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Critically endangered North Atlantic right whales Eubalaena glacialis have recently shifted their summer distribution from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of St. Lawrence (GSL), Canada. Entanglement in fishing gear and vessel strikes remain the main lethal threats. Foraging on deep aggregations of Calanus prey in the Bay of Fundy involves stereotyped deep ‘flat-bottom’ (U-shaped) dives, while foraging on sub-surface Calanus aggregations on the winter feeding grounds of Cape Cod Bay involves surface feeding. To explore North Atlantic right whale feeding behaviour in the GSL, 5 acoustic and biologging tags (DTAGs) were deployed using suction cups in 2019 and 2020. One whale knocked off the tag after 14 min. Diving behaviour of the other 4 whales with 2.0 to 4.7 h of data was mostly split between flat-bottom foraging dives at, or very close to, the sea floor, and near-surface activities, including logging, respirations, and potentially also sleeping. This biphasic vertical distribution not only places the whales at risk of being hit by vessels, but it may also put them at risk of coming into contact with groundlines used in various fishing industries in the GSL. Although additional research is needed as this limited dataset was restricted to hours of daylight, these results provide new information about right whale behaviour in the GSL that can help inform management actions to reduce human impacts on this endangered species.

Cyanobacteria blooms occur frequently in low-salinity shrimp culture ponds. To provide useful information about the potential harm and in situ biodegradation pathway of microcystins (MCs) in these ponds, we investigated accumulation of MCs in shrimp hepatopancreas and sediments, bacterial community composition and mlrA gene abundance in intestines and sediments in 11 Litopenaeus vannamei culture ponds from 9 farms in China. MCs (MC-LR, MC-RR and MC-YR) accumulated in shrimp hepatopancreas and sediments in each sampled pond. Higher bacterial richness and diversity were observed in sediments than in intestines. Two MC-degrading genera (Sphingobium and Roseomonas) were detected in the intestine bacterial community, and 3 MC-degrading genera (Sphingobium, Rhizobium and Acinetobacter) were detected in the sediment bacterial community. The mlrA gene was easier to detect and more abundant in shrimp intestines than in sediments. These results suggest that there was a potential MC hazard in shrimp culture ponds, and the biodegradation pathway in shrimp intestines seemed to be more dependent on the mlr pathway than that in the sediments.

The behavior of the marine snail Neptunea cumingii cultured at different temperatures (0, 4, 8, 12, 16 (control), 20, 24, and 28 °C) and the histology, immune enzyme activity, and transcriptome of its gills and kidneys were studied using ecological and molecular methods. At 0 °C, most of the snails shrank in size and did not eat during the first 6 h. At 28 °C, snails also did not eat, death began to occur at 24 h. The histology of the gills and kidneys differed among test temperatures. At 0 °C, the morphology of the gill pieces was difficult to judge. At 24 °C, edema was present in the gill lamella, and at 28 °C the gill lamella were severely deformed. Temperature increase or decrease from 16 °C caused the columnar cells of the kidney to become shorter and more numerous. The total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC), catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase activities (SOD) of the gill and kidney differed significantly among the temperature conditions (p < 0.05). The DEGs were subject to GO and KEGG enrichment analysis, and which showed that most of the DEGs in gill were involved in protein folding, defolding, translation, ribosome, and most of the DEGs in kidney were involved in DNA recombination, nuclear euchromatin, RNA-directed DNA polymerase activity. Finally, the results from this study showed that N. cumingii prefers the temperature range was 8 to 16 °C.

ABSTRACT The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary fiber on growth performance, fat deposition, serum lipids, fat metabolism, and mRNA (messenger RNA) expression of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) in Jilin white and Carlos geese. Sixty Jilin white and sixty Carlos geese aged six-weeks and of similar health and weight (average weight 313.11g) were selected. Geese of each breed were randomly divided into two groups (n=30), and with each group containing three replicate subgroups of 10 geese. The diet was supplemented with 8% or 11% fiber (corn straw powder). The Jilin white geese are divided into A1 (8%) and A2 (11%) groups, and Carlos geese are divided into B1 (8%) and B2 (11%) groups. The experiment lasted 35 days. The results showed that high dietary fiber can significantly (p

Purpose: This study examined the clinicopathological characteristics of 6279 N1 differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) patients who underwent opera tions in our center. Methods: This was a retrospective longitudinal analysis. We categorized the DTC patients on the basis of various lymph node (LN) characteristics. Logist ic regression models and multiple linear regression models were used for the correlation analysis. Results: A total of 3693 (58.8%) N1a patients and 2586 (41.2%) N1b pati ents were included. Patients with N1b disease had larger metastatic foci (0.5 vs 0.15 cm), a greater number of metastatic LNs (5 vs 2), a greater number of dissecte d LNs (25 vs 7), and a smaller lymph node ratio (NR, number of positive LNs/number of sampled LNs) (23.1% vs 28.6%) than patients in stage N1a. Comparing the clin icopathological features, we found that male, increased tumor size, multifocality, and th yroiditis increased the risk of stage N1b disease (P < 0.05). Sex, multifocality, capsular infiltration, and tumor size were associated with the size of the metastatic LNs (P < 0.05). Sex, capsular infiltration, and nodular goiter were associated with the NR ( P < 0.05). Female sex, tumor located in inferior lobe, maximal tumor diameter (MTD) < 1 cm, and nodular goiter were independent predictors for skip metastases (P < 0.05). MTD > 1 cm, central neck metastasis and age were independent predictors for bilateral la teral neck metastasis (BLNM) (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The LN characteristics of stage N1a and N1b disease were assoc iated with significantly different features, such as sex, tumor size, multif ocality, capsular infiltration, and nodular goiter.

In this study, PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) substrates with a half-plain, half-rough surface were prepared on a plain and rough fused silica glass substrate using a molding technique. The molded PDMS surface morphology was changed into a half-smooth and half-rough surface after peeling. The modified PDMS surfaces’ optical properties were inspected with and without treatment. The treatment is exposed by oxygen plasma (15 W) for 3 min in a vacuum, down to a pressure of six torr, using a vacuum pump. An atomic force microscope (AMF) and interferometer (white light) indicated that the plasma O _2 treatment increased the formation of the plain surface and decreased the formation of the rough surface. The optical properties via a spectrophotometer (lambda) show the resonance from 300 nm to 1200 nm on the rough surface, which is considered to be a faithful reproduction for transmittance and reflectance. The Raman spectra and FDTD simulation results are in excellent agreement; not to be confused with metal local surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs). The Raman spectra peaks and hotspot are the results of the PDMS Si–O backbone. The PDMS substrate presented the diversity of the optical properties, which makes the substrate complementary to various optical applications.