Does wave exposure determine the interactive effects of losing key grazers and ecosystem engineers?

The consequences of biodiversity loss in the face of environmental change remain difficult to predict, given the complexity of interactions among species and the context-dependency of their functional roles within ecosystems. Predictions may be enhanced by studies testing how the interactive effects of species loss from different functional groups vary with important environmental drivers. On rocky shores, limpets and barnacles are recognised as key grazers and ecosystem engineers, respectively. Despite the large body of research examining the combined effects of limpet and barnacle removal, it is unclear how their relative importance varies according to wave exposure, which is a dominant force structuring intertidal communities. We tested the responses of algal communities to the removal of limpets and barnacles on three sheltered and three wave-exposed rocky shores on the north coast of Ireland. Limpet removal resulted in a relative increase in microalgal biomass on a single sheltered shore only, but led to the enhanced accumulation of ephemeral macroalgae on two sheltered shores and one exposed shore. On average, independently of wave exposure or shore, ephemeral macroalgae increased in response to limpet removal, but only when barnacles were removed. On two sheltered shores and one exposed shore, however, barnacles facilitated the establishment of fucoid macroalgae following limpet removal. Therefore, at the scale of this study, variability among individual shores was more important than wave exposure per se in determining the effect of limpet removal and its interaction with that of barnacles. Overall, these findings demonstrate that the interactive effects of losing key species from different functional groups may not vary predictably according to dominant environmental factors.

'Easter Rising', 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War

Although a military failure, the 1916 rebellion transformed Ireland by destroying the possibility of a political settlement between Irish nationalists and the British state and by popularising a republican movement prepared to use violence to achieve independence. This essay surveys the political background to the Easter Rising, its planning, the motivations and ideology of the rebels and the battle for Dublin. It concludes by assessing the Rising’s political impact and briefly summarising historiographical interpretations and commemorative trends. It argues that the origins, conduct, impact and aftermath of the insurrection are best understood within the wider context of the First World War.

The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend... The Dynamics of Self-Defense Forces in Irregular War: The Case of the Sons of Iraq

This article assesses the effect that leveraging civilian defense force militias has on the dynamics of violence in civil war. We argue that the delegation of security and combat roles to local civilians shifts the primary targets of insurgent violence toward civilians, in an attempt to deter future defections, and re-establish control over the local population. This argument is assessed through an analysis of the Sunni Awakening and ancillary Sons of Iraq paramilitary program. The results suggest that at least in the Al-Anbar province of Iraq, the utilization of the civilian population in counterinsurgent roles had significant implications for the targets of insurgent violence.

Deoxynivalenol exposure assessment in young children in Tanzania

Scope: This study assessed deoxynivalenol (DON) exposure in children from three geographic locations within Tanzania, over three time points in 1 year, using a urinary biomarker of exposure.

Methods and results: A total of 166 children aged 6-14 months were studied at a maize harvest and followed up twice at 6-month intervals. On two consecutive days, morning urine was collected from each child and urinary DON was measured using an LC-MS method, with and without beta-glucuronidase hydrolysis in order to assess free DON (fDON) and glucuronide DON. Overall, urinary DON increased significantly along with the three visits (geometric mean 1.1, 2.3, and 5.7 ng/mL, at visits 1, 2, and 3, respectively, p <0.01). fDON was 22% of urinary total DON. Urinary DON excretion rate was 74% in village Kikelelwa based on food DON level and food consumption. Assuming 360 mL of urine excreted per day, 10, 19, and 29% of children at visits 1, 2, and 3, respectively, exceeded the provisional maximum tolerable daily intake of 1000 ng/kg b.w./day.

Conclusion: Young children in Tanzania are chronically exposed to DON due to eating contaminated maize, although exposure levels varied markedly by region and season.

A Prospective Study of Growth and Biomarkers of Exposure to Aflatoxin and Fumonisin during Early Childhood in Tanzania

BACKGROUND: Aflatoxin and fumonisin are toxic food contaminants. Knowledge about effects of their exposure and co-exposure on child growth is inadequate.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between child growth and aflatoxin and fumonisin exposure in Tanzania.

METHODS: A total of 166 children were recruited at 6 to 14 months of age and studied at recruitment, and at the sixth and twelfth month following recruitment. Blood and urine samples were collected and analysed for plasma aflatoxin albumin adducts (AF-alb) using ELISA, and urinary fumonisin B1 (UFB1) using LC-MS, respectively. Anthropometric measurements were taken and growth index Z-scores were computed.

RESULTS: AF-alb geometric mean concentrations (95% confidence intervals) were 4.7 (3.9, 5.6), 12.9 (9.9, 16.7) and 23.5 (19.9, 27.7) pg/mg albumin at recruitment, six months, and 12 months from recruitment, respectively. At these respective sampling times, geometric mean UFB1 concentrations (95% CI) were 313.9 (257.4, 382.9), 167.3 (135.4, 206.7) and 569.5 (464.5, 698.2) pg/mL urine, and the prevalence of stunted children were 44%, 55% and 56%, respectively. UFB1 concentrations at recruitment were negatively associated with length for age Z-scores (LAZ) at six months (p = 0.016) and at 12 months from recruitment (p = 0.014). The mean UFB1 of the three sampling times (at recruitment, at six and 12 months from recruitment) in each child was negatively associated with LAZ (p < 0.001) and length velocity (p = 0.004) at 12 months from recruitment. The negative association between AF-alb and child growth did not reach statistical significance.

CONCLUSIONS: Exposure to fumonisin alone, or co-exposure with aflatoxins may contribute to child growth impairment.

Aflatoxin exposure is inversely associated with IGF1 and IGFBP3 levels in vitro and in Kenyan schoolchildren

SCOPE: This study explores the relationship between aflatoxin and the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) axis and its potential effect on child growth.

METHODS AND RESULTS: One hundred and ninety-nine Kenyan schoolchildren were studied for aflatoxin-albumin adduct (AF-alb), IGF1 and IGF-binding protein-3 (IGFBP3) levels using ELISA. AF-alb was inversely associated with IGF1 and IGFBP3 (p < 0.05). Both IGF1 and IGFBP3 were significantly associated with child height and weight (p < 0.01). Children in the highest tertile of AF-alb exposure (>198.5 pg/mg) were shorter than children in the lowest tertile (<74.5 pg/mg), after adjusting for confounders (p = 0.043). Path analysis suggested that IGF1 levels explained ∼16% of the impact of aflatoxin exposure on child height (p = 0.052). To further investigate this putative mechanistic pathway, HHL-16 liver cells (where HHL-16 is human hepatocyte line 16 cells) were treated with aflatoxin B1 (0.5, 5 and 20 μg/mL for 24-48 h). IGF1 and IGFBP3 gene expression measured by quantitative PCR and protein in culture media showed a significant down-regulation of IGF genes and reduced IGF protein levels.

CONCLUSION: Aflatoxin treatment resulted in a significant decrease in IGF gene and protein expression in vitro. IGF protein levels were also lower in children with the highest levels of AFB-alb adducts. The data suggest that aflatoxin-induced changes in IGF protein levels could contribute to growth impairment where aflatoxin exposure is high.

Multiple mycotoxin exposure determined by urinary biomarkers in rural subsistence farmers in the former Transkei, South Africa

Subsistence farmers are exposed to a range of mycotoxins. This study applied novel urinary multi-mycotoxin LC-MS/MS methods to determine multiple exposure biomarkers in the high oesophageal cancer region, Transkei, South Africa. Fifty-three female participants donated part of their maize-based evening meal and first void morning urine, which was analysed both with sample clean-up (single and multi-biomarker) and by a 'dilute-and-shoot' multi-biomarker method. Results were corrected for recovery with LOD for not detected. A single biomarker method detected fumonisin B1 (FB1) (87% incidence; mean±standard deviation 0.342±0.466 ng/mg creatinine) and deoxynivalenol (100%; mean 20.4±49.4 ng/mg creatinine) after hydrolysis with β-glucuronidase. The multi-biomarker 'dilute-and-shoot' method indicated deoxynivalenol-15-glucuronide was predominantly present. A multi-biomarker method with β-glucuronidase and immunoaffinity clean-up determined zearalenone (100%; 0.529±1.60 ng/mg creatinine), FB1 (96%; 1.52±2.17 ng/mg creatinine), α-zearalenol (92%; 0.614±1.91 ng/mg creatinine), deoxynivalenol (87%; 11.3±27.1 ng/mg creatinine), β-zearalenol (75%; 0.702±2.95 ng/mg creatinine) and ochratoxin A (98%; 0.041±0.086 ng/mg creatinine). These demonstrate the value of multi-biomarker methods in measuring exposures in populations exposed to multiple mycotoxins. This is the first finding of urinary deoxynivalenol, zearalenone, their conjugates, ochratoxin A and zearalenols in Transkei.

A European Culture War in the Twentieth Century? Antic-Catholicism and Anti-Bolshevism between Moscow, Berlin, and the Vatican 1922 to 1933

The term “culture war” has become a generic expression for secular-catholic conflicts across nineteenth-century Europe. Yet, if measured by acts of violence, anticlericalism peaked in the years between 1927 and 1939, when thousands of Catholic priests and believers were imprisoned or executed and hundreds of churches razed in Mexico, Spain and Russia. This essay argues that not only in these three countries, but indeed across Europe a culture war raged in the interwar period. It takes, as a case study, the interaction of communist and Catholic actors located in the Vatican, the Soviet Union, and Germany in the period between the beginning of the Pontificate of Pius XI in 1922 and Hitler’s appointment as chancellor of Germany in 1933. Using correspondence and reports from the Vatican archives, this essay shows how Papal officials and communist leaders each sought to mobilize the German populace to achieve their own diplomatic ends. German Catholics and communists gladly responded to the call to arms that sounded from Rome and Moscow in 1930, but they did so also to further their own domestic goals. The case study shows how national contexts inflected the transnational dynamics of radical anti-Catholicism in interwar Europe. In the end, agitation against “godlessness” did not lead to the return of a “Christian State” desired by many conservative Christians. Instead, the culture war further destabilized the republic and added a religious dimension to a landscape well suited to National Socialist efforts to reach a Christian population otherwise mistrustful of its völkisch and anticlerical elements.

State of the art in research into the risk of low dose radiation exposure-findings of the fourth MELODI workshop

The fourth workshop of the Multidisciplinary European Low Dose Initiative (MELODI) was organised by STUK-Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority of Finland. It took place from 12 to 14 September 2012 in Helsinki, Finland. The meeting was attended by 179 scientists and professionals engaged in radiation research and radiation protection. We summarise the major scientific findings of the workshop and the recommendations for updating the MELODI Strategic Research Agenda and Road Map for future low dose research activities.