Scenario-based assessment of future land use change on butterfly species distributions

Species distribution models (SDMs) are increasingly used to predict environmentally induced range shifts of habitats of plant and animal species. Consequently SDMs are valuable tools for scientifically based conservation decisions. The aims of this paper are (1) to identify important drivers of butterfly species persistence or extinction, and (2) to analyse the responses of endangered butterfly species of dry grasslands and wetlands to likely future landscape changes in Switzerland. Future land use was represented by four scenarios describing: (1) ongoing land use changes as observed at the end of the last century; (2) a liberalisation of the agricultural markets; (3) a slightly lowered agricultural production; and (4) a strongly lowered agricultural production. Two model approaches have been applied. The first (logistic regression with principal components) explains what environmental variables have significant impact on species presence (and absence). The second (predictive SDM) is used to project species distribution under current and likely future land uses. The results of the explanatory analyses reveal that four principal components related to urbanisation, abandonment of open land and intensive agricultural practices as well as two climate parameters are primary drivers of species occurrence (decline). The scenario analyses show that lowered agricultural production is likely to favour dry grassland species due to an increase of non-intensively used land, open canopy forests, and overgrown areas. In the liberalisation scenario dry grassland species show a decrease in abundance due to a strong increase of forested patches. Wetland butterfly species would decrease under all four scenarios as their habitats become overgrown

New York City: "gilt cage" or "promised land" ? : representations of urban space in Edith Wharton and Anzia Yezierska

This thesis explores the importance of literary New York City in the urban narratives of Edith Wharton and Anzia Yezierska. It specifically looks at the Empire City of the Progressive Period when the concept of the city was not only a new theme but also very much a typical American one which was as central to the American experience as had been the Western frontier. It could be argued, in fact, that the American city had become the new frontier where modern experiences like urbanization, industrialization, immigration, and also women's emancipation and suffrage, caused all kinds of sensations on the human scale from smoothly lived assimilation and acculturation to deeply felt alienation because of the constantly shifting urban landscape. The developing urban space made possible the emergence of new female literary protagonists like the working girl, the reformer, the prostitute, and the upper class lady dedicating her life to 'conspicuous consumption'. Industrialization opened up city space to female exploration: on the one hand, upper and middle class ladies ventured out of the home because of the many novel urban possibilities, and on the other, lower class and immigrant girls also left their domestic sphere to look for paid jobs outside the home. New York City at the time was not only considered the epicenter of the world at large, it was also a city of great extremes. Everything was constantly in flux: small brownstones made way for ever taller skyscrapers and huge waves of immigrants from Europe pushed native New Yorkers further uptown on the island, adding to the crowdedness and intensity of the urban experience. The city became a polarized urban space with Fifth Avenue representing one end of the spectrum and the Lower East Side the other. Questions of space and the urban home greatly mattered. It has been pointed out that the city setting functions as an ideal means for the display of human nature as well as social processes. Narrative representations of urban space, therefore, provide a similar canvas for a protagonist's journey and development. From widely diverging vantage points both Edith Wharton and Anzia Yezierska thus create a polarized city where domesticity is a primal concern. Looking at all of their New York narratives by close readings of exterior and interior city representations, this thesis shows how urban space greatly affects questions of identity, assimilation, and alienation in literary protagonists who cannot escape the influence of their respective urban settings. Edith Wharton's upper class "millionaire" heroines are framed and contained by the city interiors of "old" New York, making it impossible for them to truly participate in the urban landscape in order to develop outside of their 'Gilt Cages'. On the other side are Anzia Yezierska's struggling "immigrant" protagonists who, against all odds, never give up in their urban context of streets, rooftops, and stoops. Their New York City, while always challenging and perpetually changing, at least allows them perspectives of hope for a 'Promised Land' in the making. Central for both urban narrative approaches is the quest for a home as an architectural structure, a spiritual resting place, and a locus for identity forming. But just as the actual city embraces change, urban protagonists must embrace change also if they desire to find fulfillment and success. That this turns out to be much easier for Anzia Yezierska's driven immigrants rather than for Edith Wharton's well established native New Yorkers is a surprising conclusion to this urban theme.

Factors associated with latent tuberculosis among asylum seekers in Switzerland: a cross-sectional study in Vaud County.

BACKGROUND: Screening and treatment of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in asylum seekers (AS) may prevent future cases of tuberculosis. As the screening with Interferon Gamma Release Assay (IGRA) is costly, the objective of this study was to assess which factors were associated with LTBI and to define a score allowing the selection of AS with the highest risk of LTBI. METHODS: In across-sectional study, AS seekers recently arrived in Vaud County, after screening for tuberculosis at the border were offered screening for LTBI with T-SPOT.TB and questionnaire on potentially risk factors. The factors associated with LTBI were analyzed by univariate and multivariate regression. RESULTS: Among 393 adult AS, 98 (24.93%) had a positive IGRA response, five of them with active tuberculosis previously undetected. Six factors associated with LTBI were identified in multivariate analysis: origin, travel conditions, marital status, cough, age and prior TB exposure. Their combination leads to a robust LTBI predictive score. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of LTBI and active tuberculosis in AS is high. A predictive score integrating six factors could identify the asylum seekers with the highest risk for LTBI.

Evaluating sampling strategies and logistic regression methods for modelling complex land cover changes

The role of land cover change as a significant component of global change has become increasingly recognized in recent decades. Large databases measuring land cover change, and the data which can potentially be used to explain the observed changes, are also becoming more commonly available. When developing statistical models to investigate observed changes, it is important to be aware that the chosen sampling strategy and modelling techniques can influence results. We present a comparison of three sampling strategies and two forms of grouped logistic regression models (multinomial and ordinal) in the investigation of patterns of successional change after agricultural land abandonment in Switzerland. Results indicated that both ordinal and nominal transitional change occurs in the landscape and that the use of different sampling regimes and modelling techniques as investigative tools yield different results. Synthesis and applications. Our multimodel inference identified successfully a set of consistently selected indicators of land cover change, which can be used to predict further change, including annual average temperature, the number of already overgrown neighbouring areas of land and distance to historically destructive avalanche sites. This allows for more reliable decision making and planning with respect to landscape management. Although both model approaches gave similar results, ordinal regression yielded more parsimonious models that identified the important predictors of land cover change more efficiently. Thus, this approach is favourable where land cover change pattern can be interpreted as an ordinal process. Otherwise, multinomial logistic regression is a viable alternative.

Knowing the past to predict the future: land-use change and the distribution of invasive bullfrogs

Biological invasions and land-use changes are two major causes of the global modifications of biodiversity. Habitat suitability models are the tools of choice to predict potential distributions of invasive species. Although land-use is a key driver of alien species invasions, it is often assumed that land-use is constant in time. Here we combine historical and present day information, to evaluate whether land-use changes could explain the dynamic of invasion of the American bullfrog Rana catesbeiana (=Lithobathes catesbeianus) in Northern Italy, from the 1950s to present-day. We used maxent to build habitat suitability models, on the basis of past (1960s, 1980s) and present-day data on land-uses and species distribution. For example, we used models built using the 1960s data to predict distribution in the 1980s, and so on. Furthermore, we used land-use scenarios to project suitability in the future. Habitat suitability models predicted well the spread of bullfrogs in the subsequent temporal step. Models considering land-use changes predicted invasion dynamics better than models assuming constant land-use over the last 50 years. Scenarios of future land-use suggest that suitability will remain similar in the next years. Habitat suitability models can help to understand and predict the dynamics of invasions; however, land-use is not constant in time: land-use modifications can strongly affect invasions; furthermore, both land management and the suitability of a given land-use class may vary in time. An integration of land-use changes in studies of biological invasions can help to improve management strategies.

Where will conflicts between alien and rare species occur after climate and land-use change? A test with a novel combined modelling approach

Protecting native biodiversity against alien invasive species requires powerful methods to anticipate these invasions and to protect native species assumed to be at risk. Here, we describe how species distribution models (SDMs) can be used to identify areas predicted as suitable for rare native species and also predicted as highly susceptible to invasion by alien species, at present and under future climate and land-use scenarios. To assess the condition and dynamics of such conflicts, we developed a combined predictive modelling (CPM) approach, which predicts species distributions by combining two SDMs fitted using subsets of predictors classified as acting at either regional or local scales. We illustrate the CPM approach for an alien invader and a rare species associated to similar habitats in northwest Portugal. Combined models predict a wider variety of potential species responses, providing more informative projections of species distributions and future dynamics than traditional, non-combined models. They also provide more informative insight regarding current and future rare-invasive conflict areas. For our studied species, conflict areas of highest conservation relevance are predicted to decrease over the next decade, supporting previous reports that some invasive species may contract their geographic range and impact due to climate change. More generally, our results highlight the more informative character of the combined approach to address practical issues in conservation and management programs, especially those aimed at mitigating the impact of invasive plants, land-use and climate changes in sensitive regions

Combining probabilistic land-use change and tree population dynamics modelling to simulate responses in mountain forests

Altitudinal tree lines are mainly constrained by temperature, but can also be influenced by factors such as human activity, particularly in the European Alps, where centuries of agricultural use have affected the tree-line. Over the last decades this trend has been reversed due to changing agricultural practices and land-abandonment. We aimed to combine a statistical land-abandonment model with a forest dynamics model, to take into account the combined effects of climate and human land-use on the Alpine tree-line in Switzerland. Land-abandonment probability was expressed by a logistic regression function of degree-day sum, distance from forest edge, soil stoniness, slope, proportion of employees in the secondary and tertiary sectors, proportion of commuters and proportion of full-time farms. This was implemented in the TreeMig spatio-temporal forest model. Distance from forest edge and degree-day sum vary through feed-back from the dynamics part of TreeMig and climate change scenarios, while the other variables remain constant for each grid cell over time. The new model, TreeMig-LAb, was tested on theoretical landscapes, where the variables in the land-abandonment model were varied one by one. This confirmed the strong influence of distance from forest and slope on the abandonment probability. Degree-day sum has a more complex role, with opposite influences on land-abandonment and forest growth. TreeMig-LAb was also applied to a case study area in the Upper Engadine (Swiss Alps), along with a model where abandonment probability was a constant. Two scenarios were used: natural succession only (100% probability) and a probability of abandonment based on past transition proportions in that area (2.1% per decade). The former showed new forest growing in all but the highest-altitude locations. The latter was more realistic as to numbers of newly forested cells, but their location was random and the resulting landscape heterogeneous. Using the logistic regression model gave results consistent with observed patterns of land-abandonment: existing forests expanded and gaps closed, leading to an increasingly homogeneous landscape.

Risk factors of latent tuberculosis infection among asylum-seekers recently arrived in Switzerland : A pilot study in Vaud county

Background: Asylum seekers may have a higher rate of latenttuberculosis infection (LTBI) than resident populations in Westerncountries. LTBI can be detected by an Interferon Gamma ReleaseAssay (IGRA). Screening asylum seekers at highest risk for LTBI orfuture tuberculosis by IGRA could be considered. The aims of this pilotstudy were to assess the prevalence and the risk factors of LTBI amonga group of asylum seekers recently arrived in Switzerland.Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study was performed amongadult asylum seekers, staying in two migrant centers of the Vaud county,Switzerland, after a first screening for active tuberculosis at the border.The participants were offered IGRA screening using T-SPOT.TB andwere questioned about risk factors associated with LTBI. Migrants with apositive test had a chest radiograph and a medical examination. Thosewith active tuberculosis were excluded and were treated. The migrantswith LTBI received a preventive treatment, if indicated. The risk factorswere analyzed by univariate and multivariate logistical regression.Results: Among 788 migrants recently arrived, 639 were adults, 393agreed to be screened (61.50%) and 98 of them had a positive T-SPOT.TB (24.93%) of which 5 (5.1%) had an active tuberculosis (previouslynot detected at the border), and 2 had already been treated for activetuberculosis. In univariate analysis, the major risk factors associatedwith LTBI were country of origin and travel conditions. Compared withmigrants from Balkanic countries, migrants from Africa had an OR forLTBI of 3.68, migrants from Asia an OR of 4.3 and migrants fromFormer Soviet Union an OR of 4.5. Migrants who crossed severalborders before arriving in Switzerland had an OR of LTBI of 2.49compared with migrants who came directly from the home country.Age, cough and prior exposure to tuberculosis had a non-significantinfluence on the rate of test positivity. In multivariate analysis, thecombination of country of origin, travel conditions, age, cough andexposure to tuberculosis resulted in a score with optimal predictivevalue (Roc = 81%).Conclusions: Asylum seekers recently arrived in Vaud county had ahigh prevalence of LTBI and active tuberculosis. The major risk factorswere country of origin and travel conditions. Selecting for screening byIGRA the asylum seekers with the highest risk factors seems possible.

20 years of eosinophilic esophagitis in Olten county: population-based, prospective documentation of an increasing incidence

Background and Aims: Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) is reported with increasing frequency over the last two decades. However, it is still unknown whether this reflects a true increase in incidence or just an increased awareness by gastroenterologists. Therefore, we evaluated the incidence and cumulative prevalence of EoE in Olten county over the last 20 years. Methods: Olten county is an area of approximately 91,000 inhabitants without pronounced demographic changes in the last two decades. EoE evaluation is based upon two gastroenterology centers and one pathology center. No public programs for increased EoE awareness were implemented in this region. All EoE patients diagnosed from 1989 to 2009 were entered prospectively into the Olten county database. Results: Fourty-six patients (76% males, mean age 41±16 yrs) were diagnosed with EoE from 1989 to 2009. Ninety-four percent presented with dysphagia. In 70% of the patients concomitant allergies were found. The number of upper endoscopies per year was stable during the entire observation period. An average annual incidence rate of 2/100,000 was found (range 0-8) with a marked increase in the period from 2001 to 2009. A current cumulative EoE prevalence of 43/100,000 inhabitants was calculated. The mean diagnostic delay (time from first symptoms to diagnosis) was 4.3 years from 1989 to 1998 and 4.8 years from 1999 to 2009. Conclusions: Over the last 20 years, a significant increase in EoE incidence was found in a stable indicator region of Switzerland. The constant rate of upper endoscopies, the constant diagnostic delay, as well as the lack of EoE awareness programs in Olten county indicate a true increase in EoE incidence.

Escalating epidemiology of eosinophilic esophagitis: 21 years of prospective population-based documentation in Olten county

Background and Aims: Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) is detected with a dramatically increasingfrequency during the last decades. However, it is still unknown whether this reflects atrue increase in incidence or just an increased awareness by gastroenterologists. We therefore,prospectively assessed incidence and prevalence of EoE in an epidemiologically well definedindicator area over the last 21 years. Methods: Olten County is an area of approximately90,000 inhabitants without pronounced demographic changes during the last two decades.Two EoE-experienced gastroenterologists and one pathology centre are responsible forcovering the gastroenterological service of the area. No public programs for increasingawareness of EoE were implemented in this region. Since 1989 all individuals with confirmeddiagnosis of EoE living in Olten County were entered prospectively into the database. Results:Forty-six patients (76% males, mean age 41±16 yrs) were diagnosed with EoE between1989 and 2009. Ninety-four percent of patients presented with dysphagia. An average annualincidence rate of 1.88/100,000 was found (range 0-8) with a marked increase in the periodfrom 2004 to 2009. The cumulative EoE prevalence rose up to 35.1/100,000 inhabitantsin 2009. No significant change was observed for the median diagnostic delay, as it was 3years from 1989 to 1998 and 2 years from 1999 to 2009 with age < 40 years representinga risk factor for retarded diagnosis. The number of upper endoscopies per year increasedby 63% in the period from 1999 to 2009 compared to the years 1989 to 1998 which ismarkedly less then the increase in the incidence rate of 150% for the same periods. Conclusions:Over the last 21 years, a significant increase in EoE incidence and prevalence wasfound in an epidemiologically stable indicator region of Switzerland. The constant diagnosticdelay, the number of newly diagnosed EoE cases that was much more pronounced thanthe modest increase of performed upper endoscopies, as well as the lack of EoE awarenessprograms in Olten County indicates a true increase in EoE incidence.

Plasma membrane cyclic nucleotide gated calcium channels control land plant thermal sensing and acquired thermotolerance.

Typically at dawn on a hot summer day, land plants need precise molecular thermometers to sense harmless increments in the ambient temperature to induce a timely heat shock response (HSR) and accumulate protective heat shock proteins in anticipation of harmful temperatures at mid-day. Here, we found that the cyclic nucleotide gated calcium channel (CNGC) CNGCb gene from Physcomitrella patens and its Arabidopsis thaliana ortholog CNGC2, encode a component of cyclic nucleotide gated Ca(2+) channels that act as the primary thermosensors of land plant cells. Disruption of CNGCb or CNGC2 produced a hyper-thermosensitive phenotype, giving rise to an HSR and acquired thermotolerance at significantly milder heat-priming treatments than in wild-type plants. In an aequorin-expressing moss, CNGCb loss-of-function caused a hyper-thermoresponsive Ca(2+) influx and altered Ca(2+) signaling. Patch clamp recordings on moss protoplasts showed the presence of three distinct thermoresponsive Ca(2+) channels in wild-type cells. Deletion of CNGCb led to a total absence of one and increased the open probability of the remaining two thermoresponsive Ca(2+) channels. Thus, CNGC2 and CNGCb are expected to form heteromeric Ca(2+) channels with other related CNGCs. These channels in the plasma membrane respond to increments in the ambient temperature by triggering an optimal HSR, leading to the onset of plant acquired thermotolerance.