scholarly journals Linking animal migration and ecosystem processes: data-driven simulation of propagule dispersal by migratory herbivores

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Somveille ◽  
Diego Ellis-Soto
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Processes ◽  
Movement Behavior ◽  
Santa Cruz Island ◽  
Santa Cruz ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Large Herbivores ◽  
Propagule Dispersal ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Animal Migration

Animal migration is a key process underlying active subsidies and species dispersal over long distances, which affects the connectivity and functioning of ecosystems. Despite much research describing patterns of where animals migrate, we still lack a framework for quantifying and predicting how animal migration affects ecosystem processes. In this study, we aim to integrate animal movement behavior and ecosystem functioning by developing a predictive modeling framework that can inform ecosystem management and conservation. Our framework models individual-level migration trajectories between populations' seasonal ranges as well as the resulting dispersal and fate of propagules carried by the migratory animals, and it can be calibrated using empirical data at every step of the modeling process. As a case study, we applied our framework to model the spread of guava seeds, Psidium guajava, by a population of migratory Galapagos tortoises, Chelonoidis porteri, across Santa Cruz Island. Galapagos tortoises are large herbivores that transport seeds and nutrients across the island, while Guava is one of the most problematic invasive species in the Galapagos archipelago. Our model is able to predict the pattern of spread of guava seeds alongside tortoises' downslope migration range, and it identified areas most likely to see germination success and establishment. Our results show that Galapagos tortoises' seed dispersal may particularly contribute to guava range expansion on Santa Cruz Island, due to both long gut retention time and tortoise's long-distance migration across vegetation zones. In particular, we predict that tortoises are dispersing a significant amount of guava seeds into the Galapagos National Park, which has important consequences for the native flora. The flexibility and modularity of our framework allows for the integration of multiple data sources. It also allows for a wide range of applications to investigate how migratory animals affect ecosystem processes, including propagule dispersal but also other processes such as nutrient transport across ecosystems. Our framework is also a valuable tool for predicting how animal-mediated propagule dispersal can be affected by environmental change. These different applications can have important conservation implications for the management of ecosystems that include migratory animals.

Electric Vehicle Charger Placement Optimization in Michigan Considering Monthly Traffic Demand and Battery Performance Variations

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812098195
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Fakhrmoosavi ◽  
MohammadReza Kavianipour ◽  
MohammadHossein (Sam) Shojaei ◽  
Ali Zockaie ◽  
Mehrnaz Ghamami ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Optimal Allocation ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Cold Weather ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Charging Infrastructure ◽  
Traffic Demand ◽  
Adverse Weather ◽  
Performance Variations

Limited charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs) is one of the main barriers to adoption of these vehicles. In conjunction with limited battery range, the lack of charging infrastructure leads to range-anxiety, which may discourage many potential users. This problem is especially important for long-distance or intercity trips. Monthly traffic patterns and battery performance variations are two main contributing factors in defining the infrastructure needs of EV users, particularly in states with adverse weather conditions. Knowing this, the current study focuses on Michigan and its future needs to support the intercity trips of EVs across the state in two target years of 2020 and 2030, considering monthly traffic demand and battery performance variations. This study incorporates a recently developed modeling framework to suggest the optimal locations of fast EV chargers to be implemented in Michigan. Considering demand and battery performance variations is the major contribution of the current study to the proposed modeling framework by the same authors in the literature. Furthermore, many stakeholders in Michigan are engaged to estimate the input parameters. Therefore, the research study can be used by authorities as an applied model for optimal allocation of resources to place EV fast chargers. The results show that for charger placement, the reduced battery performance in cold weather is a more critical factor than the increased demand in warm seasons. To support foreseeable annual EV trips in Michigan in 2030, this study suggests 36 charging stations with 490 chargers and an investment cost of $23 million.

scholarly journals Body size, sex and high philopatry influence the use of agricultural land by Galapagos giant tortoises

Oryx ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Kyana N. Pike ◽  
Stephen Blake ◽  
Freddy Cabrera ◽  
Iain J. Gordon ◽  
Lin Schwarzkopf
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Large Male ◽  
Gps Data ◽  
Santa Cruz Island ◽  
Santa Cruz ◽  
Agricultural Areas ◽  
On Farm ◽  
Human Wildlife Conflict ◽  
Privately Owned

Abstract As agricultural areas expand, interactions between wild animals and farmland are increasing. Understanding the nature of such interactions is vital to inform the management of human–wildlife coexistence. We investigated patterns of space use of two Critically Endangered Galapagos tortoise species, Chelonoidis porteri and Chelonoidis donfaustoi, on privately owned and agricultural land (hereafter farms) on Santa Cruz Island, where a human–wildlife conflict is emerging. We used GPS data from 45 tortoises tracked for up to 9 years, and data on farm characteristics, to identify factors that influence tortoise movement and habitat use in the agricultural zone. Sixty-nine per cent of tagged tortoises used the agricultural zone, where they remained for a mean of 150 days before returning to the national park. Large male tortoises were more likely to use farms for longer periods than female and smaller individuals. Tortoises were philopatric (mean overlap of farmland visits = 88.7 ± SE 2.9%), on average visiting four farms and occupying a mean seasonal range of 2.9 ± SE 0.3 ha. We discuss the characteristics of farm use by tortoises, and its implications for tortoise conservation and coexistence with people.

Hierarchical Concept-Driven Language Model

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Yashen Wang ◽  
Huanhuan Zhang ◽  
Zhirun Liu ◽  
Qiang Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Language Model ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Data Generation ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Short Text ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Scalable Inference ◽  
End To End ◽  
Hidden Layer

For guiding natural language generation, many semantic-driven methods have been proposed. While clearly improving the performance of the end-to-end training task, these existing semantic-driven methods still have clear limitations: for example, (i) they only utilize shallow semantic signals (e.g., from topic models) with only a single stochastic hidden layer in their data generation process, which suffer easily from noise (especially adapted for short-text etc.) and lack of interpretation; (ii) they ignore the sentence order and document context, as they treat each document as a bag of sentences, and fail to capture the long-distance dependencies and global semantic meaning of a document. To overcome these problems, we propose a novel semantic-driven language modeling framework, which is a method to learn a Hierarchical Language Model and a Recurrent Conceptualization-enhanced Gamma Belief Network, simultaneously. For scalable inference, we develop the auto-encoding Variational Recurrent Inference, allowing efficient end-to-end training and simultaneously capturing global semantics from a text corpus. Especially, this article introduces concept information derived from high-quality lexical knowledge graph Probase, which leverages strong interpretability and anti-nose capability for the proposed model. Moreover, the proposed model captures not only intra-sentence word dependencies, but also temporal transitions between sentences and inter-sentence concept dependence. Experiments conducted on several NLP tasks validate the superiority of the proposed approach, which could effectively infer meaningful hierarchical concept structure of document and hierarchical multi-scale structures of sequences, even compared with latest state-of-the-art Transformer-based models.

scholarly journals Isotopic Niche Segregation among Darwin’s Finches on Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos

Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Mariana Villegas ◽  
Catherine Soos ◽  
Gustavo Jiménez-Uzcátegui ◽  
Shukri Matan ◽  
Keith A. Hobson
Keyword(s):  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Sympatric Species ◽  
Isotopic Niche ◽  
Museum Specimens ◽  
Santa Cruz Island ◽  
Santa Cruz ◽  
Δ13c And Δ15n ◽  
Darwin's Finches ◽  
Darwin’S Finches ◽  
Foraging Guilds

Darwin’s finches are a classic example of adaptive radiation involving differential use of dietary resources among sympatric species. Here, we apply stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N, and δ2H) analyses of feathers to examine ecological segregation among eight Darwin’s finch species in Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos collected from live birds and museum specimens (1962–2019). We found that δ13C values were higher for the granivorous and herbivorous foraging guilds, and lower for the insectivorous finches. Values of δ15N were similar among foraging guilds but values of δ2H were higher for insectivores, followed by granivores, and lowest for herbivores. The herbivorous guild generally occupied the largest isotopic standard ellipse areas for all isotopic combinations and the insectivorous guild the smallest. Values of δ2H provided better trophic discrimination than those of δ15N possibly due to confounding influences of agricultural inputs of nitrogen. Segregation among guilds was enhanced by portraying guilds in three-dimensional isotope (δ13C, δ15N, and δ2H) space. Values of δ13C and δ15N were higher for feathers of museum specimens than for live birds. We provide evidence that Darwin’s finches on Santa Cruz Island tend to be generalists with overlapping isotopic niches and suggest that dietary overlap may also be more considerable than previously thought.

scholarly journals EXPRESS: Overcoming the Cold Start Problem of CRM using a Probabilistic Machine Learning Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 002224372110329
Author(s):  
Nicolas Padilla ◽  
Eva Ascarza
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Cold Start ◽  
Customer Relationship ◽  
Exponential Families ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Probabilistic Machine Learning ◽  
Marketing Actions ◽  
Cold Start Problem

The success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs ultimately depends on the firm's ability to identify and leverage differences across customers — a very diffcult task when firms attempt to manage new customers, for whom only the first purchase has been observed. For those customers, the lack of repeated observations poses a structural challenge to inferring unobserved differences across them. This is what we call the “cold start” problem of CRM, whereby companies have difficulties leveraging existing data when they attempt to make inferences about customers at the beginning of their relationship. We propose a solution to the cold start problem by developing a probabilistic machine learning modeling framework that leverages the information collected at the moment of acquisition. The main aspect of the model is that it exibly captures latent dimensions that govern the behaviors observed at acquisition as well as future propensities to buy and to respond to marketing actions using deep exponential families. The model can be integrated with a variety of demand specifications and is exible enough to capture a wide range of heterogeneity structures. We validate our approach in a retail context and empirically demonstrate the model's ability at identifying high-value customers as well as those most sensitive to marketing actions, right after their first purchase.

scholarly journals SEROLOGIC SURVEY OF THE ISLAND SPOTTED SKUNK ON SANTA CRUZ ISLAND

2006 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria J. Bakker ◽  
Dirk H. Van Vuren ◽  
Kevin R. Crooks ◽  
Cheryl A. Scott ◽  
Jeffery T. Wilcox ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Santa Cruz Island ◽  
Santa Cruz ◽  
Serologic Survey
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