Explore the vast range of titles available.

The “one-off” approach of systematic reviews is no longer sustainable; we need to move toward producing “living” evidence syntheses (i.e., comprehensive, based on rigorous methods, and up-to-date). This implies rethinking the evidence synthesis ecosystem, its infrastructure, and management. The three distinct production systems—primary research, evidence synthesis, and guideline development—should work together to allow for continuous refreshing of synthesized evidence and guidelines. A new evidence ecosystem, not just focusing on synthesis, should allow for bridging the gaps between evidence synthesis communities, primary researchers, guideline developers, health technology assessment agencies, and health policy authorities. This network of evidence synthesis stakeholders should select relevant clinical questions considered a priority topic. For each question, a multidisciplinary community including researchers, health professionals, guideline developers, policymakers, patients, and methodologists needs to be established and commit to performing the initial evidence synthesis and keeping it up-to-date. Encouraging communities to work together continuously with bidirectional interactions requires greater incentives, rewards, and the involvement of health care policy authorities to optimize resources. A better evidence ecosystem with collaborations and interactions between each partner of the network of evidence synthesis stakeholders should permit living evidence syntheses to justify their status in evidence-informed decision-making.

The proliferation of evidence synthesis methods makes it challenging for reviewers to select the ‘‘right’’ method. This study aimed to update the Right Review tool (a web-based decision support tool that guides users through a series of questions for recommending evidence synthesis methods) and establish a common set of questions for the synthesis of both quantitative and qualitative studies (https://rightreview.knowledgetranslation.net/). A 2-round modified international electronic modified Delphi was conducted (2022) with researchers, health-care providers, patients, and policy makers. Panel members rated the importance/clarity of the Right Review tool's guiding questions, evidence synthesis type definitions and tool output. High agreement was defined as at least 70% agreement. Any items not reaching high agreement after round 2 were discussed by the international Project Steering Group. Twenty-four experts from 9 countries completed round 1, with 12 completing round 2. Of the 46 items presented in round 1, 21 reached high agreement. Twenty-seven items were presented in round 2, with 8 reaching high agreement. The Project Steering Group discussed items not reaching high agreement, including 8 guiding questions, 9 review definitions (predominantly related to qualitative synthesis), and 2 output items. Three items were removed entirely and the remaining 16 revised and edited and/or combined with existing items. The final tool comprises 42 items; 9 guiding questions, 25 evidence synthesis definitions and approaches, and 8 tool outputs. The freely accessible Right Review tool supports choosing an appropriate review method. The design and clarity of this tool was enhanced by harnessing the Delphi technique to shape ongoing development. The updated tool is expected to be available in Quarter 1, 2025. •Right Review assists in identifying appropriate evidence synthesis methods.•Right Review was updated using an international Delphi process.•Right Review now has a single set of guiding questions.

Human presence at water bodies can have a range of ecological impacts, creating trade-offs between recreation as an ecosystem service and conservation. Conservation policies could be improved by relying on robust knowledge about the relative ecological impacts of water-based recreation. We present the first global synthesis on recreation ecology in aquatic ecosystems, differentiating the ecological impacts of shore use, (shoreline) angling, swimming and boating. Impacts were assessed at three levels of biological organization (individuals, populations and communities) for several taxa. We screened over 13 000 articles and identified 94 suitable studies that met the inclusion criteria, providing 701 effect sizes. Impacts of boating and shore use resulted in consistently negative, significant ecological impacts across all levels of biological organization. The results were less consistent for angling and swimming. The strongest negative effects were observed in invertebrates and plants. Recreational impacts on birds were most pronounced at the individual level, but not significant at the community level. Due to publication bias and knowledge gaps, generalizations of the ecological impacts of aquatic recreation are challenging. Impacts depend less on the form of recreation. Thus, selectively constraining specific types of recreation may have little conservation value, as long as other forms of water-based recreation continue.

Assessing the non-lethal effects of disturbance from human activities is necessary for wildlife conservation and management. However, linking short-term responses to long-term impacts on individuals and populations is a significant hurdle for evaluating the risks of a proposed activity. The Population Consequences of Disturbance (PCoD) framework conceptually describes how disturbance can lead to changes in population dynamics, and its real-world application has led to a suite of quantitative models that can inform risk assessments. Here, we review PCoD models that forecast the possible consequences of a range of disturbance scenarios for marine mammals. In so doing, we identify common themes and highlight general principles to consider when assessing risk. We find that, when considered holistically, these models provide valuable insights into which contextual factors influence a population’s degree of exposure and sensitivity to disturbance. We also discuss model assumptions and limitations, identify data gaps and suggest future research directions to enable PCoD models to better inform risk assessments and conservation and management decisions. The general principles explored can help wildlife managers and practitioners identify and prioritize the populations most vulnerable to disturbance and guide industry in planning activities that avoid or mitigate population-level effects.

Introduction Conducting a rigorous systematic review of animal studies requires a priori registration of a study protocol. However, it remains unknown how many of these registered studies culminate in publication and how long it takes to complete such a systematic review. Thus, this study had two objectives: (1) to assess the proportion of registered protocols that result in publication, and (2) to determine the time required to complete and publish systematic reviews of animal studies after protocol registration. Methods All available systematic reviews protocols of animal study were manually downloaded from PROSPERO, the international registry of systematic review protocols. Start and completion date as well as topical and demographic data were extracted, complemented by a web-scraping approach. Assessment of publication status was achieved through a systematic literature search. Results From a total of 1,771 protocols, 406 were excluded due to recent start dates. This left 1,365 protocols eligible for the final analysis. Among these, 694 (51%) resulted in a published systematic review. Median time to complete and publish a systematic review was 11.5 months (range: 0.13–44.9 months) and 16.2 months (range: 1.0-49.7 months), respectively. This time was 69% more until submission than anticipated by the authors (6.8 months [range: 0.9–48.0]). Conclusion Only half of registered protocols resulted in publication, suggesting possible publication bias. Authors can expect to complete and publish an animal systematic review within approximately one year.

Background Component network meta-analysis (CNMA) enables disentangling individual component effects from multicomponent treatments. However, no established methods exist to quantify the contribution of evidence from constituent comparisons to the disentangled component effect estimates in CNMA, hindering the interpretability of results. Methods We proposed a leave-one-out algorithm to address this gap. The core approach iteratively excludes each constituent comparison (i.e., edge in the network), recomputes the variances of all component effects, and quantifies the precision leverage of each comparison based on the induced variance inflation. Contributions are assigned via a normalized matrix. We developed special rules to handle cases where exclusion renders component effects unidentifiable. The method also formally decomposes component estimates into direct and additive evidence sources. Its utility and validity were evaluated through implementation using hypothetical networks and a real-world dataset. Results The leave-one-out algorithm accurately identified pivotal evidence sources by capturing substantial variance fluctuations upon their exclusion. Contributions assigned via precision leverage effectively quantified the critical importance of comparisons isolating target components. Application to real-world data (66 comparisons, 21 components) also confirmed the method’s precision in discerning influential evidence within complex networks, and exhibited strong alignment with the parameter decomposition results. Crucially, validation revealed no inherent relationship exists between precision leverage and linear weighting. Conclusions The leave-one-out algorithm resolves a critical gap in CNMA methodology by providing a robust, variance-based framework for quantifying the contribution of constituent direct comparisons to component effect estimates. It reliably identifies pivotal evidence sources essential for component identifiability and precision across diverse network structures, enhancing the transparency and interpretability of evidence synthesis for complex interventions.

Background The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the rapid availability of evidence to respond in a timely manner to the needs of practice settings and decision-makers in health and social services. Now that the pandemic is over, it is time to put in place actions to improve the capacity of systems to meet knowledge needs in a situation of crisis. The main objective of this project was thus to develop an action plan for the rapid syntheses of evidence in times of health crisis in Quebec (Canada). Methods We conducted a three-phase collaborative research project. First, we carried out a survey with producers and users of rapid evidence syntheses ( n  = 40) and a group interview with three patient partners to prioritize courses of action. In parallel, we performed a systematic mapping of the literature to identify rapid evidence synthesis initiatives developed during the pandemic. The results of these two phases were used in a third phase, in which we organized a deliberative workshop with 26 producers and users of rapid evidence syntheses to identifying strategies to operationalize priorities. The data collected at each phase were compared to identify common courses of action and integrated to develop an action plan. Results A total of 14 specific actions structured into four main axes were identified over the three phases. In axis 1, actions on raising awareness of the importance of evidence-informed decision-making among stakeholders in the health and social services network are presented. Axis 2 includes actions to promote optimal collaboration of key stakeholders in the production of rapid evidence synthesis to support decision-making. Actions advocating the use of a variety of rapid evidence synthesis methodologies known to be effective in supporting decision-making are presented in axis 3. Finally, axis 4 is about actions on the use of effective knowledge translation strategies to promote the use of rapid evidence synthesis products to support decision-making. Conclusions This project led to the development of a collective action plan aimed at preparing the Quebec ecosystem and other similar jurisdictions to meet knowledge needs more effectively in times of health emergency. The implementation of this plan and its evaluation will enable us to continue to fine-tune it.

The volume of published academic research is growing rapidly and this new era of “big literature” poses new challenges to evidence synthesis, pushing traditional, manual methods of evidence synthesis to their limits. New technology developments, including machine learning, are likely to provide solutions to the problem of information overload and allow scaling of systematic maps to large and even vast literatures. In this paper, we outline how systematic maps lend themselves well to automation and computer‐assistance. We believe that it is a major priority to consolidate efforts to develop and validate efficient, rigorous and robust applications of these novel technologies, ensuring the challenges of big literature do not prevent the future production of systematic maps.

There is evidence that human activities are reducing the population genetic diversity of species worldwide. Given the prediction that parasites better exploit genetically homogeneous host populations, many species could be vulnerable to disease outbreaks. While agricultural studies have shown the devastating effects of infectious disease in crop monocultures, the wide-spread nature of this diversity–disease relationship remains unclear in natural systems. Here, we provide broad support that high population genetic diversity can protect against infectious disease by conducting a meta-analysis of 23 studies, with a total of 67 effect sizes. We found that parasite functional group (micro- or macroparasite) affects the presence of the effect and study setting (field or laboratory-based environment) influences the magnitude. Our study also suggests that host genetic diversity is overall a robust defence against infection regardless of host reproduction, parasite host range, parasite diversity, virulence and the method by which parasite success was recorded. Combined, these results highlight the importance of monitoring declines of host population genetic diversity as shifts in parasite distributions could have devastating effects on at-risk populations in nature.

The distributions of migratory species in the ocean span local, national and international jurisdictions. Across these ecologically interconnected regions, migratory marine species interact with anthropogenic stressors throughout their lives. Migratory connectivity, the geographical linking of individuals and populations throughout their migratory cycles, influences how spatial and temporal dynamics of stressors affect migratory animals and scale up to influence population abundance, distribution and species persistence. Population declines of many migratory marine species have led to calls for connectivity knowledge, especially insights from animal tracking studies, to be more systematically and synthetically incorporated into decision-making. Inclusion of migratory connectivity in the design of conservation and management measures is critical to ensure they are appropriate for the level of risk associated with various degrees of connectivity. Three mechanisms exist to incorporate migratory connectivity into international marine policy which guides conservation implementation: site-selection criteria, network design criteria and policy recommendations. Here, we review the concept of migratory connectivity and its use in international policy, and describe the Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean system, a migratory connectivity evidence-base for the ocean. We propose that without such collaboration focused on migratory connectivity, efforts to effectively conserve these critical species across jurisdictions will have limited effect.