M. Saunders results 168
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Conservation practitioners face the complex challenge of addressing global biodiversity threats within social-ecological systems with multiple jurisdictions, numerous interest groups, and changing environmental conditions. Bridging the research-to-implementation gap between scientists and managers, which integrates diverse perspectives that represent the variety of considerations impacting management outcomes can help to infor...
Cardiac structure and systolic function in resistance-trained athletes versus untrained male adultsNARA Subscribed
Purpose Research examining the Athlete’s Heart has often focused on endurance athletes, yet no clear consensus has emerged on the cardiac adaptations observed in resistance-trained athletes. The purpose of this study is to examine cardiac structure and systolic function in resistance-trained athletes compared to untrained individuals. Methods An observational cross-sectional study conducted echocardiographic examinations on ma...
Mutualism in disguise? Isotopic evidence for nutrient transfer from a carnivorous pitcher plant to its insect preyNARA Subscribed
Consumer–resource interactions can shift from exploitative to mutualistic when reciprocal benefits such as nutrient exchange offset the costs of damage or mortality, though these benefits are often difficult to detect. Carnivorous pitcher plants are typically viewed as exploiters of arthropod prey, yet most visitors escape capture and may gain access to concentrated, nutrient‐rich rewards. This raises the possibility that pitc...
Interpretable deep learning reveals spatiotemporal MRI features of brain aging that align with neurodegenerationNARA Subscribed
Cortical thinning and atrophy are hallmarks of brain aging that have been characterized using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Brain aging involves many neuroanatomic features whose effects on brain structure remain unexplored. To address this challenge, we trained interpretable deep neural networks (DNNs) to estimate brain age (BA) from T 1 -weighted ( T 1 w) MRI. By identifying MRI features unapparent to humans, DNNs can fi...
The functional effect of gape size on intraspecific body condition is variable across trophic groups and resource seasonalityNARA Subscribed
Gape size is a key functional trait that influences feeding performance and ecological fitness across animal taxa; yet, its role within species remains underexplored, particularly in dynamic environments. We investigated the relationship between relative gape size and condition factor ( Kn ) across 15 species of tropical freshwater fish from northern Australia, spanning four trophic groups: predators, micro-carnivores, omnivor...
Purpose In Australia, cervical screening is usually offered face-to-face through primary care. As self-collection offers flexibility in how and where screening can be accessed, we assessed participant preferences for flexible screening models. Methods We recruited women and people with a cervix aged 24–74 years into a national survey (December 2023–April 2024) via a paid Meta campaign and community networks. Sociodemographic f...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) disproportionately affects women and carriers of the apolipoprotein E ε4 allele (APOE4), yet little is known about how sex and APOE interact to influence white matter (WM) integrity during disease progression. We integrated diffusion MRI and matched blood transcriptomic data to investigate these interactions and their underlying biological mechanisms. WM microstructure was quantified using diffusion te...
An ice inhabiting bdelloid rotifer from North AmericaNARA Subscribed
Bdelloid rotifers are major components of zooplankton worldwide and have been reported in glacier ice in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Curiously, no reports of psychrophilic bdelloids have surfaced in North America despite exhaustive surveys of other ice-dwelling invertebrates, e.g., glacier ice worms. This distribution gap may be partially explained by a predator-prey relationship between these two animals, but the...
The environmental drivers of fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) acoustic presence in Eastern Antarctic waters were investigated based on passive acoustic recordings from four sites, 2013–2019. Fin whale 20 Hz pulses were detected from late austral summer to early winter. Daily values of sea-ice concentration (SIC) were compared with the number of days with fin whale 20 Hz acoustic presence using a generalized additive model app...
Current approaches to assessing potential non-target risks associated with biological control agents are conservative, and they often rely on oviposition experiments conducted in quarantine laboratories. By their nature, such tests offer robust evidence of a parasitoid’s ability to attack and develop in a host. However, they exclude many important chemical cues present in the natural environment, which play a key role in the a...
Predicting the progression of MCI and Alzheimer’s disease on structural brain integrity and other features with machine learningNARA Subscribed
Machine learning (ML) on structural MRI data shows high potential for classifying Alzheimer’s disease (AD) progression, but the specific contribution of brain regions, demographics, and proteinopathy remains unclear. Using Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) data, we applied an extreme gradient-boosting algorithm and SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) values to classify cognitively normal (CN) older adults, th...