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Background Red foxes ( Vulpes vulpes L.) have become successful inhabitants of urban areas in recent years. However, our knowledge about the occurrence, distribution and association with land uses of these urban foxes is poor, partly because many favoured habitats are on private properties and therefore hardly accessible to scientists. We assumed that citizen science, i.e. the involvement of the public, could enable researchers to bridge this information gap. We analysed 1179 fox sightings in the city of Vienna, Austria reported via citizen science projects to examine relationships between foxes and the surrounding land use classes as well as sociodemographic parameters. Results Conditional probabilities of encountering foxes were substantially higher in gardens, areas with a low building density, parks or squares as compared to agricultural areas, industrial areas or forests. Generalized linear model analyses showed that sociodemographic parameters such as education levels, district area, population density and average household income additionally improved the predictability of fox sightings. Conclusions Reports of fox sightings by citizen scientists might help to support the establishment of wildlife management in cities. Additionally, these data could be used to address public health issues in relation with red foxes as they can carry zoonoses that are also dangerous to humans.

Wolves have large spatial requirements and their expansion in Europe is occurring over national boundaries, hence the need to develop monitoring programs at the population level. Wolves in the Alps are defined as a functional population and management unit. The range of this wolf Alpine population now covers seven countries: Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Liechtenstein and Germany, making the development of a joint and coordinated monitoring program particularly challenging. In the framework of the Wolf Alpine Group (WAG), researchers developed uniform criteria for the assessment and interpretation of field data collected in the frame of different national monitoring programs. This standardization allowed for data comparability across borders and the joint evaluation of distribution and consistency at the population level. We documented the increase in the number of wolf reproductive units (packs and pairs) over 21 years, from 1 in 1993–1994 up to 243 units in 2020–2021, and examined the pattern of expansion over the Alps. This long-term and large-scale approach is a successful example of transboundary monitoring of a large carnivore population that, despite administrative fragmentation, provides robust indexes of population size and distribution that are of relevance for wolf conservation and management at the transnational Alpine scale.

The gluten content of rye sourdough during fermentation was monitored by a competitive ELISA based on the R5 antibody. Although a time-dependent decrease was found, the gluten content was not reduced below the threshold for gluten-free foods of 20 mg/kg, even after prolonged fermentation. Instead, Aspergillus niger prolyl endopeptidase (AN-PEP) extensively degraded gluten concentrations of up to 80,000 mg/kg in rye flour, rye sourdough, and sourdough starter under distinct temperatures and pH values. The enzyme did not lead to inactivation of the microorganisms in the sourdough starter. Gluten-free rye flour alone or in combination with sourdough starter was used to produce gluten-free bread, which was evaluated for its sensory properties. Whereas gluten-free sourdough bread had poor sensory attributes compared to a conventional rye bread used as reference, the replacement of sourdough by egg proteins yielded gluten-free bread comparable to the reference and with higher sensory quality than bread prepared from naturally gluten-free ingredients. Therefore, the feasibility of producing high-quality bread from originally gluten-containing cereals such as rye by means of treatment with AN-PEP has been shown. Rye products rendered gluten-free in this manner have the potential to increase the choice of high-quality gluten-free foods for celiac patients.

Measures assessing marijuana-related consequences or problems experienced by young adults have typically been adapted from measures assessing alcohol consequences. These measures may not fully reflect the specific unwanted or perceived “not so good” effects of marijuana that are experienced by young adults. Thus, using these measures may present a gap, which needs to be addressed, given that reports of consequences are often utilized in brief motivational personalized feedback interventions. Data from three different studies of young adults were used to (1) examine self-reported “not so good” effects or consequences of marijuana use among frequent marijuana-using college students (Study 1), (2) create a new version of a marijuana consequences list and compare it to an existing marijuana consequences measure (Study 2), and (3) assess convergent and divergent validity between a finalized Marijuana Consequences Checklist (MCC, 26-items) and marijuana use and risk for cannabis use disorder (Study 3). The most frequently endorsed self-reported effects of marijuana included the impact on eating (the “munchies”), dry mouth, trouble concentrating, and acting foolish or goofy. Higher scores on the MCC were associated with more frequent use and a higher probability of meeting criteria for cannabis use disorder. The MCC represents a range of negative consequences of marijuana use derived from frequent users’ own accounts and includes consequences not assessed by other measures. The MCC captures marijuana-specific negative consequences relevant for young adults, which can be incorporated in brief motivational personalized feedback interventions.

Nowadays, the majority of human beings live in urban ecosystems, with this proportion expected to continue increasing in the future. With the growing importance of urban rat-associated issues (e.g. damages to urban infrastructures, costs of rat-control programs, rat-associated health risks), it is becoming indispensable to fill the identified gaps in knowledge on the urban brown rat regarding, among others, its density, home range, genetic structure, and infectious status. In this context, live-trapping is a crucial prerequisite to any scientific investigation. This paper assesses the main constraints and challenges regarding the urban field and describes the major steps to be considered when planning research on urban rats. The primary challenges are i) the characterization of the urban experimental unit; ii) the choice of a trapping design: the use of live-trapping in capture-mark-recapture design, in association with modern statistics, is highly recommended to answer ecological questions (although these methods, mostly developed in natural ecosystems, need to be implemented for the urban field); iii) the potential ethical considerations with regard to animal welfare and field-worker safety; iv) the building of mutually-beneficial collaborations with city stakeholders, pest control professionals, and citizens. Emphasis must be put on communication to the public and education of field-workers. One major need of modern urban rat research is a peer-validated field methodology allowing reproducibility, repeatability, and inference from urban field studies and enabling researchers to answer long-standing key questions about urban rat ecology.

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study is to examine parental perceptions of adolescent sleep hygiene in Long Island High School District; a suburban mid-sized district of 6,515 students in a predominantly high socio-economic community. Sleep hygiene is defined as the regular, healthy habits and practices in order to obtain restorative, healthy sleep. Participants of the study included parents of different ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic backgrounds, gender, and marital status from both Richmond High School East and Richmond High School West.A student’s well-being relies on purposeful, healthy sleep. Obtaining and promoting healthy sleep is both a challenge and a priority for educators as wellness is the most important foundation on which to build a successful school experience. Lack of healthy sleep has severe consequences on development and has been shown to increase risks of psychiatric diseases. The Perfect Storm Theory has become relevant in the field of student sleep and it claims that loss of sleep throughout adolescence arises from a convergence of biological, psychological, and socio-cultural influences (Carskadon, 2014).Parental perceptions of their own adolescent’s sleep hygiene is an important aspect of wellness in their child. Sleep is an important part of memory formation; therefore, insufficient sleep can jeopardizing learning and performance. Understanding these perceptions will uncover the extent of parental knowledge of their own child’s sleep hygiene and the obstacles or aids to their child’s healthy sleep.