Living within fallen palm leaves: the discovery of an unknown Blommersia (Mantellidae: Anura) reveals a new reproductive strategy in the amphibians of Madagascar

We describe a new mantelline frog of the genus Blommersia found in rainforest in North East Madagascar, from the protected areas of Ambatovaky, Betampona, Masoala, and Zahamena. Blommersia angolafa n.sp. is a small frog, with a body size of 17–21 mm, expanded finger and toe tips, and colouration ranging from yellow to dark brown, with pale-bluish spots on the flanks and light tips of fingers and toes. A peculiar aspect characterising this new species is its novel life history and reproductive mode. Both sexes live and breed in a phytotelmic habitat of water accumulated within fallen prophylls and fallen leaf sheaths of at least three species of Dypsis palms. Within these phytotelmata, egg laying and complete larval development occur. Thus, B. angolafa n.sp. represents a new evolutionary lineage of Malagasy frogs in which phytotelmy is known. Up to now, reproduction in phytotelmata in Malagasy frogs has been reported for many cophyline microhylids, most species of Guibemantis, Mantella laevigata, and possibly in a still-undescribed species belonging to the genus Spinomantis. We consider the reproductive mode of B. angolafa as a derived character, having evolved from the more typical reproduction in lentic water bodies. The general scarcity of lentic habitats in Malagasy rainforests may have provided the conditions that favoured the evolution of this phytotelmic breeding strategy. The new species, being specialised to a habitat represented by a few selected Dypsis species, potentially suffers the selective exploitation of these palms.     

The carbon budget of California

The carbon budget of a region can be defined as the sum of annual fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) greenhouse gases (GHGs) into and out of the regional surface coverage area. According to the state government's recent inventory, California's carbon budget is presently dominated by 115 MMTCE per year in fossil fuel emissions of CO₂ (>85% of total annual GHG emissions) to meet energy and transportation requirements. Other notable (non-ecosystem) sources of carbon GHG emissions in 2004 were from cement- and lime-making industries (7%), livestock-based agriculture (5%), and waste treatment activities (2%). The NASA-CASA (Carnegie Ames Stanford Approach) simulation model based on satellite observations of monthly vegetation cover (including those from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS) was used to estimate net ecosystem fluxes and vegetation biomass production over the period 1990–2004. California's annual NPP for all ecosystems in the early 2000s (estimated by CASA at 120 MMTCE per year) was roughly equivalent to its annual fossil fuel emission rates for carbon. However, since natural ecosystems can accumulate only a small fraction of this annual NPP total in long-term storage pools, the net ecosystem sink flux for atmospheric carbon across the state was estimated at a maximum rate of about 24 MMTCE per year under favorable precipitation conditions. Under less favorable precipitation conditions, such as those experienced during the early 1990s, ecosystems statewide were estimated to have lost nearly 15 MMTCE per year to the atmosphere. Considering the large amounts of carbon estimated by CASA to be stored in forests, shrublands, and rangelands across the state, the importance of protection of the natural NPP capacity of California ecosystems cannot be overemphasized.     

Risk governance guidelines for bioenergy policies

These Notes from the Field summarise the governance guidelines developed by the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) to address the key challenges that policy-makers face when designing and implementing policies and regulations for the increasing production, trade and use of bioenergy.The guidelines comprise an integrated and coherent set of policy recommendations and practical actions to help policy-makers and industry account for the various trade-offs presented by bioenergy and develop sustainable bioenergy production for domestic use and international trade. They include land-use policies, full life-cycle assessments, as well as sustainability standards and certification criteria.     

Winners and Losers in a World with Global Warming: Noncooperation, Altruism, and Social Welfare

In this paper, global warming is an asymmetric transboundary externality which benefits some countries or regions and harms others. We use a simple two-country model to analyze the effects of global warming on resource allocations, the global-warming stock, and national and global welfare.     

A multilevel analysis of procedural justice context

Using a multilevel framework, we hypothesized that both employee perceptions of procedural justice and a work unit level measure of procedural justice context would be associated with employee reports of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Three hundred and twenty-three employees from 53 branches of a financial services organization were used to test this hypothesis. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed that procedural justice context explained variance in employee job satisfaction beyond that accounted for by individual perceptions of procedural justice. With regard to organizational commitment, this hypothesis was not supported. The results are discussed in connection with contextual aspects of procedural justice. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measurements of fog water interception by shrubs on the California central coast

Fog water deposition may be an important component of the water budget of herbaceous-shrub ecosystems on the central and southern coastal regions of California. This paper presents the first analysis of measured fog water drip rates and meteorological controls in shrublands of Big Sur, California. Seasonal totals of 1255 mm and 306 mm of fog water drip were recorded in 2014 and 2015 (respectively), for averaged fog deposition rates of 0.02–0.08 l m² hr.^?1 to the soil under shrub canopy cover. The diurnal patterns of fog water drip showed that the majority of all trough water collected under shrubs on no-rain days occurred between the hours of 11 PM and 9 AM. During the study period from June 1 to October 31 of both 2014 and 2015, soil water content decreased significantly from average levels of 4–6 % at the shrub canopy center and middle locations, through 2–3 % VWC at the shrub edge locations, to levels at or below 2 % at 2-m distance locations from the shrub edge in open grass cover. Based on these results, we conclude that detectable rates of shrub canopy fog interception help sustain elevated soil water levels under shrubs and aid woody vegetation survival through periods of low rainfall.     

Is habitat amount important for biodiversity in rocky shore systems? A study of South African mussel assemblages

Habitat-forming species on rocky shores are often subject to high levels of exploitation, but the effects of subsequent habitat loss and fragmentation on associated species and the ecosystem as a whole are poorly understood. In this study, the effects of habitat amount on the fauna associated with mussel beds were investigated, testing for the existence of threshold effects at small landscape scales. Specifically, the relationships between mussel or algal habitat amount and: associated biodiversity, associated macrofaunal abundance and density of mussel recruits were studied at three sites (Kidd’s Beach, Kayser’s Beach and Kini Bay) on the southern and south-eastern coasts of South Africa. Samples, including mussel-associated macrofauna, of 10 × 10 cm were taken from areas with 100 % mussel cover (Perna perna or a combination of P. perna and Mytilus galloprovincialis) at each site. The amount of habitat provided by mussels and algae surrounding the sampled areas was thereafter determined at the 4.0 m² scale. A number of significant positive relationships were found between the amount of surrounding mussel habitat and the abundances of several taxa (Anthozoa, Malacostraca and Nemertea). Likewise, there were positive relationships between the amount of surrounding algal habitat and total animal abundance as well as abundance of mussel recruits at one site, Kini Bay. In contrast, abundance of mussel recruits showed a significant negative relationship with the amount of mussel habitat at Kayser’s Beach. Significant negative relationships were also detected between the amount of mussel habitat and species richness and total abundance at Kidd’s Beach, and between amount of mussel habitat and the abundance of many taxa (Bivalvia, Gastropoda, Maxillopoda, Ophiuroidea, Polychaeta and Pycnogonida) at all three sites. No threshold effects were found, nor were significant relationships consistent across the investigated sites. The results indicate that the surrounding landscape is important in shaping the structure of communities associated with these mussel beds, with significant effects of the amount of surrounding habitat per se. The strength and the direction of habitat effects vary, however, between shores and probably with the scale of observation as well as with the studied dependent variables (e.g. diversity, abundance, mussel recruitment, species identity), indicating the complexity of the processes structuring macrofaunal communities on these shores.     

Predicting the acute lethality of a chlorinated benzene mixture in soils: a comparison of solid-phase microextraction,body residue,and solvent extraction techniques

When predicting the adverse effect(s) of chemical pollution on an exposed organism, a measurement of body residue is often considered a more accurate estimate of dose than those estimates derived from a solvent extraction or solid-phase microextraction of the polluted exposure medium. The magnitude of this perceived difference in accuracy, and thus the accuracy of the corresponding toxicity prediction, were investigated in the present two-phase study. In Phase I, an acute lethality response was correlated with dose estimates derived from body residue, solvent extraction, and SPME. In Phase II, acute lethality was predicted from Phase I data. The accuracy of Phase II toxicity predictions was determined by comparing predicted mortality to observed mortality. Although this study revealed that body residue indeed provided the most accurate prediction of toxicity, the margin of this comparatively greater accuracy suggests that alternative methods may provide equally viable dose estimates and, subsequently, equally viable toxicity predictions.