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- van Dijk, Laura J.A., et al.
(författare)
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Temperature and water availability drive insect seasonality across a temperate and a tropical region
- 2024
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8452 .- 1471-2954. ; 291:2025
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The more insects there are, the more food there is for insectivores and the higher the likelihood for insect-associated ecosystem services. Yet, we lack insights into the drivers of insect biomass over space and seasons, for both tropical and temperate zones. We used 245 Malaise traps, managed by 191 volunteers and park guards, to characterize year-round flying insect biomass in a temperate (Sweden) and a tropical (Madagascar) country. Surprisingly, we found that local insect biomass was similar across zones. In Sweden, local insect biomass increased with accumulated heat and varied across habitats, while biomass in Madagascar was unrelated to the environmental predictors measured. Drivers behind seasonality partly converged: In both countries, the seasonality of insect biomass differed between warmer and colder sites, and wetter and drier sites. In Sweden, short-term deviations from expected season-specific biomass were explained by week-to-week fluctuations in accumulated heat, rainfall and soil moisture, whereas in Madagascar, weeks with higher soil moisture had higher insect biomass. Overall, our study identifies key drivers of the seasonal distribution of flying insect biomass in a temperate and a tropical climate. This knowledge is key to understanding the spatial and seasonal availability of insects-as well as predicting future scenarios of insect biomass change.
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- Haw, David J., et al.
(författare)
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Optimizing social and economic activity while containing SARS-CoV-2 transmission using DAEDALUS
- 2022
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Ingår i: Nature Computational Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2662-8457. ; 2:4, s. 223-233
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To study the trade-off between economic, social and health outcomes in the management of a pandemic, DAEDALUS integrates a dynamic epidemiological model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission with a multi-sector economic model, reflecting sectoral heterogeneity in transmission and complex supply chains. The model identifies mitigation strategies that optimize economic production while constraining infections so that hospital capacity is not exceeded but allowing essential services, including much of the education sector, to remain active. The model differentiates closures by economic sector, keeping those sectors open that contribute little to transmission but much to economic output and those that produce essential services as intermediate or final consumption products. In an illustrative application to 63 sectors in the United Kingdom, the model achieves an economic gain of between £161 billion (24%) and £193 billion (29%) compared to a blanket lockdown of non-essential activities over six months. Although it has been designed for SARS-CoV-2, DAEDALUS is sufficiently flexible to be applicable to pandemics with different epidemiological characteristics.
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- Haw, David, et al.
(författare)
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Report 35 : How can we keep schools and universities open? Differentiating closures by economic sector to optimize social and economic activity while containing SARS-CoV-2 transmission
- 2020
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There is a trade-off between the education sector and other economic sectors in the control of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Here we integrate a dynamic model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission with a 63-sector economic model reflecting sectoral heterogeneity in transmission and economic interdependence between sectors. We identify control strategies which optimize economic production while keeping schools and universities operational and constraining infections such that emergency hospital capacity is not exceeded. The model estimates an economic gain of between £163bn and £205bn for the United Kingdom compared to a blanket lockdown of non-essential activity over six months, depending on hospital capacity. Sectors identified as potential priorities for closure are contact-intensive and/or less economically productive.
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- Iwaszkiewicz-Eggebrecht, Elzbieta, et al.
(författare)
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FAVIS : Fast and versatile protocol for nondestructive metabarcoding of bulk insect samples
- 2023
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 18:7, s. e0286272-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Insects are diverse and sustain essential ecosystem functions, yet remain understudied. Recent reports about declines in insect abundance and diversity have highlighted a pressing need for comprehensive large-scale monitoring. Metabarcoding (high-throughput bulk sequencing of marker gene amplicons) offers a cost-effective and relatively fast method for characterizing insect community samples. However, the methodology applied varies greatly among studies, thus complicating the design of large-scale and repeatable monitoring schemes. Here we describe a non-destructive metabarcoding protocol that is optimized for high-throughput processing of Malaise trap samples and other bulk insect samples. The protocol details the process from obtaining bulk samples up to submitting libraries for sequencing. It is divided into four sections: 1) Laboratory workspace preparation; 2) Sample processing-decanting ethanol, measuring the wet-weight biomass and the concentration of the preservative ethanol, performing non-destructive lysis and preserving the insect material for future work; 3) DNA extraction and purification; and 4) Library preparation and sequencing. The protocol relies on readily available reagents and materials. For steps that require expensive infrastructure, such as the DNA purification robots, we suggest alternative low-cost solutions. The use of this protocol yields a comprehensive assessment of the number of species present in a given sample, their relative read abundances and the overall insect biomass. To date, we have successfully applied the protocol to more than 7000 Malaise trap samples obtained from Sweden and Madagascar. We demonstrate the data yield from the protocol using a small subset of these samples.
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- Iwaszkiewicz-Eggebrecht, Elzbieta, et al.
(författare)
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Optimizing insect metabarcoding using replicated mock communities
- 2023
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Ingår i: Methods in Ecology and Evolution. - : Wiley. - 2041-210X. ; 14:4, s. 1130-1146
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Metabarcoding (high-throughput sequencing of marker gene amplicons) has emerged as a promising and cost-effective method for characterizing insect community samples. Yet, the methodology varies greatly among studies and its performance has not been systematically evaluated to date. In particular, it is unclear how accurately metabarcoding can resolve species communities in terms of presence-absence, abundance and biomass. Here we use mock community experiments and a simple probabilistic model to evaluate the effect of different DNA extraction protocols on metabarcoding performance. Specifically, we ask four questions: (Q1) How consistent are the recovered community profiles across replicate mock communities?; (Q2) How does the choice of lysis buffer affect the recovery of the original community?; (Q3) How are community estimates affected by differing lysis times and homogenization? and (Q4) Is it possible to obtain adequate species abundance estimates through the use of biological spike-ins? We show that estimates are quite variable across community replicates. In general, a mild lysis protocol is better at reconstructing species lists and approximate counts, while homogenization is better at retrieving biomass composition. Small insects are more likely to be detected in lysates, while some tough species require homogenization to be detected. Results are less consistent across biological replicates for lysates than for homogenates. Some species are associated with strong PCR amplification bias, which complicates the reconstruction of species counts. Yet, with adequate spike-in data, species abundance can be determined with roughly 40% standard error for homogenates, and with roughly 50% standard error for lysates, under ideal conditions. In the latter case, however, this often requires species-specific reference data, while spike-in data generalize better across species for homogenates. We conclude that a non-destructive, mild lysis approach shows the highest promise for the presence/absence description of the community, while also allowing future morphological or molecular work on the material. However, homogenization protocols perform better for characterizing community composition, in particular in terms of biomass.
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- Ohrnberger, Julius, et al.
(författare)
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The impact of a COVID-19 lockdown on work productivity under good and poor compliance
- 2021
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Ingår i: European Journal of Public Health. - : European Public Health Association. - 1101-1262 .- 1464-360X. ; 31:5, s. 1009-1015
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across the globe have imposed strict social distancing measures. Public compliance to such measures is essential for their success, yet the economic consequences of compliance are unknown. This is the first study to analyze the effects of good compliance compared with poor compliance to a COVID-19 suppression strategy (i.e. lockdown) on work productivity.METHODS: We estimate the differences in work productivity comparing a scenario of good compliance with one of poor compliance to the UK government COVID-19 suppression strategy. We use projections of the impact of the UK suppression strategy on mortality and morbidity from an individual-based epidemiological model combined with an economic model representative of the labour force in Wales and England.RESULTS: We find that productivity effects of good compliance significantly exceed those of poor compliance and increase with the duration of the lockdown. After 3 months of the lockdown, work productivity in good compliance is £398.58 million higher compared with that of poor compliance; 75% of the differences is explained by productivity effects due to morbidity and non-health reasons and 25% attributed to avoided losses due to pre-mature mortality.CONCLUSION: Good compliance to social distancing measures exceeds positive economic effects, in addition to health benefits. This is an important finding for current economic and health policy. It highlights the importance to set clear guidelines for the public, to build trust and support for the rules and if necessary, to enforce good compliance to social distancing measures.
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