Scale-dependent habitat analysis and implications for climate change risk for the southern hairy-nosed wombat

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria M. Marshall ◽  
David A. Taggart ◽  
Bertram Ostendorf
Keyword(s):  
Species Distribution ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Maximum Temperature ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Habitat Analysis ◽  
Suitable Climate ◽  
Burrowing Activity

Understanding factors determining the distribution of a species is critical for developing strategies and policies in natural resources management. The southern hairy-nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons) is an excellent model species to examine species distribution patterns because of its conspicuous burrowing behaviour, making it possible to obtain highly accurate distribution maps. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relative importance of biophysical factors impacting on the species’ distribution at regional and continental scales. At the fine scale, we digitised the distribution of individual warrens within a population, whereas at the continental scale we utilised the entire species’ distribution. At the regional level, the strongest predictors of burrowing activity were soil characteristics and geology with little influence of climate. In contrast, at the continental scale, species distribution was most strongly influenced by climatic variables, with most of the distribution located in regions with narrow ranges of mean annual maximum temperature (23−25°C) and mean annual rainfall (200–300 mm). This discrepancy suggests that the species’ distribution is limited to small geographic areas where both a suitable climate and appropriate soil and geology exist and, consequently, that conservation strategies need to adopt a long-term view considering the combined effect of both regional and continental factors.

Verbenaceae in Espírito Santo, Brazil: richness, patterns of geographic distribution and conservation

Phytotaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 484 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
PEDRO HENRIQUE CARDOSO ◽  
VANESSA IMACULADA DOS REIS VALÉRIO ◽  
LUIZ MENINI NETO ◽  
FÁTIMA REGINA GONÇALVES SALIMENA
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Forest ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Northern Region ◽  
The State ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Espírito Santo ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
Forest Remnants ◽  
Conservation Assessments ◽  
Espirito Santo

Verbenaceae is represented in Brazil by 15 genera and ca. 290 species, with most of its richness in the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest domains. The state of Espírito Santo has an area of 46,184.1 km2, wholly embedded in the Atlantic Forest. Nonetheless, due to the intense environmental degradation in the state, only 10.5% of its original vegetation remains. The present study is part of the “Flora do estado do Espírito Santo” project and aims to provide a taxonomic treatment to Verbenaceae in the state, as well as to analyze its distribution patterns, together with preliminary conservation assessments for each species. It is based on morphological analysis of herbaria collections, field expeditions, and literature compilation. Distribution maps were made for each species, while the preliminary conservation assessments followed the criteria proposed by the IUCN. Verbenaceae is represented in the state of Espírito Santo by 31 species arranged in 11 genera: Aloysia (2 spp.), Bouchea (1 sp.). Casselia (1 sp.), Citharexylum (1 sp.), Glandularia (1 sp.), Lantana (10 spp.), Lippia (4 spp.), Petrea (1 sp.), Priva (2 spp.), Stachytarpheta (6 spp.) and Verbena (2 spp.). Eight species occurring in Espírito Santo are threatened with extinction. Three new records are verified, including species of the genus Lantana. The dense rainforest, which covers most of the state’s territory, presents the most significant number of species (20 spp.), followed by pioneer vegetations (12 spp.), seasonal semideciduous forests (11 spp.), inselbergs (8 spp.), and ecological refuges (2 spp.). The main richness centers for Verbenaceae in the state of Espírito Santo are the municipalities of Linhares, Santa Teresa, Vitória, Vila Velha, and Guarapari in this order. In contrast, the family is noticeably little represented in the northern region of the state, as well as near its borders, where the forest remnants are highly fragmented and scattered. The current results contribute to the taxonomic and biogeographic knowledge of Verbenaceae, to the creation of conservation strategies for threatened species in the State of sspírito Santo, and reinforce the need of fieldwork in several areas of the state.

SYSTEMATIC TREATMENT OF AMERICAN TRICHILIA (MELIACEAE)

Phytotaxa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 259 (1) ◽  
pp. 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
TERENCE D. PENNINGTON
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Species Distribution ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Systematic Treatment ◽  
New Subspecies ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
Neotropical Species ◽  
Major Treatment

The neotropical species of Trichilia are revised. The last major treatment of the group was published in 1981 and 3500 additional collections are examined for the present study. Eighty-one species are recognized, a key to the species is provided, all names are typified and descriptions of all species are given. Substantial changes to the known distribution patterns are documented for species. Distribution maps of all species are provided. Ten new species and one new subspecies are described.

scholarly journals Diversity of EU habitat types is correlated with geography more than climate and human pressure

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Cervellini ◽  
Michele Di Musciano ◽  
Piero Zannini ◽  
Simone Fattorini ◽  
Borja Jiménez-Alfaro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Additive Models ◽  
Boosted Regression Trees ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Distribution Data ◽  
Human Pressure ◽  
Habitat Types ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
European Environmental Agency ◽  
Bioclimatic Variables

Aims: Habitat richness, i.e. the diversity of ecosystem types, is a complex, spatially explicit aspect of biodiversity, which is affected by bioclimatic, geographic and anthropogenic variables. The distribution of habitat types is a key component for understanding broad-scale biodiversity and for developing conservation strategies. To test which factors are related with habitat richness we used EU habitat distribution data to answer the following questions: i) how do bioclimatic, geographic, and anthropogenic variables affect habitat richness? ii) which category is the most important? iii) how do interactions among these variables influence habitat richness and which combinations produce the strongest interactions? Study area: European Union (excluding Greece) plus the United Kingdom. Methods: We used the distribution maps of 233 terrestrial habitat types defined by the European Environmental Agency, to calculate habitat richness for the EU 10 km x 10 km grid map. We then investigated how environmental variables affect habitat richness, using generalized linear models, generalized additive models and boosted regression trees. Results: The main factors associated with habitat richness were geographic variables, with negative relationships observed for both latitude and longitude, and a positive relationship for terrain ruggedness. Bioclimatic variables played a secondary role, with habitat richness increasing slightly with annual mean temperature and overall annual precipitation. An interaction between anthropogenic variables was important: the combination of increased landscape fragmentation and increased population density strongly decreased habitat richness. Main conclusions: This is the first attempt to disentangle spatial patterns of habitat richness at the continental scale, as a key tool for protecting biodiversity. The diversity of European habitats is correlated withgeography more than climate and human pressure, reflecting a major component of biogeographical patterns similar to the drivers observed at the species level. The interaction between anthropogenic variables highlights the need for coordinated, continental-scale management plans for biodiversity conservation.

scholarly journals Combining fisheries surveys to inform marine species distribution modelling

2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 539-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meadhbh Moriarty ◽  
Suresh A Sethi ◽  
Debbi Pedreschi ◽  
T Scott Smeltz ◽  
Chris McGonigle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Relative Abundance ◽  
Species Distribution ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
Species Distribution Modelling ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
Modelling Framework ◽  
Combining Data ◽  
Gear Efficiency

Abstract Ecosystem-scale examination of fish communities typically involves creating spatio-temporally explicit relative abundance distribution maps using data from multiple fishery-independent surveys. However, sampling performance varies by vessel and sampling gear, which may influence estimated species distribution patterns. Using GAMMs, the effect of different gear–vessel combinations on relative abundance estimates at length was investigated using European fisheries-independent groundfish survey data. We constructed a modelling framework for evaluating relative efficiency of multiple gear–vessel combinations. 19 northeast Atlantic surveys for 254 species-length combinations were examined. Space-time variables explained most of the variation in catches for 181/254 species-length cases, indicating that for many species, models successfully characterized distribution patterns when combining data from disparate surveys. Variables controlling for gear efficiency explained substantial variation in catches for 127/254 species-length data sets. Models that fail to control for gear efficiencies across surveys can mask changes in the spatial distribution of species. Estimated relative differences in catch efficiencies grouped strongly by gear type, but did not exhibit a clear pattern across species’ functional forms, suggesting difficulty in predicting the potential impact of gear efficiency differences when combining survey data to assess species’ distributions and highlighting the importance of modelling approaches that can control for gear differences.

Vegetation dynamics and species distribution patterns in the inland desert wadis of South Sinai, Egypt

2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-110
Author(s):  
Fawzy M. Salama ◽  
Monier Abd El-Ghani ◽  
Salah El Naggar ◽  
Mohamed Aljarroushi
Keyword(s):  
Species Distribution ◽  
Vegetation Dynamics ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
South Sinai

scholarly journals Computing infection distributions and longitudinal evolution patterns in lung CT images

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongdong Gu ◽  
Liyun Chen ◽  
Fei Shan ◽  
Liming Xia ◽  
Jun Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Lower Lobe ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Lung Infection ◽  
Ct Images ◽  
Community Acquired Pneumonia ◽  
Disease Course ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
Significant Difference

Abstract Background Spatial and temporal lung infection distributions of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and their changes could reveal important patterns to better understand the disease and its time course. This paper presents a pipeline to analyze statistically these patterns by automatically segmenting the infection regions and registering them onto a common template. Methods A VB-Net is designed to automatically segment infection regions in CT images. After training and validating the model, we segmented all the CT images in the study. The segmentation results are then warped onto a pre-defined template CT image using deformable registration based on lung fields. Then, the spatial distributions of infection regions and those during the course of the disease are calculated at the voxel level. Visualization and quantitative comparison can be performed between different groups. We compared the distribution maps between COVID-19 and community acquired pneumonia (CAP), between severe and critical COVID-19, and across the time course of the disease. Results For the performance of infection segmentation, comparing the segmentation results with manually annotated ground-truth, the average Dice is 91.6% ± 10.0%, which is close to the inter-rater difference between two radiologists (the Dice is 96.1% ± 3.5%). The distribution map of infection regions shows that high probability regions are in the peripheral subpleural (up to 35.1% in probability). COVID-19 GGO lesions are more widely spread than consolidations, and the latter are located more peripherally. Onset images of severe COVID-19 (inpatients) show similar lesion distributions but with smaller areas of significant difference in the right lower lobe compared to critical COVID-19 (intensive care unit patients). About the disease course, critical COVID-19 patients showed four subsequent patterns (progression, absorption, enlargement, and further absorption) in our collected dataset, with remarkable concurrent HU patterns for GGO and consolidations. Conclusions By segmenting the infection regions with a VB-Net and registering all the CT images and the segmentation results onto a template, spatial distribution patterns of infections can be computed automatically. The algorithm provides an effective tool to visualize and quantify the spatial patterns of lung infection diseases and their changes during the disease course. Our results demonstrate different patterns between COVID-19 and CAP, between severe and critical COVID-19, as well as four subsequent disease course patterns of the severe COVID-19 patients studied, with remarkable concurrent HU patterns for GGO and consolidations.

Levels of Spatial Variability: The “Community” Problem

1990 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 13-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Springer ◽  
A. I. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Spatial Variability ◽  
Species Distribution ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
The Past ◽  
Structure And Dynamics ◽  
Evolutionary Units ◽  
The Way

The way we view species distribution patterns, particularly at the level commonly referred to as the “community”, has changed over the past 70 years in biology and, subsequently, in paleontology. Because the degree to which species associations can be interpreted as ecological and evolutionary units depends ultimately on recognition and interpretation of faunal spatial variability, we need to understand the nature of this variability at all levels of resolution before we can adequately address questions of “community” structure and dynamics. While it is possible to recognize spatial variability at several levels, from the distributions of individuals within a species to the overall pattern created by the global biota, we must ask whether these patterns really comprise a hierarchy with natural discontinuities (Fig. 1), or whether it is more realistic to view them as a continuous variability spectrum.

Illustrated guide to Pentatominae (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) species associated with the four main grain crops in Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil

Zootaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4958 (1) ◽  
pp. 430-478
Author(s):  
LURDIANA D. BARROS ◽  
MARCELO R. PAIM ◽  
VERÔNICA KREIN ◽  
VICTOR CARABAJAL ◽  
MARCELA N. BRANDÃO ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Distribution ◽  
New Records ◽  
Species Recognition ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
Economic Importance ◽  
Stink Bugs ◽  
Rio Grande Do Sul ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
Grain Crops ◽  
Scientific Collections

Several stink bugs in the subfamily Pentatominae are crop pests or have the potential to damage plants of economic importance. In the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, where agriculture plays a major role in the economy, the knowledge about pest stink bugs is fragmented and, in some instances, outdated. This work provides a summary of Pentatominae species recorded in Rio Grande do Sul feeding on the four most important grain crops for the state, i.e. soybean, rice, maize, and wheat, plus canola, an emerging crop. This survey is enhanced with new records from scientific collections, a short diagnosis for each species, distribution maps, an identification key, and carefully illustrated to allow for species recognition in the field. With this work, we aim to reunite the scattered knowledge of the group in one single revision, and provide a useful tool for identifying the pest stink bugs of Rio Grande do Sul. 

The lichen genus Lepraria Ach. (Stereocaulaceae, lichenized Ascomycota) in Romania

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-51
Author(s):  
Florin CRISAN
Keyword(s):  
Species Distribution ◽  
High Humidity ◽  
Fruiting Bodies ◽  
Recent Period ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Low Illumination ◽  
Crustose Lichens

Introduction. The genus Lepraria includes diffuse or indefinitely delimited species, always sterile, Lendemer (1) naming it „the most unusual member of the sterile lichen crusts”. According to Tonsberg (2), the leprarioid state appeared as an adaptation to a substrate characterized by dry surfaces, in sites with high humidity and low illumination. The thallus is leprose with an entirely sorediate surface. The lack of fruiting bodies has made the lichens from this group among the least known and studied for a long time. The increase in the number of studies on sterile crustose lichens in recent period has led to an increase in the number of accepted species of the genus Lepraria. The information on the genus Lepraria is not uniformly distributed, the current checklist describes only two species, L. caesioalba and L. finkii in Romania. The recent appearance of several studies that indicate the presence in Romania of other species of the genus mentioned, created the motivation of this study. Material and methods. This study is based on material from the Babes-Bolyai University (CL) herbaria in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and literature data. For 13 species, specimens have been examined. Results. The key for the species of genus Lepraria is proposed, adapted from Wirth (3). The species distribution maps in Romania are given. Conclusions. Fifteen Romanian species are revised, Lepraria eburnea, L. ecorticata, L. umbricola were reported from two locations, L. neglecta was found only in one location. Most widely distributed species in Romania seems to be L. finkii and L. membranacea.

The genus Bittacus Latreille (Insecta: Mecoptera) in Brazil: key to species, distribution maps, new synonym, and three new species

Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4526 (3) ◽  
pp. 303 ◽  
Author(s):  
RENATO JOSE PIRES MACHADO ◽  
DIEGO MATHEUS DE MELLO MENDES ◽  
JOSÉ ALBERTINO RAFAEL
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Species Distribution ◽  
Identification Key ◽  
Key To Species ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
Brazilian Species ◽  
New Synonym ◽  
Three New Species

The Brazilian species of Bittacus Latreille (Mecoptera: Bittacidae) are reviewed and one new synonym is proposed (Thyridates willmanni Collucci & Amorin syn. n. of Bittacus diversinervis Souza Lopes & Mangabeira). Three new species are herein described: Bittacus cruzi sp. n. from Amazonas, Presidente Figueiredo and Manaus, B. ferreirai sp. n. from Bahia, Aracatu and B. varzeanus sp. n. from Amazonas, Tefé, bringing the current number of Bittacus species in Brazil to 18. Illustrations, comments, and distribution maps of each species are presented. An identification key to the Brazilian genera of Mecoptera and Bittacus species is also presented. 

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