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1. Urban specialization reduces habitat connectivity by a highly mobile wading bird

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-020-00233-7  

   Teitelbaum, Claire S.; Hepinstall-Cymerman, Jeffrey; Kidd-Weaver, Anjelika; Hernandez, Sonia M.; Altizer, Sonia; Hall, Richard J. (December 2020, Movement Ecology)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Background Mobile animals transport nutrients and propagules across habitats, and are crucial for the functioning of food webs and for ecosystem services. Human activities such as urbanization can alter animal movement behavior, including site fidelity and resource use. Because many urban areas are adjacent to natural sites, mobile animals might connect natural and urban habitats. More generally, understanding animal movement patterns in urban areas can help predict how urban expansion will affect the roles of highly mobile animals in ecological processes. Methods Here, we examined movements by a seasonally nomadic wading bird, the American white ibis ( Eudocimus albus ), in South Florida, USA. White ibis are colonial wading birds that forage on aquatic prey; in recent years, some ibis have shifted their behavior to forage in urban parks, where they are fed by people. We used a spatial network approach to investigate how individual movement patterns influence connectivity between urban and non-urban sites. We built a network of habitat connectivity using GPS tracking data from ibis during their non-breeding season and compared this network to simulated networks that assumed individuals moved indiscriminately with respect to habitat type. Results We found that the observed network was less connected than the simulated networks, that urban-urban and natural-natural connections were strong, and that individuals using urban sites had the least-variable habitat use. Importantly, the few ibis that used both urban and natural habitats contributed the most to connectivity. Conclusions Habitat specialization in urban-acclimated wildlife could reduce the exchange of propagules and nutrients between urban and natural areas, which has consequences both for beneficial effects of connectivity such as gene flow and for detrimental effects such as the spread of contaminants or pathogens. 

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2. Concurrently assessing water supply and demand is critical for evaluating vulnerabilities to climate change

   https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.13192  

   Hall, Sonia A.; Whittemore, Aaron; Padowski, Julie; Yourek, Matthew; Yorgey, Georgine G.; Rajagopalan, Kirti; McLarty, Sasha; Scarpare, Fabio V.; Liu, Mingliang; Asante‐Sasu, Collins; et al (February 2024, JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association)

   Abstract Aligning water supply with demand is a challenge, particularly in areas with large seasonal variation in precipitation and those dominated by winter precipitation. Climate change is expected to exacerbate this challenge, increasing the need for long‐term planning. Long‐term projections of water supply and demand that can aid planning are mostly published as agency reports, which are directly relevant to decision‐making but less likely to inform future research. We present 20‐year water supply and demand projections for the Columbia River, produced in partnership with the Washington State Dept. of Ecology. This effort includes integrated modeling of future surface water supply and agricultural demand by 2040 and analyses of future groundwater trends, residential demand, instream flow deficits, and curtailment. We found that shifting timing in water supply could leave many eastern Washington watersheds unable to meet late‐season out‐of‐stream demands. Increasing agricultural or residential demands in watersheds could exacerbate these late‐season vulnerabilities, and curtailments could become more common for rivers with federal or state instream flow rules. Groundwater trends are mostly declining, leaving watersheds more vulnerable to surface water supply or demand changes. Both our modeling framework and agency partnership can serve as an example for other long‐term efforts that aim to provide insights for water management in a changing climate elsewhere around the world. 

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3. Projected landscape-scale repercussions of global action for climate and biodiversity protection

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38043-1  

   von Jeetze, Patrick José; Weindl, Isabelle; Johnson, Justin Andrew; Borrelli, Pasquale; Panagos, Panos; Molina Bacca, Edna J.; Karstens, Kristine; Humpenöder, Florian; Dietrich, Jan Philipp; Minoli, Sara; et al (December 2023, Nature Communications)

   Abstract Land conservation and increased carbon uptake on land are fundamental to achieving the ambitious targets of the climate and biodiversity conventions. Yet, it remains largely unknown how such ambitions, along with an increasing demand for agricultural products, could drive landscape-scale changes and affect other key regulating nature’s contributions to people (NCP) that sustain land productivity outside conservation priority areas. By using an integrated, globally consistent modelling approach, we show that ambitious carbon-focused land restoration action and the enlargement of protected areas alone may be insufficient to reverse negative trends in landscape heterogeneity, pollination supply, and soil loss. However, we also find that these actions could be combined with dedicated interventions that support critical NCP and biodiversity conservation outside of protected areas. In particular, our models indicate that conserving at least 20% semi-natural habitat within farmed landscapes could primarily be achieved by spatially relocating cropland outside conservation priority areas, without additional carbon losses from land-use change, primary land conversion or reductions in agricultural productivity. 

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4. Developing a vocabulary and ontology for modeling insect natural history data: example data, use cases, and competency questions

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.7.e33303  

   Stucky, B; Balhoff, J; Barve, N; Barve, V; Brenskelle, L; Brush, M; Dahlem, G; Gilbert, J; Kawahara, A; Keller, O; et al (March 2019, Biodiversity Data Journal)

   Insects are possibly the most taxonomically and ecologically diverse class of multicellular organisms on Earth. Consequently, they provide nearly unlimited opportunities to develop and test ecological and evolutionary hypotheses. Currently, however, large-scale studies of insect ecology, behavior, and trait evolution are impeded by the difficulty in obtaining and analyzing data derived from natural history observations of insects. These data are typically highly heterogeneous and widely scattered among many sources, which makes developing robust information systems to aggregate and disseminate them a significant challenge. As a step towards this goal, we report initial results of a new effort to develop a standardized vocabulary and ontology for insect natural history data. In particular, we describe a new database of representative insect natural history data derived from multiple sources (but focused on data from specimens in biological collections), an analysis of the abstract conceptual areas required for a comprehensive ontology of insect natural history data, and a database of use cases and competency questions to guide the development of data systems for insect natural history data. We also discuss data modeling and technology-related challenges that must be overcome to implement robust integration of insect natural history data. 

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5. Consistent Nest Site Selection by Turtles across Habitats with Varying Levels of Human Disturbance

   https://doi.org/10.3390/d15020275  

   Folkerts Caldwell, Molly; López-Pérez, Jorge E.; Warner, Daniel A.; Wolak, Matthew E. (February 2023, Diversity)

   Human disturbance impacts the breeding behavior of many species, and it is particularly important to understand how these human-caused changes affect vulnerable taxa, such as turtles. Habitat alteration can change the amount and quality of suitable nesting habitat, while human presence during nesting may influence nesting behavior. Consequently, both habitat alteration and human presence can influence the microhabitat that females choose for nesting. In the summer of 2019, we located emydid turtle nests in east-central Alabama, USA, in areas with varying levels of human disturbance (high, intermediate, low). We aimed to determine whether turtles selected nest sites based on a range of microhabitat variables comparing maternally selected natural nests to randomly chosen artificial nests. We also compared nest site choice across areas with different levels of human disturbance. Natural nests had less variance in canopy openness and average daily mean and minimum temperature than artificial nests, but microhabitat variables were similar across differing levels of disturbance. Additionally, we experimentally quantified nest predation across a natural to human-disturbed gradient. Nest predation rates were higher in areas with low and intermediate levels of disturbance than in areas with high human disturbance. Overall, these results show that turtles are not adjusting their choices of nest microhabitat when faced with anthropogenic change, suggesting that preserving certain natural microhabitat features will be critical for populations in human-disturbed areas. 

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