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Sex-biased power structures are common in human and nonhuman primate societies. \"Female dominance\" is a term applied to a wide range of female-biased power structures. However, the full extent of this variation remains obscure because an adequate vocabulary of power has not been adopted consistently. Female power occurs throughout primates and other animals, even in male-dominant societies, but the legacy of patriarchy persists in primatologists' use of language and implicit assumptions about intersexual power. While explanations for the occurrence of female power can be accommodated within existing ethological theory, many hypotheses seeking to explain the evolution of female power are narrowly focused on particular taxa. Theories about primate social evolution would benefit from a synthesis of the disparate literature on power, increased emphasis on intersexual social relationships, and comparative studies that include the full behavioral diversity of primates and other mammals.

Over the past decade several studies have reported that the gut microbiomes of mammals with similar dietary niches exhibit similar compositional and functional traits. However, these studies rely heavily on samples from captive individuals and often confound host phylogeny, gut morphology, and diet. To more explicitly test the influence of host dietary niche on the mammalian gut microbiome we use 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and shotgun metagenomics to compare the gut microbiota of 18 species of wild non-human primates classified as either folivores or closely related non-folivores, evenly distributed throughout the primate order and representing a range of gut morphological specializations. While folivory results in some convergent microbial traits, collectively we show that the influence of host phylogeny on both gut microbial composition and function is much stronger than that of host dietary niche. This pattern does not result from differences in host geographic location or actual dietary intake at the time of sampling, but instead appears to result from differences in host physiology. These findings indicate that mammalian gut microbiome plasticity in response to dietary shifts over both the lifespan of an individual host and the evolutionary history of a given host species is constrained by host physiological evolution. Therefore, the gut microbiome cannot be considered separately from host physiology when describing host nutritional strategies and the emergence of host dietary niches.

In human languages, words that are used more frequently tend to be shorter than words that are used less frequently. This pattern is known as Zipf’s law of abbreviation. It has been attributed to the principle of least effort – communication is more efficient when words that are used more frequently are easier to produce. Zipf’s law of abbreviation appears to hold in all human languages, and recently attention has turned to whether it also holds in animal communication. In birdsong, which has been used as a model for human language learning and development, researchers have focused on whether more frequently used notes or phrases are shorter than those that are used less frequently. Because birdsong can be highly stereotyped, have high interindividual variation, and have phrase repertoires that are small relative to human language lexicons, studying Zipf’s law of abbreviation in birdsong presents challenges that do not arise when studying human languages. In this paper, we describe a new method for assessing evidence for Zipf’s law of abbreviation in birdsong, and we introduce the R package ZLAvian to implement this method. We used ZLAvian to study Zipf’s law of abbreviation in the songs of 11 bird populations archived in the open-access repository Bird-DB. We did not find strong evidence for Zipf’s law of abbreviation in any population when studied alone, but we found evidence for Zipf’s law in a synthetic analysis across all populations. Overall, the negative concordance between phrase length and frequency of use in birdsong was several times weaker than the negative concordance between word length and frequency of use in written human languages. The method and the results we present here offer a new foundation for researchers studying if or how the principle of least effort shapes animal communication.

The gut microbiomes of mammals appear to mirror their hosts’ phylogeny, suggesting host-driven microbial community assembly. Yet, much of this evidence stems from comparative studies of distinct wild or captive populations that lack data for disentangling the relative influences of shared phylogeny and environment. Here, we present phylogenetic and multivariate analyses of gut microbiomes from six sympatric (i.e., co-occurring) mammal species inhabiting a 1-km 2 area in western Madagascar—three lemur and three non-primate species—that consider genetic, dietary, and ecological predictors of microbiome functionality and composition. Host evolutionary history, indeed, appears to shape gut microbial patterns among both closely and distantly related species. However, we also find that diet—reliance on leaves versus fruit—is the best predictor of microbiome similarity among closely related lemur species, and that host substrate use—ground versus tree—constrains horizontal transmission via incidental contact with feces, with arboreal species harboring far more distinct communities than those of their terrestrial and semi-terrestrial counterparts.

Head and neck cancers, including those of the lip and oral cavity, nasal cavity, paranasal sinuses, oropharynx, larynx and nasopharynx represent nearly 700,000 new cases and 380,000 deaths worldwide per annum, and account for over 10,000 annual deaths in the United States alone. Improvement in outcomes are needed for patients with recurrent and or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (HNSCC). In 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the first immunotherapeutic approvals – the anti-PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitors nivolumab and pembrolizumab – for the treatment of patients with recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (HNSCC) that is refractory to platinum-based regimens. The European Commission followed in 2017 with approval of nivolumab for treatment of the same patient population, and shortly thereafter with approval of pembrolizumab monotherapy for the treatment of recurrent or metastatic HNSCC in adults whose tumors express PD-L1 with a ≥ 50% tumor proportion score and have progressed on or after platinum-containing chemotherapy. Then in 2019, the FDA granted approval for PD-1 inhibition as first-line treatment for patients with metastatic or unresectable, recurrent HNSCC, approving pembrolizumab in combination with platinum and fluorouracil for all patients with HNSCC and pembrolizumab as a single agent for patients with HNSCC whose tumors express a PD-L1 combined positive score ≥ 1. These approvals marked the first new therapies for these patients since 2006, as well as the first immunotherapeutic approvals in this disease. In light of the introduction of these novel therapies for the treatment of patients with head and neck cancer, The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) formed an expert committee tasked with generating consensus recommendations for emerging immunotherapies, including appropriate patient selection, therapy sequence, response monitoring, adverse event management, and biomarker testing. These consensus guidelines serve as a foundation to assist clinicians’ understanding of the role of immunotherapies in this disease setting, and to standardize utilization across the field for patient benefit. Due to country-specific variances in approvals, availability and regulations regarding the discussed agents, this panel focused solely on FDA-approved drugs for the treatment of patients in the U.S.

In wild primates, social behaviour influences exposure to environmentally acquired and directly transmitted microorganisms. Prior studies indicate that gut microbiota reflect pairwise social interactions among chimpanzee and baboon hosts. Here, we demonstrate that higher-order social network structure—beyond just pairwise interactions—drives gut bacterial composition in wild lemurs, which live in smaller and more cohesive groups than previously studied anthropoid species. Using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and social network analysis of grooming contacts, we estimate the relative impacts of hierarchical (i.e. multilevel) social structure, individual demographic traits, diet, scent-marking, and habitat overlap on bacteria acquisition in a wild population of Verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) consisting of seven social groups. We show that social group membership is clearly reflected in the microbiomes of individual sifaka, and that social groups with denser grooming networks have more homogeneous gut microbial compositions. Within social groups, adults, more gregarious individuals, and individuals that scent-mark frequently harbour the greatest microbial diversity. Thus, the community structure of wild lemurs governs symbiotic relationships by constraining transmission between hosts and partitioning environmental exposure to microorganisms. This social cultivation of mutualistic gut flora may be an evolutionary benefit of tight-knit group living.

PurposeMost survivors of childhood cancer experience subsequent chronic conditions but little is known about concurrent symptoms. This study seeks to identify late effect symptom clusters among young pediatric cancer survivors.MethodsSurvivors ≥ 18 or parents of survivors < 18 years enrolled in an institutional cohort study indicated (yes/no) if they experienced certain symptoms after treatment. The sample was randomly divided in half for exploratory factor analyses to identify symptom clusters followed by confirmatory factor analyses. Symptoms with ≥ 10% prevalence were included. Cluster structure generalizability across subgroups was examined using congruence coefficients.ResultsThe sample included 579 survivors (74% non-Hispanic white, 45% leukemia, 12.8 ± 4.5 years at survey, 5.9 ± 3.5 years since therapy). Respondents averaged three symptoms. Three clusters were identified: (1) gastrointestinal: abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, nausea, vomiting (Cronbach’s α = 0.74); (2) psychological: depression, anxiety, memory problems, anger management problems, sleep problems (α = 0.71); and (3) neurologic: problems walking, numbness/tingling, fatigue, back pain, chronic pain, weakness/inability to move legs (α = 0.71). Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the three-cluster structure (standardized root mean square residual: 0.09; parsimonious goodness of fit: 0.96; Bentler-Bonett normed fit index: 0.95). The gastrointestinal and psychological clusters were generalizable across most subgroups while the neurologic cluster varied across age and race/ethnicity subgroups.ConclusionThree distinct late effect symptom clusters were identified in young childhood cancer survivors with gastrointestinal and psychological clusters remaining relatively stable across subgroups. Future studies should focus on the characteristics of patients who experience these symptoms, especially those with high symptom burden, and the synergistic impact on quality of life.

Two radiotherapy fractionation schedules are used to treat locally advanced bladder cancer: 64 Gy in 32 fractions over 6·5 weeks and a hypofractionated schedule of 55 Gy in 20 fractions over 4 weeks. Long-term outcomes of these schedules in several cohort studies and case series suggest that response, survival, and toxicity are similar, but no direct comparison has been published. The present study aimed to assess the non-inferiority of 55 Gy in 20 fractions to 64 Gy in 32 fractions in terms of invasive locoregional control and late toxicity in patients with locally advanced bladder cancer. We did a meta-analysis of individual patient data from patients (age ≥18 years) with locally advanced bladder cancer (T1G3 [high-grade non-muscle invasive] or T2–T4, N0M0) enrolled in two multicentre, randomised, controlled, phase 3 trials done in the UK: BC2001 (NCT00024349; assessing addition of chemotherapy to radiotherapy) and BCON (NCT00033436; assessing hypoxia-modifying therapy combined with radiotherapy). In each trial, the fractionation schedule was chosen according to local standard practice. Co-primary endpoints were invasive locoregional control (non-inferiority margin hazard ratio [HR]=1·25); and late bladder or rectum toxicity, assessed with the Late Effects Normal Tissue Task Force-Subjective, Objective, Management, Analytic tool (non-inferiority margin for absolute risk difference [RD]=10%). If non-inferiority was met for invasive locoregional control, superiority could be considered if the 95% CI for the treatment effect excluded the null effect (HR=1). One-stage individual patient data meta-analysis models for the time-to-event and binary outcomes were used, accounting for trial differences, within-centre correlation, randomised treatment received, baseline variable imbalances, and potential confounding from relevant prognostic factors. 782 patients with known fractionation schedules (456 from the BC2001 trial and 326 from the BCON trial; 376 (48%) received 64 Gy in 32 fractions and 406 (52%) received 55 Gy in 20 fractions) were included in our meta-analysis. Median follow-up was 120 months (IQR 99–159). Patients who received 55 Gy in 20 fractions had a lower risk of invasive locoregional recurrence than those who received 64 Gy in 32 fractions (adjusted HR 0·71 [95% CI 0·52–0·96]). Both schedules had similar toxicity profiles (adjusted RD −3·37% [95% CI −11·85 to 5·10]). A hypofractionated schedule of 55 Gy in 20 fractions is non-inferior to 64 Gy in 32 fractions with regard to both invasive locoregional control and toxicity, and is superior with regard to invasive locoregional control. 55 Gy in 20 fractions should be adopted as a standard of care for bladder preservation in patients with locally advanced bladder cancer. Cancer Research UK.

Sexual selection predicts that males invest in sperm competition when females mate with multiple males. Because group residency facilitates access to mates, we hypothesized that variation in within-group mate competition influences investment in sperm competition. Verreaux’s sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) live in both single and multimale groups, allowing us to test the effect of within-group sperm competition on testes size. We predicted that dominant males living in multimale groups have larger testes than males in single-male groups. We also predicted that within multimale sifaka groups, dominant males have larger testes than subordinate males, due to either reproductive suppression or alternative mating tactics. We collected testes size and body mass from 23 adult male sifaka across 56 captures at the Ankoatsifaka Research Station in Kirindy Mitea National Park in western Madagascar from 2006 to 2019. Consistent with our predictions, we found that dominant males in multimale groups had significantly larger estimated testes mass than males in single-male groups. Within multimale groups, dominant males had significantly larger estimated testes mass than subordinate males. Males observed living in both conditions (multimale and single-male groups) exhibited larger estimated testes mass when they were dominant males in multimale groups than when in single-male groups. Sperm competition is typically examined via interspecific comparisons of testes size and mating system. Our study shows a similar pattern within the same species and a single population of wild primates. Our results show that (1) males flexibly respond to the current level of within-group sperm competition, and (2) within-group contest competition impacts male investment in sperm competition.

We live in a world with an ever-increasing ageing population. Studying healthy ageing and reducing the socioeconomic impact of age-related diseases is a key research priority for the industrialised and developing countries, along with a better mechanistic understanding of the physiology and pathophysiology of ageing that occurs in a number of age-related musculoskeletal disorders. Arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders constitute a major cause of disability and morbidity globally and result in enormous costs for our health and social-care systems. By gaining a better understanding of healthy musculoskeletal ageing and the risk factors associated with premature ageing and senescence, we can provide better care and develop new and better-targeted therapies for common musculoskeletal disorders. This review is the outcome of a two-day multidisciplinary, international workshop sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Studies entitled “Musculoskeletal Health in the 21st Century” and held at the University of Surrey from 30th June-1st July 2015. The aim of this narrative review is to summarise current knowledge of musculoskeletal health, ageing and disease and highlight strategies for prevention and reducing the impact of common musculoskeletal diseases.