The living environment and children's fears following the Indonesian tsunami

The tsunami that struck South-east Asia on 26 December 2004 left more than 500,000 people in Aceh, Indonesia, homeless and displaced to temporary barracks and other communities. This study examines the associations between prolonged habitation in barracks and the nature of fears reported by school-age children and adolescents. In mid-2007, 30 months after the tsunami, the authors interviewed 155 child and parent dyads. Logistic regression analysis was used to compare the fears reported by children and adolescents living in barracks with those reported by their peers who were living in villages. After adjusting for demographic factors and tsunami exposure, the data reveals that children and adolescents living in barracks were three times more likely than those living in villages to report tsunami-related fears. The study demonstrates that continued residence in barracks 30 months after the tsunami is associated with higher rates of reporting tsunami-related fears, suggesting that barracks habitation has had a significant impact on the psychological experience of children and adolescents since the tsunami.     

Application of Agriculture‐Developed Demographic Analysis for the Conservation of the Hawaiian Alpine Wekiu Bug

Insects that should be considered for conservation attention are often overlooked because of a lack of data. The detailed information necessary to assess population growth, decline, and maximum range is particularly difficult to acquire for rare and cryptic species. Many of these difficulties can be overcome with the use of life table analyses and heat energy accumulation models common in agriculture. The wekiu bug (Nysius wekiuicola), endemic to the summit of one volcanic mountain in Hawaii, is a rare insect living in an environmentally sensitive alpine stone desert, where field‐based population assessments would be inefficient or potentially detrimental to natural and cultural resources. We conducted laboratory experiments with the insects by manipulating rearing temperatures of laboratory colonies and made detailed observations of habitat conditions to develop life tables representing population growth parameters and environmental models for wekiu bug phenology and demographic change. Wekiu bugs developed at temperatures only found in its environment on sunny days and required the thermal buffer found on cinder cones for growth and population increase. Wekiu bugs required approximately 3.5 months to complete one generation. The bug developed optimally from 26 to 30 °C, temperatures that are much higher than the air temperature attains in its elevational range. The developmental temperature range of the species confirmed a physiological reason why the wekiu bug is only found on cinder cones. This physiology information can help guide population monitoring and inform habitat restoration and conservation. The wekiu bug was a candidate for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, and the developmental parameters we quantified were used to determine the species would not be listed as endangered or threatened. The use of developmental threshold experiments, life table analyses, and degree day modeling can directly inform otherwise unobservable habitat needs and demographic characteristics of extremely rare insects. Aplicación de Análisis Demográfico de Desarrollo Agrícola para la Conservación del Insecto Weiku Alpino Hawaiano     

A Contemporary,Sex‐Limited Change in Body Size of an Estuarine Turtle in Response to Commercial Fishing

Abstract: Juvenile growth rate and adult body size are important components of life‐history strategies because of their direct impact on fitness. The diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) is a sexually dimorphic, long‐lived turtle inhabiting brackish waters throughout the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. In parts of its range, terrapins face anthropogenically imposed mortality: juveniles of both sexes inadvertently enter commercial crab traps and drown. For adult females, the carapace eventually grows large enough that they cannot enter traps, whereas males almost never reach that critical size. We compared age structure, carapace dimensions, growth curves, and indices of sexual dimorphism for a Chesapeake Bay population of terrapins (where mortality of turtles is high due to crab traps) with contemporary terrapins from Long Island Sound and museum specimens from Chesapeake Bay (neither group subject to commercial crab traps). We also calculated the allochronic and synchronic rates of evolutionary change (haldanes) for males and females to measure the rate of trait change in a population or between populations, respectively. We found a dramatic shift to a younger male age structure, a decrease in the length of time to terminal female carapace size, a 15% increase in female carapace width, and an increase in sexual dimorphism in Chesapeake Bay. In a new twist, our results implicate a fishery in the selective increase in size of a reptilian bycatch species. These sex‐specific changes in life history and demography have implications for population viability that need to be considered when addressing conservation of this threatened turtle.     

Estimating the extent and structure of trade in horticultural orchids via social media

The wildlife trade is a lucrative industry involving thousands of animal and plant species. The increasing use of the internet for both legal and illegal wildlife trade is well documented, but there is evidence that trade may be emerging on new online technologies such as social media. Using the orchid trade as a case study, we conducted the first systematic survey of wildlife trade on an international social‐media website. We focused on themed forums (groups), where people with similar interests can interact by uploading images or text (posts) that are visible to other group members. We used social‐network analysis to examine the ties between 150 of these orchid‐themed groups to determine the structure of the network. We found 4 communities of closely linked groups based around shared language. Most trade occurred in a community that consisted of English‐speaking and Southeast Asian groups. In addition to the network analysis, we randomly sampled 30 groups from the whole network to assess the prevalence of trade in cultivated and wild plants. Of 55,805 posts recorded over 12 weeks, 8.9% contained plants for sale, and 22–46% of these posts pertained to wild‐collected orchids. Although total numbers of posts about trade were relatively small, the large proportion of posts advertising wild orchids for sale supports calls for better monitoring of social media for trade in wild‐collected plants.     

Changes in bird‐migration patterns associated with human‐induced mortality

Many bird populations have recently changed their migratory behavior in response to alterations of the environment. We collected data over 16 years on male Great Bustards (Otis tarda), a species showing a partial migratory pattern (sedentary and migratory birds coexisting in the same breeding groups). We conducted population counts and radio tracked 180 individuals to examine differences in survival rates between migratory and sedentary individuals and evaluate possible effects of these differences on the migratory pattern of the population. Overall, 65% of individuals migrated and 35% did not. The average distance between breeding and postbreeding areas of migrant individuals was 89.9 km, and the longest average movement of sedentary males was 3.8 km. Breeding group and migration distance had no effect on survival. However, mortality of migrants was 2.4 to 3.5 times higher than mortality of sedentary birds. For marked males, collision with power lines was the main cause of death from unnatural causes (37.6% of all deaths), and migratory birds died in collisions with power lines more frequently than sedentary birds (21.3% vs 6.3%). The percentage of sedentary individuals increased from 17% in 1997 to 45% in 2012. These results were consistent with data collected from radio‐tracked individuals: The proportion of migratory individuals decreased from 86% in 1997–1999 to 44% in 2006–2010. The observed decrease in the migratory tendency was not related to climatic changes (temperatures did not change over the study period) or improvements in habitat quality (dry cereal farmland area decreased in the main study area). Our findings suggest that human‐induced mortality during migration may be an important factor shaping the migration patterns of species inhabiting humanized landscapes.     

The problem of estimating recent genetic connectivity in a changing world

Accurate understanding of population connectivity is important to conservation because dispersal can play an important role in population dynamics, microevolution, and assessments of extirpation risk and population rescue. Genetic methods are increasingly used to infer population connectivity because advances in technology have made them more advantageous (e.g., cost effective) relative to ecological methods. Given the reductions in wildlife population connectivity since the Industrial Revolution and more recent drastic reductions from habitat loss, it is important to know the accuracy of and biases in genetic connectivity estimators when connectivity has declined recently. Using simulated data, we investigated the accuracy and bias of 2 common estimators of migration (movement of individuals among populations) rate. We focused on the timing of the connectivity change and the magnitude of that change on the estimates of migration by using a coalescent‐based method (Migrate‐n) and a disequilibrium‐based method (BayesAss). Contrary to expectations, when historically high connectivity had declined recently: (i) both methods over‐estimated recent migration rates; (ii) the coalescent‐based method (Migrate‐n) provided better estimates of recent migration rate than the disequilibrium‐based method (BayesAss); (iii) the coalescent‐based method did not accurately reflect long‐term genetic connectivity. Overall, our results highlight the problems with comparing coalescent and disequilibrium estimates to make inferences about the effects of recent landscape change on genetic connectivity among populations. We found that contrasting these 2 estimates to make inferences about genetic‐connectivity changes over time could lead to inaccurate conclusions.     

SACRAMENTO RIVER FLOW RECONSTRUCTED TO A.D. 869 FROM TREE RINGS1

ABSTRACT: A time series of annual flow of the Sacramento River, California, is reconstructed to A.D. 869 from tree rings for a long‐term perspective on hydrologic drought. Reconstructions derived by principal components regression of flow on time‐varying subsets of tree‐ring chronologies account for 64 to 81 percent of the flow variance in the 1906 to 1977 calibration period. A Monte Carlo analysis of reconstructed n‐year running means indicates that the gaged record contains examples of drought extremes for averaging periods of perhaps = 6 to 10 years, but not for longer and shorter averaging periods. For example, the estimated probability approaches 1.0 that the flow in A.D. 1580 was lower than the lowest single‐year gaged flow. The tree‐ring record also suggests that persistently high or low flows over 50‐year periods characterize some parts of the long‐term flow history. The results should contribute to sensible water resources planning for the Sacramento Basin and to the methodology of incorporating tree‐ring data in the assessment of the probability of hydrologic drought.     

Work–family conflict and mindfulness: Investigating the effectiveness of a brief training intervention

This experimental switching replications design study examined the effectiveness of a brief mindfulness‐based training intervention that included a one‐hour mindfulness‐based workshop followed by 13 days of behavioral self‐monitoring (BSM) in an attempt to reduce work–family conflict. The intervention increased participants' mindfulness and decreased work‐to‐family conflict, but did not reduce family‐to‐work conflict. In addition, those who participated in BSM reported greater mindfulness, less work‐to‐family conflict, and less family‐to‐work conflict than did those who did not participate in BSM. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as future research directions, are discussed. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mutagenicity of chloroaniline/lignin metabolites in the salmonella/microsome assay

Abstract

Chloroanilines are constituents of many agrochemicals and have been found to be metabolized to succinic acid conjugates, e.g., succinamides and succinimides. The mutagenic potential of five chloroanilines and their succinamides and succinimide derivatives have been tested with two strains of Salmonella typhimurium (TA98 and TA100) with and without rat hepatic micro‐somal fraction. None of the compounds produced a dose response effect with a two‐fold increase in revertants indicating that these compounds are not mutagens or promutagens in these assays.     

Ants as a Measure of Effectiveness of Habitat Conservation Planning in Southern California

Abstract: In the United States multispecies habitat conservation plans were meant to be the solution to conflicts between economic development and protection of biological diversity. Although now widely applied, questions exist concerning the scientific credibility of the conservation planning process and effectiveness of the plans. We used ants to assess performance of one of the first regional conservation plans developed in the United States, the Orange County Central‐Coastal Natural Community Conservation Plan (NCCP), in meeting its broader conservation objectives of biodiversity and ecosystem‐level protection. We collected pitfall data on ants for over 3 years on 172 sites established across a network of conservation lands in coastal southern California. Although recovered native ant diversity for the study area was high, site‐occupancy models indicated the invasive and ecologically disruptive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) was present at 29% of sites, and sites located within 200 m of urban and agricultural areas were more likely to have been invaded. Within invaded sites, native ants were largely displaced, and their median species richness declined by more than 60% compared with uninvaded sites. At the time of planning, 24% of the 15,133‐ha reserve system established by Orange County NCCP fell within 200 m of an urban or agricultural edge. With complete build out of lands surrounding the reserve, the proportion of the reserve system vulnerable to invasion will grow to 44%. Our data indicate that simply protecting designated areas from development is not enough. If habitat conservation plans are to fulfill their conservation promise of ecosystem‐level protection, a more‐integrated and systematic approach to the process of habitat conservation planning is needed.