PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Harbor porpoises on the decline in the German North Sea

Greater conservation efforts are needed to protect the species, which has been affected by human activities at sea

Harbor porpoises on the decline in the German North Sea
2021-01-07
(Press-News.org) The North Sea is a heavily trafficked area, with major shipping routes crossing its waters, and fisheries, offshore oil rigs, and wind farms populating its waves. All this activity inevitably has an effect on marine wildlife, and scientists are particularly interested in how the harbor porpoise population has fared in the face of such disturbances.

The harbor porpoise is known as a "sentinel species" - animals which indicate the health of an ecosystem and point to potential risks (think of the canary in the coal mine). According to a recent study published in Frontiers in Marine Science, their population is declining in the German North Sea.

"The trend seen here is concerning," says Dr Anita Gilles of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany, one of the study's authors. Particularly troubling is the fact that harbor porpoises have experienced a strong decline in protected areas, such as the Special Area of Conservation (SAC) Sylt Outer Reef, which was specifically designated to keep marine life safe. In that particular region, the harbor porpoise population declined by an average of 3.79% per year. In the south, however, the population increased, indicating a possible shift in distribution. Overall, the harbor porpoise population declined by 1.79% per year in the German North Sea.

In order to get an accurate abundance estimate, Gilles and her colleagues used a system in which the surveyed area was divided by transects into smaller blocks, then observed by plane. "Knowing the abundance of a population is at the heart of ecology, but extremely challenging for mobile species in a rapidly changing marine environment like the North Sea," she says. Their system is a standard method to determine wildlife population sizes, and includes measures to ensure accuracy, such as doubling back to account for diving porpoises. Additionally, an innovative analysis framework, developed by co-author Sacha Viquerat and based on the Bayesian paradigm, was implemented for trend analysis.

The study is also noteworthy for its two decades-long time span. "After almost 20 years of systematic data collection... we now have a wealth of data at hand," says Gilles. This data, while troubling, can help drive legislation to aid conservation efforts. "Abundance, distribution, and trends are key for EU and other legislative instruments, and for marine conservation management in general."

Moreover, co-author Dominik Nachtsteim is hopeful that their survey design and data analysis methods can be used in other regions where a dedicated monitoring concept needs to be implemented. Their study limited itself to the German North Sea, meaning that population counts and observed trends in the broader North Sea are missing.

As for why there are fewer harbor porpoises today than there were 20 years ago, Gilles and her colleagues hypothesize it might be due to an increase in human activities, a change in prey availability, a distribution shift. "Most probable, it is a mixture of different causes and cumulative effects," says Gilles. But because their study was focused on data collection and not understanding causes, "We urgently need more research into the drivers of change."

INFORMATION:


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Harbor porpoises on the decline in the German North Sea

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Human migration patterns connected to vitamin D deficiencies today

2021-01-07
A new study in the Oxford Economic Papers finds that migration flows the last 500 years from high sunlight regions to low sunlight regions influence contemporary health outcomes in destination countries. The researchers here noted that people's ability to synthesize vitamin D from sunlight declines with skin pigmentation, and that vitamin D deficiency is directly associated with higher risk of mortality, from illnesses including cardiovascular disease, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and certain cancers. Recent research even .finds that vitamin D affects the severity of COVID-19. Researchers here focused on ...

COVID-19 infection linked with higher death rate in acute heart failure patients

2021-01-07
Sophia Antipolis, 7 January 2021: Patients with acute heart failure nearly double their risk of dying if they get COVID-19, according to research published today in ESC Heart Failure, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 The small, single centre study highlights the need for patients with heart failure to take extra precautions to avoid catching COVID-19. "Our results support prioritising heart failure patients for COVID-19 vaccination once it is available," said study lead investigator Dr. Amardeep Dastidar, a consultant interventional cardiologist at North Bristol NHS Trust and Bristol Heart Institute, UK. "In the meantime, heart failure patients of all ages should ...

The Lancet Planetary Health: Meeting India's air quality targets across south Asia may prevent 7% of pregnancy losses, modelling study estimates

2021-01-07
Modelling study suggests that pregnant women in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, who are exposed to poor air quality, may be at higher risk of stillbirths and miscarriages. An estimated 349,681 pregnancy losses per year in south Asia were associated with exposure to PM2.5 concentrations that exceeded India's air quality standard (more than 40 μg/m³), accounting for 7% of annual pregnancy loss in the region from 2000-2016. First study to estimate the effect of air pollution on pregnancy loss across the region indicates that air pollution could be a major contributor to pregnancy loss in south Asia, so controlling air pollution is vital for improving maternal ...

An epidemic of overdiagnosis: Melanoma diagnoses sky rocket

2021-01-07
WHO H. Gilbert Welch MD, MPH, Senior Investigator, Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital; co-author of a new Sounding Board article published in The New England Journal of Medicine. WHAT Melanoma of the skin is now the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the U.S. Diagnoses of melanoma are six times as high today as they were 40 years ago. While incidence of melanoma has been rising steeply, melanoma mortality has been generally stable. In a Sounding Board article, Welch and colleagues present evidence for why they believe that increased diagnostic scrutiny is the primary driver of the rapid rise in melanoma diagnoses. "Melanoma is now the posterchild for overdiagnosis," said Welch. "Although the conventional response has been ...

A third of US families face a different kind of poverty

A third of US families face a different kind of poverty
2021-01-06
DURHAM, N.C. -- Before the pandemic, one-third of U.S. households with children were already "net worth poor," lacking enough financial resources to sustain their families for three months at a poverty level, finds new research from Duke University. In 2019, 57 percent of Black families and 50 percent of Latino families with children were poor in terms of net worth. By comparison, the rate for white families was 24 percent. "These 'net worth poor' households have no assets to withstand a sudden economic loss, like we have seen with COVID-19," said Christina Gibson-Davis, co-author of the study and professor of public policy and sociology at Duke University's Center for Child and Family Policy. "Their savings are virtually nil, ...

Light-based processors boost machine-learning processing

Light-based processors boost machine-learning processing
2021-01-06
The exponential growth of data traffic in our digital age poses some real challenges on processing power. And with the advent of machine learning and AI in, for example, self-driving vehicles and speech recognition, the upward trend is set to continue. All this places a heavy burden on the ability of current computer processors to keep up with demand. Now, an international team of scientists has turned to light to tackle the problem. The researchers developed a new approach and architecture that combines processing and data storage onto a single chip by using light-based, or "photonic" processors, which ...

uOttawa study shows that mindfulness can help ease the pain of breast cancer survivors

uOttawa study shows that mindfulness can help ease the pain of breast cancer survivors
2021-01-06
A study led by University of Ottawa researchers provides empirical evidence that mindfulness has a significant impact on the brain of women suffering from neuropathic pain related to breast cancer treatment. The researchers showed that mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) helps modulate neuropathic pain. Their findings could make a difference in the lives of many women. In Canada, over a quarter of a million women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer - the most diagnosed cancer among women worldwide - in 2020. In addition to the psychological impacts of breast cancer, approximately 20 to 50 percent of survivors report experiencing chronic neuropathic pain following treatment. We talked to senior author Dr. Andra Smith, Full Professor at the uOttawa School of Psychology, ...

Mouse study finds link between gut disease and brain injury in premature infants

Mouse study finds link between gut disease and brain injury in premature infants
2021-01-06
Physicians have long known that necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a potentially lethal inflammatory condition that destroys a premature infant's intestinal lining, is often connected to the development of severe brain injury in those infants who survive. However, the means by which the diseased intestine "communicates" its devastation to the newborn brain has remained largely unknown. Now, working with mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland have identified that missing link -- an immune system cell that they say travels from the gut to the ...

A new approach to study autoimmune diseases

A new approach to study autoimmune diseases
2021-01-06
Indianapolis, Ind. - A team of researchers led by the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute Diabetes Center's Scientific Director Decio L. Eizirik, MD, PhD, has found that identifying new treatments for autoimmune diseases requires studying together the immune system AND target tissues. This study, "Gene expression signatures of target tissues in type 1 diabetes, lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis," is featured in the Jan. 6, 2021, edition of Science Advances. "We must move away from the present "immune-centric-only" view of autoimmune diseases," explains Eizirik. "Indeed, trying to understand these diseases focusing on the immune system only, ...

The link between opioid medication and pancreatic cancer

The link between opioid medication and pancreatic cancer
2021-01-06
Researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found that opioid use might increase a person's risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Published Jan. 6, the study, titled "Opioid Use as a Potential Risk Factor for Pancreatic Cancer in the United States," is the first in the country to show evidence that opioid use may be an unidentified risk factor contributing to the increasing incidence of pancreatic cancer. In fact, opioid misuse and overdose have evolved into a public health crisis. Approximately 70,000 drug overdose deaths were reported in 2017, 68% of which involved an opioid.¹ The use of prescription opioids for the management of chronic pain ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Program takes aim at drinking, unsafe sex, and sexual assault on college campuses

Inability to pay for healthcare reaches record high in U.S.

Science ‘storytelling’ urgently needed amid climate and biodiversity crisis

KAIST Develops Retinal Therapy to Restore Lost Vision​

Adipocyte-hepatocyte signaling mechanism uncovered in endoplasmic reticulum stress response

Mammals were adapting from life in the trees to living on the ground before dinosaur-killing asteroid

Low LDL cholesterol levels linked to reduced risk of dementia

Thickening of the eye’s retina associated with greater risk and severity of postoperative delirium in older patients

Almost one in ten people surveyed report having been harmed by the NHS in the last three years

Enhancing light control with complex frequency excitations

New research finds novel drug target for acute myeloid leukemia, bringing hope for cancer patients

New insight into factors associated with a common disease among dogs and humans

Illuminating single atoms for sustainable propylene production

New study finds Rocky Mountain snow contamination

Study examines lactation in critically ill patients

UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West earns AIMBE’s 2025 Pierre Galletti Award

Doubling down on metasurfaces

New Cedars-Sinai study shows how specialized diet can improve gut disorders

Making moves and hitting the breaks: Owl journeys surprise researchers in western Montana

PKU Scientists simulate the origin and evolution of the North Atlantic Oscillation

ICRAFT breakthrough: Unlocking A20’s dual role in cancer immunotherapy

How VR technology is changing the game for Alzheimer’s disease

A borrowed bacterial gene allowed some marine diatoms to live on a seaweed diet

Balance between two competing nerve proteins deters symptoms of autism in mice

Use of antifungals in agriculture may increase resistance in an infectious yeast

Awareness grows of cancer risk from alcohol consumption, survey finds

The experts that can outsmart optical illusions

Pregnancy may reduce long COVID risk

Scientists uncover novel immune mechanism in wheat tandem kinase

Three University of Virginia Engineering faculty elected as AAAS Fellows

[Press-News.org] Harbor porpoises on the decline in the German North Sea
Greater conservation efforts are needed to protect the species, which has been affected by human activities at sea