Updated checklist of semi-terrestrial and estuarine crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura) of Barbados, West Indies

Considering the growing threats to the biodiversity of small Caribbean islands (e.g., habitat loss and fragmentation, overexploitation, invasive species, and climate change), it is important to establish biodiversity inventories that serve as baselines for monitoring and evaluation of conservation efforts. In Barbados (West Indies), the most recent comprehensive taxonomic account of brachyuran crabs came from Rathbun (1921) reporting the specimens collected by the University of Iowa Barbados-Antigua Expedition in 1918. The present study fills the 100-year gap in knowledge by providing an updated taxonomic checklist of brachyuran crabs associated with semi-terrestrial and estuarine habitats in Barbados. A total of 245 specimens representing three superfamilies, six families, nine genera, and 13 species were collected over a period of 425 search-hours in twenty-seven sampling locations in semi-terrestrial and estuarine habitats of Barbados between September 2018 and November 2020. The families with the highest numbers of species identified were Gecarcinidae (3) and Portunidae (3), followed by Grapsidae (2), Sesarmidae (2), Ocypodidae (2), and Varunidae (1). The species Armases ricordi (H. Milne Edwards, 1853), Cyclograpsus integer H. Milne Edwards, 1837, and Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896, are recorded here for the first time for Barbados.

Baseline Assessments of Wildlife Biodiversity Within Selected Areas of Central Visayas, Philippines

A comprehensive inventory of faunal biodiversity was conducted within three Key Biodiversity Areas of Central Visayas. Mt. Bandilaan Natural Park (MBNP), Balinsasayao Twin Lakes Natural Park (BTLNP), and Rajah Sikatuna Protected Landscape (RSPL). Three primary wildlife groups were surveyed: bats, birds and amphibians. Species diversity and population trends were then analyzed to assess areas of biodiversity importance. RSPL generally had the highest species richness and diversity index while MBNP consistently had the lowest. When pooled. The surveyed areas resulted in a high diversity index and rate of endemicity showing the importance of multiple areas of protection. These findings can be utilized to prioritize habitat protection as well as to serve as a baseline information for future biodiversity inventories. J. Biodivers. Conserv. Bioresour. Manag. 2020, 6(2): 27-34

The Biodiversity of Ecological Interactions: Challenges for recording and documenting the Web of Life

Biodiversity is more than a collection of individual species. It is the combination of biological entities and processes supporting life on Earth: no single species persists without interacting with other species. A full account of biodiversity on Earth needs to document the essential ecological interactions that support Earth’s system through their functional outcomes. Quantifying biodiversity’s interactome (the whole suite of interactions among biotic organisms) is challenging not just because of the daunting task of describing ecosystem complexity, it’s also limited by the need to define and establish a proper grammar to record and catalog species interactions. Actually, a record of a pairwise interaction between two species can be identified as a "tetranomial species", with just a concatenation of the two Latin binomials. Thus sampling interactions requires solving exactly the same constraints and problems we face when sampling biodiversity. In real interaction webs, the number of actual pairwise interactions among species in local assemblages scales exponentially with species richness. I discuss the main components of these interactions and those that are key to properly sample and document them. Interactions take the form of predation, competition, commensalism, amensalism, mutualism, symbiosis, and parasitism and, in all cases, involve reciprocal effects for the interacting species and build into highly complex networks (Fig. 1). The type of metadata required to document ecological interactions between partner species depends on interaction type; yet a fraction of these metadata is shared with those of the partner species. The interaction type sets limits to between-species encounters (actually, encounters between individuals of the partner species) and, more importantly, sets the type of outcome emerging from the interactions. There is a broad range of information that can eventually be acquired when recording an ecological interaction: from its simple presence (the interaction exists, it's been just recorded) to an estimate of its frequency, to obtaining data about its outcome or per-interaction effect (e.g., number of flowers pollinated in a visit by a pollinator to a plant). In addition, the types of interaction data can be quite diverse, reflecting the variety of sampling methods: interaction records from direct observation in the field; camera-traps; DNA-barcoding; bibliographic sources; surveys of image databases, etc. Interaction biodiversity inventories may require merging information coming from these distinct data sources. All these components need to be properly defined in order to build informative metadata and to document ecological interaction records. We are just starting to delineate the main components needed to catalog and inventory ecological interactions as a part of biodiversity inventories.

An escape from the Espinhaço Range: a new species of Paepalanthus subg. Xeractis (Eriocaulaceae) from the campos rupestres of Serra do Padre Ângelo, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Background and aims – Recent botanical discoveries have highlighted the occurrence of campos rupestres in the Serra do Padre Ângelo (SPA), eastern Minas Gerais, Brazil. Here, we introduce the first new species of Paepalanthus subg. Xeractis to be described in the last three decades. Discovered in the SPA, it belongs to an emblematic lineage endemic to the campos rupestres of Minas Gerais.Material and methods – The new species is described based on herbarium material and in situ observations. A morphological phylogenetic analysis was carried out by including the new species in a previously published character matrix. Its spatial distribution is discussed based on the obtained topology.Key results – The new species is endemic to the SPA, but its closest related taxa are endemic to the Espinhaço Range (ER), ca 200 km distant. Its placement in the phylogeny supports the inclusion in P. ser. Fuscati, representing an escape from the ER. We present a clear morphological differentiation between the new species and its closest related taxa. Other similar cases of disjunct distribution among these areas of campos rupestres (SPA vs ER) are reviewed and discussed.Conclusion – Based on the restricted distribution, allied with threats to the habitat, the new species is inserted in the IUCN category of Critically Endangered (CR). This new discovery reinforces the singularity of the SPA and the relevance of biodiversity inventories and conservation studies in the easternmost campos rupestres, and their classification as a priority area for conservation.

Developing DNA Based Methods for Environmental Regulation and Management- UK Insights

DNA assessments are revolutionising biomonitoring opportunities across the globe, including the monitoring of rare and invasive species, creating biodiversity inventories, and developing pollution diagnostic and ecosystem resilience assessment methods. To date pollution and ecosystem resilience assessments have been based on assessing the diversity of familiar taxonomic groups but the introduction of DNA based methods will significantly increase the opportunities to exploit groups not previously used for this work. Environmental regulators and managers can derive many benefits from the adoption of these methods, such as improved understanding of environmental conditions, cost effective sample processing, overcoming taxonomic bottlenecks, either through shortages in trained taxonomists or utilising biota with challenging taxonomies. In addition to creating diversity based metrics DNA monitoring also allows for the assessment of functional attributes such as those that support important ecosystem services. The UK has been an early adopter of this technology and this paper will explore how the alignment of scientific advances have coincided with operational needs to create a fertile arena for the development of DNA based assessment methods that will be used in environmental regulation and management. Development projects advanced in the UK will be examined to identify the common and specific issues associated with them that have led to early engagement and adoption.

The Wild Rivers Program: Development of a “Wild Rivers” Conservation Label to be used by River Management

A wild river is a living river, which is at baseline, well-preserved, and which runs freely and is home to a rich biodiversity in its high quality waters and on its banks. In Europe there are very few rivers which could be considered “wild”, which function at a high ecological level, since wild rivers, in the true sense of the term, no longer exist. Based on the fact that these rivers remain threatened, and that the existing tools (technical, regulatory, and financial) are insufficient and not adapted to ensure their preservation over the long term, the Wild Rivers project was founded in 2007, through a meeting of environmental defenders, scientists, fishermen, managers of land and river natural resources, and elected officials, all of whom were anxious to save the last of the French rivers which were still preserved, with a human impact that would be compatible with the conservation of the ecosystem. In 2014 the “Wild Rivers Site” label was created in France, as a conservation tool for rivers, both voluntary and non-regulatory, which allows the support necessary to enable the territorial players to preserve their rivers in harmony with the activity in the surrounding valleys. It also identifies and highlights these unique watercourses. The Valserine in the Ain region was the first river to obtain the Wild Rivers Site label. Today 28 rivers in France are labelled “Wild Rivers Sites” and the 22 management structures of these rivers are members of the Wild Rivers Site Network. To obtain the label, a river must fulfill two sets of criteria 1. The criteria grid: The watercourse must obtain a mark over 70/100. The grid is composed of 47 criteria evaluating the quality of the area, of which 12 are eliminatory, 8 are unrated, and 9 are under a bonus/penalty scheme 2. The program of actions taken by local players: The local managers must put in place a system of governance built around actions to be taken over a period of years, shared among them, and ambitious, going beyond the regulatory objectives of the European Directive Framework. It allows for the restoration of penalty points and the establishment of innovative conservation activities. The Wild Rivers Sites are also an open air laboratory for the development and use of innovative methods in order to provide new information on aquatic environments, and to improve their management and conservation. Numerous steps have already been taken within the network, such as the Ecosystem Services Study (Costa and Hernandez 2019); on the study of the genetic makeup of the brown trout population. Recently, the use of genetic study using environmental DNA to complete biodiversity inventories has also been deployed to study benthic diatoms (DNA of Diatoms Project 2020-2022). This project seeks to use DNA metabarcoding to respond to a number of objectives: i) inventory of the species of diatoms and their community structure in these watercourses which are generally seldom studied; ii) complete ecological status studies; iii) develop new genetic metrics and taxonomies adapted to the conservation of wild river watercourses. It is in this spirit that the Wild Rivers program was developed, and has received numerous positive responses on the behalf of watercourse management in France. Thanks to this impetus, work has been conducted to extend this conservation label to water sources in other countries (Switzerland, Ireland, Spain), with the future plan of building a European network dedicated to the conservation of Wild Rivers.

Enhancing georeferenced biodiversity inventories: automated information extraction from literature records reveal the gaps

We use natural language processing (NLP) to retrieve location data for cheilostome bryozoan species (text-mined occurrences [TMO]) in an automated procedure. We compare these results with data from the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS). Using OBIS and TMO data separately and in combination, we present latitudinal species richness curves using standard estimators (Chao2 and the Jackknife) and range-through approaches. Our combined OBIS and TMO species richness curves quantitatively document a bimodal global latitudinal diversity gradient for cheilostomes for the first time, with peaks in the temperate zones. 79% of the georeferenced species we retrieved from TMO (N = 1780) and OBIS (N = 2453) are non-overlapping and underestimate known species richness, even in combination. Despite clear indications that global location data compiled for cheilostomes should be improved with concerted effort, our study supports the view that latitudinal species richness patterns deviate from the canonical LDG. Moreover, combining online biodiversity databases with automated information retrieval from the published literature is a promising avenue for expanding taxon-location datasets.