Publications by authors named "Michael J Williamson"

The concurrent pressures of climate change and chemical pollution, often studied in isolation, have been linked to increases in infectious disease that threaten biodiversity. Understanding their interconnected nature is vital, as the impacts of climate-mediated environmental changes can be exacerbated by chemical pollution and vice versa. Using data from 836 UK-stranded short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) (n = 153 (analysed for polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) blubber concentrations)) necropsied between 1990 and 2020, we show that PCB concentrations and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are associated with an increased risk of infectious disease mortality.

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River connectivity is crucial for the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) to complete its complex life cycle, which is vital for upstream recruitment to the declining population of this critically endangered catadromous fish. Eel passes, or ladders, are frequently installed on riverine structures, such as dams and weirs, to mitigate barrier effects and restore connectivity for upstream migrating eel. Efforts to optimise the effectiveness of passes have previously focused on the ascent section, quantifying the effects of climbing substrate, longitudinal slope, lateral slope and flow rate.

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Coral reef ecosystems are highly threatened and can be extremely sensitive to the effects of climate change. Multiple shark species rely on coral reefs as important habitat and, as such, play a number of significant ecological roles in these ecosystems. How environmental stress impacts routine, site-attached reef shark behavior, remains relatively unexplored.

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Anguillid eels have fascinated humans for centuries, but our knowledge of these mysterious fish is still scant. There are 19 species or subspecies in the genus Anguilla, which are found globally, except in the eastern Pacific and southern Atlantic. Their common label 'freshwater eels' is a misnomer - all anguillids are facultatively catadromous, born in marine environments, developing in continental waters, with a proportion never entering freshwater at all.

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A wide array of technologies are available for gaining insight into the movement of wild aquatic animals. Although acoustic telemetry can lack the fine-scale spatial resolution of some satellite tracking technologies, the substantially longer battery life can yield important long-term data on individual behavior and movement for low per-unit cost. Typically, however, receiver arrays are designed to maximize spatial coverage at the cost of positional accuracy leading to potentially longer detection gaps as individuals move out of range between monitored locations.

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Background: Five-year overall survival (OS) for patients with unresectable stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is poor. Until recently, a standard of care was concurrent chemoradiation alone. Patients with metastatic NSCLC treated with anti-programmed death 1 antibodies have demonstrated improved OS.

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Resistance to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) with activating EGFR mutations generally involve development of acquired secondary or tertiary EGFR mutations, such as T790M or C797S. However, case reports have demonstrated that actionable receptor tyrosine kinase fusions such as EML4-ALK, CCDC6-RET, and FGFR3-TACC3 can potentially confer resistance to EGFR TKIs. We seeked to identify the prevalence of FGFR3-TACC3 fusion transcripts as resistance mechanism to EGFR TKIs.

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