Spillover of functionally important organisms between managed and natural habitats

Land-use intensification has led to a landscape mosaic that juxtaposes human-managed and natural areas. In such human-dominated and heterogeneous landscapes, spillover across habitat types, especially in systems that differ in resource availability, may be an important ecological process structuring communities. While there is much evidence for spillover from natural habitats to managed areas, little attention has been given to flow in the opposite direction. This paper synthesizes studies published to date from five functionally important trophic groups, herbivores, pathogens, pollinators, predators, and seed dispersers, and discusses evidence for spillover from managed to natural systems in all five groups. For each of the five focal groups, studies in the natural to managed direction are common, often with multiple review articles on each subject which document dozens of examples. In contrast, the number of studies which examine movement in the managed to natural direction is generally less than five studies per trophic group. These findings suggest that spillover in the managed to natural direction has been largely underestimated. As habitat modification continues, resulting in increasingly fragmented landscapes, the likelihood and size of any spillover effect will only increase.     

金沙江丰富类和稀有类浮游真核微生物的分布特征与影响因素

浮游真核微生物通常由少数丰富类和大量稀有类组成,二者在维持水生生态系统健康稳定方面具有重要作用.目前对大型筑坝河流中这两类真核微生物的生物地理分布模式所知甚少.以我国西南梯级水电开发河流金沙江为研究区域,对比分析丰富类和稀有类浮游真核微生物在不同河段的分布特征,解析影响两类微生物空间分布的主导因素.结果表明,相比上游自然河段,金沙江浮游真核微生物的α多样性在梯级大坝河段显著升高,稀有类的α多样性增长比高于丰富类.浮游真核丰富类和稀有类微生物的群落组成在不同河段间存在显著差异,其中Vermamoeba属等优势属的相对丰度在两河段间同样存在明显差异.影响丰富类和稀有类浮游真核微生物群落组成的关键地化因子有海拔和pH等,两类微生物群落相似性与地理距离和环境异质性均符合距离衰减关系,其群落构建均受扩散限制和环境筛选共同影响;方差分解分析和偏Mantel检验结果显示扩散限制是影响丰富类和稀有类分布的主要驱动因素.研究结果为我国西南缺资料区水电开发河流中微生物的地理分布模式和生态响应提供数据支持.     

VALUE OF WOODY RWER CORRIDORS IN LEVEE PROTECTION ALONG THE MISSOURI RWER IN 19931

ABSTRACT: Following the Midwest flood of 1993, a study was initiated along a 39-mile segment of the Missouri River to determine if there was an association between woody corridors and levee stability. A systematic sample of levee failures revealed that primary levees which did not fail had a significantly wider woody corridor than failed levees. Analysis of the total inventory of failed levees revealed that as the width of the woody corridor decreased, the length of the levee failure increased. Number of levee failures and their severity of damage could be reduced if woody corridors were at least 300 feet wide.     

Ecological Networks as Conceptual Frameworks or Operational Tools in Conservation

Abstract:  The establishment of ecological networks (ENs) has been proposed as an ideal way to counteract the increasing fragmentation of natural ecosystems and as a necessary complement to the establishment of protected areas for biodiversity conservation. This conservation tool, which comprises core areas, corridors, and buffer areas, has attracted the attention of several national and European institutions. It is thought that ENs can connect habitat patches and thus enable species to move across unsuitable areas. In Europe, however, ENs are proposed as an oversimplification of complex ecological concepts, and we maintain that they are of limited use for biodiversity conservation for several reasons. The ENs are species specific and operate on species-dependent scales. In addition, the information needed for their implementation is only available for a handful of species. To overcome these limitations, ENs have been proposed on a landscape scale (and for selected "focal" species), but there is no indication that the structural composition of core areas, corridors, and buffer areas could ensure the functional connectivity and improve the viability of more than a few species. The theory behind ENs fails to provide sufficient practical information on how to build them (e.g., width, shape, structure, content). In fact, no EN so far has been validated in practice (ensuring connectivity and increasing overall biodiversity conservation), and there are no signs that validation will be possible in the near future. In view of these limitations, it is difficult to justify spending economic and political resources on building systems that are at best working hypotheses that cannot be evaluated on a practical level.     

(M)VOC and composting facilities. Part 2: (M)VOC dispersal in the environment

BACKGROUND, AIMS AND SCOPE: Composting facilities are known to release odorous volatiles due to biodegradation of municipal waste and plant residues. Although odour perception and its grading is influenced by experience, attitude and adaptation, these emissions have created a lack of acceptance for residents in the vicinity of composting facilities. Enclosure of compost pile halls, ventilation systems and biofilters are often insufficient to minimise the burden of compost-derived compounds in the air. Moreover, economic considerations forced smaller communities to establish less sophisticated facilities with open storage areas and other relevant sources for wind-borne dispersal of bioaerosols. Aim of the present study was to characterise the immission and dispersal of microbial volatiles (MVOC) and, besides, to find coincidences between MVOC and compost odour. METHODS: In the course of this study, the surroundings of two composting facilities, differing in their type of process engineering, were investigated for emission of volatiles in the environment. Both microbially and plant-derived substances were assessed, several of which have low odour thresholds. Air samples were taken in distances ranging from 50 to 800 m in a downwind direction from each facility. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Compost-derived and microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOC) were found at distances of up to 800 m from the composting facilities. Terpenes like alpha-pinene, camphene and camphor were the dominant compounds and coincided with typical compost odour, whereas several typical MVOC were not found at greater distances. The terpenes in combination with certain MVOC may play an important role in the perception of compost odour. Exposure concentrations were not of toxicological relevance, but sensory irritation and psychohygienic effects due to an annoyance potential of such compounds should not be dismissed. RECOMMENDATIONS AND OUTLOOK: Although terpenes are generally associated with pleasant odour characteristics, they seemed to contribute to malodours in a mixture with other VOC, in this context of volatile waste from compost facilities. Malodorous emissions from biowaste have to be considered as sources of health complaints and the investigation of mixtures of compost-derived volatiles is still inevitable. Exposure levels have to be discussed taking VOC mixtures into account. Within composting facilities, technical devices have to be improved to minimise dispersal of volatiles to prevent residents from immissions eventually causing health complaints.     

Assessing the current state of ecological connectivity in a large marine protected area system

The establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) is a critical step in ensuring the continued persistence of marine biodiversity. Although the area protected in MPAs is growing, the movement of individuals (or larvae) among MPAs, termed connectivity, has only recently been included as an objective of many MPAs. As such, assessing connectivity is often neglected or oversimplified in the planning process. For promoting population persistence, it is important to ensure that protected areas in a system are functionally connected through dispersal or adult movement. We devised a multi-species model of larval dispersal for the Australian marine environment to evaluate how much local scale connectivity is protected in MPAs and determine whether the extensive system of MPAs truly functions as a network. We focused on non-migratory species with simplified larval behaviors (i.e., passive larval dispersal) (e.g., no explicit vertical migration) as an illustration. Of all the MPAs analyzed (approximately 2.7 million km²), outside the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef, <50% of MPAs (46-80% of total MPA area depending on the species considered) were functionally connected. Our results suggest that Australia's MPA system cannot be referred to as a single network, but rather a collection of numerous smaller networks delineated by natural breaks in the connectivity of reef habitat. Depending on the dispersal capacity of the taxa of interest, there may be between 25 and 47 individual ecological networks distributed across the Australian marine environment. The need to first assess the underlying natural connectivity of a study system prior to implementing new MPAs represents a key research priority for strategically enlarging MPA networks. Our findings highlight the benefits of integrating multi-species connectivity into conservation planning to identify opportunities to better incorporate connectivity into the design of MPA systems and thus to increase their capacity to support long-term, sustainable biodiversity outcomes.     

Identifying robust strategies for assisted migration in a competitive stochastic metacommunity

Assisted migration (AM) is the translocation of species beyond their historical range to locations that are expected to be more suitable under future climate change. However, a relocated population may fail to establish in its donor community if there is high uncertainty in decision-making, climate, and interactions with the recipient ecological community. To quantify the benefit to persistence and risk of establishment failure of AM under different management scenarios (e.g., choosing target species, proportion of population to relocate, and optimal location to relocate), we built a stochastic metacommunity model to simulate several species reproducing, dispersing, and competing on a temperature gradient as temperature increases over time. Without AM, the species were vulnerable to climate change when they had low population sizes, short dispersal, and strong poleward competition. When relocating species that exemplified these traits, AM increased the long-term persistence of the species most when relocating a fraction of the donor population, even if the remaining population was very small or rapidly declining. This suggests that leaving behind a fraction of the population could be a robust approach, allowing managers to repeat AM in case they move the species to the wrong place and at the wrong time, especially when it is difficult to identify a species’ optimal climate. We found that AM most benefitted species with low dispersal ability and least benefited species with narrow thermal tolerances, for which AM increased extinction risk on average. Although relocation did not affect the persistence of nontarget species in our simple competitive model, researchers will need to consider a more complete set of community interactions to comprehensively understand invasion potential.     

Spontaneous Interspecific Hybridization and Patterns of Pollen Dispersal in Ex Situ Populations of a Tree Species (Sinojackia xylocarpa) that is Extinct in the Wild

Abstract:  For endangered plants interspecific hybridization occurring in ex situ collections may lead to failure of reintroduction actions. We used Sinojackia xylocarpa , a well documented Chinese endemic species that is extinct in the wild, as a model case to address this concern. We used paternity analyses to assess the spontaneous hybridization and patterns of pollen flow between S. xylocarpa and its congener species, S. rehderiana , in conserved populations in Wuhan Botanic Garden. Interspecific hybridization events were detected in seven out of eight maternal trees of S. xylocarpa , and an average of 32.7% seeds collected from maternal trees of S. xylocarpa were hybrids. The paternity of 93 out of 249 seedlings from S. xylocarpa assigned to S. rehderiana provided convincing evidence that spontaneous interspecific hybridization occurred extensively in the living garden collection we studied. Different patterns of pollen dispersal (predominantly short-distance vs. long-distance pollination) were observed between intra- and interspecific hybridization events in the garden. Pollen dispersal within the ex situ populations was not restricted by distance, as evidenced by a lack of significant correlations between the average effective pollen dispersal distance (δ) and the geographic distances (d1 and d2) between maternal and paternal trees. The interspecific pollen-dispersal distance ranged from 10 to 620.1 m (mean 294.4 m). Such extensive hybridization in ex situ collections could jeopardize the genetic integrity of endangered species and irrevocably contaminate the gene pool if such hybrids are used for reintroduction and restoration. We recommend strongly that measures be taken to minimize the genetic risks of this kind of hybridization, including establishing buffer zones in ex situ collections, manipulating flowering phenology, testing seed lots before use in reintroduction programs, and controlling pollination for seed purity.     

Dispersal connectivity and reserve selection for marine conservation

Although larval dispersal is crucial for the persistence of most marine populations, dispersal connectivity between sites is rarely considered in designing marine protected area networks. In particular the role of structural characteristics (known as topology) for the network of larval dispersal routes in the conservation of metapopulations has not been addressed. To determine reserve site configurations that provide highest persistence values with respect to their connectivity characteristics, we model nine connectivity topological models derived from graph theory in a demographic metapopulation model. We identify reserve site configurations that provide the highest persistence values for each of the metapopulation connectivity models. Except for the minimally connected and fully connected populations, we observed two general ‘rules of thumb’ for optimising the mean life time for all topological models: firstly place the majority of reserves, so that they are neighbours of each other, on the sites where the number of connections between the populations is highest (hub), secondly when the reserves have occupied the majority of the vertices in the hub, then select another area of high connectivity and repeat. If there are no suitable hubs remaining then distribute the remaining reserves to isolated locations optimising contact with non-reserved sites.     

Conservation Value of Remnant Riparian Forest Corridors of Varying Quality for Amazonian Birds and Mammals

Abstract:  Forest corridors are often considered the main instrument with which to offset the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation. Brazilian forestry legislation requires that all riparian zones on private landholdings be maintained as permanent reserves and sets fixed minimum widths of riparian forest buffers to be retained alongside rivers and perennial streams. We investigated the effects of corridor width and degradation status of 37 riparian forest sites (including 24 corridors connected to large source-forest patches, 8 unconnected forest corridors, and 5 control riparian zones embedded within continuous forest patches) on bird and mammal species richness in a hyper-fragmented forest landscape surrounding Alta Floresta, Mato Grosso, Brazil. We used point-count and track-sampling methodology, coupled with an intensive forest-quality assessment that combined satellite imagery and ground truthed data. Vertebrate use of corridors was highly species-specific, but broad trends emerged depending on species life histories and their sensitivity to disturbance. Narrow and/or highly disturbed riparian corridors retained only a depauperate vertebrate assemblage that was typical of deforested habitats, whereas wide, well-preserved corridors retained a nearly complete species assemblage. Restriction of livestock movement along riparian buffers and their exclusion from key areas alongside deforested streams would permit corridor regeneration and facilitate restoration of connectivity .