What can we learn from untapped wildlife rescue databases? The masked lapwing as a case study

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham H. Pyke ◽  
Judit K. Szabo

Much untapped potential exists for research based on wildlife rescues and surveys by citizen scientists. Many vertebrate animals are injured or threatened with injury through human activities and warrant ‘rescue’, generally by volunteers. Faunal surveys, involving citizen scientists, yield complementary biologically relevant information. Research using these databases can indicate spatial and temporal patterns in abundance and risk of mishap, potentially informing management and conservation for threatened species. However, little research has utilised such databases, with few implications for conservation, leaving a wealth of available information. We used the masked lapwing (Vanellus miles), an Australian shorebird, to illustrate the research potential of a rescue database combined with bird survey data. This species nests and feeds on the ground, has flightless young dependent on parents for protection, and is commonly observed in urban and agricultural areas. Consequently, it is often recorded during bird surveys and is frequently rescued. Combining rescue information with abundance estimates from bird surveys should confirm or refine knowledge about abundance and reproductive biology, and indicate spatio-temporal patterns in the risks encountered. To evaluate these expectations, we obtained date, location and age for lapwings rescued by NSW Wildlife Information Research and Education Service during 2005–2013, and monthly reporting rates from New Atlas of Australian Birds during 1999–2010. Numbers of rescued lapwing chicks, juveniles and adults per month were consistent with the life cycle of this species, and risks from vehicles, pets and other human activities. Our results illustrate how research utilising rescue and fauna survey databases could inform management and conservation of threatened species.

Radiocarbon ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
R Garba ◽  
P Demján ◽  
I Svetlik ◽  
D Dreslerová

ABSTRACT Triliths are megalithic monuments scattered across the coastal plains of southern and southeastern Arabia. They consist of aligned standing stones with a parallel row of large hearths and form a space, the meaning of which is undoubtedly significant but nonetheless still unknown. This paper presents a new radiocarbon (14C) dataset acquired during the two field seasons 2018–2019 of the TSMO (Trilith Stone Monuments of Oman) project which investigated the spatial and temporal patterns of the triliths. The excavation and sampling of trilith hearths across Oman yielded a dataset of 30 new 14C dates, extending the use of trilith monuments to as early as the Iron Age III period (600–300 BC). The earlier dates are linked to two-phase trilith sites in south-central Oman. The three 14C pairs collected from the two-phase trilith sites indicated gaps between the trilith construction phases from 35 to 475 years (2 σ). The preliminary spatio-temporal analysis shows the geographical expansion of populations using trilith monuments during the 5th to 1st century BC and a later pull back in the 1st and 2nd century AD. The new 14C dataset for trilith sites will help towards a better understanding of Iron Age communities in southeastern Arabia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 853-868
Author(s):  
Yasser ElSayed Fouda ◽  
Deena Mohamed ElKhazendar

Villages located today in the peri-urban area, are in continuous agglomeration. The lack of proper guidelines and monitoring systems to define, promote, regulate and manage the pattern of development in these areas, causes massive deteriorations to the environment and quality of life. In Egypt, very few states have a dedicated legal framework that addresses the need for planned development in the peri-urban areas. A Spatio-temporal model framework consisting of a set of geospatial indicators is required to regulate and direct the growth and development of these areas and prevent further spill across administrative boundaries. This article responds to the lack of a geo-spatial quantifiable criterion as a key to detect, analyze, and better govern spatial and temporal patterns of urban growth in peri-urban areas, where the results are to be represented dynamically in forms of spatial patterns evolving in time. The research aims to develop a process-wise, contextual mapping of peri-urban dynamics using GIS to detect and analyze spatial and temporal patterns of urban growth. It has been applied to one of the peri-urban areas in Egypt, in Meet Assas Village, chosen as a case study. Miscellaneous primary and secondary data sources together with the methods used for monitoring: UN Criteria (Goal 11) targets, thematic headlines, village’s problems and geo-spatial indicators were the main constitutions of the model frame work. The results show that the village is characterized by a dispersed pattern of development with the absence of basic infrastructure and services. Besides that, the study reveals, through temporal patterns, that the future and unplanned growth will continue to intensify; posing numerous threats on the environment and the quality of life. A harmonized standardized measurement framework for planning, development, and management is crucial rather than demolishing these areas.


PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Cunze ◽  
Judith Kochmann ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Raphael Frank ◽  
Dorian D. Dörge ◽  
...  

Background Worldwide, the number of recorded human hantavirus infections as well as the number of affected countries is on the rise. In Europe, most human hantavirus infections are caused by the Puumala virus (PUUV), with bank voles (Myodes glareolus) as reservoir hosts. Generally, infection outbreaks have been related to environmental conditions, particularly climatic conditions, food supply for the reservoir species and land use. However, although attempts have been made, the insufficient availability of environmental data is often hampering accurate temporal and spatially explicit models of human hantavirus infections. Methods In the present study, dynamics of human PUUV infections between 2001 and 2015 were explored using ArcGIS in order to identify spatio-temporal patterns. Results Percentage cover of forest area was identified as an important factor for the spatial pattern, whereas beech mast was found explaining temporal patterns of human PUUV infections in Germany. High numbers of infections were recorded in 2007, 2010 and 2012 and areas with highest records were located in Baden-Wuerttemberg (southwest Germany) and North Rhine-Westphalia (western Germany). Conclusion More reliable data on reservoir host distribution, pathogen verification as well as an increased awareness of physicians are some of the factors that should improve future human infection risk assessments in Germany.


Diversity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Atienza ◽  
Magdalena Guardiola ◽  
Kim Præbel ◽  
Adrià Antich ◽  
Xavier Turon ◽  
...  

Among the complex ecosystems and habitats that form the deep sea, submarine canyons and open slope systems are regarded as potential hotspots of biodiversity. We assessed the spatial and temporal patterns of biodiversity in sediment communities of a NW Mediterranean Canyon and its adjacent open slope (Blanes Canyon) with DNA metabarcoding. We sampled three layers of sediment and four different depths (900–1750 m) at two seasons, and used a fragment of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) as a metabarcoding marker. The final dataset contained a total of 15,318 molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTUs). Metazoa, Stramenopiles and Archaeplastida were the dominant taxa and, within metazoans, Arthropoda, Nematoda and Cnidaria were the most diverse. There was a trend towards decreasing MOTU richness and diversity in the first few cm (1 to 5) of the sediment, with only 26.3% of the MOTUs shared across sediment layers. Our results show the presence of heterogeneous communities in the studied area, which was significantly different between zones, depths and seasons. We compared our results with the ones presented in a previous study, obtained using the v7 region of the 18S rRNA gene in the same samples. There were remarkable differences in the total number of MOTUs and in the most diverse taxa. COI recovered a higher number of MOTUs, but more remained unassigned taxonomically. However, the broad spatio-temporal patterns elucidated from both datasets coincided, with both markers retrieving the same ecological information. Our results showed that COI can be used to accurately characterize the studied communities and constitute a high-resolution method to detect ecological shifts. We also highlight that COI reference databases for deep-sea organisms have important gaps, and their completeness is essential in order to successfully apply metabarcoding techniques.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (153) ◽  
pp. 20190035 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. L. Mohren ◽  
T. L. Daniel ◽  
A. L. Eberle ◽  
P. G. Reinhall ◽  
J. L. Fox

The halteres of flies are mechanosensory organs that serve a crucial role in the control of agile flight, providing sensory input for rapid course corrections to perturbations. Derived from hind wings, halteres are actively flapped and are thus subject to a variety of inertial forces as the fly undergoes complex flight trajectories. Previous analyses of halteres modelled them as a point mass, showing that Coriolis forces lead to subtle deflections orthogonal to the plane of flapping. By design, these models could not consider the effects of force gradients associated with a mass distribution, nor could they reveal three-dimensional spatio-temporal patterns of strain that result from those forces. In addition, diversity in the geometry of halteres, such as shape and asymmetries, could not be simply modelled with a point mass on a massless rod. To study the effects of mass distributions and asymmetries, we examine the haltere subject to both flapping and body rotations using three-dimensional finite-element simulations. We focus on a set of simplified geometries, in which we vary the stalk and bulb shape. We find that haltere mass distribution gives rise to two unreported deformation modes: (i) halteres twist with a magnitude that strongly depends on stalk and bulb geometry and (ii) halteres with an asymmetric mass distribution experience out-of-plane bending due to centrifugal forces, independent of body rotation. Since local strains at the base of the haltere drive deformations of mechanosensory neurons, we combined measured neural encoding mechanisms with our structural analyses to predict the spatial and temporal patterns of neural activity. This activity depends on both the flapping and rotation dynamics, and we show how the timing of neural activity is a viable mechanism for rotation-rate encoding. Our results provide new insights in haltere dynamics and show the viability for timing-based encoding of fly body rotations by halteres.


2010 ◽  
Vol 365 (1558) ◽  
pp. 3633-3643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan P. White ◽  
S. K. Morgan Ernest ◽  
Peter B. Adler ◽  
Allen H. Hurlbert ◽  
S. Kathleen Lyons

Understanding species richness patterns represents one of the most fundamental problems in ecology. Most research in this area has focused on spatial gradients of species richness, with a smaller area of emphasis dedicated to understanding the temporal dynamics of richness. However, few attempts have been made to understand the linkages between the spatial and temporal patterns related to richness. Here, we argue that spatial and temporal richness patterns and the processes that drive them are inherently linked, and that our understanding of richness will be substantially improved by considering them simultaneously. The species–time–area relationship provides a case in point: successful description of the empirical spatio-temporal pattern led to a rapid development and testing of new theories. Other areas of research on species richness could also benefit from an explicitly spatio-temporal approach, and we suggest future directions for understanding the processes common to these two traditionally isolated fields of research.


The Holocene ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (12) ◽  
pp. 1954-1967 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Morin-Rivat ◽  
Achille Biwolé ◽  
Anaïs-Pasiphaé Gorel ◽  
Jason Vleminckx ◽  
Jean-François Gillet ◽  
...  

Palaeoecological and archaeological studies have demonstrated that human populations have long inhabited the moist forests of central Africa. However, spatial and temporal patterns of human activities have hardly been investigated with satisfactory accuracy. In this study, we propose to characterize past human activities at local scale by using a systematic quantitative and qualitative methodology based on soil charcoal and charred botanical remains. A total of 88 equidistant test-pits were excavated along six transects in two contrasting forest types in southern Cameroon. Charred botanical remains were collected by water-sieving and sorted by type (wood charcoals, oil palm endocarps and unidentified seeds). A total of 50 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry 14C dates were also obtained. Results showed that charred macroremains were found at multiple places in the forest, suggesting scattered human activities, which were distributed into two main periods (Phase A: 2300–1300 BP; Phase B: 580 BP to the present). Charred botanical remains indicated two types of land-use: (1) domestic, with oil palm endocarps most often associated with potsherds (villages) and (2) agricultural, with charcoal as probable remnant of slash-and-burn cultivation (fields). Oil palm endocarp abundance decreased with distance from the identified human settlements. Our methodology allowed documenting, at high resolution, the spatial and temporal patterns of human activities in central African moist forests and could be applied to other tropical contexts.


2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1935) ◽  
pp. 20201829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Becker ◽  
Ellen D. Ketterson ◽  
Richard J. Hall

Annual migration is common across animal taxa and can dramatically shape the spatial and temporal patterns of infectious disease. Although migration can decrease infection prevalence in some contexts, these energetically costly long-distance movements can also have immunosuppressive effects that may interact with transmission processes in complex ways. Here, we develop a mechanistic model for the reactivation of latent infections driven by physiological changes or energetic costs associated with migration (i.e. ‘migratory relapse’) and its effects on disease dynamics. We determine conditions under which migratory relapse can amplify or reduce infection prevalence across pathogen and host traits (e.g. infectious periods, virulence, overwinter survival, timing of relapse) and transmission phenologies. We show that relapse at either the start or end of migration can dramatically increase prevalence across the annual cycle and may be crucial for maintaining pathogens with low transmissibility and short infectious periods in migratory populations. Conversely, relapse at the start of migration can reduce the prevalence of highly virulent pathogens by amplifying culling of infected hosts during costly migration, especially for highly transmissible pathogens and those transmitted during migration or the breeding season. Our study provides a mechanistic foundation for understanding the spatio-temporal patterns of relapsing infections in migratory hosts, with implications for zoonotic surveillance and understanding how infection patterns will respond to shifts in migratory propensity associated with environmental change. Further, our work suggests incorporating within-host processes into population-level models of pathogen transmission may be crucial for reconciling the range of migration–infection relationships observed across migratory species.


2014 ◽  
Vol 94 (7) ◽  
pp. 1401-1408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen K. Pikesley ◽  
Brendan J. Godley ◽  
Sue Ranger ◽  
Peter B. Richardson ◽  
Matthew J. Witt

Concern has been expressed over future biogeographical expansion and habitat capitalization by species of the phylum Cnidaria, as this may have negative implications on human activities and ecosystems. There is, however, a paucity of knowledge and understanding of jellyfish ecology, in particular species distribution and seasonality. Recent studies in the UK have principally focused on the Celtic, Irish and North Seas, but all in isolation. In this study we analyse data from a publicly-driven sightings scheme across UK coastal waters (2003–2011; 9 years), with the aim of increasing knowledge on spatial and temporal patterns and trends. We describe inter-annual variability, seasonality and patterns of spatial distribution, and compare these with existing historic literature. Although incidentally-collected data lack quantification of effort, we suggest that with appropriate data management and interpretation, publicly-driven, citizen-science-based, recording schemes can provide for large-scale (spatial and temporal) coverage that would otherwise be logistically and financially unattainable. These schemes may also contribute to baseline data from which future changes in patterns or trends might be identified. We further suggest that findings from such schemes may be strengthened by the inclusion of some element of effort-corrected data collection.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document