Artificial Intelligence in Senology - Where Do We Stand and What Are the Future Horizons?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is defined as the simulation of human intelligence by a digital computer or robotic system and has become a hype in current conversations. A subcategory of AI is deep learning, which is based on complex artificial neural networks that mimic the principles of human synaptic plasticity and layered brain architectures, and uses large-scale data processing. AI-based image analysis in breast screening programmes has shown non-inferior sensitivity, reduces workload by up to 70% by pre-selecting normal cases, and reduces recall by 25% compared to human double reading. Natural language programs such as ChatGPT (OpenAI) achieve 80% and higher accuracy in advising and decision making compared to the gold standard: human judgement. This does not yet meet the necessary requirements for medical products in terms of patient safety. The main advantage of AI is that it can perform routine but complex tasks much faster and with fewer errors than humans. The main concerns in healthcare are the stability of AI systems, cybersecurity, liability and transparency. More widespread use of AI could affect human jobs in healthcare and increase technological dependency. AI in senology is just beginning to evolve towards better forms with improved properties. Responsible training of AI systems with meaningful raw data and scientific studies to analyse their performance in the real world are necessary to keep AI on track. To mitigate significant risks, it will be necessary to balance active promotion and development of quality-assured AI systems with careful regulation. AI regulation has only recently included in transnational legal frameworks, as the European Union's AI Act was the first comprehensive legal framework to be published, in December 2023. Unacceptable AI systems will be banned if they are deemed to pose a clear threat to people's fundamental rights. Using AI and combining it with human wisdom, empathy and affection will be the method of choice for further, fruitful development of tomorrow's senology.

Artificially raised roost temperatures lead to larger body sizes in wild bats

Climate warming has major consequences for animal populations, as ambient temperature profoundly influences all organisms' physiology, behavior, or both.1 Body size in many organisms has been found to change with increased ambient temperatures due to influences on metabolism and/or access to resources.2,3,4,5,6 Changes in body size, in turn, can affect the dynamics and persistence of populations.7 Notably, in some species, body size has increased over the last decades in response to warmer temperatures.3,8 This has primarily been attributed to higher food availability,3 but might also result from metabolic savings in warmer environments.9,10 Bechstein's bats (Myotis bechsteinii) grow to larger body sizes in warmer summers,11 which affects their demography as larger females reproduce earlier at the expense of a shorter life expectancy.12,13 However, it remains unclear whether larger body sizes in warmer summers were due to thermoregulatory benefits or due to increased food availability. To disentangle these effects, we artificially heated communal day roosts of wild maternity colonies over four reproductive seasons. We used generalized mixed models to analyze these experimental results along with 25 years of long-term data comprising a total of 741 juveniles. We found that individuals raised in heated roosts grew significantly larger than those raised in unheated conditions. This suggests that metabolic savings in warmer conditions lead to increased body size, potentially resulting in the decoupling of body growth from prey availability. Our study highlights a direct mechanism by which climate change may alter fitness-relevant traits, with potentially dire consequences for population persistence.

Heat over heritability: Increasing body size in response to global warming is not stabilized by genetic effects in Bechstein's bats

How well populations can cope with global warming will often depend on the evolutionary potential and plasticity of their temperature-sensitive, fitness-relevant traits. In Bechstein's bats (Myotis bechsteinii), body size has increased over the last decades in response to warmer summers. If this trend continues it may threaten populations as larger females exhibit higher mortality. To assess the evolutionary potential of body size, we applied a Bayesian 'animal model' to estimate additive genetic variance, heritability and evolvability of body size, based on a 25-year pedigree of 332 wild females. Both heritability and additive genetic variance were reduced in hot summers compared to average and cold summers, while evolvability of body size was generally low. This suggests that the observed increase in body size was mostly driven by phenotypic plasticity. Thus, if warm summers continue to become more frequent, body size likely increases further and the resulting fitness loss could threaten populations.

Stay in shape: Assessing the adaptive potential of shell morphology and its sensitivity to temperature in the invasive New Zealand mud snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum through phenotypic plasticity and natural selection in Europe

Climate change may force organisms to adapt genetically or plastically to new environmental conditions. Invasive species show remarkable potential for rapid adaptation. The ovoviviparous New Zealand mud snail (NZMS), Potamopyrgus antipodarum, has successfully established across Europe with two clonally reproducing mitochondrial lineages since its arrival in the first half of the 19th century. Its remarkable variation in shell morphology was shown to be fitness relevant. We investigated the effects of temperature on shell morphology across 11 populations from Germany and the Iberian Peninsula in a common garden across three temperatures. We analyzed size and shape using geometric morphometrics. For both, we compared reaction norms and estimated heritabilities. For size, the interaction of temperature and haplotype explained about 50% of the total variance. We also observed more genotype by environment interactions indicating a higher degree of population differentiation than in shape. Across the three temperatures, size followed the expectations of the temperature‐size rule, with individuals growing larger in cold environments. Changes in shape may have compensated for changes in size affecting space for brooding embryos. Heritability estimates were relatively high. As indicated by the very low coefficients of variation for clonal repeatability (CV_A), they can probably not be compared in absolute terms. However, they showed some sensitivity to temperature, in haplotype t more so than in z, which was only found in Portugal. The low CV_A values indicate that genetic variation among European populations is still restricted with a low potential to react to selection. A considerable fraction of the genetic variation was due to differences between the clonal lineages. The NZMS has apparently not been long enough in Europe to accumulate significant genetic variation relevant for morphological adaptation. As temperature is obviously not the sole factor influencing shell morphology, their interaction will probably not be a factor limiting population persistence under a warming climate in Europe.

Global warming leads to larger bats with a faster life history pace in the long-lived Bechstein's bat (Myotis bechsteinii)

Whether species can cope with environmental change depends considerably on their life history. Bats have long lifespans and low reproductive rates which make them vulnerable to environmental changes. Global warming causes Bechstein’s bats (Myotis bechsteinii) to produce larger females that face a higher mortality risk. Here, we test whether these larger females are able to offset their elevated mortality risk by adopting a faster life history. We analysed an individual-based 25-year dataset from 331 RFID-tagged wild bats and combine genetic pedigrees with data on survival, reproduction and body size. We find that size-dependent fecundity and age at first reproduction drive the observed increase in mortality. Because larger females have an earlier onset of reproduction and shorter generation times, lifetime reproductive success remains remarkably stable across individuals with different body sizes. Our study demonstrates a rapid shift to a faster pace of life in a mammal with a slow life history.

Warming summers across a 25-year study are linked to larger body sizes in female bats, leading to a switch from a slow-reproducing, long-lived species to a faster pace of life.

Long-term study shows that increasing body size in response to warmer summers is associated with a higher mortality risk in a long-lived bat species

Change in body size is one of the universal responses to global warming, with most species becoming smaller. While small size in most species corresponds to low individual fitness, small species typically show high population growth rates in cross-species comparisons. It is unclear, therefore, how climate-induced changes in body size ultimately affect population persistence. Unravelling the relationship between body size, ambient temperature and individual survival is especially important for the conservation of endangered long-lived mammals such as bats. Using an individual-based 24-year dataset from four free-ranging Bechstein's bat colonies (Myotis bechsteinii), we show for the first time a link between warmer summer temperatures, larger body sizes and increased mortality risk. Our data reveal a crucial time window in June-July, when juveniles grow to larger body sizes in warmer conditions. Body size is also affected by colony size, with larger colonies raising larger offspring. At the same time, larger bats have higher mortality risks throughout their lives. Our results highlight the importance of understanding the link between warmer weather and body size as a fitness-relevant trait for predicting species-specific extinction risks as consequences of global warming.