Background: New rapid point-of-care (POC) tests are being developed that would offer the opportunity to increase screening and treatment of several infections, including syphilis. This study evaluated three of these new rapid POC tests at a site in Southern California. Methods: Participants were recruited from a testing center in Long Beach, California. A whole blood specimen was used to evaluate the performance of the Dual Path Platform (DPP) Syphilis Screen & Confirm, DPP HIV-Syphilis, and...

In true color vision animals discriminate between light wavelengths, regardless of intensity, using at least two photoreceptors with different spectral sensitivity peaks. Heliconius butterflies have duplicate UV opsin genes, which encode ultraviolet and violet photoreceptors, respectively. In H. erato, only females express the ultraviolet photoreceptor, suggesting females (but not males) can discriminate between UV wavelengths. We tested the ability of H. erato, and two species lacking the violet receptor, H. melpomene and Eueides isabella, to...

Context: In end-stage renal disease (ESRD), serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) level is not an accurate predictor of mortality, partly because it does not necessarily correlate with indices of HDL function. Paraoxonase (PON) is a major enzyme constituent of HDL and key component of HDL antioxidant activity. Apolipoprotein (Apo) A-I is the core HDL structural protein that plays a major role in various aspects of HDL function. Objective: We sought to examine PON activity and...

Major disturbance events can have large impacts on the demography and dynamics of animal populations. Hurricanes are one example of an extreme climatic event, predicted to increase in intensity due to climate change, and thus expected to be a considerable threat to population viability. However, little is understood about the underlying demographic mechanisms shaping population response following these extreme disturbances. Here, we analyze 45 years of the most comprehensive free-ranging nonhuman primate demographic dataset to...

Ocean acidification can reduce the growth and survival of marine species during their larval stages. However, if populations have the genetic capacity to adapt and increase their tolerance of low pH and high pCO2 levels, this may offset the harmful effects of ocean acidification. By combining controlled breeding experiments with laboratory manipulations of seawater chemistry, we evaluated genetic variation in tolerance of ocean acidification conditions for a nearshore marine fish, the California Grunion (Leuresthes tenuis)....

Streptococcus suis epidemic strains were responsible for two outbreaks in China and possessed increased pathogenicity which was featured prominently by inducing an excessive inflammatory response at the early phase of infection. To discover the critical genes responsible for the pathogenicity increase of S. suis epidemic strains, the genome-wide transcriptional profiles of epidemic strain SC84 were investigated at the early phase of interaction with BV2 cells. The overall low expression levels of 89K pathogenicity island (PAI)...

Ocean acidification may have deleterious effects on many species, but anticipating long-term changes in the abundance of populations will require an understanding of ocean acidification as an evolutionary force. Here I show that ocean acidification alters natural selection on offspring size and is likely to drive contemporary evolution. In a detailed study of a coastal fish species (California Grunion), I demonstrate that larval mortality is highly sensitive to ocean acidification and that mortality rates are...

Here we use 30 long-term, high-resolution palaeoecological records from Mexico, Central and South America to address two hypotheses regarding possible drivers of resilience in tropical forests as measured in terms of recovery rates from previous disturbances. First, we hypothesise that faster recovery rates are associated with regions of higher biodiversity, as suggested by the insurance hypothesis. And second, that resilience is due to intrinsic abiotic factors that are location specific, thus regions presently displaying resilience...

Multilevel selection on offspring size occurs when offspring fitness depends on both absolute size (hard selection), and size relative to neighbours (soft selection). We examined multilevel selection on egg size at two biological scales: within clutches and among females, for an external fertilising tubeworm. We exposed clutches of eggs to two sperm environments (limiting and saturating) and measured their fertilisation success. We then modelled environmental (sperm) differences in hard and soft selection on individual eggs,...

Reliable estimates of mortality have been a major gap in our understanding of population ecology for marine animals. This is especially true for juveniles, which are often the most vulnerable age class and whose survival can strongly influence population growth. Thousands of pop‐up archival satellite tags (PAT) have been deployed on a variety of marine species, but analysis of these data has mainly been restricted to movement ecology and post‐handling survival following fisheries bycatch. We...

Divergence is often ephemeral, and populations that diverge in response to regional topographic and climatic factors may not remain reproductively isolated when they come into secondary contact. We investigated the geographic structure and evolutionary history of population divergence within Sceloporus occidentalis (Western Fence Lizards), a habitat generalist with a broad distribution that spans the major biogeographic regions of Western North America. We used double digest RAD sequencing to infer population structure, phylogeny, and demography. Population...

Adversity early in life can shape the reproductive potential of individuals through negative effects on health and life span. However, long-lived populations with multiple reproductive events may present alternative life history strategies to optimize reproductive schedules and compensate for shorter life spans. Here, we quantify the effects of major hurricanes and density dependence as sources of early-life ecological adversity on Cayo Santiago rhesus macaque female reproduction and decompose their effects onto the mean age-specific fertility,...

A basic tenet of animal behavior is that animal groupings (e.g., schools of fishes or flocks of birds) are widely influenced by predators. Many studies have focused on communication between individuals within the same species or different species within a defined social group; but predators typically select from a number of different co-occurring species. To evaluate whether two distantly-related species with similar predators share vocal information regarding predator threats, we conducted a field experiment in...

Tidal wetlands are greatly impacted by climate change, and by the invasion of alien plant species that are being exposed to salinity changes and longer inundation periods resulting from sea level rise. To explore the capacity for the invasion of Iris pseudacorus (Yellow flag iris) to persist with sea level rise, we initiated an intercontinental study along estuarine gradients in the invaded North American range and the native European range. Data generated to support this...

Primates are noted for their varied and complex pelage and bare skin coloration but the significance of this diverse coloration remains opaque. Using new updated information, novel scoring of coat and skin coloration, and controlling for shared ancestry, we reexamined and extended findings from previous studies across the whole order and the five major clades within it. Across primates we found (i) direct and indirect evidence for pelage coloration being driven by protective coloration strategies...

Globally, one-quarter of shark and ray species is threatened with extinction due to overfishing. Effective conservation and management can facilitate population recoveries; however, these efforts depend on robust data on movement patterns and stock structure, which are lacking for many threatened species, including the Critically Endangered soupfin shark (Galeorhinus galeus), a circumglobal coastal-pelagic species. Using passive acoustic telemetry, we continuously tracked 34 mature female soupfin sharks, surgically implanted with coded acoustic transmitters, for seven years...

Time is a fundamental component of ecological processes. How animal behavior changes over time has been explored through well-known ecological theories like niche partitioning and predator-prey dynamics. Yet, changes in animal behavior within the shorter 24-hour light-dark cycle have largely gone unstudied. Understanding if an animal can adjust their temporal activity to mitigate or adapt to environmental change has become a recent topic of discussion and is important for effective wildlife management and conservation. While...

Streptococcus suis epidemic strains were responsible for two outbreaks in China and possessed increased pathogenicity which was featured prominently by inducing an excessive inflammatory response at the early phase of infection. To discover the critical genes responsible for the pathogenicity increase of S. suis epidemic strains, the genome-wide transcriptional profiles of epidemic strain SC84 were investigated at the early phase of interaction with BV2 cells. The overall low expression levels of 89K pathogenicity island (PAI)...

Contaminant Exposure Models (CEMs) were developed to predict population-level tissue contaminant concentrations in fishes by pairing sediment-bound contaminant concentrations (DDTs, PCBs) and fine-scale acoustic telemetry data from a habitat- associated species (Vermilion Rockfish, Sebastes miniatus), nomadic flatfish species (Hornyhead Turbot, Pleuronichthys verticalis), and nomadic benthic/midwater schooling species (White Croaker, Genyonemus lineatus) tagged near wastewater outfalls in southern California. Model results were compared to contaminant concentrations in tissue samples. The CEMs developed require further refinement before...