Managing botanic garden collections of high conservation value

The author has spent 30 years co-ordinating the International Conifer Conservation Programme (ICCP), based at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and uses this significant milestone to reflect on some important aspects of managing genetic resources in plants of conservation concern. The main driver of the ex-situ component of the ICCP has been to develop robust protocols for broadening the genetic base of threatened conifers and a range of conservation dependent Chilean woody plants in cultivation. This is achieved using well-documented known wild origin material distributed through a dedicated network of ‘safe sites’. Examples of threatened species for which collection and cultivation of a breadth of genetic material has enabled meaningful conservation are given here. The strategy to increase genetic material in cultivation sometimes involves using novel methods including conservation hedges. The great challenge facing all managers of botanical collections is how to develop effective programmes that integrate ex-situ with in-situ conservation. The biggest contribution collection managers and growers can make is to maximise the value of collections in their care and actions which achieve this are listed.

Earthquakes, Trauma, and Celestial Remedies

Chapter 4 examines the effects of trauma on religion, both as a spiritual refugee and as a source of conflict and encounter between competing cosmological epistemologies. It pursues this through an examination of Pentecostalism in Haiti, where many thousands of Haitians flocked to churches in the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake of January 2010. Many Haitians used these spaces as spiritual safe sites from which they could begin to cope with psychological and physical trauma. At the same time, Haiti’s Pentecostal spiritual warriors, placing blame for the earthquake and its many other historical woes on Haiti’s Vodou religion, declared “celestial war” on Haiti’s native religion, setting off an embodied turf war for Haiti’s soul.

A Pilot Project to Limit the Human Impacts on the Fragile Antarctic Biota: Mitigation of a Runway through Vegetation Transplantation

Background: Antarctica is among the world’s last great wildernesses, but the anthropogenic activities and associated infrastructures threaten its fragile biota. We quantify the impact of the construction of a 2200 m long gravel runway airstrip for airfreight operations of the Italian research station on vegetation ecosystems at Boulder Clay (continental Antarctica). We propose a pilot project to mitigate this impact through the transplantation of vegetation from the runway to safe sites. Methods: A vegetation field survey was performed through phytosociological relevés and vegetation mapping and data were analyzed through multivariate analysis. Results: We quantify the destructive impact of the runway construction on the flora and vegetation of Boulder Clay. Based on vegetation characteristics, 28 priority areas were transplanted from the runway to safe sites, with 89% of survival. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first time that vegetation transplantation was performed in Antarctica to mitigate the consequences of human actions, as formerly it was used only for scientific experiments. This pilot project provides a tool to support management decisions, involving the quantitative evaluation of the infrastructure impacts and showing the suitability of practical mitigation actions. This pilot project proposes a practical tool exportable to all Antarctica and beyond and suggests to link the permissions’ release for the new infrastructures in Antarctica to the realization of specific conservation and mitigation actions.

Characterizing Protection Effects on Network Epidemics driven by Random Walks

Protection effects (PFx) denote protective measures taken by individuals (such as to wear masks and wash hands) upon their risk-perception towards an ongoing epidemic outbreak. The holistic force produced may fundamentally change the course of a spreading, with respect to both its reach and duration. This work proposes a model for PFx on network epidemics where nodes are sites mobile-agents may visit. Risk aversion is encoded as random-walks biased to safe sites. Assuming the network is a complete graph, the model is analyzed and framed as a classical SIS. We find a regime under which PFx preclude endemic steady-states upon arbitrarily large rates for both walk and transmissibility. Simulation results support our theoretical findings.

Ultrasound Guided Laparoscopic Port Placement in a Patient with Congenital Anomaly of IVC Undergoing Sleeve Gastrectomy

We report a patient with obesity who underwent laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy after pre-operative ultrasound mark up to enable safe port insertion due to presence of venous collaterals in the abdominal wall as a result of congenial IVC anomaly. This patient was falsely presumed to have NASH cirrhosis. Detailed preoperative workup ruled this out and led to the discovery of congenital IVC anomaly as the cause of engorged blood vessels in the anterior abdominal wall. On table ultrasound mark up of safe sites for port insertion enabled a safe laparosocpic sleeve gastrectomy on this patient.

Persistence of arctic-alpine flora during 24,000 years of environmental change in the Polar Urals

Plants adapted to extreme conditions can be at high risk from climate change; arctic-alpine plants, in particular, could “run out of space” as they are out-competed by expansion of woody vegetation. Mountain regions could potentially provide safe sites for arctic-alpine plants in a warmer climate, but empirical evidence is fragmentary. Here we present a 24,000-year record of species persistence based on sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) from Lake Bolshoye Shchuchye (Polar Urals). We provide robust evidence of long-term persistence of arctic-alpine plants through large-magnitude climate changes but document a decline in their diversity during a past expansion of woody vegetation. Nevertheless, most of the plants that were present during the last glacial interval, including all of the arctic-alpines, are still found in the region today. This underlines the conservation significance of mountain landscapes via their provision of a range of habitats that confer resilience to climate change, particularly for arctic-alpine taxa.

Post-Fire Management Impact on Natural Forest Regeneration through Altered Microsite Conditions

High severity stand-replacing wildfires can deeply affect forest ecosystems whose composition includes plant species lacking fire-related traits and specific adaptations. Land managers and policymakers need to be aware of the importance of properly managing these ecosystems, adopting post-disturbance interventions designed to reach management goals, and restoring the required ecosystem services. Recent research frequently found that post-fire salvage logging negatively affects natural regeneration dynamics, thereby altering successional pathways due to a detrimental interaction with the preceding disturbance. In this study, we compared the effects of salvage logging and other post-disturbance interventions (adopting different deadwood management strategies) to test their impact on microclimatic conditions, which potentially affect tree regeneration establishment and survival. After one of the largest and most severe wildfires in the Western Alps that affected stand-replacing behavior (100% tree mortality), a mountain forest dominated by Pinus sylvestris L., three post-fire interventions were adopted (SL-Salvage Logging, logging of all snags; CR-Cut and Release, cutting snags and releasing all deadwood on the ground; NI-No Intervention, all snags left standing). The differences among interventions concerning microclimatic conditions (albedo, surface roughness, solar radiation, soil moisture, soil temperature) were analyzed at different spatial scales (site, microsite). The management interventions influenced the presence and density of safe sites for regeneration. Salvage logging contributed to the harsh post-fire microsite environment by increasing soil temperature and reducing soil moisture. The presence of deadwood, instead, played a facilitative role in ameliorating microclimatic conditions for seedlings. The CR intervention had the highest soil moisture and the lowest soil temperature, which could be crucial for seedling survival in the first post-fire years. Due to its negative impact on microclimatic conditions affecting the availability of preferential microsites for regeneration recruitment, salvage logging should not be considered as the only intervention to be applied in post-fire environments. In the absence of threats or hazards requiring specific management actions (e.g., public safety, physical hazards for facilities), in the investigated ecosystems, no intervention, leaving all deadwood on site, could result in better microclimatic conditions for seedling establishment. A preferred strategy to speed-up natural processes and further increase safe sites for regeneration could be felling standing dead trees whilst releasing deadwood (at least partially) on the ground.