July 2025 science summary

 Happy July,

In addition to the usual summaries, I have a request the non-scientists among you (or at least people doing policy or implementation and not JUST science). I have a one-question open-ended survey asking "What one piece of advice would you give scientists to be more effective? What should they do more or less of?" I'd welcome the input and will also share what I hear back in the next summary (and will split the results by advice from scientists and non-scientists if people self-identify). https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/DXG1n76Q9V  Please reply by Friday July 25 to give me time to read and summarize everything.

The seven summaries cover conservation priorities for birds and people in the US, fire, how fire influences water quantity, and four covering various topics in the Pantanal.

If you know someone who wants to sign up to receive these summaries, they can do so at http://subscribe.sciencejon.com (no need to email me).

CONSERVATION PRIORITIES IN THE U.S. (BIRDS AND PEOPLE):
Neugarten et al. 2025 analyzes overlap of places in the US important to birds with places important for ecosystem services (ES, with climate mitigation broken out separately). They use the 37% of the US producing the most ES (as per Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2023, and from the same paper the 44% of the US storing 90% of vulnerable carbon as carbon priority areas) and bird abundance data form eBird. My TL;DR for this paper is that the natural places people need most help birds better than average, BUT they perform badly for wetland birds and generalists so we need to conserve places good for people AND places good for birds that people don't need as much. Longer take-aways 1) places good for ecosystem services are better than random places for a slight majority of bird species, 2) only 42% of species did better than random w/ carbon priority areas (mostly forest birds as you'd guess), 3) most of the 57 "tipping point" species (who lost 1/2 of their population size over 50 years and are on track to go extinct) don't do well with either ES or carbon priorities, 4) wetland birds and generalists (and to some degree aridland birds) are poorly represented by ES and carbon priorities, 5) "Regions with especially high co-benefits for birds, ES and carbon include the Appalachian Mountains, the southeastern U.S., New England, the Ozarks, and the Sierras and Cascade mountain ranges (Fig. 2a)". This news article has a good summary (although note that my quote about this research being useful to inform where and how conservationists work cut off the end of the sentence which was "along with other strategic considerations" since feasibility and other factors are key). https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/05/study-identifies-us-regions-that-benefit-birds-people-climate-the-most/


FIRE:
Siquiera et al. 2025 has a helpful reminder that finer data isn't always better. They found free MODIS data (which is relatively fast and easy to process due to 500m resolution) actually did a little better at detecting areas that had burned in the Pantanal than Sentinel 2 data (also free but needs more babying and at 10m [2500* finer resolution] it takes a ton more processing time). LANDSAT (at 30m) did worse than either. The only caveat is that their validation for “burned areas” is fire foci which are partly derived from MODIS which likely biases the results somewhat. But anytime we can get away with using coarser data to save time and money it’s good news! One of my papers (https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rse2.61) has a table about when coarser vs. finer data may be better, and that table is in a blog here: https://rsecjournal.blog/2017/08/25/how-much-data-is-enough-investigating-how-spatial-data-resolution-impacts-conservation-decision-making/


FIRE AND WATER QUANTITY:
Guzmán-Rojo et al. 2025 is an interesting model of how fires in the Bolivian Chiquitano dry forest affect water availability, focusing on soil changes (crusting, ash deposition, and reduced porosity which can decrease infiltration and increase runoff) rather than vegetation loss. They found ~40% lower recharge in the first year after a hypothetical very severe fire, returning to ~10% lower than pre-fire after two years. However, they note that field data showed that moderate to severe fires actually reduced soil porosity by 39%, while their hypothetical very severe fire assumed a 70% reduction which is probably an upper bound for how much soil permeability could be reduced. They also note that if they had accounted for vegetation loss in their model, the recharge may have been lower in some areas where dense vegetation transpires more water than it intercepts. While they had limited data to validate their model they used other studies and proxies where they could.


BIODIVERSITY OFFSETTING / PANTANAL:
While Lourival et al. 2025 ponders 10 questions for biodiversity offsetting in the Brazilian Pantanal and its watershed (listed at the top of the 3rd page), it's relevant to biodiversity offsets in general. I especially like Fig 4 with different ways to think about equivalence for offsets (area, economic value, ecosystem value, or a mix). So for example if you clear high-value land in the Cerrado, you could need to protect a much larger lower-value area in the Pantanal. They find 57% of properties in the highlands feeding the Pantanal are out of compliance with the Forest Code (Table 1, Fig 3). Properties WITHIN the Pantanal are only 22% out of compliance, so considering the whole river basin could offer opportunities BUT ecological equivalence may be low and state regulations restrict what is possible. One could argue that's a huge market for offset purchases OR evidence the law is toothless and demand will be low.


PANTANAL:
Guerra et al. 2025 looks at how ecosystem services in the Pantanal and its highlands will change by 2050 under three scenarios (S1 - business as usual (BAU), S2 - increased expansion of ag and industry, and S3 - sustainable intensification). The sustainable scenario could cut soil runoff into rivers almost in half (Figs 4 & 5) and reduce habitat loss by a third compared to BAU (Fig 3). The authors point to some promising new policies that could help the sustainable path, including the growth of the FPS system for ranching and payments for ecosystem services (PES) at national and state (Mato Grosso do Sul) levels, altough there are no PES programs in the Pantanal yet.

Tomasella et al. 2025 found that over recent decades (the time periods are weirdly overlapping and of different length, e.g., 1981-2000 vs 1991-2020) the Pantanal has seen a 4.8% drop in precipitation, 2.9% increase in potential evapotranspiration, and the aridity index (the ratio of those two – with a lower aridity index meaning drier conditions) decreased by 7.5% (brown areas in Fig 5 at right). Fig 3 shows that a chunk of the Pantanal (11,500 km) has dried out enough to change biome from humid to “dry sub-humid.”

Fernandes et al. 2025 uses remote sensing to see how changing sediment loads affected river geomorphology (how the river channel moves over time) in the Cuiabá river in the Pantanal. Stream ecologists often focus on sediment as a pollutant coming from deforestation and agriculture, and that is an issue here (as it is in the nearby Taquari river). But in this case, the construction of the large Manso dam in 2002 has reduced sediment load more than land use change has increased it, perhaps below healthy sediment levels (see Fig 9) for 500km downstream of the dam.


REFERENCES:
Chaplin-Kramer, R., Neugarten, R. A., Sharp, R. P., Collins, P. M., Polasky, S., Hole, D., Schuster, R., Strimas-Mackey, M., Mulligan, M., Brandon, C., Diaz, S., Fluet-Chouinard, E., Gorenflo, L. J., Johnson, J. A., Kennedy, C. M., Keys, P. W., Longley-Wood, K., McIntyre, P. B., Noon, M., … Watson, R. A. (2022). Mapping the planet’s critical natural assets. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 7(1), 51–61. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01934-5

Fernandes, B. S., de Oliveira, S. C., & Pupim, F. N. (2025). Anthropogenic disturbances drive the morphological and sedimentary changes of the Cuiabá River, Pantanal, Brazil: a remotely sensed approach. Earth Science, Systems and Society. https://doi.org/10.1144/esss2024-007

Guerra, A., Resende, F., Bergier, I., Fairbrass, A., Bernardino, C., Centurião, D. A. S., Bolzan, F., Marcel, G., Rosa, I. M. D., da Silva, J. C. S., Garcia, L. C., Larcher, L., de Oliveira, P. T. S., Chiaravalloti, R. M., Roscoe, R., Louzada, R., Santos, S., Tomas, W. M., Nunes, A. V., & de Oliveira Roque, F. (2025). Land use and regulating ecosystem services scenarios for the Brazilian Pantanal and its surroundings under different storylines of future regional development. Conservation Science and Practice, August 2024, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.70012

Guzmán-Rojo, M., Silva de Freitas, L., Coritza Taquichiri, E., & Huysmans, M. (2025). Groundwater Vulnerability in the Aftermath of Wildfires at the El Sutó Spring Area: Model-Based Insights and the Proposal of a Post-Fire Vulnerability Index for Dry Tropical Forests. Fire, 8(3), 86. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire8030086

Lourival, R. F. F., de Roque, F. de O., Bolzan, F. P., Guerra, A., Nunes, A. P., Lacerda, A. C. R., Nunes, A. V., Alves, A., Filho, A. C. P., Ribeiro, D. B., Eaton, D. P., Brito, E. S., Fischer, E., Neto, F. V., Porfirio, G., Seixas, G. H. F., Pinto, J. O. P., Quintero, J. M. O., Sabino, J., … Tomas, W. M. (2025). Ten relevant questions for applying biodiversity offsetting in the Pantanal wetland. Conservation Science and Practice, July 2022, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.13274

Neugarten, R. A., Davis, C. L., Duran, G., & Rodewald, A. D. (2025). Co-benefits of nature for birds, people, and climate in the United States. Ecosystem Services, 73(May), 101733. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2025.101733

Siqueira, R. G., Moquedace, C. M., Silva, L. V., de Oliveira, M. S., Cruz, G. D. B., Francelino, M. R., Schaefer, C. E. G. R., & Fernandes-Filho, E. I. (2025). Do finer-resolution sensors better discriminate burnt areas? A case study with MODIS, Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 spectral indices for the Pantanal 2020 wildfire detection. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 00(00), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2025.2496000

Tomasella, J., do Amaral Cunha, A. M., Zeri, M., & Costa, L. C. O. (2025). Changes in the aridity index across Brazilian biomes. Science of The Total Environment, 989(March), 179869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179869


Happy reading,
 
Jon
 
p.s. The photo above was an especially vivid winter sunset in Wildwood, NJ

February 2023 science summary

Hi all,

This month I have one article on metascience (problems with reproducibility may be worse than we think), two on people and nature, and one on wildlife connectivity.

As a bonus, I wondered how my summaries would compare to automatically generated ones from Chat GPT - take a look and decide for yourself what each one is good for and what it misses! I was interested how much the length varied (I asked for a 250 word summary for each), and how much text was devoted to describing the topic without really presenting relevant results. I'll have to play around with longer summaries and see how it compares!

I'd love to hear what others think about the ChatGPT summaries, and what your own experience playing with it has been.


METASCIENCE:
Jon's summary:
Breznau et al. 2022 has some scary news about science - not only is it less reproducible than we think, we can't even figure out why results vary so much. To be fair, they note that natural sciences and/or experimental research should have less variation than social science based on existing surveys (what this study looked at). But it's still concerning! Or preliminarily concerning but waiting for many more replicas, to take their message to heart. The models the 73 teams built were: 17% positive (more immigration increases support for social policies), 25% negative (more immigration reduces support for social policies), and 58% did not find a clear effect (the confidence interval included zero, although they may have had a positive or negative average effect). 61% of researchers concluded that immigration does not reduce support for social policies, 26% concluded it DOES reduce support (the text says 28.5% but it's a typo, reinforcing the core message of the paper), and 13% concluded it couldn't be tested w/ the given data. And Fig 2 shows that not only are results and conclusions all over the place, the variation isn't explained by the variables they tracked like expertise or prior beliefs. That means researcher bias is only part of the problem. I have some questions about the metanalysis itself that make me suspect they could have explained more of the variance with different methods (ironically, that is consistent with their core findings about how small method changes can drive results). But the paper reveals two problems: 1) scientists can produce different quantitative results from the same data and hypotheses, and 2) scientists' conclusions are often not well tied to their results (this paper found only ~1/3 of variation in conclusions came from how consistent the set of models each team used were). I see a lot of #2 when I peer review papers. Let's all remain humble and skeptical, and look for more replication in 2023!
ChatGPT's summary:
The article "Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty" published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, explores the concept of reproducibility in scientific research and its significance in understanding the reliability of scientific findings. The study conducted an experiment where multiple researchers were given access to the same data set and hypothesis, and were asked to conduct their own independent analysis and interpretation of the data. The study found that even when given the same data and hypothesis, researchers often come to different conclusions, which highlights the importance of reproducibility in scientific research. The article argues that reproducibility is crucial in determining the reliability and validity of scientific findings, and that the lack of reproducibility can lead to false conclusions and misunderstandings. The article also notes that reproducibility is not always easy to achieve, as it requires careful experimental design, sufficient sample sizes, and transparent reporting of methods and results. The article stresses on the need for scientific community to openly acknowledge and address the problem of reproducibility, as it can help in identifying the sources of uncertainty and improving the reliability of scientific research. The article concludes by emphasizing that reproducibility is a crucial aspect of the scientific process, and that it is the responsibility of the scientific community to ensure that the methods and results of scientific studies are transparent, accurate, and reproducible. The study suggests that reproducibility should be an integral part of the scientific process and should be used to identify and reduce uncertainty in scientific findings.


PEOPLE AND NATURE:
Jon's summary:
Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2022 is a great global summary of 14 ecosystem services I've been waiting to see for years! Their big finding is that 90% of nature's local contributions to people within each country come from a total of 30% of global land area and 24% of coastal waters (EEZs). Globally only 15% of those places are protected. The land and water needed is uneven by country (e.g., the US needs 37% of land and 15% of coastal waters), and protection varies too. See Fig 1 for the areas that provide the most benefit per unit area. The land required would be lower if optimizing globally, but at the cost of less equitable benefit distribution. The 2 global ones (carbon storage and moisture recycling) need 44% of land (optimized globally) to stay at 90% of current levels, mostly overlapping with the 30% (see Fig 3). Roughly 87% of the world population benefits from at least one of the ecosystem services, but benefits are not distributed equally (see Fig 2). The local services include: water quality (regulating nitrogen and sediment), crop pollination, livestock fodder, production of timber and fuelwood, flood regulation, fish harvest (from rivers and oceans), recreation (on land and oceans), and coastal risk reduction. If interested you can get combined GIS data from https://osf.io/r5xz7/?view_only=d611a688525f4ceb8db4ef4e7528b0e8 or one of the authors (Rachel Neugarten) is happy to send individual maps and data.
ChatGPT's summary:
Mapping the planet’s critical natural assets" is an article published in the journal Nature that discusses the importance of mapping and protecting the world's natural assets, such as forests, wetlands, and coral reefs. These natural assets provide a wide range of benefits to human societies, including carbon sequestration, water regulation, and biodiversity conservation. The article emphasizes that these natural assets are under increasing threat from human activities such as deforestation, pollution, and climate change, and that urgent action is needed to protect them. The article also highlights the work of various organizations, such as the Natural Capital Project and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, that are working to map and protect these natural assets at a global scale. It also covers the importance of these natural assets for human well-being, such as providing food, medicine, and livelihoods. The article also emphasizes on the fact that these natural assets are inextricably linked with human well-being, as they provide vital ecosystem services, including air and water purification, pollination of crops, and storm protection. The article states that the current rate of loss of natural assets is alarming and calls for immediate action to be taken to protect them. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for collaboration between governments, businesses, and civil society to protect these natural assets, and to invest in sustainable land use and management practices that support the conservation and restoration of these vital resources.

Jon's summary:
Salvatori et al. 2023 used camera traps in the Dolomite mountains of Italy to see how wildlife responded to human recreation (mostly hiking, mountain biking, and driving). They found that all 8 sampled wild species tended to favor visiting sites frequented by humans at times when humans weren't present (see Fig 5 - some of this is natural peak activity times, but more human presence resulted in a stronger temporal effect in wildlife). Bear, deer, and chamois (goat-antelopes) all avoided sites w/ more human visitation, while hares and red fox favored such sites. My main take-aways are that we should keep in mind how people will affect wildlife behavior, and that for big species we should probably look at where human trails are relative to key connectivity corridors to ensure wildlife aren't scared away from places they especially need to visit. Also - humans are looking for wildlife to interact with, while they are trying to avoid us.
ChatGPT's summary:
The article "Crowded mountains: Long-term effects of human outdoor recreation on a community of wild mammals monitored with systematic camera trapping" published in the journal Biological Conservation, explores the effects of human outdoor recreation on wild mammal populations. The study conducted over a period of six years, used camera traps to monitor a community of wild mammals in the Swiss Alps. The study found that human recreational activities, such as hiking, skiing, and mountain biking, had a significant impact on wild mammal populations. The study found that wild mammal populations in areas with high levels of human recreational activity were smaller and less diverse than those in areas with low levels of human recreational activity. The study also found that the presence of human recreational activities caused wild mammal populations to shift their activity patterns, leading to increased competition for resources and reduced survival rates. The study highlights that human outdoor recreation can have a significant impact on wild mammal populations, and calls for more effective management strategies to mitigate these effects. The article emphasizes the importance of monitoring and understanding the effects of human outdoor recreation on wild mammal populations, as it can help in developing effective conservation strategies. The study suggests that creating protected areas and implementing regulations on human activities in these areas could help in reducing the negative effects of human outdoor recreation on wild mammal populations. It also suggests that educating the public about responsible outdoor recreation practices can help in reducing the impact of human activities on wild mammal populations. The study concludes by highlighting the importance of balancing human recreational activities with the protection of wild mammal populations.


WILDLIFE CONNECTIVITY
Jon's summary:
Newmark et al. 2023 model how linking up protected areas could slow down species loss. They use "relaxation theory" to look at how long it takes for mammal species to go extinct within a given patch of habitat due to insufficiently large and resilient populations. Figure one shows how this works - the smaller the population, the less time it takes for them to go locally extinct. They focus specifically on carnivorans (like cats, canines, bears, weasels, etc.) even-toed ungulates, and lagomorphs like rabbits. Their model assumes that linking protected areas by removing all barriers will create one much larger patch of habitat which helps wildlife survive roughly four times as long. One catch: these aren't small linkages. The proposed linkages between Glacier and Yellowstone have double the area (~2.9 Mha) than the two parks being linked (~1.5 Mha), and would connect to another 2.8 Mha of wilderness in the region. So to reframe: increasing the connected habitat area by a factor of almost 5 helps species last over 4 times as long. The Mt. Rainier North Cascades uses a linkage about 2.5* the core park size. The paper makes a strong argument for the importance of well-designed connectivity work, but the big benefits they propose would also take a really big effort.
ChatGPT's summary:
The article "Enhanced regional connectivity between western North American national parks will increase persistence of mammal species diversity" published in the journal Biological Conservation, examines the potential effects of enhancing regional connectivity between national parks on mammal species diversity in western North America. The study used computer simulations to model the effects of different connectivity scenarios on mammal species diversity, and found that enhanced regional connectivity between national parks would lead to an increase in the persistence of mammal species diversity. The study found that enhanced regional connectivity would allow mammal species to move more freely between national parks, which would increase genetic diversity and reduce the risk of local extinction. The study also found that enhanced regional connectivity would lead to an increase in the number of mammal species that are able to persist in the region, particularly for species that are currently at risk of extinction. The study highlights the importance of connectivity for the persistence of mammal species diversity in western North America and emphasizes the need for conservation efforts to focus on maintaining and enhancing regional connectivity. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of preserving and enhancing regional connectivity between national parks for the protection of mammal species diversity in western North America. The study suggests that conservation efforts should focus on connecting national parks and other protected areas through corridors and other connectivity measures, to enhance the chances of mammal species survival. It also suggests that the management of these protected areas should be coordinated and integrated to improve the effectiveness of conservation efforts. The study highlights the importance of connectivity conservation as a way to ensure the long-term survival of mammal species diversity in western North America.


REFERENCES:
Breznau, N., Rinke, E. M., Wuttke, A., Nguyen, H. H. V, Adem, M., Adriaans, J., Alvarez-Benjumea, A., Andersen, H. K., Auer, D., Azevedo, F., Bahnsen, O., Balzer, D., Bauer, G., Bauer, P. C., Baumann, M., Baute, S., Benoit, V., Bernauer, J., Berning, C., … Żółtak, T. (2022). Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(44), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2203150119

Chaplin-Kramer, R., Neugarten, R. A., Sharp, R. P., Collins, P. M., Polasky, S., Hole, D., Schuster, R., Strimas-Mackey, M., Mulligan, M., Brandon, C., Diaz, S., Fluet-Chouinard, E., Gorenflo, L. J., Johnson, J. A., Kennedy, C. M., Keys, P. W., Longley-Wood, K., McIntyre, P. B., Noon, M., … Watson, R. A. (2022). Mapping the planet’s critical natural assets. Nature Ecology & Evolution.     

Newmark, W. D., Halley, J. M., Beier, P., Cushman, S. A., McNeally, P. B., & Soulé, M. E. (2023). Enhanced regional connectivity between western North American national parks will increase persistence of mammal species diversity. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 474. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-26428-z

Salvatori, M., Oberosler, V., Rinaldi, M., Franceschini, A., Truschi, S., Pedrini, P., & Rovero, F. (2023). Crowded mountains: Long-term effects of human outdoor recreation on a community of wild mammals monitored with systematic camera trapping. Ambio. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-022-01825-w


Sincerely,
 
Jon
 
p.s. The photo shows my favorite kind of green tea (gyokuro) which is high in L-theanine, which in turn provides a strong umami taste and reportedly promotes a calm and alert state similar to meditation.

April 2020 Science Journal Article Summary

Wow,

I'm guessing that most of you are reading more science while stuck at home, but that you're focusing on science related to the pandemic. I certainly am.

But for now, I figured I'd send the usual kind of summary (focused on protected areas this month), since this is where my expertise lies. I thought of reviewing some articles on how conservation can both help and hurt infectious disease transmission (depending on context), but that felt crass.

If you have thoughts on these summaries (if they should pause, change, etc. during the pandemic) please let me know. If you know someone who wants to sign up to receive these summaries, they can do so at http://bit.ly/sciencejon

PROTECTED AREAS:
Hannah et al. 2020 estimates that effectively conserving 30% of tropical land could cut predicted species extinction by ~1/2-2/3 (if the conserved areas are both cited ideally and managed well: this is not about legal protection alone). Conserving 50% could reduce extinction by more like 2/3-80% (see Table 1 for details including how this varies by region). This is useful to understand how effective conservation can be at different scales. But it's important to note that citing PAs in ideal locations continues to be elusive, this model relies on fairly simple assumptions using species-area curves, and the fact that the results didn't vary much with climate change (RCP2.6 vs RCP 8.5) is concerning. Nonetheless, this could be motivating to highlight the importance of protecting and managing enough of the right places on earth to slow species extinction.

How well does the current network of protected areas represent both biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services in the tropics? Neugarten et al. 2020 has answers for five countries (Cambodia, Guyana, Liberia, Madagascar, and Suriname). They found that PAs are doing pretty well on biodiversity, forest protection, and forest carbon stocks, although with lots of room for improvement (Table 3). But PAs are not doing well on protecting non-timber forest products (like food and medicine) nor freshwater ecosystem services, both of which are mostly protected at about the same rate as land overall in each country (except Cambodia which did somewhat better on freshwater ecosystem services). Identifying opportunities to improve like this is critical to inform where to cite future PAs. They are up front about a few caveats: they looked only at designation of formal protected areas (rather than effective management on the ground), this may not be reflective of PAs across the tropics more broadly, and they had to rely on some squishy data (e.g. a mix of data sources and expert input to identify biodiversity priority areas). But it's still a good step to inform citing the next wave of PAs as interest in doing so ramps up across the globe. The authors have shared their data here: https://www.conservation.org/projects/mapping-natural-capital/mnc-data/ and are happy to help others to access and use it.

Wilhere 2008 makes an important point about analyses of how much conservation "is enough." He argues there's no single answer, since it depends on society's values for things like what risk of extinction is acceptable. Another key point is that the inputs into these models (which spp. or habitats to model and prioritize) are inherently value-driven as well. He recommends that these kinds of analyses: are transparent about the role of ethics / values (outside of science) in choosing conservation targets, recognize that any modeled policy options are only one of many possible choices, consider alternative targets to prioritize, and work with economists to produce cost estimates of any recommendations.

Wilhere et al. 2012 is a critique of one of the many 'half earth' papers arguing we need to effectively conserve at least half of the earth to avoid unacceptable biodiversity loss (Noss et al. 2012). The critique is similar to the Wilhere 2008 paper: the half earth target is presented as a "strict scientific point of view" without recognizing the value judgments that inform the results. They call for papers like Noss' to clearly articular the values of the author, and evaluate multiple policy options reflecting different values.

Finally, Armsworth et al. 2020 looks at  the best "bargains" exist for conservation: where the most species can be protected (from projected land conversion) for the lowest cost of land acquisition. In other words, how can we prevent the most species loss with a fixed budget for protection?
The new spatial prioritization model this is based on goes beyond binary models (which recommend protection or not), and instead allocates funding as a continuous variable. It also considers complementarity to avoid concentrating funding in areas rich with the same species. When they run the model for the coterminous U.S., attempting to conserve all species equally leads to the Southwest being a priority (since there's lots of cheap, intact habitat). But focusing on vertebrates vulnerable to extinction, priorities pop out in Texas (due to cave ecosystems with many unique & threatened species in small places) and the Southern Appalachians. There's a great discussion of how different assumptions and data inputs impact the results. There's a blog about this article here: http://www.nimbios.org/press/FS_conservetool

WATER USE:
Richter et al. 2020 has two key points about water scarcity (and the resulting impact on freshwater ecosystems) in the Western United States. First, cattle feed is the biggest driver - 1/3 of water consumed in 17 Western states is for cattle feed, and in the Colorado River basin it's 55% (Table 1). But in good news, there is a proven affordable solution - paying farmers to temporarily fallow (stop growing crops) some or all of their land used for cattle feed. We also would need to reduce some of the water transferred between basins to fully address the over-allocation of water. The paper also has good data on which cities are driving the most scarcity via demand for beef, impact of water scarcity on fish (including extinction risk), and the cost of payments to farmers for fallowing ($82-241 million / year). Finally, one of the authors (Arjen Hoekstra) passed away last year, and I wanted to express how much I appreciate his pioneering work on water footprinting, and how much influence he had on me as a scientist. He will be sorely missed.

MARINE ECOLOGY:
Hammerschlag et al. 2019 is a great overview of the many ecological functions and ecosystem services provided by aquatic predators (both marine and freshwater). It's well written enough to serve as a good introduction to the topic even for people like me with very little marine ecology background. Most of the benefits are fairly obvious, but benefits to climate mitigation (by reducing herbivores that can reduce carbon sequestration and storage) and inspiring products like boat coatings to reduce drag were especially interesting.

REFERENCES:
Armsworth, P. R., Benefield, A. E., Dilkina, B., Fovargue, R., Jackson, H. B., Le Bouille, D., & Nolte, C. (2020). Allocating resources for land protection using continuous optimization: biodiversity conservation in the United States. Ecological Applications, eap.2118. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2118

Hammerschlag, N., Schmitz, O. J., Flecker, A. S., Lafferty, K. D., Sih, A., Atwood, T. B., … Cooke, S. J. (2019). Ecosystem Function and Services of Aquatic Predators in the Anthropocene. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 34(4), 369–383. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2019.01.005

Hannah, L., Roehrdanz, P. R., Marquet, P. A., Enquist, B. J., Midgley, G., Foden, W., … Svenning, J. (2020). 30% Land Conservation and Climate Action Reduces Tropical Extinction Risk By More Than 50%. Ecography, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05166

Neugarten, R. A., Moull, K., Martinez, N. A., Andriamaro, L., Bernard, C., Bonham, C., … Turner, W. (2020). Trends in protected area representation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in five tropical countries. Ecosystem Services, 42(January), 101078. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101078

Richter, B. D., Bartak, D., Caldwell, P., Davis, K. F., Debaere, P., Hoekstra, A. Y., … Troy, T. J. (2020). Water scarcity and fish imperilment driven by beef production. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0483-z

Wilhere, G. F. (2008). The how-much-is-enough myth. Conservation Biology, 22(3), 514–517. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.00926.x

Wilhere, G. F., Maguire, L. A., Scott, J. M., Rachlow, J. L., Goble, D. D., & Svancara, L. K. (2012). Conflation of Values and Science: Response to Noss et al. Conservation Biology, 26(5), 943–944. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2012.01900.x


Stay safe, vigilant, and healthy,

Jon

p.s. If you'd like to keep track of what I write as well as what I read, I always link to both my informal blog posts and my formal publications (plus these summaries) at http://sciencejon.blogspot.com/

February 2020 science journal article summary

Greetings,

This month is a mix of topics; some papers came out recently that were too cool for me to wait to review with other similar ones, and I couldn't resist plugging the latest paper I worked on (Hamel et al. 2020). If you know someone who wants to sign up to receive these summaries, they can do so at http://bit.ly/sciencejon

Also, a 12-minute video came out recently about the 2017 March for Science, and I show up in it a few times. It's called "SciComm: Raising Our Voice for Science and Public Policy," it's directed & produced by Larry Kirkman (larry@american.edu) and Shannon Shikles at the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University, and you can watch it here: https://vimeo.com/383209723


CLIMATE CHANGE:
Sippel et al. 2020 bucks the pattern where climatologists emphasize how distinct climate and weather are. Past research has shown the impact of climate change on certain weather events, but this paper actually detects the impact of climate change on any given day since late March 2012! By summarizing weather data all over the world, they found that we’ve been clearly outside of natural variability for the past 8 years on a daily basis. On a monthly basis, climate change has been detectable from global weather data since 2001. You can read a newspaper article about the paper at https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/01/02/signal-human-caused-climate-change-has-emerged-every-day-weather-study-finds/  I love the description of this paper from meteorologist Maria LaRosa: “[it’s] like looking closely at an impressionist painting –  you can't say what the picture is until you step back and look at the whole”


ECOSYSTEM SERVICES:
Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2019 produced global maps summarizing ecosystem services (sort of) for coastal protection, water quality regulation, and crop pollination, now and in 2050 (under three different scenarios). One twist is that they go beyond the usual definition of ecosystem services (benefits provided by nature and received by people who need them) to also look at the 'benefit gap' where there are people with needs nature is not currently meeting (see Fig 2, bottom row, pink / lavender color). There's a lot to explore here, but one finding is that both SE Asia and Africa are expected to have increasing gaps for all three services. There's plenty of uncertainty, but this is a great set of data to think about trade-offs under different future paths. You can explore their results in a web map at http://viz.naturalcapitalproject.org/ipbes/

Johnson et al. 2019 analyzed where it makes economic sense to protect undeveloped land within 100-year floodplains across the U.S. They compared  expected flood damages (over the next 30-50 years) to land acquisition cost (to prevent development and avoid damages). They found benefits exceeded acquisition cost for about 1/3 of unprotected natural areas, and that the strongest benefits were within the 20-year floodplain but outside of the 5-year floodplain. Compared to the 5-year floodplain, these areas are more likely to get developed even though they flood less often, leading to more potential damages. Figure 3 has a map of the counties with the highest benefit:cost ratio, focused in Appalalachia, Arizona, and a mix of other places. Note that buying undeveloped lands avoids the controversy associated with asking or forcing people already living within floodplains to move.

Brancalion et al. 2019 looks at opportunities to restore lowland tropical rainforests around the world. They evaluate both the benefits (including biodiversity, climate mitigation & adaptation, and water security) and feasibility (land opportunity cost, ecological uncertainty, and chance of forest persistence). Figure 2 shows where there's the most opportunity, both by area (Brazil) and by combined benefit and feasibility (Madagascar, Tropical Andes). Where to focus depends on your goal - the places with the most total benefits are generally less feasible (higher land costs and competition, e.g. areas where habitat loss is recent and ongoing). But Figure 3 shows several examples of countries with restoration commitments who appear to have large areas with relatively high benefits and feasibility.


LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY:
Fahrig 2017 & Fahrig et al. 2019 are challenging but important reviews on the ecological impact of habitat fragmentation at the landscape scale (big areas). Their key findings are that with the amount of habitat loss being equal, fragmentation per se typically (70% of the time) didn't significantly impact biodiversity or ecological function at all. Even stranger, when it did have a significant impact, 3/4 of the time it was positive (even for threatened and rare species)! Section 5 in the 2017 paper summarizes the different explanations that authors of the primary studies provided, from fragmentation boosting functional connectivity (by reducing distance between patches) to edge effects and others. She concludes that in most cases we confound habitat loss with fragmentation, and that most of the time our intuition (that fragmentation per se is bad) is incorrect. She also notes that authors sometimes bury or caveat their findings of positive effects of fragmentation, which is one reason her findings continue to seem so wrong. My key take-aways are: 1) it's very hard (but very important) to examine our biases and deeply held beliefs when reading contrary science, 2) there is a good case made in the 2019 paper that small patches are under-protected, given their importance in many landscapes.

Jones et al. 2019 used GPS collars to track both migratory and resident pronghorn, and to model what features they avoided and which they ignored. They found that pronghorn were very reluctant to cross fences (consistent with under studies - they tend to crawl under rather than jump over), and avoided roads, but mostly ignored oil and gas well pads. There's a lot of other findings in their model, but the one I found most interesting was the concern that if ranches add more fencing to allow rotational grazing, it could have serious negative impacts on pronghorn and  mule deer unless wildlife-friendly fences are used.


RESEARCH IMPACT:
Hamel et al. looks at how scientific information was perceived and used in decision making for a water fund in Brazil. Through interviews, we determined that the hydrological modeling and monitoring data was NOT used in designing and implementing the water fund. But counter-intuitively, having done the analysis using complex models and high-resolution data was seen as important for the water fund to be seen as scientifically credible. So ironically, even though the credible models were not actually used, their existence helped build support for the overall water fund. Despite this, as long as monitoring data was used to calibrate and validate the model, a simpler model (InVEST, as opposed to SWAT) and coarser data resolution (30m, as opposed to 1m) would have met the information needs of the users. We should have had more frank discussions up front with the ultimate users of the information to produce a model seen as credible and actually used, while avoiding over-investment in model complexity that wasn't needed.

Samanta et al. 2019 is a paper about a program in Michigan to improve water quality issues from agriculture via a really well thought out collaboration (w/ scientists, practitioners, universities, farmers, and industry). Lack of public funding has pushed many farmers to rely on private crop advisors, who don't always share conservation opportunities (like cover crops, reduced tillage, and nutrient management) with farmers (especially as tied to programs involving lots of paperwork). They found it was critical to improve active communication & trust at all levels (especially about funding available).  Conservation was constrained by funding, and potentially by the shift of crop advisors to often be less comprehensive and represent a single company. The authors emphasize the need to integrate social science like this from the very beginning of projects.


REFERENCES:
Brancalion, P. H. S., Niamir, A., Broadbent, E., Crouzeilles, R., Barros, F. S. M., Almeyda Zambrano, A. M., … Chazdon, R. L. (2019). Global restoration opportunities in tropical rainforest landscapes. Science Advances, 5(7), eaav3223. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav3223

Chaplin-Kramer, R., Sharp, R. P., Weil, C., Bennett, E. M., Pascual, U., Arkema, K. K., … Daily, G. C. (2019). Global modeling of nature’s contributions to people. Science, 366(6462), 255–258. https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIENCE.AAW3372

Fahrig, L. (2017). Ecological Responses to Habitat Fragmentation Per Se. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 48(1), annurev-ecolsys-110316-022612. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-110316-022612

Fahrig, L., Arroyo-Rodríguez, V., Bennett, J. R., Boucher-Lalonde, V., Cazetta, E., Currie, D. J., … Watling, J. I. (2019). Is habitat fragmentation bad for biodiversity? Biological Conservation, 230(October 2018), 179–186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.12.026

Hamel, P., Bremer, L. L., Ponette-González, A. G., Acosta, E., Fisher, J. R. B., Steele, B., … Brauman, K. A. (2020). The value of hydrologic information for watershed management programs: The case of Camboriú, Brazil. Science of The Total Environment, 135871. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135871

Johnson, K. A., Wing, O. E. J., Bates, P. D., Fargione, J., Kroeger, T., Larson, W. D., … Smith, A. M. (2019). A benefit–cost analysis of floodplain land acquisition for US flood damage reduction. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0437-5

Jones, P. F., Jakes, A. F., Telander, A. C., Sawyer, H., Martin, B. H., & Hebblewhite, M. (2019). Fences reduce habitat for a partially migratory ungulate in the Northern Sagebrush Steppe. Ecosphere, 10(7). https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2782

Samanta, A., Eanes, F. R., Wickerham, B., Fales, M., Bulla, B. R., & Prokopy, L. S. (2019). Communication, Partnerships, and the Role of Social Science: Conservation Delivery in a Brave New World. Society & Natural Resources, 0(0), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2019.1695990

Sippel, S., Meinshausen, N., Fischer, E. M., Székely, E., & Knutti, R. (2020). Climate change now detectable from any single day of weather at global scale. Nature Climate Change, 10(1), 35–41. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0666-7

Sincerely,

Jon

p.s. If you'd like to keep track of what I write as well as what I read, I always link to both my informal blog posts and my formal publications (plus these summaries) at http://sciencejon.blogspot.com/

February 2019 science journal article summary

Hello,

Here are some articles focused on genomics, but with a few others on deforestation, ecosystem services, and sustainable agriculture. The photo above of needle ice in my backyard is totally unrelated, but I'd never seen or even heard of it, and I found it super cool. Read about it on wikipedia!

Let me know if you need a copy of any of these articles. If you know someone who wants to sign up to receive these summaries, they can do so at http://bit.ly/sciencejon

DEFORESTATION:
Jokpe & Schoneveld 2018 is a close look at zero-deforestation commitments (ZDC) by 50 influential  corporate "power brokers."  They identify several problems with implementation gaps and externalities. In particular they note that a lack of traceability and transparency about where commodities are sourced from makes verification difficult (and most companies rely on asking their suppliers to honestly self-report deforestation). They also report that 3/4 of companies with ZDC don't require company wide commitments from suppliers (so those suppliers can just sell deforestation linked products to other companies who don't care). This one is long but worth reading for breakouts by sector and other useful info. Note that TNC in this article refers to transnational companies and not The Nature Conservancy. The problems and gaps identified are things we're hoping to address with the Accountability Framework (https://accountability-framework.org/), which should be formally launched this spring.

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES:
There are many methods and tools to assess ecosystem services. Neugarten et al. 2018 is a report reviewing 9 assessment tools (EST, PA-BAT, TESSA, ARIES, C$N, InVEST, MIMES, SolVES, and WW) and providing decision trees on how to pick the right one for a given need. This is a fantastic reference for anyone working with ecosystem services, and it covers both written guidance documents and modeling tools. They recommend you identify the analysis question or need and think hard about expertise and resources you have to do the analysis before selecting a tool.

GENOMICS / GENE EDITING / GENETIC ENGINEERING:
Photosynthesis in plants relies on an enzyme called RuBisCO, sometimes called 'the most incompetent enzyme in the world' due to its inefficiency and energy loss during respiration. South et al. 2019 present a new transgenic GMO tobacco plant which improves the efficiency of respiration. As a result, their best modified tobacco plants had 41% higher biomass (including 33% more leaf biomass but also larger stems). It's not clear how much of the biomass gain could be translated to improved yields for grains or other crops, but that's still a potentially huge step forward which should be further explored. Eisenhut & Weber 2019 is a nice very short (1.5 page) summary of the article, and you can also read a blog about it here which includes some nice diagrams: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-scientists-shortcut-photosynthetic-glitch-boost.html

Kofler et al. 2018 is an editorial on benefits and risks of altering the DNA of wild organisms via gene editing. They call for collective oversight to ensure careful thought is given to environmental, social, and ethical concerns, and especially to local community involvement in each decision to potentially release an edited organism (as well as international bodies like IUCN). They stress that "using this technology irresponsibly or not using it at all could prove damaging" - and give good examples of each.

Sprink et al. 2016 looks at regulation of gene editing, and the difference between a process based approach (where the key factor is how an organism was modified) vs a product based approach (where the outcome is the key factor regardless of the process used). They argue that the European approach is outdated and doesn't reflect the continuum of modern technology (including several different applications of gene editing). They also dive into a legal argument of why it should be changed, and how it compares to the US and other countries. They make a good argument that regulation should be based on a genetic trait and product rather than the process used to develop it. This one is complex and wonky but a good reference, especially box 1 with definitions of several gene editing approaches.

Halewood et al. 2018 is an overview of how CGIAR is looking to use crop genome sequencing to drive more crop diversity and find crop traits that can deliver better outcomes for people and nature. Most readers can safely skip information on specific molecular markers (e.g. Table 1) but should read page 372 which lists several applications of gene editing technology and genotyping.

Zhong 2019 looks at how soy genotype and rhizobium inoculation (of seed or soil) impact plant growth, soy nodulation (the nodules help them fix nitrogen via bacteria), and microbiome. They found that the microbiome of soy varies depending on the genotype of soy. In particular whether the genotype forms high or low numbers of root nodules. Low-nodulation soy had more co-occurrence of the taxonomic groups (a more connected network) than the high-nodulation soy (figure 4). Both genotypes had their microbiome network connections increased by inoculation. The efficacy of the inoculant  varies depending on plant genotype. See figure 1c / 1d for details. Low-nodule soy got a significant boost in nodulation from inoculation, but still had fewer nodules than high-nodule soy (for which nodulation was unaffected by inoculation). Both genotypes of soy got a roughly similar growth boost from inoculation. This means that to evaluate biological seed treatments / inoculation we have to look at the intersection of the inoculant, plant genetics, and baseline soil microbiome.


SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE:
Eichler Inwood et al. 2018 is a thoughtful review of several different frameworks to assess agricultural sustainability (in different contexts and scales). Table 4 is a nice summary of the 9 frameworks they cover, with Table 5 providing more details on how and where they work. None are ideal in every context. Thy conclude with recommendations about how to select a framework (see Table 6 for properties they should have), choose indicators, collect data etc.

REFERENCES:
Eichler Inwood, S. E., López-Ridaura, S., Kline, K. L., Gérard, B., Monsalue, A. G., Govaerts, B., & Dale, V. H. (2018). Assessing sustainability in agricultural landscapes: a review of approaches. Environmental Reviews, 26(3), 299–315. https://doi.org/10.1139/er-2017-0058

Eisenhut, M., & Weber, A. P. M. (2019). Improving crop yield. Science, 363(6422), 32–33. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aav8979

Halewood, M., Lopez Noriega, I., Ellis, D., Roa, C., Rouard, M., & Sackville Hamilton, R. (2018). Using Genomic Sequence Information to Increase Conservation and Sustainable Use of Crop Diversity and Benefit-Sharing. Biopreservation and Biobanking, 16(5), 368–376. https://doi.org/10.1089/bio.2018.0043

Jopke, P., & Schoneveld, G. C. (2018). Corporate commitments to zero deforestation: An evaluation of externality problems and implementation gaps. Occasional Paper 181. Bogor, Indonesia: CIFOR.

Kofler, N., Collins, J. P., Kuzma, J., Marris, E., Esvelt, K., Nelson, M. P., … Schmitz, O. J. (2018). Editing nature: Local roots of global governance: Science, 362(6414), 527–529. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat4612

Neugarten, R. A., Langhammer, P. F., Osipova, E., Bagstad, K. J., Bhagabati, N., Butchart, S. H. M., … Willcock, S. (2018). Tools for measuring, modelling, and valuing ecosystem services: guidance for Key Biodiversity Areas, natural World Heritage sites, and protected areas. (C. Groves, Ed.). Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2018.PAG.28.en

South, P. F., Cavanagh, A. P., Liu, H. W., & Ort, D. R. (2019). Synthetic glycolate metabolism pathways stimulate crop growth and productivity in the field. Science, 363(6422), eaat9077. https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIENCE.AAT9077

Sprink, T., Eriksson, D., Schiemann, J., & Hartung, F. (2016). Regulatory hurdles for genome editing: process- vs. product-based approaches in different regulatory contexts. Plant Cell Reports, 35(7), 1493–1506. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-016-1990-2

Zhong, Y., Yang, Y., Liu, P., Xu, R., Rensing, C., Fu, X., & Liao, H. (2019). Genotype and rhizobium inoculation modulate the assembly of soybean rhizobacterial communities. Plant, Cell & Environment. https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.13519


Sincerely,

Jon

p.s. as a reminder, you can search all of the science articles written by TNC staff (that we know of) here http://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationPlanning/ToolsData/sitepages/article-list.aspx
(as you publish please email science_pubs@tnc.org to help keep this resource current).
If you'd like to keep track of what I write as well as what I read, I always link to both my informal blog posts and my formal publications (plus these summaries) at http://sciencejon.blogspot.com/

Reforestation to reduce ozone without costing businesses extra money

A new paper (on which I'm an author) was just published in PNAS on our collaboration with Dow. In particular, we looked at reforestation as a tool for ozone abatement, with the key finding that in Houston reforestation was cost-competitive with building scrubbers (which has a high initial capital cost and cannot readily be adjusted to a precise need for removal) and NOx allowances. If carbon credits could be sold it would be cheaper.

There are plenty of caveats (the legal framework to actually do this is not in place yet, we assume land owners exist who want their lands reforested (as opposed to having to buy land), it only works in places with NOx-limited ozone and ozone non-attainment areas, etc. Also, the national map I made (above) is a coarse analysis showing where this could be replicated, but does not include factors like the current drought in California (the intent is to flag areas deserving a closer look if the policy piece goes through). For the paper, I did a more rigorous habitat assessment about where within the study area a specific type of bottomland hardwood forest could likely be planted successfully.

Nonetheless, it is exciting that in this case we found that a natural solution could be appealing to businesses, while also providing benefits to others (habitat, recreation, etc.). I was only peripherally involved (in the mapping out of where this could work), but I'm still pretty proud.

There is a blog post about why this paper is arguably significant here:

https://www.wvnews.com/statejournal/news/dow-chemical-nature-conservancy-scientists-explore-using-trees-to-clean-pollution/article_0494ec03-ad6e-5669-a530-2816f62e4561.html 

The TNC blogs with more info have expired, but the actual paper is here:

More information: Reforestation as a novel abatement and compliance measure for ground-level ozone, Timm Kroeger, PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1409785111

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-09-reforestation-urban-areas-ozone.html#jCp

Reforestation as a novel abatement and compliance measure for ground-level ozone, Timm Kroeger et al., PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1409785111