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In 2010, the international community, under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, agreed on 20 biodiversity-related “Aichi Targets” to be achieved within a decade. We provide a comprehensive mid-term assessment of progress toward these global targets using 55 indicator data sets. We projected indicator trends to 2020 using an adaptive statistical framework that incorporated the specific properties of individual time series. On current trajectories, results suggest that despite accelerating policy and management responses to the biodiversity crisis, the impacts of these efforts are unlikely to be reflected in improved trends in the state of biodiversity by 2020. We highlight areas of societal endeavor requiring additional efforts to achieve the Aichi Targets, and provide a baseline against which to assess future progress.

Models of Response to Intervention (RTI) include parameters of assessment and instruction. This study focuses on assessment with the purpose of developing a screening battery that validly and efficiently identifies first-grade children at risk for reading problems. In an RTI model, these children would be candidates for early intervention. We examined accuracy, fluency, growth, and teacher rating measures as predictors of child status (at risk, not at risk) at the end of the school year based on an unselected sample of 243 children. The prediction model that best fit our selection criteria included 2 word- fluency measures and a teacher rating of reading problems. Word-fluency growth was an equally plausible choice statistically, but, because the measure would require an additional data point, it was not the most efficient choice. The receiver-operator characteristic curve analysis yielded an area-under-the-curve index of .96, which indicates the selected 3-variable model is highly accurate.

Quantitative scenarios are coming of age as a tool for evaluating the impact of future socioeconomic development pathways on biodiversity and ecosystem services. We analyze global terrestrial, freshwater, and marine biodiversity scenarios using a range of measures including extinctions, changes in species abundance, habitat loss, and distribution shifts, as well as comparing model projections to observations. Scenarios consistently indicate that biodiversity will continue to decline over the 21st century. However, the range of projected changes is much broader than most studies suggest, partly because there are major opportunities to intervene through better policies, but also because of large uncertainties in projections.

To clarify the relationship between oral language and early reading development, the authors administered to 39 children a broad range of oral language measures in 3 areas (metalinguistics, structural language, and narrative discourse); measures of background variables (IQ, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender, family literacy); and measures of reading ability (word recognition, pseudoword reading, passage comprehension) in kindergarten and in 1st and 2nd grades. The authors used regression analyses to identify parsimonious models that explained variance in early reading. The main finding of the study was that semantic abilities (i.e., oral definitions and word retrieval), not phonological awareness, predicted 2nd-grade reading comprehension. As expected, phonological awareness skill in kindergarten predicted single-word reading at 1st and 2nd grades. The finding that semantic skills predicted passage comprehension suggests that the importance of different oral language skills to early reading varies as a function of language domain, reading skill, and measurement point.

This year marks the mid-point for the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, including Sustainable Development Goal 15 ‘Life on land’. We asked a range of researchers, working across biodiversity science, conservation, policy and implementation, to reflect on priorities for action on conserving terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems over the next seven years.

Invasive alien species are a major cause of biodiversity loss, and the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has recognized that classical biological control can be an effective measure to manage already established invasive alien species, while also encouraging the use of the precautionary approach to minimize any potential direct or indirect risk to non-target organisms (United Nations Environment Programme, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2016). In parallel to the Framework itself, Parties also adopted in December 2022 a landmark decision to establish a multilateral mechanism for benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources, including a fund, to be further developed and operationalized by 2024 (United Nations Environment Programme, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2022b). The Nagoya Protocol encourages the development and use of sectoral and cross-sectoral model contractual clauses for mutually agreed terms and codes of conduct, guidelines, and best practices and/or standards (United Nations Environment Programme, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2011, Art. 19–20). Accessed 28 Feb 2023 United Nations Environment Programme, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2022d), Benefit-Sharing in research: a conversation with Loren Rieseberg from Molecular Ecology. https://express.adobe.com/page/vKHdKahMNMK25/.

The linkages between human health, biodiversity, ecosystems, and the life-supporting services that they provide are varied and complex. The traditional neglect of this nexus by policy-makers perpetuates threats posed to ecosystems with potentially critical impacts on global health. The Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Health Organization recently co-convened two regional workshops on these intricate but vital linkages. From discussions held with policy-makers and experts in the biodiversity and health sectors, spanning some 50 countries in Africa and the Americas, we derive a broad framework for the development of national and regional public health and biodiversity strategies relevant to strategic planning processes in the emerging post-2015 development context.

Deweyan Inquiry Model While PDSs provide a comprehensive approach to increasing student achievement, there is limited evidence of such increases (Cooper & Corbin, 2006; Grissom & Petrosko, 2005). [...]we contend that expecting a PDS to produce such results is unreasonable in the absence of a fully articulated process, linking the PDS structures and functions to more proximal causes of learning.\\n Evaluative data on the results of this redesign and other changes in practice demonstrated the desired increases in all aspects of family involvement. [...]our results have made explicit the depth of critical inquiry necessary to produce real and sustainable change in a PDS.

Professional Development Schools (PDS) were intended to be a comprehensive approach to total-school reform targeted toward the effects of poverty and educational disadvantage. This paper examines the processes and contexts found in PDSs and tests how they might be logically and empirically linked to measurable improvements in achievement. The purpose of this article is to put forth a fully articulated model that makes explicit the depth of critical inquiry necessary to produce changes in student achievement, and report the results of a partial application of this model focused on practices known to be associated with student achievement--family involvement in a PDS. This study emphasized the importance of conflict in the Deweyan sense and critical questioning, as well as the role of formative assessment in the analysis of the student work samples. Professional development in the form of inquiry presented an opportunity for expansion of knowledge and skill through a sustained exploration of issues, which is in sharp contrast to the more prevalent model of a single workshop for teachers or presentation by outside experts.

Phonological awareness skills are prerequisite to early reading, yet the development of phonological awareness is an understudied phenomenon. To identify factors that contribute to the development of phonological awareness, we investigated the longitudinal relationships among child background factors, structural oral language, and phonological awareness in a sample of 52 children from kindergarten to second grade and a subsample of this group who were nonreaders in kindergarten. Background measures were IQ, family literacy, socioeconomic status, and child's primary language; oral language measures were receptive and expressive semantics, syntax, and morphology; phonological awareness was measured by segmentation and blending. Principal component analysis of the structural language measures yielded a general oral language factor score. Regression analyses indicated that the background variables were unique predictors of kindergarten general oral language skill but did not predict phonological awareness skills. General oral language accounted for significant and substantial unique variance in phonological awareness each year for both the full sample and the subsample of nonreaders, controlling for reading ability. These findings suggest general oral language may contribute to the development of early reading through its significant influence on the development of phonological awareness.