The power of data synthesis to shape the future of the restoration community and capacity

Restoration efforts will be taking place over the next decade(s) in the largest scope and capacity ever seen. Immense commitments, goals, and budgets are set, with impactful wide‐reaching potential benefits for people and the environment. These are ambitious aims for a relatively new branch of science and practice. It is time for restoration action to scale up, the legacy of which could impact over 350 million hectares targeted for the U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. However, restoration still proceeds on a case‐by‐case, trial by error basis and restoration outcomes can be variable even under similar conditions. The ability to put each case into context—what about it worked, what did not, and why—is something that the synthesis of data across studies can facilitate. The link between data synthesis and predictive capacity is strong. There are examples of extremely ambitious and successful efforts to compile data in structured, standardized databases which have led to valuable insights across regional and global scales in other branches of science. There is opportunity and challenge in compiling, standardizing, and synthesizing restoration monitoring data to inform the future of restoration practice and science. Through global collation of restoration data, knowledge gaps can be addressed and data synthesized to advance toward a more predictive science to inform more consistent success. The interdisciplinary potential of restoration ecology sits just over the horizon of this decade. Through truly collaborative synthesis across foci within the restoration community, we have the opportunity to rapidly reach that potential and achieve extraordinary outcomes together.     

Understanding the key characteristics and challenges of pine barrens restoration: insights from a Delphi survey of forest land managers and researchers

Pine barrens are open‐canopy ecological communities once prevalent on sandy soils across the northern Great Lakes Region of the United States and Canada, though fire suppression and plantation forestry have now reduced them to a few isolated areas. Efforts to restore pine barrens are underway on some public lands, but lack of knowledge on the social and ecological issues and challenges that affect these projects impedes fuller progress. As a precursor to designing a public preference survey for pine barrens restoration, we sought input from those with expert knowledge about pine barrens. Using a three‐round modified Delphi survey, forest land managers and researchers identified the key characteristics of pine barrens and important current and future management challenges. Key characteristics were related to fire, landscape structure, plant and animal species, soils, and social themes. Current and future challenges were related to landscape, invasive species, social, economic, climate change, and science themes. Four social issues (education, fire acceptance, fire risk, aesthetics) were rated among the top current challenges but none of them maintained prominence as future challenges. Potential explanations for this shift are that the experts felt these social concerns would be resolved in time or that other issues, such as development pressures and budgets for carrying out restoration, would become greater future challenges. Our approach can be used by managers and researchers to better understand the ecosystems they seek to restore and to communicate with public stakeholders about restoration efforts.     

Curcumin alleviates acute kidney injury in a dry‐heat environment by reducing oxidative stress and inflammation in a rat model

Curcumin exhibits anti‐inflammatory and antioxidant activities. We investigated the protective effects of curcumin in a renal injury rat model under dry‐heat conditions. We divided Sprague‐Dawley rats into four groups: dry‐heat 0‐ (normal temperature control group), 50‐, 100‐, and 150‐minute groups. Each group was divided into five subgroups (n = 10): normal saline (NS), sodium carboxymethylcellulose (CMCNa), and curcumin pretreated low, medium, and high‐dose (50, 100, and 200 mg/kg, respectively) groups. Compared to the normal temperature group, serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, urinary kidney injury molecule‐1, and neutrophil gelatinase‐associated load changes in lipoprotein (NGAL) levels were significantly increased in the dry‐heat environment group (P < .05); inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase‐2 (COX‐2) expression and malondialdehyde (MDA) and related inflammatory factor levels were increased in the kidney tissue. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) levels were decreased. However, following all curcumin pretreatment, the serum levels of kidney injury indicators and NGAL were decreased in the urine compared to those in the NS and CMCNa groups (P < .05), whereas renal SOD and CAT activities were increased and MDA was decreased (P < .05). Renal tissues of the 150‐minute group showed obvious pathological changes. Compared to the NS group, pathological changes in the renal tissues of the 100‐ and 200‐mg/kg curcumin groups were significantly reduced. Furthermore, iNOS and COX‐2 expression and inflammatory factor levels were decreased after curcumin treatment. Curcumin exerted renoprotective effects that were likely mediated by its antioxidant and anti‐inflammatory effects in a dry‐heat environment rat model.     

Thymoquinone attenuates doxorubicin‐cardiotoxicity in rats

Contrary to the fact that doxorubicin is a powerful chemotherapeutic agent for the treatment of neoplastic diseases, cardiotoxicity is too important to be ignored. Thymoquinone serves as a powerful free radical scavenger. In the study, the effects of thymoquinone against doxorubicin‐cardiotoxicity will be evaluated. Forty rats were divided into five groups. Group I: control group (n = 8); group II: olive oil group (n = 8); group III: thymoquinone group (n = 8); given 10 mg/kg thymoquinone intraperitoneally per day throughout the experiment; group IV: doxorubicin group (n = 8); injected with a single dose of 15 mg/kg ip doxorubicin on the 7th day of the experiment; group V: doxorubicin + thymoquinone group (n = 8); administered with 10 mg/kg thymoquinone per day during the experiment and 15 mg/kg doxorubicin ip on the 7th day. The experiment was planned for 14 days. Immunohistochemically, heat shock protein (HSP) 70 and HSP90, glucose‐regulated protein 78 (GRP78), caspase‐3 were stained. We made terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling for apoptotic evaluation. Total oxidant status (TOS) levels and total antioxidant status (TAS) were measured in the heart tissue. Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and pro‐B type natriuretic peptide (proBNP) were evaluated. In the study, HSP70, HSP90, GRP78, and caspase‐3 levels increased in group IV. TOS and TAS levels were significant compared to group I. Doxorubicin significantly increased ANP and NT‐proBNP levels. Thymoquinone revealed significant differences in these values. Thymoquinone can be an important cardioprotective agent against doxorubicin‐cardiotoxicity.     

Reunderstanding Cairo through urban metabolism: Formal versus informal districts resource flow performance in fast urbanizing cities

Urban expansion can be seen as the most pervasive human impact on the environment where its high resource use contributes negatively to climate change and resource scarcity crises. Many experts call for decoupling resource use, economic development, and related urban development especially within cities of the Global South. This paper focuses on investigating resource efficiency through the lens of urban metabolism. It investigates current resource flows, through material flow analysis, from source to sink, in two diverse districts in Cairo: a formal district and an informal one, regarding materials (waste) and mobility. Consequently, the paper discusses locally responsive interventions that address local priorities as opposing to citywide one‐size fits all solution. The paper relies on parcel audits, which are embedded in an Urban Metabolism Information System developed by the Ecocity Builders and their partners, through a joint project with Cairo University. The methodology couples crowd‐sourced data, parcel audits, and experts’ knowledge to better understand resource flows based on a bottom‐up approach, given the unavailability of governmental data on the local level. The paper further correlates the perceived quality of life with the actual resource flows. It utilizes fieldwork investigations to argue against the local misconceptions regarding the inefficiency of informal areas/systems versus the higher efficiency of planned areas/systems. The paper concludes by proposing integrated solutions that respond to local needs and resources. It highlights the challenges and lessons of this tailored bottom‐up approach and its applicability in other cities worldwide.     

Modeling the circular economy in environmentally extended input–output: A web application

Global environmental and resource problems ask for new ways of managing the production and consumption of resources. The implementation of new paradigms, such as the circular economy, requires decision‐makers at multiple levels to make complex decisions. For this, clear analyses and modeling of scenarios are of utmost importance. Meanwhile, as the sophistication of databases and models increases so does the need for user‐friendly tools to use them. The RaMa‐Scene web platform reduces these barriers by allowing users to visualize easily diverse impacts of implementing circular‐economy interventions. This online web platform makes use of the multi‐regional environmentally extended input–output database EXIOBASE version 3 in monetary units, which has been modified to show explicit transactions of raw materials from recycling activities.     

Morphological changes in the central sulcus of children with isolated growth hormone deficiency versus idiopathic short stature

In this study, the morphological changes in the central sulcus between children with isolated growth hormone deficiency (IGHD) and those with idiopathic short stature (ISS) were analyzed. Thirty children with IGHD (peak growth hormone < 5 µg/L) and 30 children with ISS (peak growth hormone > 10.0 µg/L) were included. Morphological measurements of the central sulcus were obtained from T1‐weighted MRIs using BrainVISA, including the average sulcal width, maximum depth, average depth, top length, bottom length, and depth position‐based profiles (DPPs). The bilateral average width of the central sulci was significantly wider, while the left maximum depth and right average depth of the central sulcus were significantly smaller, in children with IGHD than in children with ISS. There were no significant differences in the right maximum depth, left average depth, or bilateral top length and bottom length of the central sulcus between groups. The DPPs of the middle part of both central sulci (corresponding to the hand motor activation area) and the inferior part of the right central sulcus (corresponding to the oral movement area) near the Sylvian fissure were significantly smaller in children with IGHD than in controls before false discovery rate (FDR) correction. However, all the above significant DPP sites disappeared after FDR correction. There were significant morphological changes in the three‐dimensional structure of the central sulcus in children with IGHD, which were the outcome of other more essential cortical or subcortical changes, resulting in their relatively slower development in motor, cognitive, and linguistic functional performance.     

Desiccation limits recruitment in the pleometrotic desert seed‐harvester ant Veromessor pergandei

The desert harvester ant Veromessor pergandei displays geographic variation in colony founding with queens initiating nests singly (haplometrosis) or in groups (pleometrosis). The transition from haplo‐ to pleometrotic founding is associated with lower rainfall. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed to explain the evolution of cooperative founding in this species, but the ultimate explanation remains unanswered. In laboratory experiments, water level was positively associated with survival, condition, and brood production by single queens. Queen survival also was positively influenced by water level and queen number in a two‐factor experiment. Water level also was a significant effect for three measures of queen condition, but queen number was not significant for any measure. Foundress queens excavated after two weeks of desiccating conditions were dehydrated compared to alate queens captured from their natal colony, indicating that desiccation can be a source of queen mortality. Long‐term monitoring in central Arizona, USA, documented that recruitment only occurred in four of 20 years. A discriminant analysis using rainfall as a predictor of recruitment correctly predicted recruitment in 17 of 20 years for total rainfall from January to June (the period for mating flights and establishment) and in 19 of 20 years for early plus late rainfall (January–March and April–June, respectively), often with a posterior probability > 0.90. Moreover, recruitment occurred only in years in which both early and late rainfall exceeded the long‐term mean. This result also was supported by the discriminant analysis predicting no recruitment when long‐term mean early and late rainfall were included as ungrouped periods. These data suggest that pleometrosis in V. pergandei evolved to enhance colony survival in areas with harsh abiotic (desiccating) conditions, facilitating colonization of habitats in which solitary queens could not establish even in wet years. This favorable‐year hypothesis supports enhanced worker production as the primary advantage of pleometrosis.     

Restoration and Science: A Practitioner/Scientist's View from Rare Habitat Restoration at a Southern California Preserve

Researchers reexamining the relationship between restoration science and practice report a continuing scientist‐practitioner gap. As a land manager with scientific training, I offer my perspective of the chasm and describe a restoration practice infused with as much science as the realities of limited budget and time allow. The coastal sage scrub (CSS) restoration project at Starr Ranch, a 1,585 ha Audubon preserve in southern California, combines non‐chemical invasive species control, restoration, and applied research. Our practices evolve from modified scientific approaches and the scientific literature. Results from experiments with non‐optimum replication (on effects of seed rates, soil tamping, and timing of planting) nonetheless had value for management decisions. A critical practice came from academic research that encouraged cost‐effective passive restoration. Our passive restoration monitoring data showed 28–100% total native cover after 3–5 years. Another published study found that restoration success in semiarid regions is dependent on rainfall, a finding vital for understanding active restoration monitoring results that showed a range of 0–88% total native cover at the end of the first season. Work progresses through a combination of applied research, a watchful eye on the scientific literature, and “ecological intuition” informed by the scientific literature and our own findings. I suggest that it is less critical for academic scientists to address the basic questions on technique that are helpful to land managers but rather advocate practitioner training in methods to test alternative strategies and long‐term monitoring.