Inter-individual variability in equine antibody responses to African snake venoms follows heavy-tailed distributions with implications for antivenom production

  Inter-individual variability in equine antibody responses to African snake venoms follows heavy-tailed distributions with implications for antivenom production Abstract Variability in the antibody response of horses used for snake antivenom manufacture is well recognized, yet its statistical structure and implications for industrial productivity remain poorly characterized. In this study, we quantified antivenom antibody titers by ELISA in a cohort of 14 horses immunized with venoms from the clinically most important snakes in sub-Saharan Africa. To integrate antibody levels with plasma availability, we calculated the Cumulative Plasma Productivity (CPP) by converting individual plasma volumes into titer-corrected equivalents and sequentially pooling these volumes according to their corrected contribution. Distributional analysis revealed right-skewed, heavy-tailed patterns better approximated by a log-normal model than by a strict Pareto (power-law) form, with approximately 20–3...

Spider Recording Scheme News Summer 2024, No. 109

 


Review of the Spiders Recorded  (2015–2023) and Harvestmen of Watsonian County Durham and Northumberland

Introduction 

The following article represents the third review covering spider recording in Watsonian County Durham (vicecounty 66) and Northumberland (vice-counties 67 and 68), collectively referred to in this series as north-east England. The two previous articles separately covered County Durham (Wilson, 2018) and Northumberland (Wilson, 2015); whereas this article covers all three VCs combined because of limited recording effort in this region. The previous two reviews focussed solely on the spiders (Araneae) whereas this, for the first time so far as the author is aware, provides an overview of the harvestmen (Opiliones) fauna of the three vice-counties. 

Spider Recording Scheme News Summer 2024, No. 109 SRS website: http://srs.britishspiders.org.uk