Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment最新文献

Fisheries and aquaculture provide food and economic security, especially in the developing world, but both face challenges from infectious disease. Here, we consider management of disease issues from a structured decision-making perspective to examine how infectious disease can threaten seafood production and influence management decisions. For both wild fisheries and aquaculture, disease-management objectives generally aim to mitigate the severity and economic burden of outbreaks. General management strategies include manipulating host densities, reducing system connectivity, conserving or improving habitat, and implementing direct treatments or some other biological interventions. To inform decisions, mathematical models can be used to explore disease dynamics and to forecast the potential effectiveness of alternative management actions. Developing and implementing disease-management strategies also involve considering uncertainties and balancing competing stakeholder interests and risk tolerances. We conclude by outlining several steps for applying structured decision making that are broadly useful to decision makers facing issues related to disease.

Biodiversity is ultimately the outcome of millions of years of evolution; however, due to increasing human domination of the Earth, biodiversity in its multiple dimensions is changing rapidly. Here, we present “phylogenetic completeness” (PC) as a concept and method for safeguarding Earth's evolutionary heritage by maintaining all branches of the tree of life. Using data for five major terrestrial clades, we performed a global evaluation of the PC approach and compared the results to an approach in which species are conserved or lost at random. We demonstrate that under PC, for a given number of species extinctions, it is possible to maximize the protection of evolutionary innovations in every clade. The PC approach is flexible, may be used to conduct a phylogenetic audit of biodiversity under different conservation scenarios, complements existing conservation efforts, and is linked to the post-2020 UN Convention on Biodiversity targets.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are expected to play a key role in the future of transportation, and to introduce a disruptive yet potentially beneficial change for wildlife–vehicle interactions. However, this assumption has not been critically examined, and reducing the number of wildlife–vehicle collisions (WVCs) may be beyond current technological capabilities. Here, we introduce a conceptual framework encompassing the intersection between AV technology and wildlife conservation to reduce WVCs. Our proposed framework integrates the development of robust warning systems and animal detection methods for AV systems, and the incorporation of wildlife–vehicle interactions into decision-making algorithms. With large-scale AV deployment a looming reality, it is vital to incorporate conservation and sustainability into the societal, ethical, and legal implications of AV technology. We intend our framework to help ecologists and conservationists foster the necessary interdisciplinary collaborations with AV developers and policy makers to reduce WVCs and concomitant biodiversity loss.

Accurate estimates of the costs of land protection are useful for understanding where biodiversity conservation goals can be achieved at the lowest cost to society. However, because of the scarcity of high-quality cost maps for tropical countries, conservation planning studies often ignore cost or rely on untested proxies, such as agricultural rent or land-use intensity. Here, we show how analysts can estimate land protection costs using original data of public land acquisitions, global predictor datasets, and simple machine-learning models. For the Colombian Andes, a global biodiversity hotspot, we found that the principal driver of the cost of land protection is urban proximity, not agricultural rent. We derived cost estimates that predict public land protection costs more accurately than available cost proxies and identified new protection priorities for 143 threatened bird species. A more systematic collection of cost records of land protection will help inform public decisions on national and global biodiversity protection priorities.

Fireworks are important elements of celebrations globally, but little is known about their effects on wildlife. The synchronized and extraordinary use of fireworks on New Year's Eve triggers strong flight responses in birds. We used weather radar and systematic bird counts to quantify how flight responses differed across habitats and corresponding bird communities, and determined the distance-dependence of this relationship. On average, approximately 1000 times as many birds were in flight on New Year's Eve than on other nights. We found that fireworks-related disturbance decreased with distance, most strongly in the first five kilometers, but overall flight activity remained elevated tenfold at distances up to about 10 km. Communities of large-bodied species displayed a stronger response than communities of small-bodied species. Given the pervasive nature of this disturbance, the establishment of large fireworks-free zones or centralizing fireworks within urban centers could help to mitigate their effects on birds. Conservation action should prioritize avian communities with the most disturbance-prone, large-bodied bird species.

Yellow-headed (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus) and red-winged (Agelaius phoeniceus) blackbirds coexist in marshes across North America. Pictured here at Iona Beach Regional Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, males of each species compete for nesting areas. In wetlands across their overlapping ranges, yellow-heads are dominant over red-wings, pushing them out of valuable marsh real-estate to secure the best nesting places.

Unfortunately, since the construction of Vancouver International Airport in 1968 and its expansion in subsequent years, both species have lost substantial extents of marsh habitat. Given their dominant–subordinate relationship, one might expect that habitat loss should disproportionately impact the subordinate red-wings, since they get last choice at nesting habitat, which might limit their reproductive success. Today, however, Iona Beach supports a healthy and abundant population of red-wings, and usually hosts only a few yellow-heads. Indeed, over the past half-century, the population of yellow-heads at Iona Beach has decreased ~95%, down from an estimated 70 individuals in 1970 to only 1–3 nowadays (Campbell RW, Dawe NK, McTaggart-Cowan I, et al. 2001. The Birds of British Columbia. Volume 4. Royal British Columbia Museum Victoria. Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press).

Despite their dominance, the yellow-headed blackbirds of Vancouver have seemingly been more negatively impacted by habitat loss and degradation than their subordinate red-winged cousins. Does their dominant behavior make yellow-heads more vulnerable to change? Are red-wings more tolerant of anthropogenic disturbances? Over the next decade, the potential extirpation of yellow-headed blackbirds from Iona Beach calls into question which blackbird genuinely is the dominant species. Of course, none of this stops the remaining few yellow-heads from bullying the abundant red-wings out of prime nesting space. At least population decline has not adversely impacted their yellow-headed ego!

Distributed within tropical to temperate regions globally, the little egret (Egretta garzetta) is an aquatic bird that occupies a wide range of inland and coastal habitats (Collins Bird Guide 2011, 2nd edn; New York, NY: HarperCollins).

While monitoring avifauna in the Tanagro River (Sala Consilina, Italy), we were alerted about a little egret that was unable to fly and appeared to be stuck in the mud. After a human intervention, it became clear that the bird had one foot trapped within the closed shell of a unionid bivalve (photos courtesy of Carmen Cavallo).

To capture food in wetlands and on mudflats, E garzetta and other herons commonly rely on a technique known as “foot stirring” or “foot paddling”. Using this method, a heron will extend one leg into the substrate and then rapidly vibrate the submerged foot, thereby disturbing and forcing any hidden or benthic organisms from the subsurface to the surface; at that point, the bird will then stab its beak at any prey that attempt to escape from the disturbance (Wilson Bull 1959; biostor.org/reference/204432). It is highly possible that, while engaging this technique, the observed little egret became trapped by the bivalve.

Although similar events between shorebirds and marine bivalves have been documented (Waterbirds 1999; doi.org/10.2307/1522003), this is to the best of our knowledge the first recorded instance between an aquatic bird and a freshwater unionid. Europe hosts a large unionid biota, including the Chinese pond mussel (Sinanodonta woodiana), one of the largest (130–250 mm long) species worldwide and an eminent invader in our study area. While it is unknown how frequently such events may occur, this potential mortality source for native birds might need to be included among putative impacts of unionid bivalve species, such as the above-mentioned non-native taxon.

Had you lived in the Maldives in centuries long past, you might just have stumbled across a huge “nut” – the largest in the world – washing up on your beach. There would be no mistaking it, its remarkable shape and size identifying it beyond all doubt (Figure 1). Unfortunately, you wouldn't have been able to keep it; local law demanded (upon pain of hand amputation or even death!) that it be immediately turned over to the king. These rare, exotic curiosities, then believed to have a plethora of medicinal (and aphrodisiacal) properties, were worth a small fortune across the Indian Ocean, China, and Europe (that is, before a French sea captain trashed the market in 1769, but more about him later), hence the royal interest. However, as you left the ruler's court, no one could stop you pondering where the thing had come from. Indeed, nobody knew – nor could they have guessed the biological tragedy that its unveiling would reveal.

Certainly, no tree in the Maldives produced these “double coconuts”. Nor was one known in India, Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), the Malay Peninsula, or any of the other lands from where the bygone sailors and traders who plied the waters around the Maldives hailed. This lack of a clear, terrestrial origin, plus the fact that these huge seeds were more commonly found floating in the sea, led to the belief that they were produced by trees that grew on the ocean floor. Some marine-origin stories were, however, a bit more fanciful than others. Antonio Pigafetta, who sailed with Magellan on his round-the-world voyage, wrote in his 1525 account of that trip about a fabled tree (home to the Garuda, a fantastical, gigantic bird) that grew in the ocean, surrounded by whirlpools, somewhere beyond Java, that produced a fruit known as a “Buapanganghi…larger than a watermelon”, and that “those fruits which are frequently found in the sea came from that place” (from The First Voyage Round the World by Magellan, printed in 1874 for the Hakluyt Society, London). You get the feeling that not even Pigafetta believed it, but that didn't stop these “fruits” becoming known in Europe as cocos de mer, which is French, giving me the perfect segway back to that sea captain fellow.

Alright, you now need to know. These enormous seeds are produced by a palm tree that grows not on the seabed, but in the Seychelles: namely, Lodoicea maldivica. The person to figure this out was a chap known as Barré, who sailed with Marc Joseph Marion Dufresne to the then-uninhabited Seychelles in 1768 (if the mystery was ever solved by anyone who sailed that way before the French got there, no trace of that discovery is left). Another French seafarer, Lazare Picault, did record these palms growing on the islands in 1744, but he failed to put two and two together and connect the nut with the tree – arithmetic that Barré got right. Doing more mathematics, Jean Duchemin (this is the guy), who took command of Marion Dufresne's exped

Antagonistic interactions between frogs and insects are generally well-documented. In typical predator–prey interactions, these taxa feed on one another at different life stages. Moreover, insects can function as disease vectors or as parasites of frogs, an example being myiasis-causing flies. However, certain antagonistic interactions between frogs and insects are poorly known, specifically interactions that are mediated by sensory cues such as sound or smell. Here, we report an unusual association between Hyloscirtus lindae (Hylidae) and moth flies (Diptera: Psychodidae, Sycoracinae).

On 26 September 2021, JC observed more than 50 individual moth flies (Sycorax sp) on one male H lindae in a high-elevation Andean cloud forest (around 3000 m above sea level) within Ecuador's Napo province. The male tree frog was actively calling from a Guadua bamboo, at 1.5 m above the ground, under a light rain, close to a small creek. Meanwhile, male and female moth flies interacted with each other on the frog while the frog was calling. This reproductive behavior, known as lekking, has been previously observed in moth flies of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia, specifically upon frogs of the Bufonidae, Microhylidae, and Megophryidae families. Similarly, in Ecuador, male moth flies are suspected to congregate on frogs to locate female moth flies with which to mate. Sycorax moth flies have been documented forming leks on actively calling male frogs, who advertise their presence to conspecific females through acoustic vocalizations. One possible explanation for how moth flies locate male frogs is through eavesdropping of the male frog advertisement signal. However, no study has tested this behavior to date. It has been previously suggested that moth flies form leks on male frogs because it provides an opportunity for lekking female moth flies to partake of a blood meal after copulating; however, we did not observe feeding on this occasion.