BioScience最新文献

Billions of specimens are in biodiversity collections worldwide, and this infrastructure is crucial for research on Earth's natural history. Three-dimensional (3D) imagery of specimens is an increasingly important part of the digital extended specimen network of metadata. Open-access, high-fidelity 3D imagery of biodiversity specimens improves researcher efficiency and equity and increases public engagement with collections. We introduce Ozboneviz, an open-access collection of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) 3D imagery aiming to enhance research capacity in Australasian vertebrate skeletal morphology. Ozboneviz is an Australian test case demonstrating the feasibility of creating multi-institutional, FAIR 3D biodiversity imagery collections. We outline its project design, challenges, and use by the international research community. We then discuss the urgent need for investment in infrastructure and curatorial support to progress the digitization of Australian biodiversity collections in a way that maximizes stakeholder benefit and facilitates 3D data discoverability and retrieval.

Long-standing stigma against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) individuals in academic biology dissuades instructors from revealing their identities to undergraduates. The threat of consequences following disclosure is assumed to be exacerbated in states with LGBTQ+ "unfriendly" reputations. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a national randomized experimental study of 2230 undergraduate biology students to assess the impact of brief instructor LGBTQ+ disclosure. Participants were randomly assigned to watch one of two teaching demonstration videos and evaluate an instructor actor. The videos were identical except, in one version, the instructor revealed an LGB identity. Across all of the participants, the reveal condition yielded moderately improved evaluations of the instructor. Despite the participants in low LGBTQ+ acceptance states perceiving that their peers would view instructor LGBTQ+ disclosure negatively, the states' LGBTQ+ acceptance did not predict the students' evaluations of the instructor actor. These findings suggest that, regardless of a state's LGBTQ+ acceptance, undergraduates' perceptions of instructors were unaffected by brief LGBTQ+ disclosure.

Rapid urbanization is contributing to unprecedented biodiversity decline worldwide. Despite biodiversity loss being more pronounced in cities, traditional conservation efforts such as establishing large, protected areas and restoring native vegetation are largely undertaken far from urban landscapes. More proactive approaches, such as rewilding, have garnered momentum as a conservation process but remain underused in cities. In the present article, focusing on active faunal reintroductions, we explore urban rewilding as a process to restore ecological functions and enhance ecosystem resilience. Through a systematic literature review, we assess the varied aims, challenges, and definitions of success in rewilding efforts in urban contexts. Moreover, we define the unique opportunities and benefits urban rewilding presents for reconnecting people with nature, fostering community engagement, and enhancing cultural connections. Finally, we identify future research areas, including the need for long-term studies on ecological impacts, developing species selection frameworks, and exploring sociocultural dimensions of urban rewilding.

Advances in technologies have affected birdwatching and its popularization through time. To better understand how, we expose ways by which today's digital technology-typically taken for granted-shapes the social practices of birdwatching, which shifts human-bird relationships and has consequences for birds themselves. Starting in the transition from analogue to digital, we highlight how technologies have functioned to enhance human abilities and create connections among people, organizations, and places. We then analyze contemporary digital technologies (e.g., digital cameras, social media, and online biodiversity monitoring platforms), demonstrating how their entry into birdwatching practices reformulates the interests and power of various actors. Such processes affect the experience of birdwatching, its perceived benefits, the organization of birdwatching communities, and how birds are seen. To conclude, we address societal and ethical implications of digital technologies in birdwatching, focusing on their democratizing potential, as well as concerns over privacy, data ownership, and uneven digital engagement.

We synthesized reported threats to US imperiled species to identify which of the five predominant drivers of biodiversity loss-climate change, invasive species, land and sea use change, pollution, and overexploitation-negatively influence species persistence across taxa. Using threats identified at listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assessments, and novel climate sensitivity assessments, we document which drivers affect the 2766 imperiled species analyzed. Our results are the first in which climate change has been identified as the leading threat to species listed under the ESA. We found that updated climate sensitivity assessments are essential for understanding the breadth of this threat. We also show that the majority of US imperiled species experience multiple threats, with some groups such as cnidarians, bivalves, and amphibians facing a higher total number than average. As climate change rapidly accelerates, we emphasize the need for up-to-date assessments and highlight existing data gaps.

Nature conservation is increasingly focused on recovering depleted populations and ecosystems. The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2021-2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and global commitments to ecosystem restoration in response to biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development targets are now considerable, with over 100 nations committed to halting and reversing forest loss and land degradation by 2030. The impacts of these resources on nature recovery will depend on how actions are identified and implemented. Systematic conservation planning has historically been used to prioritize areas for protection but has shown great potential to guide nature recovery actions that are underpinned by principles of spatial conservation planning. In the present article, we advocate for systematic conservation planning to target resources for nature recovery and show how well-established systematic conservation planning frameworks can be developed appropriately, particularly by integrating models for forecasting ecological, social, and economic conditions with spatial prioritization methods designed to target nature recovery resources.