Fixism and conservation science

The field of biodiversity conservation has recently been criticized as relying on a fixist view of the living world in which existing species constitute at the same time targets of conservation efforts and static states of reference, which is in apparent disagreement with evolutionary dynamics. We reviewed the prominent role of species as conservation units and the common benchmark approach to conservation that aims to use past biodiversity as a reference to conserve current biodiversity. We found that the species approach is justified by the discrepancy between the time scales of macroevolution and human influence and that biodiversity benchmarks are based on reference processes rather than fixed reference states. Overall, we argue that the ethical and theoretical frameworks underlying conservation research are based on macroevolutionary processes, such as extinction dynamics. Current species, phylogenetic, community, and functional conservation approaches constitute short‐term responses to short‐term human effects on these reference processes, and these approaches are consistent with evolutionary principles.     

Evaluating ultrasonography as a non-lethal method for the assessment of maturity in oviparous elasmobranchs

Due to the impacts of commercial fishing on elasmobranchs, future research and management necessitates reliable and accurate information on life history. For females, maturity assessment is limited to dissection, and it is not desirable to be removing large numbers in order to assess the reproductive characteristics of a population. The present study evaluated ultrasonography as a potential, non-lethal method for assessing the maturity status of two oviparous elasmobranchs, the thornback ray (Raja clavata) and small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula). Ultrasound permitted visualisation and measurement of the ovary in R. clavata, and the shell gland, ovarian follicles and egg capsules within the oviducts for S. canicula. With the exception of the ovary in R. clavata, the dimensions of these structures on the sonograms were directly corroborated by in situ measurements, and ultrasound was verified as an accurate and reliable method of making quantitative and qualitative assessments of these internal reproductive structures.     

A comparative study of modified and unmodified maize tassels for removal of selected trace metals in contaminated water

Powdered maize tassels were studied and found to exhibit metal sorption properties due to the availability of functional groups. The tassels have a high amount of soluble organic substances that can dissolve in aqueous media, contributing to secondary pollution during a water treatment process. A chelating agent was chemically attached on the maize tassels with a view to increase the sorption capacity, minimize leaching, and enhance the tassels’ stability. Thermogravimetric analysis confirmed that modification improved their thermal stability to withstand temperatures above 600°C as well as reduced the “secondary pollution”. The modified sorbent was employed for the sorption of lead, copper, and cadmium ions in both the model solutions and the real samples. The contact time and pH were optimized after which Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms were applied to the data. The sorption capacities for Cu²⁺, Cd²⁺, and Pb²⁺ improved from 3.4, 0.8, and 1.7?g?kg^?1, respectively, to 6.3, 2.6, and 2.6?g?kg^?1 in the same order. The sorbent was shown to remove up to 95% of the metals in less than 10 min. This study has a potential application for the remediation of polluted waters.     

Warming modifies trophic cascades and eutrophication in experimental freshwater communities

Climate warming is occurring in concert with other anthropogenic changes to ecosystems. However, it is unknown whether and how warming alters the importance of top-down vs. bottom-up control over community productivity and variability. We performed a 16-month factorial experimental manipulation of warming, nutrient enrichment, and predator presence in replicated freshwater pond mesocosms to test their independent and interactive impacts. Warming strengthened trophic cascades from fish to primary producers, and it decreased the impact of eutrophication on the mean and temporal variation of phytoplankton biomass. These impacts varied seasonally, with higher temperatures leading to stronger trophic cascades in winter and weaker algae blooms under eutrophication in summer. Our results suggest that higher temperatures may shift the control of primary production in freshwater ponds toward stronger top-down and weaker bottom-up effects. The dampened temporal variability of algal biomass under eutrophication at higher temperatures suggests that warming may stabilize some ecosystem processes.     

Floodplain restoration enhances denitrification and reach-scale nitrogen removal in an agricultural stream

Streams of the agricultural Midwest, USA, export large quantities of nitrogen, which impairs downstream water quality, most notably in the Gulf of Mexico. The two-stage ditch is a novel restoration practice, in which floodplains are constructed alongside channelized ditches. During high flows, water flows across the floodplains, increasing benthic surface area and stream water residence time, as well as the potential for nitrogen removal via denitrification. To determine two-stage ditch nitrogen removal efficacy, we measured denitrification rates in the channel and on the floodplains of a two-stage ditch in north-central Indiana for one year before and two years after restoration. We found that instream rates were similar before and after the restoration, and they were influenced by surface water NO3- concentration and sediment organic matter content. Denitrification rates were lower on the constructed floodplains and were predicted by soil exchangeable NO3- concentration. Using storm flow simulations, we found that two-stage ditch restoration contributed significantly to NO3- removal during storm events, but because of the high NO3- loads at our study site, < 10% of the NO3- load was removed under all storm flow scenarios. The highest percentage of NO3- removal occurred at the lowest loads; therefore, the two-stage ditch's effectiveness at reducing downstream N loading will be maximized when the practice is coupled with efforts to reduce N inputs from adjacent fields.     

Thirty years of vegetation change in the coastal Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California detected using landsat satellite image analysis

The Santa Cruz Mountains is a coastal landscape with a history of extensive forest logging, and a future with projected climate warming that may alter vegetation cover and surface water runoff in new ways. Results from Landsat satellite image time-series analysis since 1983 of this study area showed gradual, statistically significant increases in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in more than 90 % of the (predominantly second-growth) evergreen forest locations sampled. The cumulative distribution of NDVI values in 2013 was significantly different and higher overall from the cumulative distribution of NDVI values in 1983. The extreme drought year of 2013 (and other previous years of low precipitation) did not affect average NDVI growth rates in most drainage basins of the study area, with the exception of four relatively small basins that had less than 30 % forested land cover. Notably different patterns of NDVI change were detected in areas burned by wildfires in recent years. Within the perimeters of the 2008 Summit Fire and the 2009 Lockheed Fire, NDVI showed notable declines from pre-fire levels to those calculated in 2013 Landsat imagery. In contrast to these recent fires, the burned area from the 1985 Lexington Fire showed the highest rate of NDVI increase (over 27 years of regrowth) of any relatively large contiguous area within the Santa Cruz Mountains.     

Exploring the effects of individual traits and within-colony variation on task differentiation and collective behavior in a desert social spider

Social animals are extraordinarily diverse and ecologically abundant. In understanding the success of complex animal societies, task differentiation has been identified as a central mechanism underlying the emergence and performance of adaptive collective behaviors. In this study, we explore how individual differences in behavior and body size determine task allocation in the social spider Stegodyphus dumicola. We found that individuals with high body condition indices were less likely to participate in prey capture, and individuals’ tendency to engage in prey capture was not associated with either their behavioral traits or body size. No traits were associated with individuals’ propensity to participation in web repair, but small individuals were more likely to engage in standard web-building. We also discovered consistent, differences among colonies in their collective behavior (i.e., colony-level personality). At the colony level, within-colony variation in behavior (aggressiveness) and body size were positively associated with aggressive foraging behavior. Together, our findings reveal a subtly complex relationship between individual variation and collective behavior in this species. We close by comparing the relationship between individual variation and social organization in nine species of social spider. We conclude that intraspecific variation is a major force behind the social organization of multiple independently derived lineages of social spider.     

Species-specific influence of group composition on collective behaviors in ants

The success of a social group is often driven by its collective characteristics and the traits of its individuals. Thus, understanding how collective behavior is influenced by the behavioral composition of group members is an important first step to understand the ecology of collective personalities. Here, we investigated how the efficiency of several group behaviors is influenced by the aggressiveness of its members in two species of Temnothorax ants. In our manipulation of group composition, we created two experimentally reconstituted groups in a split-colony design, i.e., each colony was split into an aggressive and a docile group of equal sizes. We found strong species-specific differences in how collective behaviors were influenced by its group members. In Temnothorax longispinosus, having more aggressive individuals improved colony defense and nest relocation efficiency. In addition, source colony identity strongly influenced group behavior in T. longispinosus, highlighting that manipulations of group compositions must control for the origin of the chosen individuals. In contrast, group composition and source colony did not influence collective behaviors in Temnothorax curvispinosus. This suggests that the mechanisms regulating collective behaviors via individual differences in behavior might differ among even closely related species.