Importance of timely metadata curation to the global surveillance of genetic diversity

Genetic diversity within species represents a fundamental yet underappreciated level of biodiversity. Because genetic diversity can indicate species resilience to changing climate, its measurement is relevant to many national and global conservation policy targets. Many studies produce large amounts of genome-scale genetic diversity data for wild populations, but most (87%) do not include the associated spatial and temporal metadata necessary for them to be reused in monitoring programs or for acknowledging the sovereignty of nations or Indigenous peoples. We undertook a distributed datathon to quantify the availability of these missing metadata and to test the hypothesis that their availability decays with time. We also worked to remediate missing metadata by extracting them from associated published papers, online repositories, and direct communication with authors. Starting with 848 candidate genomic data sets (reduced representation and whole genome) from the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, we determined that 561 contained mostly samples from wild populations. We successfully restored spatiotemporal metadata for 78% of these 561 data sets (n = 440 data sets with data on 45,105 individuals from 762 species in 17 phyla). Examining papers and online repositories was much more fruitful than contacting 351 authors, who replied to our email requests 45% of the time. Overall, 23% of our email queries to authors unearthed useful metadata. The probability of retrieving spatiotemporal metadata declined significantly as age of the data set increased. There was a 13.5% yearly decrease in metadata associated with published papers or online repositories and up to a 22% yearly decrease in metadata that were only available from authors. This rapid decay in metadata availability, mirrored in studies of other types of biological data, should motivate swift updates to data-sharing policies and researcher practices to ensure that the valuable context provided by metadata is not lost to conservation science forever.     

Assessing Risk to Birds from Industrial Wind Energy Development via Paired Resource Selection Models

When wildlife habitat overlaps with industrial development animals may be harmed. Because wildlife and people select resources to maximize biological fitness and economic return, respectively, we estimated risk, the probability of eagles encountering and being affected by turbines, by overlaying models of resource selection for each entity. This conceptual framework can be applied across multiple spatial scales to understand and mitigate impacts of industry on wildlife. We estimated risk to Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) from wind energy development in 3 topographically distinct regions of the central Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania (United States) based on models of resource selection of wind facilities (n = 43) and of northbound migrating eagles (n = 30). Risk to eagles from wind energy was greatest in the Ridge and Valley region; all 24 eagles that passed through that region used the highest risk landscapes at least once during low altitude flight. In contrast, only half of the birds that entered the Allegheny Plateau region used highest risk landscapes and none did in the Allegheny Mountains. Likewise, in the Allegheny Mountains, the majority of wind turbines (56%) were situated in poor eagle habitat; thus, risk to eagles is lower there than in the Ridge and Valley, where only 1% of turbines are in poor eagle habitat. Risk within individual facilities was extremely variable; on average, facilities had 11% (SD 23; range = 0–100%) of turbines in highest risk landscapes and 26% (SD 30; range = 0–85%) of turbines in the lowest risk landscapes. Our results provide a mechanism for relocating high‐risk turbines, and they show the feasibility of this novel and highly adaptable framework for managing risk of harm to wildlife from industrial development. Evaluación del Riesgo para las Aves por el Desarrollo de Energía Eólica Industrial Mediante Modelos de Selección de Recursos Pareados.     

Michael Soulé (1936–2020) on spirituality,ethics, and conservation biology

Michael Soulé is best known for his scientific contributions and central role in founding the Society for Conservation Biology and its flagship journal. Less well known are his childhood experiences, his affinity for Zen Buddhism and Arne Naess’ deep ecology philosophy, and his contributions as an environmental activist to efforts to protect biodiversity and rewild ecosystems. Also less well known is the extent to which he was an interdisciplinary environmental studies scholar, struggling to understand what promotes and hinders proenvironmental behaviors. In this regard, his life and that of many other conservation scientists provide important clues, but no easy answers. By attempting to integrate the humanities, with its quest for a meaningful and fulfilling human existence, with naturalistic nature spirituality and ecocentric values, as well as the social and natural sciences, Soulé sought to solve the riddle as to why human beings seemed unable to understand, slow, and halt negative anthropogenic environmental change. He thus modeled what interdisciplinary environmental studies is at its best. Those advocating the conservation of biological diversity have much to learn from Michael Soulé, not only from his scientific findings but also from his way of seeing, the questions he asked, and his love of the living world.     

Ranking individual habitat patches as connectivity providers: Integrating network analysis and patch removal experiments

Here we propose an integrated framework for modeling connectivity that can help ecologists, conservation planners and managers to identify patches that, more than others, contribute to uphold species dispersal and other ecological flows in a landscape context. We elaborate, extend and partly integrate recent network-based approaches for modeling and supporting the management of fragmented landscapes. In doing so, experimental patch removal techniques and network analytical approaches are merged into one integrated modeling framework for assessing the role of individual patches as connectivity providers. In particular, we focus the analyses on the habitat availability metrics PC and IIC and on the network metric Betweenness Centrality. The combination and extension of these metrics jointly assess both the immediate connectivity impacts of the loss of a particular patch and the resulting increased vulnerability of the network to subsequent disruptions. In using the framework to analyze the connectivity of two real landscapes in Madagascar and Catalonia (NE Spain), we suggest a procedure that can be used to rank individual habitat patches and show that the combined metrics reveal relevant and non-redundant information valuable to assert and quantify distinctive connectivity aspects of any given patch in the landscape. Hence, we argue that the proposed framework could facilitate more ecologically informed decision-making in managing fragmented landscapes. Finally, we discuss and highlight some of the advantages, limitations and key differences between the considered metrics.     

A parsimonious optimal foraging model explaining mortality patterns in Serengeti wildebeest

Based on data collected over 24 years in the Serengeti in Tanzania, Sinclair and Arcese (1995) indicated that the sensitivity of blue wildebeest Connochaetes taurinus to predation risk by lions Panthera leo may cause them to change habitats between open (low risk) and wooded (risky) habitats. They found that, in poor rainfall years, predators kill wildebeest that are in better condition than those that die of natural causes. In good rainfall years, predators kill wildebeest that are in worse condition than those that die of natural causes. Sinclair and Arcese (1995) proposed the “predation-sensitive food” hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests that, as food becomes limiting, animals take greater risks to obtain more food, and some of these animals are killed. I propose a more parsimonious hypothesis based on the marginal value theorem that is consistent with the observations made by Sinclair and Arcese (1995). Wildebeest follow a single decision rule in good and poor rainfall years, viz. move when foraging elsewhere increases your rate of intake of nutritious food. Similarly, predators follow a single decision rule in good and poor rainfall years, viz. take the prey item that maximizes the intake of energy per unit effort expended. This parsimonious model does not require differences in predator sensitivity as required by Sinclair and Arcese's (1995) model. I indicate ways in which my model can be falsified.     

区域生态学基本理论探索

全球经济一体化、区域发展一体化,以及生态服务转移引发的区域生态问题越来越受到人们的关注,区域生态问题也直接影响到区域的可持续发展.因此,构建一门针对区域生态问题的系统学科成为当务之急.本文基于生态学、地理学、经济学及其它相关学科理论,尝试从学科发展角度探讨建立区域生态学学科理论框架.文章提出区域生态学是研究区域生态结构、过程、功能,以及区域间生态要素耦合和相互作用机理的学科,生态介质是区域生态的联系纽带和核心要素.根据生态系统构成要素和当前人类活动,影响区域的突出生态介质有水、风和资源,通过这3种介质,分别形成流域、风域和资源圈3大类型生态区域.区域生态学的主要研究范畴和要点有：区域生态结构、过程与功能、区域生态完整性和生态分异规律、区域生态演变规律及其驱动力、区域生态承载力和生态适宜性、区域生态联系和生态资产流转,以及区域生态补偿和环境利益共享机制.     

Combining heat-transfer and energy budget models to predict thermal stress in Mediterranean intertidal mussels

Recent studies have emphasised that organisms can experience physiological stress well within their geographic range limits. Developing methods for mechanistically predicting the presence, absence and physiological performance of organisms is therefore important because of the ongoing effects of climate change. In this study, we merged a biophysical–ecological (BE) model that estimates the aquatic (high tide) and aerial (low tide) body temperatures of Mytilus galloprovincialis with a Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) model to predict growth, reproduction and mortality of this Mediterranean mussel in both intertidal and subtidal environments. Using weather and chlorophyll-a data from three Mediterranean sites along the Italian coasts, we show that predictions of sublethal and lethal (acute) stress can potentially explain the observed distribution (both presence and absence) of mussels in the intertidal and subtidal zones, and the maximum size of animals in the subtidal zones. Importantly, our results suggest that different mechanisms limit the intertidal distribution of mussels, and that these mechanisms do not follow a simple latitudinal gradient. At the northernmost site (Palermo), M. galloprovincialis appears to be excluded from the intertidal zone due to persistent exposure to lethal aerial temperatures, whereas at the southernmost sites (Porto Empedocle and Lampedusa) sublethal stress is the most important driver of mussel intertidal distribution. Our predictions provide a set of hypotheses for future work on the role of climate change in limiting intertidal distribution of mussels in the Mediterranean.     

Contamination levels and state assessment in the lakes of the Oliveri-Tindari Lagoon (North-Eastern Sicily,Italy)

The Oliveri-Tindari Lagoon, located in North-Eastern Sicily (Italy) and composed of six lakes, is subject to continuous environmental changes. An integrated study focusing on sediment features and levels of contamination was carried out for three of the six lakes, which are of ancient origin: Verde, Mergolo della Tonnara and Marinello. A high primary production (26.89 μg l^?1) was detected at Lake Verde; texture classification showed a typical grain size in the sediments of all lakes; the study of macronutrients highlighted 17.08 of total carbon in sediments from Lake Mergolo della Tonnara; toxic elements were detected at higher concentrations in the sediments of Lake Marinello in comparison to the others, while arsenic was found in high concentrations in all the samples tested, especially in Lake Verde, with a mean value of 17.25 mg kg^?1 dry weight (d.w.). All the organic contaminants, except 4, 4′-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene, were below the detection limits in the sediments. Minimal microbiological contamination was found in both water and sediment samples. In the latter, we isolated several bacterial strains thriving in the presence of arsenic, which play a role in the biogeochemical cycle of arsenic. These preliminary results, obtained for the first time using a multidisciplinary approach, provide general information about the Oliveri-Tindari Lagoon area.