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USGS2017

Conservation, biodiversity and infectious disease: scientific evidence and policy implications

Habitat destruction and infectious disease are dual threats to nature and people. The potential to simultaneously advance conservation and human health has attracted considerable scientific and popular interest; in particular, many authors have justified conservation action by pointing out potential public health benefits . One major focus of this debate—that biodiversity conservation often decreases infectious disease transmission via the dilution effect—remains contentious. Studies that test for a dilution effect often find a negative association between a diversity metric and a disease risk metric, but how such associations should inform conservation policy remains unclear for several reasons. For one, diversity and infection risk have many definitions, making it possible to identify measures that conform to expectations. Furthermore, the premise that habitat destruction consistently reduces biodiversity is in question, and disturbance or conservation can affect disease in many ways other than through biodiversity change. To date, few studies have examined the broader set of mechanisms by which anthropogenic disturbance or conservation might increase or decrease infectious disease risk to human populations. Due to interconnections between biodiversity change, economics and human behaviour, moving from ecological theory to policy action requires understanding how social and economic factors affect conservation. This Theme Issue arose from a meeting aimed at synthesizing current theory and data on ‘biodiversity, conservation and infectious disease’ (4–6 May 2015). Ecologists, evolutionary biologists, economists, epidemiologists, veterinary scientists, public health professionals, and conservation biologists from around the world discussed the latest research on the ecological and socio-economic links between conservation, biodiversity and infectious disease, and the open questions and controversies in these areas. By combining ecological understanding with insights from the social and economic sciences, the papers in this Theme Issue address the complex relationships, patterns and ecological mechanisms that influence conservation, infectious disease, and the policy options available to protect nature and human health.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B:↗
USGS2021

Disease or drought: Environmental fluctuations release zebra from a potential pathogen-triggered ecological trap

When a transmission hotspot for an environmentally persistent pathogen establishes in otherwise high-quality habitat, the disease may exert a strong impact on a host population. However, fluctuating environmental conditions lead to heterogeneity in habitat quality and animal habitat preference, which may interrupt the overlap between selected and risky habitats. We evaluated spatio-temporal patterns in anthrax mortalities in a plains zebra ( Equus quagga ) population in Etosha National Park, Namibia, incorporating remote-sensing and host telemetry data. A higher proportion of anthrax mortalities of herbivores was detected in open habitats than in other habitat types. Resource selection functions showed that the zebra population shifted habitat selection in response to changes in rainfall and vegetation productivity. Average to high rainfall years supported larger anthrax outbreaks, with animals congregating in preferred open habitats, while a severe drought forced animals into otherwise less preferred habitats, leading to few anthrax mortalities. Thus, the timing of anthrax outbreaks was congruent with preference for open plains habitats and a corresponding increase in pathogen exposure. Given shifts in habitat preference, the overlap in high-quality habitat and high-risk habitat is intermittent, reducing the adverse consequences for the population.

Etosha National Park↗
USGS2015

Sixth International Limnogeology Congress: field trip guidebook, Reno, Nevada, June 15-19, 2015

Limnogeology is the study of modern lakes and lake deposits in the geologic record. Limnogeologists have been active since the 1800s, but interest in Limnogeology became prevalent in the early 1990s when it became clear that lake deposits contain continental environmental and climate records. A society that is focused on Limnogeology would allow greater communication and access to research on these important subjects and contribute to providing sound science used to understand rapid global changes in our modern world; thus the International Association of Limnogeology was founded in 1995 at the first International Limnogeology Congress (ILIC) held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Sixth International Limnogeology Congress (ILIC6) was held in Reno, Nevada, from June 15–19, 2015. The ILIC meetings have been held every 4 years since the first meeting in1995 and were subsequently convened in Brest, France (1999), Tucson, USA (2003), Barcelona, Spain (2007), and Konstanz, Germany (2011). The Congress in Reno, USA marks the second time the Congress has been held in the United States and more than 150 scientists from every part of the world participated. As part of the Congress, ILIC6 included pre- and post- Congress field trips, the descriptions of which are included as separate trips in this Open-File Report. Trip 1 provides information on the pluvial and post-glacial Lakes of the eastern Great Basin, led by Paul Jewell, University of Utah, Ben Laabs, State University of New York-Geneseo, Jeff Munroe, Middlebury College, and Jack Oviatt, Kansas State University. Trip 2 contains information on the lake sequences of closed-basin lakes in the Eocene Green River Formation in Wyoming, led by Michael Smith, Northern Arizona University and Jennifer Scott, Mount Royal University. Trip 3 provides the background for the field trip to Pleistocene and modern lakes in the Great Basin of North America that was led by Susan Zimmerman, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Ken Adams, Desert Research Institute, and Michael Rosen, U.S. Geological Survey. Trip 4 contains the information for a trip to the modern lakes in Lassen National Park that was led by Paula Noble and Kerry Howard, both from the University of Nevada, Reno. The U.S. Geological Survey has sponsored each ILIC that has been held in the United States because of the importance of understanding paleoclimate and contaminant histories of lakes, two main themes of the Congress. This field trip guide provides a permanent record of some of the wide variety of studies that are being conducted in modern lakes and ancient lake deposits in western North America, and it provides a starting point for any one desiring to visit these exceptional sites or begin work in these areas.

California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming↗
USGS2015

Marine foraging ecology influences mercury bioaccumulation in deep-diving northern elephant seals

Mercury contamination of oceans is prevalent worldwide and methylmercury concentrations in the mesopelagic zone (200–1000 m) are increasing more rapidly than in surface waters. Yet mercury bioaccumulation in mesopelagic predators has been understudied. Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) biannually travel thousands of kilometres to forage within coastal and open-ocean regions of the northeast Pacific Ocean. We coupled satellite telemetry, diving behaviour and stable isotopes (carbon and nitrogen) from 77 adult females, and showed that variability among individuals in foraging location, diving depth and δ 13 C values were correlated with mercury concentrations in blood and muscle. We identified three clusters of foraging strategies, and these resulted in substantially different mercury concentrations: (i) deeper-diving and offshore-foraging seals had the greatest mercury concentrations, (ii) shallower-diving and offshore-foraging seals had intermediate levels, and (iii) coastal and more northerly foraging seals had the lowest mercury concentrations. Additionally, mercury concentrations were lower at the end of the seven-month-long foraging trip (n = 31) than after the two-month- long post-breeding trip (n = 46). Our results indicate that foraging behaviour influences mercury exposure and mesopelagic predators foraging in the northeast Pacific Ocean may be at high risk for mercury bioaccumulation.

California↗
USGS2011

Relationships between silicic plutonism and volcanism: Geochemical evidence

Field associations (voluminous ash flow deposits, rhyolitic stocks and dykes, ring complexes), evidence of repeated influxes of mafic magma, and thermal constraints indicate that many high-level silicic plutons (magma chambers) acted as open systems for considerable parts of their history. The long thermal lifetime, as well as other evidence from the volcanic record, suggests that some such systems reached a quasi-steady state in which magma input was balanced by magma output for times longer than those required for crystallisation. Reconstruction of the evolution of large, long-lived caldera-forming systems, such as that of the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, indicates that many chambers have lost a highly fractionated silicic cap, in some cases cyclically. Crystallised plutons may contain no obvious record of this evolutionary phase. Geochemical data from silicic ash flow deposits can be used to reconstruct the volcanic stage of pluton development. Many silicic systems, especially of alkaline affinity, apparently pass from a stage in which melt evolution is dominated by crystal-liquid processes to one in which other processes may also contribute to differentiation. Apparently, the transition is most readily achieved in volatile-rich, alkaline silicic systems emplaced in complex, ancient sialic crust of the cratons. Once established, the preservation of highly fractionated caps on magma chambers requires a balance between thermal input and cooling-induced crystallisation. If heat enters the system too quickly, the cap may get stirred into the dominant magma volume by convection. If heat input is too slow, the magma body will crystallise inward from the margins, and the plutonic-consolidation stage will begin. © 1988, Royal Society of Edinburgh. All rights reserved.

Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Ea↗
USGS2000

Nest predation increases with parental activity: Separating nest site and parental activity effects

Alexander Skutch hypothesized that increased parental activity can increase the risk of nest predation. We tested this hypothesis using ten open-nesting bird species in Arizona, USA. Parental activity was greater during the nestling than incubation stage because parents visited the nest frequently to feed their young during the nestling stage. However, nest predation did not generally increase with parental activity between nesting stages across the ten study species. Previous investigators have found similar results. We tested whether nest site effects might yield higher predation during incubation because the most obvious sites are depredated most rapidly. We conducted experiments using nest sites from the previous year to remove parental activity. Our results showed that nest sites have highly repeatable effects on nest predation risk; poor nest sites incurred rapid predation and caused predation rates to be greater during the incubation than nestling stage. This pattern also was exhibited in a bird species with similar (i.e. controlled) parental activity between nesting stages. Once nest site effects are taken into account, nest predation shows a strong proximate increase with parental activity during the nestling stage within and across species. Parental activity and nest sites exert antagonistic influences on current estimates of nest predation between nesting stages and both must be considered in order to understand current patterns of nest predation, which is an important source of natural selection.

Arizona↗