The impact of human frequentation on coastal vegetation in a biosphere reserve

We aimed to assess the impacts of recreational trampling on rare species, plant communities and landscape structure in the Iroise Biosphere Reserve (western France). Focusing on coastal grasslands, we first identified indicators discriminating human-induced short grasslands (i.e. maintained short by intensive trampling) from natural short grasslands (i.e. maintained by environmental constraints): the presence of lichens and succulent or woody species, which are known to be highly sensitive to trampling, as well as a shallow soil were good indicators of natural short grasslands. Recreational activities affected the majority of plots containing rare species, but one third of rare species (according to their habitat preference) appeared currently not threatened by recreational activities. The other rare species were found in grasslands with low trampling intensity and were not found in grasslands with greater trampling intensity. One lichen species (Teloshistes flavicans) was not affected by trampling intensity, while two plants species (Scilla verna and Ophioglossum lusitanicum) showed higher abundances when trampling was low to medium. When it occurs in natural short grasslands, tourist trampling reduced drastically plant species richness. However, when considering maritime high grasslands, we observed that species richness was higher under low trampling vs. no trampling, but decreased at higher trampling intensity. At a landscape scale, the mean annual rate of path creation was about 1.6% and tourist trampling has already completely destroyed 3.5ha of natural coastal vegetation. Trampling of maritime-high grassland has also created 31ha of short grasslands, which represent 50.8% of the whole short grassland habitat of the island. Moreover trampling affected respectively, 41% and 15% of natural short grasslands and maritime-high grasslands. One of the main suggestions for managers to minimise trampling impacts should be to protect areas of rocky soil covered by short grassland that are still non-trampled and not impacted. Fortunately, this appears compatible with a relatively free access of visitors to coastal areas, as tourists can be redirected towards maritime-high grasslands, an habitat which is less impacted by tourism in terms of affected surface, soil cover, loss of species, or presence of rare species host.     

Effect of microbial seeding of crude oil in seawater in a model system

The adding of a mixed culture of marine hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria to petroleum polluted seawater did not increase the hydrocarbon degradation capability of the water. All the strains of the mixed culture disappeared from the dominant microflora while the autochthonous bacteria showed a capacity for adaptation to petroleum degradation about four days after the oil spill. This confirms the advantage of natural bacterial communities. The oil spilled on the sea surface evolved very quickly under the influence of abiotic factors such as sunlight. Aromatic petroleum fractions were oxidized and polymerized. This chemical evolution causes a drastic decrease of the biodegradability of crude oil.     

On the feeding of Branchiostoma senegalense (Acrania: Branchiostomidae)

The feeding biology of Branchiostoma senegalense Webb from the North-West African shelf region off Mauritania was investigated. The hindgut contained almost exclusively seston components, ranging in size from less than 1 m (bacteria size) to 300 m. Numerous chloroplasts of ingested phytoplankton appeared to be undigested. Dunaliella salina was still alive when leaving the anus after 1 to 2 h. Detritus formed the greater part of the gut contents. The authors conclude that the lancelets feed mainly on detritus and thus are indiscriminate suspension feeders.     

Bayesian estimation of species relative abundances and habitat preferences using opportunistic data

We develop a new statistical procedure to monitor relative species abundances and their respective preferences for different habitat types, using opportunistic data. Following Giraud et al. (Biometrics 72(2):649–658, 2015), we combine the opportunistic data with some standardized data in order to correct the bias inherent to the opportunistic data collection. Species observations are modeled by Poisson distributions whose parameters quantify species abundances and habitat preferences, and are estimated using Bayesian computations. Our main contributions are (i) to tackle the bias induced by habitat selection behaviors, (ii) to handle data where the habitat type associated to each observation is unknown, (iii) to estimate probabilities of selection of habitat for the species. As an illustration, we estimate common bird species habitat preferences and abundances in the region of Aquitaine (France).     

Editorial foreword for "environment,development and sustainability" journal

Environment, Development and Sustainability -     

Delimiting synchronous populations from monitoring data

We propose to investigate spatial synchrony in population dynamics from monitoring data. We develop a statistical procedure to delineate populations of sites with synchronous dynamics from short time series. The procedure relies on a new norm, the synchronous total variation norm, which promotes synchrony in the estimation of the sites dynamics. The method is tested on some synthetic data sets and is applied on data from the French breeding bird monitoring program.     

The Need for Flexibility in Conservation Practices: Exotic Species as an Example

To garner support for biodiversity from the World’s human population, conservation biologists need an open-minded, integrated conservation strategy. We suggest that this strategy should include efforts to (1) preserve existing high quality, diverse ecosystems, (2) remediate impaired systems, (3) balance the needs of people and ecological resources, and (4) engender appreciation of nature and its services. We refer to these four key tenets as reservation, restoration, reconciliation, and reconnection. We illustrate these concepts by presenting the debate surrounding the management of exotic species from an unusual perspective, the benefits of exotic species. By this example we hope to encourage an integrated approach to conservation in which management strategies can be flexible, adjusting to society’s needs and the overall goals of conservation.     

Effects of Natura 2000 on nontarget bird and butterfly species based on citizen science data

The European Union's Natura 2000 (N2000) is among the largest international networks of protected areas. One of its aims is to secure the status of a predetermined set of (targeted) bird and butterfly species. However, nontarget species may also benefit from N2000. We evaluated how the terrestrial component of this network affects the abundance of nontargeted, more common bird and butterfly species based on data from long-term volunteer-based monitoring programs in 9602 sites for birds and 2001 sites for butterflies. In almost half of the 155 bird species assessed, and particularly among woodland specialists, abundance increased (slope estimates ranged from 0.101 [SD 0.042] to 3.51 [SD 1.30]) as the proportion of landscape covered by N2000 sites increased. This positive relationship existed for 27 of the 104 butterfly species (estimates ranged from 0.382 [SD 0.163] to 4.28 [SD 0.768]), although most butterflies were generalists. For most species, when land-cover covariates were accounted for these positive relationships were not evident, meaning land cover may be a determinant of positive effects of the N2000 network. The increase in abundance as N2000 coverage increased correlated with the specialization index for birds, but not for butterflies. Although the N2000 network supports high abundance of a large spectrum of species, the low number of specialist butterflies with a positive association with the N2000 network shows the need to improve the habitat quality of N2000 sites that could harbor open-land butterfly specialists. For a better understanding of the processes involved, we advocate for standardized collection of data at N2000 sites.     

Exotic species,Experienced, and Idealized Nature

This paper is an answer to the Caplat and Coutts forum about our previous paper “The need for flexibility in conservation practices: exotic species as an example”. We precise here why we proposed to consider exotic species as well as indigenous species in the reconnection framework in human-modified environments. One argument is that consistent and understandable arguments must be used in the communication from scientists to the public, in order not to decrease the gap between science and society.     

Speaking without words: A meta-analysis of over 70 years of research on the power of nonverbal cues in job interviews

What candidates say in an interview is important—but so is how they say it. We draw on dual-process theory to explain why interviewers rely on individuals' dynamic and static nonverbal cues to evaluate performance with quick, implicit inferences (System 1 processing). Yet, it remains unclear which cues most influence interviewers' judgments and whether moderators affecting interviewers' reliance on System 1 thinking (e.g., interview structure, modality, duration, and interviewee gender) impact the relationship between nonverbal cues and interview ratings. We performed the first meta-analysis to address these questions, integrating findings across 63 studies (N = 4868). The nonverbal cues demonstrating the strongest association with interview performance were professional appearance (ρ = .62), eye contact (ρ = .45), and head movement (ρ = .43). Moderator analyses highlight the persistent power of nonverbal cues, as the results were largely unaffected by interview structure, modality, or duration. Experimental design did play a role, as did interviewees' gender, with stronger effects for certain nonverbal cues (e.g., facial expressions and professional appearance) for women than men, conveying interviewers' reliance on gender-based stereotypes when judging their performance. Overall, these results suggest nonverbal cues and characteristics are an important influence on job applicants' success in employment interviews.