But as a new UBC Okanagan study finds, in central British Columbia there is one herd of mountain caribou, the Klinse-Za, whose numbers are going in the opposite direction — all thanks to a collaborative recovery effort led by West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations.

In partnership with many organizations and governments, the Indigenous-led conservation initiative paired short-term recovery actions such as predator reduction and caribou guardians at maternal pens, with ongoing work to secure landscape-level protection in an effort to create a self-sustaining caribou population.

Their efforts paid off.

Dr. Clayton Lamb, a Liber Ero Fellow, along with Carmen Richter, a biology master’s student, and Dr. Adam T. Ford, Canada Research Chair in Wildlife Restoration Ecology, conduct research in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science. Their latest study shows Klinse-Za caribou numbers have nearly tripled in under a decade.

“We have an Indigenous-led conservation effort to thank for averting the looming extinction of this herd,” says Dr. Lamb. “The population was declining rapidly — a West Moberly Elder once described the herd as a ‘sea of caribou,’ but by 2013 it had declined to only 38 animals.”

Today, the herd count is more than 110 and numbers continue to rise.

“This work provides an innovative, community-led, paradigm shift to conservation in Canada,” Dr. Lamb says. “While Indigenous Peoples have been actively stewarding landscapes for a long time, this approach is new in the level of collaboration among western scientists and Indigenous Peoples to create positive outcomes on the land and put an endangered species on the path to recovery.”

Richter, who is a Saulteau First Nations member, says Indigenous communities have really come together for the good of the caribou.

“We are working hard to recover these caribou. Each year, community members pick bags and bags of lichen to feed the mother caribou in the pen while other members live up at the top of the mountain with the animals. One day, we hope to return the herds to a sustainable size,” she says.

Though the partnership has yielded great success, Dr. Ford is the first to acknowledge that more time and effort will be needed to fully recover the Klinse-Za.

“This work is also an important part of decolonizing the mindset of conservation, which has historically worked to exclude the views of Indigenous Peoples,” he adds.

With caribou declines exceeding 40 per cent in recent decades across Canada, many populations have already been lost. But Dr. Ford insists there is a brighter path forward, and this study proves it.

“This is truly an unprecedented success and signals the critical role that Indigenous Peoples can play in conservation,” he says. “I hope this success opens doors to collaborative stewardship among other communities and agencies. We can accomplish so much more when working together.”

This study was co-produced by western scientists and members of West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations. The work was recently published in Ecological Applications and is supported by a companion manuscript in Ecological Applications exploring the expeditious population growth.

The worldwide proliferation of energy efficient broad spectrum lighting has the potential to disrupt an array of visually guided ecological processes.

New research has demonstrated that these new lighting technologies can significantly improve a predator’s ability to discriminate prey species against a natural background.

The magnitude of this effect varies depending on an organism’s colour, meaning certain colour variations may be at greater risk.

The study, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, was conducted by researchers at the University of Plymouth and Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML).

It is one of the first to examine the potential for artificial light at night (ALAN) to affect the camouflage mechanisms of coastal species.

Oak McMahon, who led the research while studying for an MSc in Applied Marine Science and is now a PhD candidate at the University of Plymouth, said: “This study clearly indicates that new lighting technologies will increase the conspicuousness of prey species by reducing the efficacy of their camouflage. Our findings revealed that species of Littorinid snails found commonly on our coastlines will remain camouflaged when illuminated by older style lighting. However, when illuminated by modern broad spectrum lighting, they are clearly visible to predators and at far greater long-term risk as a result.”

Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, this is the latest research by the University and PML to highlight the growing levels of ALAN and its impacts on coastal environments.

For this study, scientists used a well-established model to determine the conspicuousness of three distinct colour morphs of Littorinid snail found commonly along the world’s coastlines.

They compared how the species appeared to three common coastal predators when illuminated by different forms of lighting. This included 20th century narrow spectrum Low Pressure Sodium (LPS) lighting, three types of modern broad spectrum lighting — High Pressure Sodium (HPS); Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs); and Metal Halide (MH) — and the natural light provided by the sun and moon.

Under LPS lighting, all snails were effectively camouflaged. However, when illuminated by LEDs, MH, the sun or the moon, yellow snails were significantly more visible compared to brown and olive ones in the majority of cases.

Dr Thomas Davies, Lecturer in Marine Conservation at the University of Plymouth and the study’s senior author, said: “As technologies develop, there has been a shift from narrow spectrum to lighting that enables us to live and travel in a safe, secure manner. However, estimates suggest that a quarter of the planet between the Arctic Circle and Antarctica is now being affected by night-time light pollution. Some predictions say that LED bulbs will account for 85% of the global street lighting market in around five years, and our study highlights that such advances will have repercussions for humans and animals alike now and in the future.”

Dr Tim Smyth, PML Head of Science for Marine Biogeochemistry and Observations and co-author on the research, added: “The ability to light our environment around the clock has transformed the urban landscapes over the past century and has ushered in what some call the Urbanocene. The shift from the orange glow over cities, typical of my youth in the 1970s and 80s, has now shifted much more towards energy efficient wide spectrum LEDs which even enables us humans to correctly perceive colour. This work shows that this advancement has additional ramifications for the natural world, which is having to adapt at an increasing rate to the artificial changes we are making to the environment. We need to learn to adapt our technologies to avoid the worst consequences of their adoption.”

What can be done to reduce the impact of artificial lighting on our coastlines

With estimates indicating that 23% of the world’s surface, between the planet’s polar regions, are affected by ALAN — and a rate of increase of 2.2% between 2012 and 2016 — the need to address the situation is pressing to say the least.

In the study, the researchers highlight a variety of mitigation methods available to planners and environmental managers when considering its ecological impacts.

These include reducing the amount of light used, shielding lights to reduce their effects on the surrounding environment, employing part-night lighting during times of peak demand, and manipulating the spectra of lighting to minimise ecological impacts.

The researchers highlight that while it may seem intuitive to suggest using narrow spectrum lighting to avoid these impacts, the effects of ALAN extend beyond those seen on camouflage and that all parts of the visual spectrum will likely have some ecological impact.

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Materials provided by University of Plymouth. Original written by Alan Williams. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Patients with co-infection of SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, and influenza viruses were over four times more likely to require ventilation support and 2.4 times more likely to die than if they only had Covid-19, experts found.

Researchers say the findings show the need for greater flu testing of Covid-19 patients in hospital and highlight the importance of full vaccination against both Covid-19 and the flu.

The team from the University of Edinburgh, University of Liverpool, Leiden University and Imperial College London, made the findings in a study of more than 305,000 hospitalised patients with Covid-19.

The research — delivered as part of the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium’s (ISARIC) Coronavirus Clinical Characterisation Consortium — is the largest ever study of people with Covid-19 and other endemic respiratory viruses.

ISARIC’s study was set up in 2013 in readiness for a pandemic such as this.

The team looked at the data of adults who had been hospitalised with Covid-19 in the UK between 6 February 2020 and 8 December 2021.

Test results for respiratory viral co-infections were recorded for 6965 patients with Covid-19. Some 227 of these also had the influenza virus, and they experienced significantly more severe outcomes.

Dr Maaike Swets, PhD student at the University of Edinburgh and Leiden University, said: “In the last two years we have frequently witnessed patients with Covid-19 become severely ill, at times leading to an ICU admission and the employment of an artificial ventilator to help with breathing. That an influenza infection could give rise to a similar situation was already known, but less was understood about the outcomes of a double infection of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses.”

Professor Kenneth Baillie, Professor of Experimental Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, said: “We found that the combination of Covid-19 and flu viruses is particularly dangerous. This will be important as many countries decrease the use of social distancing and containment measures. We expect that Covid-19 will circulate with flu, increasing the chance of co-infections. That is why we should change our testing strategy for Covid-19 patients in hospital and test for flu much more widely.”

Professor Calum Semple, Professor of Outbreak Medicine and Child Health at the University of Liverpool, said: “We are seeing a rise in the usual seasonal respiratory viruses as people return to normal mixing. So, we can expect flu to be circulating alongside Covid-19 this winter. We were surprised that the risk of death more than doubled when people were infected by both flu and Covid-19 viruses. It is now very important that people get fully vaccinated and boosted against both viruses, and not leave it until it is too late.”

Dr Geert Groeneveld, doctor at Leiden University Medical Center’s infectious diseases department, said: “Understanding the consequences of double infections of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses is crucial as they have implications for patients, hospitals and ICU capacity during seasons that SARS-CoV-2 and influenza circulate together.”

Professor Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College London, said: “Being infected with more than one virus is not very common but it’s important to be aware that co-infections do happen. The vaccines that protect against Covid-19 and flu are different, and people need both. The way that these two infections are treated is also different so it’s important to test for other viruses even when you have a diagnosis in someone who is hospitalised with a respiratory infection. This latest discovery by the ISARIC consortium again adds significantly to improving the way we manage patients.”

The findings have been published in The Lancet. The research was funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and by the Department of Health and Social Care through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) as part of the UK Government’s Covid-19 rapid research response.

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Materials provided by University of Edinburgh. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.