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\"In this epic tale of vengeance and destiny, power-mad King Hyperion ... threatens to destroy all of humanity on his maniacal quest to obtain the ultimate weapon - the legendary Epirus Bow that gives the power to unleash war on both Heaven and Earth. But Theseus ..., a heroic young villager chosen by the gods, rises up to stop Hyperion's brutal rampage. With supernatural help from the beautiful oracle Phaedra ..., Theseus embraces his destiny and leads a fierce band of warriors in a desperate fight for the future of mankind\"--Container.

We present a seasonal classification system to improve the temporal framing of comparative scientific analysis. Research often uses yearly aggregates to understand inherently seasonal phenomena like harvests, monsoons, and droughts. This obscures important trends across time and differences through space by including redundant data. Our classification system allows for a more targeted approach. We split global land into four principal climate zones: desert, arctic and high montane, tropical, and temperate. A cluster analysis with zone-specific variables and weighting splits each month of the year into discrete seasons based on the monthly climate. We expect the data will be able to answer global comparative analysis questions like: are global winters less icy than before? Are wildfires more frequent now in the dry season? How severe are monsoon season flooding events? This is a natural extension of the historical concept of biomes, made possible by recent advances in climate data availability and artificial intelligence.

Tropical forest fragmentation creates insular biological communities that undergo species loss and changes in community composition over time, due to area- and edge-effects. Woody lianas thrive in degraded and secondary forests, due to their competitive advantage over trees in these habitats. Lianas compete both directly and indirectly with trees, increasing tree mortality and turnover. Despite our growing understanding of liana-tree dynamics, we lack detailed knowledge of the assemblage-level responses of lianas themselves to fragmentation, particularly in evergreen tropical forests. We examine the responses of both sapling and mature liana communities to landscape-scale forest insularization induced by a mega hydroelectric dam in the Brazilian Amazon. Detailed field inventories were conducted on islands created during reservoir filling, and in nearby mainland continuous forest. We assess the relative importance of variables associated with habitat fragmentation such as area, isolation, surrounding forest cover, fire and wind disturbance, on liana community attributes including abundance, basal area, diversity, and composition. We also explore patterns of liana dominance relative to tree saplings and adults ≥10 cm diameter at breast height. We find that 1) liana community composition remains remarkably similar across mainland continuous forest and islands, regardless of extreme area- and edge- effects and the loss of vertebrate dispersers in the latter; and 2) lianas are increasing in dominance relative to trees in the sapling layer in the most degraded islands, with both the amount of forest cover surrounding islands and fire disturbance history predicting liana dominance. Our data suggest that liana communities persist intact in isolated forests, regardless of extreme area- and edge-effects; while in contrast, tree communities simultaneously show evidence of increased turnover and supressed recruitment. These processes may lead to lianas becoming a dominant component of this dam-induced fragmented landscape in the future, due to their competitive advantage over trees in degraded forest habitats. Additional loss of tree biomass and diversity brought about through competition with lianas, and the concurrent loss of carbon storage, should be accounted for in impact assessments of future dam development.

Conflicts between the objectives of agricultural production and conservation are becoming increasingly complex. Of vital importance to the success of conflict interventions is a detailed understanding of how stakeholders react to management interventions as well as the influence of interacting social and political factors. Across Europe, goose populations have increased considerably, leading to widespread impacts on agriculture and significant conflicts between different stakeholder groups. We used a novel experimental game to understand farmer preferences regarding the design of goose conflict interventions in Scotland. We specifically examined how three alternative interventions (government financial support for scaring activities, subsidies and agglomeration payments that include bonus payments for adoption by neighbouring farms) affect farmer propensity to support goose conservation interests through reduced shooting and the provision of sacrificial crops. We also examined the links between within‐game behaviour and real‐life attributes and attitudes of farmers. We found that all three interventions were conducive to pro‐conservation behaviour in the games. The effects of all three interventions were stronger among farmers who had higher trust towards other community members. Agglomeration payments led to increased provision of sacrificial crops among farmers with negative attitudes towards the current allocation of goose finances in Scotland. Farmers with more positive attitudes towards wildlife tourism were more likely to provide more sacrificial crops, and less likely to shoot in the games. Farmers' real‐life traits had a statistically significant but marginal impact on the effectiveness of financial payments, such as the number of geese being shot on their own lands, remoteness and crop damage by geese. These game results provide evidence for the potential of innovative financial instruments in conflict management and their interactions with social factors such as community trust, equity attitude and real‐life shooting levels. Our study highlights the importance of socio‐political elements in fostering mutually beneficial outcomes in conservation conflicts in addition to addressing material losses to wildlife. We also show how games can help in addressing conservation conflicts in a wide range of settings. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Mega‐dams create highly fragmented archipelagos, affecting biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in remnant forest isolates. This study assessed the long‐term impact of dam‐induced fragmentation on insular tropical tree communities, with the aim of generating robust recommendations to mitigate some of the detrimental biodiversity impacts associated with future dam development. We inventoried adult and sapling trees across 89 permanent plots, located on 36 islands and in three mainland continuous forest sites in the Balbina Dam, Brazilian Amazon. We examined differences in recruitment, structure, and composition of sapling and adult tree communities, in relation to plot‐, patch‐ and landscape‐scale attributes including area, isolation, and fire severity. Islands harboured significantly lower sapling (mean ± 95% CI 48.6 ± 3.8) and adult (5 ± 0.2) tree densities per 0.01 ha, than nearby mainland continuous forest (saplings, 65.7 ± 7.5; adults, 5.6 ± 0.3). Insular sapling and adult tree communities were more dissimilar than in mainland sites, and species compositions showed a directional shift away from mainland forests, induced by fire severity, island area, and isolation. Insular sapling recruitment declined with increasing fire severity; tree communities with higher community‐weighted mean wood density showed the greatest recruitment declines. Our results suggest that insular tree communities are unstable, with rare species becoming extinction‐prone due to reduced tree recruitment and density on islands, potentially leading to future losses in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning across Balbina's >3,500 reservoir islands. Policy implications. In Balbina, fire and reduced habitat area and connectivity were drivers of tree community decay after only 28 years of insularization, despite strict protection provided by the ~940,000 ha Uatumã Biological Reserve. Given that many dams are planned for lowland, moderately undulating Amazonia, we recommend that dam development strategy explicitly considers (a) dam location, aiming to minimize creation of small (<10 ha) and isolated islands, (b) maintaining reservoir water levels during droughts to reduce fire risk, and (c) including aggregate island area in environmental impact and offset calculations. Ideally, we recommend that alternatives to hydropower be sought in lowland tropical regions, due to the far‐reaching biodiversity losses and ecosystem disruption caused by river impoundment. Foreign Language Resumo As mega hidrelétricas formam arquipélagos altamente fragmentados, que afetam a biodiversidade e o funcionamento dos ecossistemas em remanescentes florestais isolados. Este estudo avaliou o impacto a longo prazo da fragmentação induzida por barragens em comunidades de árvores insulares tropicais, a fim de gerar recomendações robustas que mitiguem parte dos impactos negativos sobre a biodiversidade associada ao desenvolvimento de futuras barragens. Nós inventariamos árvores adultas e jovens em 89 parcelas permanentes, localizadas em 36 ilhas e em três áreas de floresta contínua na Hidrelétrica de Balbina, Amazônia Brasileira. Examinamos as diferenças no recrutamento, estrutura e composição das comunidades de árvores jovens e adultas, em relação a distintas variáveis em escala de parcela, mancha e paisagem, incluindo área, isolamento e severidade do fogo. As ilhas abrigaram menores densidades de jovens (média ± 95% IC: 48.6 ± 3.8) e adultos (5 ± 0.2) por 0.01 ha, do que as florestas contínuas (jovens, 65.7 ± 7.5; adultos, 5.6 ± 0.3). As comunidades de árvores jovens e adultas nas ilhas foram mais dissimilares do que nas florestas contínuas, com as composições das espécies apresentando um afastamento direcional em relação às florestas contínuas, induzidas pela severidade do fogo, área da ilha e isolamento. O recrutamento de jovens nas ilhas diminuiu com o aumento da severidade do fogo; comunidades com maior densidade média de madeira apresentaram os maiores declínios de recrutamento. Nossos resultados sugerem que as comunidades de árvores insulares são instáveis, com espécies raras tornando‐se propensas à extinção devido à redução do recrutamento e da densidade de árvores nas ilhas, levando potencialmente a perdas futuras na biodiversidade e no funcionamento do ecossistema nas ~3500 ilhas de Balbina. Implicações políticas Em Balbina, o fogo e redução da área e da conectividade foram os propulsores do decaimento da comunidade de árvores após apenas 28 anos de insularização, apesar da rigorosa proteção fornecida pela ~ 940.000 ha da Reserva Biológica do Uatumã. Considerando que muitas barragens estão planejadas em terras baixas e com moderada vazão na Amazônia, recomendamos que as estratégias futuras de desenvolvimento considerem explicitamente i) a localização da barragem, com o objetivo de minimizar a formação de ilhas pequenas (<10 ha) e isoladas, ii) a manutenção dos níveis de água do reservatório durante as secas, para reduzir o risco de incêndio, e iii) a inclusão da área insular agregada no impacto ambiental e nos cálculos de compensação. Idealmente, recomendamos que alternativas ao desenvolvimento de energia hidrelétrica devam ser buscadas nas regiões tropicais de terras baixas, devido às elevadas perdas de biodiversidade e à ruptura dos ecossistemas causada pelo represamento do rio.

Classic evolutionary theory suggests that sexual dimorphism evolves primarily via sexual and fecundity selection. However, theory and evidence are beginning to accumulate suggesting that resource competition can drive the evolution of sexual dimorphism, via ecological character displacement between sexes. A key prediction of this hypothesis is that the extent of ecological divergence between sexes will be associated with the extent of sexual dimorphism. As the stable isotope ratios of animal tissues provide a quantitative measure of various aspects of ecology, we carried out a meta‐analysis examining associations between the extent of isotopic divergence between sexes and the extent of body size dimorphism. Our models demonstrate that large amounts of between‐study variation in isotopic (ecological) divergence between sexes is nonrandom and may be associated with the traits of study subjects. We, therefore, completed meta‐regressions to examine whether the extent of isotopic divergence between sexes is associated with the extent of sexual size dimorphism. We found modest but significantly positive associations across species between size dimorphism and ecological differences between sexes, that increased in strength when the ecological opportunity for dietary divergence between sexes was greatest. Our results, therefore, provide further evidence that ecologically mediated selection, not directly related to reproduction, can contribute to the evolution of sexual dimorphism. Theoretical and empirical work suggests that between‐sex competition for resources plays a role in the evolution of sexual dimorphism. We investigated this concept by analyzing cross‐species relationships between the extent of sexual dimorphism and published sex differences in tissue stable isotope values, which are a proxy of dietary differences. We found that sexual dimorphism is related to sex differences in trophic level, in directions and contexts consistent with those expected if resource competition is involved in the evolution of sexual dimorphism.

Habitat degradation through anthropogenic development is a key driver of biodiversity loss. One way to compensate losses is “biodiversity offsetting” (wherein biodiversity impacted is “replaced” through restoration elsewhere). A challenge in implementing offsets, which has received scant attention in the literature, is the accurate determination of residual biodiversity losses. We explore this challenge for offsetting gas extraction in the Ustyurt Plateau, Uzbekistan. Our goal was to determine the landscape extent of habitat impacts, particularly how the footprint of “linear” infrastructure (i.e. roads, pipelines), often disregarded in compensation calculations, compares with “hub” infrastructure (i.e. extraction facilities). We measured vegetation cover and plant species richness using the line‐intercept method, along transects running from infrastructure/control sites outward for 500 m, accounting for wind direction to identify dust deposition impacts. Findings from 24 transects were extrapolated to the broader plateau by mapping total landscape infrastructure network using GPS data and satellite imagery. Vegetation cover and species richness were significantly lower at development sites than controls. These differences disappeared within 25 m of the edge of the area physically occupied by infrastructure. The current habitat footprint of gas infrastructure is 220 ± 19 km2 across the Ustyurt (total ~ 100,000 km2), 37 ± 6% of which is linear infrastructure. Vegetation impacts diminish rapidly with increasing distance from infrastructure, and localized dust deposition does not conspicuously extend the disturbance footprint. Habitat losses from gas extraction infrastructure cover 0.2% of the study area, but this reflects directly eliminated vegetation only. Impacts upon fauna pose a more difficult determination, as these require accounting for behavioral and demographic responses to disturbance by elusive mammals, including threatened species. This study demonstrates that impacts of linear infrastructure in regions such as the Ustyurt should be accounted for not just with respect to development sites but also associated transportation and delivery routes. We measured the spatial impacts of natural gas infrastructure on the condition of vegetation in the Ustyurt plateau, Uzbekistan, to inform the design of biodiversity offset policy in the region. It was found that vegetation was only significantly impacted within the direct infrastructure footprint, where it was cleared entirely, and that scaled up this amounted to 220 ± 19 km2 of clearance across the plateau. This provides a partial basis for a biodiversity offset metric, but consideration should also be given to impacts of infrastructure upon fauna.

Models have become indispensable tools in conservation science in the face of increasingly rapid loss of biodiversity through anthropogenic habitat loss and natural resource exploitation. In addition to their ecological components, accurately representing human decision-making processes in such models is vital to maximise their utility. This can be problematic as modelling complexity increases, making them challenging to communicate and parameterise. Games have a long history of being used as science communication tools, but are less widely used as data collection tools, particularly in videogame form. We propose a novel approach to (1) aid communication of complex social-ecological models, and (2) \"gamesource\" human decision-making data, by explicitly casting an existing modelling framework as an interactive videogame. We present players with a natural resource management game as a front-end to a social-ecological modelling framework (Generalised Management Strategy Evaluation, GMSE). Players' actions replace a model algorithm making management decisions about a population of wild animals, which graze on crops and can thus lower agricultural yield. A number of non-player agents (farmers) respond through modelled algorithms to the player's management, taking actions that may affect their crop yield as well as the animal population. Players are asked to set their own management goal (e.g. maintain the animal population at a certain level or improve yield) and make decisions accordingly. Trial players were also asked to provide any feedback on both gameplay and purpose. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by collecting and analysing game play data from a sample of trial plays, in which we systematically vary two model parameters, and allowing trial players to interact with the model through the game interface. As an illustration, we show how variations in land ownership and the number of farmers in the system affects decision-making patterns as well as population trajectories (extinction probabilities). We discuss the potential and limitations of this model-game approach in the light of trial player feedback received. In particular, we highlight how a common concern about the game framework (perceived lack of \"realism\" or relevance to a specific context) are actually criticisms of the underlying model, as opposed to the game itself. This further highlights both the parallels between games and models, as well as the utility of model-games to aid in communicating complex models. We conclude that videogames may be an effective tool for conservation and natural resource management, and that although they provide a promising means to collect data on human decision-making, it is vital to carefully consider both external validity and potential biases when doing so. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

Expanding anthropogenic development within the tropical forest biome is driving the loss of an irreplaceable global resource. Mega-diverse tropical forests are vital for regulating the global carbon cycle, and are essential for climate change mitigation. Today, over half of the world’s remaining tropical forest is degraded or regenerating secondary forest. Tropical forests are becoming increasingly fragmented through the expansion of agriculture and roads. Landscape-scale flooding of terrestrial habitats caused by dam construction is an emerging driver of habitat loss and fragmentation. Much attention has been paid to the long-term impacts of tropical forest fragmentation for biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and carbon emissions. Most of our understanding of the impacts associated with habitat fragmentation originates from systems in which the habitat matrix surrounding remnant forest patches is another, albeit low quality, terrestrial habitat. However, dam-induced habitat fragmentation results in remnant terrestrial biological communities becoming isolated on islands within a water matrix. A water matrix presents the worst-case scenario for remnant habitat fragments. In Chapter 2 I synthesise the results of numerous studies reporting the responses of taxonomic groups to isolation on reservoir land-bridge islands, and uncover a globally-applicable pattern of extinction debt acting upon remnant biological communities on reservoir islands. All islands, regardless of taxonomic group, habitat type, or island area lose species as island isolation time increases. Moreover, I show that contrary to existing ecological theory, once terrestrial habitat becomes isolated within a water matrix, it is effectively too isolated for species losses to be buffered by metapopulation dynamics. Dam development is rapidly expanding in the largest remaining tract of intact tropical forest, the Amazon Basin. In Chapters 3 and 4 I study the Balbina mega-dam system in the central Brazilian Amazon. Here, I use detailed field inventories of trees and lianas on islands and in continuous mainland habitat to determine the impact of landscape-scale habitat fragmentation caused by reservoir creation on these taxonomic groups. I find that islands maintain tree communities at significantly lower densities, richness and diversity compared to continuous forest. Furthermore, tree communities on islands exhibit compositional divergence from those found in mainland continuous forest. Island tree assemblages are dominated by low-wood density species, and may be on a trajectory towards communities characteristic of early successional forests with reduced carbon storage capacity. In contrast, liana assemblages remain compositionally intact and are becoming increasingly dominant relative to trees. Thus, lianas appear robust to many of the negative impacts associated with landscape-scale habitat fragmentation. As insular tree communities continue to degrade through area- and edge-effects, lianas may become a key feature of this archipelagic landscape due to their competitive advantage over trees in disturbed forest habitats. Lianas significantly inhibit tree recruitment and carbon storage. Thus, findings from Chapters 3 and 4 provide strong evidence for additional, and currently unaccounted-for biodiversity and carbon impacts associated with tropical dams. As development of tropical forest regions increases, there is an urgent need to reconcile the need for resources with the need for ecosystem service provision, such as carbon storage, particularly as we attempt to mitigate the impacts of rising atmospheric carbon. Recent studies have shown that secondary tropical forests have the potential to rapidly uptake atmospheric carbon, and act as a powerful tool in climate change mitigation policy. Broad-scale estimates of secondary forest carbon uptake are currently based on above-ground biomass alone. In Chapter 5 I present carbon stock estimates of additional tropical forest carbon pools - soil and dead woody biomass - in secondary forests ranging from 40-120 years. I find that soil fertility (nitrogen concentration) is key in determining carbon storage in secondary forests, and that the stability of carbon stocks held in dead woody biomass increases with secondary forest stand age. I highlight the need to integrate detailed site-specific information into broad-scale predictive models of secondary tropical forest carbon sequestration. This thesis links ecological theory and landscape-scale field inventories, to provide new understanding of the long-term costs of tropical forest fragmentation for biodiversity conservation and carbon storage, and provides further evidence of the important role secondary tropical forests may play in carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation.