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Ecologists who specialize in translational ecology (TE) seek to link ecological knowledge to decision making by integrating ecological science with the full complement of social dimensions that underlie today's complex environmental issues. TE is motivated by a search for outcomes that directly serve the needs of natural resource managers and decision makers. This objective distinguishes it from both basic and applied ecological research and, as a practice, it deliberately extends research beyond theory or opportunistic applications. TE is uniquely positioned to address complex issues through interdisciplinary team approaches and integrated scientist-practitioner partnerships. The creativity and context-specific knowledge of resource managers, practitioners, and decision makers inform and enrich the scientific process and help shape use-driven, actionable science. Moreover, addressing research questions that arise from on-the-ground management issues - as opposed to the top-down or expert-oriented perspectives of traditional science - can foster the high levels of trust and commitment that are critical for long-term, sustained engagement between partners.

Translational ecology (TE) prioritizes the understanding of social systems and decision contexts in order to address complex natural resource management issues. Although many practitioners in applied fields employ translational tactics, the body of literature addressing such approaches is limited. We present several case studies illustrating the principles of TE and the diversity of its applications. We anticipate that these examples will help others develop scientific products that decision makers can use \"off the shelf\" when solving critical ecological and social challenges. Our collective experience suggests that research of such immediate utility is rare. Long-term commitment to working directly with partners to develop and reach shared goals is central to successful translation. The examples discussed here highlight the benefits of translational processes, including actionable scientific results, more informed policy making, increased investment in science-driven solutions, and inspiration for partnerships. We aim to facilitate future TE-based projects and build momentum for growing this community of practice.

Habitat loss is widely considered the greatest threat to biodiversity. However, habitat loss brings with it myriad other threats that exacerbate impacts to biodiversity. For instance, altered fire regime is associated with habitat loss and fragmentation with unknown consequences to biodiversity. Plant functional groups that rely on fire to complete their life cycle may be adversely affected by disruptions to the natural fire regime, particularly when coupled with population declines due to habitat loss. We used a spatially explicit stochastic population model linked with fire hazard functions to investigate the cumulative effects of habitat loss, fragmentation, and altered fire regime on the expected minimum abundance of a long-lived obligate-seeding shrub, Ceanothus greggii var. perplexans . This species is endemic to the California Floristic Province, a biodiversity hotspot, and is representative of a functional group of plants found in many fire-prone ecosystems. We tested the impact of a range of different fire frequencies under three different combinations of fuel accumulation and weather. The best average fire return interval for population abundance was consistently in the range of 30-50 years. However, observed average fire return intervals in highly fragmented areas can be approximately 20 years or less, and model results show this to be detrimental to C. greggii populations. Results also show that if fires are uncorrelated across habitat fragments then the impact of altered fire regime on populations is worse than the impact of habitat fragmentation because of spatial and temporal decoupling of fire events across the landscape. However, the negative impacts of altered fire regime are outweighed by habitat loss as fragmentation increases. Our results show that large unplanned fires, operating under an altered fire regime, are ultimately detrimental to perennial obligate-seeding shrubs in fragmented landscapes.

A species' response to climate change depends on the interaction of biotic and abiotic factors that define future habitat suitability and species' ability to migrate or adapt. The interactive effects of processes such as fire, dispersal, and predation have not been thoroughly addressed in the climate change literature. Our objective was to examine how life history traits, short-term global change perturbations, and long-term climate change interact to affect the likely persistence of an oak species--Quercus engelmannii (Engelmann oak). Specifically, we combined dynamic species distribution models, which predict suitable habitat, with stochastic, stage-based metapopulation models, which project population trajectories, to evaluate the effects of three global change factors--climate change, land use change, and altered fire frequency--emphasizing the roles of dispersal and seed predation. Our model predicted dramatic reduction in Q. engelmannii abundance, especially under drier climates and increased fire frequency. When masting lowers seed predation rates, decreased masting frequency leads to large abundance decreases. Current rates of dispersal are not likely to prevent these effects, although increased dispersal could mitigate population declines. The results suggest that habitat suitability predictions by themselves may under-estimate the impact of climate change for other species and locations.

San Clemente Island (SCI), located in the Southern California Bight, is owned and operated by the U.S. Navy and is home to endemic species, including federally threatened or endangered plants and birds. The SCI ecosystem is influenced by the presence of warm season low-level clouds that shade, cool and, especially when in the form of fog, moisten the environment. We created a new cloud and fog satellite-derived albedo product for SCI at a higher resolution than previous datasets. The record spans 23 summers (1996–2018, May - Sep). The spatial resolution is ∼1 km and the temporal resolution is half hourly (nominally 0600 to 1800 PST). Using Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-WEST visible band measurements, it was discovered that small (typically on the order of less than 5 km) geographical misalignment of the satellite images was common. The biological ramifications of such a shift could be significant. Thus, to provide a useful 1 km product for a narrow island such as SCI it was necessary to correct misalignments. Misalignment of albedo was easily apparent in clear sky images at the interface of land and water. This concept was used in the automated correction. The northwest coast of SCI is the cloudiest/foggiest area. June, on average, is the cloudiest month on SCI. The intra-day variability reaches ∼20% cloud albedo while interannual and monthly variability are ∼10%. To demonstrate the records’ utility in understanding ecological phenomena and patterns, we used the dataset to model plant distributions. We found monthly mean cloud albedo values, a proxy for cloud frequency and persistence, were among the most important environmental variables in understanding plant distributions. The vegetation models indicate locations with appropriate conditions, including clouds and fog during critical periods of the year, for particular vegetation types and thus, can inform restoration and management activities.

We assessed population performance of rare plants across a gradient from rural to urban landscapes and evaluated 2 hypotheses central to strategic conservation planning: (1) population performance declines with increasing human dominance and (2) small populations perform poorly relative to larger ones. Assessing these hypotheses is critical to strategic conservation planning. The current conservation paradigm adheres to the well-established ecology theory that small isolated populations, particularly those in human-dominated landscapes, are the least likely to succeed over the long term. Consequently, conservation planning has strongly favored large, remote targets for protection. This shift in conservation toward ecosystem-based programs and protection of populations within large, remote systems has been at the expense of protection of the rarest of the rare species, the dominant paradigm for conservation driven by the endangered species act. Yet, avoiding conservation of small populations appears to be based more on theoretical understanding and expert opinion than empiricism. We used Natural Heritage data from California in an assessment of population performance of rare plants across a landscape with an urban-rural gradient. Population performance did not decrease in urban settings or for populations that were initially small. Our results are consistent with a pattern of few species extinctions within these landscapes over the past several decades. We conclude that these populations within compromised landscapes can contribute to overall biodiversity conservation. We further argue that conservation planning for biodiversity preservation should allocate relatively more resources to protecting urban-associated plant taxa because they may provide conservation benefit beyond simply protecting isolated populations; they may be useful in building social interest in conservation. /// Evaluamos el funcionamiento de la población de plantas raras a lo largo de un gradiente de paisajes rurales a urbanos y evaluamos 2 hipótesis centrales para la planificación estratégica de la conservación: (1) declinaciones en el funcionamiento poblacional con el incremento de la dominancia humana y (2) las poblaciones pequeñas funcionan pobremente en relación con las grandes. La evaluación de estas hipótesis es crítica para la planificación estratégica de la conservación. El paradigma actual de la conservación se adhiere a la teoría ecológica bien establecida que propone que las poblaciones pequeñas aisladas, particularmente en paisajes dominados por humanos, tienen menor probabilidad de sobrevivir a largo plazo. Consecuentemente, la planificación de la conservación ha favorecido objetivos grandes y remotos. Este cambio hacia programas de conservación basados en ecosistemas y la protección de poblaciones en sistemas extensos y remotos ha sido a costa de la protección de las especies más raras entre las raras, el paradigma dominante en la conservación conducida por el acta de especies en peligro. No obstante, la evasión de la conservación de poblaciones pequeñas parece estar basada más en entendimiento teórico y en la opinión de expertos que en el empirismo. Utilizamos datos del Patrimonio Natural de California en una evaluación del funcionamiento de plantas raras en un paisaje con un gradiente urbano a rural. El funcionamiento de la población no decreció en sitios urbanos o en poblaciones que eran pequeñas inicialmente. Nuestros resultados son consistentes con un patrón de extinción de especies en estos paisajes en las últimas décadas. Concluimos que estas poblaciones en paisajes comprometidos pueden contribuir a la conservación de la biodiversidad en general. También argumentamos que la planificación de la conservación para la preservación de la biodiversidad debería asignar más recursos para la protección de taxa de plantas asociadas a ambientes urbanos porque pueden proporcionar beneficios de conservación más allá de simplemente proteger poblaciones aisladas; pueden ser útiles para construir el interés social por la conservación.

Shrublands in Mediterranean‐type ecosystems worldwide support important ecosystem services including high levels of biodiversity and are threatened by multiple factors in heavily used landscapes. Use, conservation, and management of these landscapes involve diverse stakeholders, making decision processes complex. To be effective, management and land use decisions should be informed by current information on ecosystem quality and resilience. However, obtaining this information is often a challenge due to the extent of landscapes involved. Here we present a conceptual integrity monitoring framework based on simple easily observable ecosystem components readily understood by nonspecialists. Community integrity is defined by plant functional group based on relative proportion of shrubs and nonnative annual grasses. The ability to use these straightforward metrics results from four factors: relatively good alignment of characteristic bird, mammal, and insect communities with shrub cover, positive feedback between annual grasses and short fire intervals, the inhibitory effect of annual grasses on shrub seedling establishment, and similar functional group response to different disturbances. Two additional metrics, indicator species and shrub species diversity, capture subtle yet persistent signatures of disturbance on integrity not reflected in functional group composition. The framework is designed to: categorize habitats into ecosystem integrity classes, forecast likely integrity class changes caused by threats and environmental conditions, and provide a simple reporting mechanism that can be overlain with data on conservation status and vulnerabilities. The proposed framework includes a pilot phase to validate empirical relationships, thresholds, and sampling efficiency. The accessibility of these metrics to nonspecialists is anticipated to enhance communication among stakeholders and thus facilitate problem solving. Leveraging monitoring and mapping programs driven by other needs (e.g., species conservation and fire management) affords meaningful opportunities to offset program costs.

Microbial communities are integral for ecosystem processes and their taxonomic composition and function may be altered by a disturbance such as fire. Biocrusts are composed of macroscopic and microscopic organisms and are important for a variety of ecosystem functions, such as nutrient cycling and erosion control. We sought to understand if biocrust community composition and function were altered 1 year after a prescribed fire and 6 years after a wildfire in a coastal California grassland on San Clemente Island. We used shotgun metagenomic sequencing and measurements of chlorophyll content, exopolysaccharide production related to soil stability, and nitrogen fixation. There were no differences in the community composition between unburned samples and the samples burned in the prescribed fire and wildfire. Chlorophyll content differed between the prescribed fire and the controls; however, there were no measured differences in exopolysaccharide production, and nitrogen fixation. However, the wildfire and their respective unburned samples had different functions based on the gene annotations. We compiled one Actinobacteria metagenome-assembled genome from the shotgun sequences which had genes for oxidative and heat stress tolerance. These results suggest that the biocrust community can reach a community composition and function similar to the unburned biocrusts within a year after a prescribed burn and 6 years after a wildfire. However, legacy effects of the wildfire may present themselves in the differences between functional gene sequences. Due to their ability to match the undisturbed community composition and function within years and without intervention, future restoration work should consider the biocrusts in their restoration plans as they may provide valuable ecosystem functions after a disturbance.

Prescribed fires are often used as a management tool in grasslands to promote the growth of desired plant species. These fires also impact other ecological communities where they occur. One ecological community that is often overlooked regarding fire is biological soil crusts (biocrusts). Biocrusts contain an assemblage of cyanobacteria, lichens, and bryophytes living on the soil surface and are important for nutrient cycling and soil stability. Here, we used prescribed burns in a California coastal grassland on San Clemente Island (SCI) to understand how fire impacts biocrust cover. Two sites were burned in a prescribed fire in 2012 and then again in 2017, and one site was burned in a wildfire in 2012 and a prescribed fire in 2017. We compared the percent cover of biocrusts in the burned and unburned plots in 2018 and 2019. However, precipitation differed drastically between sampling years; therefore, we also assessed the role of precipitation in moderating biocrust cover in the burned and unburned plots. In 2018 and 2019, one and two years after the last prescribed fire, the burned plots had more cyanobacterial biocrust cover than the controls. Annual precipitation had a negative effect on cyanobacterial biocrust cover, though lichen- and bryophyte-dominated biocrusts increased with increasing precipitation. The abundance of cyanobacterial biocrusts in the burned plots suggests either a level of recovery after the fire or the ability of biocrusts to withstand a grassland fire, though the effect is mediated by precipitation. La quema prescrita se utiliza a menudo como una herramienta de gestión de pastizales para promover el crecimiento de las especies de plantas deseadas, pese a que estos incendios también tienen un impacto en otras comunidades ecológicas. Una comunidad ecológica que a menudo se pasa por alto con respecto a la quema son las costras biológicas del suelo (biocostras). Las biocostras contienen un conjunto de cianobacterias, líquenes y briófitas que viven en la superficie del suelo y son importantes para el ciclo de nutrientes y la estabilidad del suelo. Llevamos a cabo quemas prescritas en un pastizal costero de la isla de San Clemente (SCI) en California para comprender cómo el fuego afecta la cubierta de biocostra. Se quemaron dos sitios en un incendio prescrito en 2012 y luego nuevamente en 2017, uno de los sitios se quemó en un incendio forestal en 2012 y posteriormente un incendio prescrito en 2017. Comparamos el porcentaje de cobertura de biocostras en las parcelas quemadas y no quemadas en 2018 y 2019. Sin embargo, la precipitación difirió drásticamente entre los años de muestreo; por lo tanto, también evaluamos el papel de la precipitación en el crecimiento de la cobertura de biocostras en las parcelas quemadas y no quemadas. En 2018 y 2019, uno y dos años después de la última quema prescrita, las parcelas quemadas tenían mayor cobertura de biocostras de cianobacterias que la de los controles. La precipitación anual tuvo un efecto negativo en la cubierta de biocostras de cianobacterias, aunque las biocostras dominadas por líquenes y briófitas aumentaron con la precipitación. La abundancia de biocostras de cianobacterias en las parcelas quemadas sugiere un nivel de recuperación después del fuego o la capacidad de las biocostras para resistir un incendio de pastizales, no obstante, dicho efecto depende de la precipitación.

Africa and the Caribbean are projected to have greater increases in Head and neck cancer (HNC) burden in comparison to North America and Europe. The knowledge needed to reinforce prevention in these populations is limited. We compared for the first time, incidence rates of HNC in black populations from African, the Caribbean and USA. Annual age-standardized incidence rates (IR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) per 100,000 were calculated for 2013–2015 using population-based cancer registry data for 14,911 HNC cases from the Caribbean (Barbados, Guadeloupe, Trinidad & Tobago, N = 443), Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, N = 772) and the United States (SEER, Florida, N = 13,696). We compared rates by sub-sites and sex among countries using data from registries with high quality and completeness. In 2013–2015, compared to other countries, HNC incidence was highest among SEER states (IR: 18.2, 95%CI = 17.6–18.8) among men, and highest in Kenya (IR: 7.5, 95%CI = 6.3–8.7) among women. Nasopharyngeal cancer IR was higher in Kenya for men (IR: 3.1, 95%CI = 2.5–3.7) and women (IR: 1.5, 95%CI = 1.0–1.9). Female oral cavity cancer was also notably higher in Kenya (IR = 3.9, 95%CI = 3.0–4.9). Blacks from SEER states had higher incidence of laryngeal cancer (IR: 5.5, 95%CI = 5.2–5.8) compared to other countries and even Florida blacks (IR: 4.4, 95%CI = 3.9–5.0). We found heterogeneity in IRs for HNC among these diverse black populations; notably, Kenya which had distinctively higher incidence of nasopharyngeal and female oral cavity cancer. Targeted etiological investigations are warranted considering the low consumption of tobacco and alcohol among Kenyan women. Overall, our findings suggest that behavioral and environmental factors are more important determinants of HNC than race. [Display omitted] •First comparison of HN Cancer incidence between blacks from USA, Caribbean and Africa.•USA and Guadeloupe males had the highest incidence rates.•Incidence of female oral cavity cancer is high in Kenya.•The sex ratio for HN cancer was smaller for Africa than the Caribbean and the USA.