Seismic Survey Design and Effects on Maternal Polar Bear Dens

Large-scale industrial activities can have negative effects on wildlife populations. Some of these effects, however, could be reduced with effective planning prior to development. The Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in northeastern Alaska, USA, is an important maternal denning area for polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Recent legislation has opened the area for potential oil and gas development. As a result, there is interest in conducting winter seismic surveys across the area that could disturb denning female polar bears and lead to decreased cub survival. We sought to demonstrate how different seismic survey designs, with and without aerial den detection surveys, could affect the level of potential effect on denning polar bears during spring (Feb–Apr). We developed 5 hypothetical seismic survey designs for a portion of the Coastal Plain ranging from no spatial or temporal restrictions on activities to explicit consideration of when and where operations can occur. We evaluated how many dens might be disturbed by seismic surveys and the average distance activity came within simulated polar bear dens. Survey design had a large effect on the estimated number of dens that could be disturbed; the scenario with the highest spatial and temporal specificity reduced the number of dens disturbed by >90% compared to the scenario with no restrictions on when and where activity could occur. The use of an aerial den detection survey prior to seismic activity further reduced the number of dens disturbed by 68% across all scenarios. The scenario with the highest spatial and temporal specificity always had the lowest level of disturbance for all scenarios with and without the aerial survey included. Our study suggests that large reductions in the probability of disturbance can occur through careful planning on the timing and distribution of proposed activities even when surveys are planned in areas with a high density of polar bear dens. Published 2019. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. The Journal of Wildlife Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Wildlife Society.     

Changing use of camera traps in mammalian field research: habitats,taxa and study types

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Myotonic dystrophytype 1 – report of non-24-h sleep-wake disorder with excessive daytime sleepiness

ABSTRACT

Myotonic dystrophy (MD) is a neuromuscular disease with myotonia, progressive weakness, and involvement of CNS, heart, and gastrointestinal system. Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (MD1) is related to sleep breathing diseases, restless leg syndrome, periodic limb movements during sleep and narcoleptic-like phenotype. However, authors highlight a central dysfunction of sleep regulation.

We describe a 26-year-old, female, MD1 patient with EDS. Sleep diary/actigraphy evidenced two different circadian periods with values of 1442 and 1522 min. Agomelatine, 50 mg at night, was prescribed with improvement of the circadian rhythm and complaints of sleepiness.

The identification of unanticipated causes of EDS, such as circadian rhythm disorders permits an appropriated treatment. As we know, it is the first relate of non-24-h sleep-wake disorder in patient with MD1. Sleep diary and actigraphy could be good options to investigate sleep-wake cycle disorder in patients with MD and EDS.     

NOTES ON THE BREEDING OF THE BOKMAKIRI

Counting Saddle-billed Storks in a study area the size of the Kruger National Park, at 2.2 million ha, is difficult because the birds are long-lived, sparse in the landscape and have large home ranges. Aerial surveys conducted to date provide an estimate with no measure of data dispersion, thence precision. The aim of this study was to estimate the population size within associated confidence limits using a modified mark–recapture field method. The vehicle survey, conducted shortly after rainfall in the area, did not produce results with known precision under these conditions. A repeat of this census in spring, after the peak breeding season and when surface water is confined to the larger rivers and dams, should yield different results. A photographic census technique yielded sufficient information to construct a population registration database. Individual identification profiles indicate that there are at least 40 adult Saddle-billed Storks in the southern part of the Kruger National Park. This is considered the minimum number of known-to-be-alive individuals in this area. In this paper, the Cormack–Jolly–Seber mark– recapture model was used to return an estimate of the population size for each capture occasion.     

Distribution of duck broods relative to habitat characteristics in the Prairie Pothole Region

Conservation programs for breeding ducks in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of the United States and Canada require effective means of evaluating and characterizing breeding habitat across large landscapes. Extensive surveys of the distribution of duck broods in late-summer could help identify wetland basins with greater probabilities of occupancy. Broods are difficult to detect, however, rendering presence–absence data from single-visit surveys difficult to interpret, particularly when probability of detection is related to habitat features. Multiple-visit occupancy surveys offer a potential solution. From 20 July to 5 August 2007–2009, we conducted a 3-visit survey of wetland basins located on 167 10.4-km² study plots in the PPR. Our survey focused on broods of the 5 most common breeding duck species (Anas spp.). Our main objectives were to investigate ecological relationships between occupancy of wetland basins by broods and habitat characteristics and to examine if habitat-specific detection was of enough concern to warrant multi-survey approaches in the future. We surveyed 3,226 wetland basins during the study. Probability of occupancy of a wetland basin by a brood was positively related to the log of wet area for all 5 study species and was greater on wetlands located on plots with a greater proportion of herbaceous perennial cover for 4 of 5 species. For example, the median probability of occupancy for gadwall (Anas strepera) increased from 0.08 (90% Credible Interval [CrI]: 0.07, 0.10) to 0.28 (90% CrI: 0.23, 0.33) as wet area increased from 0.19 ha to 2.12 ha, and increased from 0.12 (90% CrI: 0.09, 0.16) to 0.20 (90% CrI: 0.16, 0.25) as proportion of perennial grass cover on the study plot increased from 0.03 to 0.99. Because occupancy and detection were both related to attributes of wetland basins, we concluded that the multiple-visit survey was a useful approach for identifying habitat relationships of duck broods. Our results indicated that most broods of the study species were found in 10.4-km² landscapes with greater densities of small- to mid-sized wetland basins and a greater proportion of herbaceous perennial vegetation. Our study provided new empirical support that could be used to help target conservation actions to the most productive landscapes for breeding ducks. © 2012 The Wildlife Society.     

Social encounter networks: characterizing Great Britain

A major goal of infectious disease epidemiology is to understand and predict the spread of infections within human populations, with the intention of better informing decisions regarding control and intervention. However, the development of fully mechanistic models of transmission requires a quantitative understanding of social interactions and collective properties of social networks. We performed a cross-sectional study of the social contacts on given days for more than 5000 respondents in England, Scotland and Wales, through postal and online survey methods. The survey was designed to elicit detailed and previously unreported measures of the immediate social network of participants relevant to infection spread. Here, we describe individual-level contact patterns, focusing on the range of heterogeneity observed and discuss the correlations between contact patterns and other socio-demographic factors. We find that the distribution of the number of contacts approximates a power-law distribution, but postulate that total contact time (which has a shorter-tailed distribution) is more epidemiologically relevant. We observe that children, public-sector and healthcare workers have the highest number of total contact hours and are therefore most likely to catch and transmit infectious disease. Our study also quantifies the transitive connections made between an individual''s contacts (or clustering); this is a key structural characteristic of social networks with important implications for disease transmission and control efficacy. Respondents'' networks exhibit high levels of clustering, which varies across social settings and increases with duration, frequency of contact and distance from home. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for the transmission and control of pathogens spread through close contact.     

Multidimensional biases,gaps and uncertainties in global plant occurrence information

Plants are a hyperdiverse clade that plays a key role in maintaining ecological and evolutionary processes as well as human livelihoods. Biases, gaps and uncertainties in plant occurrence information remain a central problem in ecology and conservation, but these limitations remain largely unassessed globally. In this synthesis, we propose a conceptual framework for analysing gaps in information coverage, information uncertainties and biases in these metrics along taxonomic, geographical and temporal dimensions, and apply it to all c. 370 000 species of land plants. To this end, we integrated 120 million point‐occurrence records with independent databases on plant taxonomy, distributions and conservation status. We find that different data limitations are prevalent in each dimension. Different metrics of information coverage and uncertainty are largely uncorrelated, and reducing taxonomic, spatial or temporal uncertainty by filtering out records would usually come at great costs to coverage. In light of these multidimensional data limitations, we discuss prospects for global plant ecological and biogeographical research, monitoring and conservation and outline critical next steps towards more effective information usage and mobilisation. Our study provides an empirical baseline for evaluating and improving global floristic knowledge, along with a conceptual framework that can be applied to study other hyperdiverse clades.     

Using spatially explicit commodity flow and truck activity data to map urban material flows

To analyze and promote resource efficiency in urban areas, it is important to characterize urban metabolism and particularly, material flows. Material flow analysis (MFA) offers a means to capture the dynamism of cities and their activities. Urban‐scale MFAs have been conducted in many cities, usually employing variants of the Eurostat methodology. However, current methodologies generally reduce the study area into a “black box,” masking details of the complex processes within the city's metabolism. Therefore, besides the aggregated stocks and flows of materials, the movement of materials—often embedded in goods or commodities—should also be highlighted. Understanding the movement and dispersion of goods and commodities can allow for more detailed analysis of material flows. We highlight the potential benefits of using high‐resolution urban commodity flows in the context of understanding material resource use and opportunities for conservation. Through the use of geographic information systems and visualizations, we analyze two spatially explicit datasets: (1) commodity flow data in the United States, and (2) Global Positioning System‐based commercial vehicle (truck) driver activity data in Singapore. In the age of “big data,” we bring advancements in freight data collection to the field of urban metabolism, uncovering the secondary sourcing of materials that would otherwise have been masked in typical MFA studies. This brings us closer to a consumption‐based, finer‐resolution approach to MFA, which more effectively captures human activities and its impact on urban environments.