Raiders of the Lost Frogs
In 2010, a team of explorers (OK, researchers) set out across the world in search of 100 ‘lost’ frogs. In this post, Will Bibby reports on what they found.
The recent movie ‘The Hunter’ (2011), based on the acclaimed 1999 novel by Julia Leigh, follows a mercenary’s expedition into the Tasmanian Wilderness to find the thought-to-be-extinct Tasmanian Tiger. The idea that a species may not really be extinct, but ‘out there’ somewhere waiting to be found combines the intrigue of exploration, discovery and mystery. Not only does this exciting idea make for a great movie, but it provides the basis for a captivating campaign, too.
The ‘Search for the ‘Lost’ Frogs’ campaign takes this idea and runs with it. In August 2010, Conservation International (CI) and the IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group launched this campaign and supported 126 researchers in 21 different countries in their quest to rediscover a list of 100 amphibians not seen this century – and some not seen for almost 200 years! The campaign takes place against the backdrop of the amphibian extinction crisis. Due to climate change, habitat loss and a deadly fungal disease, amphibian populations around the world are being decimated, causing some species to become extinct in just one breeding season.
But why the need for such a campaign? Well, many suggest that amphibians are the canaries down the coal mine for the environment, serving as barometers for environmental change and degradation. In addition they also play a crucial role for many human activities all over the world such as pest control and nutrient cycling.
Poster from the ‘Search for the Lost Frogs’ campaign. Photo courtesy of the Conservation International.
While many of the expeditions came home empty-handed, a promising number had success. In fact, since the start of the campaign 2 years ago, 30 ‘lost’ species have been rediscovered. Among these include three of the campaign’s ‘top 10’ most wanted species: the Rio Pescado Stubfoot Toad (Atelopus balios) of Ecuador, the Bornean Rainbow Toad (Ansonia latidisca) last seen in 1925 and the Hula painted frog (Discoglossus nigriventer) – a species last seen in 1955 and pronounced extinct after the draining of its habitat in Israel.
But the search did not stop there. Inspired by the campaign, a group of Indian conservationists began their own expedition for missing amphibians resulting in the rediscovery of 5 species. Among these finds were the Chalazodes Bubble-nest Frog (Raorchestes chalazodes) – last seen in 1874 – and the Silent Valley Tropical Frog (Micrixalus thampii), which was amazingly rediscovered in a rubbish bin!
Promising as these findings are, the list of lost amphibians has expanded to 219 species that remain ‘lost’, perhaps forever. This drastically highlights the need for renewed and further research into the status of amphibians around the world, some social media engagement might prove to be beneficial to the awareness of this issue, although there’s no need to buy Instagram likes to make it more popular than it should be. The results of the ‘Search for the Lost Frogs’ campaign at once provides hope for previously thought to be extinct species and a stark reminder of the need for urgent policy and conservation efforts to prevent further amphibian population declines.
Works Cited:
Alford, R. 2011, Ecology: Bleak future for amphibians, Nature
Amphibian Specialist Group IUNC 2012, Lost Frogs.
Conservation International 2012, ‘The Search for the Lost Frogs’
Lost! Amphibians of India 2012, ‘In search of ‘lost species’
Marris, E 2012, Fatal frog fungal disease figured out, Nature.
Special Feature: Amphibians
If you are hiking in the Alps this summer and it rains, be sure to look out for the Alpine Salamander. Image: Thomas Huntke, Germany, Wikimedia Commons
The worrying declines in amphibian species globally have been widely reported in the popular and scientific media. As well as the ethical dimension of extinctions, the declines may have significant implications for ecosystems functioning and services and conservation planning. In this special feature we present a round-up of some recent amphibian science, policy and conservation action. Over the next few weeks we will run a series of posts on the topics below. We recognize these represent only part of the amphibian issue and so would welcome guest posts or suggestions for other topics that we should cover.
Latest research underlines the impact of three major threats to all Amphibian species
Raiders of the lost Frogs : an up-date on the CI/IUCN ‘Search for the lost frogs’ campaign
Amphibian trade and the spread of the amphibian fungal disease
Cabinet of Curiosities Entry: European Salamander
Amphibians at the IUCN Congress: an interview with the Amphibian Survival Alliance (part 1)
The future of amphibian conservation: an interview with the Amphibian Survival Alliance (part 2)
The Biodiversity Matrix – a database of contemporary distributions and drivers of freshwater biodiversity
One way of answering the question “What is the Biofresh project trying to do?” is to say that we are striving to create a functional data ecosystem that will enhance our ability to understand and conserve freshwater biodiversity. Part of this task involves creating connection points where related forms of data are assembled into a functional whole (in a scientific and policy sense). One such connection point is the Biodiversity Matrix or “BioMatrix” being developed by Dr Savrina Carrizo and Dr William Darwall at the IUCN Global Species Programme Freshwater Biodiversity Unit in Cambridge, UK.
In essence, the BioMatrix is an interoperable database of contemporary distributions and drivers of freshwater biodiversity mapped to key spatial frameworks used for scientific analysis and for policy and planning. The BioMatrix will primarily map data to the new HydroSHEDS catchments because these provide a multi-scale, global standard of ecologically meaningful spatial units. However, if cross-mapping proves feasible it will also be possible to extract and map data for other spatial units such as Natura 2000 sites and Water Framework Directive (WFD) reporting units.
Conceptual overview of the BioMatrix database
Commenting on the significance of the BioMatrix, lead developer Savrina Carrizo believes that “Once assembled, the BioMatrix will save scientists an enormous amount of effort in data preparation as the species distributions, their conservation status and environmental data have all been compiled and mapped to a common spatial framework. This will enable scientists to focus on extracting the data of interest and running their analyses.
For those seeking more policy visibility for freshwater biodiversity, the BioMatrix itself will help highlight the knowledge gaps in the conservation status and distribution of freshwater species and promote investment in filling these gaps. Among numerous applications, the BioMatrix can be used to show where freshwater species distributions overlap with threatening processes, helping to inform decision-makers.
The BioMatrix is due for release in October 2012. It will support the science being conducted under several Biofresh workpackages and summary maps will be generated from the BioMatrix for the forth-coming Biofresh Atlas of Freshwater Biodiversity. The BioMatrix is conceived of as a ‘working’ database that will be developed beyond October 2012 as new data become available from IUCN mapping initiatives and other initiatives.
The data that will be included in the BioMatrix
Geographical coverage – The database includes areas where IUCN freshwater assessments have been completed and mapped to date. As further areas are completed, the data will be incorporated in the BioMatrix.
Species coverage – Species include freshwater birds, mammals, amphibians, crabs, crayfish, fish, odonata, molluscs, reptiles, turtles, shrimps and aquatic plants. A preliminary version of the BioMatrix dataset comprises data on the global distributions of 13,500 freshwater species across six taxonomic groups (i.e. 462 crayfish, 87 aquatic reptiles, 3263 aquatic amphibians, 8870 freshwater fishes, 699 aquatic birds, and 119 aquatic mammal species). Throughout 2012, new species distributions will be mapped by the IUCN team and these will be added to the BioMatrix as they become available. The threat status of each species is sourced from The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™.
Environmental data coverage – The environmental data relate to climate, topography, hydromorphology, geomorphology, land cover, ecology and human demography. Other layers could include the CVI which is being developed in BioFresh Work Package 5.
Species distributions – Distributional data is based on species presence and summaries based on diversity metrics such as species richness and threatened species richness will be available.
Spatial units – The core spatial framework of the BioMatrix is the HydroSHEDS catchment layer. Other spatial units, such as WWF freshwater ecoregions, Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs), Natura 2000 sites and Water Framework Directive (WFD) reporting units, will also be considered for addition if cross-mapping from HydroSHEDS is found to be feasible.
Panoramic freshwater photographer Paul Stewart’s first solo exhibition opens in France
As the summer holidays in Europe begin, the thoughts of freshwater scientists and managers turn to lazy days hanging out by lakes and rivers soaking up the cultural ecosystem services they provide! Paul Stewart is an artist and photographer who has made this his life. His first solo exhibition opened Sunday in Le Pouliguen on the Atlantic coast of France. The BioFresh blog asked Paul about the inspiration for his work.
BioFresh Blog: You’ve been photographing rivers and wetlands for years. What is it that draws you to freshwaters as a subject of your art?
Paul Stewart: The short answer is simply that every river or wetland is a great story.
I grew up near the Eden River in Cumbria and as a boy those endless summers were invariably spent in the river cooling off in cut-off jeans, floating on an old tractor inner-tube or swinging off a rope dubiously attached to an over hanging tree. …or taping my mother’s cutlery to a stick and rolling stones to skew and butcher some eels.
As a rower in my teens we’d spend many weekends attending regattas on the Tyne and Tees. Water just seemed to be cool and I’d spend days fishing the stream at the back of the house. A short rod and reel, a hook and a worm and a couple of pieces of shot to take it to the bottom. I’d be back at tea time. It was all so simple.
These are beautiful memories and perhaps they are the basis of my fascination with water. I loved the solitude, the sounds and of course the catch. I still love walking along a river especially in a city. In an urban situation it’s the only place where you can see far rather than just across or down the street.
BFB: Your panorama photos are truly remarkable, but why have you chosen to focus on this medium?
PS: Well thanks a lot. Panoramas appeal to me both from a technical point of view – the craft of shooting multiple images stitching and fusing exposure – and from the perspective of creating an arresting image either as a final exhibition print or as a piece of interactive media.
Panoramic media is essentially mathematic: a constant 360° x 180°. In man-made environments the final image may have the function of illustrating a city square or the interior of a building but it’s frankly quite boring to look at in print. The environment doesn’t follow these repetitive ‘boxes’ at all and this is the part that excites me as a photographer. The point to remember is that when taking panos you aren’t doing any cropping whatsoever. You shoot everything, everywhere. Revealing details and having an awareness of my complete surroundings is a technique I revel in. In many cases I’m only a few centimeters from the subject matter that will come to dominate the final image. This can create a real wow factor in print and when one explores and navigates the image online. In the print versions I seek to tease a viewer’s perceptions. Water always plays a key role in the composition either from its presence or from its absence.
BFB: Congratulations on your first solo exhibition. What is the issue behind the title “Site Ramsar 999 – Zone Humide du Cambodge”
PS: It’s the first time that this portfolio has been formally shown in Europe. Ramsar Site 999 has already been successfully exhibited in Phnom Penh and during the Phnom Penh Photo Festivals.
This Ramsar Site is officially called, ‘The Middle Stretches of Mekong River North of Stoeng Treng’. It’s an absolute jewel and a feast for the eyes, but it’s a real mouthful and with 999 being the UK emergency telephone number I thought the stars had aligned not only for great imaging but also memorable promotion material.
I’d traveled this section of the Mekong when traveling between Laos and Cambodia in the late nineties and was just staggered at the flora. It just had to go in the diary for a future visit where I could get off the boat and explore at my own pace on foot. At that time, in the 1990s, the river was the only official international thoroughfare. I remember my passport being stamped on either side of the river in rickety stilted shacks with friendly customs officers.
Then I had no idea it was a Ramsar listed wetland [BFB at that time Cambodia hadn’t recognised the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance]. I had no idea what Ramsar was. It just looked like nothing I’d seen in my whole life. It was and still is pure magic to me.
The site itself is not threatened by any particular issues in the short term. It is home to some extremely poor communities and some are benefiting from recent community based tourism initiatives. It is also home to the most Northerly pods of Irrawaddy Dolphin. Problems will arise however if the planned mainstream dams are built in the lower Mekong basin. Of the eleven penciled in so far. The Stung Treng dam may well swallow this site completely in the years to come.
BFB: Do you think art can play a role in efforts to save freshwater life and if so how?
PS: Photography already plays a crucial role in highlighting the catastrophic losses in freshwater habitat and biodiversity. Highlighting it is not enough though. It’s old school, like a newspaper reporting on something. It’s past tense. The damage is already done.
Imaging is an integral part of collective and effective communication across all broadcast channels with the exception of radio. It should not be considered, in my opinion, as just a supplemental addition but it should be nurtured and supported as a part of the commons.
What it looks like matters.
BFB: …and finally, what are your plans for the future?
PS: I’d give my right bollock to shoot all the Ramsar Sites. What a thought! The portfolio of Ramsar wetlands is truly impressive. In panorama it would make a fantastic online and offline experience as well as a valuable future resource.
There is synergy with my work and their objectives. If my images help in creating a wider debate or a conversation on value and role of wetlands then they will be of real value. I have no formal link with Ramsar but they have been enthusiastic supporters of my work and I very much appreciate what involvement they have had. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, they don’t support imaging financially.
Obviously for me to continue to explore wetlands and the story of water I need to sell my work and producing limited edition prints is a traditional method to achieve it. Being an artist, especially one using digital imaging, there is a challenge in terms of legitimacy within the ivory towers of photography who seem to still favour established approaches This will change over time as they embrace the digital age.
Paul’s show “Site Ramsar 999 – Zone Humide du Cambodge” runs from 15th July to 31st August at Gallerie Hasy, 21 Grande Rue, 44510, Le Pouliguen, France. It is open Wednesday to Sunday 10-12.30 and 15.30-19.30. Google maps here.
We encourage readers living or holidaying in France to drop by and maybe think about how these sort or aesthetic and artistic values of freshwater systems fit into the ecosystem services framework. We wish Paul every success with his show and his wonderful dream of photographing the world’s Ramsar sites!
There has been a great deal of discussion surrounding the outcomes of the recent Rio+20 Earth Summit. In this guest post, Will Bibby asks if there was anything in the conference commitments for freshwater biodiversity or it was little more than just one big talkfest.
There were no new agreements, no bold targets. In fact, there was very little in the way of concrete proposals at all. The conference was essentially a reaffirmation of the UN’s commitment to the principles of sustainable development established at the first Earth Summit 20 years ago. There were a few tweaks and some re-branding along the way, but all in all the draft conference document was painfully unambitious. That being said, it’s not all doom and gloom: over 700 voluntary commitments were signed by governments, NGOs and companies. Collectively, these commitments mobilize over $500 billion in actions towards sustainable development. Unfortunately, only a small handful of these commitments offer anything for freshwater biodiversity.
Photo Credit: Aliencrow, 21 June 2012, Wikimedia Commons
Though not one of the ‘critical issues’ listed above, biodiversity conservation received a reasonable amount of coverage during the conference. One of the principles of the ‘green economy’, for example, is to protect and restore biodiversity and natural habitats as integral to development and human well-being, and develop a system of governance that protects the resilience of ecosystems to prevent irreversible damage. One concrete voluntary commitment was to provide the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with an extra $120 million to improve the conservation status of species and ecosystems. Another development was the announcement that the Global Environment Facility (GEF) would be expanding its scope to include a broader range of concerns and fund more projects that protect biodiversity. In general, however, the focus was largely on terrestrial (particularly forest) and marine biodiversity, with freshwater biodiversity conservation receiving few explicit mentions in official documents.
The two most significant commitments to come out of Rio+20 for freshwater biodiversity are efforts to generate a better understanding of the ecosystem service value of water and wetlands and a project to harmonise global biodiversity modelling, called the HarmBio partnership.
The first of these commitments aims to build global capacity on using the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) approach for water and wetlands policy and decision-making. Led by the Ramsar Convention of Wetlands in partnership with the CBD, UNEP, IUCN, among others, its goal is to encourage policy momentum and business commitment for the conservation, investment in, and wise use of freshwater and wetland ecosystems5.
The main objective of the HarmBio partnership is the harmonization of current models and datasets of terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity to improve the reliability of future projections of biodiversity change under various policy options and so enable improved environmental decision-making6. It aims to address the problem that there are neither agreed metrics of biodiversity produced as standard outputs from models, nor are there common datasets used for calibration and validation by modelling efforts – an issue that aligns with the aims of the BioFresh project!
In short, the HarmBio project and TEEB approach to freshwater and wetlands policy-making represent the most promising commitments to emerge from the summit, and the increased funding for the IUCN and scope of the GEF may have some ‘downstream’ effects for freshwater biodiversity conservation. All in all though, freshwater biodiversity barely got a look in at Rio+ 20. This once again underlines again the challenge of raising the policy profile of freshwater biodiversity.
Documents cited
UNCSD 2012, ‘Rio+20 Voluntary Commitments’, .
2 Stoddart H., Riddlestone S. & Vilela M. 2012, ‘Principles for the Green Economy’.
3 UNCSD 2012, ‘Valuing and conserving nature for a sustainable future’
6 UNCSD 2012, ‘Harmonizing Global Biodiversity Modelling (HarmBio)’
What is a Digital Object Identifyer?
A guiding principle of science is that we never use another’s work without giving appropriate citation. The developments in data publishing profiled in this blog series are a consequence of web and computing technologies: effective data-sharing therefore requires a means to cite objects that exist in the digital medium. Digital objects – documents, images, data files etc.- are in effect ‘housed’ and an internet address (url)> However, their location on a web-site may be moved and internet addresses are constantly being closed down, changed, or created. To address this challenge, and the need for a citation format that aligns with the ‘cut and paste’ and ‘click and link’ practicse of the internet, the Association of American Publishers and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives conceived the DOI system.
The idea is elegantly simple. An organization – e.g. the International DOI Foundation – manages a central repository (or dorepository). Owners register their digital objects on the directory using a globally available system of character strings (the object ‘handle’ or “digital identifier”). This DOI is a permanent whereas its internet address and other data associated with the object may change. The handle system (basically software protocol that underlie the operation of the internet) is used to resolve ‘handles’ into the “information necessary to locate, access, contact, authenticate, or otherwise make use of digital resources”. Lastly, a Digital Object Registry (or doregistry) is used to define collections of digital objects that exist in multiple repositories to support browsing and searching.
A more detailed overview on this architecture is available on the International DOI Foundation web-site and in a paper by Robert Kahn & Robert Wilensky that describes in detail the conceptual and technical design.
When you start paying attention to DOI’s you will see them everywhere. The one attached to this figure, reproduced from an important paper by Carol Tenopir on scientific practices and perceptions regarding data-sharing, illustrates how the character string is constructed. This DOI could be read as “doi: address of directory where object is logged/journal. PLoS One. ISBN number. the specific part of the journal where the object is located” Pasting the DOI into the web-service dx.doi.org or prefixing a DOI with this url e.g http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021101.g001 will take you to the document. Alternatively you pasting a DOI into most web-browsers will take you to the document via a search engine.
Increasingly, scientists publishing data via portals such as GBIF and BioFresh are attaching a DOI to their data sets. Organizations such as DataCite, formed to support data publishing, sharing and archiving provide services to ‘mint’ DOIs for data. However, many larger universities and research institutes are establishing digital research & data archives and the ability to ‘mint’ dois for their scientists is an integral part of such initiatives.
We hope this explanation captures the essence of Digital Object Identifiers and we would welcome comments to help clarify or expand upon key points.
Paul Jepson & Aaike De Wever
Citations
Kahn, R & R. Wilensky (2008) A framework for distributed digital object services. International Journal on Digital Libraries (2006) 6: 115–123 DOI 10.1007/s00799-005-0128-x
Tenopir, C. et al (2011) Data Sharing by Scientists: Practices and Perceptions. PLoS ONE 6(6): e21101. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021101
Science made easier : Darwin Core explained
A key barrier to data publishing – making data available for others to use – is the simple reality that most people have devised their own terms and labels to order their data sets. Wouldn’t life be easy for those creating, managing and using data portals if we all used the same set of terms to describe our data? This is the purpose of the Darwin Core Standard, a seriously useful and authoritative output of the Taxonomic Database Working Group (TDWG) of the International Union of Biological Scientists.
The Darwin Core is set to become the ‘industry standard’ for the field of Biodiversity informatics. It comprises a list of terms and technical descriptions relating to attributes of species and distributional data. The latest version is comprehensive and arises from an iterative process started in 2009 and guided by the principle of “keeping the standard as simple and open as possible and to develop terms only when there is shared demand”. Adopting the standard not only means that data can be upload into important biodiversity data portals such as GBIF and BioFresh, but it also provides an invaluable prompt when designing new databases. John Wieczorek and colleagues have published an excellent overview of both the standard and its applications in PLoS One, and full details of the technical aspects are available from the TDWG web-site.
However, if you are just looking for a quick introduction we suggest you check out the two videos below. In the first, two robots in bar talk about the principles of the Darwin Core (like Robots would!)..
and in the second David Remsen helpfully walks viewers through the Darwin Core Archive Assistant which is an on-line tool to assist in the publication of biodiversity data.
Citation: Wieczorek J, Bloom D, Guralnick R, Blum S, Döring M, et al. (2012) Darwin Core: An Evolving Community-Developed Biodiversity Data Standard. PLoS ONE 7(1): e29715. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0029715
What does a Data paper look like?
Making datasets discoverable through the metadatabase and publishing them on-line is one of the main aims of the BioFresh project. Pensoft Publishers recently started calling for data papers based on primary biodiversity datasets published to GBIF (Penev et al. 2011). BioFresh partners have several in preparation and the practice of publishing data papers seems set to become normal practice.
So what is a ‘metadata paper’ or ‘database paper’? Well as the terms suggest it is a paper that focuses on the description of a database. Such papers could be conceived as either a pure description of the dataset for publication in a specialized journal or as a more extensive scientific article giving a broader insight in the database which might be targeted at a regular scientific journal. A “pure” data paper might be limited to an abstract published in a scientific journal together with descriptive and technical metadata. In such cases the actual data files would be made available on-line, as is the case of the papers in the Ecological Society of America’s Ecological archive, or via data portals such as GBIF. However, it is expected that in addition to describing the data content, data papers will include sections summarizing the history of the data set (e.g. original purpose, mode and time of generation, funding body etc.) and its perceived value and usefulness to scientific research (fundamental and/or applied). (see two examples below).
If you want to get into data publishing, and we encourage you to do so, nice examples of data papers are by Jones et al (2009) on mammals and Brose etal (2005) on body sizes. Pensoft Publishing has produced useful data publishing policies and guidelines and GBIFs integrated publishing tool (IPT) offers a facility to generate a draft paper outline containing the metadata information of the dataset. BioFresh is currently adding similar export functions to the BioFresh metadatabase.
Example Data Papers
Jones et al. (2009). PanTHERIA: a species-level database of life history, ecology, and geography of extant and recently extinct mammals. (W. K. Michener, Ed.) Ecology, Ecological Archives E090-184, 90(9), 2648–2648. Ecological Society of America.
Brose et al. (2005). Body sizes of consumers and their resources. Ecology 86:2545.
Penev, L., Mietchen, D., Chavan, V., & Hagedorn, G. (2011). Pensoft Data Publishing Policies
The latest issue of BioScience carries a viewpoint letter from the Biofresh data management ‘team’ announcing an exciting new initiative to encourage the publication of the data analyzed and reported in scientific papers. As a result of Biofresh efforts, 17 journals publishing on Freshwater Biodiversity have agreed to include in their guidelines for authors the statement that “Authors are encouraged to place all species distribution records in a publicly accessible database such as the national Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) nodes or data centers endorsed by GBIF, including BioFresh“.
Lead author Aaike De Wever, data manager of the Biofresh project explains the significance and origins of this initiative:
“One of the major goals of BioFresh is to make freshwater biodiversity data open and freely available. This will allow broader-scale analyses that will open new frontiers in freshwater science to support enhanced freshwater biodiversity policy and management. As data publishing practices are not yet well established in the freshwater community, we are trying to convince scientists to make their data available through various means. This includes the promotion of data papers, and engaging with funding agencies and scientific journals to encourage data publication.
Last year, during the Seventh Symposium for European Freshwater Science (SEFS7) in Girona, we had the opportunity to convene editors from 12 scientific freshwater journals to explore their role in biodiversity data mobilization. During this meeting we stressed the need to bring primary biodiversity data on where, when, how and by whom species have been observed or collected available to other scientists and discussed the role of journals to encourage data publication or submission. Subsequently editors and publishers of the represented journals as well as a number of additional journals approved inclusion of a statement in their author guidelines (above) encouraging data publication”.
The participating journals are Aquatic Botany, Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, Aquatic Ecology, Aquatic Sciences, Ecology of Freshwater Fish, Freshwater Biology, Freshwater Reviews, Fundamental and Applied Limnology, Hydrobiologia, Inland Waters, International Review of Hydrobiology, Freshwater Science (formerly, Journal of the North American Benthological Society), Journal of Fish Biology, Journal of Limnology, Journal of Plankton Research, Limnetica, Limnologica, Marine and Freshwater Research, and River Systems.
In contrast to other initiatives on making data publicly available, BioFresh is specifically targeting primary biodiversity data, which is limited to a standard set of fields, much like the format of GenBank, allowing direct integration in large-scale datasets. Detailed instructions on how to submit data can be found at this link.
Since the early 1990s scientists have been working to enhance the impact and efficiency of site-based conservation approaches. The field of systematic conservation Planning (1) is guided by the so-called ‘representation principle’, an influential policy goal formulated by IUCN ecologist Raymond Dasman in 1972 (2) and simply stated as “The creation of world-wide network of natural reserves that encompass within their boundaries the variety of species and habitats found on earth”. Initially the scientific focus was on developing principles and tools to optimize reserve network design assuming a largely static biota (e.g. the MARXAN conservation planning software). The new scientific frontier in conservation planning is about taking into account the changes in species distribution and occurrence in response to climate and other environmental change. This is so that ‘long-term persistence’ can be incorporated into reserve system design. Needless to say conservation planning for freshwater biodiversity under changing environmental conditions is particularly challenging given the fluid and dynamic nature of freshwater systems!
Writing in the May issue of Global Ecology and Biogeography, BioFresh team member Clément Tisseuil and colleagues add a significant new dimension to our ability to predict how assemblies of fish species (termed beta diversity) will change in time and space in response to climate change. They applied two concepts in biogeography to explore and project the future distributions of 18 fish species for the 2010-2100 period based on data from 50 sites in the Adour-Garone River Basin in France.
The Tarn River France by By Thomas Rosenau [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D
The first concept of species turn-over seeks to understand how some species may be replaced by others under different scenarios. The second, and slightly more difficult concept of nestedness, refers to how an ecological system is organized. So for instance, we might prioritize a site for conservation based on the richness of the species assembly (Alpha diversity), however it is vital to know the extent to which other less species rich sites contain sub-sets of the species of the rich sites (degree of nestedness). The concept of nestedness thus enables scientists to identify the processes that lead to species loss or gain in sites .
The significance of this new study is that it is the first to take nestedness fully into account when projecting changes (differences) in fish assemblages at different places and at different times along a river gradient .
Commenting on the significance of the research Clement Tisseuil notes “We showed that the composition of local fish assemblages will greatly change over the 21st century, but this is consistent with previous studies of fish faunas. Our contribution is to distinguish between the turnover and nested components of fish diversity and how these shape the processes that lead to changes in fish species assemblies over time and space. Our key finding was that changes in species composition projected in upstream and downstream sites were mainly caused by differences in species richness among nested fish assemblages, whereas those projected in midstream sites were almost entirely caused by a process of species turnover ”
Literature:
Tisseuil1, C., Leprieur, F., Grenouillet, G., Vrac, M & S. Lek (2012) Projected impacts of climate change on spatio-temporal patterns of freshwater fish beta diversity: a deconstructing
approach Global Biogeography and Ecology: 773
(1) Margules, C.R.& R. L. Pressey (2000) Systematic Conservation Planning. Nature, 405, 243-253.
(2) Dasmann, R.F. (1972) Towards a system for classifying natural regions of the world and their representation by national parks and reserves. Biological Conservation, 4, 247-255.
The Freshwater Blog 