Agriculture and Biodiversity in Latin America in Historical Perspective

Latin America is thought to be the world’s most biodiverse region, but as in the rest of the world, the number of species and the size of their populations is generally in sharp decline. Most experts consider agriculture to be the most important cause of biodiversity decline. At one extreme of policy argument regarding biodiversity conservation are those who argue that the only path to species protection is the establishment of many more and larger “protected areas” in which human activities will be severely restricted. On the remaining land agriculture will be carried out largely with the presently prevailing methods of “industrial agriculture,” including heavy reliance on synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, heavy machine use, large-scale irrigation schemes, limited crop diversity, and crops genetically engineered to maximize returns from these tools and techniques. Those who argue for these policies largely accept that industrial agriculture of this sort is severely hostile to biodiversity, but argue that the high productivity of such methods makes it possible to limit agriculture to a relatively small land base, leaving the rest for protected areas and other human activities. On the other side of the argument are those who argue that agricultural techniques are either available or can be created to make agricultural areas more favorable to species survival. They argue that even with a desirable expansion of protected areas, such reserves cannot successfully maintain high biodiversity levels if protected reserves are not complemented by an agriculture more friendly to species survival and migration. The policy arguments on these issues are of major human and biological importance. They are also very complex and depend on theoretical perspectives and data that do not provide definitive guidance. One way to enrich the debate is to develop a specifically historical perspective that illuminates the relationship between human actions and species diversity. In Latin America, humans have been modifying landscapes and species composition of landscapes for thousands of years. Even in areas of presently low human population density and extraordinarily high species diversity, such as remaining tropical rainforests, humans may have been active in shaping species composition for millennia. After 1492, human population levels in Latin America plummeted with the introduction of Old-World diseases. It is often assumed that this led to a blossoming of species diversity, but the historical evidence from 1492 to the present strongly suggests the combination of European technologies and the integration of agriculture into world markets meant more damaging use of soils, widespread deforestation, and subsequent decline in species numbers. The exploitation and consequent despoliation of Latin American resources were integral to colonialism and intensified later by national governments focused on rapid economic growth. High species diversity remained in areas that were too difficult to exploit and/or were used by indigenous populations or smallholders whose production techniques were often favorable to species survival. Many of these techniques provide clues for how agriculture might be reshaped to be more friendly both to biodiversity and social equity.

Cultural Use of Homegarden Plants in an Indigenous Community in North West Ethiopia

Background; The floristic composition of homegardens in Northwest Ethiopia in general, and the Gozamin district in particular, has received little research attention. The purpose of this research is to better understand the floristic composition and cultural significance of homegardens. Methods; Stratified random sampling procedure was used based on agroecological variation in selected kebeles. The homegarden data were collected by dividing the homegarden into four quadrats, the first quadrat stretched from the farmer’s home to 10m, the second quadrat from10m to 20m, the third quadrat from 20m to 30m and the fourth quadrat from 30m to 40m horizontally using farmer’s house as reference depending on the size of the garden. A semi-structured interview was carried out to document the informant’s knowledge on plant species.Results; A total of 238 culturally important plant species from 81 families were identified. Of these 39% were herbs,29% shrubs, 6% were climbers. Perennials made up the largest part of cultivated species (83%), whereas annuals made up the rest (17%). The Poaceae family had the foremost species, with 22, taken after by the Fabaceae, which had 21, and the Asteraceae which had 15. From these recorded plants,140(58.6%) were species utilized for environmental uses, 84(35%) food crops, 83(34.7%) medicinal plant species, 39(16.3%) fodder species, 57(23.8%) material use plants, 60(25%) fuel wood species, 50(21%) social use plants and 1(0.4%) poisonous. The direct matrix ranking revealed that Cordia Africana was found a versatile culturally important plant in the area which was also extremely threatened, followed by Ficus sur. Cordia africana highest use-value was for Building and the list value was for medicinal. The Sorensen similarity index for 64 percent of the locations investigated was less than 0.5.Conclusion; The result showed that homegardens are multi-functional, long-term production systems. Food security and biodiversity conservation are continuously supported by tribal populations cultural knowledge connected with their homegardens. The less similarity/high species diversity in the area between kebeles indicated that there was high species diversity this was due to different range of agroecological conditions among kebeles.

Harvestmen in the semiarid: a new genus and three new species of Pachylinae (Opiliones: Gonyleptidae) from Caatinga dry vegetation, with a cladistic analysis

Opiliones are highly diverse in the Neotropics. Because of biological constraints, most harvestmen communities are associated with humid forests, exhibiting a high species diversity and endemism in these habitats. Drier formations, such as the Caatinga biome in northeastern Brazil, are less diverse and still considered under-sampled for the order. This study represents an effort to examine the aforementioned diversity by describing a new Gonyleptidae genus, Sertanejagen. nov., comprising two new species from Ceará state, Sertaneja bicuspidatasp. nov. and Sertaneja crassitibialissp. nov., and one new species from Rio Grande do Norte state, Sertaneja falcatasp. nov. A morphological cladistic analysis consisting of 20 terminals and 72 characters was performed to evaluate monophyly of the new genus and relate it to other Gonyleptidae. The analysis resulted in a single most parsimonious tree, corroborating Sertanejagen. nov. monophyly and relatedness to Gyndoides springmanni Soares & Soares, 1947, which in turn is the sister group to the DRMN clade. Taking into account the morphological traits and phylogenetic placement of Sertanejagen. nov., we chose to place the new genus in Pachylinae despite its polyphyletic status, given that the Sertanejagen. nov. clade is closely related to one of the Brazilian Pachylinae lineage. A resolution to the Pachylinae conundrum is needed to further explain the subfamily intricacies. Future research requires a larger scope, but currently, based on the new genus monophyly, support, and relatedness, we formally propose its creation and hope to shed light on the possible evolutionary scenarios for the subfamily.

Chromosome numbers of eight Carex taxa in Korea (Cyperaceae)

In the flora of Korea, Carex L. is one of the most species-rich genera. Among nearly 157 Carex taxa, less than 30 have had their chromosome numbers reported. We report the meiotic chromosome numbers of eight Carex taxa from Korean populations, which include the first count for C. accrescens Ohwi (n = 37II) and the first chromosome investigations of Korean populations for three taxa: C. bostrychostigma Maxim. (n = 22II), C. lanceolata Boott (n = 36II), and C. paxii Kük. (n = 38II). In most species, chromosome counts observed in the study are included within the variation ranges of previous chromosome numbers. However, C. bostrychostigma Maxim. (n = 22II) and C. planiculmis Kom. (n = 29II) are assigned new chromosome numbers. Carex is known to have holocentric chromosomes, lacking visible primary constrictions and exhibiting great variance in its chromosome number. Further investigations of the diversity of Carex chromosomes will provide basic information with which to understand the high species diversity of the genus.

Contribution of conspecific negative density dependence to species diversity is increasing towards low environmental limitation in Japanese forests

Species coexistence is a result of biotic interactions, environmental and historical conditions. The Janzen-Connell hypothesis assumes that conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD) is one of the local processes maintaining high species diversity by decreasing population growth rates at high densities. However, the contribution of CNDD to species richness variation across environmental gradients remains unclear. In 32 large forest plots all over the Japanese archipelago covering > 40,000 individual trees of > 300 species and based on size distributions, we analysed the strength of CNDD of individual species and its contribution to species number and diversity across altitude, mean annual temperature, mean annual precipitation and maximum snow depth gradients. The strength of CNDD was increasing towards low altitudes and high tree species number and diversity. The effect of CNDD on species number was changing across altitude, temperature and snow depth gradients and their combined effects contributed 11–18% of the overall explained variance. Our results suggest that CNDD can work as a mechanism structuring forest communities in the Japanese archipelago. Strong CNDD was observed to be connected with high species diversity under low environmental limitations where local biotic interactions are expected to be stronger than in niche-based community assemblies under high environmental filtering.

Analysis of the phytoplankton taxa composition in Lake Kuludinskoye (Altai Krai) based on retrospective data

The phytoplankton of Lake Kulundinskoye based on retrospective data 2001–2020 is characterized bya high species diversity. 157 species, subspecies and forms of the eight divisions – Cyanophyta (51), Ochrophyta (5),Bacillariophyta (32), Euglenozoa (9), Cryptophyta (6), Miozoa (3), Chlorophyta (50), Charophyta (1) were revealed. Bluegreen and green algae with the families Oscillatoriaceae, Synechococcaceae, Scenedesmaceae, Merismopediaceae andChlamydomonadaceae among them are the most important groups in the lake phytoplankton.

Long-Term Population Dynamics of Namib Desert Tenebrionid Beetles Reveal Complex Relationships to Pulse-Reserve Conditions

Noy-Meir’s paradigm concerning desert populations being predictably tied to unpredictable productivity pulses was tested by examining abundance trends of 26 species of flightless detritivorous tenebrionid beetles (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) in the hyper-arid Namib Desert (MAP = 25 mm). Over 45 years, tenebrionids were continuously pitfall trapped on a gravel plain. Species were categorised according to how their populations increased after 22 effective rainfall events (>11 mm in a week), and declined with decreasing detritus reserves (97.7–0.2 g m−2), while sustained by nonrainfall moisture. Six patterns of population variation were recognised: (a) increases triggered by effective summer rainfalls, tracking detritus over time (five species, 41% abundance); (b) irrupting upon summer rainfalls, crashing a year later (three, 18%); (c) increasing gradually after series of heavy (>40 mm) rainfall years, declining over the next decade (eight, 15%); (d) triggered by winter rainfall, population fluctuating moderately (two, 20%); (e) increasing during dry years, declining during wet (one, 0.4%); (f) erratic range expansions following heavy rain (seven, 5%). All species experienced population bottlenecks during a decade of scant reserves, followed by the community cycling back to its earlier composition after 30 years. By responding selectively to alternative configurations of resources, Namib tenebrionids showed temporal patterns and magnitudes of population fluctuation more diverse than predicted by Noy-Meir’s original model, underpinning high species diversity.

Mitrapsylla rupestris sp. nov., a psyllid (Hemiptera, Psylloidea) associated with Poiretia bahiana (Fabaceae) endemic to the Espinhaço mountain range (Brazil, Bahía)

Mitrapsylla rupestrissp. nov., associated with Poiretia bahiana C. Mueller (Fabaceae, Faboideae, Dalbergieae), is described, diagnosed and illustrated. The new species is morphologically similar to M. aeschynomenis, M. aurantia, M. cubana and M. didyma from which it differs in details of the terminalia and the host plant. Poiretia constitutes a previously unknown psyllid host. As its host, Mitrapsylla rupestrissp. nov. is probably endemic to rock habitats of the Espinhaço Range in eastern Brazil. These rock habitats display a high species diversity but are seriously threatened by human activities. More research on these habitats is urgently needed to design efficient conservation strategies.

Epidemiology of Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Infection in Tuberculosis Suspects

Nontuberculosis mycobacteria (NTM) are opportunistic pathogens that cause a wide range of illnesses. Here, the species distribution and prevalence of NTM infections in tuberculosis suspects was analyzed. A total of 7,073 specimens from pulmonary and extrapulmonary sites were analyzed, and 709 (10%) were found to be culture positive for mycobacteria. Of these, 85.2% were identified as Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and 14.8% as NTM (65.7% rapid growers and 34.3% slow growers). Speciation of the NTM isolates (n = 69) identified 19 NTM species. M. abscessus (33.3%) and M. fortuitum (24.6%) were the most dominant NTM species isolated from the patients, followed by M. porcinum (5.8%) and M. parascrofulaceum (4.3%). We also report peritonitis caused by rapidly growing NTM among the patients undergoing continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis and a case of M. senegalense peritonitis. A low prevalence but high species diversity of NTM was detected in our study. The high species diversity of NTM necessitates the need to unequivocally identify mycobacterial isolates for appropriate treatment.