Hasil untuk "General. Including nature conservation, geographical distribution"

H. Pereira, P. Leadley, V. Proença et al.

J. T. Emlen

R. Albert, A. Barabási

The emergence of order in natural systems is a constant source of inspiration for both physical and biological sciences. While the spatial order characterizing for example the crystals has been the basis of many advances in contemporary physics, most complex systems in nature do not offer such high degree of order. Many of these systems form complex networks whose nodes are the elements of the system and edges represent the interactions between them. Traditionally complex networks have been described by the random graph theory founded in 1959 by Paul Erdohs and Alfred Renyi. One of the defining features of random graphs is that they are statistically homogeneous, and their degree distribution (characterizing the spread in the number of edges starting from a node) is a Poisson distribution. In contrast, recent empirical studies, including the work of our group, indicate that the topology of real networks is much richer than that of random graphs. In particular, the degree distribution of real networks is a power-law, indicating a heterogeneous topology in which the majority of the nodes have a small degree, but there is a significant fraction of highly connected nodes that play an important role in the connectivity of the network. The scale-free topology of real networks has very important consequences on their functioning. For example, we have discovered that scale-free networks are extremely resilient to the random disruption of their nodes. On the other hand, the selective removal of the nodes with highest degree induces a rapid breakdown of the network to isolated subparts that cannot communicate with each other. The non-trivial scaling of the degree distribution of real networks is also an indication of their assembly and evolution. Indeed, our modeling studies have shown us that there are general principles governing the evolution of networks. Most networks start from a small seed and grow by the addition of new nodes which attach to the nodes already in the system. This process obeys preferential attachment: the new nodes are more likely to connect to nodes with already high degree. We have proposed a simple model based on these two principles wich was able to reproduce the power-law degree distribution of real networks. Perhaps even more importantly, this model paved the way to a new paradigm of network modeling, trying to capture the evolution of networks, not just their static topology.

R. Steenweg, M. Hebblewhite, R. Kays et al.

Countries committed to implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity's 2011–2020 strategic plan need effective tools to monitor global trends in biodiversity. Remote cameras are a rapidly growing technology that has great potential to transform global monitoring for terrestrial biodiversity and can be an important contributor to the call for measuring Essential Biodiversity Variables. Recent advances in camera technology and methods enable researchers to estimate changes in abundance and distribution for entire communities of animals and to identify global drivers of biodiversity trends. We suggest that interconnected networks of remote cameras will soon monitor biodiversity at a global scale, help answer pressing ecological questions, and guide conservation policy. This global network will require greater collaboration among remote-camera studies and citizen scientists, including standardized metadata, shared protocols, and security measures to protect records about sensitive species. With modest investment in infrastructure, and continued innovation, synthesis, and collaboration, we envision a global network of remote cameras that not only provides real-time biodiversity data but also serves to connect people with nature.

C. McOwen, Lauren V. Weatherdon, J. V. Bochove et al.

Abstract Background Saltmarshes are extremely valuable but often overlooked ecosystems, contributing to livelihoods locally and globally through the associated ecosystem services they provide, including fish production, carbon storage and coastal protection. Despite their importance, knowledge of the current spatial distribution (occurrence and extent) of saltmarshes is incomplete. In light of increasing anthropogenic and environmental pressures on coastal ecosystems, global data on the occurrence and extent of saltmarshes are needed to draw attention to these critical ecosystems and to the benefits they generate for people. Such data can support resource management, strengthen decision-making and facilitate tracking of progress towards global conservation targets set by multilateral environmental agreements, such as the Aichi Biodiversity Targets of the United Nations' (UN's) Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Ramsar Convention. New information Here, we present the most complete dataset on saltmarsh occurrence and extent at the global scale. This dataset collates 350,985 individual occurrences of saltmarshes and presents the first global estimate of their known extent. The dataset captures locational and contextual data for saltmarsh in 99 countries worldwide. A total of 5,495,089 hectares of mapped saltmarsh across 43 countries and territories are represented in a Geographic Information Systems polygon shapefile. This estimate is at the relatively low end of previous estimates (2.2-40 Mha), however, we took the conservative approach in the mapping exercise and there are notable areas in Canada, Northern Russia, South America and Africa where saltmarshes are known to occur that require additional spatial data. Nevertheless, the most extensive saltmarsh worldwide are found outside the tropics, notably including the low-lying, ice-free coasts, bays and estuaries of the North Atlantic which are well represented in our global polygon dataset. Therefore, despite the gaps, we believe that, while incomplete, our global polygon data cover many of the important areas in Europe, the USA and Australia.

Omkar Sanjay Damle

Rhyothemis plutonia Selys, 1883 was recorded from Dhela, Uttarakhand, representing the first confirmed occurrence of the species in the state and western Himalaya. This finding extends the known distribution of the species by over 500 km westward from previously reported records in Nepal and northeastern India.

Manish Mathur, Preet Mathur

Xiao Liu, Xiao Liu, John P. Dunne et al.

Trajectories of >1,600 virtual Argo profiling floats and their sampled variability in key ocean physical and biogeochemical variables are simulated using a 0.125° global ocean physical-biogeochemical model (NOAA GFDL’s MOM6-SIS2-COBALTv2) and an offline Lagrangian particle tracking algorithm. Virtual floats are deployed at 92 locations within 26-50°N, 114-132°W in the California Current System (CCS) during the summers and winters of 2008-2012 with varying sampling strategies adopted (e.g., floats are set to park and drift at different depths, and to profile at different intervals). The overall direction and spatial spreads of simulated float trajectories depend on the latitudes of deployment locations with the largest area and variability sampled by floats deployed in the central CCS. Floats drifting at shallower depths (200 m and 500 m) tend to sample larger variability associated with larger sampled area, while those drifting at 1000 m show the strongest association with eddy-like ocean features. Sensitivity experiments with varying sampling intervals suggest that spatiotemporal variability in float observables are adequately sampled with a typical 5-day or 10-day interval. Furthermore, simulated float trajectories and sampled variability are compared against 3 real float trajectories and along-track observations. Results suggest that the fidelity of both our model simulations and the prevalent Argo float sampling design are generally satisfactory in characterizing interior ocean biogeochemical variability. This study provides new insights to inform optimal float deployment planning, sampling strategies, and data interpretation.

Hang-Fei Liu, Xiaohua Huang, Guoliang Pang et al.

Assessing the current forces exerted on a semi-submersible truss fish cage is crucial for understanding drag force distribution and ensuring the structural safety. The present study employs computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods and porous media theory to predict the drag forces on a semi-submersible truss fish cage, providing a detailed description of the magnitude and distribution patterns of drag forces on the plane nets, pontoons, columns, and braces. Results indicate that the side plane nets bear the highest forces, contributing 24.3% of the total force. The pontoons and thick columns are the next most affected, contributing 18.7% and 13.8% of the total force, respectively, while the middle cross braces bear the least force at 3.7%. A decrease in current speed leads to reduced drag forces on the downstream side plane nets, columns, pontoons, and braces. However, the projected area of each component in the current direction is a critical factor influencing changes in drag forces. Additionally, the torque generated by the drag forces on the semi-submersible truss fish cage is examined. Center position of the torque can alter the torque direction exerted on the truss net cage, and the transition occurs between 18 cm and 19 cm. The present investigation provides a comprehensive evaluation of the drag force distribution on the semi-submersible truss fish cage, which is significant practical engineering implications.

P. De Smedt, Nathan T Jones, Benedikt Kästle et al.

Wild animals sold as pets are at a higher risk of extinction than animals that are not traded. Invertebrates are often overlooked in national and international laws designed to control the global pet trade. Among these invertebrates, terrestrial isopods—which function as detritivores—have traditionally been kept to clean terraria housing vertebrates and other arthropods. Over the past 2 decades, they have gained popularity among hobbyists due to their ease of care, vibrant colors, minimal space requirements, and harmlessness to humans. Many traded species have limited distribution areas, sometimes only a single locality. Collecting these species in the wild poses a threat to local populations. Species are continuously being added to the online market. Many of these species, especially from tropical regions in Southeast Asia, Central America, and South America, have not been described scientifically. In addition to threatening native populations, this trade in live specimens increases the probability of non‐native species introductions and invasions to new regions. Given this growing interest, we advocate for including terrestrial isopods in national and international regulations. We encourage scientists to assess the scale of the terrestrial isopod pet trade, scientifically describe traded species, and collect distribution and ecological data. We ask the International Union for Conservation of Nature to establish a terrestrial isopod specialist group to assess the status of traded species, which would facilitate their inclusion in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. We urge policy makers to make conservative lists of species that can be traded applying the precautionary principle in regulating the trade in species with an unknown conservation status and invasion risk.

Yi-Ting Fu, Teng Fei, Wenlin Huang et al.

Abstract Environmental risks have become significant impediments to economic and social development. Increasing awareness of environmental risks can promote pro-environmental behaviors, thereby helping mitigate such risks. Currently, studies focusing on the extraction of environmental risk awareness are limited by several deficiencies, including the use of small data sets, brief analysis periods, and narrow research areas. To address these limitations, this study introduces a novel methodological framework that integrates Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques with mass media and academic archives to extract environmental risk awareness over extended periods and large spatial scales. By applying geographic entity and focus extraction, coupled with environmental risk quantification, we examined nearly four decades of environmental risk awareness in China. The results reveal heightened awareness of natural disasters and climate change, while understanding of biological invasions and anthropogenic-related risks remains limited during the past four decades. Moreover, temporal, spatial, and thematic variations in the public’s and academics’ awareness are observed, with academia focusing more on systemic hazards and displaying a broader spatial distribution of awareness. National administrative centers significantly influence environmental risk awareness compared to provincial centers. Our research offers a useful tool for environmental risk awareness extraction, providing valuable insights for policy formulation and environmental conservation.

Kristýna Kantnerová, Nils Kuhlbusch, D. Juchelka et al.

Mingtao Yan, Jianji Zhao, Mingyue Yan

J. Habel, Moses Mulwa, Laura Wagner et al.

Species respond differently to landscape structures and environmental changes. In nature conservation, however, responses of a few indicator groups are often generalised to the ecosystem level. In this study, we analyse how birds and butterflies respond to identical landscape structures and environmental gradients across a habitat mosaic in southern Kenya. The study area represents natural coastal forest (forest interior and forest edge) as well as different agro-environments (such as orchards and pastures), which partly may also be suitable surrogate habitats for forest species. We assessed birds and butterflies during the same time along identical line transects, covering the dry and the rainy season. The obtained results indicate that both species groups depict habitat types in some aspects similarly but in others in somewhat different ways. Thus, strongest differences in community similarity were visible between forest interior and the open landscape like pastures for both taxa. The forest community strongly overlapped with orchards for birds but less so for butterflies. Thus, orchards in close geographic proximity to natural forests might be a possible surrogate habitat for certain forest bird species, but less so for more sedentary forest butterfly species. The temporal variation in species richness, abundances, and community structures was much stronger for butterflies compared to birds. Thus, seasonality in tropical ecosystems has to be considered especially when interpreting community structures of butterflies, but much less so in birds. In general, birds and butterflies proved to be suitable indicator groups to evaluate ecologically landscape structures in East Africa, with birds more representing the landscape level and butterflies more the fine-grained habitat scale.

Can Ke, Lixin Gong, Yang Geng et al.

Climate change may diminish biodiversity; thus, it is urgent to predict how species’ ranges may shift in the future by integrating multiple factors involving more taxa. Bats are particularly sensitive to climate change due to their high surface‐to‐volume ratio. However, few studies have considered geographic variables associated with roost availability and even fewer have linked the distributions of bats to their thermoregulation and energy regulation traits. We used species distribution models to predict the potential distributions of 12 bat species in China under current and future greenhouse gas emission scenarios (SSP1‐2.6 and SSP5‐8.5) and examined factors that could affect species’ range shifts, including climatic, geographic, habitat, and human activity variables and wing surface‐to‐mass ratio (S‐MR). The results suggest that Ia io, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, and Rhinolophus rex should be given the highest priority for conservation in future climate conservation strategies. Most species were predicted to move northward, except for I. io and R. rex, which moved southward. Temperature seasonality, distance to forest, and distance to karst or cave were the main environmental factors affecting the potential distributions of bats. We found significant relationships between S‐MR and geographic distribution, current potential distribution, and future potential distribution in the 2050s. Our work highlights the importance of analyzing range shifts of species with multifactorial approaches, especially for species traits related to thermoregulation and energy regulation, to provide targeted conservation strategies.

Katy R. Goodwin, Alan Kirschbaum, Erin H. Gillam

Abstract Passive acoustic monitoring is a standard technique for studying bat ecology and behavior. However, an issue that has received little attention is how to appropriately analyze data within a long‐term acoustic monitoring dataset when the equipment has been replaced and updated. Equipment changes are often inevitable, especially for microphones, which need to be replaced regularly due to extended weather exposure and associated reductions in recording quality. We compared 2 ultrasonic microphone models (Wildlife Acoustics SMM‐U1 and SMM‐U2) by deploying them side‐by‐side with the same acoustic detector unit. We tested 9 or 10 microphones per model in field deployments lasting an average of 9 nights. We compared triggering frequency, species classification, detection rates, and echolocation call parameters (as indicators of signal quality) from both microphones. The vast majority (97%) of our 25,949 paired recordings were captured simultaneously by both microphones. Yet, the SMM‐U2 outperformed the SMM‐U1 in terms of proportion of files classifiable to the species level (70% versus 61%), rate of bat detections per night (1–6.5 more detections per night depending on species), and recording quality. Based on our results, we propose a correction factor to facilitate direct comparison of datasets collected with these 2 different microphones. Our study will assist bat researchers in selecting appropriate equipment and accounting for potential biases in long‐term acoustic monitoring programs.

Charles Richard Haddad, Wanda Wesołowska

Following a rapid biodiversity assessment of spiders in the arid western interior of South Africa, we report on the occurrence of some poorly known and new species of chrysilline jumping spiders. Helafricanus patellaris (Simon, 1901), Heliocapensis capensis (Wesołowska, 1986), H. mirabilis (Wesołowska, 1986) and Menemerus lesserti Lawrence, 1927 are recorded from the Northern Cape Province for the first time, and Heliocapensis maluti (Wesołowska & Haddad, 2014) (Lesotho) and Heliophanus deformis Wesołowska, 1986 (Angola) are recorded from South Africa for the first time, both also from the Northern Cape. The hitherto unknown females of Heliocapensis mirabilis (Wesołowska, 1986) and Icius pulchellus Haddad & Wesołowska, 2011 and the male of M. lesserti are described for the first time. Three new species are described: Icius jacksoni sp. nov. (♂), Menemerus foordi sp. nov. (♂) and Natta triguttata sp. nov. (♂♀). One new combination, Afraflacilla matabelensis (Wesołowska, 2011), comb. nov. (ex Pseudicius Simon, 1885), is proposed. We present the first comprehensive molecular analysis of South Africa Chrysillini jumping spiders, based on the cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene, which supports the monophyly of all but two genera (Helafricanus Wesołowska, 1986 and Heliophanus C.L. Koch, 1833), which we briefly discuss.

Dennis J. Edgell

Stories from folklore and mythology should not be taken literally, either as true historical events or as scientific facts. However, there may be useful educational analogies to be learned from mythological allegories. My “Meteorology and Myth” series develops engaging teaching modules for use in general education geoscience courses. In this example, the reinforcement of basic concepts in geography and atmospheric science can be made through discussion about the character of Japan’s sky gods. Japan’s Shinto religion holds Raijin as a god of thunderstorms and Fūjin as a god of wind. These sky deities were depicted as demonic, destructive forces of nature in traditional Japanese art. A lesson was developed for teaching college-level geography, weather, and climate. The audience for the lecture is students in general education, including non-geography majors, be they in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) or in the arts and humanities. Myths such as Raijin’s penchant for eating the navels of children or why Fūjin’s skin is green are used to vividly illustrate weather concepts. Readers and future geography teachers are able to connect meteorological principles to legend, art, and culture. One of the goals of this project is to help bridge the gap that often exists between the natural sciences and the humanities; it is in this gap that geographers thrive. Students majoring in the arts and humanities could be stimulated to learn science principles, while students in the sciences might gain a greater appreciation for art history and culture. Raijin is the Shinto god of thunder and lightning, and Fūjin is a Shinto god of windstorms, including tornadoes (Levin 2008). Raijin and Fūjin were revered as gods (kami), but they were usually depicted in traditional arts as demonic oni, or ogres (Fig. 1). These deities personify the destructive forces of nature and are ubiquitous in Japanese folklore, art history, iconography, and architecture. Their popularity has survived to modern popular Japanese culture, and it is through popular culture that Raijin and Fūjin have diffused to western audiences.

Juliana Tavora, Glauber Acunha Gonçalves, Elisa Helena Fernandes et al.

Turbid coastal plumes carry sediments, nutrients, and pollutants. Satellite remote sensing is an effective tool for studying water quality parameters in these turbid plumes while covering a wide range of hydrological and meteorological conditions. However, determining boundaries of turbid coastal plumes poses a challenge. Traditionally, thresholds are the approach of choice for plume detection as they are simple to implement and offer fast processing (especially important for large datasets). However, thresholds are site-specific and need to be re-adjusted for different datasets or when meteorological and hydrodynamical conditions differ. This study compares state-of-the-art threshold approaches with a novel algorithm (PLUMES) for detecting turbid coastal plumes from satellite remote sensing, tested for Patos Lagoon, Brazil. PLUMES is a semi-supervised, and spatially explicit algorithm, and does not assume a unique plume boundary. Results show that the thresholds and PLUMES approach each provide advantages and limitations. Compared with thresholds, the PLUMES algorithm can differentiate both low or high turbidity plumes from the ambient background waters and limits detection of coastal resuspension while automatically retrieving metrics of detected plumes (e.g., area, mean intensity, core location). The study highlights the potential of the PLUMES algorithm for detecting turbid coastal plumes from satellite remote sensing products, which can have significantly positive implications for coastal management. However, PLUMES, despite its demonstrated effectiveness in this study, has not yet been applied to other study sites.