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Months after the disappearance of her twin sister, seventeen-year-old Payton Brave continues to struggle with grief and lost memories as she tries to uncover her missing sister's fate.

Background Gastrointestinal helminths are a very widespread group of intestinal parasites that can cause major health issues in their hosts, including severe illness or death. Traditional methods of helminth parasite identification using microscopy are time-consuming and poor in terms of taxonomic resolution, and require skilled observers. DNA metabarcoding has emerged as a powerful alternative for assessing community composition in a variety of sample types over the last few decades. While metabarcoding approaches have been reviewed for use in other research areas, the use of metabarcoding for parasites has only recently become widespread. As such, there is a need to synthesize parasite metabarcoding methodology and highlight the considerations to be taken into account when developing a protocol. Methods We reviewed published literature that utilized DNA metabarcoding to identify gastrointestinal helminth parasites in vertebrate hosts. We extracted information from 62 peer-reviewed papers published between 2014 and 2023 and created a stepwise guide to the metabarcoding process. Results We found that studies in our review varied in technique and methodology, such as the sample type utilized, genetic marker regions targeted and bioinformatic databases used. The main limitations of metabarcoding are that parasite abundance data may not be reliably attained from sequence read numbers, metabarcoding data may not be representative of the species present in the host and the cost and bioinformatic expertise required to utilize this method may be prohibitive to some groups. Conclusions Overall, using metabarcoding to assess gastrointestinal parasite communities is preferable to traditional methods, yielding higher taxonomic resolution, higher throughput and increased versatility due to its utility in any geographical location, with a variety of sample types, and with virtually any vertebrate host species. Additionally, metabarcoding has the potential for exciting new discoveries regarding host and parasite evolution. Graphical Abstract

The movement ecology of raccoons varies widely across habitats with important implications for the management of zoonotic diseases such as rabies. However, the spatial ecology of raccoons remains poorly understood in many regions of the United States, particularly in the southeast. To better understand the spatial ecology of raccoons in the southeastern US, we investigated the role of sex, season, and habitat on monthly raccoon home range and core area sizes in three common rural habitats (bottomland hardwood, upland pine, and riparian forest) in South Carolina, USA. From 2018–2022, we obtained 264 monthly home ranges from 46 raccoons. Mean monthly 95% utilization distribution (UD) sizes ranged from 1.05 ± 0.48 km 2 (breeding bottomland females) to 5.69 ± 3.37 km 2 (fall riparian males) and mean monthly 60% UD sizes ranged from 0.25 ± 0.15 km 2 (breeding bottomland females) to 1.59 ± 1.02 km 2 (summer riparian males). Males maintained home range and core areas ~2–5 times larger than females in upland pine and riparian habitat throughout the year, whereas those of bottomland males were only larger than females during the breeding season. Home ranges and core areas of females did not vary across habitats, whereas male raccoons had home ranges and core areas ~2–3 times larger in upland pine and riparian compared to bottomland hardwood throughout much of the year. The home ranges of males in upland pine and riparian are among the largest recorded for raccoons in the United States. Such large and variable home ranges likely contribute to elevated risk of zoonotic disease spread by males in these habitats. These results can be used to inform disease mitigation strategies in the southeastern United States.

Inherited and germ-line de novo copy number variants (CNVs) are increasingly found to be correlated with human developmental and cancerous phenotypes. Several models for template switching during replication have been proposed to explain the generation of these gross chromosomal rearrangements. We proposed a model of template switching (ODIRA—origin dependent inverted repeat amplification) in which simultaneous ligation of the leading and lagging strands at diverging replication forks could generate segmental inverted triplications through an extrachromosomal inverted circular intermediate. Here, we created a genetic assay using split- ura3 cassettes to trap the proposed inverted intermediate. However, instead of recovering circular inverted intermediates, we found inverted linear chromosomal fragments ending in native telomeres—suggesting that a template switch had occurred at the centromere-proximal fork of a replication bubble. As telomeric inverted hairpin fragments can also be created through double strand breaks we tested whether replication errors or repair of double stranded DNA breaks were the most likely initiating event. The results from CRISPR/Cas9 cleavage experiments and growth in the replication inhibitor hydroxyurea indicate that it is a replication error, not a double stranded break that creates the inverted junctions. Since inverted amplicons of the SUL1 gene occur during long-term growth in sulfate-limited chemostats, we sequenced evolved populations to look for evidence of linear intermediates formed by an error in replication. All of the data are compatible with a two-step version of the ODIRA model in which sequential template switching at short inverted repeats between the leading and lagging strands at a replication fork, followed by integration via homologous recombination, generates inverted interstitial triplications.

The location and intensity of mesocyclone circulations can be tracked in real time by accumulating azimuthal shear values over time at every location of a uniform spatial grid. Azimuthal shear at low (0–3 km AGL) and midlevels (3–6 km AGL) of the atmosphere is computed in a noise-tolerant manner by fitting the Doppler velocity observations in the neighborhood of a pulse volume to a plane and finding the slope of that plane. Rotation tracks created in this manner are contaminated by nonmeteorological signatures caused by poor velocity dealiasing, ground clutter, radar test patterns, and spurious shear values. To improve the quality of these fields for real-time use and for an accumulated multiyear climatology, new dealiasing strategies, data thresholding, and multiple hypothesis tracking (MHT) techniques have been implemented. These techniques remove nearly all nonmeteorological contaminants, resulting in much clearer rotation tracks that appear to match mesocyclone paths and intensities closely.

Although mice are widely used to study adverse effects of inorganic arsenic (iAs), higher rates of iAs methylation in mice than in humans may limit their utility as a model organism. A recently created 129S6 mouse strain in which the Borcs7/As3mt locus replaces the human BORCS7/AS3MT locus exhibits a human-like pattern of iAs metabolism. Here, we evaluate dosage dependency of iAs metabolism in humanized (Hs) mice. We determined tissue and urinary concentrations and proportions of iAs, methylarsenic (MAs), and dimethylarsenic (DMAs) in male and female Hs and wild-type (WT) mice that received 25- or 400-ppb iAs in drinking water. At both exposure levels, Hs mice excrete less total arsenic (tAs) in urine and retain more tAs in tissues than WT mice. Tissue tAs levels are higher in Hs females than in Hs males, particularly after exposure to 400-ppb iAs. Tissue and urinary fractions of tAs present as iAs and MAs are significantly greater in Hs mice than in WT mice. Notably, tissue tAs dosimetry in Hs mice resembles human tissue dosimetry predicted by a physiologically based pharmacokinetic model. These data provide additional support for use of Hs mice in laboratory studies examining effects of iAs exposure in target tissues or cells.

Predator species can indirectly affect prey species through the cost of anti‐predator behavior responses, which may involve shifts in occupancy, space use, or movement. Quantifying the various strategies implemented by prey species to avoid adverse interactions with predators can lead to a better understanding of potential population‐level repercussions. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine predator–prey interactions by quantifying the effect of predator species presence on detection rates of prey species, using coyotes (Canis latrans) and white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in Central Appalachian forests of the eastern United States as a model predator–prey system. To test two competing hypotheses related to interspecific interactions, we modeled species detections from 319 camera traps with a two‐species occupancy model that incorporated a continuous‐time detection process. We found that white‐tailed deer occupancy was independent of coyote occupancy, but white‐tailed deer were more frequently detectable and had greater detection intensity at sites where coyotes were present, regardless of vegetation‐related covariates. In addition, white‐tailed deer detection rates at sites with coyotes were highest when presumed forage availability was relatively low. These findings suggest that white‐tailed deer may be exhibiting an active avoidance behavioral response to predators by increasing movement rates when coyotes are present in an area, perhaps due to reactive evasive maneuvers and/or proactive attempts to reduce adverse encounters with them. Concurrently, coyotes could be occupying sites with higher white‐tailed deer densities. Because white‐tailed deer did not exhibit significant shifts in daily activity patterns based on coyote occupancy, we further suggest that white‐tailed deer in our study system generally do not use temporal partitioning as their primary strategy for avoiding encounters with coyotes. Overall, our study implements a recently developed analytical approach for modeling multi‐species occupancy from camera traps and provides novel ecological insight into the complex relationships between predator and prey species. In this study, we quantified the effect of predator species presence on camera trap detection rates of prey species, using coyotes (Canis latrans) and white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in Central Appalachian forests of the eastern United States as a model predator–prey system. We tested two competing hypotheses related to predator–prey interactions by modeling detections of each species from 319 camera traps with a two‐species occupancy model that incorporated a continuous‐time detection process. We found that white‐tailed deer had higher detection rates at sites where coyotes were present, suggesting that white‐tailed deer may be exhibiting an active avoidance behavioral response to predators by increasing movement rates when coyotes are present in an area; concurrently, coyotes could be occupying sites with higher white‐tailed deer densities.

Articles published in the International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling (IJAC) from 2000–2019 were analyzed for article content (e.g., research methodology, participants, research design, statistics used, reports of effect size) and author characteristics (e.g., gender, work setting, country of domicile, leading contributors) to determine trends in these characteristics over time. IJAC publishes more articles annually than any other counselling journal except the Journal of Counselling & Development. Kok-Mun Ng was the leading contributor scholar, and the University of British Columbia was the leading institutional contributor. Authors from the United States contributed more articles to IJAC than authors from the rest of the world. Fewer nonuniversity authors are publishing in IJAC now than 20 years ago. At the same time, more research-based articles are being published, at a rate of 68.3% from 2010–2019.

In the face of rapid anthropogenic environmental change, it is increasingly important to understand how ecological and evolutionary interactions affect the persistence of natural populations. Augmented gene flow has emerged as a potentially effective management strategy to counteract negative consequences of genetic drift and inbreeding depression in small and isolated populations. However, questions remain about the long‐term impacts of augmented gene flow and whether changes in individual and population fitness are reflected in ecosystem structure, potentiating eco‐evolutionary feedbacks. In this study, we used Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) in experimental outdoor mesocosms to assess how populations with different recent evolutionary histories responded to a scenario of severe population size reduction followed by expansion in a high‐quality environment. We also investigated how variation in evolutionary history of the focal species affected ecosystem dynamics. We found that evolutionary history (i.e., gene flow vs. no gene flow) consistently predicted variation in individual growth. In addition, gene flow led to faster population growth in populations from one of the two drainages, but did not have measurable impacts on the ecosystem variables we measured: zooplankton density, algal growth, and decomposition rates. Our results suggest that benefits of gene flow may be long‐term and environment‐dependent. Although small in replication and duration, our study highlights the importance of eco‐evolutionary interactions in determining population persistence and sets the stage for future work in this area. We used the model Trinidadian guppy system to investigate how evolutionary history (i.e., drift vs. gene flow) impacts individual and population growth rates in a novel environment. We also tested whether evolutionary history affects ecosystem variables. Our results suggest that a history of gene flow increases individual and population growth, but does not necessarily scale to the ecosystem level.

TP53 truncating mutations are common in human tumors and are thought to give rise to p53-null alleles. Here, we show that TP53 exon-6 truncating mutations occur at higher than expected frequencies and produce proteins that lack canonical p53 tumor suppressor activities but promote cancer cell proliferation, survival, and metastasis. Functionally and molecularly, these p53 mutants resemble the naturally occurring alternative p53 splice variant, p53-psi. Accordingly, these mutants can localize to the mitochondria where they promote tumor phenotypes by binding and activating the mitochondria inner pore permeability regulator, Cyclophilin D (CypD). Together, our studies reveal that TP53 exon-6 truncating mutations, contrary to current beliefs, act beyond p53 loss to promote tumorigenesis, and could inform the development of strategies to target cancers driven by these prevalent mutations.