Delineating regions is an important first step in understanding the evolution and biogeography of faunas. However, quantitative approaches are often limited at a global scale, particularly in the marine realm. Reef fishes are the most diversified group of marine fishes, and compared to most other phyla, their taxonomy and geographical distributions are relatively well known. Based on 169 checklists spread across all tropical oceans, the present work aims to quantitatively delineate biogeographical entities for reef fishes at a global scale. Four different classifications were used to account for uncertainty related to species identification and the quality of checklists. The four classifications delivered converging results, with biogeographical entities that can be hierarchically delineated into realms, regions and provinces. All classifications indicated that the Indo-Pacific has a weak internal structure, with a high similarity from east to west. In contrast, the Atlantic and the Eastern Tropical Pacific were more strongly structured, which may be related to the higher levels of endemism in these two realms. The “Coral Triangle”, an area of the Indo-Pacific which contains the highest species diversity for reef fishes, was not clearly delineated by its species composition. Our results show a global concordance with recent works based upon endemism, environmental factors, expert knowledge, or their combination. Our quantitative delineation of biogeographical entities, however, tests the robustness of the results and yields easily replicated patterns. The similarity between our results and those from other phyla, such as corals, suggests that our approach may be of broad utility in describing and understanding global marine biodiversity patterns.

In the marine realm, the tropics host an extraordinary diversity of taxa but the drivers underlying the global distribution of marine organisms are still under scrutiny and we still lack an accurate global predictive model. Using a spatial database for 6336 tropical reef fi shes, we attempted to predict species richness according to geometric, biogeographical and environmental explanatory variables. In particular, we aimed to evaluate and disentangle the predictive performances of temperature, habitat area, connectivity, mid-domain eff ect and biogeographical region on reef fi sh species richness. We used boosted regression trees, a fl exible machine-learning technique, to build our predictive model and structural equation modeling to test for potential ' mediation eff ects ' among predictors. Our model proved to be accurate, explaining 80% of the total deviance in fi sh richness using a cross-validated procedure. Coral reef area and biogeographical region were the primary predictors of reef fi sh species richness, followed by coast length, connectivity, mid-domain eff ect and sea surface temperature, with interactions between the region and other predictors. Important indirect eff ects of water temperature on reef fi sh richness, mediated by coral reef area, were also identifi ed. Th e relationship between environmental predictors and species richness varied markedly among biogeographical regions. Our analysis revealed that a few easily accessible variables can accurately predict reef fi sh species richness. Th ey also highlight concerns regarding ongoing environmental declines, with region-specifi c responses to variation in environmental conditions predicting a variable response to anthropogenic impacts.

Global QoL is not improved with GemVin, although advantages in some components of QoL were apparent. GemVin is less toxic than standard cisplatin-based chemotherapy. There is a nonsignificant slight survival advantage with cisplatin-based chemotherapy. GemVin could be offered to advanced NSCLC patients who express concern about toxicity.

In summary, GDP is an active regimen for patients with relapsed or refractory Hodgkin's disease. The response rate is similar to the rates of other current salvage regimens, it can be given to outpatients with tolerable toxicity and it does not inhibit the mobilization of autologous stem cells.

Dr. Iglesias is an employee of Eli Lilly and has received compensation in stock options as part of a compensation package.