Pond Acoustic Sampling Scheme: A draft protocol for rapid acoustic data collection in small waterbodies

1. Freshwater conservation is vital to the maintenance of global biodiversity. Ponds are a critical, yet often under‐recognized, part of this, contributing to overall ecosystem functioning and diversity. They provide habitats for a range of aquatic, terrestrial, and amphibious life, often including rare and declining species.
2. Effective, rapid, and accessible survey methods are needed to enable evidence‐based conservation action, but freshwater taxa are often viewed as “difficult”—and few specialist surveyors are available. Datasets on ponds are therefore limited in their spatiotemporal coverage.
3. With the advent of new recording technologies, acoustic survey methods are becoming increasingly available to researchers, citizen scientists, and conservation practitioners. They can be an effective and noninvasive approach for gathering data on target species, assemblages, and environmental variables. However, freshwater applications are lagging behind those in terrestrial and marine spheres, and as an emergent method, research studies have employed a multitude of different sampling protocols.
4. We propose the Pond Acoustic Sampling Scheme (PASS), a simple protocol to allow a standardized minimal sample to be collected rapidly from small waterbodies, alongside environmental and methodological metadata. This sampling scheme can be incorporated into a variety of survey designs and is intended to allow access to a wide range of participants, without requiring complicated or prohibitively expensive equipment.
5. Adoption of this sampling protocol would enable consistent sound recordings to be gathered by researchers and conservation organizations, and allow the development of landscape‐scale surveys, data sharing, and collaboration within an expanding freshwater ecoacoustic community—rather than individual approaches that produce incompatible datasets. The compilation of standardized data would improve the prospects for effective research into the soundscapes of small waterbodies and aid freshwater conservation efforts.

     

Human Health Risk Assessment of Soils Contaminated with Metal(loid)s by Using DGT Uptake: A Case Study of a Former Korean Metal Refinery Site

The human health risk of soils contaminated with As, Pb, Cu, and Zn was evaluated based on pseudo-total concentrations of metal(loid)s, the physiologically based extraction test (PBET), and diffusive gradients in thin films (DGT). Non-carcinogenic (NCR) and carcinogenic (CR) risks exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency criteria under both the residential and non-residential scenarios. Human bioavailable concentrations (PBET) were much lower than pseudo-total concentrations. The Hazardous Index of NCR (HI (NCR)) for the PBET in the studied soils was 67% and 94% less than that for pseudo-total concentration, respectively, under the non-residential and residential scenarios. Similarly, CR for the PBET was also 65% and 93% less for the two soils. The concentration of metal(loid)s accumulated in the DGT resin was highly correlated with the PBET-extractable concentration (R² > 0.649). Therefore, for both the CR and HI (NCR), the DGT-calculated risk was linearly related to the PBET-calculated risk for the studied soils under both scenarios. The results suggest that DGT uptake and PBET-extracted concentrations are good surrogates for risk estimation and that both J1 and J2 soils require remediation before their use for residential or non-residential purposes.     

Beyond “beyond GDP indicators:” The need for reflexivity in science for governance

“Beyond GDP” initiatives flag the limits of the quantitative indicators of progress currently used for governance. Focusing on the quality assessment of quantitative information used for governance, we use some of the conceptual tools of theoretical ecology and evolutionary biology in order to identify the pre-analytical choices that determine the usefulness and pertinence of a model. Starting from the definition of a model as a formal representation of a specific and necessarily subjective observation, we show that the production of indicators is the final result of a series of decisions on what to observe and how. These choices, in turn, depend on the narrative, or set of narratives, adopted. Narratives provide causality and context to knowledge claims and are needed to select the indicators to be used for policy. Moving beyond the GDP debate requires reflexivity, that is, awareness of the key role that pre-analytical choices play in the definition of both the relevance of the chosen perceptions and narratives (determined by the normative stands of different actors – who defines wellbeing?), and the usefulness of the chosen models and data (determined by the pertinence of the resulting representation – how to measure wellbeing?). Reflexivity is essential in order to take into account the purposes for which different indicators were created and to define new purposes for the “beyond GDP” indicators.     

A sequential test for assessing observed agreement between raters

Assessing the agreement between two or more raters is an important topic in medical practice. Existing techniques, which deal with categorical data, are based on contingency tables. This is often an obstacle in practice as we have to wait for a long time to collect the appropriate sample size of subjects to construct the contingency table. In this paper, we introduce a nonparametric sequential test for assessing agreement, which can be applied as data accrues, does not require a contingency table, facilitating a rapid assessment of the agreement. The proposed test is based on the cumulative sum of the number of disagreements between the two raters and a suitable statistic representing the waiting time until the cumulative sum exceeds a predefined threshold. We treat the cases of testing two raters' agreement with respect to one or more characteristics and using two or more classification categories, the case where the two raters extremely disagree, and finally the case of testing more than two raters' agreement. The numerical investigation shows that the proposed test has excellent performance. Compared to the existing methods, the proposed method appears to require significantly smaller sample size with equivalent power. Moreover, the proposed method is easily generalizable and brings the problem of assessing the agreement between two or more raters and one or more characteristics under a unified framework, thus providing an easy to use tool to medical practitioners.     

Strategies for rapid assessment of fungal diversity

The problems of estimating fungal diversity are considerable, due especially to the large numbers of species even in small study sites, only a small proportion of which are adequately characterized, and the lack of trained staff and appropriate identification manuals. These difficulties are multiplied in the tropics. Strategies for providing preliminary assessments of fungal diversity which can be carried out within short time-frames are discussed, which will allow initial site valuations to be made for conservation purposes. The necessity of identifying all species discovered is considered, and the need emphasized for strictly defined sampling protocols which allow proper comparison between sites. The advantages and disadvantages of preliminary diversity analyses involving different taxonomic and ecological groups, fungus/plant associations, spatial sampling, soil and litter analysis, molecular methods and indirect assessment are considered.     

Patch assessment in foraging flocks of European starlings: evidence for the use of public information

A field experiment was carried out to determine whether group-foragingstarlings (Sturnus vulgaris) use public information to helpthem estimate the quality of an artificial resource patch anddepart accordingly. Three kinds of information are potentiallyavailable in a group: patch-sample information, pre-harvestinformation, and public information. These three types of informationcan be combined into four patch assessment strategies: (1) patch-samplealone; (2) patch-sample and pre-harvest; (3) patch-sample andpublic; and (4) patch-sample, pre-harvest, and public. Dependingon the foraging environment we presented to the starlings, eachassessment strategy made a unique set of predictions concerningthe patch departure decisions of pairs of birds based on differencesin their foraging success. The environment was manipulated intwo ways: by altering the variability in patch quality and bychanging compatibility, the ease with which individual birdscould simultaneously acquire both patch-sample and public information.Our observations on patch persistence and departure order demonstratethat the starlings used a combination of patch-sample and publicinformation, but not pre-harvest information, to estimate thequality of the experimental patch. Moreover, our results suggestthat starlings use public information only when it is easilyavailable and ignore it under incompatible conditions. Thisstudy provides the first evidence of public information usein a patch assessment problem.     

Contact sensitization: A new approach to risk assessment

The murine local lymph node assay is a novel predictive test for the identification of skin sensitizing chemicals. The method measures sensitization potential of a chemical in mice as a function of proliferative activity induced in lymph nodes draining the site of topical exposure to that test chemical. Here we describe the use of the local lymph node assay for evaluation of the relative potency of skin sensitizing chemicals via derivation of the concentration required to produce a threshold positive reaction. Subsequently, the development of risk assessments based on comparisons with index contact allergens is outlined.     

The New Zealand falcon and wind farms: a risk assessment framework

Abstract

Internationally, birds of prey are often reported as being relatively prone to collision with wind turbines in comparison to other groups of birds. However, as yet it is unclear to what extent New Zealand's only endemic bird of prey, the New Zealand falcon (Falco novaeseelandiae), is at risk. In this paper we summarise the potential for wind farms to impact New Zealand falcon, evaluate the efficacy of a range of risk assessment and post-consent monitoring practices, and present options for mitigating and/or offsetting any residual effects. We conclude that the lack of knowledge on the effects of wind farms on New Zealand falcon is the result of inconsistency in the assessment methods thus far employed and the absence of a coordinated approach to monitoring methods and the dissemination of results. To remedy this we present a risk assessment framework that, if adopted, will provide the information necessary to ensure alternative energy targets can be met without compromising the conservation of this threatened species.