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Abstract The global food system is a key driver of land-use and climate change which in turn drive biodiversity change. Developing sustainable food systems is therefore critical to reversing biodiversity loss. We use the multi-regional input-output model EXIOBASE to estimate the biodiversity impacts embedded within the global food system in 2011. Using models that capture regional variation in the sensitivity of biodiversity both to land use and climate change, we calculate the land-driven and greenhouse gas-driven footprints of food using two metrics of biodiversity: local species richness and rarity-weighted species richness. We show that the footprint of land area underestimates biodiversity impact in more species-rich regions and that our metric of rarity-weighted richness places a greater emphasis on biodiversity costs in Central and South America. We find that methane emissions are responsible for 70% of the overall greenhouse gas-driven biodiversity footprint and that, in several regions, emissions from a single year’s food production are associated with global biodiversity loss equivalent to 2% or more of that region’s total land-driven biodiversity loss. The measures we present are relatively simple to calculate and could be incorporated into decision-making and environmental impact assessments by governments and businesses.

Abstract The body of ecological literature, which informs much of our knowledge of the global loss of biodiversity, has been experiencing rapid growth in recent decades. The increasing difficulty of synthesising this literature manually has simultaneously resulted in a growing demand for automated text mining methods. Within the domain of deep learning, large language models (LLMs) have been the subject of considerable attention in recent years due to great leaps in progress and a wide range of potential applications; however, quantitative investigation into their potential in ecology has so far been lacking. In this work, we analyse the ability of GPT‐4 to extract information about invertebrate pests and pest controllers from abstracts of articles on biological pest control, using a bespoke, zero‐shot prompt. Our results show that the performance of GPT‐4 is highly competitive with other state‐of‐the‐art tools used for taxonomic named entity recognition and geographic location extraction tasks. On a held‐out test set, we show that species and geographic locations are extracted with F1‐scores of 99.8% and 95.3%, respectively, and highlight that the model can effectively distinguish between ecological roles of interest such as predators, parasitoids and pests. Moreover, we demonstrate the model's ability to effectively extract and predict taxonomic information across various taxonomic ranks. However, we do report a small number of cases of fabricated information (confabulations). Due to a lack of specialised, pre‐trained ecological language models, general‐purpose LLMs may provide a promising way forward in ecology. Combined with tailored prompt engineering, such models can be employed for a wide range of text mining tasks in ecology, with the potential to greatly reduce time spent on manual screening and labelling of the literature.

Abstract Background Globally, around 13% of children experience dental anxiety (DA). This group of patients frequently miss dental appointments, have greater reliance on treatment under general anaesthesia (GA) and have poorer oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) than their non-dentally anxious peers. Recently, a low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)-based, self-help approach has been recommended for management of childhood anxiety disorders. A feasibility study conducted in secondary care found this guided self-help CBT resource reduced DA and a randomised controlled trial was recommended. The present study aims to establish the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a guided self-help CBT intervention to reduce DA in children attending primary dental care sites compared to usual care. Methods This 4-year randomised controlled trial will involve 600 children (aged 9–16 years) and their parent/carers in 30 UK primary dental care sites. At least two dental professionals will participate in each site. They will be assigned, using random allocation, to receive the CBT training and deliver the intervention or to deliver usual care. Children with DA attending these sites, in need of treatment, will be randomly allocated to be treated either by the intervention (CBT) or control (usual care) dental professional. Children will complete questionnaires relating to DA, OHRQoL and HRQoL before treatment, immediately after treatment completion and 12 months post-randomisation. Attendance, need for sedation/GA and costs of the two different approaches will be compared. The primary outcome, DA, will be measured using the Modified Child Dental Anxiety Scale. Scores will be compared between groups using a linear mixed model. Discussion Treating dentally anxious patients can be challenging and costly. Consequently, these children are frequently referred to specialist services for pharmacological interventions. Longer waiting times and greater travel distances may then compound existing healthcare inequalities. This research will investigate whether the intervention has the potential to reduce DA and improve oral health outcomes in children over their life-course, as well as upskilling primary dental healthcare professionals to better manage this patient group. Trial registration This clinical trial has been registered with an international registry and has been allocated an International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN27579420).

Sweet chestnut, an Asiatic tree introduced in many parts of Europe including the United Kingdom, is planted for nut production, timber, and amenity. Its major threat is the disease called blight, caused by the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica, which infects through wounds by airborne spores. Field trapping using sticky rods rotating traps was performed in an infected area in Devon (between May 2021 and April 2023). An improved dual hydrolysis Taqman probes real-time PCR was used. The number of spores was calculated by comparing the cycle threshold to the Ct of standards with known amounts of conidia or known target fragment copies cloned into a plasmid. Weekly spore counts were in the range of around 60 to approximately 8.5 × 103, with fluctuations of peaks (mainly in late summer–autumn 2021) and troughs. The effects of weather parameters were modelled, finding correlations between spore numbers and temperature, humidity, dewpoint, rainfall, wind speed, and wind duration. Additionally, an insect trapping was performed to confirm the presence/absence and quantity of C. parasitica conidia potentially phoretic on some insects by using the same molecular approach. None of the ten collected insect species harboured spores of this fungus.

Abstract Background Land-use is a major driver of changes in biodiversity worldwide, but studies have overwhelmingly focused on above-ground taxa: the effects on soil biodiversity are less well known, despite the importance of soil organisms in ecosystem functioning. We modelled data from a global biodiversity database to compare how the abundance of soil-dwelling and above-ground organisms responded to land use and soil properties. Results We found that land use affects overall abundance differently in soil and above-ground assemblages. The abundance of soil organisms was markedly lower in cropland and plantation habitats than in primary vegetation and pasture. Soil properties influenced the abundance of soil biota in ways that differed among land uses, suggesting they shape both abundance and its response to land use. Conclusions Our results caution against assuming models or indicators derived from above-ground data can apply to soil assemblages and highlight the potential value of incorporating soil properties into biodiversity models.

Sub-Saharan Africa is facing an expected doubling of human population and tripling of food demand over the next quarter century, posing a range of severe environmental, political, and socio-economic challenges. In some cases, key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are in direct conflict, raising difficult policy and funding decisions, particularly in relation to trade-offs between food production, social inequality, and ecosystem health. In this study, we used a horizon-scanning approach to identify 100 practical or research-focused questions that, if answered, would have the greatest positive impact on addressing these trade-offs and ensuring future productivity and resilience of food-production systems across sub-Saharan Africa. Through direct canvassing of opinions, we obtained 1339 questions from 331 experts based in 55 countries. We then used online voting and participatory workshops to produce a final list of 100 questions divided into 12 thematic sections spanning topics from gender inequality to technological adoption and climate change. Using data on the background of respondents, we show that perspectives and priorities can vary, but they are largely consistent across different professional and geographical contexts. We hope these questions provide a template for establishing new research directions and prioritising funding decisions in sub-Saharan Africa.

A series of consolidated drained and undrained tests are conducted on unreinforced, fibre, cement, and fibre reinforced cemented Toyoura sand specimens with varying relative densities. Three different types of materials e.g., Toyoura sand, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibres, and ordinary Portland cement (OPC) are employed in this study. Specimens in dimensions of 50 mm in diameter and height of 100 mm are prepared in a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) mold to a target dry density value, ρd = 1.40 g/cm3 (Dr = 20%) and ρd = 1.489 g/cm3 (Dr = 60%) of Toyoura sand using under-compaction moist tamping technique. Fibre reinforced cemented Toyoura sand samples were prepared with 10% moisture content by weight of sand-fibre-cement mixtures. The results on density variation shows that due to a better contact between sand-fibre interaction or sand-cement-fibre bonding and interaction for the denser specimens, a greater increase in shear strength is observed. However, the general effectiveness of fibre and cement additives alone and when mixed together also enhances the strength of unreinforced specimens for loose conditions based on the variation of fibre and cement contents. The results and findings in the current study can be used for the construction of economical and sustainable geotechnical infrastructures.

Abstract Few biodiversity indicators are available that reflect the state of broad-sense biodiversity—rather than of particular taxa—at fine spatial and temporal resolution. One such indicator, the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII), estimates how the average abundance of the native terrestrial species in a region compares with their abundances in the absence of pronounced human impacts. We produced annual maps of modelled BII at 30-arc-second resolution (roughly 1 km at the equator) across tropical and subtropical forested biomes, by combining annual data on land use, human population density and road networks, and statistical models of how these variables affect overall abundance and compositional similarity of plants, fungi, invertebrates and vertebrates. Across tropical and subtropical biomes, BII fell by an average of 1.9 percentage points between 2001 and 2012, with 81 countries seeing an average reduction and 43 an average increase; the extent of primary forest fell by 3.9% over the same period. We did not find strong relationships between changes in BII and countries’ rates of economic growth over the same period; however, limitations in mapping BII in plantation forests may hinder our ability to identify these relationships. This is the first time temporal change in BII has been estimated across such a large region.

Abstract The effects of fibre (0–3 %) and cement (0–3 %) additives, on Toyoura sand were examined under consolidated drained compression and extension loading conditions. All samples were prepared to a target dry density value (e.g., $${\rho }_{d}$$ ρ d = 1.489 g/cm3) of Toyoura sand using under-compaction moist tamping technique. In compression, the unreinforced specimens exhibited a behavior of medium dense sand and reached a peak deviator stress (q p ) at approximately 4 % axial strain ( $${\epsilon }_{a}$$ ϵ a ) for the varying mean effective stresses, pʹ (i.e. 50–400 kPa). The peak drained strength increases in fibre reinforced cemented specimens were found to be up to 132 % (lower effective stresses) and 243 % (higher effective stresses), while, the drained strength increases at critical state for the fibre reinforced cemented specimens were found to be up to 105 % (lower effective stresses) and 245 % (higher effective stresses). Overall, the fibre and cement additives increased the stiffness, peak and strength at critical state of pure Toyoura sand but were found to be least effective in extension loading. Moreover, the stress ratio, peak and critical state stress ratios increase with the addition of fibres and cement. The secant modulus shows limited increases for the fibre reinforced specimens. However, a significant improvement in the secant modulus is observed for the fibre reinforced cemented specimens. For both unreinforced and reinforced specimens there is a decrease in volumetric strain with greater effective stresses or in other words, the rate of dilation decreases with increases in effective stresses. The fibre and cement additives also increased the strength parameters (frictional angle, cohesion), dilatancy angle, slope of the critical state line, and decreased the state parameter of pure Toyoura sand.

Athletes often require a mix of physical, physiological, psychological, and skill-based attributes that can be conflicting when competing at the highest level within their sport. When considering multiple variables in tandem, Pareto frontiers is a technique that can identify the observations that possess an optimal balance of the desired attributes, especially when these attributes are negatively correlated. This study presents Pareto frontiers as a tool to identify athletes who possess an optimal ranking when considering multiple metrics simultaneously. This study explores the trade-off relationship between batting average and strike rate as well as bowling strike rate, economy, and average in Twenty 20 cricket. Eight hundred ninety-one matches of Twenty 20 cricket from the men's (MBBL) and women's (WBBL) Australian Big Bash Leagues were compiled to determine the best batting and bowling performances, both within a single innings and across each player's Big Bash career. Pareto frontiers identified 12 and seven optimal batting innings performances in the MBBL and WBBL respectively, with nine and six optimal batting careers respectively. Pareto frontiers also identified three optimal bowling innings in both the MBBL and WBBL and five and six optimal bowling careers in MBBL and WBBL, respectively. Each frontier identified players that were not the highest ranked athlete in any metric when analyzed univariately. Pareto frontiers can be used when assessing talent across multiple metrics, especially when these metrics may be conflicting or uncorrelated. Using Pareto frontiers can identify athletes that may not have the highest ranking on a given metric but have an optimal balance across multiple metrics that are associated with success in a given sport.

Anthropogenic losses of animal pollinators threaten ecosystem functioning. Here the authors report a global analysis showing geographically varied yet widespread declines of pollinator diversity and abundance with land use intensification, particularly in tropical biomes.

The objective of this review is to assess the impact of socioeconomic factors on the progress of multiple chronic health conditions (MCC) in Adults. Two independent investigators searched three databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE and LILACS) up to August 2021 to identify longitudinal studies on inequalities in progress of MCC. Grey literature was searched using Open Grey and Google Scholar. Inclusion criteria were retrospective and prospective longitudinal studies; adult population; assessed socioeconomic inequalities in progress of MCC. Quality of included studies and risk of bias were assessed using the Newcastle Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale for longitudinal studies. Nine longitudinal studies reporting socioeconomic inequalities in progress of MCC were included. Two of the studies had poor quality. Studies varied in terms of follow-up time, sample size, included chronic conditions and socioeconomic indicators. Due to high heterogeneity meta-analysis was not possible. The studies showed positive association between lower education (five studies), lower income and wealth (two studies), area deprivation (one study), lower job categories (two studies) and belonging to ethnic minority (two study) and progress of MCC. The review demonstrated socioeconomic inequality in progress of multiple chronic conditions. trial registratiom: The review protocol was registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (CRD42021229564).

As women's rugby league grows, the need for understanding the movement patterns of the sport is essential for coaches and sports scientists. The aims of the present study were to quantify the position-specific demographics, technical match statistics, and movement patterns of the National Rugby League Women's (NRLW) Premiership and to identify whether there was a change in the intensity of play as a function of game time played. A retrospective observational study was conducted utilizing global positioning system, demographic, and match statistics collected from 117 players from all NRLW clubs across the full 2018 and 2019 seasons and were compared between the ten positions using generalized linear mixed models. The GPS data were separated into absolute (i.e., total distance, high-speed running distance, and acceleration load) and relative movement patterns (i.e., mean speed, mean high speed (> 12 km·h−1), and mean acceleration). For absolute external outputs, fullbacks covered the greatest distance (5,504 m), greatest high-speed distance (1,081 m), and most ball-carry meters (97 m), while five-eighths recorded the greatest acceleration load (1,697 m·s−2). For relative external outputs, there were no significant differences in mean speed and mean high speed between positions, while mean acceleration only significantly differed between wingers and interchanges. Only interchange players significantly decreased in mean speed as their number of minutes played increased. By understanding the load of NRLW matches, coaches, high-performance staff, and players can better prepare as the NRLW Premiership expands. These movement patterns and match statistics of NRLW matches can lay the foundation for future research as women's rugby league expands. Similarly, coaches, high-performance staff, and players can also refine conditioning practices with a greater understanding of the external output of NRLW players.

Background: The Children’s Experiences of Dental Anxiety Measure (CEDAM-14) is a child-centred measure of dental anxiety which assesses a range of behaviours, thoughts and feelings/physical symptoms related to dental anxiety. A short form of the CEDAM-14, which places less time burden on patients and clinicians, could promote the feasibility and applicability of the CEDAM in clinical settings. The aim of the study was to develop a short version of the CEDAM that can be used to assess children’s dental anxiety in clinical practice. Methods: A short version of the CEDAM was developed using a combination of item impact and regression methods. Measurement properties including floor/ceiling effects, variance, criterion validity, construct validity and internal consistency was calculated for the short form. Results: An eight-item CEDAM short form was developed (CEDAM-8) that had good psychometric properties, was significantly correlated with the CEDAM measure (r = 0.90; p < 0.01), had minimal floor and ceiling effects (3.5% and 1.2%, respectively) and was sensitive to change. Conclusion: The CEDAM-8 is a useful assessment tool for clinicians that is easy and quick to administer and could help to understand children’s experiences of dental anxiety and changes in anxiety over time and following intervention.

Abstract The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/our-work/biodiversity/predicts.html)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity.

Introduction: Cross-cultural adaptation is increasingly important in order to understand human behavior, health and psychological processes. Adaptation refers to assessing a similar item in a different culture. Guillemin et al. (1993) and Acquadro et al. (2008) recommend the following: care should be taken during cross-cultural adaptation to incorporate a team of varied experts, there should be regular contact with the original authors to minimizemajor errors and a pilot study should be conducted for new items before they are submitted to a larger group. Aims of study: Review and evaluate cross-cultural adaptation of frequently used measures of OHRQoL in adult and children. Method: Online search engines were searched including MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library for the articles from 1997 to 2016 using pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Articles reviewed by titles, abstracts, and then full-text articles for their relevance to this review. Then the most commonly used models were identified reviewed and summarized in tables. Results: According to our review in this study the most common cross-cultural adaptations measure of OHRQoL for adults and child OHRQoL were assessed and evaluated. Most of the studies were used forward and back translation. However only few studies were used other criteria such as committee review, qualitative interview and pretest stage. Tables A and B shows detail of our results. Conclusion: In conclusion, this review of the cross-cultural adaptation of measures of oral health related quality of life has demonstrated that very few studies met all the criteria for a valid cross cultural adaptation of a measure. They recommend that in order to adapt questionnaires, researchers should follow a multi-step method including forward translation, back translation, committee review, and qualitative interviews and pretesting.

Human use of the land (for agriculture and settlements) has a substantial negative effect on biodiversity globally. However, not all species are adversely affected by land use, and indeed, some benefit from the creation of novel habitat. Geographically rare species may be more negatively affected by land use than widespread species, but data limitations have so far prevented global multi-clade assessments of land-use effects on narrow-ranged and widespread species. We analyse a large, global database to show consistent differences in assemblage composition. Compared with natural habitat, assemblages in disturbed habitats have more widespread species on average, especially in urban areas and the tropics. All else being equal, this result means that human land use is homogenizing assemblage composition across space. Disturbed habitats show both reduced abundances of narrow-ranged species and increased abundances of widespread species. Our results are very important for biodiversity conservation because narrow-ranged species are typically at higher risk of extinction than widespread species. Furthermore, the shift to more widespread species may also affect ecosystem functioning by reducing both the contribution of rare species and the diversity of species' responses to environmental changes among local assemblages.

Effective communication forges the dentist-patient treatment alliance and is thus essential for providing person-centred care. Social rank theory suggests that shame, trust, communication and anxiety are linked together, they are moderated by socio-economic position. The study is aimed to propose and test an explanatory model to predict dental attendance behaviours using person-centred and socio-economic position factors. A secondary data analysis was conducted on a cross-sectional representative survey of a two-stage cluster sample of adults including England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Data were drawn from structured interview. Path analysis of proposed model was calculated following measurement development and confirmation of reliable constructs. The findings show model fit was good. Dental anxiety was predicted negatively by patient’s trust and positively by reported dentist communication. Patient’s shame was positively associated with dental anxiety, whereas self-reported dental attendance was negatively associated with dental anxiety. Both patient’s trust and dentist’s communication effects were moderated by social class. Manual classes were most sensitive to the reported dentist’s communications. Some evidence for the proposed model was found. The relationships reflected in the model were illuminated further when social class was introduced as moderator and indicated dentists should attend to communication processes carefully across different categories of patients.

Protected areas are thought essential for biodiversity conservation, but few studies confirm that protection benefits species. Here, Gray and Hill et al. analyse a global, taxonomically broad database to show that local species richness and abundance are higher inside protected areas than outside.

Background: Environmental trade-offs associated with land use—for example, between food security and biodiversity conservation—are crucial dimensions of planetary health. Land use-driven biodiversity change might predictably affect disease risk if reservoir host species are consistently more likely to persist under human disturbance (ie, if ecological communities in modified habitats generally have a higher zoonotic potential than those in unmodified habitats). Such a phenomenon has been observed in specific disease systems, but with substantial change in global land use projected for this century, assessing its global and taxonomic generality would shed light on an important hypothesised driver of environmental synergies or trade-offs between conservation and public health. Methods: We collated data on hosts of human parasites and pathogens from the published literature, and combined these with the Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity in Changing Terrestrial Systems (PREDICTS) global database of local ecological communities and associated land use data. We analysed the effects of land use on host richness and abundance across 7330 sites globally, controlling for disease-related research effort and differences in survey methods. Findings: Ecological communities in anthropogenic land uses (managed and urban ecosystems) contained a consistently higher richness and abundance of host species than did communities in nearby primary (undisturbed) sites. However, among mammal hosts of zoonotic pathogens, we found considerable taxonomic variation in host responses to land use, with abundances of rodents and bats generally increasing and those of primates and carnivores generally declining in modified landscapes. Interpretation: Our results suggest that future change in global land use has the potential to drive overall increasing contact between people and ecological communities with increased shared pathogen potential (ie, more potential hosts and possible opportunities for transmission). However, the differences in host responses to modified landscapes among mammal orders suggests that these changes are unlikely to affect all zoonotic diseases consistently. This result supports arguments that, rather than expecting a consistent relationship between biodiversity change and disease, in practice, policies aiming both to conserve biodiversity and reduce human disease (eg, through establishment of protected areas) must be disease and context specific. Funding: This research was supported by a Graduate Research Scholarship from University College London (to RG), the Natural Environment Research Council (to DWR and KEJ), and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (to TN).

Abstract Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species’ threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project – and avert – future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local‐scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups – including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems – https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/our-work/biodiversity/predicts.html). We make site‐level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015.

Background: Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups have a high need for organ transplantation but deceased donation is low. This restricts the availability of well-matched organs and results in relatively long waiting times for transplantation, with increased mortality risks. Objective: To identify barriers to organ donor registration and family consent among the BAME population, and to develop and evaluate a training intervention to enhance communication with ethnic minority families and identify impacts on family consent. Methods: Three-phase programme comprising (1) community-based research involving two systematic reviews examining attitudes and barriers to organ donation and effective interventions followed by 22 focus groups with minority ethnic groups; (2) hospital-based research examining staff practices and influences on family consent through ethics discussion groups (EDGs) with staff, a study on intensive care units (ICUs) and interviews with bereaved ethnic minority families; and (3) development and evaluation of a training package to enhance cultural competence among ICU staff. Setting: Community focus group study in eight London boroughs with high prevalence of ethnic minority populations. Hospital studies at five NHS hospital trusts (three in London and two in Midlands). Participants: (1) Community studies: 228 focus group participants; (2) hospital studies: 35 nurses, 28 clinicians, 19 hospital chaplains, 25 members of local Organ Donation Committees, 17 bereaved family members; and (3) evaluation: 66 health professionals. Data sources: Focus groups with community residents, systematic reviews, qualitative interviews and observation in ICUs, EDGs with ICU staff, bereaved family interviews and questionnaires for trial evaluation. Review methods: Systematic review and narrative synthesis. Results: (1) Community studies: Organ Donor Register – different ethnic/faith and age groups were at varying points on the ‘pathway’ to organ donor registration, with large numbers lacking knowledge and remaining at a pre-contemplation stage. Key attitudinal barriers were uncertainties regarding religious permissibility, bodily concerns, lack of trust in health professionals and little priority given to registration, with the varying significance of these factors varying by ethnicity/faith and age. National campaigns focusing on ethnic minorities have had limited impact, whereas characteristics of effective educational interventions are being conducted in a familiar environment; addressing the groups’ particular concerns; delivery by trained members of the lay community; and providing immediate access to registration. Interventions are also required to target those at specific stages of the donation pathway. (2) Hospital studies: family consent to donation – many ICU staff, especially junior nurses, described a lack of confidence in communication and supporting ethnic minority families, often reflecting differences in emotional expression, faith and cultural beliefs, and language difficulties. The continuing high proportion of family donation discussions that take place without the collaboration of a specialist nurse for organ donation (SNOD) reflected consultants’ views of their own role in family consent to donation, a lack of trust in SNODs and uncertainties surrounding controlled donations after circulatory (or cardiac) death. Hospital chaplains differed in their involvement in ICUs, reflecting their availability/employment status, personal interests and the practices of ICU staff. (3) Evaluation: professional development package – a digital versatile disk-based training package was developed to promote confidence and skills in cross-cultural communication (available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueaR6XYkeVM&feature=youtu.be). Initial evaluation produced positive feedback and significant affirmative attitudinal change but no significant difference in consent rate over the short follow-up period with requirements for longer-term evaluation. Limitations: Participants in the focus group study were mainly first-generation migrants of manual socioeconomic groups. It was not permitted to identify non-consenting families for interview with data regarding the consent process were therefore limited to consenting families. Conclusions: The research presents guidance for the effective targeting of donation campaigns focusing on minority ethnic groups and provides the first training package in cultural competence in the NHS. Future work: Greater evaluation is required of community interventions in the UK to enhance knowledge of effective practice and analysis of the experiences of non-consenting ethnic minority families. Funding: The National Institute for Health Research Programme Grants for Applied Research programme.

We collected specimens of Paramecops sinaitus (Pic, 1930) (Curculionidae: Molytinae) from south Sinai in Egypt, which enabled us to make the first complete description of this species. We also include some taxonomic remarks on the genus. Paramecops solenostemmatis (Peyerimhoff, 1930) is a synonym of Paramecops sinaitus. We propose the new combination Paramecops sogdianus (Nasreddinov, 1978), based on Perihylobius sogdianus Nasreddinov, 1978, which would make Perihylobius and Paramecops synonymous. Like other Paramecops species, P. sinaitus appears to share a close interaction with Asclepiads, in this case the Sinai milkweed Asclepias sinaica (Boiss.) Muschl., 1912 (Asclepiadaceae). We investigated the oviposition behaviour of female weevils to test whether it is linked to larval performance, as predicted by coevolutionary theory. We found that female oviposition preference was positively related to plant size and to the volume of the seed follicles in which the eggs were laid. The survival of eggs was negatively related to plant size, perhaps due to plant differences in the production of defensive cardenolides. Larval survival was not related to plant size but increased with follicle volume, probably as a result of competition for food. Paramecops is relatively sedentary and nocturnal in its behaviour. Night-time observations of behaviour showed that weevils were more active at lower temperatures.

Anthropogenic activities are causing widespread degradation of ecosystems worldwide, threatening the ecosystem services upon which all human life depends. Improved understanding of this degradation is urgently needed to improve avoidance and mitigation measures. One tool to assist these efforts is predictive models of ecosystem structure and function that are mechanistic: based on fundamental ecological principles. Here we present the first mechanistic General Ecosystem Model (GEM) of ecosystem structure and function that is both global and applies in all terrestrial and marine environments. Functional forms and parameter values were derived from the theoretical and empirical literature where possible. Simulations of the fate of all organisms with body masses between 10 µg and 150,000 kg (a range of 14 orders of magnitude) across the globe led to emergent properties at individual (e.g., growth rate), community (e.g., biomass turnover rates), ecosystem (e.g., trophic pyramids), and macroecological scales (e.g., global patterns of trophic structure) that are in general agreement with current data and theory. These properties emerged from our encoding of the biology of, and interactions among, individual organisms without any direct constraints on the properties themselves. Our results indicate that ecologists have gathered sufficient information to begin to build realistic, global, and mechanistic models of ecosystems, capable of predicting a diverse range of ecosystem properties and their response to human pressures.

In recent decades more and more tertiary institutions around the world have adopted some sort of English proficiency exit requirements. This study explores, from students' perspectives, what washback effects have been brought about by such exit requirements. Extensive questionnaire and interview data were collected from 737 students from 8 tertiary institutions with English proficiency exit requirements and 678 students from 9 institutions without. Results suggest minor differences between the two groups of students in terms of their motivation to learn English, how they prepared for tests, and the time they reputed devoted to their English studies. Implications and directions for further research are suggested.

The PREDICTS project (www.predicts.org.uk) is a three-year NERC-funded project to model and predict at a global scale how local terrestrial diversity responds to human pressures such as land use, land cover, pollution, invasive species and infrastructure. PREDICTS is a collaboration between Imperial College London, the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Microsoft Research Cambridge, UCL and the University of Sussex. In order to meet its aims, the project relies on extensive data describing the diversity and composition of biological communities at a local scale. Such data are collected on a vast scale through the committed efforts of field ecologists. If you have appropriate data that you would be willing to share with us, please get in touch (enquiries@predicts.org.uk). All contributions will be acknowledged appropriately and all data contributors will be included as co-authors on an open-access paper describing the database.

Efforts to quantify the composition of biological communities increasingly focus on functional traits. The composition of communities in terms of traits can be summarized in several ways. Ecologists are beginning to map the geographic distribution of trait-based metrics from various sources of data, but the maps have not been tested against independent data. Using data for birds of the Western Hemisphere, we test for the first time the most commonly used method for mapping community trait composition - overlaying range maps, which assumes that the local abundance of a given species is unrelated to the traits in question - and three new methods that as well as the range maps include varying degrees of information about interspecific and geographic variation in abundance. For each method, and for four traits (body mass, generation length, migratory behaviour, diet) we calculated community-weighted mean of trait values, functional richness and functional divergence. The maps based on species ranges and limited abundance data were compared with independent data on community species composition from the American Christmas Bird Count (CBC) scheme coupled with data on traits. The correspondence with observed community composition at the CBC sites was mostly positive (62/73 correlations) but varied widely depending on the metric of community composition and method used (R(2): 5.6 × 10(-7) to 0.82, with a median of 0.12). Importantly, the commonly-used range-overlap method resulted in the best fit (21/22 correlations positive; R(2): 0.004 to 0.8, with a median of 0.33). Given the paucity of data on the local abundance of species, overlaying range maps appears to be the best available method for estimating patterns of community composition, but the poor fit for some metrics suggests that local abundance data are urgently needed to allow more accurate estimates of the composition of communities.