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Support for political violence by fundamentalist religious movements is both wide-spread and problematic, and now especially in Christian fundamentalist circles. To address this, this essay describes important components of the sophisticated ascetic and contemplative theory of spirituality of the fourth-century desert Christian spiritual master Evagrius of Pontus. Then, based on his theory, this essay offers guidance to modern-day Christian and non-Christian clergy who want to avoid alienating their congregations through partisan political stances, but who nevertheless seek to reduce those mental, emotional, and relational pathologies in their congregations which predispose passive and active support for political violence.

Passive acoustic sensing has emerged as a powerful tool for quantifying anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity, especially for echolocating bat species. To better assess bat population trends there is a critical need for accurate, reliable, and open source tools that allow the detection and classification of bat calls in large collections of audio recordings. The majority of existing tools are commercial or have focused on the species classification task, neglecting the important problem of first localizing echolocation calls in audio which is particularly problematic in noisy recordings. We developed a convolutional neural network based open-source pipeline for detecting ultrasonic, full-spectrum, search-phase calls produced by echolocating bats. Our deep learning algorithms were trained on full-spectrum ultrasonic audio collected along road-transects across Europe and labelled by citizen scientists from www.batdetective.org. When compared to other existing algorithms and commercial systems, we show significantly higher detection performance of search-phase echolocation calls with our test sets. As an example application, we ran our detection pipeline on bat monitoring data collected over five years from Jersey (UK), and compared results to a widely-used commercial system. Our detection pipeline can be used for the automatic detection and monitoring of bat populations, and further facilitates their use as indicator species on a large scale. Our proposed pipeline makes only a small number of bat specific design decisions, and with appropriate training data it could be applied to detecting other species in audio. A crucial novelty of our work is showing that with careful, non-trivial, design and implementation considerations, state-of-the-art deep learning methods can be used for accurate and efficient monitoring in audio.

Crocodylians are highly vocal reptiles, possessing a complex acoustic signalling system including vocal and non‐vocal signals used for courtship, mating, mediating conflict, and providing maternal care. Despite this, research on crocodylian acoustic signalling remains infrequent, with methodologies and terminology varying widely across studies. Here, we systematically review the literature and standardise crocodylian acoustic signal descriptions, measurements, and terminology to establish a consistent foundation for future research. The compiled dataset included 22 publications, with 623 acoustic signalling observations and 53 distinct parameters measured across various species, life stages, and contexts. The American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) was the most frequently studied species and distress calls the most commonly recorded signal type. Significant variation existed in parameters measured across studies, with dominant frequency, call duration, and fundamental frequency the most common. We synthesised acoustic parameters from available publications into comparable values and units, and provide these as a centralised database along with a standardised ethogram including representative spectrograms, and a glossary of commonly used terms facilitating clearer cross‐species comparisons. Significant foundational level data gaps were identified with many species lacking defined repertoires, and notably, underwater acoustic signalling was rarely incorporated. We recommend shifting future research focus from distress calls to include a wider range of spontaneously produced acoustic signals, by individuals of known sex and life stage. The inclusion of a broader set of underrepresented acoustic parameters will also enable better cross‐species comparisons, and identification of encoding in crocodylian acoustic signals. We further promote the reanalysis of existing data incorporating these key parameters, along with increased collaborative efforts, to add valuable insights informing conservation without requiring additional fieldwork. Such strategies will support future research into crocodylian acoustic communication and guide the development of more effective monitoring techniques such as passive acoustic monitoring and machine learning as tools for conservation and management of crocodylians. Crocodylians are highly vocal reptiles, possessing a complex acoustic signalling system including vocal and non‐vocal signals used for courtship, mating, mediating conflict, and providing maternal care. Despite this, research on crocodylian acoustic signalling remains infrequent, with methodologies and terminology varying widely across studies. Here, we systematically review the literature and standardise crocodylian acoustic signal descriptions, measurements, and terminology to establish a consistent foundation for future research. Photo credit: Mr. David White.

1. Acoustic methods are used increasingly to survey and monitor bat populations. However, the use of acoustic methods at continental scales can be hampered by the lack of standardized and objective methods to identify all species recorded. This makes comparable continent-wide monitoring difficult, impeding progress towards developing biodiversity indicators, transboundary conservation programmes and monitoring species distribution changes. 2. Here we developed a continental-scale classifier for acoustic identification of bats, which can be used throughout Europe to ensure objective, consistent and comparable species identifications. We selected 1350 full-spectrum reference calls from a set of 15 858 calls of 34 European species, from EchoBank, a global echolocation call library. We assessed 24 call parameters to evaluate how well they distinguish between species and used the 12 most useful to train a hierarchy of ensembles of artificial neural networks to distinguish the echolocation calls of these bat species. 3. Calls are first classified to one of five call-type groups, with a median accuracy of 97·6%. The median species-level classification accuracy is 83·7%, providing robust classification for most European species, and an estimate of classification error for each species. 4. These classifiers were packaged into an online tool, iBatsID, which is freely available, enabling anyone to classify European calls in an objective and consistent way, allowing standardized acoustic identification across the continent. 5. Synthesis and applications. iBatsID is the first freely available and easily accessible continental-scale bat call classifier, providing the basis for standardized, continental acoustic bat monitoring in Europe. This method can provide key information to managers and conservation planners on distribution changes and changes in bat species activity through time.

Three families of probe-foraging birds, Scolopacidae (sandpipers and snipes), Apterygidae (kiwi), and Threskiornithidae (ibises, including spoonbills) have independently evolved long, narrow bills containing clusters of vibration-sensitive mechanoreceptors (Herbst corpuscles) within pits in the bill-tip. These 'bill-tip organs' allow birds to detect buried or submerged prey via substrate-borne vibrations and/or interstitial pressure gradients. Shorebirds, kiwi and ibises are only distantly related, with the phylogenetic divide between kiwi and the other two taxa being particularly deep. We compared the bill-tip structure and associated somatosensory regions in the brains of kiwi and shorebirds to understand the degree of convergence of these systems between the two taxa. For comparison, we also included data from other taxa including waterfowl (Anatidae) and parrots (Psittaculidae and Cacatuidae), non-apterygid ratites, and other probe-foraging and non probe-foraging birds including non-scolopacid shorebirds (Charadriidae, Haematopodidae, Recurvirostridae and Sternidae). We show that the bill-tip organ structure was broadly similar between the Apterygidae and Scolopacidae, however some inter-specific variation was found in the number, shape and orientation of sensory pits between the two groups. Kiwi, scolopacid shorebirds, waterfowl and parrots all shared hypertrophy or near-hypertrophy of the principal sensory trigeminal nucleus. Hypertrophy of the nucleus basorostralis, however, occurred only in waterfowl, kiwi, three of the scolopacid species examined and a species of oystercatcher (Charadriiformes: Haematopodidae). Hypertrophy of the principal sensory trigeminal nucleus in kiwi, Scolopacidae, and other tactile specialists appears to have co-evolved alongside bill-tip specializations, whereas hypertrophy of nucleus basorostralis may be influenced to a greater extent by other sensory inputs. We suggest that similarities between kiwi and scolopacid bill-tip organs and associated somatosensory brain regions are likely a result of similar ecological selective pressures, with inter-specific variations reflecting finer-scale niche differentiation.

We investigated effects of roost loss due to clear-fell harvest on bat home range. The study took place in plantation forest, inhabited by the New Zealand long-tailed bat (Chalinolobus tuberculatus), in which trees are harvested between the ages 26-32 years. We determined home ranges by radiotracking different bats in areas that had and had not been recently clear-fell harvested. Home ranges were smaller in areas that had been harvested. Adult male bats selected 20-25 year old stands within home ranges before and after harvest. Males selected edges with open unplanted areas when harvest had not occurred but no longer selected these at proportions greater than their availability post harvest, probably because they were then readily available. This is the first radiotracking study to demonstrate a change in home range size and selection concomitant with felling of large areas of plantation forest, and thus quantify negative effects of forestry operations on this speciose group. The use of smaller home ranges post-harvest may reflect smaller colony sizes and lower roost availability, both of which may increase isolation of colonies and vulnerability to local extinction.

This research investigates the extent and causal mechanisms of genetic population divergence in a poorly flighted passerine, the North Island Rifleman or Titipounamu (Acanthisitta chloris granti). While this species has a historically widespread distribution, anthropogenic forest clearance has resulted in a highly fragmented current distribution. We conducted analyses of mitochondrial DNA (COI and Control Region) and 12 nuclear DNA microsatellites to test for population divergence and estimate times of divergence. DiyAbc and BioGeoBears were then used to assess likely past dispersal scenarios based on both mtDNA and nDNA. The results reveal several significantly divergent lineages across the North Island of New Zealand and indicate that some populations have been isolated for extensive periods of time (0.7–4.9 mya). Modeling indicated a dynamic history of population connectivity, with a drastic restriction in gene flow between three geographic regions, followed by a more recent re‐establishment of connectivity. Our analyses indicate the dynamic influence of key geological and climatological events on the distribution of genetic diversity in this species, including support for the genetic impact of old biogeographic boundaries such as the Taupo Line and Cockayne's Line, rather than recent anthropogenic habitat fragmentation. These findings present a rare example of an avian species with a genetic history more like that of flightless taxa and so provide new general insights into vicariant processes affecting populations of passerines with limited dispersal. This research uncovers significant genetic divergence between populations of a basal passerine with restricted dispersal potential, New Zealand's North Island Rifleman. These results demonstrate the impact of ancient biogeographic events on the distribution of this species and present a rare example of an avian species with a genetic history more like that of flightless taxa. This work provides new insights into vicariant processes affecting populations of passerines with limited dispersal more broadly.

Background: In vision, there is a trade-off between sensitivity and resolution, and any eye which maximises information gain at low light levels needs to be large. This imposes exacting constraints upon vision in nocturnal flying birds. Eyes are essentially heavy, fluid-filled chambers, and in flying birds their increased size is countered by selection for both reduced body mass and the distribution of mass towards the body core. Freed from these mass constraints, it would be predicted that in flightless birds nocturnality should favour the evolution of large eyes and reliance upon visual cues for the guidance of activity. Methodology/Principal Findings: We show that in Kiwi (Apterygidae), flightlessness and nocturnality have, in fact, resulted in the opposite outcome. Kiwi show minimal reliance upon vision indicated by eye structure, visual field topography, and brain structures, and increased reliance upon tactile and olfactory information. Conclusions/Significance: This lack of reliance upon vision and increased reliance upon tactile and olfactory information in Kiwi is markedly similar to the situation in nocturnal mammals that exploit the forest floor. That Kiwi and mammals evolved to exploit these habitats quite independently provides evidence for convergent evolution in their sensory capacities that are tuned to a common set of perceptual challenges found in forest floor habitats at night and which cannot be met by the vertebrate visual system. We propose that the Kiwi visual system has undergone adaptive regressive evolution driven by the trade-off between the relatively low rate of gain of visual information that is possible at low light levels, and the metabolic costs of extracting that information.

Exploits known correlations between morphology and physiology in the avian inner ear and brainstem to predict the frequency range of best hearing in the North Island brown kiwi. Looks at how such evidence may be an adaptation to a nocturnal lifestyle in which auditory communication plays a dominant role. Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.

Efforts to create sustainable cities and urban climate-resilience depend on understanding how wildlife use the urban matrix to guide urban planning and design. Urban environments combine natural elements like topography and waterways, with various intensities of urban development. These combinations shape the spatial environment of cities and influence the diversity and persistence of urban wildlife. Insectivorous bats occur in urban areas, with urban tolerant species correlated with greater mobility and flexible roosting strategies, such as trawling bats. To understand how trawling bats use urban space, we studied patterns of land use selection in an urban population of a trawling bat, the large-footed myotis (Myotis macropus) in a subtropical city. We quantified fine-scale space use using radio telemetry over two seasons using land use categories applied in urban planning and design. Bats used urban land use types in a non-random manner, displaying a preference for green and blue space associated with the recreation land use type at both the landscape and home range scale. Tracked bats used waterways and riparian areas, as well as parkland, sportsgrounds and other green space adjacent to waterways. Trawling bats are dependent on riparian habitats, and these complex habitats are particularly vulnerable to changes to the availability of water resources associated with climate change. Maintaining spatial heterogeneity in urban planning and design by retaining and providing green space along, and adjacent to waterways, will provide a landscape mosaic for urban trawling bats to persist, facilitating climate change resilience in a specialist urban species.