Adaptive monitoring in the real world: proof of concept

We recently proposed the adaptive monitoring approach for improving ecological monitoring, but to date no explicit examples exist. In this review, we demonstrate adaptive monitoring using two new case studies where pre-existing monitoring programs were redesigned to address new policy and scientific questions without breaching the integrity of past and ongoing time-series data. Lessons underpinning successful adaptive monitoring are: better recognition of the potential inter-relationships between adaptive monitoring and adaptive management to improve adoption of both; an understanding of what constitutes adaptive monitoring so that it is readily differentiated from ad hoc and reactive monitoring; and the forging of partnerships between researchers, policy-makers and resource managers to accommodate differences between policy-relevant and research-relevant questions and differences in conceptual models of ecosystem function, structure and management.     

Circadian biology: clocks for the real world.

The circadian system of Neurospora crassa includes a molecular feedback loop that is entrainable by light. A recent study has shown that a second, elusive oscillator interacts with the feedback loop to drive output rhythms.     

Scale and conservation planning in the real world

Conservation planning is carried out on a variety of geopolitical and biogeographical scales. Whereas considerable consensus is emerging about the most appropriate procedures for identifying conservation areas, the spatial implications of conducting conservation planning at divergent scales have received little attention. Here we explore the consequences of planning at different geopolitical scales, using a database of the mammalian fauna from the Northern Provinces of South Africa. The conservation network resulting from treating the region as one unit is compared with networks generated separately for the provinces nested in that region. These outcomes are evaluated in terms of (i) their land use efficiencies, (ii) their spatial overlap, and (iii) the impact of algorithm attributes. Although land use efficiencies are greater on broader scales, on average the spatial congruence between the broad-scale regional network and fine-scale provincial networks was less than 14%. Algorithms using different selection rules fail to improve this disturbing outcome. Consequently, scale has an overwhelming influence on areas identified as conservation networks in geopolitical units. This should be recognized in conservation planning.     

Ecological developmental biology: developmental biology meets the real world

The production of phenotype is regulated by differential gene expression. However, the regulators of gene expression need not all reside within the embryo. Environmental factors, such as temperature, photoperiod, diet, population density, or the presence of predators, can produce specific phenotypes, presumably by altering gene-expression patterns. The field of ecological developmental biology seeks to look at development in the real world of predators, competitors, and changing seasons. Ecological concerns had played a major role in the formation of experimental embryology, and they are returning as the need for knowledge about the effects of environmental change on embryos and larvae becomes crucial. This essay reviews some of the areas of ecological developmental biology, concentrating on new studies of amphibia and Homo.     

Model phylogenies to explain the real world

Phylogenetic trees based on gene sequence data contain information about the evolutionary processes responsible for their genesis. Methods have now been developed which help to reveal those processes. The methods are based on simple models of evolutionary change but, when applied across individuals in a population, rather than across species in a higher-level taxon, they can reveal the past history of population change. Examples from salamanders and viruses are used to illustrate how the past history of changes in speciation rate and the origin of epidemics can be inferred in the absence of fossil material or historical documentation.     

Bringing the real world into the biology curriculum

This study followed a small but diverse group of biology teachers through the first two years of the pilot for a new Advanced Level Biology course - Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology. SNAB aims to modernise A-level Biology using real world contexts and examples as the starting point, promoting conceptual understanding rather than factual recall, encouraging active learning and developing a capacity for critical thinking and reflection. If the teachers were to implement this new curriculum as intended they would have to change some of their usual practices. The challenges which they encountered and the ways in which they responded were identified through a series of semi-structured interviews with each teacher, supported by lesson observations and interviews with students and technicians. A major constraint on changing practice was uncertainty about how to manage new approaches effectively.