A quantitative method for measuring regional economic resilience to the great recession

Regional economic resilience can be defined as an economy’s ability to withstand and recover quickly from shocks. The ability to measure resilience is necessary to developing our understanding of what influences resilience. In this paper, we develop a new, two‐dimensional quantitative measure of resilience using observed differences between expected and actual employment in a region following a shock and distinguish the response to the shock from random variation. We demonstrate one application of this metric to US county‐level employment data to compare county responses to the 2007–2009 national recession and discuss how different regions of the United States responded to the shock of the Great Recession in terms of resilience.     

Effect of Artificial Diets on Growth,Survival and Condition of Adult Cuttlefish, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sepia officinalis</Emphasis> Linnaeus, 1758

The effects of artificial diets on growth and body condition of adult cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis were tested in two experiments. Supplemented prepared diets (fish myofibrillar protein concentrate) were fed during a 30-day and a 21-day experiments. Growth, feeding rate and food conversion of group-reared cuttlefish were analyzed. The first of these experiments tested four artificial diets, made with increasing levels of lysine, on adult cuttlefish. According to the chemical analysis, diets 1–3 had limiting concentrations of lysine and other essential amino acids (compared to mantle composition of the cuttlefish), while diet 4 was the only one where almost all essential amino acids were present in concentrations similar or higher than the ones present in cuttlefish mantle. A second experiment was conducted by isolating 16 adult cuttlefish individually, and feeding them the same four artificial diets, in order to obtain individual data. During Experiment 1, only the diet with the best chemical score (diet 4) produced growth (p < 0.05), with a mean instantaneous growth rate (MIGR) of 0.30% wet body weight (BW) d⁻¹. Similarly, individually reared cuttlefish fed diet 4 produced the highest IGR’s (0.26, 0.38 and 0.48% BW d⁻¹) and grew larger (p < 0.01). Comparison of cuttlefish fed the artificial diets vs. thawed shrimp and unfed cuttlefish indicated that cuttlefish fed the artificial diets were in an intermediate state. Growth rates obtained with the artificial diets (<0.4% BW d⁻¹) were considerably lower compared to natural prey, live or frozen, reported by other authors.     

Use of state‐space modelling to identify ecological covariates associated with trends in pinniped demography

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To pool or not to pool? Guidelines for pooling samples for use in surveillance testing of infectious diseases in aquatic animals

Samples from multiple animals may be pooled and tested to reduce costs of surveillance for infectious agents in aquatic animal populations. The primary advantage of pooling is increased population‐level coverage when prevalence is low (<10%) and the number of tests is fixed, because of increased likelihood of including target analyte from at least one infected animal in a tested pool. Important questions and a priori design considerations need to be addressed. Unfortunately, pooling recommendations in disease‐specific chapters of the 2018 OIE Aquatic Manual are incomplete and, except for amphibian chytrid fungus, are not supported by peer‐reviewed research. A systematic review identified only 12 peer‐reviewed aquatic diagnostic accuracy and surveillance studies using pooled samples. No clear patterns for pooling methods and characteristics were evident across reviewed studies, although most authors agreed there is a negative effect on detection. Therefore, our purpose was to review pooling procedures used in published aquatic infectious disease research, present evidence‐based guidelines, and provide simulated data examples for white spot syndrome virus in shrimp. A decision tree of pooling guidelines was developed for use by peer‐reviewed journals and research institutions for the design, statistical analysis and reporting of comparative accuracy studies of individual and pooled tests for surveillance purposes.     

Genetic variability in meiotic gynogenetic muskellunge,Esox masquinongy (Mitchell), estimated from segregation of microsatellite alleles

Muskellunge, Esox masquinongy, is an important recreational freshwater fish native to North America. Since muskellunge populations are often maintained through stocking efforts, advances in muskellunge reproductive technologies are of direct relevance to fishery enhancement. We evaluated the efficiency of inbreeding through induced meiotic diploid gynogenesis. Eggs from six female muskellunge were manually stripped and activated using ultra violet‐irradiated yellow perch, Perca flavescens, sperm. Hydrostatic pressure shocking regimes (48 263 kPa) were then applied to the eggs to prevent second polar body expulsion producing unambiguous meiotic gynogens. Six female dams and samples of 12–20 of their gynogenetic progeny were genotyped at seven polymorphic microsatellite loci. Chromosomal recombination frequencies of microsatellite loci based on retention of heterozygosity among gynogens ranged from 0.043 to 0.839 (0.576 ± 0.237). There were no statistical differences in recombination frequency among females at any of the loci. The average inbreeding coefficient (F‐value) ranged from 0.581 to 0.979, equivalent to three to fourteen generations of full‐sibling crosses respectively. The average F‐value overall was 0.712, equivalent to between five and six generations of full‐sibling crosses. Centromere map distances of the seven microsatellite loci ranged from 2.15 to 41.95 cM and meiotic gynogenesis was useful in eliminating heterozygosity at loci proximal to the centromere, but not distal. Since the age at maturity of female muskellunge is approximately 5 years, gynogenesis may pose an expeditious alternative to traditional breeding strategies for creation of homozygous pedigrees for some loci that may be outcrossed to introduce positive heterozygosity effects in the offspring.     

A GIS-based plant prediction model for wetland ecosystems

An existing non-spatial model for the prediction of response of wetland plant species on ecological factors has been transformed into a GIS-based prediction model which produces spatial output at the landscape scale. The input, spatial patterns of the ecological factors, were constructed with geostatistical spatial interpolation (kriging). With this GIS-based model the spatial patterns of presence and absence of 78 wetland plant species are predicted for an area with wetlands in the Netherlands of approximately 500 square kilometers. The GIS-based model has been validated, and the estimated uncertainty of the input has been propagated through the model. At the species level the output shows spatially coherent and non-random patterns. The validation is affected by the propagation of input errors through the model. The number of valid predictions declines approximately 10–20% when 95% confidence intervals are used in the validation. This study shows that it is feasible to use a geostatistical interpolation method to construct spatial patterns of ecological factors on a landscape scale and to use these patterns as input for a GIS-based prediction model. The added uncertainty on the input values however, affects the number of valid predictions of the model.