Impact of weather parameters on seasonal abundance of the striped mealybug, Ferrisia virgata (Cockerell, 1893) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) on mango trees in Egypt

Early blight, caused by the fungus Alternaria solani, is a common foliar disease in potato. Quinone outside inhibitor (QoIs) fungicides have commonly been used against A. solani. To avoid or delay development of fungicide resistance it is recommended to alternate or combine fungicides with different modes of action. Therefore, we compared two different fungicide programs against early blight in field trials and studied within season changes in the pathogen population. An untreated control was compared with treatments using azoxystrobin alone and with a program involving difenoconazole followed by boscalid and pyraclostrobin combined. Isolates of A. solani were collected during the growing season and changes in the population structure was investigated. We also screened for the amino acid substitution in the cytochrome b gene and investigated changes in sensitivity to azoxystrobin. Treatment with azoxystrobin alone did not improve disease control in 2014 when the disease pressure was high. However, lower severity of the disease was observed after combined use of difenoconazole, boscalid and pyraclostrobin. The efficacy of both fungicide treatments were similar during the field trial in 2017. Two mitochondrial genotypes (GI and GII) were found among isolates, where all isolates, except two, were GII. All GII isolates had the F129 L substitution while the two GI isolates were wild type. Population structure analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) of amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP) data revealed within season changes in the A. solani populations in response to fungicide application. Isolates with the F129 L substitution had reduced sensitivity to azoxystrobin in vitro and their sensitivity tended to decrease with time.

In order to address regional inequality in healthcare delivery in Japan, healthcare districts were established in 1985. However, regional healthcare delivery has now become a national issue because of population migration and the aging population. In this study, the state of healthcare delivery at the district level is examined by analyzing population, the number of physicians, and the number of hospital beds. The results indicate a continuing disparity in healthcare delivery among districts. We find that the rate of change in population has a strong positive correlation with that in the number of physicians and a weak positive correlation with that in the number of hospital beds. In addition, principal component analysis is performed on three variables: the rate of change in population, the number of physicians per capita, and the number of hospital beds per capita. This analysis suggests that the two principal components contribute 90.1% of the information. The first principal component is thought to show the effect of the regulations on hospital beds. The second principal component is thought to show the capacity to recruit physicians. This study indicates that an adjustment to the regulations on hospital beds as well as physician allocation by public funds may be key to resolving the impending issue of regionally disproportionate healthcare delivery.

Population is a social entity with complex contents and a variety of social relations. It includes gender, age and natural composition, as well as a variety of social composition, social relations, economic composition and economic relations. It is difficult to analyze the population change in large number and high dimension over the years in China. A prediction model for population change using ARIMA model based on feature extraction is proposed. It provides the reduction of population change indicators and predicts the population change in the future. Principal component analysis is firstly used to transform this problem in high-dimensional space into low-dimensional space, making the problem simple and intuitive. These less comprehensive indexes obtained are not related to each other and provide most information of the original indexes. The data of the national population change from 1979 to 2015 is effectively reduced to one principal component. On the basis of the analysis results, a prediction model using ARIMA model is established to predict the population change in the next few years.

A kutatás célja a csernobili baleset demográfiai és urbanizációs folyamatokra gyakorolt térbeli hatásának kimutatása volt. A vizsgálat alapjául Ukrajna és Belarusz teljes területén, továbbá az Orosz Föderáció kilenc megyéjében fekvő összes járás, összesen 846 területi egység népszámlálási adatai szolgáltak, ami a hatalmas terület legrészletesebben hozzáférhető területi bontását jelenti. A baleset óta eltelt időben három népszámlálás zajlott le, ezen adatok segítségével az elmúlt harminc év regionális dinamikái és struktúrái jól nyomon követhetők. Először a baleset által érintett területet határoltam le, majd a demográfiai és urbanizációs indikátorokat sorra véve vizsgáltam Csernobil hatásait. A térbeli folyamatok összefüggéseinek feltárására korrelációszámítást és faktoranalízist alkalmaztam, amelyek segítségével a térséget jellemző településhálózati struktúrák, a népesedési folyamatok és a csernobili baleset urbanizációs folyamatokra gyakorolt hatása volt kimutatható a Poleszje területén. A vizsgált térség népességmozgásai a baleset utáni 10-15 évben alapvetően regionális és országos léptékűek voltak. A spontán migráció és az áttelepítések hatalmas területek demográfiai folyamatait befolyásolták. A baleset utáni 15-25 évben a népességszám-változás és a természetes fogyás tükrében ezek az áramlások elcsendesedtek, és meghatározóvá váltak a helyi, járási szintű mozgások, a járások falvaiból a központba való költözés, ami sokkal erősebben jelentkezett itt, mint más térségekben. A Poleszje népesedési és urbanizációs folyamatainak irányát nem írta át Csernobil, a negatív folyamatokra viszont katalizátorként hatott: a népesség fogyása és az elvándorlás a baleset nélkül is jelentős lenne ebben a térségben, az csupán felgyorsult. Belaruszban a csernobili térségeket érintő sajátos regionális politika hatásai vizsgálataimmal kimutathatók voltak.

In a recent review, Zink & Barrowclough (2008, hereafter ZB08) addressed the question of whether mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was sufficient to describe the phylogeographic history of avian species. They offered a number of conclusions, most of which were variants of the central tenet that mtDNA is sufficient to describe the broad picture of avian phylogeographies. Specifically, they concluded that, for questions of phylogeographic pattern, mtDNA does quite well on its own as a descriptor of geographical and taxonomic patterns, and that 'the case for the primacy of nuclear variation for studies of phylogeography is not so clear to us'. The motivation for their review was a concern about the conclusions of several recent reviews (e.g. Edwards et al. 2005) summarizing several well-known limitations of mtDNA, including evidence for pervasive natural selection, the use of a single maternally inherited molecule to describe population histories and uncertainty over whether the mitochondrial gene trees obtained in hundreds of phylogeographic studies are representative of the histories of the relevant species or populations. One of the main arguments on which their confidence in mtDNA is based is their claim that nuclear genes are 'lagging indicators' of population structure compared with mtDNA: the majority of cases in birds (and presumably other taxa) reveal that mtDNA, a 'leading indicator' of population structure, exhibits reciprocal monophyly or high differentiation between taxa when nuclear DNA (nuDNA) does not. This enhanced resolving power, they suggest, is reason enough to be content with mitochondrial gene trees in delimiting patterns in species and phylogeographic history. In contrast, they concede that questions of phylogeographic process—demographic histories, gene flow, effective population sizes, population expansions, presumably speciation itself—'will require multiple loci to provide robust estimates'. Although we agree with several points made by ZB08, particularly with regard to the enhanced utility of sequence-based markers vs. microsatellites (Brito & Edwards 2009), we outline in this comment a number of reasons why their argument for being content with mtDNA in describing patterns of avian phylogeographic history is flawed. First, we suggest that the distinction between phylogeographic pattern and process is a straw man and ultimately impossible to implement in a practical sense. Here, we point out that very few, if any, avian phylogeographic studies based solely on mtDNA—including many in which ZB08 are authors (e.g. Pavlova et al. 2005; Zink et al. 2008), and including their re-analysis of Bensch et al.'s (2006) data in their own review—have resisted the urge to comment on avian phylogeographic process. Next, we point out that even when the focus of phylogeographic studies is on pattern, statistical common sense suggests that when the desire is to make statements about populations or taxa—entities at a higher level of organization than the gene—one must sample multiple loci, even though we acknowledge that the field has for many years been comfortable doing so with a single locus. Drawing on recently published examples of multilocus studies in humans, we show that by describing nuclear genes as lagging indicators, ZB08 ignore the primary power of these markers—their multiplicity. In doing so, they fail to acknowledge that combining information from multiple nuclear genes can provide much finer descriptions of phylogeographic pattern than can the single locus provided by mtDNA. In summary, we suggest that the view of phylogeography espoused by ZB08 is a backward-looking one, one that ignores the ease with which nuclear sequence data can be collected even now—notwithstanding the imminent flood of nuDNA sequence data to be unleashed by modern sequencing technologies, especially for non-model species. Zink & Barrowclough (2008) make a clear distinction early in their review between phylogeographic pattern vs. process, and suggest that mtDNA is usually sufficient for interrogating the former. However, we suggest that because pattern is a product of process, even the simplest of phylogeographic patterns described in the literature have elicited some statement of process, making their preference for separating the two unworkable. For example, a phylogeographic pattern found in some studies of avian mtDNA is paraphyletic or polyphyletic mtDNA lineages—instances in which the sampled taxa do not exhibit reciprocal monophyly for mtDNA (e.g. Ödeen & Bjorklund 2003). [In their table 2, ZB08 list the wagtails (Motacilla) in Ödeen & Bjorklund (2003) as exhibiting reciprocal monophyly, when in fact flava is paraphyletic relative to the very distinct species citreola and cinerea, and the mtDNA and nuDNA patterns for citreola are different from one another]. Virtually any interpretation of this pattern requires some statement as to process. For example, is the lack of monophyly due to recent isolation or homogenizing gene flow after secondary contact? Are we witnessing an ongoing, spatially restricted hybridization; a temporally restricted pulse of hybridization or the type of ongoing and temporally uniform gene flow usually estimated in stepping-stone models? On its own, the observed pattern is very limited in its utility, for example, in understanding biogeography or species limits or for informing conservation. To ZB08, a well-resolved reciprocally monophyletic mitochondrial gene tree implies a history of isolation without gene flow—the most common process associated with this pattern. But is genetic distinctiveness useful on its own without any reference to process? For example, should we be comfortable delimiting species based on monophyly or lack thereof of mtDNA, without speculating as to how the pattern arose? As a case in point, in the greenish warbler, mtDNA exhibits two very distinct clades breaking the ring both north and south of the Himalayan range, but nuclear markers demonstrate smooth isolation by distance (Irwin et al. 2005), suggesting that the sharp mtDNA breaks are the result of stochastic processes. In addition to the fact that reciprocal monophyly can sometimes be driven by forces other than geographical isolation (e.g. natural selection or stochastic events), we suggest that the utility of pattern without process in cases of mtDNA monophyly is low and that even the most rudimentary interpretations of mtDNA pattern require statements of process, something that ZB08 suggest requires nuclear genes. We regard as unrealistic ZB08's suggestion that the uses of mtDNA can be addressed by restricting inferences solely to pattern. In most early phylogeographic studies in birds, including those published by us (Edwards 1993; Bensch & Hasselquist 1999), mtDNA when used alone is used to describe not only phylogeographic pattern, but also process. We challenge ZB08 to identify a single mtDNA-only study that has refrained from discussing phylogeographic process, including the many recent phylogeographic studies by Zink and colleagues on birds in Europe, Russia and Beringia, all of which make statements of process, for example, when they try to estimate population growth using mismatch distributions. In their analysis of sequence data in Bensch et al. (2006), ZB08 disregard their own recommendation and discuss process from an analysis of mtDNA variation in Phylloscopus. They write 'we subjected the [mitochondrial] data to the R2 analysis for population growth … and found it highly significant'. That they are comfortable with a conclusion of population growth despite it being based solely on mtDNA shows that even they are unwilling to follow their own recommendations. ZB08 suggested that recent reviews of mtDNA constituted an 'indictment' of its use in phylogeography. We suggest that, because of phylogeographers' natural interest in and high priority on process, ZB08's conviction that mtDNA addresses pattern more than process is even more of an indictment of previous avian phylogeographic studies than is our suggestion that mtDNA is limited in its power to describe population history on its own (Edwards et al. 2005). The preceding discussion raises a related point: even phylogeographers who claim to focus solely on pattern do so in the hope of making some statement about populations or species. Few would argue with the claim that the relevant focus in phylogeography, species delimitation, even phylogeny, is the population or species—not the gene or (often small) set of genes that are used to make inference. Species by their very nature consist of many genes, each of which records a signal of the demographic history. But the pattern observed in each gene is the result of demographic factors acting on the whole genome, as well as random fluctuations due to genetic drift and the frequently complicating patterns generated by nonhierarchical processes such as introgression. An often-overlooked aspect of mtDNA-only phylogeographic studies is that technically we are unwarranted in making statements about anything other than the mtDNA; when we do, our assumption is that other markers will follow the mtDNA pattern. Early researchers in the field, such as Avise and others, knew this and routinely proffered the caveat that mtDNA does not record, for example, the history of males in the case of species with maternal inheritance of mtDNA. As another example of this point, when one achieves a high bootstrap support on a mitochondrial gene tree, most researchers are tempted to claim that the population harbouring that gene tree is also monophyletic, yet such an inference would not be warranted for both inferential and statistical reasons. The contrast between inferences of genes and populations when using mtDNA is also illustrated by the availability of multilocus methods now for estimating species trees, as opposed to gene trees (Edwards 2008; Liu et al. 2008); analysis of data with species tree methods suggests that the power of claims about population and lineage monophyly rests not on a single highly resolved gene tree but on the genealogical patterns at many loci and the accumulated signal among them, even in the face of extensive incomplete lineage sorting. In addition, there is always the possibility that the gene and species trees will differ; striking examples of mtDNA clades inferring groups wrongly come from the many examples of displaced clines for mtDNA and morphology or nuclear genes (see Ruegg 2008, for a recent example in birds). Directly extrapolating from the gene to the species was forgivable in the early days of phylogeography, but we suggest that, given the relative ease of assaying variation at nuclear markers now, making inferences from a single gene to statements about populations or species is unwarranted today, and that ZB08 have become unduly complacent with such inferences. Zink & Barrowclough (2008) spend much of their review cataloguing the diversity of patterns of differentiation of nuclear and mitochondrial genes in avian phylogeographic studies, and come to the conclusion that 'Many studies found that the two sets of markers (nuclear and mitochondrial) were either concordant or the mitochondrial estimate of a statistic exceeded the equivalent nuclear one'. They use this finding to suggest that 'In cases in which a structured mtDNA gene tree is accompanied by unstructured nuclear trees, the former ought to be taken as indicative of lineage divergence; mtDNA is the leading indicator, nuDNA the trailing one'. However, this contrast of mtDNA vs. nuclear genes is misleading because it focuses only on gene-by-gene contrasts. In doing so, it fails to acknowledge (i) that the most useful measures of population differentiation rely specifically on the accumulated signals from many genes and (ii) that mtDNA is only a single gene in a population genetic sense. What one supposedly loses in the signal in any one nuclear gene relative to mtDNA one gains back by many orders of magnitude by adding additional nuclear genes to this signal. Many popular phylogeographic methods, especially those that focus appropriately on estimating parameters of populations and species rather than genes, are known to deliver more accurate and reliable estimates of population parameters with multiple than with single loci (Edwards & Beerli 2000; Hey & Nielsen 2004;Maddison & Knowles 2006). Even when such methods are focused solely on pattern, as in population delimitation methods such as Structure (Pritchard et al. 2000) or principal components analysis (PCA), multiple genes invariably provide a more sensitive signal to population boundaries and numbers than does mtDNA alone. The increased resolving power of multiple nuclear genes vs. the single gene provided by mtDNA is well illustrated by recent phylogeographic studies in humans. For example, Novembre et al. (2008) analysed large numbers of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers in European populations to study the aspects of phylogeographic pattern. PCA and other methods revealed highly diagnosable groups on a spatial scale that were hitherto unachievable by mtDNA or any other limited set of markers. Previous studies of Europeans show that none of the populations discernable in Novembre et al. (2008) exhibits mtDNA monophyly; indeed, in humans, mtDNA (and Y-chromosome) monophyly is known only for the major branches in the human phylogeographic gene tree. Thus, the accumulated signal of multiple nuclear genes reveals details of phylogeographic pattern that far exceed what is provided by mtDNA alone (Rosenberg 2009). This is particularly the case when the among-population variation of any one nuclear marker is slight (FST among European geographical regions in their study was only 0.004); indeed formulas for estimating the number of markers required to differentiate populations with a given FST are known (Patterson et al. 2006). We acknowledge that most studies in birds or other non-model groups have yet to accumulate as many markers as are available in humans, but the number of accessible markers for birds and other groups is rapidly increasing (Backström et al. 2008) and will no doubt further increase as sequencing technology evolves. On the other hand, humans are among the most unstructured of vertebrate species, and it is likely that the population structure of most nonhuman animals will be resolvable with far fewer markers than are required by human phylogeography. The number of nuclear markers employed in avian phylogeographic studies has been steadily climbing and now rivals the 30–40 that were routinely characterized in allozyme studies of birds in the 1980s (Lee & Edwards 2008). Furthermore, the ability of nuclear markers to delimit populations at a higher level of resolution by mtDNA alone has been observed in some studies of birds as well as in other non-model species (e.g. Wang et al. 2003). An obvious issue that arises is how contingent the resolved groups are on the number and nature of nuclear markers used; although we acknowledge that this is an unresolved issue of importance to phylogeography, the point that nuclear genes together have more resolving power than does mtDNA still stands. Many studies in humans and other groups now use multivariate, multilocus statistical methods other than gene trees to delimit and describe phylogeographic pattern. For example, when there are no multiple hits, the frequency spectra of SNPs for single populations or the joint spectra for multiple populations are sufficient statistics for data from single or multiple populations, respectively (i.e. they contain all the information present in the original data). ZB08 presumably failed to acknowledge the higher resolving power of nuclear genes because of their focus on gene trees, which as they and others have shown will often exhibit monophyly for mtDNA but not for nuDNA. Although gene trees are a useful way of describing phylogeographic diversity, they are not the only tools available and indeed many recent studies are moving away from gene trees as the main tool for describing phylogeographic pattern. There are many ways to diagnose species and populations other than via gene trees, and, for example, the accumulated signal of allele frequency shifts across many nuclear loci—a signal that mtDNA alone cannot possess—is now becoming the most powerful and sensitive means for delimiting diversity and pattern within species. To suggest that nonphylogenetic methods such as PCA or STRUCTURE have no place in phylogeography is to unnecessarily restrict the purview and methods that enrich the field. ZB08 point to other challenges of nuclear genes, such as the need for phasing unresolved haplotypes with multiple heterozygous loci. Although we acknowledge that phasing is indeed an uncertainty and that errors could lead to misestimation of nuclear gene trees (Hare 2001), the effect of such errors on other types of phylogeographic analysis is not known, and may be minimal. Regardless, because new sequencing technologies such as 454 determine the sequences of single DNA molecules, rather than collections of molecules as in dideoxy sequencing of PCR products, they will eliminate the phasing problem, which will soon be a thing of the past (Brito & Edwards 2009). In summary, we find the review by ZB08 to be backward looking, when phylogeography, like any science, should be forward looking. ZB08 seem comfortable with the resolving power of mtDNA, but many empirical studies of phylogeographic pattern show that multiple nuclear genes have substantially more resolving power than does mtDNA alone. ZB08 favour the particular level of resolution provided by mtDNA alone; but the particular level of resolution provided by mtDNA is ultimately arbitrary, and one could just as easily favour the resolving power of a nuclear gene depending on one's motives, especially given that subspecies boundaries in birds tend not to conform to mtDNA clades (Zink 2004). We believe that the large number of mtDNA-only studies in birds and other groups is a strong first step for these groups. Inevitably, however, if the field is healthy, phylogeography and its methods and tools will change through time. We suggest that the favouritism towards mtDNA displayed in ZB08 encourages becoming comfortable with a tool that has proven extremely useful, but is ultimately limited, and that can now be supplemented relatively easily by the enormous signal available in the many loci of the nuclear genome.

Dynamic changes in brewing yeast cells in culture revealed by statistical analyses of yeast morphological data

Assessing genetic diversity is essential for the characterization and conservation of livestock. This study investigates the genetic diversity of the three indigenous goat breeds from northern Belgium (Flanders), Kempische Geit, Vlaamse Geit, and Belgische Hertegeit, using pedigree and genomic data. Pedigree analyses estimated inbreeding and effective population size, while genomic data were assessed using runs of homozygosity (ROH) and population structure analyses (F st , principal component analysis (PCA) and ADMIXTURE). Pedigree-based results revealed moderate inbreeding (F ped = 10.3%, 7.4%, and 9.0%) and critically low effective population sizes (N e = 17, 28, and 43, respectively). Despite these constraints, population trends since 2017 show encouraging growth, with active breeding females increasing 153% (Kempische Geit) and active breeders rising 90% (Vlaamse Geit). Genomic data from 280 individuals (88–97 per breed), genotyped using the GGP Goat SNP array, revealed inbreeding coefficients based on ROH from 8% to 15%, with individual values reaching up to 39%. Several ROH islands were detected, including two in Vlaamse Geit on chromosomes 10 and 13, which overlap with regions reported in other international breeds. Linkage disequilibrium-based estimates of effective population sizes (N e = 21–22) further highlight the endangered status of these breeds. Genetic differentiation was substantial (F st from 0.10 to 0.14) which was supported by PCA and ADMIXTURE. This study provides the first integrated pedigree and genomic assessment of goat diversity in Flanders, offering critical insights for the conservation and sustainable management of these local breeds. These data support comparisons with international populations and inform future breeding strategies. • Flanders (Northern Belgium) has three local goat breeds • All three goat breeds were analyzed based on pedigree and genotype data • Inbreeding coefficients based on runs of homozygosity were between 8% and 15% • Effective population sizes remain below critical thresholds for viability • The three goat breeds are considered endangered

Being located in a low-lying coastal zone and having a unique brackish water ecosystem, the South-west region of Bangladesh is highly susceptible to environmental vulnerability. An assessment of environmental vulnerability over this large area of 24,188 km2 is a complex process and one of the most essential parts for any coastal zone management. Since the changes in the environmental indicators are posing adverse impacts, the environment tends to be more vulnerable. This study assesses the environmental vulnerability in 40 Upazilas (lower level of the administrative unit) in the South-west region of Bangladesh. After reviewing the literature, this study incorporated 10 relevant indicators (i.e. soil type, average temperature, vegetation change, population density, population change, road density, surface salinity, Cumulative Dry Day (CDD), Cumulative Wet Day (CWD), groundwater level). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to find the weight for each indicator in IBM SPSS 20 software and the values were normalized into a unified dimension. The generated environmental vulnerability map is assorted into five vulnerability groups consisting of very low, low, medium, high, very high vulnerabilities with an interval of 0-0.05, 0.05-0.4, 0.4-0.5, 0.5-0.6, 0.6-1.0 respectively. From the spatial analysis, it has been seen that the vulnerability groups representing very low, low, medium, high, and very high contain 10percent, 35percent, 28percent, 17percent, and 10percent of the Upazilas, respectively. The findings of environmental vulnerability assessment can support effective guidance for long-term environmental management in terms of coastal zone management. The development framework can be assessed at different spatial and temporal scales in the coastal zone with the availability of environmental indicator data and by applying the PCA method.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/iQ_CwlOBCJE

Archaeal community structure diversity in the rumen of faunated and defaunated sheep

The purpose of this research is to identify key components of community wildfire risk reduction programs and potential influences on the adoption of these program elements. Community wildfire programs have been developed to educate and encourage property owners to adopt “vegetation management” practices such as creating defensible space around structures, landscaping with fire-resistant plants, and removing potential wildfire fuels such as trees and shrubs. The analyses are based on a survey conducted by investigators from Louisiana State University in conjunction with the U.S. Forest Service. This survey was distributed to wildfire mitigation program managers listed on the National Wildfire Programs Database website. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted on the data returned from this sixty-nine-item survey. A range of socioeconomic variables was gathered from the 2000 Census Bureau and was used along with a fire history variable created from data extracted from the survey to examine the extent to which the variables are associated with program development. Five factors were identified from the PCA as being indicators of key components of risk-reduction programs. Local programs with these elements are assumed to have a greater capacity for effectively reducing or mitigating wildfire risks to communities within the wildland-urban interface (WUI). The factors are more local regulations and codes, larger numbers of public education, vegetation disposal, risk assessment activities and fewer reported problems with program funding. These factors were regressed with demographic variables selected for each survey respondent’s geographic area. Several different demographic variables were found to be significantly associated with the selected factors. These are population density, property value, wealth, percent of homeownership, percent of population with a college degree, and population change. Formulation and implementation of these desirable program components were found to be associated with slower growing, less densely populated communities, and those with wealthier and better educated residents.

Aim The aim of this study was to understand the spatial distribution of capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) according to habitat attributes, using a multiscale approach based on fine‐ and broad‐scale variables in agroecosystems.Location Piracicaba river basin, south‐eastern Brazil (22°00′–23°30′ S; 45°45′–48°30′ W).Methods Potential habitats for capybara were selected in order to evaluate species presence/absence from October 2001 to December 2002. In each site, habitat attributes were sampled in the field (fine scale) and from GIS maps (broad scale) in terms of their presence or absence close to water. The variability of land cover between study sites was described by principal components analysis. Chi‐square tests were calculated for capybara presence/absence and the presence of each habitat attribute. A linear discriminant function analysis was used to describe to what extent the species’ presence could be explained by habitat attributes.Results The species presence was predominantly related to flat open areas (slope ranging from 0% to 6%) (χ2 = 37.054, d.f. = 4, P < 0.001), covered by sugar cane or cultivated pasture (χ2 = 84.814, d.f. = 9, P < 0.001). Terrain curvature, water meadows, aquatic vegetation, forest cover and open areas resulted in the best combination of variables, explaining 69.7% of capybara occurrence in the study sites in this river basin.Main conclusions Capybaras are widespread in the Piracicaba river basin, except in elevated areas. The spatial distribution of capybara was associated with the main types of land cover in the river basin – sugar cane plantations or pasture – both key food sources for capybara. This probably explains the species’ recent abundance in the region, since an intensive process of landscape alteration has taken place in this region owing to the expansion of agriculture in recent decades. These results may be useful in understanding the relationship between recent landscape modifications and the species’ population expansion in agroecosystems.

This chapter illustrates typical landscape types extracted by principal component analysis and cluster analysis. It also discusses the distribution patterns and characteristics of these landscape types and examines the relationship between land use and population changes. The following seven landscape types were extracted: urban landscape, urban paddy field mixed landscape, paddy field landscape, other field landscape, paddy field satoyama landscape, other field satoyama landscape, and nature landscape. Then, through the combination analysis of land use and population changes in recent years, shrinking, compacting, stability, scattering, and expanding tendencies are observed. Not only in Nagoya but also in the periphery of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, a mosaicked structure of the above tendencies was clearly observed, with satoyama landscape types most dramatically confronting the crisis of disappearance.

With the rising trends in elderly populations around the world, there is a growing interest in understanding how climate variability is related to the health of this population group. Therefore, we analyzed the associations between mortality in the elderly due to cardiovascular (CVD) and respiratory diseases (RD) and meteorological variables, for three cities in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil: Campos do Jordao, Ribeirao Preto, and Santos, all in different subtropical regions, from 1996 to 2017. The main objective was to verify how these distinct subtropical climates impact elderly mortality differently. We applied the autoregressive model integrated with moving average (ARIMA) and the principal component analysis (PCA), in order to evaluate statistical associations. Results showed CVD as a major cause of mortality, particularly in the cold period, when a high mortality rate is also observed due to RD. The mortality rate was higher in Campos do Jordao and lower in Santos. In Campos do Jordao, results indicate an increased probability of mortality from CVD and RD due to lower temperatures. In Ribeirao Preto, the lower relative humidity may be related to the increase in CVD and RD deaths. This study emphasizes that, even among subtropical climates, there are significant differences on how climate impacts human health, which can assist decision-makers in the implementation of mitigating and adaptive measures.

Paleoenvironmental reconstruction at Canyon del Muerto, Arizona, based on principal-component analysis

Wheat yellow (stripe) rust, caused by the fungus Puccinia striiformis f.sp. tritici (Pst), is a devastating disease of wheat worldwide. The success of Pst is largely due to the pathogens ability to rapidly overcome host resistance, generating new races that are easily dispersed between territories through wind-borne transmission of Pst urediniospores. Thus, first signs of entry of new Pst races into a region is usually captured by changes in disease severity. To examine any alterations of winter wheat variety response to Pst infection in Serbia, we analyzed yield and Pst disease severity in field trials conducted in 2014, 2021, and 2023. We specifically focused on analyzing Pst disease severity at growth stages related to yield. Associations between qualitative variables (variety, year) and quantitative variables (yield in untreated plots, yield loss, and disease index (DI) of Pst infection) were analyzed using Principal Component Analysis with mixed data. A General Linear Model was used to investigate the most influential factors on yield, yield loss, and Pst infection. The results indicated that yellow rust disease severity increased over the past decade, suggesting a potential recent change in the Pst population in Serbia. Comparative population genetic analysis of Pst samples from the 2023 wheat season and those collected in Serbia in 2014 confirmed a potential change in the Pst population. In addition, we found that yield losses across wheat varieties varied independently of Pst infection levels, indicating that wheat varieties differ in their ability to overcome damage caused by high levels of Pst infection. Given that the level of pathogen pressure triggering susceptibility reactions is cultivar-specific, our study highlights the need for a deeper focus on the mechanisms underlying these differences. Expanding our understanding of the interactions between pathogens, plant defense responses, and the ability of cultivars to mitigate yield losses will better equip us to predict and prevent potential yield losses in commercial wheat varieties due to yellow rust in the future.