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

F. Valladares, S. Matesanz, F. Guilhaumon et al.

Species are the unit of analysis in many global change and conservation biology studies; however, species are not uniform entities but are composed of different, sometimes locally adapted, populations differing in plasticity. We examined how intraspecific variation in thermal niches and phenotypic plasticity will affect species distributions in a warming climate. We first developed a conceptual model linking plasticity and niche breadth, providing five alternative intraspecific scenarios that are consistent with existing literature. Secondly, we used ecological niche-modeling techniques to quantify the impact of each intraspecific scenario on the distribution of a virtual species across a geographically realistic setting. Finally, we performed an analogous modeling exercise using real data on the climatic niches of different tree provenances. We show that when population differentiation is accounted for and dispersal is restricted, forecasts of species range shifts under climate change are even more pessimistic than those using the conventional assumption of homogeneously high plasticity across a species' range. Suitable population-level data are not available for most species so identifying general patterns of population differentiation could fill this gap. However, the literature review revealed contrasting patterns among species, urging greater levels of integration among empirical, modeling and theoretical research on intraspecific phenotypic variation.

A. Peterson, Jorge Soberón, R. Pearson et al.

Jean-Baptiste Ruffio, Jerry W. Xuan, Yayaati Chachan et al.

The accretion of icy and rocky solids during the formation of a gas giant planet is poorly constrained and challenging to model. Refractory species, like sulfur, are only present in solids in the protoplanetary disk where planets form. Measuring their abundance in planetary atmospheres is one of the most direct ways of constraining the extent and mechanism of solid accretion. Using the unprecedented sensitivity of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), we measure a detailed chemical make-up of three massive gas giants orbiting the star HR~8799 including direct detections of H$_2$O, CO, CH$_4$, CO$_2$, H$_2$S, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O. We find these planets are uniformly and highly enriched in heavy elements compared to the star irrespective of their volatile (carbon and oxygen) or refractory (sulfur) nature, which strongly suggests efficient accretion of solids during their formation. This composition closely resembles that of Jupiter and Saturn and demonstrates that this enrichment also occurs in systems of multiple gas giant planets orbiting stars beyond the Solar System. This discovery hints at a shared origin for the heavy element enrichment of giant planets across a wider range of planet masses and orbital separations than previously anticipated.

Jun Liang, Jun Liang, Yongdong Zhou et al.

IntroductionLike pelagic fishes, cephalopods represent fishery resources with high worldwide potential and an important evolutionary node animal group. Thus, exploring the spatial and seasonal variations in cephalopod distribution and their associations with environmental factors is important for elucidating cephalopod diversity and the distribution of cephalopods under changing environmental conditions and for developing reasonable resource management and conservation measures.MethodsOn the basis of trawl survey data from 123 stations in the coastal waters of Zhejiang, China, in the spring and autumn of 2021, the relationships among the cephalopod species composition and diversity characteristics and the spatial and seasonal changes and environmental factors were investigated via the relative importance index (IRI), the alpha diversity index, and the GAM.ResultsThe results revealed that the cephalopods in the coastal waters of Zhejiang belonged to three orders, six families, and 10 genera and that the dominant species were gradually replaced by species of minor economic importance and endemic small-scale fishery species. In spring, Uroteuthis duvaucelii was the dominant species, the resource density in the southern coastal waters of Zhejiang was relatively high, and the overall distribution increased from northeast to southwest. In autumn, U. duvaucelii and Abralia multihamata were the dominant species, and the coastal waters of Zhejiang presented two high-density distribution areas in the northern and central waters, with lower resource density in the southern waters. Analysis of the alpha diversity index revealed relatively low cephalopod community diversity, with significant differences in spatial and seasonal distributions. The GAM revealed that, in spring, surface dissolved oxygen and sea bottom temperature led to significant changes in cephalopod resource density (p<0.05), and water depth significantly affected cephalopod resource density (p<0.01); in autumn, only water depth significantly affected cephalopod resource density (p<0.01).DiscussionThe cephalopod resources in the coastal waters of Zhejiang are under the dual stresses of fishing and environmental changes. The protection and restoration of traditional economic cephalopod resources are needed to ensure their sustainable development and utilization.

Sophie L. Loca, Amy Garbett, Jonathan D. R. Houghton et al.

Abstract Elasmobranchs, specifically skate species (superorder Batoidea), are at risk of extinction, with over one‐third currently listed as Endangered, exacerbated due to their k‐selected life strategy. A regional conservation approach is required to support the collection of rigorous, species‐specific data alongside collaborative efforts across sectors and jurisdictions. Skate species that extend beyond jurisdictional boundaries encounter additional complexities from divergent national legal frameworks, monitoring requirements, and conservation priorities, resulting in inconsistent data collection. Here we present an innovative research “toolbox,” initially devised for the Critically Endangered flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) in the North‐East Atlantic, but applicable to most demersal elasmobranchs. This toolbox offers a systematic approach (Why, What, Who, Where, and When?) to obtain critical information for the conservation of elasmobranchs, with a focus on standardization and cross‐border collaboration. Recent advancements in understanding flapper skate ecology highlight the potential for regional conservation initiatives, emphasizing the importance of coordinated actions, and serve as an illustrative example within the context of the “toolbox.”

Jon Wang, Meng Lu

The use of geospatially dependent information, which has been stipulated as a law in geography, to model geographic patterns forms the cornerstone of geostatistics, and has been inherited in many data science based techniques as well, such as statistical learning algorithms. Still, we observe hesitations in interpreting geographic dependency scientifically as a property in geography, since interpretations of such dependency are subject to model choice with different hypotheses of trends and stationarity. Rather than questioning what can be considered as trends or why it is non-stationary, in this work, we share and consolidate a view that the properties of geographic dependency, being it trending or stationary, are essentially variations can be explained further by unobserved or unknown predictors, and not intrinsic to geographic space. Particularly, geoinformation dependency properties are in fact a projection of high dimensional feature space formed by all potential predictors into the lower dimension of geographic space, where geographic coordinates are equivalent to other predictors for modelling geographic patterns. This work brings together different aspects of geographic dependency, including similarity and heterogeneity, under a coherent framework, and aligns with the understanding of modelling in high dimensional feature space with different modelling concept including the classical geostatistics, Gaussian Process Regression and popular data science based spatial modelling techniques.

Dengyang Jiang, Dongyang Liu, Zanyi Wang et al.

Distribution Matching Distillation (DMD) facilitates efficient inference by distilling multi-step diffusion models into few-step variants. Concurrently, Reinforcement Learning (RL) has emerged as a vital tool for aligning generative models with human preferences. While both represent critical post-training stages for large-scale diffusion models, existing studies typically treat them as independent, sequential processes, leaving a systematic framework for their unification largely unexplored. In this work, we demonstrate that jointly optimizing these two objectives yields mutual benefits: RL enables more preference-aware and controllable distillation rather than uniformly compressing the full data distribution, while DMD serves as an effective regularizer to mitigate reward hacking during RL training. Building on these insights, we propose DMDR, a unified framework that incorporates Reward-Tilted Distribution Matching optimization alongside two dynamic distillation training strategies in the initial stage, followed by the joint DMD and RL optimization in the second stage. Extensive experiments demonstrate that DMDR achieves state-of-the-art visual quality and prompt adherence among few-step generation methods, even surpassing the performance of its multi-step teacher model.

HuaWei Hu, Yanqiang Wei, Wenying Wang et al.

Climate change has been regarded as a major factor affecting the geographic distribution of many endemic rare species on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Tibetan antelope, an endemic rare wildlife, is identified as a national first-class protected wild animal in China. To explore the impacts of human activities and climate change on the spatial distribution pattern of Tibetan antelope, the MaxEnt model was used to simulate the potential distribution of Tibetan antelope under four Shared Socio-economic Pathways in 2050s and 2070s and combined the modelling results of the main forage plants considering the food chains. The results showed that the environment indicators, e.g., elevation, mean temperature of wettest quarter, slope, mean temperature of warmest quarter, landcover, max temperature of warmest month, precipitation of driest month, Stipa capillata, Oxytropis ochrocephala, human influence intensity, were the main factors controlling the distribution of Tibetan antelope. The potential distributions of Tibetan antelope and their 10 forage plants were significantly different under future climate scenarios such as expanding, contracting and shifting. The mean elevation of suitable habitats for Tibetan antelope all increased under the four future scenarios compared with current value. There were protection gaps for Tibetan antelope. Considering the long-distance migration, the integrity of the ecosystem including Qiangtang National Nature Reserve, Altun National Nature Reserve, and Kekexili National Nature Reserve would be established for Tibetan antelope. Our findings will provide important references for the protection and investigation of Tibetan antelope.

Noah Giebink, Amrita Gupta, D. Veríssimo et al.

Measuring public attitudes toward wildlife provides crucial insights into human relationships with nature and helps monitor progress toward Global Biodiversity Framework targets. Yet, conducting such assessments at a global scale presents challenges. Digital news and social media offer a rich record of public discourse, but extracting information about attitudes toward wildlife from these sources is not straightforward. Selecting effective search terms is complicated by differences between everyday names for taxa and their scientific or formal common names, and raw news and social media data are often cluttered with irrelevant content and syndicated articles. To address search term selection, we used a folk taxonomy approach that derives recognizable species groupings from shared common name endings. We identified syndicated articles by using cosine similarity on term frequency‐inverse document frequency vectors. To filter out irrelevant content while minimizing the need for corpus‐specific annotation and model training, we developed a 2‐stage relevance filter that uses unsupervised learning to reveal common topics and an open‐source zero‐shot large language model (LLM) to assign topics to article titles and estimate relevance. We conducted sentiment, topic, and volume analyses on the resulting data. To illustrate our method, we examined news and X posts containing search terms for bats, pangolins, elephants, and gorillas from 2019 through 2021, a period that covers the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Up to 62% of articles containing bat search terms were unrelated to bats as wildlife, underscoring the importance of relevance filtering. News articles mentioning horseshoe bats, initially implicated in the outbreak, increased significantly in January 2020, with significant sentiment shifts in news and X posts mentioning horseshoe bats emerging later (October 2020). Our methods provide a practical application of modern, general‐purpose natural language processing (NLP) tools, including LLMs, for analyzing public perceptions of biodiversity relative to current events or conservation outreach and marketing campaigns.

Chao Liu, Chao Liu, Lin Zhang et al.

There is much controversy surrounding factors that affect the distribution of mangrove plants across the intertidal gradient. It was previously hypothesized that mangrove zonation was attributed to tidal sorting (TSH) of its propagules according to size (weight) or differential ability of propagules to establish in deep water. However, observational and experimental evidence have provided little support for the actual mechanism(s) of mangrove zonation. In general, species distribution pattern is the consequence of propagule dispersal. The specific gravity of water-borne mangrove propagules may affect their buoyancy, with inherent links to dispersal, thereby potentially influencing tree zonation. Propagule specific gravity can influence the distribution of mangroves in the context of global change, particularly in response to changes in seawater salinity. In this study, we measured the specific gravity and weight of 35 mangrove species propagules. There was no correlation between the weight of the propagule and its specific gravity. The specific gravity of propagules of true mangrove species was significantly greater than that of semi-mangrove. The results of the correlation between propagule specific gravity and the relative surface elevation of field distribution support the hypothesis that propagules are subject to tidal sorting and are not related to weight but to specific gravity. This newfound understanding of mangrove dispersal and distribution is critical in the context of mangrove protection and restoration, especially in projecting the effects of anthropogenic activities and global change on mangrove communities.

Kinga Skorupska, Rafał Stryjek, Izabela Wierzbowska et al.

Technology is increasingly used in Nature Reserves and National Parks around the world to support conservation efforts. Endangered species, such as the Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx), are monitored by a network of automatic photo traps. Yet, this method produces vast amounts of data, which needs to be prepared, analyzed and interpreted. Therefore, researchers working in this area increasingly need support to process this incoming information. One opportunity is to seek support from volunteer Citizen Scientists who can help label the data, however, it is challenging to retain their interest. Another way is to automate the process with image recognition using convolutional neural networks. During the panel, we will discuss considerations related to nature research and conservation as well as opportunities for the use of Citizen Science and Machine Learning to expedite the process of data preparation, labelling and analysis.

Antonin Colot, Elisabetta Perotti, Mevludin Glavic et al.

This paper considers an incremental Volt/Var control scheme for distribution systems with high integration of inverter-interfaced distributed generation (such as photovoltaic systems). The incremental Volt/Var controller is implemented with the objective of minimizing reactive power usage while maintaining voltages within safe limits sufficiently often. To this end, the parameters of the incremental Volt/Var controller are obtained by solving a chance-constrained optimization problem, where constraints are designed to ensure that voltage violations do not occur more often than a pre-specified probability. This approach leads to cost savings in a controlled, predictable way, while still avoiding significant over- or under-voltage issues. The proposed chance-constrained problem is solved using a successive convex approximation method. Once the gains are broadcast to the inverters, no additional communication is required since the controller is implemented locally at the inverters. The proposed method is successfully tested on a low-voltage single-phase 42-nodes network and on the three-phase unbalanced IEEE 123-node test system.

Xiaobin Wang, Zexin Wu, Minghui Ding et al.

A recent study by Wang {\it et al.}(arXiv:2309.01417) proposed a novel connection between the nature of the parton distribution function (PDF) and the characteristics of its moments. In this study, we apply these findings to analyze the evolution of the pion valence quark PDF, garnering valuable qualitative insights. Firstly, we validate the non-negativity and continuity of the PDF across a wide range of scales, indicating the logical consistency of our chosen evolution scheme. Subsequently, we examine the unimodality of both the PDF and its transformed counterpart, the xPDF, i.e., the parton distribution function multiplied by the momentum fraction. We observe a smooth evolution of the peak position of the xPDF towards the small-$x$ region with increasing scale, while intriguingly, the PDF undergoes a phase of bimodal competition as the energy scale evolves.

Manuel Medina-Amaya, Clara Luz Miceli-Méndez, Miguel A. Pérez-Farrera et al.

Abstract Dalbergia is economically essential for its high-quality rosewood wood in fine furniture. Thus, there is a high demand for wood, which has led to illegal logging. Dalbergia calderonii Standl. is associated with tropical deciduous forests, where there is a high rate of deforestation, leading to the decline of the species' natural populations. The knowledge of its potential areas of presence and associated environments can contribute to species conservation. Here, we modeled the potential distribution of D. calderonii and identified areas with remnants. We found that the potential distribution model for D. calderonii predicts two geographically separate areas, one in southern Mexico and the other in northern Central America; thus, we also modeled them as two independent populations and compared their ecological niches. We transferred all models into the Last Interglacial, the Last Glacial Maximum, and the mid-Holocene climatic scenarios to understand the species' recent biogeographic history. We found that 65% of the species' potential distribution comprises sites with sparse vegetation and bare soil; besides, we found no significant differences between the niches of the Mexican and Central American populations. The transferences to the past scenarios showed that the potential history of the species distribution had been characterized by dynamics of expansions and contractions describing commonly geographical isolations but also including stages of continuum distributions. We suggest that future conservation strategies prioritize both populations independently, based on their disjunct distribution.

Yibo Hu, Yibo Hu, Yibo Hu et al.

The Yellow Sea is a strongly tidally-driven and highly stratified shallow sea due to the presence of the Yellow Sea Cold Water Masses. Observations show that the near-inertial event sustains for 10 days with a peak near-inertial velocity of 0.15m/s, which accounts for 30% of the total velocity during the passage of a cyclone. Near-inertial velocity is dominated by the first baroclinic mode with one zero-crossing at the depth of the maximum stratification and two velocity peaks in the mixed layer and below the thermocline, respectively. Combined with numerical simulation analysis, it was found that the two velocity peaks are controlled by stratification and tides. In the mixed layer, the near-inertial peak is induced by wind stress, but the strong stratification constrains the downward propagation of the near-inertial energy. With respect to the near-inertial peak below the thermocline, it is associated with a barotropic wave generated at the coast and propagating offshore. However, the near-inertial flow within the bottom layer is reduced by the eddy viscosity of the tidal currents. Within the thermocline, the pronounced vertical convection due to velocity shear weakens the intensity of the near-inertial flow.

Cludio Oddino, Francisco Giordano, Juan Paredes et al.

Las enfermedades son el principal problema sanitario del maní (Arachis hypogaea L.), siendo viruela (Cercospora arachidicola Hori y Cercosporidium personatum (Berck. & Curt Deighton)) la más importante del mundo, y la que mayores pérdidas produce en nuestra región. Su manejo es a través del control químico, siendo importante evaluar los nuevos fungicidas que se registran en el cultivo. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar el efecto de nuevos fungicidas sobre la intensidad de viruela y el rendimiento de maní. El estudio se realizó en 2015/16 y 2016/17, en General Cabrera y Vicuña Mackenna, Córdoba. Se probaron los tratamientos: T1) Pyraclostrobin(13,3%)+epoxiconazole(5%)(750cc/ha), T2) Trifloxistrobin(18,75%)+prothioconazole(17,5%)(700cc/ha), T3) Azoxistrobina (20%)+difenoconazole(12,5%) (500cc/ha), T4) Difenoconazole(25%)(400cc/ha), T5) Clorotalonil(72%)(1400cc/ha), T6) Fluxapyroxad(5%)+epoxyconazole(5%) + pyraclostrobin(8,1%)(1200cc/ha), T7) Penthiopirad(10%)+picoxystrobin(10%) (800cc/ha), T8) Benzovindiflupyr(15%)+azoxistrobina(30%)(200grs/ha) y T9) Testigo sin fungicida. La evaluación de viruela se realizó cada 15 días desde la primera aplicación considerando su incidencia (% de folíolos afectados) y severidad total (% de área foliar perdida). La producción se evaluó en 2 m2 de cada parcela, determinándose el rendimiento en vainas, granos y granos tamaño confitería. La comparación entre tratamientos se realizó a través de un modelo lineal mixto y test de comparación de medias DGC (p<0,05). En ambas campañas y localidades, se observó que los nuevos fungicidas a base de carboxamidas y clorotalonil presentan un mejor control de viruela y respuesta en el rendimiento de maní respecto a las mezclas de estrobilurinas + triazoles utilizadas en la última década; siendo estos, una alternativa importante para un control correcto de la enfermedad.

General Ozochiawaeze

Direct imaging methods recover the presence, position, and shape of the unknown obstacles in time-harmonic inverse scattering without a priori knowledge of either the physical properties or the number of disconnected components of the scatterer, i.e., on the boundary condition. However, most of these methods require multi-static data and only obtain partial information about the obstacle. These qualitative methods are based on constructing indicator functions defined on the domain of interest, which help determine whether a spatial point or point source lies inside or outside the scatterer. This paper explains the main themes of each of these methods, with emphasis on highlighting the advantages and limitations of each scheme. Additionally, we will classify each method and describe how some of these methods are closely related to each other.

S. Durant, Agnese Marino, J. Linnell et al.

Coexistence with large carnivores poses challenges to human well-being, livelihoods, development, resource management, and policy. Even where people and carnivores have historically coexisted, traditional patterns of behavior toward large carnivores may be disrupted by wider processes of economic, social, political, and climate change. Conservation interventions have typically focused on changing behaviors of those living alongside large carnivores to promote sustainable practices. While these interventions remain important, their success is inextricably linked to broader socio-political contexts, including natural resource governance and equitable distribution of conservation-linked costs and benefits. In this context we propose a Theory of Change to identify logical pathways of action through which coexistence with large carnivores can be enhanced. We focus on Africa's dryland landscapes, known for their diverse guild of large carnivores that remain relatively widespread across the continent. We review the literature to understand coexistence and its challenges; explain our Theory of Change, including expected outcomes and pathways to impact; and discuss how our model could be implemented and operationalized. Our analysis draws on the experience of coauthors, who are scientists and practitioners, and on literature from conservation, political ecology, and anthropology to explore the challenges, local realities, and place-based conditions under which expected outcomes succeed or fail. Three pathways to impact were identified: (a) putting in place good governance harmonized across geographic scales; (b) addressing coexistence at the landscape level; and (c) reducing costs and increasing benefits of sharing a landscape with large carnivores. Coordinated conservation across the extensive, and potentially transboundary, landscapes needed by large carnivores requires harmonization of top-down approaches with bottom-up community-based conservation. We propose adaptive co-management approaches combined with processes for active community engagement and informed consent as useful dynamic mechanisms for navigating through this contested space, while enabling adaptation to climate change. Success depends on strengthening underlying enabling conditions, including governance, capacity, local empowerment, effective monitoring, and sustainable financial support. Implementing the Theory of Change requires ongoing monitoring and evaluation to inform adaptation and build confidence in the model. Overall, the model provides a flexible and practical framework that can be adapted to dynamic local socio-ecological contexts.

B. Pogoda, Janet Brown, Boze Hancock et al.

Efforts to restore the native oyster Ostrea edulis and its associated habitats are gaining momentum across Europe. Several projects are currently running or being planned. To maximize the success of these, it is crucial to draw on existing knowledge and experience in order to design, plan and implement restoration activities in a sustainable and constructive approach. For the development of best practice recommendations and to promote multidimensional knowledge and technology exchange, the Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA) was formed by partners from science, technology, nature conservation, consultancies, commercial producers and policy-makers. The NORA network will enhance scientific and practical progress in flat oyster restoration, such as in project planning and permitting, seed oyster production, disease management and monitoring. It also focuses on joint funding opportunities and the potential development of national and international regulatory frameworks. The main motivation behind NORA is to facilitate the restoration of native oyster habitat within its historic biogeographic range in the North Sea and other European seas along with the associated ecosystem services; services such as enhancing biodiversity, including enhanced fish stocks, nutrient cycling and sediment stabilization. NORA members agreed on a set of joint recommendations and strongly advise that any restoration measure should respect and apply these recommendations: The Berlin Oyster Recommendation is presented here. It will help guide the development of the field by developing and applying best practice accordingly. NORA also aims to combine the outreach activities of local projects for improved community support and awareness and to provide educational material to increase knowledge of the key ecological role of this species and increase awareness among regulators, permit providers and stakeholders. A synthesis of O. edulis restoration efforts in Europe is provided and underlines the general significance in the field.

Y. de Jong, Melina Verbeek, V. Michelsen et al.

Abstract Fauna Europaea is Europe's main zoological taxonomic index, making the scientific names and distributions of all living, currently known, multicellular, European land and freshwater animals species integrally available in one authoritative database. Fauna Europaea covers about 260,000 taxon names, including 145,000 accepted (sub)species, assembled by a large network of (>400) leading specialists, using advanced electronic tools for data collations with data quality assured through sophisticated validation routines. Fauna Europaea started in 2000 as an EC funded FP5 project and provides a unique taxonomic reference for many user-groups such as scientists, governments, industries, nature conservation communities and educational programs. Fauna Europaea was formally accepted as an INSPIRE standard for Europe, as part of the European Taxonomic Backbone established in PESI. Fauna Europaea provides a public web portal at faunaeur.org with links to other key biodiversity services, is installed as a taxonomic backbone in wide range of biodiversity services and actively contributes to biodiversity informatics innovations in various initiatives and EC programs.