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"Ecosystem conservation"
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Optimizing Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) Intervention Treatments on Montastraea cavernosa in an Endemic Zone
Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has persisted since 2014 in the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Ecosystem Conservation Area (Coral ECA) where it was first discovered. Most of the highly susceptible corals have perished, leaving Montastraea cavernosa as the most abundant reef-building species with high SCTLD prevalence. Disease interventions (DI) have been conducted throughout Florida’s Coral Reef to save the remaining corals and reduce the disease prevalence with varying degrees of success. The two main treatments were chlorinated (Chl) epoxy and an antibiotic paste. The antibiotic paste was highly effective in the Florida Keys, but its effectiveness in the Coral ECA was questionable. Therefore, we compared the effectiveness of the antibiotic paste and Chl epoxy treatments on M. cavernosa to optimize DI efforts on this species in the Coral ECA. Significant differences were found between the treatment materials and applications related to the proportion of quiesced lesions and corals where antibiotic paste (91.2% success) outperformed Chl epoxy (20% success). By day 351, 50.6% of the antibiotic paste disease-break tissue was fully healed compared to 2.2% of the total Chl epoxy-filled disease-break area. During the study, new lesions occurred on previously treated colonies, as well as colonies not previously treated and new lesion rates varied through time, indicating revisitation is necessary to eliminate disease. Most margin treatments failed within the first 9 days, however, most disease-breaks failed before 44 days. Considering the high treatment success of the antibiotic paste and the conditional variation of new lesion rates, about 1 month is a good practical re-visitation time for retreating failures and any new lesions. DI using antibiotic paste is currently the most effective way to intervene the SCTLD epidemic, but this is only effective as a stopgap measure while the larger causative agents are identified and remediated. Conducting DI at a reef-scape scale is time consuming and requires extensive person-power and resources, making it very expensive. But this expense pales in comparison to the current cost to restore the diversity and live tissue saved with DI. This method also comes with the risk of introducing antibiotics into coral reef environments, which may have unintended outcomes.
Journal Article
Ecological drivers shaping mainstem and tributary fish communities in the upper Jinsha River, southeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
Background
Elucidating spatial variation in ecological communities and the mechanisms of community assembly is crucial for biodiversity conservation in river ecosystems. The upper Jinsha River located in the eastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is experiencing intensified human activities, such as hydropower development. In this study, fish surveys were conducted at 38 sites, including 15 mainstem sites and 23 tributary sites of the upper Jinsha River, China, to analyze the spatial patterns and ecological drivers of fish communities.
Results
NMDS and PERMANOVA analysis revealed significant disparities in the fish communities between the mainstem and tributaries.
Schizothorax dolichonema
and
Schizopygopsis malacanthus
dominated the mainstem, whereas
Schizopygopsis malacanthus
,
Schizothorax wangchiachii
, and
Triplophysa stenura
dominated the tributaries. Fish beta diversity exhibited substantial turnover across the mainstem, tributaries, and entire river basin. Both environmental factors (e.g., altitude and the proportion of cobble substrate) and spatial variables were significantly correlated with fish beta diversity, but their relative importance differed between the mainstem and tributaries. Specifically, in the mainstem, environmental variables emerged as the primary drivers. In contrast, spatial factors assumed a predominant role in the tributary communities.
Conclusions
The results suggested that environmental filtering predominantly drove fish community assembly in the mainstem, whereas dispersal limitation exerted had a greater influence on the fish communities in the tributaries. These results contribute to our understanding of the spatial patterns and formation mechanisms of fish assemblages between mainstem and tributaries in high-altitude rivers, such as the upper Jinsha River. In the context of hydropower development in the upper Jinsha River, our findings offer insights into the management and conservation of fish diversity.
Journal Article
Business, Ecosystems, and Biodiversity
Whether to secure critical resource inputs or responding to demands ranging from local communities to international stakeholders, leading multinational companies increasingly engage in ecosystem management by developing operations models with biodiversity, ecosystem conservation, and ecosystem restoration in mind—often in partnership with international conservation organizations. While promising to infuse business strategy with knowledge from natural science, specifically ecology, the emerging practice appears well ahead of research in this area. This article aims to encourage research into how organizations can manage their relationship with the natural environment so as not to destroy the very life-supporting foundations provided by nature. Bridging knowledge domains, the article introduces key concepts from ecology and social ecology to organization and management studies—ecosystems, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and ecological resilience. We illustrate these concepts with advances in ecosystems management and conclude with suggestions for future research in sustainability management, organization theory, and strategic management.
Journal Article
A Review of Biological Monitoring of Aquatic Ecosystems Approaches: with Special Reference to Macroinvertebrates and Pesticide Pollution
Biological monitoring is the evaluating changes in the environment using the biological responses with the intent of using such information in quality control of the ecosystem. Biomarkers and bioindicators are two main components of the hierarchy of biomonitoring process. Bioindicators can be used to monitor changes of ecosystems and to distinguish alteration of human impact from natural variability. There is a wide range of aquatic taxa such as macroinvertebrates, fish and periphyton, planktons which are successfully used in the biomonitoring process. Among them, macroinvertebrates are an important group of aquatic organisms that involves transferring energy and material through the trophic levels of the aquatic food chain and their sensitivity to environmental changes differs among the species. The main approaches of assessing freshwater ecosystems health using macroinvertebrates include measurement of diversity indices, biotic indices, multimetric approaches, multivariate approaches, Indices of Biological Integrity (IBI), and trait-based approaches. Among these, biotic indices and multimetric approaches are commonly used to evaluate the pesticide impacts on aquatic systems. Recently developed trait-based approaches such as SPEcies At Risk of pesticides (SPEAR) index was successfully applied in temperate regions to monitor the events of pesticide pollution of aquatic ecosystems but with limited use in tropics. This paper reviews the literature on different approaches of biomonitoring of the aquatic environment giving special reference to macroinvertebrates. It also reviews the literature on how biomonitoring could be used to monitor pesticide pollution of the aquatic environment. Thus the review aims to instil the importance of current approaches of biomonitoring for the conservation and management of aquatic ecosystems especially in the regions of the world where such knowledge has not been integrated in ecosystem conservation approaches.
Journal Article