Assessing high conservation value areas for rare,endemic and threatened (RET) species: A study in high altitude Changthang landscape of India

The Forest Stewardship Council developed the concept of High Conservation Values (HCVs) as a criteria in the forest certification process in order to promote sustainable forest management. It has six major components or values and component one and two of HCVs deal with the habitat for viable populations of “rare, endemic and threatened (RET) species” using the IUCN Red List category and other national / regional / local lists. But a consistent robust methodology for identification of these areas, does not exist. The present study tried to develop for the first time, a straight forward inclusive methodology for identification of HCVAs for the RET species on a spatio-temporal scale. A total of 50 RET and other significant species (32 flora, 10 fauna and 8 avifauna) were identified after a thorough literature review, field surveys and consultations with experts. Occurrence data of the selected species was collected from different secondary sources, field surveys, institutes and scientists who have worked on them. A 10 km grid-based approach and stratified random sampling was used for the primary GPS field surveys conducted during 2018–2019. MaxEnt species distribution model (SDM) software was used based on the occurrence data and environmental variables for identification of potential suitable habitats for the selected species. Linear support vector machine (LSVM) model was used for assessing the performance of the SDMs. The performance of each SDM has been validated through Cohen's Kappa (KAPPA), true skill statistic (TSS) and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) models. The proposed methodology addresses the urgent need for a holistic and robust set of techniques to apply the HCV toolkit. This is key to identify and map HCVAs for RET species at the landscape level and can be easily adapted to and adopted at the national, regional, state or local level in India. The methods offer an efficient, reliable approach for the application of the HCV concept, elsewhere in the world.     

Nut-like oil seeds: food for monkeys, chimpanzees, humans, and probably ape-men

The hypothetical hyperrobust australopithecine gnathic nutcracker adaptation is reexamined in light of ecobotanical information on edible wild nuts provided by the flora of tropical and subtropical Africa. The nut producing species are tree-forms. Those of the forest region do not as a rule produce fruits with edible mesocarps. In contrast, the woodland savanna species (particularly in the Zambezian region) characteristically provide an important whole fruit, i.e., a nutritious mesocarp in addition to edible oil-rich nut seeds. These fruits drop from the tree before they are fully mature and go through the final ripening phase on the ground. They are important seasonal foods for a variety of vertebrates, including primates, elephants, and antelope. Altogether the nuts exhibit a broad range of toughness values, measured here as strength under compression. The woodland nuts are not as tough (177-934 kg force, breaking load) as those of the tropical forest (192-1,673 kg force). The seed-predators of the woodland species include squirrels, baboons, warthogs, and parrots. Paleoecological analyses indicate that it was the woodland nuts that were probably available to Australopithecus boisei and A. robustus. Preliminary estimates of adult male gnathic nut-cracking capabilities suggest that A. boisei could have orally cracked a significant portion of the woodland nuts. In spite of this, ecobotanical data indicate that we can probably reject the hypothesis that these hominids were year-round gnathic nut-cracking specialists. Both the indirect and direct evidence support this conclusion.     

Genetic divergence of heat production within and between the wild progenitors of wheat and barley: evolutionary and agronomical implications

Summary We compared and contrasted calorimetrically heat production in seedlings incubated at 5°C and 24°C using genotypes from cold and warm Israeli populations of the wild progenitors of barley (Hordeum spontaneum) and wheat (Triticum dicoccoides). The wild barley sample comprised 14 accessions, 7 from cold localities and 7 from warm localities. The wild emmer wheat sample consisted of 12 accessions, 6 from a cold locality, and 6 from a warm locality. Our results indicated that (1) heat production was significantly higher in the two wild cereals at 5 °C than at 24 °C; (2) interspecifically, wild barley generates significantly more heat than wild wheat at both 5 °C and 24 °C; (3) intraspecifically, wild barley from warm environments generates significantly more heat than wild barley from cold ones, at 24 °C. We hypothesize that both the inter- and intraspecific differences in heat production evolved adaptively by natural selection in accordance with the niche-width genetic variation hypothesis. These differences presumably enhance biochemical processes, hence growth, thereby leading to the shorter annual cycle of barley compared to that of wheat, and may explain the wider range of the wild and cultivated gene pools of barley, as compared with those of wheat. We propose that a shortening of the growth period through utilizing heat production gene(s) is feasible by classical methods of breeding and/or modern biotechnology.     

Antibodies and coinfection drive variation in nematode burdens in wild mice

Coinfections with parasitic helminths and microparasites are highly common in nature and can lead to complex within-host interactions between parasite species which can cause negative health outcomes for humans, and domestic and wild animals. Many of these negative health effects worsen with increasing parasite burdens. However, even though many studies have identified several key factors that determine worm burdens across various host systems, less is known about how the immune response interacts with these factors and what the consequences are for the outcome of within-host parasite interactions. We investigated two interacting gastrointestinal parasites of wild wood mice, Heligmosomoides polygyrus (nematode) and Eimeria spp. (coccidia), in order to investigate how host demographic factors, coinfection and the host’s immune response affected parasite burdens and infection probability, and to determine what factors predict parasite-specific and total antibody levels. We found that antibody levels were the only factors that significantly influenced variation in both H. polygyrus burden and infection probability, and Eimeria spp. infection probability. Total faecal IgA was negatively associated with H. polygyrus burden and Eimeria spp. infection, whereas H. polygyrus-specific IgG1 was positively associated with H. polygyrus infection. We further found that the presence of Eimeria spp. had a negative effect on both faecal IgA and H. polygyrus-specific IgG1. Our results show that even in the context of natural demographic and immunological variation amongst individuals, we were able to decipher a role for the host humoral immune response in shaping the within-host interaction between H. polygyrus and Eimeria spp.     

The importance of pigs’ castration strategy on carbon footprint of feed intake,nitrogen and phosphorus efficiency under different management conditions

The environmental impact of livestock production is under scrutiny nowadays and is being situated both on a global level and local level. On a global level, the global warming potential (GWP) of meat production is criticised. On a local level, the excretion of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) is of concern as excess nutrients may lead to water eutrophication and soil acidification. The ERA-NET project SuSI evaluated if immunocastration may act as an ecologically, socially and economic more sustainable alternative compared to pork production with surgical castrates (SCs) and boars (BOs). Here, we report the environmental impact of immunocastrates (ICs) vs SC and BO, based on four trials carried out by European SuSi partners. More specifically, we aimed to compare IC with SC and BO in terms of GWP, N and P excretion per kg of pork production and test if this differed between experiments. There was an interaction between trial and sex category (P_{Trial × Sex category} < 0.005) for all environmental sustainability parameters. Surgical castrates performed worse (higher carbon footprint of the feed intake, N and P excretion, lower N and P efficiency) compared to IC and BO, but the size of the effect was trial dependent. Immunocastrates scored intermediate, with mostly no significant differences from BO in most trials, but with significantly better values compared to SC. Over trials, the carbon footprint of the feed intake (land use change inclusive) per kg lean meat gain in the growing-finishing phase was 9–16% lower for IC vs SC and 9–22% lower for BO vs SC. Nitrogen efficiency of IC and BO was 7–10% and 9–14%, respectively, higher compared to SC. Phosphorus efficiency of IC and BO was higher than that of SC by 6–14% and 9–17%, respectively. Per kg of lean meat gain in the growing-finishing phase, IC excreted between 14 and 19% less N and between 14 and 24% less P than SC. For BO, it was between 14 and 27% less N and between 14 and 31% less P than SC. Differences between trials were larger than differences between castration strategies and trial design may have amplified the observed effects. Improving feed efficiency, adapting the feed to the needs of the animal (avoiding excess nutrients) and choosing low-impact ingredients are key for improving the environmental sustainability of pig production. Ending physical castration is another step to attain this goal.     

Nonparametric inference for the cumulative incidence function of a competing risk,with an emphasis on confidence bands in the presence of left‐truncation

Motivated by a study on pregnancy outcome, a computationally simple resampling procedure for nonparametric analysis of the cumulative incidence function of a competing risk is investigated for left‐truncated data. We also modify the original procedure to producing the more desirable Greenwood‐type variance estimates. These approaches are used to construct simultaneous confidence bands of the cumulative incidence functions which is otherwise hampered by the complicated nature of the covariance process. Simulation results and a real data example are provided.     

The effectiveness of bird hides in mitigating recreational disturbances of birdwatchers

Bird hides are often built to ameliorate the disturbance of birdwatchers at birdwatching sites. However, the effectiveness of such shelters is rarely evaluated. This study investigated the recreational disturbances induced by birdwatchers at Mai Po Nature Reserve in Hong Kong and examined the effectiveness of bird hides in mitigating birdwatcher impacts. A bird disturbance survey was conducted to record the disturbances caused by birdwatchers and responses shown by birds at three sampling sites in Mai Po Nature Reserve. A total of 469 observations were recorded in 25 field days from Oct 2019 to April 2020. The results indicated that bird hides significantly mitigated the frequency of disturbance and level of response of birds. With a bird hide, the frequency of disturbance was lower than the unsheltered site given that both sites have a similar level of visitation, yet, disturbance frequency was not significantly lower if the bird hide was highly utilized by birdwatchers. Birds had shown less vigorous and slower responses to disturbances at sites with bird hides than that without. On the other hand, at those sites with bird hides, birds responded at a farther distance than birds at the unsheltered site, which a longer distance may represent a greater level of disturbance. Upon disturbances, birds at the unsheltered site tended to stay in the original area, while birds around bird hides tend to settle further from the original habitat. Visual disturbances were well avoided at bird hides when compared to an unsheltered environment, however, disturbance from noise was found to be more prevalent at bird hides. Implications of these findings were discussed, and recommendations regarding the use, setting, and design of bird hides, and visitor management were given.