| 1. |
- Strand, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
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Caring for patients with spinal metastasis during an MRI examination
- 2018
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Ingår i: Radiography. - London : Elsevier. - 1078-8174 .- 1532-2831. ; 24:1, s. 79-83
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is without question the best tool used for diagnosing and evaluating spinal metastasis. An MRI examination is known to be of great value for the treatment planning and survival of these patients. Radiographers have an important role in how the quality of care is experienced by the patients during an MRI examination. The purpose of the study was to describe the radiographers’ perceptions of caring for patients with spinal metastasis during an examination with MRI.Methods: Phenomenography was used to analyze the data in this study. Ten radiographers, one male and nine females were interviewed about their perception of caring for patients with spinal metastasis during an MRI examination.Results: The findings showed that the radiographers’ caring perspective influenced their approach towards what they consider to be essential in the care of patients with spinal metastasis. This can impact the extent of the adjustment to the care needs of the patients. Furthermore, the findings showed that there was a strong connection between the radiographers’ care approach and preparedness to personalize the care.Conclusion: This study shows that it is important to be flexible when providing care for the patients. A person-centered care is achieved when the caring perspective is based on the patient’s view and adjustments are made in agreement with the patient.
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| 2. |
- Esson, Carol, et al.
(författare)
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Health and zoonotic Infections of snow leopards Panthera unica in the South Gobi desert of Mongolia.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Infection Ecology & Epidemiology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2000-8686 .- 2000-8686. ; 9:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Snow leopards, Panthera uncia, are a threatened apex predator, scattered across the mountains of Central and South Asia. Disease threats to wild snow leopards have not been investigated.Methods and Results: Between 2008 and 2015, twenty snow leopards in the South Gobi desert of Mongolia were captured and immobilised for health screening and radio-collaring. Blood samples and external parasites were collected for pathogen analyses using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), microscopic agglutination test (MAT), and next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques. The animals showed no clinical signs of disease, however, serum antibodies to significant zoonotic pathogens were detected. These pathogens included, Coxiella burnetii, (25% prevalence), Leptospira spp., (20%), and Toxoplasma gondii (20%). Ticks collected from snow leopards contained potentially zoonotic bacteria from the genera Bacillus, Bacteroides, Campylobacter, Coxiella, Rickettsia, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus.Conclusions: The zoonotic pathogens identified in this study, in the short-term did not appear to cause illness in the snow leopards, but have caused illness in other wild felids. Therefore, surveillance for pathogens should be implemented to monitor for potential longer- term disease impacts on this snow leopard population.
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| 3. |
- Kulma, Katarzyna, et al.
(författare)
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Immunoglobulin level and infection intensity influence how malaria-infected collared flycatchers respond to brood size manipulation
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1.The existence of a trade-off between investment in reproduction and immune function is well-established in many species. However, variation in the underlying physiological allocation strategies, which is what selection operates on, remains largely unexplored.2.We investigated how haemosporidian infection influenced stress hormone level and ability to increase parental effort in female collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis). We especially focused on how estimates of investment in humoral immune response and level of parasitemia influenced subsequent parental investment (i.e. offspring provisioning and offspring mass).3.To achieve these goals, we combined a brood size manipulation experiment with nested- and quantitative PCR methods to establish infection status and intensity. In addition, we quantified immunoglobulin Y (IgY) and stress protein levels.4. Malaria-infected females reared enlarged broods with lower mass but there was large variation in their response to the experiment. Only infected females with low IgY levels decreased their relative provisioning rate and there was a positive relationship between the intensity of infection and total brood mass.5. Our study implies that malaria-infected flycatchers experience a trade-off between keeping their infection at bay (i.e. low level of parasitemia) and responding to increased offspring demands (i.e. high offspring mass in enlarged broods). However, relatively immunocompetent individuals (i.e. individuals with high IgY levels) did not compromise their parental care suggesting that the main cost of raising the immune response does not lay in antibody production.
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| 4. |
- Puckett, Emily E., et al.
(författare)
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Genomic analyses reveal three independent introductions of the invasive brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) to the Faroe Islands
- 2020
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Ingår i: Heredity. - : NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. - 0018-067X .- 1365-2540. ; 124:1, s. 15-27
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Population genomics offers innovative approaches to test hypotheses related to the source and timing of introduction of invasive species. These approaches are particularly appropriate to study colonization of island ecosystems. The brown rat is a cold-hardy global invasive that has reached most of the world's island ecosystems, including even highly isolated archipelagoes such as the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. Historic records tell of rats rafting to the southern island of Suouroy in 1768 following a shipwreck off the coast of Scotland, then expanding across the archipelago. We investigated the demographic history of brown rats in the Faroes using 50,174 SNPs. We inferred three independent introductions of rats, including to Suouroy, the islands of Borooy and Viooy, and onto Streymoy from which they expanded to Eysturoy and Vagar. All Faroese populations showed signs of strong bottlenecks and declining effective population size. We inferred that these founder events removed low frequency alleles, the exact data needed to estimate recent demographic histories. Therefore, we were unable to accurately estimate the timing of each invasion. The difficulties with demographic inference may be applicable to other invasive species, particularly those with extreme and recent bottlenecks. We identified three invasions of brown rats to the Faroe Islands that resulted in highly differentiated populations that will be useful for future studies of life history variation and genomic adaptation.
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| 5. |
- Puckett, Emily E., et al.
(författare)
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Global population divergence and admixture of the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus)
- 2016
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8452 .- 1471-2954. ; 283:1841
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Native to China and Mongolia, the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) now enjoys a worldwide distribution. While black rats and the house mouse tracked the regional development of human agricultural settlements, brown rats did not appear in Europe until the 1500s, suggesting their range expansion was a response to relatively recent increases in global trade. We inferred the global phylogeography of brown rats using 32 k SNPs, and detected 13 evolutionary clusters within five expansion routes. One cluster arose following a southward expansion into Southeast Asia. Three additional clusters arose from two independent eastward expansions: one expansion from Russia to the Aleutian Archipelago, and a second to western North America. Westward expansion resulted in the colonization of Europe from which subsequent rapid colonization of Africa, the Americas and Australasia occurred, and multiple evolutionary clusters were detected. An astonishing degree of fine-grained clustering between and within sampling sites underscored the extent to which urban heterogeneity shaped genetic structure of commensal rodents. Surprisingly, few individuals were recent migrants, suggesting that recruitment into established populations is limited. Understanding the global population structure of R. norvegicus offers novel perspectives on the forces driving the spread of zoonotic disease, and aids in development of rat eradication programmes.
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| 6. |
- Rózsa, Jani, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of a range expansion on adaptive and neutral genetic diversity in dispersal limited Hazel grouse (Bonasa bonasia) in the French Alps
- 2016
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Ingår i: Conservation Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1566-0621 .- 1572-9737. ; 17:2, s. 401-412
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biogeographic range expansions, when related to dispersal limitation, may have counter intuitive effects on genetic diversity. At range margins the relative roles of demographic changes, connectivity and genetic diversity need to be integrated for a successful assessment of population viability. Historically the Hazel grouse (Bonasa bonasia) in France was found in the north of the French Alps and also in a disjunct population in the nearby Jura Mountains. The species has recently undergone a range expansion in a north to south axis in the Alps. Local population size estimates and migration patterns during expansion have previously been studied. In this study, we performed genotyping at neutral (microsatellite) and adaptive (MHC) genetic markers in Hazel grouse. We compared diversity and differentiation (FST and DEST) at three sampling localities along the expansion axis in the French Alps and Jura, as well as at two sampling localities in Sweden, where the population has had a long-term continuous and stable distribution. Strong serial founder effects were found between the French localities, resulting in stronger isolation further south, with a relatively high neutral differentiation (pair-wise FST = 0.117). However, the loss of adaptive diversity MHC was slight. No adaptive differentiation (MHC DEST = −0.015) was observed, thus, the French localities can be considered uniform units with regard to MHC diversity, a criterion to treat populations in these localities as a management unit.
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| 7. |
- Segelbacher, Gernot, et al.
(författare)
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Analyses of historical and current populations of black grouse in Central Europe reveal strong effects of genetic drift and loss of genetic diversity
- 2014
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Ingår i: Conservation Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1566-0621 .- 1572-9737. ; 15:5, s. 1183-1195
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) in Central Europe have undergone a severe contraction of their range in recent decades with only a few small isolated remaining populations. Here we compare genetic diversity of two contemporary isolated populations (Sallandse Heuvelrug, Netherlands and Lüneburger Heide, Germany) with historical samples from the same region collected within the last one hundred years. We use markers with both putatively neutral and functional variation to test whether the present small and highly fragmented populations hold lower genetic diversity compared to the former larger population. For this we applied three different types of genetic markers: nine microsatellites and 21 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), both sets which have been found to be neutral, and two functional major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes for which there is evidence they are under selection. The contemporary small isolated populations displayed lower neutral genetic diversity compared to the corresponding historical samples. Furthermore, samples from Denmark showed that this now extinct population displayed lower genetic variation in the period immediately prior to the local extinction. Population structure was more pronounced among contemporary populations compared to historical populations for microsatellites and SNPs. This effect was not as distinct for MHC which is consistent with the possibility that MHC has been subjected to balancing selection in the past, a process which maintains genetic variation and may minimize population structure for such markers. Genetic differentiation among the present populations highlights the strong effects of population decline on the genetic structure of natural populations, which can be ultimately attributed to habitat loss following anthropogenic land use changes.
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| 8. |
- Segelbacher, Gernot, et al.
(författare)
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Historic and current populations of black grouse in central Europe – evidence for rapid loss of genetic diversity
- 2011
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) in central Europe have undergone a severe contraction of their range with only a few small isolated remaining populations. We here compare genetic diversity of two contemporary populations (Sallandse Heuvelrug, Netherlands and Lüneburger Heide, Germany) with historic samples from the same range collected decades ago. We use both neutral and MHC markers to test whether present small and highly fragmented populations hold lower genetic diversity compared to the former larger population. For this we applied three different types of genetic markers: nine microsatellites and 21 SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) which both have been found to be neutral, and two functional MHC (Major Histocompatibility Complex) genes that are presumably under selection. The contemporary small isolated populations displayed lower neutral genetic diversity compared to the historic samples. A similar trend was found for genotypes at MHC class II loci. Furthermore, population structure was more pronounced among contemporary populations compared to historic populations for microsatellites and SNPs. This effect was not as distinct for MHC which suggests that MHC has been subjected to balancing selection in the past, a process upholding genetic variation and minimizing population structure for such markers. As predicted from theory, drift is the most potent evolutionary processes affecting genetic variation at small population sizes. Genetic differentiation among present populations highlights the strong affects of population decline and habitat loss due to anthropogenic land use changes on genetic structure of natural populations.
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| 9. |
- Strand, Tanja, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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Breeding consequences of flavivirus infection in the collared flycatcher
- 2018
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Ingår i: BMC Evolutionary Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2148. ; 18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The breeding consequences of virus infections have rarely been studied in avian natural breeding populations. In this paper we investigated the links between humoral immunity following a natural flavivirus infection and reproduction in a wild bird population of collared flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis). We analyzed plasma from 744 birds for antibodies and correlated these results to a number of reproductive components.Results: Nearly one third (27.8%) of the sampled collared flycatchers were found seropositive for flavivirus. Males had significantly more frequently flavivirus antibodies (32.3%) than females (25.1%). Seropositive females differed significantly from seronegative females in four traits: they had earlier lay date, higher body weight, higher survival rate and were older than seronegative females. The females did not differ in clutch size, number of fledged young or number of recruited young. Seropositive males had female partners with earlier lay date, i.e. the males bred earlier and they also produced more fledged young than seronegative males. In contrast, the males did not differ in clutch size, number of recruited young, male weight, age or survival. Interestingly, seropositive males had larger ornament, forehead badge size, than seronegative males.Conclusions: Collared flycatchers with an antibody response against flavivirus were more successful than birds with no antibody response, for any of the measured life history traits. The positive link between flavivirus antibody presence and life-history trait levels suggest that it is condition dependent in the collared flycatcher.
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| 10. |
- Strand, Tanja, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Can balancing selection on MHC loci counteract genetic drift in small fragmented populations of black grouse?
- 2012
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : Wiley. - 2045-7758. ; 2:2, s. 341-353
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ability of natural populations to adapt to new environmental conditions is crucial for their survival and partly determined by the standing genetic variation in each population. Populations with higher genetic diversity are more likely to contain individuals that are better adapted to new circumstances than populations with lower genetic diversity. Here we use both neutral and MHC markers to test whether small and highly fragmented populations hold lower genetic diversity than large ones. We use black grouse as it is distributed across Europe and found in populations with varying degrees of isolation and size. We sampled eleven different populations; five continuous, three isolated and three small and isolated. We tested patterns of genetic variation in these populations using three different types of genetic markers: nine microsatellites and 21 SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) which both were found to be neutral, and two functional MHC (Major Histocompatibility Complex) genes that are presumably under selection. The small isolated populations displayed significantly lower neutral genetic diversity compared to continuous populations. A similar trend, but not as pronounced, was found for genotypes at MHC class II loci. Populations were less divergent at MHC genes compared to neutral markers. Measures of genetic diversity and population genetic structure were positively correlated among microsatellites and SNPs, but none of them were correlated to MHC when comparing all populations. Our results suggest that balancing selection at MHC loci does not counteract the power of genetic drift when populations get small and fragmented.
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