TOP STORIES

Caernarfon swan deaths: It wasn’t bird flu
Daily Post - www.dailypost.co.uk
18 Jun 2008
H Trewyn
Location: Caernarfon, UK - Map It

SCIENTISTS who tested eight dead swans found in a river in Caernarfon have ruled out bird flu as a cause. The bodies of the birds were found in a stretch of water along the Afon Seiont, last week within a few hundred yards of the town’s historic castle.

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Crews race the plague as they try to save the ferrets of Conata Basin
Rapid City Journal – www.rapidcityjournal
19 Jun 2008
S Miller
Location: Conata Basin, South Dakota, USA - Map It

The area infected with the plague in Conata Basin has more than doubled in the past two weeks, threatening to overwhelm efforts of insecticide-dusting crews trying to keep the disease from decimating endangered black-footed ferrets there.

. . . Sylvatic plague was confirmed last month in dead prairie dogs found in Conata Basin, home to about 300 of the rare black-footed ferrets. The plague already has killed large numbers of prairie dogs and probably has killed some ferrets in the area, wildlife experts say.

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New Findings On Immune System In Amphibians
Science Daily - www.sciencedaily.com
19 Jun 2008

Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) genes produce proteins that are crucial in fighting pathogen assault. Researchers from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) characterized genetic variation and detected more than one MHC class II locus in a tailed amphibian. Unlike mammals, not much has been known until now about the immune defence of amphibians.

Globally, amphibian populations are in an unprecedented decline, to a considerable extent caused by rapidly spreading infectious diseases, such as the fungal infection Chytridiomycosis. Therefore future conservation strategies for amphibians could benefit from knowledge about species-specific adaptations indicated by MHC variation, say the researchers writing in the journal Molecular Ecology.

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Cited Articles

>>> Contrasting patterns of variation in MHC loci in the Alpine newt

Molecular Ecology. 2008; 17 (10): 2339

>>> Genetic structure in northeastern populations of the Alpine newt (Triturus alpestris): evidence for post-Pleistocene differentiation

Molecular Ecology. 2006; 15(9): 2397-2407

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