James Greenway

Abstract Snake conservation in Colombia is limited by the lack of information on ecological aspects and distribution ranges, particularly at the departmental level. Herein, we analyzed the state of knowledge of snakes in the department of Tolima, based on a thorough review of literature, and biological collection databases. We found 91 species documented either in literature (82) or museum collections (67). 24 species reported in literature are not supported by specimens in collections and nine species in museum collections don’t have been documented in the literature. We found a large gap in snake occurrence records throughout the department. Remarkably, 48 species reported for the department are outside of their current accepted distribution emphasizing the need of ID corroboration. There are only 35 snake species that have all the necessary information to corroborate their presence in the department, showing the need for a more thorough taxonomic effort to clearly define the actual snake richness. These results serve as a basis for future research and reflect the need to join efforts to characterize and understand the ophidian fauna of the department of Tolima and across Colombia.

Past climate change is one of the important factors influencing primate speciation. Populations of various species could have risen or declined in response to these climatic fluctuations. Northeast India harbors a rich diversity of primates, where such fluctuations can be implicated. Recent advances in climate modeling as well as genomic data analysis has paved the way for understanding how species accumulate at a particular geographic region. We utilized these methods to explore the primate diversity in this unique region in relation to past climate change. To ascertain the population level changes, we inferred the demographic history of nine species of primates found in Northeast India and compared it with species distribution models of Pliocene and Pleistocene period. Through this study, we are able to provide a detailed picture of how past climatic changes have resulted in the present species diversity and this mixture of species have either originated in the region or have dispersed from mainland Southeast Asia. We observe that effective population size has decreased for all the species, but distributions are different for all the four genera: Macaca, Trachypithecus, Hoolock and Nycticebus. It also gives an idea about how each species is affected differently by climate change, and why it should be given emphasis in framing species‐wise conservation models for future climate change.

AbstractIn the last decade, databases of records of species observed at the same location at different points in time over large spatial extents have been made available. Unfortunately, these sources are scarce in regions such as Latin America. We present a dataset of 60,179 point occurrences (i.e. presence-only data, PO) and 45,468 camera-trap survey records (i.e. presence-absence data, PA) for 63 species of carnivores of the Neotropical Region from 2000 to 2021. We collated the data from various sources, including 64 newly-digitised bibliographic references. We cleaned, taxonomically harmonised and standardised the data following the Darwin Core and Humboldt Core standards and present them here as csv files. We have also made these data fit for analyses by aggregating the data into two time periods (time1: 2000–2013 and time2: 2014–2021), with PO grid cell counts of 100 × 100 km and PA polygons of varying size, presented as geopackage files. These data can be used for large-scale species distribution models, calculation of population trends, extinction risk analyses and educational purposes.

Climate change poses a significant threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES). In this study, we evaluated the climate change risk to 11 ES provided by Brazilian terrestrial mammals by mapping their potential distribution using ecological niche modeling. We assessed risk by estimating species richness (for each ES) and ES richness (for ES overlapped) under current and future conditions. Although most of the species are projected to experience distribution contractions, overall, the individual ES and their overlap are expected to be less at risk from climate change (i.e., gain in redundancy of providers or area of supply). The Amazon emerges as a hotspot for ES supply by mammals, showing the greatest redundancy and, in some cases, expansion of ES supply. Because ES are benefits to people, and the Amazon is the least populated region in Brazil, this surplus might not translate into actual service. Conversely, the densely populated Atlantic Forest, and the agriculturally productive southern of Cerrado, and Pantanal are expected to lose ES in the future. We emphasize the importance of identifying and mapping ES providers to inform decision-making and policy formulation and guide strategies to deal with climate change and other stressors such as land-use changes. Overall, there is an urgent need for conservation and restoration efforts, particularly in densely populated regions at risk of losing provider species and their ES, such as in the Atlantic Forest. Also, further research is crucial for the Caatinga and Pampa regions, where knowledge gaps were identified.

Island ecosystems have significant conservation value owing to their higher endemic biotas. Moreover, studies of regional communities that compare differences in species composition (species dissimilarity) among islands and the mainland suggest that community assembly on islands is different from that on the mainland. However, the uniqueness of island biotic assembly has been little studied at the global scale, nor have phylogenetic information or alien species been considered in these patterns. We evaluate taxonomic and phylogenetic change from one community to the next, focusing on differences in species composition between mainland-mainland (M-M) pairs compared to differences between mainland-island pairs (M-I) and between island-island pairs (I-I), using herpetofauna on islands and adjacent mainland areas worldwide. Our analyses detect greater taxonomic and phylogenetic dissimilarity for M-I and I-I comparisons than predicted by M-M model, indicating different island herpetofauna assembly patterns compared with mainland counterparts across the world. However, this higher M-I dissimilarity has been significantly decreased after considering alien species. Our results provide global evidence on the importance of island biodiversity conservation from the aspect of both the taxonomic and phylogenetic uniqueness of island biotic assembly.

Biological invasions are among the threats to global biodiversity and social sustainability, especially on islands. Identifying the threshold of area at which non-native species begin to increase abruptly is crucial for early prevention strategies. The small-island effect (SIE) was proposed to quantify the nonlinear relationship between native species richness and area but has not yet been applied to non-native species and thus to predict the key breakpoints at which established non-native species start to increase rapidly. Based on an extensive global dataset, including 769 species of non-native birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles established on 4277 islands across 54 archipelagos, we detected a high prevalence of SIEs across 66.7% of archipelagos. Approximately 50% of islands have reached the threshold area and thus may be undergoing a rapid increase in biological invasions. SIEs were more likely to occur in those archipelagos with more non-native species introduction events, more established historical non-native species, lower habitat diversity and larger archipelago area range. Our findings may have important implications not only for targeted surveillance of biological invasions on global islands but also for predicting the responses of both non-native and native species to ongoing habitat fragmentation under sustained land-use modification and climate change.

Desert spring systems of the American southwest hold high local fish endemism and are ranked among the most threatened ecosystems in the world. The prioritization of conservation resources to protect species living within these arid landscapes requires knowledge of species abundance and distribution. The plight of Conchos pupfish (Cyprinodon eximius) is representative of freshwater fishes the world over, including population extirpations caused by human poisoning of streams and reservoir construction, to the extent that the species was once considered extinct in the USA. We developed a distance‐sampling framework to monitor Conchos pupfish abundance and coupled this approach with species distribution modeling to guide conservation actions. Our multiscale approach included surveying abundances within 5‐m transects at three reaches of the Devils River, where the last known USA populations persist. We combined this fine‐scale analysis with species distribution modeling for stream segments across the range of the species in Mexico and USA. Modeling revealed Conchos pupfish abundance among transects was negatively correlated with current velocity and detection was negatively correlated with water depth. Estimated abundance at a reach where the species was previously reintroduced was greater than other reaches combined in November 2019, lowest in March 2021 when reach water levels were very low, then equivalent with other reaches by October 2021 after water returned to the reach. Modeled Conchos pupfish distribution illustrated a high probability of occurrence on the periphery of the species' overall range within Texas, USA and broadly across Chihuahua, Mexico, where proposed protected areas might benefit the species. Our study provides conservation guidance by establishing (1) baseline and trajectory values for abundance, (2) transect locations where abundances might be managed within existing protected areas, (3) reaches where high abundances could be used for future repatriation, and (4) stream segments where future surveys might be conducted to assess conservation opportunities.

Biological invasion is one serious threat to global biodiversity, economics and sustainability. Under the era of globalization, emerging non-native species are still accelerating at an unprecedented rate. Identifying new field records of non-native species at early stages is critically important to develop effective prevention and management schemes. Here, we conducted field surveys and applied genetic analysis to identify new recordings of non-native amphibians in Shenzhen (a megacity of South China with enormous trade volume). We recorded a total of three non-native amphibians (Ceratophrys ornata, Hoplobatrachus rugulosus and Eleutherodactylus planirostris) in the field with two having establishment evidence (H. rugulosus and E. planirostris). Further ecological niche modeling based on climatic and habitat variables also detected a high habitat suitability of the two species with field establishment evidence and a low habitat suitability for the other three species (C. ornata, Rana catesbeiana and Xenopus laevis) lacking establishment evidence or field observation with only records in the market and database. We recommend more systematic surveys covering wider areas to investigate the establishment of non-native amphibians to stop their further invasions in China.

Ongoing climate change has caused well‐documented displacements of species' geographic distribution to newly climatically suitable areas. Ecological niche models (ENM) are widely used to project such climate‐induced changes but typically ignore species' interspecific interactions that might facilitate or prevent its establishment in new areas. Here, we projected the change in the distribution of Juçara Palm (Euterpe edulis Mart., Arecaceae), a neotropical threatened palm, taking into consideration its ecological interactions. We run ENMs of E. edulis, plus its known seed dispersers (15 bird species) and predators (19 birds and mammals) under current and future climatic conditions. Additionally, for E. edulis, we removed deforested areas from the model. When considering only climate, climate change has a positive impact on E. edulis, with a predicted westward expansion and a modest southward contraction, with a 26% net gain in distribution by 2060. When removing deforested areas, however, climate change harms E. edulis, with a 66% predicted net distribution loss. Within the palm's distribution in this more realistic model, there is also a predicted reduction in the richness of its dispersers and predators. We conclude that the possible benefits of climate change to E. edulis' distribution are overshadowed by widespread habitat loss, and that global change is likely to disrupt some of its ecological interactions. The outcome of the interplay between the negative impact of the loss of dispersers, and the benefit of the loss of predators, is unclear, but the large contraction of E. edulis' range predicted here foresees a dim future for the species.

The physiology of insects is directly influenced by environmental temperature, and thermal tolerance is therefore intrinsically linked to their thermal niche and distribution. Understanding the mechanisms that limit insect thermal tolerance is crucial to predicting biogeography and range shifts. Recent studies on locusts and flies suggest that the critical thermal minimum (CTmin) follows from a loss of CNS function via a spreading depolarization. We hypothesized that other insect taxa share this phenomenon. Here we investigate whether spreading depolarization events occur in butterflies exposed to cold. Supporting our hypothesis, we find that exposure to stressful cold induced spreading depolarization in all 12 species tested. This reinforces the idea that spreading depolarization is a common mechanism underlying the insect CTmin. Furthermore, our results highlight how CNS function is tuned to match species’ environments. Further research into the physiology underlying spreading depolarization will likely elucidate key mechanisms determining insect thermal tolerance and ecology.