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1. Upwelling‐level acidification and pH/ pCO₂ variability moderate effects of ocean acidification on brain gene expression in the temperate surfperch, Embiotoca jacksoni

   https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16611  

   Toy, Jason A; Kroeker, Kristy J; Logan, Cheryl A; Takeshita, Yuichiro; Longo, Gary C; Bernardi, Giacomo (September 2022, Molecular Ecology)

   Acidification‐induced changes in neurological function have been documented in several tropical marine fishes. Here, we investigate whether similar patterns of neurological impacts are observed in a temperate Pacific fish that naturally experiences regular and often large shifts in environmental pH/pCO₂. In two laboratory experiments, we tested the effect of acidification, as well as pH/pCO₂variability, on gene expression in the brain tissue of a common temperate kelp forest/estuarine fish,Embiotoca jacksoni. Experiment 1 employed static pH treatments (target pH = 7.85/7.30), while Experiment 2 incorporated two variable treatments that oscillated around corresponding static treatments with the same mean (target pH = 7.85/7.70) in an eight‐day cycle (amplitude ± 0.15). We found that patterns of global gene expression differed across pH level treatments. Additionally, we identified differential expression of specific genes and enrichment of specific gene sets (GSEA) in comparisons of static pH treatments and in comparisons of static and variable pH treatments of the same mean pH. Importantly, we found that pH/pCO₂variability decreased the number of differentially expressed genes detected between high and low pH treatments, and that interindividual variability in gene expression was greater in variable treatments than static treatments. These results provide important confirmation of neurological impacts of acidification in a temperate fish species and, critically, that natural environmental variability may mediate the impacts of ocean acidification. 

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2. Mechanical Performance of Latex and Nitrile Medical Exam Gloves Under Repeated Soap and Water Treatment

   https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.51126  

   Jonathan Patterson, Samuel A. (July 2021, American journal of advanced research)

   The human cost of the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a great toll, and led, around the globe, to a shortage in personal protective equipment (PPE) such as medical exam gloves. To face this shortage and keep themselves and patients safe, many front-line healthcare providers have been overextending the life of PPE. Though not ideal, one pragmatic solution often used is the practice of sanitization and extended use of existing PPE. The data produced by these experiments should help determine an acceptable reusability window of PPE in a working environment, by which the effective use time may be extended and justified. The effect of repeated sanitization, using soap and water, on the mechanical performance was investigated for latex and nitrile elastomeric medical exam gloves. Tensile tests were performed for various manufacturer brands commonly used in the United States (Glovepak Europa, Polymed and Sempersure) and India (Surgiglove). Tensile test samples were prepared for each studied glove and treatment combination. Nitrile gloves were observed to be more uniformly affected by the application of soap and water sanitization than latex gloves. Glovepak Europa nitrile gloves saw significant changes (p≤0.001) in elastic modulus after 5, 10 and 20 treatments losing 31.5%, 42.7% and 49.7%, respectively. Sempersure nitrile gloves also saw significant changes (p≤0.05) in elastic modulus at 5, 10 and 20 treatments losing 44.2%, 34.3% and 45.9%, respectively. Surgiglove nitrile gloves saw a significant loss in elastic modulus of 42.0% (p≤0.001) after 10 treatments. Surgiglove powder free latex showed no significant (p>0.05) change after 10 or 20 repeated treatments using soap and water. Polymed powder free latex showed no significant (p>0.05) change after 10 treatments, but did show a significant (p≤0.05) decrease in elastic modulus by 24.2% after 5 treatments and 25.5% after 20 treatments. Surgiglove powdered latex showed a significant (p≤0.05) increase in elastic modulus by 19.9% after 5 treatments and 15.8% after 10 treatments, while showing no significant (p>0.05) change at 20 treatments. Due to the consistent significant degradation after five repetitions, use of soap and water may not be an adequate sanitization procedure for nitrile gloves, since it would potentially induce premature failure. The latex gloves showed no clear pattern and the results were inconclusive. 

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3. Causal effect random forest of interaction trees for learning individualized treatment regimes with multiple treatments in observational studies

   https://doi.org/10.1002/sta4.457  

   Li, Luo; Levine, Richard A.; Fan, Juanjuan (May 2022, Stat)

   Individuals may respond to treatments with significant heterogeneity. To optimize the treatment effect, it is necessary to recommend treatments based on individual characteristics. Existing methods in the literature for learning individualized treatment regimes are usually designed for randomized studies with binary treatments. In this study, we propose an algorithm to extend random forest of interaction trees (Su et al., 2009) to accommodate multiple treatments. By integrating the generalized propensity score into the interaction tree growing process, the proposed method can handle both randomized and observational study data with multiple treatments. The performance of the proposed method, relative to existing approaches in the literature, is evaluated through simulation studies. The proposed method is applied to an assessment of multiple voluntary educational programmes at a large public university. 

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4. Butterfly biodiversity increases with prairie strips and conservation management in row crop agriculture

   https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12675  

   Kemmerling, Lindsey_R; McCarthy, Annabelle_C; Brown, Cameron_S; Haddad, Nick_M (August 2023, Insect Conservation and Diversity)

   Abstract Butterfly abundances are declining globally, with meta‐analysis showing a rate of −2% per year. Agriculture contributes to butterfly decline through habitat loss and degradation. Prairie strips—strips of farmland actively restored to native perennial vegetation—are a conservation practice with the potential to mitigate biodiversity loss, but their impact on butterfly biodiversity is not known.Working within a 30‐year‐old experiment that varied land use intensity, from natural areas to croplands (maize–soy–wheat rotation), we introduced prairie strips to less intensely managed crop treatments. Treatments included conservation land, biologically based (organic) row crops with prairie strips, reduced input row crops with prairie strips, no‐till row crops and conventional row crops. We measured butterfly abundance and richness: (1) within prairie strips and (2) across the gradient of land use intensity at the plot level.Butterfly abundance was higher within prairie strips than in all other treatments. Across the land use intensity gradient at the plot level, the conservation land treatment had the highest abundance, treatments with prairie strips had intermediate levels and no‐till and conventional treatments had the lowest abundances. Also across entire plots, butterfly richness increased as land use intensity decreased. Treatments with prairie strips, which also had reduced land use intensity, had distinct butterfly communities as they harboured several butterfly species that were not found in other row crop treatments.In addition to the known effects of prairie strips on ecosystem services including erosion control and increased water quality, prairie strips can increase biodiversity in multifunctional landscapes. 

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5. Do fuel reduction treatments in Alaska affect tree health?

   https://doi.org/10.1088/2752-664X/ae0940  

   Noomah, Sonja; Walker, Xanthe J; Link, Nicholas T; Mack, Michelle C (October 2025, Environmental Research: Ecology)

   Abstract Increasing wildfire risk in Alaska has prompted the adoption of fuel reduction treatments, including hand-thinning and mechanical mastication, to mitigate fire behavior and improve firefighter safety. These fuel treatments may influence tree health conditions, including mortality, wind damage, disease, and one of the most wide-spread health threats to these forests, bark beetle infestations. Here, we compared fuel reduction treatments with paired untreated stands to estimate their effects on adverse tree health conditions, surveying 33 sites across two regions in Alaska experiencing endemic and outbreak levels of spruce beetle infestation. Our results show that fuel reduction treatments, particularly hand-thinning, reduced the density of dead trees and did not significantly increase wind damage, disease, or bark beetle infestation. However, there were two exceptions: in the outbreak region, trees along the edges of masticated treatments had a higher probability of (1) disease and (2) northern spruce engraver presence than trees in untreated stands. Overall, our findings suggest that fuel reduction treatments reduce hazardous dead trees without sacrificing the health of the remaining trees, providing support for fuel reduction treatments as a low-risk strategy for wildfire management. 

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