The future of the past in the present: biodiversity informatics and geological time

The biological and palaeontological communities have approached the problem of informatics separately, creating a divide between communities that is both technological and sociological in nature. In this paper we describe one new advance towards solving this problem - expanding the Scratchpads platform to deal with geological time. In creating this system we have attempted to make our work open to existing communities by providing a webservice of geological time data via the GBIF Vocabularies site. We have also ensured that our system can adapt to changes in the definition of geological time intervals and is capable of querying datasets independently of the format of geological age data used.     

Biodiversity impact analysis in northwest Yunnan, southwest China

This paper reports the main findings of a study on the factors threatening biodiversity in northwest Yunnan, a global biodiversity hotspot in China and home to over five million people. The research was based on eight site-level case studies. The main driving forces of biodiversity loss are livelihood activities, including agricultural production, livestock grazing and the collection of fuel wood, construction timber and NTFPs. Behind these specific drivers are underlying factors including changes in demography, market conditions, resource tenure policies and development policies and projects. Some change in land cover has been due to specific trigger events, the most significant of which reflect national policy changes. At the site level, a range of biophysical and socio-cultural factors influence the specific outcomes that any particular factor may have. The paper suggests some specific redressive measures and general implications for research and policy.     

The Nutrient Status of Mgazana,a Warm Temperate Mangrove Estuary in the Transkei,Eastern Cape,South Africa

Mgazana, a rural southern African mangrove system, was visited monthly from August, 1995 to February, 1997 to collect water samples for nutrient analysis. Surface and bottom samples were taken during spring low tide at seven stations along the estuary and the following physico-chemical parameters measured: river flow, temperature, salinity, oxygen, transparency, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, inorganic carbon (IC), organic carbon (OC), total carbon (TC), soluble nitrogen (SN), particulate nitrogen (PN) and total nitrogen (TN). Using correlation matrix analysis and ANOVA, river flow was found to affect estuarine salinity, transparency and stratification, which influenced nutrient dynamics. Significant seasonal (winter and summer) differences were found for temperature, river flow, nitrate, SN, TN, IC and OC. Most nutrients were significantly correlated with river flow showing gradients down the estuary, indicating allochthonous input from the catchment. OC levels within the estuary were high, probably due to autochthonous mangrove leaf-fall processing by the various in-fauna, but high levels measured at the head of the estuary during high river flow suggested additional allochthonous input from coastal forest litter. Conversely, IC was negatively correlated with river flow suggesting that autochthonous faunal and microbial mineralisation of organic matter occurs within creeks, which is then diluted by increased stream-flow. An N:P ratio of 2.7:1 was obtained for this rural mangrove system, which was low compared with Spartina-based East Cape estuaries subject to urban, industrial and agricultural pollution.     

Comparison of leaf litter ant communities in woodlands, lowland forests and montane forests of north-eastern Tanzania

Ants were extracted in Winkler bags from sifted leaf litter sampled in arange of forest and woodland types in and around Mkomazi Game Reserve innorth-eastern Tanzania, including the Eastern Arc Mountains of South Pare andWest Usambara. A total of 87 ant species were recorded, of which 32.2% were onlyrecorded from montane forests (1400–1850 m altitude), 6.9%only from lowland forest (540–810 m), 19.5% only fromwoodland (300–1080 m), and 16.1% in all three forest types.Of the 28 species recorded only from montane forests, 12 species were only foundin the Mkomazi forests, four only in the Pares and seven species only in theUsambaras. Sites of similar altitude grouped together in a cluster analysis, andspecies richness decreased with an increase in altitude. The lowland forest andclosed woodland sites did not form distinct communities. To ensure preservationof ant species, forests from a full range of altitudes need to be conserved.This study confirms the status of the West Usambara forests as having a highlyendemic biota, and the critical need to adequately conserve the remainingvestiges of montane forest within Mkomazi Game Reserve.     

A contribution to the rust flora (Uredinales) of southern Africa,with an emphasis on Namibia

Five new rust species are described and hitherto unknown spore states for the following seven species are reported: Puccinia desertorum on Evolvulus alsinoides, Uromyces comptus on Merremia bipinnatipartita, Puccinia halsei on Acacia hereroensis, Ravenelia transvaalensis on Acacia mellifera, Puccinia abutili on Abutilon angulatum, on Abutilon cf. austroafricanum, and on Abutilon cf. rehmannii, Puccinia lycii on Lycium sp. and Puccinia turgida on Lycium europaeum and on Lycium cf. oxycarpum. We also examined Uredo combreticola on Combretum cf. engleri, on Combretum hereroense, and on Combretum zeyheri, Puccinia afra on Lycium sp., and Uredopeltis cf. chevalieri on Grewia flavescens. All mentioned rust fungi are described in detail and are shown by line drawings. Selected species are illustrated with SEM-photographs. Part 220 in the series “Studies in Heterobasidiomycetes” from the Botanical Institute, University of Tübingen     

The life and death of a street boy in East Africa: everyday violence in the time of AIDS

This article focuses on the life history of a single street boy in northwestern Tanzania, whom I name Juma. I suggest that Juma's experiences and the life trajectory of himself and of significant individuals around him (particularly his mother) were structured by everyday violence. I describe everyday violence in terms of a conjuncture between macrostructural forces in East Africa (including a history of failed development schemes and the contemporary political economy of neoliberalism) and the lived experience of individuals as they negotiate local, contextual factors (including land-tenure practices, the power dynamics between immediate and extended kin, life on the streets, and constructions of gender and sexuality). I suggest that AIDS and its many impacts on Juma's life course can only be understood in a broader context of everyday violence. From this basis, I draw several general conclusions regarding AIDS prevention and intervention strategies.     

Further evidence for windborne movement of armyworm moths, Spodoptera exempta, in East Africa

Abstract. 1. Comparison of dominant wind directions with seasonal redistribution of Spodoptera exempta caterpillar outbreaks in East Africa provides further circumstantial evidence to support the hypothesis of downwind migration by adult moths.
2. Calculated backward and forward tracks for sixty-nine nights during the 1973–74 and 1974–75 seasons, when there were sudden increases in numbers of moths caught at six light traps, illustrate the variability of downwind movement due to the effects of temporary atmospheric disturbances.
3. Comparison of calculated tracks with known outbreaks before and after the nights of increased moth catch suggests that some outbreaks are derived from unreported sources, especially eariy in the season, and it is therefore unwise to link new outbreaks only with known earlier ones.     

A critique of and recommendations for a subsistence fishery, Lake St Lucia, South Africa

The fish resources of Lake St Lucia, the largest estuary on the eastcoast of Africa, present resource managers of the Natal Parks Board with acommon property resource (CPR) problem. Problems associated with illegal gillnetting by local people from three tribal areas, prompted the introduction of asystem of legal, subsistence netting. This paper reviews the legal fisheries inthese three areas from 1995 to 1997, and examines existing organizationalarrangements, suggesting reasons why the three fisheries show differences infunctioning. By employing concepts from CPRs theory, elements of anorganizational design for fisheries management involving local users and theconservation organization staff are proposed.     

Late Jurassic Mammals from Tendaguru, Tanzania, East Africa

Records of Mesozoic mammals are extremely rare in Africa. The only previous record from the Upper Jurassic of Africa is a fragmentary mandible without teeth of Brancatherulum tendagurense. Here I report the discovery of two new mammals from the Upper Jurassic of Tendaguru, Tanzania. The fossils were recovered from the Middle Saurian Bed of the Tendaguru Series. A lower molar of a triconodontid mammal is described as Tendagurodon janenschi gen. et sp. nov., and a fragmentary dentary of a eupantothere as Tendagurutherium dietrichi gen. et sp. nov. The eupantothere in particular contributes to documenting the evolution of mammals during the Mesozoic. The posterior portion of the mandible of Tendagurutherium dietrichi gen. et sp. nov. shows that the angular (tympanic) bone was not yet completely separated from the dentary, a previously undocumented stage of eupantotherian middle ear evolution.     

Amphibian Diversity in East African Biodiversity Hotspots: Altitudinal and latitudinal Patterns

The Eastern Arc mountain chain and adjoining coastal forests of Tanzania and Kenya have been listed as world biodiversity hotspots. We report on an ongoing attempt to estimate amphibian diversity on the three best studied mountains of the Eastern Arc, the East Usambara, Uluguru and Udzungwa mountains of Tanzania, complemented by an estimate of diversity on the adjoining coastal lowland. This proves to be a complex task, which introduces a note of caution into evaluating global biodiversity estimates. Most amphibian species in eastern Tanzania occur on the coastal lowlands and are widely distributed, extending at least north or south of Tanzania and, to a variable extent, westwards to the elevated interior. Diversity patterns along the length of the lowlands are complex, with the presence of a Sahelian element in the extreme north. On the three Eastern Arc mountains studied, species turnover associated with rising altitude is greater than turnover associated with latitudinal distance between the mountain blocks, leading to greater altitudinal than latitudinal diversity in this equatorial region. A long-standing divergence is indicated between montane and lowland endemics. Although forest-associated species are not the largest contributor to the eastern Tanzanian total species diversity (some 48%), the uniqueness of these species both in lowland and montane forests, combined with their evident vulnerability to disturbance, makes them a subject for particular conservation concern, and justifies hotspot status for both montane and lowland forests.     

Biodiversity loss and the taxonomic bottleneck: emerging biodiversity science

Human domination of the Earth has resulted in dramatic changes to global and local patterns of biodiversity. Biodiversity is critical to human sustainability because it drives the ecosystem services that provide the core of our life-support system. As we, the human species, are the primary factor leading to the decline in biodiversity, we need detailed information about the biodiversity and species composition of specific locations in order to understand how different species contribute to ecosystem services and how humans can sustainably conserve and manage biodiversity. Taxonomy and ecology, two fundamental sciences that generate the knowledge about biodiversity, are associated with a number of limitations that prevent them from providing the information needed to fully understand the relevance of biodiversity in its entirety for human sustainability: (1) biodiversity conservation strategies that tend to be overly focused on research and policy on a global scale with little impact on local biodiversity; (2) the small knowledge base of extant global biodiversity; (3) a lack of much-needed site-specific data on the species composition of communities in human-dominated landscapes, which hinders ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation; (4) biodiversity studies with a lack of taxonomic precision; (5) a lack of taxonomic expertise and trained taxonomists; (6) a taxonomic bottleneck in biodiversity inventory and assessment; and (7) neglect of taxonomic resources and a lack of taxonomic service infrastructure for biodiversity science. These limitations are directly related to contemporary trends in research, conservation strategies, environmental stewardship, environmental education, sustainable development, and local site-specific conservation. Today’s biological knowledge is built on the known global biodiversity, which represents barely 20% of what is currently extant (commonly accepted estimate of 10 million species) on planet Earth. Much remains unexplored and unknown, particularly in hotspots regions of Africa, South Eastern Asia, and South and Central America, including many developing or underdeveloped countries, where localized biodiversity is scarcely studied or described. "Backyard biodiversity", defined as local biodiversity near human habitation, refers to the natural resources and capital for ecosystem services at the grassroots level, which urgently needs to be explored, documented, and conserved as it is the backbone of sustainable economic development in these countries. Beginning with early identification and documentation of local flora and fauna, taxonomy has documented global biodiversity and natural history based on the collection of "backyard biodiversity" specimens worldwide. However, this branch of science suffered a continuous decline in the latter half of the twentieth century, and has now reached a point of potential demise. At present there are very few professional taxonomists and trained local parataxonomists worldwide, while the need for, and demands on, taxonomic services by conservation and resource management communities are rapidly increasing. Systematic collections, the material basis of biodiversity information, have been neglected and abandoned, particularly at institutions of higher learning. Considering the rapid increase in the human population and urbanization, human sustainability requires new conceptual and practical approaches to refocusing and energizing the study of the biodiversity that is the core of natural resources for sustainable development and biotic capital for sustaining our life-support system. In this paper we aim to document and extrapolate the essence of biodiversity, discuss the state and nature of taxonomic demise, the trends of recent biodiversity studies, and suggest reasonable approaches to a biodiversity science to facilitate the expansion of global biodiversity knowledge and to create useful data on backyard biodiversity worldwide towards human sustainability.     

Biodiversity in model ecosystems, II: species assembly and food web structure

This is the second of two papers dedicated to the relationship between population models of competition and biodiversity. Here, we consider species assembly models where the population dynamics is kept far from fixed points through the continuous introduction of new species, and generalize to such models the coexistence condition derived for systems at the fixed point. The ecological overlap between species and shared preys, that we define here, provides a quantitative measure of the effective interspecies competition and of the trophic network topology. We obtain distributions of the overlap from simulations of a new model based both on immigration and speciation, and show that they are in good agreement with those measured for three large natural food webs. As discussed in the first paper, rapid environmental fluctuations, interacting with the condition for coexistence of competing species, limit the maximal biodiversity that a trophic level can host. This horizontal limitation to biodiversity is here combined with either dissipation of energy or growth of fluctuations, which in our model limit the length of food webs in the vertical direction. These ingredients yield an effective model of food webs that produce a biodiversity profile with a maximum at an intermediate trophic level, in agreement with field studies.     

Finger Millet processing in East Africa

Although archaeobotanical sampling and recovery programmes are a relatively recent implementation in East African archaeology, results from sites where they have been carried out follow a similar trend. This is one of abundant recovery of wood charcoal, but very little in the way of other macroscopic plant remains. Restricted archaeological evidence and ethnographic interviews show the importance of grains, in particular finger millet (Eleusine coracana), for the Bunyoro people of Uganda in pre-colonial times. It has been suggested that one of the possible reasons why finger millet is not being recovered in quantity from archaeological contexts is because the processing of this crop does not involve heating and hence there is not the chance of being deposited in charred form in the archaeological record. Recent ethnographic work on finger millet processing in Uganda shows that it is exposed to heat and potential charring during cleaning and preparation of the grain for either storage or cooking, and this regime is discussed in terms of its activities and products. These findings reinforce the need for archaeobotanists and archaeologists working in this region to look for other possible causes of the scarcity of macroscopic plant remains, and also the importance of considering integrated evidence for agricultural activity on prehistoric sites.     

Biodiversity and biodiversity conservation in Yunnan, China

Yunnan, an inland province at a low latitude and high elevation, lying between 21°09–29°15 N and 97°32–106°12 E in southwestern China, has a vast territory with diversified and unique nature resources. There are more than 18000 high plant species (51.6% of China's total) and 1836 vertebrate species (54.8% of China's total) living in Yunnan on a land area of 39.4 × 10⁴km², i.e., only 4.1% of China's total. Among 15000 seed plants found in Yunnan there are 151 rare and endangered plant species (42.6% of China's protected plants). Out of 335 China priority protected wild animals, Yunnan has 243 species, accounting for 72.5% of China's total, 15% of which are species endemic to Yunnan. However, Yunnan's biodiversity is faced with the menace of excessive exploitation of resources and changes in environmental conditions caused by the activities of an expanding human population. This paper discusses the background, the composition, and the structure of Yunnan's biodiversity. Its biodiversity fragility and the threatened situation are also discussed. Suggestions and recommendations on the strategy and actions of Yunnan biodiversity conservation and sustainable development are proposed.     

Variation and distribution of total mercury in water, sediment and soil from northern Lake Victoria, East Africa

Lake Victoria, the world's largest tropical freshwater lake, is an important resource, ecologically and economically. THg distribution in the northern parts of the lake are not well known, so to answer this gap, patterns in total mercury (THg) in water, soil and two dated sediment cores from northern Lake Victoria were determined. Water THg concentrations ranged from 0.7 to 5.8 ng/L, and there were no apparent differences observed between Napoleon and Winam Gulfs. Two precipitation samples had Hg concentrations of 7 and 31 ng/L. Surface soil samples collected from various agricultural sites around Jinja, Napoleon Gulf, have THg concentrations between 12.7 and 48.4 ng/g dry weight; they were correlated with organic carbon, total phosphorus and % clay. A near-shore core taken in Itome Bay in Napoleon Gulf, and an offshore core collected from the deepest part of the lake had similar THg concentrations and profiles (78 to 458 ng/g dry weight). The increase in THg concentration in the profiles of both cores began around 1960 and peaked around 1980. The similar sedimentary THg profiles and fluxes in the cores suggest that the THg sources to L. Victoria are primarily atmospheric, with some erosion inputs, and that equatorial African ecosystems are not exempt from the global increase in baseline THg concentrations.     

The potential for large carnivores to act as biodiversity surrogates in southern Africa

Biodiversity in southern Africa is globally extraordinary but threatened by human activities. Although there are considerable biodiversity conservation initiatives within the region, no one has yet assessed the potential use of large carnivores in such actions. Surrogate approaches have often been suggested as one such way of capitalizing on large carnivores. Here we review the suitability of the large carnivore guild (i.e., brown hyaena Hyaena hyaena, spotted hyaena Crocuta crocutta, cheetah Acinonyx jubatus, leopard Panthera pardus, lion Panthea leo and African wild dog Lycaon pictus) to act as surrogate species for biodiversity conservation in southern Africa. We suggest that the guild must be complete for the large carnivores to fully provide their role as ecological keystones. The potential for large carnivores to act as umbrella and indicator species seems limited. However, self-sustaining populations of large carnivores may be useful indicators of unfragmented landscapes. Moreover, diversity within the large carnivore guild may reflect overall biodiversity. Although the global appeal of the large African carnivores makes them important international flagships, we stress that international conservation funding must be linked to local communities for them to be important also locally. In summary, we suggest that the flagship value of these large carnivores should be used to promote biodiversity conservation in the region, and that the suggested relationship between large carnivore diversity and overall biodiversity is empirically tested. Finally we suggest that direct conservation activities should focus on enhancing the keystone values of large carnivores through complete guild conservation and restoration.     

Biodiversity,biological uncertainty,and setting conservation priorities

In a world of massive extinctions where not all taxa can be saved, how ought biologists to decide their preservation priorities? When biologists make recommendations regarding conservation, should their analyses be based on scientific criteria, on public or lay criteria, on economic or some other criteria? As a first step in answering this question, we examine the issue of whether biologists ought to try to save the endangered Florida panther, a well known “glamour” taxon. To evaluate the merits of panther preservation, we examine three important arguments of biologists who are skeptical about the desirability of panther preservation. These arguments are (1) that conservation dollars ought to be spent in more efficient ways than panther preservation; (2) that biologists and conservationists ought to work to preserve species before subspecies; and (3) that biologists and conservationists ought to work to save habitats before species or subspecies. We conclude that, although all three arguments are persuasive, none of them provides convincing grounds for foregoing panther preservation in favor of other, more scientifically significant conservation efforts. Our conclusion is based, in part, on the argument that biologists ought to employ ethical, as well as scientific, rationality in setting conservation priorities and that ethical rationality may provide persuasive grounds for preserving taxa that often are not viewed by biologists as of great importance.     

生物多样性与稳定性机制研究进展

随着全球生物多样性的迅速丧失,生物多样性与生态系统稳定性的关系已成为人类面临的重要科学问题。许多研究表明生物多样性与稳定性存在正相互关系,但其内在机制尚不能被很好地理解并且存在争议。对生物多样性与稳定性的研究历史做简短的回顾,然后根据时间稳定性的计算方法将时间稳定性分为平均值、方差之和以及协方差之和3个统计组成部分,在此基础上对现在常见的生物多样性-稳定性机制进行分类和详细介绍。并对现在生物多样性和稳定研究的争论进行总结。建议未来生物多样性稳定性关系的研究应该建立更加综合的理论,增加实验时间,应用整合分析(meta-analysis)对已发表实验结果进行综合分析,此外,应多关注非生物量/多度的属性,控制物种属性而不是仅仅控制物种的数量。     

Social Learning and the Maintenance of Cultural Variation: An Evolutionary Model and Data from East Africa

Human societies maintain between-group variation despite mixing of people and ideas. In order for variation to remain, migrants or their children must preferentially adopt local norms, customs, and beliefs. Yet the details of how cultural variation is maintained, despite mixing, remain unknown. This article addresses this problem by using a simple model of the evolution of cultural learning to interpret the results of a study of cultural variation in a small region of East Africa. I argue that the manner in which migrants of two diverse regions adapt to local beliefs and behavior depends on the costs and accuracy of learning in each domain. Observational studies are never definitive tests of any hypothesis, but these results suggest that conclusions about the significance of cultural learning for understanding individual attitudes and behavior depend strongly upon the domain of investigation.