Are Protected Areas Required to Maintain Functional Diversity in Human-Modified Landscapes?

The conversion of forest to agriculture across the world’s tropics, and the limited space for protected areas, has increased the need to identify effective conservation strategies in human-modified landscapes. Isolated trees are believed to conserve elements of ecological structure, providing micro-sites for conservation in matrix landscapes, and facilitating seed dispersal and forest restoration. Here we investigate the role of isolated Ficus trees, which are of critical importance to tropical forest ecosystems, in conserving frugivore composition and function in a human-modified landscape in Assam, India. We surveyed the frugivorous birds feeding at 122 isolated Ficus trees, 33 fruit trees, and 31 other large trees across a range of 32 km from the nearest intact forest. We found that Ficus trees attracted richer and more abundant assemblages of frugivores than the other tree categories. However, incidence function estimates revealed that forest specialist species decreased dramatically within the first kilometre of the forest edge. Despite this, species richness and functional diversity remained consistent across the human-modified landscape, as habitat generalists replaced forest-dependent frugivores, and accounted for most of the ecological function found in Ficus trees near the forest edge. We recommend that isolated Ficus trees are awarded greater conservation status, and suggest that their conservation can support ecologically functional networks of frugivorous bird communities.     

Protecting or Pilfering? Neoliberal Conservationist Marine Protected Areas in the Experience of Coastal Granada,the Philippines

In recent years conservationist NGOs, policy makers, and scientists in the tropics have expressed a fascination with marine protected areas for simultaneously achieving conservation goals and economic development. Despite their popularity, MPAs often encounter serious implementation challenges due to, at least to some extent, our limited understanding of MPA processes as influenced by neoliberal ideology and practice. By resituating MPAs in debates of neoliberal conservation, this study aims to examine social and economic changes that MPAs bring about in fishing communities. Taking a fishing village in the Philippines as a case study, it shows technocratic solution seeking led to further marginalization of small-scale fishers through unequal distribution of benefits and burdens. Here it is argued that MPAs are prone to exclusionist processes of redefining the value and legitimate users of marine resources, which further limits the opportunities for small-scale fishers to participate meaningfully in resource governance.     

Co-Managers or Co-Residents? Indigenous Peoples’ Participation in the Management of Protected Areas: a Case Study of the Agta in the Philippines

Indigenous peoples’ participation in the co-management of protected areas is recognised as essential for conserving both cultural and biological diversity. While this practice is increasingly common, few studies have quantitatively evaluated the efficacy of these initiatives. Here we examine levels of knowledge and involvement among the Agta, a hunter-gatherer population who co-manage the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, the largest protected area in the Philippines. We find that the Agta generally possess low levels of knowledge about the protected area they are supposed to co-manage. Participation in park management is hampered by several factors, including a lack of cultural sensitivity regarding the Agta’s foraging lifestyle among park officials and little political will to realistically empower and support the Agta as co-managers. Recommendations to strengthen Agta participation – and indigenous peoples’ participation in protected area management more widely – are made to help protect the world’s remaining cultural and biological diversity.     

Can We AlphaFold Our Way Out of the Next Pandemic?

The announcement of the outstanding performance of AlphaFold 2 in the CASP 14 protein structure prediction competition came at the end of a long year defined by the COVID-19 pandemic. With an infectious organism dominating the world stage, the developers of Alphafold 2 were keen to play their part, accurately predicting novel structures of two proteins from SARS-CoV-2. In their blog post of December 2020, they highlighted this contribution, writing “we’ve also seen signs that protein structure prediction could be useful in future pandemic response efforts”. So, what role does structural biology play in guiding vaccine immunogen design and what might be the contribution of AlphaFold 2?     

Functional Implications of an Early Exposure to General Anesthesia: Are We Changing the Behavior of Our Children?

There is a rapidly growing body of animal and clinical evidence suggesting that the exposure to anesthetics and sedatives during the critical stages of brain development results in long-lasting (perhaps permanent) impairment in cognitive development in a variety of mammalian species. With improved understanding of the mechanisms responsible for behavioral outcomes of anesthesia-induced developmental neurotoxicity, there is hope for development of protective strategies that will enable safe use of anesthesia in the youngest members of our society. Here, I review presently available evidence regarding anesthesia-induced neurocognitive and social behavioral impairments and possible strategies for preventing them. I also review limited and somewhat controversial evidence that examines the effects of nociception and surgical stimulation on anesthesia-­induced developmental neurotoxicity.     

Conflict in Protected Areas: Who Says Co-Management Does Not Work?

Natural resource-related conflicts can be extremely destructive and undermine environmental protection. Since the 1990s co-management schemes, whereby the management of resources is shared by public and/or private sector stakeholders, have been a main strategy for reducing these conflicts worldwide. Despite initial high hopes, in recent years co-management has been perceived as falling short of expectations. However, systematic assessments of its role in conflict prevention or mitigation are non-existent. Interviews with 584 residents from ten protected areas in Colombia revealed that co-management can be successful in reducing conflict at grassroots level, as long as some critical enabling conditions, such as effective participation in the co-management process, are fulfilled not only on paper but also by praxis. We hope these findings will re-incentivize global efforts to make co-management work in protected areas and other common pool resource contexts, such as fisheries, agriculture, forestry and water management.     

Why Do Tropical Mountains Support Exceptionally High Biodiversity? The Eastern Arc Mountains and the Drivers of Saintpaulia Diversity

We combine information about the evolutionary history and distributional patterns of the genus Saintpaulia H. Wendl. (Gesneriaceae; ‘African violets’) to elucidate the factors and processes behind the accumulation of species in tropical montane areas of high biodiversity concentration. We find that high levels of biodiversity in the Eastern Arc Mountains are the result of pre-Quaternary speciation processes and environmental stability. Our results support the hypothesis that climatically stable mountaintops may have acted as climatic refugia for lowland lineages during the Pleistocene by preventing extinctions. In addition, we found evidence for the existence of lowland micro-refugia during the Pleistocene, which may explain the high species diversity of East African coastal forests. We discuss the conservation implications of the results in the context of future climate change.     

Are Dung Beetles Driving Dung-Fly Abundance in Traditional Agricultural Areas in the Amazon?

We evaluated the effects of different land-use systems on the ability of dung beetles to control the population of detritus-feeding flies. We tested the hypotheses that intensification of land use will reduce dung beetles richness, abundance and biomass and, consequently, their dung burial ability, affecting the interaction between dung beetles and flies and reducing its effectiveness as a natural biological control. In the Brazilian Amazon we sampled dung beetles, fly larvae and adults; and recorded the rate of dung removal by dung beetles across a gradient of land-use intensity from primary forest, secondary forest, agroforestry, agriculture to pasture. Our results provide evidence that land-use intensification results in a reduction of the richness, abundance and biomass of dung beetles, and this in turn results in lower rates of dung removal in the most simplified systems. We found no significant differences in the abundance of fly larvae between the different systems of land use. However, the number of adult flies differed significantly between land-use systems, presenting higher abundance in those sites with greater intensity of use (pasture and agriculture) and a lower abundance of adult flies in forested systems (primary and secondary forests, and agroforestry). Information-theoretic model selection based on AICc revealed strong support for the influence of land-use systems, dung removal rates and dung beetle abundance, biomass and richness on adult dung-fly abundance. Our results also reveal that dung beetles are not solely responsible for fly control and that other factors linked to land use are influencing the populations of these detritus-feeding insects.     

Which of Our Modeling Predictions Are Robust?

In theoretical ecology it is well known that the steady state expressions of the variables in a food chain crucially depend on the parity of the length of the chain. This poses a major problem for modeling real food webs because it is difficult to establish their true number of trophic levels, with sometimes rare predators and often rampant pathogens. Similar problems arise in the modeling of chronic viral infections. We review examples where seemingly general interpretations strongly depend on the number of levels in a model, and on its specific equations. This Perspective aims to open the discussion on this problem.     

“We Want Our Children to Grow Up to See These Animals:” Values and Protected Areas Governance in Canada, Ghana and Tanzania

Environmental governance research has paid insufficient attention to scholarship on values even though environmental values is a well-studied field. This paper begins to unpack the relationship between values and governance with a particular focus on protected areas governance and in light of ideas such as the distinction between held values and assigned values. We report on research from four case studies in Canada, Ghana and Tanzania, each of which investigated the values, interests and objectives of people in a rural community and ways in which these are reflected, or not, in governance arrangements for an adjacent protected area. Despite very diverse contexts, two held values that were encountered in each of the four case studies could be described as responsibility toward future generations and respect for and appreciation of nature. The existence of what may be universal values does not negate the importance of culture and place: similar held values are translated, through the particular circumstances of different individuals, communities and cultures, into a diversity of assigned values, interests and positions. The attention that governance processes have given to local people’s fundamental held values in three of the cases, and the ignoring of such values in the fourth, have had important implications for the relationship between community members and the adjacent protected area. We argue that systems for governance would do well to explicitly engage with values by supporting local articulation of values and by facilitating dialogue and deliberation amongst diverse stakeholders around their values.     

On the Occlusal Fit of Tribosphenic Molars: Are We Underestimating Species Diversity in the Mesozoic?

The complex occlusal fits between tribosphenic teeth are a rich source of information for taxonomic, phylogenetic, and evolutionary analysis. The degree of fit between upper and lower cheek teeth has been used to refer specimens to species-level taxa, but statistical data on occlusal fit in relation to taxonomic identity have been lacking. We used landmarks on upper and lower first molars of 20 bat populations representing 16 species to assess the degree of occlusal fit (1) between teeth from the same individual; (2) between teeth from different individuals belonging to the same populations; and (3) between teeth belonging to different populations. We found that the fit of teeth belonging to different populations was significantly worse than between those of the same population and that the degree of misfit increased linearly with time since common ancestry, albeit with substantial variance. We used our comparisons to assess the species-level diversity within Batodon, the smallest known placental mammal from the Cretaceous. Our data suggest, with caveats, that instead of belonging to a single species, the specimens assigned to Batodon represent at least two species as different as those belonging to different genera or families of living bats.     

Biodiversity of Coral Reefs: What are We Losing and Why?

SYNOPSIS. Coral reefs are threatened by numerous anthropogenicimpacts, some of which have already had major effects worldwide.These unique tropical environments harbor a high diversity ofcorals, reef invertebrates, fish and other animals and plants.In most taxa, the species diversity of reef-associated organismsis poorly understood because many of the species have yet tobe collected and described. High coral mortality has been associatedwith natural events such as hurricanes, predator outbreaks andperiods of high temperature, but has also resulted from excessnutrients in sewage and from specific pollutants. Reef coralsand associated organisms are also threatened by the possibilityof global warming which will result in rising sea levels andperiods of increased temperature stress, and which may alsobring increased storm frequency and intensity. Although therecent extensive episodes of coral bleaching in the Caribbeanand eastern Pacific cannot be causally related to global warmingat this time, the close link between bleaching and temperaturesuggests that global warming will result in severe changes incoral assemblages. Major reef destruction has followed outbreaksof the predatory seastar Acanthaster planci in the Pacific.Although this is considered part of a natural disturbance cycle,there are indications that altered land use patterns and reductionof predators on this seastar by human activities may have increasedthe severity of outbreaks. Recreational and commercial use ofreefs has also increased, and has caused extensive damage, especiallynear areas of high population density. One of the most obviousand widespread losses to reef biota is the reduction in fishpopulations from intense overfishing in most reef areas of theworld. Coasts without adequately managed reefs have sufferedintense overfishing for both local and export purposes, to thepoint where the positive effects of fish on those reefs havebeen compromised. The combination of these destructive factorshas altered reefs in all localities, and many that were onceconsidered protected by distance and low population densityare now being exploited as well. On the positive side, improvedunderstanding of ecological processes on reefs combined withconcerted conservation efforts have managed to protect someextensive areas of reef for the future.     

Are We Misinterpreting Seed Predation in Palms?

The inadvertent inclusion of weevil‐infested seeds when evaluating seed predation by vertebrates, and particularly rodents, may lead to an overestimation of predation rates, thereby confusing the roles of rodents and invertebrates as ecological filters. A study of weevils, rodents and Syagrus romanzoffiana palm seeds indicates the usefulness of X‐rays to improve evaluation of invertebrate seed predation.     

Are We Filling the Data Void? An Assessment of the Amount and Extent of Plant Collection Records and Census Data Available for Tropical South America

Large-scale studies are needed to increase our understanding of how large-scale conservation threats, such as climate change and deforestation, are impacting diverse tropical ecosystems. These types of studies rely fundamentally on access to extensive and representative datasets (i.e., “big data”). In this study, I asses the availability of plant species occurrence records through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the distribution of networked vegetation census plots in tropical South America. I analyze how the amount of available data has changed through time and the consequent changes in taxonomic, spatial, habitat, and climatic representativeness. I show that there are large and growing amounts of data available for tropical South America. Specifically, there are almost 2,000,000 unique geo-referenced collection records representing more than 50,000 species of plants in tropical South America and over 1,500 census plots. However, there is still a gaping “data void” such that many species and many habitats remain so poorly represented in either of the databases as to be functionally invisible for most studies. It is important that we support efforts to increase the availability of data, and the representativeness of these data, so that we can better predict and mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic disturbances.     

Using Noun Phrases for Navigating Biomedical Literature on Pubmed: How Many Updates Are We Losing Track of?

Author-supplied citations are a fraction of the related literature for a paper. The "related citations" on PubMed is typically dozens or hundreds of results long, and does not offer hints why these results are related. Using noun phrases derived from the sentences of the paper, we show it is possible to more transparently navigate to PubMed updates through search terms that can associate a paper with its citations. The algorithm to generate these search terms involved automatically extracting noun phrases from the paper using natural language processing tools, and ranking them by the number of occurrences in the paper compared to the number of occurrences on the web. We define search queries having at least one instance of overlap between the author-supplied citations of the paper and the top 20 search results as citation validated (CV). When the overlapping citations were written by same authors as the paper itself, we define it as CV-S and different authors is defined as CV-D. For a systematic sample of 883 papers on PubMed Central, at least one of the search terms for 86% of the papers is CV-D versus 65% for the top 20 PubMed "related citations." We hypothesize these quantities computed for the 20 million papers on PubMed to differ within 5% of these percentages. Averaged across all 883 papers, 5 search terms are CV-D, and 10 search terms are CV-S, and 6 unique citations validate these searches. Potentially related literature uncovered by citation-validated searches (either CV-S or CV-D) are on the order of ten per paper--many more if the remaining searches that are not citation-validated are taken into account. The significance and relationship of each search result to the paper can only be vetted and explained by a researcher with knowledge of or interest in that paper.     

Does Monitoring Matter? A Quantitative Assessment of Management Decisions from Locally-based Monitoring of Protected Areas

Biodiversity monitoring is criticized for being insufficiently relevant to the needs of managers and ineffective in integrating information into decision-making. We examined conservation management interventions resulting from 2½ years of monitoring by 97 rangers and 350 community volunteers over 1 million hectares of Philippine protected areas. Before this monitoring scheme was established, there was little collaboration between local people and park authorities, and park monitoring was restricted to assessments of the quantity of extracted timber. As a result of the scheme, 156 interventions were undertaken in terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems. In total 98% of these interventions were meaningful and justified, 47% targeted the three most serious threats to biodiversity at the site, and 90% were implemented without external support, suggesting that the interventions were relevant and could be sustained over time at the local level. The mean time from sampling to decision-making was only 97 days, probably because 82% of the interventions were initiated by the same people and institutions that had compiled the underlying data, bypassing potential government bureaucracy. Many of the interventions were jointly undertaken by community members and the management authorities or consisted of local bylaws in support of park management. As a result of the monitoring, indigenous resource use regulation schemes were re-established with government recognition in several parks. The monitoring led to more diversified and realistic management responses on the part of the authorities, including a more socially acceptable and effective approach to enforcement. Of the four field monitoring techniques used, the most participatory one generated more interventions aimed at ensuring a continued resource supply for local communities (χ²₃ = 69.1, p <0.01). Although this suggests that the interest of community members is associated with their possibilities to influence the flow of ecosystem goods and services, the 156 interventions targeted, directly or indirectly, all known globally threatened species of mammals, birds and butterflies in the parks.