How effective are artificial nests in attracting bees? A review

Abstract Background Recent declines in bee populations, along with increasing demand for pollination services in urban, agricultural, and natural environments, have led to strategies to attract wild bees to these areas. One of these strategies is installing artificial nests adjacent to urban gardens and agricultural farms. Bee hotels and nest boxes are among the artificial nests used by gardeners and farmers to attract pollinators. In this paper, we reviewed 50 studies that reported the efficiency of nest boxes and bee hotels in attracting bees. We considered the maximum occupation rate (percentage) as the main index to evaluate the efficiency of artificial nests. Results The maximum occupation rate of bee hotels was higher in farms (averaged 44.1%) than in forests (averaged 30.3%) and urban (averaged 38.3%) environments. In the case of nest boxes, most studies reported efficiencies of less than 20%, with an occupation rate of 16% and 5.5% on average in forest and urban environments respectively. However, our meta-analysis results showed that there was no significant relationship between the occupation rate of the nests and their installation place. Regression analysis also showed that the structural features of bee hotels (length and diameter) and nest boxes (volume and entrance size) did not affect their efficiency in attracting bees. Conclusion Our data showed that the strategy of installing artificial nests to attract pollinators is successful only concerning bee hotels, and the use of nest boxes has not been very successful.

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Cognitive Restoration from Nature Across Multiple Exposure Types - A Meta-Analysis Delineating the Effects of Test Order and Affect

10.31234/osf.io/w6n2f ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Cecilia Stenfors ◽

Stephen Charles Van Hedger ◽

Kathryn E Schertz ◽

Francisco Calvache Meyer ◽

Karen Smith ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Digit Span ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Urban Environments ◽

Order Effects ◽

Natural Environments ◽

Repeated Testing ◽

Directed Attention ◽

Beneficial Effects ◽

Unpublished Studies ◽

Test Order

Interactions with natural environments and nature-related stimuli have been found to be beneficial to cognitive performance, in particular on executive cognitive tasks with high demands on directed attention processes. However, results vary across different studies.The aim of the present study was to perform a meta-analysis of all our published and unpublished studies testing the effect of different interactions with nature versus urban/built control environments, on an executive test with high demands on directed attention: the backwards digit span (BDS) task. Specific aims were to evaluate the effect of nature versus urban environment interactions on BDS across different exposure types (e.g. being in real environments, or viewing videos, images, or listening to sounds) and disentangle the effects of testing order (i.e. practice with repeated testing) and the role of affective changes on BDS performance. We also reviewed the literature and compared and contrasted our meta-analysis with results from other studies. Results from our meta-analysis comprising 12 studies (N=567 participants) showed significant environment-by-time interactions with beneficial effects of nature compared to urban environments on BDS performance. This effect was magnified after parceling out initial practice effects on the BDS. Changes in positive or negative affect did not mediate the beneficial effects of nature on BDS performance. These results mirrored effects that we reviewed from outside of our laboratories. Uncontrolled and confounding order effects may explain some of the inconsistent findings in the literature. In all, these results highlight the robustness of the effects of natural environments on cognition when confounding order effects have been considered, and also provide a more nuanced account of when a nature intervention will be most effective.

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Changes in the home range sizes of terrestrial vertebrates in response to urban disturbance: a meta-analysis

Journal of Urban Ecology ◽

10.1093/jue/juaa014 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Kate O’Donnell ◽

Javier delBarco-Trillo

Keyword(s):

Home Range ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Urban Environments ◽

Home Ranges ◽

Natural Environments ◽

Urban Populations ◽

Terrestrial Vertebrates ◽

Spatial Movement

Abstract The unprecedented growth rate in human population and the increasing movement of people to urban areas is causing a rapid increase in urbanisation globally. Urban environments may restrict or affect the behaviour of many animal species. Importantly, urban populations may change their spatial movement, particularly decreasing their home ranges in response to habitat fragmentation, the presence of landscape barriers and the availability and density of resources. Several species-specific studies suggest that urban animals decrease their home ranges compared with their non-urban counterparts; however, it remained unclear whether this pattern is widespread across taxa or is instead restricted to specific taxonomic groups. Consequently, we conducted a meta-analysis, collecting 41 sets of data comparing home ranges in both natural and urban environments in 32 species of reptiles, birds and mammals. We calculated effect sizes as the difference in animal home range sizes between natural and urban environments. We found that the home ranges were smaller in urban environments compared with natural environments (mean effect size = −0.844), and we observed a similar result when considering birds and mammals separately. We also found that home range sizes were not significantly affected when disturbance in urban areas was minimal, which suggests that many species may be able to tolerate low levels of disturbance without changing their movement patterns. Our study thus indicates that increasing levels of urbanisation restrict the spatial movement of species across taxa; this information is relevant for ecological studies of further urban species as well as for the development of management strategies for urban populations.

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Restorativeness in Natural and Urban Environments: A Meta-Analysis

Psychological Reports ◽

10.1177/0033294119884063 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 003329411988406 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Elisa Menardo ◽

Margherita Brondino ◽

Rob Hall ◽

Margherita Pasini

Keyword(s):

Natural Environment ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Well Being ◽

Urban Environments ◽

Outdoor Environment ◽

Self Report ◽

Natural Environments ◽

Significant Heterogeneity ◽

Environmental Attitude ◽

Natural Element

In recent decades, there has been an increasing volume of research aimed out quantifying the extent to which the natural environment can assist in restoring mental, emotional, and physical well-being. It is commonly assumed that natural environments are more restorative than urban environments. However, studies addressing this issue use a variety of methods for data collection making it difficult to compare the findings of different studies. The research reported here uses a meta-analysis aimed at estimating how much natural environments are perceived as being more restorative than urban environments. We investigated the role of moderator variables such as research design, kind of natural environment, participants, measurement instruments used or the context in which the data were collected. PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, Scopus, SpringerLINK, Web of Science online databases were used to identity all peer-review articles on restorativeness published to date ( k = 167). Reference sections of obtained papers were examined for additional studies. Only 22 studies met inclusion criteria (direct exposure to environment, comparison between one outdoor environment with natural element and one without natural element, and restorativeness measured by self-report scale) and were included in meta-analysis. Results show that natural environments are perceived to be more restorative than urban environments (Cohen’s d (confidence interval) = 1.99 (1.38–2.61)). Significant heterogeneity between the study was found ( Q(19) = 503.16, p < .001) and variability within studies was very high ( I2 = 97%). However, subsequent univariate moderator analyses were not significant. Other methodological differences (e.g., lighting conditions) could explain this variability. We concluded that the variability in studies is more likely to be due to individual differences (e.g., age, connections to nature, and environmental attitude) than the methodological differences.

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Effects of exposure to immersive videos and photo slideshows of forest and urban environments

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-83277-y ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Fariba Mostajeran ◽

Jessica Krzikawski ◽

Frank Steinicke ◽

Simone Kühn

Keyword(s):

Research Question ◽

Well Being ◽

Urban Environments ◽

Natural Environments ◽

Jail Inmates ◽

Forest Environment ◽

Main Research ◽

Head Mounted Display ◽

Sense Of Presence ◽

Hospital Patients

AbstractA large number of studies have demonstrated the benefits of natural environments on people’s health and well-being. For people who have limited access to nature (e.g., elderly in nursing homes, hospital patients, or jail inmates), virtual representations may provide an alternative to benefit from the illusion of a natural environment. For this purpose and in most previous studies, conventional photos of nature have been used. Immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, however, can induce a higher sense of presence compared to conventional photos. Whether this higher sense of presence leads to increased positive impacts of virtual nature exposure is the main research question of this study. Therefore, we compared exposure to a forest and an urban virtual environment in terms of their respective impact on mood, stress, physiological reactions, and cognition. The environments were presented via a head-mounted display as (1) conventional photo slideshows or (2) 360$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ videos. The results show that the forest environment had a positive effect on cognition and the urban environment disturbed mood regardless of the mode of presentation. In addition, photos of either urban or forest environment were both more effective in reducing physiological arousal compared to immersive 360$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ videos.

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The Effects of Urban Natural Environments on Preference and Self-Reported Psychological Restoration of the Elderly

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18020509 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 509

Author(s):

Ling Qiu ◽

Qujing Chen ◽

Tian Gao

Keyword(s):

Green Space ◽

Environmental Design ◽

The Elderly ◽

Urban Environments ◽

Green Spaces ◽

Photo Elicitation ◽

Natural Environments ◽

The World ◽

Different Types ◽

Aging Populations

The world is facing the challenge of aging populations. Urban natural environments, including green spaces and blue spaces, have been demonstrated to have great benefits to the mental restoration of the elderly. However, the study of the specific characteristics of urban environments that are popular and the most restorative for the elderly is still lacking. Photo elicitation as visual stimuli was utilized to explore the differences in preference and psychological restoration of the elderly through the perception of the eight perceived sensory dimensions (PSDs) in different types of urban environments. The results showed that: (1) The respondents had different perceptions of the eight PSDs in the different urban natural environments. Blue space and partly-closed green space were more preferred by the elderly, and also had more psychological restorative effects on the elderly. (2) There was no significant correlation between the number of highly perceived PSDs and preference, as well as between the number of highly perceived PSDs and psychological restoration. However, there was a significant correlation between preference and psychological restoration. (3) Partly-closed green space with more Serene and Refuge qualities, and blue space with more Serene, Refuge and Prospect properties were optimal characteristics for psychological restoration of the elderly. In addition, open green space with more Prospect, Serene and Social qualities, and closed green space with more Space, Refuge and less Nature properties could also increase psychological restoration of older adults. These findings can provide useful guidelines for restorative environmental design for the elderly in the future.

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Characterization of Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) in Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Revealed Increased Susceptibility to Cell Death upon ER Stress

Cells ◽

10.3390/cells9051078 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (5) ◽

pp. 1078

Author(s):

Tae Won Ha ◽

Ji Hun Jeong ◽

HyeonSeok Shin ◽

Hyun Kyu Kim ◽

Jeong Suk Im ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Stem Cells ◽

Endoplasmic Reticulum ◽

Er Stress ◽

Pluripotent Stem Cells ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Embryonic Stem ◽

Structural Features ◽

Human Pluripotent Stem Cells ◽

Differentiated Cells ◽

Induced Apoptosis

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), such as embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), have a well-orchestrated program for differentiation and self-renewal. However, the structural features of unique proteostatic-maintaining mechanisms in hPSCs and their features, distinct from those of differentiated cells, in response to cellular stress remain unclear. We evaluated and compared the morphological features and stress response of hPSCs and fibroblasts. Compared to fibroblasts, electron microscopy showed simpler/fewer structures with fewer networks in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of hPSCs, as well as lower expression of ER-related genes according to meta-analysis. As hPSCs contain low levels of binding immunoglobulin protein (BiP), an ER chaperone, thapsigargin treatment sharply increased the gene expression of the unfolded protein response. Thus, hPSCs with decreased chaperone function reacted sensitively to ER stress and entered apoptosis faster than fibroblasts. Such ER stress-induced apoptotic processes were abolished by tauroursodeoxycholic acid, an ER-stress reliever. Hence, our results revealed that as PSCs have an underdeveloped structure and express fewer BiP chaperone proteins than somatic cells, they are more susceptible to ER stress-induced apoptosis in response to stress.

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Diversity of Listeria Species in Urban and Natural Environments

Applied and Environmental Microbiology ◽

10.1128/aem.00282-12 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 78 (12) ◽

pp. 4420-4433 ◽

Cited By ~ 95

Author(s):

Brian D. Sauders ◽

Jon Overdevest ◽

Esther Fortes ◽

Katy Windham ◽

Ynte Schukken ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Environmental Samples ◽

Nearest Neighbor ◽

Allelic Diversity ◽

Urban Environments ◽

Source Tracking ◽

Natural Environments ◽

Content Type ◽

Molecular Source ◽

Listeria Seeligeri

ABSTRACTA total of 442Listeriaisolates, including 234Listeria seeligeri, 80L. monocytogenes, 74L. welshimeri, 50L. innocua, and 4L. marthiiisolates, were obtained from 1,805 soil, water, and other environmental samples collected over 2 years from four urban areas and four areas representing natural environments.Listeriaspp. showed similar prevalences in samples from natural (23.4%) and urban (22.3%) environments. WhileL. seeligeriandL. welshimeriwere significantly associated with natural environments (P≤ 0.0001),L. innocuaandL. monocytogeneswere significantly associated with urban environments (P≤ 0.0001). Sequencing ofsigBfor all isolates revealed 67 allelic types with a higher level of allelic diversity among isolates from urban environments. SomeListeriaspp. andsigBallelic types showed significant associations with specific urban and natural areas. Nearest-neighbor analyses also showed that certainListeriaspp. andsigBallelic types were spatially clustered within both natural and urban environments, and there was evidence that these species and allelic types persisted over time in specific areas. Our data show that members of the genusListerianot only are common in urban and natural environments but also show species- and subtype-specific associations with different environments and areas. This indicates thatListeriaspecies and subtypes within these species may show distinct ecological preferences, which suggests (i) that molecular source-tracking approaches can be developed forListeriaand (ii) that detection of someListeriaspecies may not be a good indicator forL. monocytogenes.

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Endemic Cyprus Scops Owl Otus cyprius Readily Breeds in Artificial Nest Boxes

Animals ◽

10.3390/ani11061775 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 1775

Author(s):

Savvas Iezekiel ◽

Reuven Yosef ◽

Constantinos Themistokleus ◽

Dimitrios E. Bakaloudis ◽

Christos G. Vlachos ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Rural Areas ◽

Habitat Preferences ◽

Bird Species ◽

Laying Date ◽

Artificial Nests ◽

Breeding Parameters ◽

Island Endemic ◽

Nest Boxes ◽

Ecological Requirements ◽

Old Trees

As is well-known, endemic island bird species are especially vulnerable to extinction from anthropogenic environmental change and reduced fitness compared with mainland taxa. The Cyprus Scops Owl, Otus cyprius, is a recently recognized island endemic species whose ecology and breeding biology have not been studied. It nests mainly in holes in trees and buildings, so the felling of old trees, modern architectural practices, and the renovation of old houses in villages may reduce nest site availability. Its population trend is also unknown. Therefore, to better determine its ecological requirements and habitat preferences we placed nest boxes in rural areas adjacent to the forest, in the forest, and in the ecotone between them, and used breeding success as our indicator of habitat suitability. We found that breeding parameters like laying date, clutch size, length of the incubation period, hatching day, hatching success, and number of nestlings did not differ between the three habitats. Despite the low level of nest box occupancy rate (5–11%) the endemic Cyprus Scops Owl readily breeds in artificial nests. Therefore, although we are unaware of any current threats to the Cyprus Scops Owl, we recommend that its conservation be prioritized, including studies, monitoring, habitat conservation, and the provision of nest boxes.

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Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Impact of Thrombolytic Therapy in Liver Transplantation Following Donation after Circulatory Death

Journal of Clinical Medicine ◽

10.3390/jcm7110425 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (11) ◽

pp. 425 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Kumar Jayant ◽

Isabella Reccia ◽

Francesco Virdis ◽

A. Shapiro

Keyword(s):

Liver Transplantation ◽

Blood Transfusion ◽

Graft Survival ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Donation After Cardiac Death ◽

Clinical Trial Registry ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Increasing Demand ◽

One Year ◽

The Impact

Aim: The livers from DCD (donation after cardiac death) donations are often envisaged as a possible option to bridge the gap between the availability and increasing demand of organs for liver transplantation. However, DCD livers possess a heightened risk for complications and represent a formidable management challenge. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of thrombolytic flush in DCD liver transplantation. Methods: An extensive search of the literature database was made on MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, Crossref, Scopus databases, and clinical trial registry on 20 September 2018 to assess the role of thrombolytic tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) flush in DCD liver transplantation. Results: A total of four studies with 249 patients in the tPA group and 178 patients in the non-tPA group were included. The pooled data revealed a significant decrease in ischemic-type biliary lesions (ITBLs) (P = 0.04), re-transplantation rate (P = 0.0001), and no increased requirement of blood transfusion (P = 0.16) with a better one year graft survival (P = 0.02). Conclusions: To recapitulate, tPA in DCD liver transplantation decreased the incidence of ITBLs, re-transplantation and markedly improved 1-year graft survival, without any increased risk for blood transfusion, hence it has potential to expand the boundaries of DCD liver transplantation.

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Improving Habitat Quality at the Local and Landscape Scales Increases Wild Bee Assemblages and Associated Pollination Services in Apple Orchards in China

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution ◽

10.3389/fevo.2021.621469 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Panlong Wu ◽

Piaopiao Dai ◽

Meina Wang ◽

Sijie Feng ◽

Aruhan Olhnuud ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Management Practices ◽

Ground Cover ◽

Agricultural Landscapes ◽

Wild Bees ◽

Natural Habitats ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Wild Bee ◽

Wide Range ◽

Bee Diversity ◽

Landscape Scales

Bees provide key pollination services for a wide range of crops. Accumulating evidence shows the effect of semi-natural habitats at the landscape level and local management practices on bee diversity in fields. However, most of the evidence is derived from studies in North America and Europe. Whether this paradigm is applicable in China, which is characterized by smallholder-dominated agricultural landscapes, has rarely been studied. In this study, we aimed to investigate how bee diversity affected apple production, and how landscape and local variables affected bee diversity and species composition on the Northern China Plain. The results showed that bees significantly increased apple fruit set compared to bagged controls. Wild bee diversity was positively related to apple seed numbers. Higher seed numbers reduced the proportion of deformed apples and thus increased fruit quality. Wild bee abundance was positively correlated with flowering ground cover, and both the abundance and species richness of wild bees were positively affected by the percentage of semi-natural habitats. We conclude that apple quality can benefit from ecological intensification comprising the augmentation of wild bees by semi-natural habitats and flowering ground cover. Future pollination management should therefore reduce the intensification level of management at both the local and landscape scales.

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