Area, isolation and climate explain the diversity of mammals on islands worldwide

Insular biodiversity is expected to be regulated differently than continental biota, but their determinants remain to be quantified at a global scale. We evaluated the importance of physical, environmental and historical factors on mammal richness and endemism across 5592 islands worldwide. We fitted generalized linear and mixed models to accommodate variation among biogeographic realms and performed analyses separately for bats and non-volants. Richness on islands ranged from one to 234 species, with up to 177 single island endemics. Diversity patterns were most consistently influenced by the islands’ physical characteristics. Area positively affected mammal diversity, in particular the number of non-volant endemics. Island isolation, both current and past, was associated with lower richness but greater endemism. Flight capacity modified the relative importance of past versus current isolation, with bats responding more strongly to current and non-volant mammals to past isolation. Biodiversity relationships with environmental factors were idiosyncratic, with a tendency for greater effects sizes with endemism than richness. The historical climatic change was positively associated with endemism. In line with theory, we found that area and isolation were among the strongest drivers of mammalian biodiversity. Our results support the importance of past conditions on current patterns, particularly of non-volant species.

ARSITEKTUR UMA LULIK FUILORO, LOSPALOS KOTA, TIMOR-LESTE

Uma Lulik is a sacred house for the people of Timor-Leste. This house is the unification of Nain (owner, ruler or supreme), Beala (ancestor), Lulik (sacred "nature and its contents"), Lisan (tradition "family or human life".). Uma Lulik in Fuiloro is built or renovated every 10 to 20 years depending on the lia nain and fatal building problems that occur in Uma Lulik, to serve as a bond between families. Uma Lulik remains a comfortable place for people to carry out rituals with their ancestors, those who are here and those who have gone. The purpose of this study was to find the architectural characteristics of uma lulik in the fuiloro tribe, Lospalos City. Interpretive history method is used by looking at interpreting past conditions with the present. The result showed that Uma lulik in Fuiloro tribe characteristic has a single stilt-shaped building as a place for sacral ceremonies and storage of sacred goods. The interior consists of kitchen and Labor Dato. The shape of the roof is pointed with 55° as high as + 7m-9m. This building has square floor plan + 3m x 3m or + 4m x 4m, rectangular wall + 3m x 4m, and column of 4 round wood arrangements as high as + 3m-4m. Materials consist of ulin wood (ai-bessi), rose wood (ai-ná), acadiro (ai-acadirum), bamboo (au-maus), palapeira/palapa (ai-car) and gamuteira/ gamuti (au-naulurir). Ornaments are woven long ropes and carvings. Structural systems are ‘ikat’ and portal systems.

Technical note: RAT – a robustness assessment test for calibrated and uncalibrated hydrological models

Prior to their use under future changing climate conditions, all hydrological models should be thoroughly evaluated regarding their temporal transferability (application in different time periods) and extrapolation capacity (application beyond the range of known past conditions). This note presents a straightforward evaluation framework aimed at detecting potential undesirable climate dependencies in hydrological models: the robustness assessment test (RAT). Although it is conceptually inspired by the classic differential split-sample test of Klemeš (1986), the RAT presents the advantage of being applicable to all types of models, be they calibrated or not (i.e. regionalized or physically based). In this note, we present the RAT, illustrate its application on a set of 21 catchments, verify its applicability hypotheses and compare it to previously published tests. Results show that the RAT is an efficient evaluation approach, passing it successfully can be considered a prerequisite for any hydrological model to be used for climate change impact studies.

Involving Resilience In Assessment of The Water-Energy-Food Nexus For Arid And Semiarid Regions

The proper planning of the water-energy-food nexus is key for urban sustainability. However, the security of water, energy, and food is posed at risk due to uncertain events such as natural disasters. The quantification of resilience in water-energy-food systems has gained relevance in recent years and has served as a key tool to identify vulnerable areas. This work presents a systematic approach to assessing the resilience of the water-energy-food nexus in arid/semiarid regions that present low availability of resources. A methodology for assessing the resilience of the water-energy-food nexus of an arid region is presented, which allows evaluating the system under the disturbances of natural disasters such as hurricanes, low-temperature events, and droughts. The events in which failures in functional services may occur are analyzed using penalty costs. To apply the proposed approach, scenarios corresponding to past conditions and future projections were evaluated for two Mexican arid cities. The results show that it is possible to identify vulnerable areas related to the existence of natural disasters and thereby look for alternatives to maintain the security of the nexus. The proposed approach is general, and it can be applied to other regions with similar characteristics.

Collaborative Learning Experiences in a Changing Environment: Innovative Educational Approaches in Architecture

The sense of uncertainty and fragility due to the effects and magnitude of global challenges we are facing (from the circumstances of the pandemic to the impacts of climate change) requires—much more than in the past—the capacity to generate a visionary and forefront design approach in the young generation, with an aim to stimulate their reaction attitude rather than providing consolidated tools from past conditions that no longer exist or will rapidly evolve. Within this general framework, we have investigated the effectiveness and impacts of experienced-based methods of learning and innovative educational tools in architecture that are aimed at shaping expertise that addresses the aspects of environment and climate change in the context of socio-cultural dynamics, real potentialities and constraints, and their transdisciplinary trajectories. We analyzed five international pioneering teaching experiences that provided the opportunity to understand the outcomes of collaborative and experiential learning processes by which the educational activities leverage dialogue between diverse communities (including academia, citizens, policymakers, and practitioners). The study outcomes show that shifting the pedagogical paradigm towards experience-based models can improve the awareness of future practitioners for the climate implications of architectural design, implement their analysis and project skills, and trigger processes of knowledge transfer and co-production at the community level. Experience-based models also allow them to better address the societal and cultural issues involved in decision making.

Epigenetic memories and the evolution of infectious diseases

Genes with identical DNA sequence may show differential expression because of epigenetic marks. Where epigenetic marks respond to past conditions, they represent a form of “memory”. Despite their medical relevance, the impact of memories on the evolution of infectious diseases has rarely been considered. Here we explore the evolution of virulence in pathogens that carry memories of the sex of their previous host. We show that this form of memory provides information about the sex of present and future hosts when the sexes differ in their pathogen’s transmission pattern. Memories of past hosts enable the evolution of greater virulence in infections originating from one sex and infections transmitted across sexes. Thus, our results account for patterns of virulence that have, to date, defied medical explanation. In particular, it has been observed that girls infected by boys (or boys infected by girls) are more likely to die from measles, chickenpox and polio than girls infected by girls (or boys infected by boys). We also evaluate epigenetic therapies that tamper with the memories of infecting pathogens. More broadly, our findings imply that pathogens can be selected to carry memories of past environments other than sex. This identifies new directions in personalised medicine.

Narrative Continuity/Rupture: Projected Professional Futures amid Pervasive Employment Precarity

As working conditions change worldwide, employment precarity is increasing, including for groups for whom such conditions are unexpected. This study investigates how members of one such group—educationally advantaged young adults—describe their professional futures in a context of unprecedented employment precarity where their expected trajectories are no longer easily achievable. Using 75 interviews with young university graduates in Madrid, Spain, I find that most young graduates drew on a long-standing cultural narrative, which I call the “achievement narrative,” to imagine future stable employment. Simultaneously, most denounced this narrative as fraudulent. To explain this finding, I draw on the concept of hysteresis: the mismatch between beliefs that are dependent on the past conditions that produced them and the available opportunities in the present. I argue that hysteresis can extend into future projections; projected futures can be guided by beliefs based on past conditions more than by lived experiences in the present. Further, I argue that the achievement narrative itself reinforces hysteresis in future projections due to its resonance and institutional support. The paper offers new insights into projected futures and employment precarity by analyzing the future projections of a privileged cohort facing unexpected precarity, further develops the concept of hysteresis, and extends the study of cultural narratives.

Ecological memory of prior nutrient exposure in the human gut microbiome

Many ecosystems retain an ecological memory of past conditions that affects responses to future stimuli. However, it remains unknown what mechanisms and dynamics may govern such a memory in microbial communities. Here, in both a human dietary intervention cohort and an artificial gut, we show that the human gut microbiome encodes a memory of past carbohydrate exposures. Changes in the relative abundance of primary degraders were sufficient to enhance metabolism, and these changes were mediated by transcriptional changes within hours of initial exposure. We further found that ecological memory of one carbohydrate species impacted metabolism of others. These findings demonstrate that the human gut microbiome's metabolic potential reflects dietary exposures over preceding days and changes within hours of exposure to a novel nutrient.

Past thermal conditions affect hunting behaviour in larval antlions

Some sit-and-wait predators, such as antlion larvae, construct traps to capture passing prey. The location of these traps depends on many abiotic and biotic factors, including temperature and the presence of conspecifics, which probably stimulate behaviours that minimize the costs and maximize the benefits of trap building. Here, we exposed second instar antlion larvae to elevated temperatures of 25°C (mild treatment) or 31°C (harsh treatment) for one month and then transferred them to common conditions (20°C) to examine the effects of previous thermal treatment on aggregation tendency and trap size. We predicted that antlions that experienced harsh conditions would subsequently increase the neighbouring distance and trap diameter to reduce competition with conspecifics and improve prey capture success, compensating for past conditions. In contrast with these predictions, antlions exposed to harsh conditions displayed a trend in the opposite direction, towards the decreased neighbouring distance. Furthermore, some of these antlions also built smaller traps. We discuss possible reasons for our results. The effects of previous thermal exposure have rarely been considered in terms of trap construction in antlions. Described effects may possibly apply to other sit-and-wait predators and are significant considering that many of these predators are long-lived.

Wearable xAI: A Knowledge-Based Federated Learning Framework

Federated learning is a knowledge transmission and training process that occurs in turn between user models on edge devices and the training model in the central server. Due to privacy policies and concerns and heterogeneous data, this is a widespread requirement in federated learning applications. In this work, we use knowledge-based methods, and in particular case-based reasoning (CBR), to develop a wearable, explainable artificial intelligence (xAI) framework. CBR is a problem-solving AI approach for knowledge representation and manipulation, which considers successful solutions of past conditions that are likely to serve as candidate solutions for a requested problem. It enables federated learning when each user owns not only his/her private data, but also uniquely designed cases. New generated cases can be compared to the knowledge base and the recommendations enable the user to communicate better with the whole system. It improves users’ task performance and increases user acceptability when they need explanations to understand why and how AI algorithms arrive at these optimal solutions.