Biology subjects

Logan, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Logan, M..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Beyond Coral Cover: A framework for assessing the condition of coral reef habitats and informing conservation targets

The goal of ecosystem management is to maintain healthy and resilient ecosystems over time. These attributes can be summarised under a general term widely used in management plans: ecosystem condition, defined as the overall quality of an ecosystem relative to a desired or reference state. However, measuring and monitoring ecosystem condition remains a challenge. Monitoring ecosystem condition requires a suite of ecological indicators that simultaneously capture the complexity and variability of ecological processes, while being informative and usable in management and decision-making contexts. Such indicators need to be holistic, measurable, sensitive and scalable. Here we outline a resilience-based monitoring framework for coral reefs that consolidates monitoring data and research insights into a relevant, integrated format. The framework includes indicators of ecosystem state (coral cover) and key processes (represented by recovery performance, macroalgae prevalence, community composition, and coral juvenile density). Indicators are generated and scaled from monitoring data by applying explicit, reef-specific thresholds, providing a simple but comprehensive set of ecosystem condition values. Using cases from the Great Barrier Reef, we demonstrate how the framework integrates these indicators for detailed assessments of reef habitat condition and its potential role in management. Based on these case studies, we discuss important considerations for applying this framework worldwide, acknowledging current limitations related to data availability, resolution, and the length of time series.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Using aerial thermography to map terrestrial thermal environments in unprecedented detail

O_LIThe accurate quantification of thermal environments is crucial for predicting the impacts of climate change across ecosystems. C_LIO_LITwo major obstacles exist in mapping biologically relevant thermal landscapes: 1) overcoming the mismatch between the spatial resolution at which environmental data are typically collected and the scale at which a particular organism experiences thermal variation, and 2) quantifying thermal landscapes without substantial measurement gaps in time or space. C_LIO_LIWe present a new method that integrates aerial thermography from uncrewed aerial vehicles with field-deployed operative temperature models to generate fine-scale, spatiotemporally complete maps of operative temperature. C_LIO_LITo ensure the accessibility of our method, we developed an R package, throne, which streamlines the necessary corrections to raw drone data and produces operative thermal landscapes for any day or time during which data loggers were deployed. C_LIO_LIOur method allows researchers to generate detailed and biologically relevant thermal landscapes for species of interest which should enhance our understanding of animal thermal ecology and improve our ability to forecast the responses of organisms to environmental change. C_LI

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

SARS-COV-2 Recombinant Receptor-Binding-Domain (RBD) Induces Neutralising Antibodies Against Variant Strains of SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1

SARS-CoV-2 is the etiological agent of COVID19. There are currently several licensed vaccines approved for human use and most of them are targeting the spike protein (or virion) in the virion envelope to induce protective immunity. Recently, variants that spread more quickly have emerged. There is evidence that some of these variants are less sensitive to neutralization in vitro, but it is not clear whether they can evade vaccine induced protection. In this study, we tested the utility of SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD as a vaccine antigen and explore the effect of formulation with Alum/MPLA or AddaS03 adjuvants. Our results indicate RBD induces high titers of neutralizing antibodies and activates strong cellular immune responses. There is also significant cross-neutralisation of variants B1.1.7 and B.1.351 and to a lesser extent, SARS-CoV-1. These results indicate that recombinant RBD can be a viable candidate as a stand-alone vaccine or as a booster shot to diversify our strategy for COVID19 protection.

microbiology↗