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This working paper summarises and appraises current thinking and proposals for the governance of synthetic biology. Considering that contemporary synthetic biology was only born around 2004, when the first international conference (SB1.0) was held, the extent of the literature already produced about the governance of this field is very extensive. Annex I lists 39 reports produced since 2004 by scientific, governmental and non-governmental organisations, and shows how activity in this field has increased rapidly in the last few years, with 28 reports published in just the last 3 years. Alongside this grey literature, there are also numerous articles published in academic journals by synthetic biologists, sociologists, legal scholars and philosophers. We have utilised this literature as a resource and particular attention has been paid to identifying the range of views expressed by different actors. This literature review is complemented by participant observation in synthetic biology laboratories, scientific meetings and policy forums in the UK, as members of the joint LSE-Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation (CSynBI). Additional fieldwork consisting of laboratory visits and interviews with scientists and policy makers was conducted in the UK (by Claire Marris), in China (by Joy Zhang) and in Japan (by Caitlin Cockerton and Susanna Finlay). The report is organised as follows: · Section 2 summarises current accounts of synthetic biology and explains how conflicting narratives occur in parallel. · Sections 3 and 4 then elucidate the main sources of governance challenges exhibited by synthetic biology. Section 3 demonstrates that current concerns over synthetic biology mostly originate from two key features of synthetic biology: scientific uncertainty and cross-borderness. By examining the case of the US, the UK, China, Section 4 further illustrates both the inter-national divergences and the transnational interconnectedness that any governing attempts for synthetic biology need to take into consideration. · Section 5 discusses three key governance challenges that arise from these two features of synthetic biology: the salience of both knowing and non-knowing; the need for external accountability; and the fragmentation of social authorities. · Section 6 outlines our proposal for the 'art of governance' to address these challenges.

LL is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, Grant Number: P32586). EPM receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant Agreement No 948728). This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) P32586. ; Many biological variables are recorded on a circular scale and therefore need different statistical treatment. A common question that is asked of such circular data involves comparison between two groups: Are the populations from which the two samples are drawn differently distributed around the circle? We compared 18 tests for such situations (by simulation) in terms of both abilities to control Type-I error rate near the nominal value, and statistical power. We found that only eight tests offered good control of Type-I error in all our simulated situations. Of these eight, we were able to identify the Watson's U2 test and a MANOVA approach, based on trigonometric functions of the data, as offering the best power in the overwhelming majority of our test circumstances. There was often little to choose between these tests in terms of power, and no situation where either of the remaining six tests offered substantially better power than either of these. Hence, we recommend the routine use of either Watson's U2 test or MANOVA approach when comparing two samples of circular data. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

In this paper, we reflect on our experience as Science and Technology Studies (STS) researchers who were members of the working group that produced A Synthetic Biology Roadmap for the UK in 2012. We explore how this initiative sought to govern an uncertain future, and describe how it was successfully used to mobilize public funds for synthetic biology from the UK government. We discuss our attempts to incorporate the insights and sensibilities of STS into the policy process, and why we chose to use the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) to do so. We analyze how the roadmapping process, and the final report, narrowed and transformed our contributions to the Roadmap. We show how difficult it is for STS researchers to influence policy when our ideas challenge deeply entrenched pervasive assumptions, framings and narratives about how technological innovation necessarily leads to economic progress, about public reticence as a roadblock to that progress, and about the supposed separation between science and society. We end by reflecting on the constraints under which we were operating from the outset, and on the challenges for STS in policy.

This study was funded by the German Federal Agency of Nature Conservation under the projects "Effects of underwater noise on marine vertebrates" (Cluster 7, Z1.2-53302/2010/14) and "Under Water Noise Effects – UWE" (Project numbers FKZ 3515822000). Catches were funded and supported by the Schleswig-Holstein's Government-Owned Company for Coastal Protection, National Parks and Ocean Protection. We thank all helpers during the seal catches. Development of the tags was aided by a Marie Curie-Sklodowska Career Integration Grant (EU-FP7) to MJ and by MASTS, the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Scotland. MJ is supported by the Aarhus University Research Foundation and the EU H2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant 754513. ; Central place foragers are expected to offset travel costs between a central place and foraging areas by targeting productive feeding zones. Harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) make multi-day foraging trips away from coastal haul-out sites presumably to target rich food resources, but periodic track points from telemetry tags may be insufficient to infer reliably where, and how often, foraging takes place. To study foraging behaviour during offshore trips, and assess what factors limit trip duration, we equipped harbour seals in the German Wadden Sea with high-resolution multi-sensor bio-logging tags, recording 12 offshore trips from 8 seals. Using acceleration transients as a proxy for prey capture attempts, we found that foraging rates during travel to and from offshore sites were comparable to offshore rates. Offshore foraging trips may, therefore, reflect avoidance of intra-specific competition rather than presence of offshore foraging hotspots. Time spent resting increased by approx. 37 min/day during trips suggesting that a resting deficit rather than patch depletion may influence trip length. Foraging rates were only weakly correlated with surface movement patterns highlighting the value of integrating multi-sensor data from on-animal bio-logging tags (GPS, depth, accelerometers and magnetometers) to infer behaviour and habitat use. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

Acknowledgements We thank everyone monitoring colonies over the years, in particular Carles Domingo from the Ebro Delta NP Staff, Ràpita, Castelló and the Tarragona Port Authorities and José Manuel Igual from the Group of Ecology and Animal Demography. We also thank the editorial board and the reviewers for their constructive comments. RESET (ref.CGL2017-85210-P), FPU (ref. FPU2012-000869), IBISES (ref. CGL2013-42203-R) and MINOW (ref. H2020- 634495). ASA and MG are supported by a postdoctoral contract co-funded by the Regional Government of the Balearic Islands and the European Social Fund (ref. PD/003/2016 and PD/023/2015). ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

This project was funded by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program [National Science Foundation via the Office of Naval Research N00014-11-1-0113]. C. Spencer Garborg was supported by a Grove City College Swezey Student Fellowship to Erik Anderson. Mark Johnson was funded by a Marie Curie-Sklodowska grant from the European Union. All supplemental data files are available from the Dryad Digital Repository (doi:10.5061/dryad.4j4m1). ; Bio-logging tags are an important tool for the study of cetaceans, but superficial tags inevitably increase hydrodynamic loading. Substantial forces can be generated by tags on fast-swimming animals, potentially affecting behavior and energetics or promoting early tag removal. Streamlined forms have been used to reduce loading, but these designs can accelerate flow over the top of the tag. This non-axisymmetric flow results in large lift forces (normal to the animal) that become the dominant force component at high speeds. In order to reduce lift and minimize total hydrodynamic loading this work presents a new tag design (Model A) that incorporates a hydrodynamic body, a channel to reduce fluid speed differences above and below the housing and wing to redirect flow to counter lift. Additionally, three derivatives of the Model A design were used to examine the contribution of individual flow control features to overall performance. Hydrodynamic loadings of four models were compared using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The Model A design eliminated all lift force and generated up to ~30 N of downward force in simulated 6 m/s aligned flow. The simulations were validated using particle image velocimetry (PIV) to experimentally characterize the flow around the tag design. The results of these experiments confirm the trends predicted by the simulations and demonstrate the potential benefit of flow control elements for the reduction of tag induced forces on the animal. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

Acknowledgement LG was supported by the Scottish Government's Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS). ; Peer reviewed ; Postprint

Funding: This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council Linnaeus Centre ACCESS (S.C.), ERC grant 239784 (J.C.), the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence COIN (J.C.), the Academy of Finland (M.V.), the Scottish Government's Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) (A.W.W), and the UK MRC/DFID grant G1002369 (S.C.F). L.J.F. received funding in the form of salary from Illumina Cambridge Ltd. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

Funding: The Scottish Government funded this work, as part of their global budget on aquaculture research. The funder had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme grant 245268 (ISEFOR; to L.B.). Further support came from the SwissBOL project (the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, to L.B.) and the Sciex-Scientific Exchange Programme NMS.CH (to L.L. and L.B.). ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

A rapid HPLC method had been developed and used for the simultaneous determination of 10 nucleosides (uracil, uridine, 2'-deoxyuridine, inosine, guanosine, thymidine, adenine, adenosine, 2'-deoxyadenosine and cordycepin) in 10 populations of Cordyceps cicadae, in order to compare four populations of Ophicordyceps sinensis and one population of Cordyceps militaris. Statistical analysis system (SAS) 8.1 was used to analyze the nucleoside data. The pattern of nucleoside distribution was analyzed in the sampled populations of C. cicadae, O. sinensis and C. militaris, using descriptive statistical analysis, nested analysis and Q cluster analysis. The total amount of the 10 nucleosides in coremium was 1,463.89-5,678.21 mu g/g in 10 populations of C. cicadae, 1,369.80-3,941.64 mu g/g in sclerotium. The average contents of the 10 analytes were 4,392.37 mu g/g and 3,016.06 mu/g in coremium and sclerotium, respectively. The coefficient of variation (CV) of nucleosides ranged from 8.36% to 112.36% in coremium of C. cicadae, and from 10.77% to 155.87% in sclerotium of C. cicadae. The CV of the nucleosides was wide within C. cicadae populations. The nested variation analysis by the nine nucleosides' distribution indicated that about 42.29% of the nucleoside variability in coremium was attributable to the differentiation among populations, and the remaining 57.71% resided in the populations. It was also shown that about 28.94% of the variation in sclerotium was expressed between populations, while most of the variation (71.06%) corresponded to the populations.

Although food prices in major world markets are at or near a historical low, there is increasing concern about food security—the ability of the world to provide healthy and environmentally sustainable diets for all its peoples. This article is an introduction to a collection of reviews whose authors were asked to explore the major drivers affecting the food system between now and 2050. A first set of papers explores the main factors affecting the demand for food (population growth, changes in consumption patterns, the effects on the food system of urbanization and the importance of understanding income distributions) with a second examining trends in future food supply (crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and 'wild food'). A third set explores exogenous factors affecting the food system (climate change, competition for water, energy and land, and how agriculture depends on and provides ecosystem services), while the final set explores cross-cutting themes (food system economics, food wastage and links with health). Two of the clearest conclusions that emerge from the collected papers are that major advances in sustainable food production and availability can be achieved with the concerted application of current technologies (given sufficient political will), and the importance of investing in research sooner rather than later to enable the food system to cope with both known and unknown challenges in the coming decades.

The effects of low-level aircraft over-flights on behaviour of harlequin ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus) breeding in central Labrador were quantified during 2000–2002. The Canadian Department of National Defence supports a low-level training programme in the 130 000 km2 Military Training Area of Labrador involving military jets. The Institute for Environmental Monitoring and Research (IEMR) undertakes scientific research into environmental impacts of low-level military jet over-flights. A suite of 17 behavioural categories of paired male and female harlequin ducks was modelled, and a canonical variable representing alert behaviour, inactivity on the water and decreased inactivity out of water in response to over-flights represented 73.1% of the variance in the data cluster and provided marked separation of disturbed and undisturbed groups. Behavioural responses of harlequin ducks to military jets were 23 times stronger than their responses to floatplanes, helicopters and military cargo planes, and the significant interaction of aircraft type and noise indicated that noise may be the primary stressor affecting behaviour. A quadratic response of the canonical variable to noise generated from aircraft during standardized 30-minute observation periods was defined. The multivariate analyses were more robust because they indicated covariance in behavioural categories associated with disturbance that was not originally detected in univariate analyses, suggesting the importance of integrating behaviours other than overt responses. The significant effects of military jet over-flights on harlequin duck behaviour emphasize the need to evaluate potential population consequences of aircraft disturbance.

Concern for the lack of field studies on the effects of low-level military jet over-flights on wildlife resulted in directed research in the Military Training Area of Labrador, 1999--2002. At Fig River, a tributary of the Lower Churchill River, a before-after-control-impact (BACI) study design quantified effects of aircraft overflights on behaviour of individual harlequin ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus) in the 130 000km2 Military Training Area of central Labrador. Noise generated from low-level passes (30--100mabove ground level) by military jets was sudden in onset and high in amplitude (>100 dBA), substantially above background sound levels both at Fig Lake outlet (40--50 dBA) and rapid sections of Fig River (60--70 dBA). Harlequin ducks reacted to noise from military jets with alert behaviour, showing a positive dose-response that especially intensified when noise exceeded 80 dBA. Residual effects, in other words, deviations from normal behaviour patterns after initial responses, were decreased courtship behaviour for up to 1.5 h after, and increased agonistic behaviour for up to 2 h after military jet over-flights. Direct behavioural responses to military jet over-flights were of short duration (generally <1 min), and were unlikely to affect critical behaviours such as feeding and resting in the overall time-activity budgets of breeding pairs. However, the presence of residual effects on behaviour implied whole-body stress responses that were potentially more serious; these require further study because they are potentially more detrimental than immediate responses, andmay not be detected in studies that focus on readily observed overt responses. A dose-response curve relating particular behaviours of harlequin ducks to associated noise of over-flights could be a valuable conservation tool for the research and mitigation of environmental impacts of aircraft and other noise.

Canary Islands: ONR grants N00014-16-1-2973 and N00014-16-1-3017, and the Spanish Central Government Plan Nacional DeepCom CTM2017-88686-P. PLT was supported by ONR grant N00014-18-1-2062 and PLT and MJ acknowledge the support of the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) in the completion of this study. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions. FV and fieldwork at the Azores were supported by ONR grants N00014-15-1-2341 and N00014-17-1-2715 and by the Dutch Research Council (award number 016.Veni.181.086). NAS, PA and JA were funded for writing this paper by Ramon y Cajal, Agustín de Bethencourt and FPU grants from the Spanish Ministry and Cabildo de Tenerife, respectively. ; Fear of predation can induce profound changes in the behaviour and physiology of prey species even if predator encounters are infrequent. For echolocating toothed whales, the use of sound to forage exposes them to detection by eavesdropping predators, but while some species exploit social defences or produce cryptic acoustic signals, deep-diving beaked whales, well known for mass-strandings induced by navy sonar, seem enigmatically defenceless against their main predator, killer whales. Here we test the hypothesis that the stereotyped group diving and vocal behaviour of beaked whales has benefits for abatement of predation risk and thus could have been driven by fear of predation over evolutionary time. Biologging data from 14 Blainville's and 12 Cuvier's beaked whales show that group members have an extreme synchronicity, overlapping vocal foraging time by 98% despite hunting individually, thereby reducing group temporal availability for acoustic detection by killer whales to <25%. Groups also perform a coordinated silent ascent in an unpredictable direction, covering a mean of 1 km horizontal distance from their last vocal position. This tactic sacrifices 35% of foraging time but reduces by an order of magnitude the risk of interception by killer whales. These predator abatement behaviours have likely served beaked whales over millions of years, but may become maladaptive by playing a role in mass strandings induced by man-made predator-like sonar sounds. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed