Forest loss in New England: A projection of recent trends

Real-world effectiveness of pharmacological treatments of alcohol use disorders in a Swedish nation-wide cohort of 125 556 patients

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Pharmacotherapy for alcohol use disorder (AUD) is recommendable, but under-used, possibly due to deficient knowledge of medications. This study aimed to investigate the real-world effectiveness of approved pharmacological treatments (disulfiram, acamprosate, naltrexone and nalmefene) of AUD.

DESIGN

A nation-wide, register-based cohort study.

SETTING

Sweden.

PARTICIPANTS

All residents aged 16-64 years living in Sweden with registered first-time treatment contact due to AUD from July 2006 to December 2016 (n = 125 556, 62.5% men) were identified from nation-wide registers.

MEASUREMENTS

The main outcome was hospitalization due to AUD. The secondary outcomes were hospitalization due to any cause, alcohol-related somatic causes, as well as work disability (sickness absence or disability pension), and death. Mortality was analysed with between-individual analysis using a traditional multivariate-adjusted Cox hazards regression model. Recurrent outcomes, such as hospitalization-based events and work disability, were analysed with within-individual analyses to eliminate selection bias.

FINDINGS

Naltrexone combined with acamprosate [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.74; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.61-0.89], combined with disulfiram (HR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.60-0.96) and as monotherapy (HR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.81-0.97) was associated with a significantly lower risk of AUD-hospitalization compared with no use of AUD medication. Similar results were found for risk of hospitalization due to any cause. Benzodiazepine use and acamprosate monotherapy were associated with an increased risk of AUD-hospitalization (HR = 1.18, 95% CI = 1.14-1.22 and HR = 1.10, 95% CI = 1.04-1.17, respectively). No statistically significant effects were found for work disability or mortality.

CONCLUSIONS

Naltrexone as monotherapy and when combined with disulfiram and acamprosate appears to be associated with lower risk of hospitalization due to any and alcohol-related causes, compared with no use of alcohol use disorder (AUD) medication. Acamprosate monotherapy and benzodiazepine use appear to be associated with increased risk of AUD-associated hospitalization.

An increase in the slope of the concentration-discharge relation for total organic carbon in major rivers in New England, 1973 to 2019

The mobilization and transport of organic carbon (OC) in rivers and delivery to the near-coastal ocean are important processes in the carbon cycle that are affected by both climate and anthropogenic activities. Riverine OC transport can affect carbon sequestration, contaminant transport, ocean acidification, the formation of toxic disinfection by-products, ocean temperature and phytoplankton productivity. There have been many studies reporting temporal trends in OC concentrations in comparatively small streams with minimal anthropogenic influences but there have been fewer studies on larger rivers and fewer still that have investigated changes in OC concentration-discharge (C-Q) relations. This study examined changes in C-Q relations for total organic carbon (TOC) from 1973 to 2019 in 8 rivers in New England, USA. TOC concentrations declined in all rivers, and in most rivers, and in most seasons, the slope of the C-Q relation increased between 1973 to 1995 and 1996 to 2019. The increase in C-Q slope between periods may be related to changes in the magnitude of TOC sources. The most likely sources to have changed are wastewater inputs, urban runoff, production through photosynthesis in aquatic systems, and runoff from agricultural and forestry practices. Changes in wetland abundance and changes in sulfate concentrations can be ruled out as drivers of the observed changes in C-Q.

Wildlife resistance and protection in a changing New England landscape

Rapid changes in climate and land use threaten the persistence of wildlife species. Understanding where species are likely to occur now and in the future can help identify areas that are resistant to change over time and guide conservation planning. We estimated changes in species distribution patterns and spatial resistance in five future scenarios for the New England region of the northeastern United States. We present scenario-specific distribution change maps for nine harvested wildlife species, identifying regions of increasing, decreasing, or stable habitat suitability within each scenario. Next, we isolated areas where species occurrence probability is high (p > 0.7) and resistant to change across all future scenarios. Resistance was also evaluated relative to current land protection to identify patterns in and out of Protected Areas (PAs). Generally, species distributions declined in area over the 50-year assessment period (2010-2060), with the greatest average declines occurring for moose (-40.9%) and wild turkey (-22.1%). Species resistance varied considerably across the region, with coyote demonstrating the highest average regional resistance (91.81% of the region) and moose demonstrating the lowest (0.76% of the region). At the state level, average focal species resistance was highest in Maine (the largest state) and lowest in Massachusetts. Many of the focal species showed high overlap in resistance and land protection. Coyote, white-tailed deer, and black bear had the highest probability of resistance, given protection, while moose and wild turkey had the highest probability of protection, given resistance. Overall, relatively small portions of New England-ranging between 0.25% and 21.12%-were both protected and resistant for the focal species. Our results provide estimates of resistance that can inform conservation planning for commonly harvested species that are important ecologically, economically, and culturally to the region. Expanding protected area coverage to include resistant areas may provide longer term benefits to these species.

Divergent carbon cycle response of forest and grass-dominated northern temperate ecosystems to record winter warming

Northern temperate ecosystems are experiencing warmer and more variable winters, trends that are expected to continue into the foreseeable future. Despite this, most studies have focused on climate change impacts during the growing season, particularly when comparing responses across different vegetation cover types. Here we examined how a perennial grassland and adjacent mixed forest ecosystem in New Hampshire, United States, responded to a period of highly variable winters from 2014 through 2017 that included the warmest winter on record to date. In the grassland, record-breaking temperatures in the winter of 2015/2016 led to a February onset of plant growth and the ecosystem became a sustained carbon sink well before winter ended, taking up roughly 90 g/m² more carbon during the winter to spring transition than in other recorded years. The forest was an unusually large carbon source during the same period. While forest photosynthesis was restricted by leaf-out phenology, warm winter temperatures caused large pulses of ecosystem respiration that released nearly 230 g C/m² from February through April, more than double the carbon losses during that period in cooler years. These findings suggest that, as winters continue to warm, increases in ecosystem respiration outside the growing season could outpace increases in carbon uptake during a longer growing season, particularly in forests that depend on leaf-out timing to initiate carbon uptake. In ecosystems with a perennial leaf habit, warming winter temperatures are more likely to increase ecosystem carbon uptake through extension of the active growing season. Our results highlight the importance of understanding relationships among antecedent winter conditions and carbon exchange across land-cover types to understand how landscape carbon exchange will change under projected climate warming.