scholarly journals Drones as a Threat to Wildlife: YouTube Complements Science in Providing Evidence about Their Effect

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (03) ◽  
pp. 205-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Rebolo-Ifrán ◽  
Maricel Graña Grilli ◽  
Sergio A Lambertucci
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Behavioural Response ◽  
International Union ◽  
Recreational Activities ◽  
Behavioural Responses ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Educational Programmes ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
Terrestrial Habitats ◽  
Taxonomic Groups

SummaryAlthough drones are becoming very common in the skies, most concerns about their use are not focused on their possible impact on wildlife. We used the information available from the scientific literature on the effects of drones on wildlife and complement it with Internet (YouTube) information to evaluate whether recreational activities using drones produce behavioural responses from wildlife. Scientific papers specifically evaluating the effects of drones on wildlife are scarce but increasing. Nonetheless, we found abundant videos in which many species from different taxonomic groups and multiple countries presented behavioural responses to drone overflights. Furthermore, 26% of the species that were disturbed are included in one of the International Union for Conservation of Nature categories of threat. We found that wildlife that use aerial and terrestrial habitats are more likely to show a behavioural response than those occupying aquatic habitats. The Internet is becoming a source of evidence of disturbances to wildlife that should be considered, particularly for recreational activities. We advocate for the use of technology, but argue that funding and effort should be devoted to evaluating drone impacts on wildlife. We call for educational programmes for laypeople who use drones for recreation and for more research and regulations on their use in sensitive wildlife areas.

scholarly journals At a snail’s pace: the influence of habitat disturbance on terrestrial snail movement using experimentally manipulated mesocosms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily E. Denief ◽  
Julie W. Turner ◽  
Christina M. Prokopenko ◽  
Alec L. Robitaille ◽  
Eric Vander Wal
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Movement Ecology ◽  
Behavioural Response ◽  
Habitat Alteration ◽  
Movement Behaviour ◽  
Physical Disturbance ◽  
Behavioural Responses ◽  
Cepaea Nemoralis ◽  
Experimental Mesocosms ◽  
Step Selection

AbstractThe Anthropocene marks great changes to environments and the animals that inhabit them. Changes, such as disturbance, can affect the manner in which animals interact with their environments, such as moving and selecting habitats. To test how animals might respond to changing disturbance regimes, we employ an experimental approach to movement ecology. We used integrated step selection analysis (iSSA) to test the behavioural responses of individually-marked grove snails (Cepaea nemoralis) exposed to a gradient of physical disturbance in their habitat. We used a before-after control-impact (BACI) experimental design within semi-controlled mesocosms to manipulate edge and disturbance variables by altering the area of the mesocosm covered by bricks. We showed that grove snails perceive edges of enclosures and edges of bricks as risks, and responded to such risks by altering their movement. Grove snails displayed a bimodal response to risk by taking shelter in place or moving faster to be farther from the disturbance. Furthermore, individuals tended to modulate their behavioural response to the degree of risk. Our study highlights the usefulness of experimental mesocosms in movement ecology and in determining the effects of habitat alteration and human-imposed risk on movement behaviour.

scholarly journals The Prevalence of Inappropriate Image Duplication in Biomedical Research Publications

mBio ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth M. Bik ◽  
Arturo Casadevall ◽  
Ferric C. Fang
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Scientific Journals ◽  
Marked Variation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Inaccurate Data ◽  
Research Publications ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
Actual Prevalence

ABSTRACT Inaccurate data in scientific papers can result from honest error or intentional falsification. This study attempted to determine the percentage of published papers that contain inappropriate image duplication, a specific type of inaccurate data. The images from a total of 20,621 papers published in 40 scientific journals from 1995 to 2014 were visually screened. Overall, 3.8% of published papers contained problematic figures, with at least half exhibiting features suggestive of deliberate manipulation. The prevalence of papers with problematic images has risen markedly during the past decade. Additional papers written by authors of papers with problematic images had an increased likelihood of containing problematic images as well. As this analysis focused only on one type of data, it is likely that the actual prevalence of inaccurate data in the published literature is higher. The marked variation in the frequency of problematic images among journals suggests that journal practices, such as prepublication image screening, influence the quality of the scientific literature.

Response of western diamondback rattlesnakesCrotalus atroxto airborne sounds

2002 ◽  
Vol 205 (19) ◽  
pp. 3087-3092 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce A. Young ◽  
Amie Aguiar
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Frequency Modulation ◽  
Stimulus Presentation ◽  
Behavioural Response ◽  
Acoustic Energy ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Perception Threshold ◽  
Behavioural Responses ◽  
Acoustic Chamber ◽  
Tongue Flicking

SUMMARYIn order to test the hypothesis that snakes can not only perceive airborne sounds, but also respond to them, an acoustic isolation chamber was designed and constructed to perform best within the 150-450 Hz range in which snakes perceive sound. Suspended within this acoustic chamber was a steel mesh basket designed to minimize the potential for groundborne vibrations. A synthesized tone was created out of 20 different 150 ms sounds, each separated by a 50 ms period of silence; the acoustic energy of each of the 20 sounds was concentrated between 200-400 Hz, and each sound included frequency modulation. The trial stimuli were presented to western diamondback rattlesnakes Crotalus atrox at a level 5-10 dB above their perception threshold. Four significant behavioural responses were observed upon stimulus presentation: cessation of body movements, reduction or cessation of tongue flicking, rapid jerks of the head and rattling. At least one significant behavioural response was observed in 92% of the behavioural trials. This study provides the first experimental evidence that snakes can respond behaviourally to airborne sounds.

Specific behavioural responses triggered by identified mechanosensory receptor cells in the apical field of the giant rotifer Asplanchna sieboldi.

1998 ◽  
Vol 201 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-177
Author(s):  
K D Joanidopoulos ◽  
W Marwan
Keyword(s):  
Behavioural Response ◽  
Sensory Receptor ◽  
Receptor Specificity ◽  
Free Swimming ◽  
Behavioural Responses ◽  
Receptor Cells ◽  
Mechanical Interference ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Stimulation Of

The giant rotifer Asplanchna sieboldi swims by the propulsive effect of thousands of cilia arrayed in clusters around the apical field, which has several mechanosensory structures (sensilla) located at defined positions. Males and females differ in both their patterns of behaviour and their sensory receptor equipment. Unstimulated males swim straight with occasional spontaneous changes in direction until they hit an obstacle with their apical field. Depending on the direction and the strength of the mechanical interference, the animals show different behavioural responses. To analyse the effect of excitation of the apical mechanosensitive sensilla on these responses, males were held on microcapillaries, and the sensitivity of individual sensilla was assayed using micromanipulator-mediated mechanical stimulation. Stimulation of each of the four different types of sensillum triggered a specific and well-defined initial behavioural response. Individual animals behaved identically with respect to the receptor specificity of the responses. The behaviour of free-swimming males upon contact with obstacles or females is discussed on the basis of these results.

Scientific Papers and Patents on Substances with Unproven Effects

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergei V. Jargin
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Dietary Supplements ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
Constructive Discussion

It is evident from reviewing scientific literature that the quality of argumentation in some areas of medical research has deteriorated during the last decades. Publication of a series of questionable reliability has continued without making references to the published criticism; examples are discussed in this review. Another tendency is that drugs without proven efficiency are advertised, corresponding products patented and marketed as evidence-based medications. Professional publications are required to register drugs and dietary supplements to obtain permissions for the practical use; and such papers appeared, sometimes being of questionable reliability. Several examples are discussed in this review when substances without proven effects were patented and introduced into practice being supported by publications of questionable reliability. Some of the topics are not entirely clear; and the arguments provided here can induce a constructive discussion.

scholarly journals KGen: a knowledge graph generator from biomedical scientific literature

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (S4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anderson Rossanez ◽  
Julio Cesar dos Reis ◽  
Ricardo da Silva Torres ◽  
Hélène de Ribaupierre
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Scientific Texts ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
Biomedical Texts

Abstract Background Knowledge is often produced from data generated in scientific investigations. An ever-growing number of scientific studies in several domains result into a massive amount of data, from which obtaining new knowledge requires computational help. For example, Alzheimer’s Disease, a life-threatening degenerative disease that is not yet curable. As the scientific community strives to better understand it and find a cure, great amounts of data have been generated, and new knowledge can be produced. A proper representation of such knowledge brings great benefits to researchers, to the scientific community, and consequently, to society. Methods In this article, we study and evaluate a semi-automatic method that generates knowledge graphs (KGs) from biomedical texts in the scientific literature. Our solution explores natural language processing techniques with the aim of extracting and representing scientific literature knowledge encoded in KGs. Our method links entities and relations represented in KGs to concepts from existing biomedical ontologies available on the Web. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by generating KGs from unstructured texts obtained from a set of abstracts taken from scientific papers on the Alzheimer’s Disease. We involve physicians to compare our extracted triples from their manual extraction via their analysis of the abstracts. The evaluation further concerned a qualitative analysis by the physicians of the generated KGs with our software tool. Results The experimental results indicate the quality of the generated KGs. The proposed method extracts a great amount of triples, showing the effectiveness of our rule-based method employed in the identification of relations in texts. In addition, ontology links are successfully obtained, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the ontology linking method proposed in this investigation. Conclusions We demonstrate that our proposal is effective on building ontology-linked KGs representing the knowledge obtained from biomedical scientific texts. Such representation can add value to the research in various domains, enabling researchers to compare the occurrence of concepts from different studies. The KGs generated may pave the way to potential proposal of new theories based on data analysis to advance the state of the art in their research domains.

General linear model analysis of behavioural responses of Boerand Tswana goats to successive handling

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Molale ◽  
M. A. Antwi ◽  
J. N. Lekunze ◽  
U. Luvhengo
Keyword(s):  
Linear Model ◽  
General Linear Model ◽  
Model Analysis ◽  
Flight Time ◽  
Behavioural Response ◽  
Flight Speed ◽  
General Linear ◽  
Behavioural Responses ◽  
General Linear Model Analysis ◽  
Boer Goats

The purpose of this experiment was to evaluate the behavioural response of Boer goats and Tswana goats to successive handling. Boer goats and Tswana goats were subjected to aging and tail restrain during handling. Behavioural response was recorded through the vocalisation score (VS), crush score (CS), flight speed (FS), and flight time (FT) scores twice a week for eight weeks. A total of thirty six Boer goats and Tswana goats were used in this experiment. The results indicated that the Tswana goats were the most temperament (p < 0.05) and Boer goats were the calmest. Behavioural scores significantly increased throughout the experiment.

scholarly journals Ground-truthing Phylotype Assignments for Antarctic Invertebrates

DNA Barcodes ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Paul Czechowski ◽  
Laurence Clarke ◽  
Alan Cooper ◽  
Mark Stevens
Keyword(s):  
18S Rdna ◽  
High Throughput Sequencing ◽  
Antarctic Soils ◽  
Reference Information ◽  
Artificial Dna ◽  
Terrestrial Habitats ◽  
Ground Truthing ◽  
Taxonomic Assignments ◽  
Taxonomic Groups ◽  
Biodiversity Information

AbstractBiodiversity information from Antarctic terrestrial habitats helps conservation efforts, but the distribution and diversity particularly of microinvertebrates remains poorly understood. Springtails, mites, tardigrades, nematodes and rotifers are difficult to identify using morphological features, hence DNA-based metabarcoding methods are well suited for their study. We compared taxonomy assignments of a high throughput sequencing metabarcoding approach using one ribosomal DNA (18S rDNA) and one mitochondrial DNA (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I - COI) marker with morphological reference data. Specifically, we compared metabarcoding or morphological taxonomic assignments on multiple taxonomic levels in an artificial DNA blend containing Australian invertebrates, and in seven extracts of Antarctic soils containing known micro-faunal taxa. Avoiding arbitrary application of metabarcoding analysis parameters, we calibrated those parameters with metabarcoding data from non-Antarctic soils. Metabarcoding approaches employing 18S rDNA and COI markers enabled detection of small and cryptic Antarctic invertebrates, and on low taxonomic ranks 18S data outperformed COI data in this respect. Morphological taxonomy determination did not outperform metabarcoding approaches. Our study demonstrates how barcoding markers can be tested prior to their application to specific taxonomic groups, and that taxonomy fidelity of markers needs to be validated in relation to environment, taxa, and available reference information.

Anti-psychotics: To withdraw or not to withdraw?

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S752-S752
Author(s):  
C. Ferreira ◽  
S. Alves ◽  
C. Oliveira ◽  
M.J. Avelino
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Online Searching ◽  
Cardiac Side Effects ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
Few Data

IntroductionAnti-psychotics constitute a class of psychotropic drugs used for the treatment and prophylaxis of several disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and psychotic depression. Frequently, clinicians are asked by their patients to withdraw this medication. In some cases, that may be related to notable side effects. However, it may actually indicate an inadequate control of the psychiatric disorder with poor insight.AimsThe goal of this work is to systematically review the scientific literature in order to understand if there are consistent data that support anti-psychotics withdraw in specific clinical situations.MethodsThe literature was reviewed by online searching using PubMed®. The authors selected scientific papers with the words “anti-psychotics” and “withdraw” in the title and/or abstract, published in English.Results and discussionAnti-psychotics improve prognosis and enhance patients’ quality of life. There are few data in the literature regarding recommendations that support anti-psychotic withdraw in psychiatric patients. Very specific conditions must exist for withdrawing anti-psychotics, like neuroleptic malignant syndrome, cardiac side effects, and change of diagnosis or prolonged remission after a first and single psychotic event. When that decision is made, it should be done slowly and carefully and both the patient and his family should be involved.ConclusionsThere is no evidence in the literature that supports withdraw of anti-psychotics for the majority of psychiatric situations. When specific conditions are present that possibility must then be considered, however, with careful consideration and after discussion with the patient and parties involved in patient's care.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

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