A quantitative global review of species population monitoring

Species monitoring, defined here as the repeated, systematic collection of data to detect long-term changes in the populations of wild species, is a vital component of conservation practice and policy. We created a database of nearly 1200 schemes, ranging in start date from 1800 to 2018, to review spatial, temporal, taxonomic, and methodological patterns in global species monitoring. We identified monitoring schemes through standardized web searches, an online survey of stakeholders, in-depth national searches in a sample of countries, and a review of global biodiversity databases. We estimated the total global number of monitoring schemes operating at 3300–15,000. Since 2000, there has been a sharp increase in the number of new schemes being initiated in lower- and middle-income countries and in megadiverse countries, but a decrease in high-income countries. The total number of monitoring schemes in a country and its per capita gross domestic product were strongly, positively correlated. Schemes that were active in 2018 had been running for an average of 21 years in high-income countries, compared with 13 years in middle-income countries and 10 years in low-income countries. In high-income countries, over one-half of monitoring schemes received government funding, but this was less than one-quarter in low-income countries. Data collection was undertaken partly or wholly by volunteers in 37% of schemes, and such schemes covered significantly more sites and species than those undertaken by professionals alone. Birds were by far the most widely monitored taxonomic group, accounting for around half of all schemes, but this bias declined over time. Monitoring in most taxonomic groups remains sparse and uncoordinated, and most of the data generated are elusive and unlikely to feed into wider biodiversity conservation processes. These shortcomings could be addressed by, for example, creating an open global meta-database of biodiversity monitoring schemes and enhancing capacity for species monitoring in countries with high biodiversity. Article impact statement: Species population monitoring for conservation purposes remains strongly biased toward a few vertebrate taxa in wealthier countries.     

Measuring and Incorporating Vulnerability into Conservation Planning

Conservation planning is the process of locating and designing conservation areas to promote the persistence of biodiversity in situ. To do this, conservation areas must be able to mitigate at least some of the proximate threats to biodiversity. Information on threatening processes and the relative vulnerability of areas and natural features to these processes is therefore crucial for effective conservation planning. However, measuring and incorporating vulnerability into conservation planning have been problematic. We develop a conceptual framework of the role of vulnerability assessments in conservation planning and propose a definition of vulnerability that incorporates three dimensions: exposure, intensity, and impact. We review and categorize methods for assessing the vulnerability of areas and the features they contain and identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of each broad approach. Our review highlights the need for further development and evaluation of approaches to assess vulnerability and for comparisons of their relative effectiveness.     

Predicting the safety performance of volunteers: Does motivation for volunteering influence driving behavior?

Volunteering has long been known for its positive effects on the individual and the community. However, no research to date has examined the safety of individuals when volunteering their services. The safety of individuals when driving a vehicle is particularly a concern in the nonprofit sector as volunteers is leaving organizations due to fear of public liability. As such, this paper aims to identify the internal motivational factors influencing the safety of volunteers when driving a vehicle (n = 73). Utilizing Clary’s et al. [Clary, E.G., Snyder, M., Ridge, R.D., Copeland, J., Stukas, A.A., Haugen, J., Miene, P., 1998. Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers: a functional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74, 1516–1530] scale of the motivational functions served by volunteering, we found that individuals who volunteer their services for ego-related functioning (protective) were more likely to report higher self-reported driving speeds, while individuals who volunteer their services for altruistic purposes (values) were more likely to report lower self-reported driving speeds. In turn, higher self-reported driving speeds were found to be associated with a greater number of self-reported crashes in the past two years. These results have important implications for volunteer driving organizations, as these results suggest that some motivations are associated with poorer driving performance.     

Intensification,regulation and diversification: The changing face of inland aquaculture in China

Trends in aquatic food consumption were matched against farm production surveys within Hubei province and compared to official production data and statistics. Surveys showed that consumer tastes were changing to a much broader aquatic food menu as their spending power increased. Traditional aquaculture species were becoming less profitable due to reduced profit margins as input costs increased and consumption preferences changed. Consequently, many producers were diversifying their production to meet local demand. Some farmers were also de-intensifying by reducing commercial aquafeed inputs and reverting to more traditional methods of dyke-crop culture to optimise trade-offs between input costs and labour, and manage their risk more effectively. In addition, analysis of local data showed that wholesale changes were occurring to aquaculture production as environmental protection legislation took effect which reduced the growing area for carps considerably.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01503-3.     

Brittlestars,Biomarkers and Beryl: Assessing the Toxicity of Oil-Based Drill Cuttings Using Laboratory,Mesocosm and Field Studies

Effects of drill cuttings on burrowing brittlestars (Amphiura chiajei and A. filiformls) were compared at different levels of response, from acute laboratory experiments to chronic field studies. Acute toxicity tests showed that drill cuttings containing oil-based muds had a very low toxicity (LC₅₀ 52,800 ppm total hydrocarbons in test sediment) but sub-lethal effects were detected at much lower levels using a variety of biomarkers and assays. Chronic sub-lethal effects were detected around the Beryl oil platform in the North Sea where the levels of oil in the sediment were very low (<3 ppm total hydrocarbons in sediment) and brittlestars were excluded from areas nearer the platform with higher sediment oil content. These results suggest that acute toxicity tests are a poor predictor of chronic response in these animals. the relationship between toxicity at different levels of response and the predictive power of laboratory studies is discussed.     

Inter-colony movements,at-sea behaviour and foraging in an immature seabird: results from GPS-PPT tracking,radio-tracking and stable isotope analysis

Seabird populations contain large numbers of immatures––in some instances comprising >50% of the fully grown adults in the population. These birds are significant components of marine food webs and may contribute to compensatory recruitment and dispersal, but remain severely understudied. Here, we use GPS-PTTs, radio-tracking and analysis of stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotopes to investigate the movements and foraging ecology of immature seabirds. Our study focussed on immature northern gannets Morus bassanus aged 2–4 attending non-breeding aggregations alongside a large breeding colony. GPS-PTT tracking of five birds revealed that immatures have the ability to disperse widely during the breeding season, with some individuals potentially prospecting at other colonies. Overall, however, immatures were faithful to the colony of capture. During returns to the focal colony, immatures acted as central place foragers, conducted looping and commuting flights, and analysis of the variance in first-passage time revealed evidence of area-restricted search (ARS) behaviour. In addition, stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope analyses indicate that immatures were isotopically segregated from breeders. Our findings provide insights into the foraging, prospecting and dispersal behaviour of immature seabirds, which may have important implications for understanding seabird ecology and conservation.     

An assessment of urban vulnerability in the Amazon Delta and Estuary: a multi-criterion index of flood exposure,socio-economic conditions and infrastructure

The Amazon Delta and Estuary (ADE) is a region of continental and global ecological importance. Controversy, many of the basic infrastructure and services essential for quality of life and sustainable development of this delta are absent. Using a conceptual model to define socio-economic vulnerability in the urban ADE, a thorough assessment of indicators including sanitation services, housing conditions, household income, population, flood risk and unplanned settlements was conducted in 41 cities at the census sector scale (n = 2938). A multi criterion index was applied to classify urban vulnerability from three dimensions: flood exposure, socio-economic sensitivity and infrastructure. This is the first study to examine urban vulnerability within and between urban areas of the ADE. Results indicated that most of the urban sectors of the ADE are exposed to potential risks due to a combination of flood hazards, poverty and basic structural deficiencies such as insufficient drinking water or inadequate waste water collection, with several sectors being afflicted by similar problems. The assessment of vulnerability indicates that 60–90 % of the urban population live in conditions of moderate to high degree of vulnerability. The ADE cities presented a pattern where vulnerability increases from city center to their newly developed urban areas. Inadequate planning coupled with rapid urbanization has contributed to the development of unplanned settlements in almost half of the urban sectors of the ADE. Combined, these factors contribute to widespread socio-economic vulnerability along the urban spaces of the ADE, increasing exposure to health risks and more frequent seasonal and stochastic events such as storm surges and high flooding levels.     

Ultracentrifugation as a direct method to concentrate viruses in environmental waters: virus-like particle enumeration as a new approach to determine the efficiency of recovery

Some health important enteric viruses are considered to be emerging waterborne pathogens and so the improvement of detection of these viruses in the aquatic environment is one of the most important steps in dealing with these pathogens. Since these viruses may be present in low numbers in water, it is necessary to concentrate water samples before viral detection. Although there are several methods to concentrate viruses in environmental waters, all present some drawbacks and consequently the method should be chosen that, despite its limitations, is adequate to achieve the aim of each study. As the effectiveness of the concentration methods is evaluated by determining the efficiency of viral recovery after concentration, it is important to use a simple and effective approach to evaluate their recovery efficiency. In this work ultracentrifugation, usually used as a secondary step for virus concentration, was evaluated as the main method to concentrate directly viruses in environmental water samples, using the microscopic enumeration of virus-like particles (VLP) as a new approach to estimate the efficiency of recovery. As the flocculation method is currently employed to concentrate viruses in environmental waters, it was also used in this study to assess the efficiency of the ultracentrifugation as the main viral concentration method in environmental waters. The results of this study indicate that ultracentrifugation is an adequate approach to concentrate viruses directly from environmental waters (recovery percentages between 66 and 72% in wastewaters and between 66 and 76% in recreational waters) and that the determination of VLP by epifluorescence microscopy is a simple, fast and cheap alternative approach to determine the recovery efficiency of the viral concentration methods.     

Transatlantic migration by post-breeding puffins: a strategy to exploit a temporarily abundant food resource?

The distribution of Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica) from Skellig Michael, south-west Ireland, was investigated using geolocation loggers between the 2010 and 2011 breeding seasons. All tracked birds travelled rapidly west into the North Atlantic at the end of the breeding season in August, with the majority undertaking transatlantic trips from Ireland to the Newfoundland-Labrador shelf. The furthest distance from the colony reached by each bird was not influenced by body mass or sex and was achieved in approximately 20 days. By October, all birds had moved back to the mid Atlantic where they remained resident until returning to the breeding colony. The most parsimonious explanation for the rapid, directed long-distance migration is that birds exploit the seasonally high abundance of prey [e.g., fish species such as capelin (Mallotus villosus) and sandlance (Ammodytes spp.)] off the Canadian coast, which is also utilised by large populations of North American seabirds at this time. Once the availability of this short-term prey resource has diminished, the tracked puffins moved back towards the north-east Atlantic. A relationship between relative abundance of puffins and zooplankton was found in all winter months, but after correcting for spatial autocorrelation, was only significant in November and January. Nevertheless, these results suggest a potential switch in diet from mainly fish during the breeding and early post-breeding periods to zooplankton over the remaining winter period. This study suggests that puffins from south-west Ireland have a long-distance migration strategy that is rare in breeding puffins from the UK and identifies a key non-breeding destination for puffins from Ireland. This has implications for the susceptibility of different breeding populations to the effects of possible climatic or oceanographic change.