The relationship between niche and distribution, and especially the role of biotic interactions in shaping species' geographic distributions, has gained increasing interest in the last two decades. Most ecological research has focused on negative species interactions, especially competition, predation and parasitism. Yet the relevance of positive interactions – mutualisms and commensalisms – have been brought to the fore in recent years by an increasing number of empirical studies exploring their impact on range limits. Based on a review of 73 studies from a Web of Science search, we found strong evidence that positive interactions can influence the extent of species' geographic or ecological ranges through a diversity of mechanisms. More specifically, we found that while obligate interactions, and especially obligate mutualisms, tend to constrain the ranges of one or both partners, facultative positive interactions tend to widen ranges. Nonetheless, there was more variation in effects of facultative interactions on range limits, pointing to important context‐dependencies. Therefore, we propose that conceptual development in this field will come from studying ecological interactions in the context of networks of many species across environmental gradients, since pairwise interactions alone might overlook the indirect and environmentally‐contingent effects that species have on each other in communities of many interacting species. Finally, our study also revealed key data gaps that limit our current understanding of the pervasiveness of effects that positive interactions have on species' ranges, highlighting potential avenues for future theoretical and experimental work.
Preliminary data and clinical experience have suggested an increased risk of abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB) in women of reproductive age treated with anticoagulants, but solid data are lacking. The TEAM-VTE study was an international, multicentre, prospective cohort study in women aged 18-50 diagnosed with acute venous thromboembolism (VTE). Menstrual blood loss was measured by Pictorial Blood Loss Assessment Charts (PBAC) at baseline for the last menstrual cycle before VTE diagnosis and prospectively for each cycle during three-six month follow-up. AUB was defined as an elevated PBAC score (>100 or >150) or self-reported AUB. AUB-related quality of life (QoL) was assessed at baseline and end of follow-up using the Menstrual Bleeding Questionnaire (MBQ). The study was terminated early because of slow recruitment due to the pandemic. Of the 98 women, 65 (66%) met at least one of the three definitions of AUB during follow-up (95% confidence interval (CI) 57-75%). AUB occurred in 60% (36/60) of women without AUB before VTE diagnosis ('new-onset' AUB; 95%CI 47-71%). Overall, QoL decreased over time with a mean MBQ increase of 5.1 points (95%CI 2.2-7.9), but this decrease in QoL was only observed among women with new-onset AUB. To conclude, two out of three women who start anticoagulation for acute VTE suffer from AUB, with a considerable negative impact on QoL. These findings should be a call to action to increase awareness and provide evidence-based strategies for preventing and treating AUB in this setting. This was an academic study (NCT04748393 at www.clinicaltrials.gov); no funding was received.
1. To fulfil fisheries management objectives that often include implementing the precautionary and ecosystem-based approaches, multispecies fisheries data need to be analysed. Amongst the different methods dealing with these multidimensional data, self-organizing maps (SOMs) remain rarely used, although they are highly flexible in data input and offer visualization possibilities particularly suited to summarize complex datasets.2. Here, we propose to combine SOMs with a clustering approach to break down data complexity and produce simple geographic maps showing catch hotspots, which can indicate sensitive zones in terms of fishery management. To promote this approach, we tested it first on simulated datasets and then on the openaccess ICCAT commercial catch database of the tropical tuna fisheries of the Atlantic Ocean. We aimed to detect drifting fish aggregating devices (dFADs) catch hotspots of juveniles of two tuna species, bigeye and yellowfin tunas and of the silky shark, a commonly bycaught vulnerable shark species, in tropical tuna purse seine fisheries. Simulations on datasets increasing in complexity (in number, geographic and duration extent of the hotspots and number of species in the analysis) informed us about the method's sensitivity and limits.3. Our findings showed that, in the context of multi-specific fisheries, the detection of the hotspot is dependent on a certain level of catch within the hotspot and that adding species to the analysis tended to mask small and short-duration hotspots. Applied to tropical tuna fisheries' data, the method confirmed the empirical knowledge on which first time-area closures were based and provided scientifical support. 4. All in all, the visual support provided by the method, its interpretability and its potential transferability to other fisheries' systems constitute its main strengths and imply a possible implementation in management decisions; specifically, as a tool to reach agreement between stakeholders in the definition of regulated areas for protecting juveniles of tunas and vulnerable associated species to dFAD practices.
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