Here we provide the first evidence of long term reductions in flow in temporary streams on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca and use a simple metric of the degree of water permanence (the number of days with water) to highlight the implications of flow change for aquatic invertebrate diversity. Analysis of a 33year data set for 13 streams on the island yielded evidence of consistent downward trends in water permanence, particularly in spring and summer. Data from 27 relatively undisturbed mountain streams indicate that the diversity of benthic invertebrates in temporary streams across the island is directly related to water permanence. Streams with lower values of water permanence support few species overall and have less abundant invertebrate assemblages; the abundance and species richness of sensitive mayfly, stonefly and caddisfly taxonomic groups is also reduced in streams with lower water permanence. Although developed using spatial data, these flow-invertebrate relationships suggest that future reductions in water permanence may lead to reduced diversity. We argue that the 'number of days with water' is a simple but ecologically-relevant metric of water permanence that can be used effectively to monitor change in threatened temporary streams worldwide.
This study entailed a review of 63 scientific articles on geospatial and spatial-statistical analysis of the geographical dimension of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The diversity of themes identified in this paper can be grouped into the following categories of disease mapping: spatiotemporal analysis, health and social geography, environmental variables, data mining, and web-based mapping. Understanding the spatiotemporal dynamics of COVID-19 is essential for its mitigation, as it helps to clarify the extent and impact of the pandemic and can aid decision making, planning and community action. Health geography highlights the interaction of public health officials, affected actors and first responders to improve estimations of disease propagation and likelihoods of new outbreaks. Attempts at interdisciplinary correlation examine health policy interventions for the siting of health/sanitary services and controls, mapping/tracking of human movement, formulation of appropriate scientific and political responses and projection of spatial diffusion and temporal trends. This review concludes that, to fight COVID-19, it is important to face the challenges from an interdisciplinary perspective, with proactive planning, international solidarity and a global perspective. This review provides useful information and insight that can support future bibliographic queries, and also serves as a resource for understanding the evolution of tools used in the management of this major global pandemic of the 21 Century. It is hoped that its findings will inspire new reflections on the COVID-19 pandemic by readers.
In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field.