Food availability affects the maternal transfer of androgens and antibodies into eggs of a colonial seabird.

Mothers can improve the quality of their offspring by increasing the level of certain components in their eggs. To examine whether or not mothers increase deposition of such components in eggs as a function of food availability, we food-supplemented black-legged kittiwake females (Rissa tridactyla) before and during egg laying and compared deposition of androgens and antibodies into eggs of first and experimentally induced replacement clutches. Food-supplemented females transferred lower amounts of androgens and antibodies into eggs of induced replacement clutches than did non-food-supplemented mothers, whereas first clutches presented no differences between treatments. Our results suggest that when females are in lower condition, they transfer more androgens and antibodies into eggs to facilitate chick development despite potential long-term costs for juveniles. Females in prime condition may avoid these potential long-term costs because they can provide their chicks with more and higher quality resources.

Neo/adjuvant chemotherapy does not improve outcome in resected primary synovial sarcoma: a study of the French Sarcoma Group.

BACKGROUND: There are only scarce data about the benefit of adjunctive chemotherapy in patients with localized synovial sarcoma (SS). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Data from 237 SS patients recorded in the database of the French Sarcoma Group were retrospectively analyzed. The respective impact of radiotherapy, neo-adjuvant chemotherapy and adjuvant chemotherapy on overall survival (OS), local recurrence-free survival (LRFS) and distant recurrence-free survival (DRFS) were assessed after adjustment to prognostic factors. RESULTS: The median follow-up was 58 months (range 1-321). Adjuvant, neo-adjuvant chemotherapy and postoperative radiotherapy were administered in 112, 45 and 181 cases, respectively. In all, 59% of patients treated with chemotherapy received an ifosfamide-containing regimen. The 5-year OS, LRFS and DRFS rates were 64.0%, 70% and 57%, respectively. On multivariate analysis, age >35 years old, grade 3 and not-R0 margins were highly significant independent predictors of worse OS. After adjustment to prognostic factors, radiotherapy significantly improved LRFS but not DRFS or OS. Neither neo-adjuvant nor adjuvant chemotherapy had significant impact on OS, LRFS or DRFS. CONCLUSION: As for other high-grade soft-tissue sarcomas, well-planned wide surgical excision with adjuvant radiotherapy remains the cornerstone of treatment for SS. Neo-adjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy should not be delivered outside a clinical trial setting.

No experimental evidence that sibling competition induces young to switch nests in the colonial Alpine swift, Apus melba

Adoption is frequent in colonial animals where opportunities for dependent young to receive care from nonbiological parents are high. The departure of dependent young from their original family to seek adoption in neighbouring families is thought to be induced by sibling competition for access to limited resources provided by poor-quality parents. We tested this hypothesis in the colonial Alpine swift by manipulating the number of young reared per brood, with the prediction that offspring from enlarged broods switch nests more frequently than those from reduced broods. Although nestling swifts hatch with little locomotor activity, from 20 days until their first flight at 50-70 days they frequently move out of their nests to seek adoption in neighbouring families. Although nestlings reared in experimentally enlarged broods were lighter and their body mass at day 20 after hatching was more variable than in nestlings reared in reduced broods, there was no difference between the two treatments in the frequency of nests switching and in the age when nestlings switched nests for the first time. However, consistent with other evidence that nest switching by nestling swifts evolved as a strategy to reduce ectoparasite load, young from broods with naturally high numbers of the ectoparasitic louse fly Crataerina melbae were more prone to switch nests. This shows that ectoparasitism rather than sibling competition is a key proximate factor promoting the evolution of nest switching in the colonial Alpine swift. (c) 2006 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Genetic and environmental components of phenotypic variation in immune response and body size of a colonial bird, Delichon urbica (the house martin).

Directional selection for parasite resistance is often intense in highly social host species. Using a partial cross-fostering experiment we studied environmental and genetic variation in immune response and morphology in a highly colonial bird species, the house martin (Delichon urbica). We manipulated intensity of infestation of house martin nests by the haematophagous parasitic house martin bug Oeciacus hirundinis either by spraying nests with a weak pesticide or by inoculating them with 50 bugs. Parasitism significantly affected tarsus length, T cell response, immunoglobulin and leucocyte concentrations. We found evidence of strong environmental effects on nestling body mass, body condition, wing length and tarsus length, and evidence of significant additive genetic variance for wing length and haematocrit. We found significant environmental variance, but no significant additive genetic variance in immune response parameters such as T cell response to the antigenic phytohemagglutinin, immunoglobulins, and relative and absolute numbers of leucocytes. Environmental variances were generally greater than additive genetic variances, and the low heritabilities of phenotypic traits were mainly a consequence of large environmental variances and small additive genetic variances. Hence, highly social bird species such as the house martin, which are subject to intense selection by parasites, have a limited scope for immediate microevolutionary response to selection because of low heritabilities, but also a limited scope for long-term response to selection because evolvability as indicated by small additive genetic coefficients of variation is weak.

Multicenter trial of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy followed by extrapleural pneumonectomy in malignant pleural mesothelioma.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this multicenter trial was to prospectively evaluate neo-adjuvant chemotherapy followed by extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) and radiotherapy, including quality of life as outcome. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Eligible patients had malignant pleural mesothelioma of all histological types, World Health Organization performance status of zero to two and clinical stage T1-T3, N0-2, M0 disease considered completely resectable. Neo-adjuvant chemotherapy consisted of three cycles of cisplatin and gemcitabine followed by EPP. Postoperative radiotherapy was considered for all patients. RESULTS: In all, 58 of 61 patients completed three cycles of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. Forty-five patients (74%) underwent EPP and in 37 patients (61%) the resection was complete. Postoperative radiotherapy was initiated in 36 patients. The median survival of all patients was 19.8 months [95% confidence interval (CI) 14.6-24.5]. For the 45 patients undergoing EPP, the median survival was 23 months (95% CI 16.6-32.9). Psychological distress showed minor variations over time with distress above the cut-off score indicating no morbidity with 82% (N = 36) at baseline and 76% (N = 26) at 3 months after surgery (P = 0.5). CONCLUSIONS: The observed rate of operability is promising. A median survival of 23 months for patients undergoing EPP compares favourably with the survival reported from single center studies of upfront surgery. This approach was not associated with an increase in psychological distress.

Validation interne de la version française du NEO-PI-R et influence de l'âge, du sexe et de la profession

We have examined the internal validity of the French translation of the NEO PI-R personality test which measures the « big five » (Rolland, 1993). The impact of age, gender and professional categories on the NEO PI-R scales was assessed. A large sample (n=731) of subjects of different age, gender and profession and a sample of Swiss students (n=261) responding anonymously were used. Factor analyses confirmed the structure of the instrument (5 domains) and the structures of the domains in terms of facets (six facets within each domain). On the other hand, the age has a significant impact on all the domains of the NEO PI-R; the gender has an impact on the scores on N (neuroticism), O (openness) and A (agreeableness), and the profession has an impact on the domains E (extraversion), O (openness) and A (agreeableness). The scores on several facets are also affected by those three variables. Our study gives the researchers and the practitioner a reference score table according to the studied variables.