Functional validation of candidate genes in congenital anomalies of the kidneys and urinary tract (CAKUT) and other disorders is essential for translating genetic discoveries into clinical applications. Conditional knockout mouse models are indispensable for studying gene function in complex organ systems. The Short Conditional intrON (SCON) system accelerates the generation of such models by inserting the artificial SCON into...

Biodiversity net gain (BNG) is a “net outcome” planning policy which aims for development projects to leave biodiversity in a better state than before they started. Understanding the origins and history of existing mandatory BNG is necessary to understand the drivers and barriers that have influenced the policy to date and could inform the development and implementation of future BNG policies. Biodiversity net gain legislation...

Knowledge of viral infection in marine mammals, a group severely threatened by human activity, is largely limited to the pathology and epidemiology of few endemic viruses. The recent emergence in marine mammals of high‐consequence viruses, such as H5N1 avian influenza and rabies, underscores the importance of understanding the ecology of viral transmission in these species. Metatranscriptomic approaches now enable relatively u...

Plant species are responding to anthropogenic climate change by expanding their distributions to higher latitudes and altitudes. This is generating novel communities consisting of a mixture of range‐expanding and native plant species. These communities are increasingly subject to extreme droughts and are shaped by herbivory. How drought and herbivores interact to impact biomass production and plant recovery from drought is, ho...

The aim of this study is to investigate the association of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) markers with clinical and radiological outcomes in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients undergoing endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) and assess the effect of periprocedural heparin during EVT on NETs markers and their association with outcomes. From 198 AIS patients included in the MRCLEAN-MED trial, randomized to receive EVT with (...

More widespread species tend to be more locally abundant. This hypothesis has received support when considering single species abundance (mean density of individuals across sites) and occupancy (fraction of occupied sites) through time (intraspecific relationship) and comparing different species sampled at a single point in time (interspecific relationships). But while abundance‐occupancy relationships are fairly well supporte...

Purpose Insufficient fitting of pre-contoured plates for acetabular fractures might lead to inadequate fracture reduction, but it is unclear in which patients pre-contoured plates fit adequately. The aims of this study were to assess plate fitting in sex- and height-specific anatomical variations of the hemipelvis, and categorizing the outcomes as moderate or good fit. Methods 3D models from computed tomography (CT) scans were...

We investigate a group of small‐sized, phenotypically similar copper species known under the generic names Phoenicurusia , Athamanthia and Margelycaena , all of which are sometimes considered as subgenera of the genus Lycaena . This group, consisting of ~15–16 species, is distributed in Central Asia (including Mongolia, West China, Afghanistan and Pakistan), Caucasus and the Middle East. It is characterised by a distinctive wi...

Polar cod ( Boreogadus saida ) functions as a key species in the Arctic food web and is one of the most abundant Arctic fishes. Despite its ecological importance, the feeding ecology of juveniles sampled under the sea ice is unknown. In November 2019, at the onset of sea ice formation, sea-ice associated polar cod and zooplankton samples were collected in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Stomach contents were highly digested and...

In the Northeast Atlantic, it is unclear whether short‐finned pilot whales, Globicephala macrorhynchus (SFPWs), are transient or resident above 40°N. We used Anisakis spp. to identify the latitudes recently visited by a SFPW pod stranded in NW Spain (43°N) in 2020. Analysis of cox2 gene in 30 nematodes from 6 SFPWs revealed the presence of A. simplex sensu stricto (s.s.) (93.3%) and A. pegreffii (6.7%). Morphological analysis...

Recent observations of body size declines in animal populations have given rise to discussions of whether or not this is related to climate change‐induced temperature increases, with which the body size changes would follow Bergmann's rule. Although the debate is ongoing, the limited thermal benefits of currently observed size reductions make it unlikely that temperature increase shapes a direct selection pressure. Food constr...

Most research on cetacean swimming has been conducted on captive dolphins due to limited accessibility to wild cetaceans. Epibiotic barnacles have been used as indirect evidence of cetacean hydrodynamics, given their lifelong association with cetaceans and dependence on water flow. Previous studies suggested that the spatial distribution of the barnacle Xenobalanus globicipitis on the tail flukes of striped dolphins (i.e., hig...

In migratory animals, high mobility may reduce population structure through increased dispersal and enable adaptive responses to environmental change, whereas rigid migratory routines predict low dispersal, increased structure, and limited flexibility to respond to change. We explore the global population structure and phylogeographic history of the bar‐tailed godwit, Limosa lapponica , a migratory shorebird known for making t...

In this study, we present an extension to the Monin–Obukov similarity theory (MOST) for the roughness sublayer (RSL) over short vegetation. We test our theory using temperature measurements from fiber optic cables in an array-shaped set-up. This provides a high vertical measurement resolution that enables us to measure the sharp temperature gradients near the surface. It is well-known that MOST is invalid in the RSL as the flo...

Birds often have to choose their nest site location along a food safety axis, balancing nest predation danger with the food requirements of themselves and their offspring. This is probably most important for precocial species, such as most shorebirds, in which both chicks and parents need access to food resources in the surroundings of the nest, at least during the first days of life of the chicks. In many Arctic ecosystems, s...