis, which posits that the rate of ageing is relatively fixed within species, with a collection of 39 human and nonhuman primate datasets across seven genera. We first recapitulate, in nonhuman primates, the highly regular relationship between life expectancy and lifespan equality seen in humans. We next demonstrate that variation in the rate of ageing within genera is orders of magnitude smaller than variation in pre-adult and age-independent mortality. Finally, we demonstrate that changes in the rate of ageing, but not other mortality parameters, produce striking, species-atypical changes in mortality patterns. Our results support the invariant rate of ageing hypothesis, implying biological constraints on how much the human rate of ageing can be slowed.

Mothers are crucial for mammals' survival before nutritional independence, but many social mammals reside with their mothers long after. In these species the social adversity caused by maternal loss later in life can dramatically reduce fitness. However, in some human populations these negative consequences can be overcome by care from other group members. We investigated the consequences of maternal loss in mountain gorillas and found no discernible fitness costs to maternal loss through survival, age at first birth, or survival of first offspring through infancy. Social network analysis revealed that relationships with other group members, particularly dominant males and those close in age, strengthened following maternal loss. In contrast to most social mammals, where maternal loss causes considerable social adversity, in mountain gorillas, as in certain human populations, this may be buffered by relationships within cohesive social groups, breaking the link between maternal loss, increased social adversity, and decreased fitness., Competing Interests: RM, WE, FC, VV, TS No competing interests declared, (© 2021, Morrison et al.)

People who are more socially integrated or have higher socio-economic status live longer. Recent studies in non-human primates show striking convergences with this human pattern: female primates with more social partners, stronger social bonds or higher dominance rank all lead longer lives. However, it remains unclear whether social environments also predict survival in male non-human primates, as it does in men. This gap persists because, in most primates, males disperse among social groups, resulting in many males who disappear with unknown fate and have unknown dates of birth. We present a Bayesian model to estimate the effects of time-varying social covariates on age-specific adult mortality in both sexes of wild baboons. We compare how the survival trajectories of both sexes are linked to social bonds and social status over the life. We find that, parallel to females, male baboons who are more strongly bonded to females have longer lifespans. However, males with higher dominance rank for their age appear to have shorter lifespans. This finding brings new understanding to the adaptive significance of heterosexual social bonds for male baboons: in addition to protecting the male's offspring from infanticide, these bonds may have direct benefits to males themselves. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution of the primate ageing process'.

Across vertebrates, species with intense male mating competition and high levels of sexual dimorphism in body size generally exhibit dimorphism in age-specific fertility. Compared with females, males show later ages at first reproduction and earlier reproductive senescence because they take longer to attain adult body size and musculature, and maintain peak condition for a limited time. This normally yields a shorter male duration of effective breeding, but this reduction might be attenuated in species that frequently use coalitionary aggression. Here, we present comparative genetic and demographic data on chimpanzees from three long-term study communities (Kanyawara: Kibale National Park, Uganda; Mitumba and Kasekela: Gombe National Park, Tanzania), comprising 581 male risk years and 112 infants, to characterize male age-specific fertility. For comparison, we update estimates from female chimpanzees in the same sites and append a sample of human foragers (the Tanzanian Hadza). Consistent with the idea that aggressive mating competition favors youth, chimpanzee males attained a higher maximum fertility than females, followed by a steeper decline with age. Males did not show a delay in reproduction compared with females, however, as adolescents in both sites successfully reproduced by targeting young, subfecund females, who were less attractive to adults. Gombe males showed earlier reproductive senescence and a shorter duration of effective breeding than Gombe females. By contrast, older males in Kanyawara generally continued to reproduce, apparently by forming coalitions with the alpha. Hadza foragers showed a distinct pattern of sexual dimorphism in age-specific fertility as, compared with women, men gained conceptions later but continued reproducing longer. In sum, both humans and chimpanzees showed sexual dimorphism in age-specific fertility that deviated from predictions drawn from primates with more extreme body size dimorphism, suggesting altered dynamics of male-male competition in the two lineages. In both species, coalitions appear important for extending male reproductive careers., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In human populations, women consistently outlive men, which suggests profound biological foundations for sex differences in survival. Quantifying whether such sex differences are also pervasive in wild mammals is a crucial challenge in both evolutionary biology and biogerontology. Here, we compile demographic data from 134 mammal populations, encompassing 101 species, to show that the female's median lifespan is on average 18.6% longer than that of conspecific males, whereas in humans the female advantage is on average 7.8%. On the contrary, we do not find any consistent sex differences in aging rates. In addition, sex differences in median adult lifespan and aging rates are both highly variable across species. Our analyses suggest that the magnitude of sex differences in mammalian mortality patterns is likely shaped by local environmental conditions in interaction with the sex-specific costs of sexual selection., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest.

Today, we know that demographic rates can be greatly influenced by differences among individuals in their capacity to survive and reproduce. These intrinsic differences, commonly known as individual heterogeneity, can rarely be measured and are thus treated as latent variables when modeling mortality. Finite mixture models and mixed effects models have been proposed as alternative approaches for inference on individual heterogeneity in mortality. However, in general models assume that individual heterogeneity influences mortality proportionally, which limits the possibility to test hypotheses on the effect of individual heterogeneity on other aspects of mortality such as ageing rates. Here, we propose a Bayesian model that builds upon the mixture models previously developed, but that facilitates making inferences on the effect of individual heterogeneity on mortality parameters other than the baseline mortality. As an illustration, we apply this framework to the Gompertz-Makeham mortality model, commonly used in human and wildlife studies, by assuming that the Gompertz rate parameter is affected by individual heterogeneity. We provide results of a simulation study where we show that the model appropriately retrieves the parameters used for simulation, even for low variances in the heterogeneous parameter. We then apply the model to a dataset on captive chimpanzees and on a cohort life table of 1751 Swedish men, and show how model selection against a null model (i.e., without heterogeneity) can be carried out., (© 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Biodiversity loss is a major challenge. Over the past century, the average rate of vertebrate extinction has been about 100-fold higher than the estimated background rate and population declines continue to increase globally. Birth and death rates determine the pace of population increase or decline, thus driving the expansion or extinction of a species. Design of species conservation policies hence depends on demographic data (e.g., for extinction risk assessments or estimation of harvesting quotas). However, an overview of the accessible data, even for better known taxa, is lacking. Here, we present the Demographic Species Knowledge Index, which classifies the available information for 32,144 (97%) of extant described mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. We show that only 1.3% of the tetrapod species have comprehensive information on birth and death rates. We found no demographic measures, not even crude ones such as maximum life span or typical litter/clutch size, for 65% of threatened tetrapods. More field studies are needed; however, some progress can be made by digitalizing existing knowledge, by imputing data from related species with similar life histories, and by using information from captive populations. We show that data from zoos and aquariums in the Species360 network can significantly improve knowledge for an almost eightfold gain. Assessing the landscape of limited demographic knowledge is essential to prioritize ways to fill data gaps. Such information is urgently needed to implement management strategies to conserve at-risk taxa and to discover new unifying concepts and evolutionary relationships across thousands of tetrapod species., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)

Sex differences in mortality are pervasive in vertebrates, and usually result in shorter life spans in the larger sex, although the underlying mechanisms are still unclear. On the other hand, differences in frailty among individuals (i.e. individual heterogeneity), can play a major role in shaping demographic trajectories in wild populations. The link between these two processes has seldom been explored. We used Bayesian survival trajectory analysis to study age-specific mortality trajectories in the Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), a monogamous raptor with reversed sexual size dimorphism. We tested the effect of individual heterogeneity on age-specific mortality, and the extent by which this heterogeneity was determined by average reproductive output and wing length as measures of an individual's frailty. We found that sex differences in age-specific mortality were primarily driven by the differences in individual heterogeneity between the two sexes. Females were more heterogeneous than males in their level of frailty. Thus, a larger number of females with low frailty are able to survive to older ages than males, with life expectancy for the least frail adult females reaching up to 4·23 years, while for the least frail adult males it was of 2·68 years. We found that 50% of this heterogeneity was determined by average reproductive output and wing length in both sexes. For both, individuals with high average reproductive output had also higher chances to survive. However, the effect of wing length was different between the two sexes. While larger females had higher survival, larger males had lower chances to survive. Our results contribute a novel perspective to the ongoing debate about the mechanisms that drive sex differences in vital rates in vertebrates. Although we found that variables that relate to the cost of reproduction and sexual dimorphism are at least partially involved in determining these sex differences, it is through their effect on the level of frailty that they affect age patterns of mortality. Therefore, our results raise the possibility that observed differences in age-specific demographic rates may in fact be driven by differences in individual heterogeneity., (© 2017 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2017 British Ecological Society.)

In a monogamous species two partners contribute to the breeding process. We study pair formation as well as the effect of pair bond length and age on breeding performance, incorporating individual heterogeneity, based on a high-quality dataset of a long-lived seabird, the common tern (Sterna hirundo). To handle missing information and model the complicated processes driving reproduction, we use a hierarchical Bayesian model of the steps that lead to the number of fledglings, including processes at the individual and the pair level. The results show that the age of both partners is important for reproductive performance, with similar patterns for both sexes and individual heterogeneity in reproductive performance, but pair bond length is not. The terns are more likely to choose a former partner independent of the previous breeding outcome with that partner, which suggests a tendency to retain the partner chosen at the beginning of the breeding career., (© 2017 The Author(s).)

The human lifespan has traversed a long evolutionary and historical path, from short-lived primate ancestors to contemporary Japan, Sweden, and other longevity frontrunners. Analyzing this trajectory is crucial for understanding biological and sociocultural processes that determine the span of life. Here we reveal a fundamental regularity. Two straight lines describe the joint rise of life expectancy and lifespan equality: one for primates and the second one over the full range of human experience from average lifespans as low as 2 y during mortality crises to more than 87 y for Japanese women today. Across the primate order and across human populations, the lives of females tend to be longer and less variable than the lives of males, suggesting deep evolutionary roots to the male disadvantage. Our findings cast fresh light on primate evolution and human history, opening directions for research on inequality, sociality, and aging., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

The dominant evolutionary theory of actuarial senescence-an increase in death rate with advancing age-is based on the concept of a germ cell line that is separated from the somatic cells early in life. However, such a separation is not clear in all organisms. This has been suggested to explain the paucity of evidence for actuarial senescence in plants. We used a 32 year study of Dactylorhiza lapponica that replaces its organs each growing season, to test whether individuals of this tuberous orchid senesce. We performed a Bayesian survival trajectory analysis accounting for reproductive investment, for individuals under two types of land use, in two climatic regions. The mortality trajectory was best approximated by a Weibull model, showing clear actuarial senescence. Rates of senescence in this model declined with advancing age, but were slightly higher in mown plots and in the more benign climatic region. At older ages, senescence was evident only when accounting for a positive effect of reproductive investment on mortality. Our results demonstrate actuarial senescence as well as a survival-reproduction trade-off in plants, and indicate that environmental context may influence senescence rates. This knowledge is crucial for understanding the evolution of demographic senescence and for models of plant population dynamics., (© 2016 The Author(s).)

Estimates of age-specific mortality are regularly used in ecology, evolution, and conservation research. However, estimating mortality of the dispersing sex, in species where one sex undergoes natal dispersal, is difficult. This is because it is often unclear whether members of the dispersing sex that disappear from monitored areas have died or dispersed. Here, we develop an extension of a multievent model that imputes dispersal state (i.e., died or dispersed) for uncertain records of the dispersing sex as a latent state and estimates age-specific mortality and dispersal parameters in a Bayesian hierarchical framework. To check the performance of our model, we first conduct a simulation study. We then apply our model to a long-term data set of African lions. Using these data, we further study how well our model estimates mortality of the dispersing sex by incrementally reducing the level of uncertainty in the records of male lions. We achieve this by taking advantage of an expert's indication on the likely fate of each missing male (i.e., likely died or dispersed). We find that our model produces accurate mortality estimates for simulated data of varying sample sizes and proportions of uncertain male records. From the empirical study, we learned that our model provides similar mortality estimates for different levels of uncertainty in records. However, a sensitivity of the mortality estimates to varying uncertainty is, as can be expected, detectable. We conclude that our model provides a solution to the challenge of estimating mortality of the dispersing sex in species with data deficiency due to natal dispersal. Given the utility of sex-specific mortality estimates in biological and conservation research, and the virtual ubiquity of sex-biased dispersal, our model will be useful to a wide variety of applications.

In polygynous primates, a greater reproductive variance in males have been linked to their reduced life expectancy relative to females. The mortality patterns of monogamous pair-bonded primates, however, are less clear. We analyzed the sex differences in mortality within wild (NMales  = 70, NFemales  = 73) and captive (NMales  = 25, NFemales  = 29) populations of Azara's owl monkeys (Aotus azarae), a socially and genetically monogamous primate exhibiting biparental care. We used Bayesian Survival Trajectory Analysis (BaSTA) to test age-dependent models of mortality. The wild and captive populations were best fit by the logistic and Gompertz models, respectively, implying greater heterogeneity in the wild environment likely due to harsher conditions. We found that age patterns of mortality were similar between the sexes in both populations. We calculated life expectancy and disparity, the latter a measure of the steepness of senescence, for both sexes in each population. Males and females had similar life expectancies in both populations; the wild population overall having a shorter life expectancy than the captive one. Furthermore, captive females had a reduced life disparity relative to captive males and to both sexes in the wild. We interpret this pattern in light of the hazards associated with reproduction. In captivity, where reproduction is intensely managed, the risks associated with gestation and birth are tempered so that there is a reduction in the likelihood of captive females dying prematurely, decreasing their overall life disparity., (© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Understanding the relative effects of climate, harvest, and density dependence on population dynamics is critical for guiding sound population management, especially for ungulates in arid and semiarid environments experiencing climate change. To address these issues for bison in southern Utah, USA, we applied a Bayesian state-space model to a 72-yr time series of abundance counts. While accounting for known harvest (as well as live removal) from the population, we found that the bison population in southern Utah exhibited a strong potential to grow from low density (β0 = 0.26; Bayesian credible interval based on 95% of the highest posterior density [BCI] = 0.19-0.33), and weak but statistically significant density dependence (β1 = -0.02, BCI = -0.04 to -0.004). Early spring temperatures also had strong positive effects on population growth (Pfat1 = 0.09, BCI = 0.04-0.14), much more so than precipitation and other temperature-related variables (model weight > three times more than that for other climate variables). Although we hypothesized that harvest is the primary driving force of bison population dynamics in southern Utah, our elasticity analysis indicated that changes in early spring temperature could have a greater relative effect on equilibrium abundance than either harvest or. the strength of density dependence. Our findings highlight the utility of incorporating elasticity analyses into state-space population models, and the need to include climatic processes in wildlife management policies and planning.

Objectve: To achieve well-being in patients in Palliative Care is required to know which are the most common symptoms, which are the drugs used for relief, which are the routes of administration of drugs that are suitable, how effective the drugs are and what incompatibilities, interactions and adverse effects occur. The aim of this article is to review the relevant issues in the management of the drugs commonly used by nursing in Palliative Care and presenting recommendations to clinical practice., Methodology: Management interventions drugs for nurses in Palliative Care recommended by the scientific literature after a search of Scopus, CINAHL, Medline, PubMed, UpToDate and Google Scholar are selected., Results: The oral route is the choice for patients in palliative situation and subcutaneous route when the first is not available. The symptoms, complex, intense and moody, should be systematically reevaluated by the nurse, to predict when a possible decompensation of it needing extra dose of medication., Discussion: Nurses must be able to recognize the imbalance of well-being and act quickly and effectively, to get relief to some unpleasant situations for the patient as the pain symptoms, dyspnea or delirium. For the proper administration of rescue medication, the nurse should know the methods of symptomatic evaluation, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs, the time intervals to elapse between different rescues and nccocc rocnnnco t thocm

Understanding the mechanisms that drive population dynamics is fundamental for management of wild populations. The guanaco (Lama guanicoe) is one of two wild camelid species in South America. We evaluated the effects of density dependence and weather variables on population regulation based on a time series of 36 years of population sampling of guanacos in Tierra del Fuego, Chile. The population density varied between 2.7 and 30.7 guanaco/km2, with an apparent monotonic growth during the first 25 years; however, in the last 10 years the population has shown large fluctuations, suggesting that it might have reached its carrying capacity. We used a Bayesian state-space framework and model selection to determine the effect of density and environmental variables on guanaco population dynamics. Our results show that the population is under density dependent regulation and that it is currently fluctuating around an average carrying capacity of 45,000 guanacos. We also found a significant positive effect of previous winter temperature while sheep density has a strong negative effect on the guanaco population growth. We conclude that there are significant density dependent processes and that climate as well as competition with domestic species have important effects determining the population size of guanacos, with important implications for management and conservation.

Diet effects on age-dependent mortality patterns are well documented in a large number of animal species, but studies that look at the effects of nutrient availability on late-life mortality plateaus are lacking. Here, we focus on the effect of dietary protein content (low, intermediate, and high) on mortality trajectories in late life in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. According to the two theories that are mainly implicated in explaining the deceleration of mortality rate in late life (the heterogeneity/frailty theory and the Hamiltonian theory), we predict, in general, the occurrence of late-life mortality deceleration under most circumstances, independent of sex and dietary regime. However, the heterogeneity theory of late life is more flexible in allowing no mortality deceleration to occur under certain circumstances compared with the Hamiltonian theory. We applied a novel statistical approach based on Bayesian inference of age-specific mortality rates and found a deceleration of late-life mortality rates on all diets in males but only on the intermediate (standard) diet in females. The difference in mortality rate deceleration between males and females on extreme diets suggests that the existence of mortality plateaus in late life is sex and diet dependent and, therefore, not a universal characteristic of large enough cohorts., (© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Most animals need to actively search for food to meet energetic requirements and live in heterogeneous environments where food resources have complex spatio-temporal patterns of availability. Consequently, foraging animals need to find a balance between effort and resource allocation while accounting for intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which are often overlooked when modelling foraging behaviour. We identified the decision rules for foraging in black howler monkeys (Alouatta pigra), according to food preferences, locations of high-quality patches and previously eaten trees, phenology of food resources and hunger state. We depicted foraging in two stages: (i) the choice of the immediate next tree and (ii) the time spent on this tree. We used a recently developed model for inference of movement processes, incorporating resource selection functions into a Markov chain framework. We found that monkeys tend to move to preferred tree species at each step. However, we did not find conclusively that, at each step, monkeys direct their movements to reach high-quality patches. In fact, they were using these patches intensively, thus limiting the possibility to move towards other high-quality patches. Time spent on a tree was positively and strongly affected by the presence of preferred food items, but not by its species. We also showed that time spent on trees increased as a function of satiation state. We suggest that the strategy adopted by black howlers tends to be efficient because choosing preferred trees at each step and spending spend more time where preferred resources are available should favour energy intake and restrain movement costs. This study showcases a modelling framework that can be widely used in ecology to describe movements as a combination of multiple attraction and repulsion sources, such as mates and competitors., (© 2013 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2013 British Ecological Society.)

Given current extinction trends, the number of species requiring conservation breeding programs (CBPs) is likely to increase dramatically. To inform CBP policies for threatened terrestrial vertebrates, we evaluated the number and representation of threatened vertebrate species on the IUCN Red List held in the ISIS zoo network and estimated the complexity of their management as metapopulations. Our results show that 695 of the 3,955 (23%) terrestrial vertebrate species in ISIS zoos are threatened. Only two of the 59 taxonomic orders show a higher proportion of threatened species in ISIS zoos than would be expected if species were selected at random. In addition, for most taxa, the management of a zoo metapopulation of more than 250 individuals will require the coordination of a cluster of 11 to 24 ISIS zoos within a radius of 2,000 km. Thus, in the zoo network, the representation of species that may require CBPs is currently low and the spatial distribution of these zoo populations makes management difficult. Although the zoo community may have the will and the logistical potential to contribute to conservation actions, including CBPs, to do so will require greater collaboration between zoos and other institutions, alongside the development of international agreements that facilitate cross-border movement of zoo animals. To maximize the effectiveness of integrated conservation actions that include CBPs, it is fundamental that the non-zoo conservation community acknowledges and integrates the expertise and facilities of zoos where it can be helpful.

The parthenogens of Chara canescens (Charophyceae) occupy broader geographical and ecological ranges than their sexual counterparts. Two possible hypotheses explain the ubiquity of parthenogens: the occurrence of one or several parthenogens with wide niches, or of many parthenogens that are restricted to narrow ecological niches. For the purposes of this study, C. canescens individuals from two neighbouring populations of the Baltic Sea (Bodstedter Bodden = BB; Salzhaff = SH), which differed significantly in water transparency and salinity, were investigated for significant differences in physiological capacity. Individuals of both habitats acclimated quickly to daily changes in irradiances in the field, but the photosynthetic efficiency of PS II showed a significant decrease with increasing daily irradiance in the habitat BB, which has lower levels of salinity and water transparency. In addition to the field study, individuals were reared under different levels of environmental factors in the laboratory: four irradiances (70-600 μmol m(-2) s(-1)) and five salinity levels (0-24 psu). The individuals of both habitats grew almost equally well at intermediate salinity levels. Growth under the artificial light supply was highest at levels corresponding to the in situ conditions for each population. Total chlorophyll was highest at intermediate salinities (BB), or hardly changed with salinity (SH). The physiological capacity for individuals from SH clearly depends upon changing growth irradiance, whereas the capacity for individuals from BB was relatively independent of salinity and irradiance. These findings indicate that both parthenogenetic C. canescens populations are locally adapted to light. However, to test adaptive potential of the parthenogens, more than two populations should be tested in future.

1. Traditional estimation of age-specific survival and mortality rates in vertebrates is limited to individuals with known age. Although this subject has been studied extensively using effective capture-recapture and capture-recovery models, inference remains challenging because of large numbers of incomplete records (i.e. unknown age of many individuals) and because of the inadequate duration of the studies. 2. Here, we present a hierarchical model for capture-recapture/recovery (CRR) data sets with large proportions of unknown times of birth and death. The model uses a Bayesian framework to draw inference on population-level age-specific demographic rates using parametric survival functions and applies this information to reconstruct times of birth and death for individuals with unknown age. 3. We simulated a set of CRR data sets with varying study span and proportions of individuals with known age, and varying recapture and recovery probabilities. We used these data sets to compare our method to a traditional CRR model, which requires knowledge of individual ages. Subsequently, we applied our method to a subset of a long-term CRR data set on Soay sheep. 4. Our results show that this method performs better than the common CRR model when sample sizes are low. Still, our model is sensitive to the choice of priors with low recapture probability and short studies. In such cases, priors that overestimate survival perform better than those that underestimate it. Also, the model was able to estimate accurately ages at death for Soay sheep, with an average error of 0.94 years and to identify differences in mortality rate between sexes. 5. Although many of the problems in the estimation of age-specific survival can be reduced through more efficient sampling schemes, most ecological data sets are still sparse and with a large proportion of missing records. Thus, improved sampling needs still to be combined with statistical models capable of overcoming the unavoidable limitations of any fieldwork. We show that our approach provides reliable estimates of parameters and unknown times of birth and death even with the most incomplete data sets while being flexible enough to accommodate multiple recapture probabilities and covariates., (© 2011 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2011 British Ecological Society.)

1. Our understanding of the interplay between density dependence, climatic perturbations, and conservation practices on the dynamics of small populations is still limited. This can result in uninformed strategies that put endangered populations at risk. Moreover, the data available for a large number of populations in such circumstances are sparse and mined with missing data. Under the current climate change scenarios, it is essential to develop appropriate inferential methods that can make use of such data sets. 2. We studied a population of desert bighorn sheep introduced to Tiburon Island, Mexico in 1975 and subjected to irregular extractions for the last 10 years. The unique attributes of this population are absence of predation and disease, thereby permitting us to explore the combined effect of density dependence, environmental variability and extraction in a 'controlled setting.' Using a combination of nonlinear discrete models with long-term field data, we constructed three basic Bayesian state space models with increasing density dependence (DD), and the same three models with the addition of summer drought effects. 3. We subsequently used Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the combined effect of drought, DD, and increasing extractions on the probability of population survival under two climate change scenarios (based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions): (i) increase in drought variability; and (ii) increase in mean drought severity. 4. The population grew from 16 individuals introduced in 1975 to close to 700 by 1993. Our results show that the population's growth was dominated by DD, with drought having a secondary but still relevant effect on its dynamics. 5. Our predictions suggest that under climate change scenario (i), extraction dominates the fate of the population, while for scenario (ii), an increase in mean drought affects the population's probability of survival in an equivalent magnitude as extractions. Thus, for the long-term survival of the population, our results stress that a more variable environment is less threatening than one in which the mean conditions become harsher. Current climate change scenarios and their underlying uncertainty make studies such as this one crucial for understanding the dynamics of ungulate populations and their conservation.

Animal movement has been the focus on much theoretical and empirical work in ecology over the last 25 years. By studying the causes and consequences of individual movement, ecologists have gained greater insight into the behavior of individuals and the spatial dynamics of populations at increasingly higher levels of organization. In particular, ecologists have focused on the interaction between individuals and their environment in an effort to understand future impacts from habitat loss and climate change. Tools to examine this interaction have included: fractal analysis, first passage time, Lévy flights, multi-behavioral analysis, hidden markov models, and state-space models. Concurrent with the development of movement models has been an increase in the sophistication and availability of hierarchical bayesian models. In this review we bring these two threads together by using hierarchical structures as a framework for reviewing individual models. We synthesize emerging themes in movement ecology, and propose a new hierarchical model for animal movement that builds on these emerging themes. This model moves away from traditional random walks, and instead focuses inference on how moving animals with complex behavior interact with their landscape and make choices about its suitability.

The authors describe a new type of intramedullary nail used mainly in the femur and or tibia. This nail can be locked by the provision of holes into which screws can be driven transversely. The technique of insertion is described and the use of ancillary devices. The advantages are that weight-bearing can be commenced early even in comminuted fractures. The method includes open reduction of the fracture and allows some compression of the fracture site. The results of a biomechanical study are given. One hundred and forty six patients have been operated on with only 2 non-unions. The authors consider that their method is superior to plating and can be applied in cases that could not be fixed by conventional nails.

The "scarification" technique is a reliable method of healing chronic bone infection by promoting revascularisation. A wide excision of scarred or infected soft tissue is first carried out. The bone is then carefully "scarified", or petaled, with minimal removal of bone substance. A small window is made to allow drainage and curettage of the intramedullary space. Revascularisation of diseased bone is stimulated by this technique, thus encouraging the growth of granulation tissue with consequent healing. The authors claim a success rate of 93% in 86 patients.