Pathogenic variation of SLC26A 4 gene causes both Pendred syndrome (PDS) and non-syndromic enlarged vestibular aqueduct (NSEVA/DFNB4), two autosomal recessive disorders. The former accounts for approximately 6% of human genetic hearing loss, making it the second most common form of syndromic deafness after Usher syndrome, while the latter is the most common radiological malformation associated with childhood sensorineural hear...

Automatic airborne pollen monitoring offers potential to enable real-time, sustainable environmental health information to assist with management of allergic respiratory disease. Automatic systems, however, have not been widely deployed in the Southern Hemisphere, where there is considerable biodiversity. An automatic holography-based device combined with a classification algorithm was trialled in Australia for 15 months over...

Grass pollen is the major outdoor allergen source, inducing allergic rhinitis in susceptible people. In Australia, the considerable prevalence of allergic rhinitis (23.8%) and asthma (11%) is creating a major health and economic burden. Subtropical grass species exhibit distinct ecological and phylogenetic differences compared with temperate grasses, including variations in pollen allergen composition and immune response. Trad...

In the absence of horizontal migration, salt marshes must build vertical elevation to persist under sea level rise by building soil through primary production and inorganic sediment deposition. Here we examine a phenomenon observed in a high salinity salt marsh estuary whereby leaf-surface coatings form on Spartina alterniflora (aka Sporobolus alterniflorus ) leaves and we investigate whether these coatings can inhibit photosy...

Cities and suburbs frequently plant native and non-native trees as foundation species, with non-natives cultivated in these areas for centuries while remaining non-invasive. Although previous research has found that native trees often host more arthropods, studies have not simultaneously looked across space and time to determine the consistency of tree origin on urban arthropods. We combined varied methods across spatial and t...

Elephants were a major driver of tree stem mortality in Africa, but their impacts are now spatially constrained and they no longer topple trees across the continent. Thus, most African landscapes lack a key ecological agent that helped maintain diversity and functioning. Even ecologists living in Africa fail to anticipate the rampant destruction of trees that can occur when elephants live in and move through landscapes. If we...