Detecting Density Dependence in Recovering Seal Populations

Time series of abundance estimates are commonly used for analyses of population trends and possible shifts in growth rate. We investigate if trends in age composition can be used as an alternative to abundance estimates for detection of decelerated population growth. Both methods were tested under two forms of density dependence and different levels of environmental variation in simulated time series of growth in Baltic gray seals. Under logistic growth, decelerating growth could be statistically confirmed after 16 years based on population counts and 14 years based on age composition. When density dependence sets in first at larger population sizes, the age composition method performed dramatically better than population counts, and a decline could be detected after 4 years (versus 10 years). Consequently, age composition analysis provides a complementary method to detect density dependence, particularly in populations where density dependence sets in late.     

农户贫困恢复力测度、影响效应及对策研究——基于农户家庭结构的视角

集中连片贫困地区扶贫开发与农户脱贫问题关系社会稳定与和谐,而恢复力概念为贫困领域研究提供了新的视角。研究利用抽样调查的321户家庭问卷数据,基于生计恢复力理论框架,构建农户贫困恢复力指标体系,从农户家庭结构分类出发,采用探索性统计和主成分分析判定不同人口、生计结构农户缓冲力资本、贫困恢复力差异,运用多层次模型探究农户家庭因素(生计、人口)与贫困恢复力内在结构效应。研究主要结论:1研究区不同家庭结构农户经济类资本分布极不均衡,资本积累水平低;2影响贫困地区农户个体恢复力的主要因素包括物质资本、经济收入、文化教育、劳动力、交通条件、社会资源等;3高质量劳动力人口结构以及合理多样化收入方式的生计结构对农户贫困恢复力才具有正向效应。最后,针对研究区农户家庭结构贫困恢复力差异和关键影响因子,提出相关恢复力建设对策。     

关于饮水机水细菌污染及使用若干问题探讨

为了解冷热两用饮水机所供水的细菌污染情况,对新出厂的饮用纯净水、饮水机中冷水、未沸水和沸水、桶中水等不同水样中细菌总数和大肠菌群分别进行了检测分析。结果表明,未沸水灭菌情况不稳定,沸水灭菌效果很好;随时间推移,纯净水中的细菌总数呈递增趋势,并且增长速度较快,其污染源主要来自空气和饮水机本身,特别是饮水机内胆的污染不容忽视。所有水样中均未检出大肠菌群。     

低温对生物接触氧化反应器硝化性能的影响

分散型污水生物处理技术在我国北方冬季低温期容易出现硝化性能下降的问题。构建2个平行运行的生物接触氧化反应器,以生活污水为原水重点考察了降温过程对反应器硝化性能的影响。当水温从20 ℃降至10 ℃时, 反应器出水COD浓度比较稳定,但NH4+-N浓度开始出现上升。将水力停留时间从8 h延长至14 h后,获得了完全硝化的效果,而且进一步将水温降低至5 ℃时,硝化效果没有受到明显影响。硝化速率测定结果显示,5 ℃生物接触氧化污泥与10 ℃污泥几乎保持了相同的比硝化速率。高通量测序结果表明,降温过程中,生物接触氧化污泥保留了数量庞大的核心种属;同时硝化细菌种群丰度表现为长期低温条件下的部分富集。结果表明,适当延长水力停留时间,生物接触氧化反应器可以在5 ℃水温下获得良好的硝化效果。     

Core activated sludge communities are influenced little by immigration: Case study of a membrane bioreactor plant

Microbial immigrants arriving with influent wastewater may influence activated sludge (AS) ecosystems. However, the extent to which immigration impacts AS communities is still debated. To explore the intensity of immigration impact, we used sequencing technology to track the raw wastewater and AS communities from a membrane bioreactor plant over a 12-month period. We first distinguished core populations from peripheral ones in both raw wastewater and AS based on their occurrence frequency and abundance. The results showed that core OTUs (≥ 80% occurrence frequency) made up a large fraction (> 90%) of total sequences, while peripheral OTUs composed the majority of all detected OTUs but merely occupied a few sequences. A significant difference in core communities between the influent and AS was found, as well as between the compositions of core and peripheral populations. Additionally, the persistent functional bacteria of AS, although not numerically dominant, accounted for 96.24% of the total sequences related to nutrient turnover, suggesting the presence of a small number of longstanding and core functional bacteria in the AS ecosystem. Importantly, 64% of the 5188 OTUs in AS, which accounted for 91.51% of the sequences, exhibited positive growth rates, which suggested that their apparent abundances were due to growth within the plant, not from immigration. Taken together, these results demonstrated that the impact of influent populations on core AS communities was limited. Overall, this work provides quantitative insights into the impact of immigration, which is expected to advance our understanding of the AS community assembly.     

Building a better baseline to estimate 160 years of avian population change and create historically informed conservation targets

Globally, anthropogenic land-cover change has been dramatic over the last few centuries and is frequently invoked as a major cause of wildlife population declines. Baseline data currently used to assess population trends, however, began well after major changes to the landscape. In the United States and Canada, breeding bird population trends are assessed by the North American Breeding Bird Survey, which began in the 1960s. Estimates of distribution and abundance prior to major habitat alteration would add historical perspective to contemporary trends and allow for historically based conservation targets. We used a hindcasting framework to estimate change in distribution and abundance of 7 bird species in the Willamette Valley, Oregon (United States). After reconciling classification schemes of current and 1850s reconstructed land cover, we used multiscale species distribution models and hierarchical distance sampling models to predict spatially explicit densities in the modern and historical landscapes. We estimated that since the 1850s, White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) and Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) populations, 2 species sensitive to fragmentation of oak woodlands and grasslands, declined by 93% and 97%, respectively. Five other species we estimated nearly stable or increasing populations, despite steep regional declines since the 1960s. Based on these estimates, we developed historically based conservation targets for amount of habitat, population, and density for each species. Hindcasted reconstructions provide historical perspective for assessing contemporary trends and allow for historically based conservation targets that can inform current management.     

Trends in seabird breeding populations across the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is an iconic ecosystem, known globally for its rich marine biodiversity that includes many thousands of tropical breeding seabirds. Despite indications of localized declines in some seabird species from as early as the mid-1990s, trends in seabird populations across the reef have never been quantified. With a long history of human impact and ongoing environmental change, seabirds are likely sentinels in this important ecosystem. Using 4 decades of monitoring data, we estimated site-specific trends for 9 seabird species from 32 islands and cays across the reef. Trends varied markedly among species and sites, but probable declines occurred at 45% of the 86 species-by-site combinations analyzed compared with increases at 14%. For 5 species, we combined site-specific trends into a multisite trend in scaled abundance, which revealed probable declines of Common Noddy (Anous stolidus), Sooty Tern (Onychoprion fuscatus), and Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra), but no long-term changes in the 2 most widely distributed species, Greater Crested Tern (Thalasseus bergii) and Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster). For Brown Booby, long-term stability largely resulted from increases at a single large colony on East Fairfax Island that offset declines at most other sites. Although growth of the Brown Booby population on East Fairfax points to the likely success of habitat restoration on the island, it also highlights a general vulnerability wherein large numbers of some species are concentrated at a small number of key sites. Identifying drivers of variation in population change across species and sites while ensuring long-term protection of key sites will be essential to securing the future of seabirds on the reef.     

Consequences of ignoring dispersal variation in network models for landscape connectivity

Habitat loss and fragmentation can negatively influence population persistence and biodiversity, but the effects can be mitigated if species successfully disperse between isolated habitat patches. Network models are the primary tool for quantifying landscape connectivity, yet in practice, an overly simplistic view of species dispersal is applied. These models often ignore individual variation in dispersal ability under the assumption that all individuals move the same fixed distance with equal probability. We developed a modeling approach to address this problem. We incorporated dispersal kernels into network models to determine how individual variation in dispersal alters understanding of landscape-level connectivity and implemented our approach on a fragmented grassland landscape in Minnesota. Ignoring dispersal variation consistently overestimated a population's robustness to local extinctions and underestimated its robustness to local habitat loss. Furthermore, a simplified view of dispersal underestimated the amount of habitat substructure for small populations but overestimated habitat substructure for large populations. Our results demonstrate that considering biologically realistic dispersal alters understanding of landscape connectivity in ecological theory and conservation practice.     

Passive acoustic monitoring of the decline of Mexico's critically endangered vaquita

The vaquita (Phocoena sinus) is the world's most endangered marine mammal with approximately 245 individuals remaining in 2008. This species of porpoise is endemic to the northern Gulf of California, Mexico, and historically the population has declined because of unsustainable bycatch in gillnets. An illegal gillnet fishery for an endangered fish, the totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), has recently resurged throughout the vaquita's range. The secretive but lucrative wildlife trade with China for totoaba swim bladders has probably increased vaquita bycatch mortality by an unknown amount. Precise population monitoring by visual surveys is difficult because vaquitas are inherently hard to see and have now become so rare that sighting rates are very low. However, their echolocation clicks can be identified readily on specialized acoustic detectors. Acoustic detections on an array of 46 moored detectors indicated vaquita acoustic activity declined by 80% between 2011 and 2015 in the central part of the species’ range. Statistical models estimated an annual rate of decline of 34% (95% Bayesian credible interval –48% to –21%). Based on results from 2011 to 2014, the government of Mexico enacted and is enforcing an emergency 2‐year ban on gillnets throughout the species’ range to prevent extinction, at a cost of US$74 million to compensate fishers. Developing precise acoustic monitoring methods proved critical to exposing the severity of vaquitas’ decline and emphasizes the need for continual monitoring to effectively manage critically endangered species.     

Feasibility of using high‐resolution satellite imagery to assess vertebrate wildlife populations

Although remote sensing has been used for >40 years to learn about Earth, use of very high‐resolution satellite imagery (VHR) (<1‐m resolution) has become more widespread over the past decade for studying wildlife. As image resolution increases, there is a need to understand the capabilities and limitations of this exciting new path in wildlife research. We reviewed studies that used VHR to examine remote populations of wildlife. We then determined characteristics of the landscape and the life history of species that made the studies amenable to use of satellite imagery and developed a list of criteria necessary for appropriate use of VHR in wildlife research. From 14 representative articles, we determined 3 primary criteria that must be met for a system and species to be appropriately studied with VHR: open landscape, target organism's color contrasts with the landscape, and target organism is of detectable size. Habitat association, temporal exclusivity, coloniality, landscape differentiation, and ground truthing increase the utility of VHR for wildlife research. There is an immediate need for VHR imagery in conservation research, particularly in remote areas of developing countries, where research can be difficult. For wildlife researchers interested in but unfamiliar with remote sensing resources and tools, understanding capabilities and current limitations of VHR imagery is critical to its use as a conservation and wildlife research tool.