Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) is a major cereal crop worldwide and is traditionally or commercially cultivated almost all over the Americas. The North-Western Argentina (NWA) region constitutes one of ...the main diversity hotspots of the Southern Andes, with contrasting landscapes and a large number of landraces. Despite the extensive collections performed by the "Banco Activo de Germoplasma INTA Pergamino, Argentina" (BAP), most of them have not been characterized yet. Here we report the morphological and molecular evaluation of 30 accessions collected from NWA, along an altitudinal gradient between 1120 and 2950 meters above sea level (masl). Assessment of morphological variation in a common garden allowed the discrimination of two groups, which differed mainly in endosperm type and overall plant size. Although the groups retrieved by the molecular analyses were not consistent with morphological clusters, they showed a clear pattern of altitudinal structuring. Affinities among accessions were not in accordance with racial assignments. Overall, our results revealed that there are two maize gene pools co-existing in NWA, probably resulting from various waves of maize introduction in pre-Columbian times as well as from the adoption of modern varieties by local farmers. In conclusion, the NWA maize landraces preserved at the BAP possess high morphological and molecular variability. Our results highlight their potential as a source of diversity for increasing the genetic basis of breeding programs and provide useful information to guide future sampling and conservation efforts.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Bats pollinate many plants of high socio‐economic value, including the majority of columnar cacti (Cactaceae) in Mexico, which have been used by humans for food and materials for thousands of years. ...However, the importance of bats as pollinators has been overlooked, with a consequent lack of knowledge of the reliance of crops on bats for harvest yield and quality.
We used exclusion experiments to determine the effect of different pollinator taxa on the yield and quality of pitayas (fruit of Stenocereus queretaroensis (F.A.C. Weber) Buxbaum), a major crop in central Mexico. We studied the three most economically important cultivars and wild individuals in the principal region for pitaya production. For each pollinator taxon we recorded fruit set and measured three key parameters of fruit quality: weight, sucrose concentration and seed set. We placed camera traps to determine pollinator identity and the effect of visitation rate on fruit quality.
We found the primary pollinators of pitayas to be nectarivorous bats in the genus Leptonycteris. When bats were excluded from flowers and flowers were pollinated by other taxa (i.e. diurnal birds and insects), pitaya yield decreased by 35%, though pollination dependence varied between cultivars. Fruit quality decreased significantly in the absence of bat pollination across all cultivars, with fruits 46% lighter and 13% less sweet when pollinated by other taxa; reducing economic value, as size determines market price. Additionally, seed set (an indicator of effective pollination) was significantly lower in the absence of bat pollinators. Visitation rate had no effect on fruit quality.
Synthesis and applications. Our study shows that bats provide a vital ecosystem service by pollinating a crop of major socio‐economic importance, and that consideration of both crop quality and yield are essential to fully understanding the benefits of bat pollination. A reduction of this service would result in a decrease in both the size and quality of the harvest, causing substantial loss of income for rural communities. Bats world‐wide face many threats, and management efforts targeted to the enhancement of wild bat pollinator populations would preserve the sustainability of both bat‐pollinated crops and wild plants.
Our study shows that bats provide a vital ecosystem service by pollinating a crop of major socio‐economic importance, and that consideration of both crop quality and yield are essential to fully understanding the benefits of bat pollination. A reduction of this service would result in a decrease in both the size and quality of the harvest, causing substantial loss of income for rural communities. Bats world‐wide face many threats, and management efforts targeted to the enhancement of wild bat pollinator populations would preserve the sustainability of both bat‐pollinated crops and wild plants.
Editor's Choice
Resumen
Los murciélagos polinizan un gran número de plantas de gran valor socioeconómico, incluyendo la mayoría de los cactus columnares (Cactaceae) en México, los cuales han sido utilizados por los humanos durante miles de años para obtener alimento y materiales. Sin embargo, se ha pasado por alto la importancia de los murciélagos como polinizadores, con la consiguiente falta de conocimiento de la dependencia de los cultivos a la polinización por los murciélagos para el rendimiento y calidad de la cosecha.
Utilizamos experimentos de exclusión para determinar el efecto de diferentes taxones polinizadores en el rendimiento y la calidad de las pitayas (fruto de Stenocereus queretaroensis (F.A.C. Weber) Buxbaum), un cultivo importante en el centro de México. Estudiamos los tres cultivares más importantes económicamente e individuos silvestres, en una de las regiones más importantes para la producción de pitaya. Para cada taxón polinizador registramos la producción de frutas y medimos tres parámetros clave de la calidad del fruto: peso, concentración de sacarosa y cantidad de semillas. Colocamos cámaras trampa para determinar la identidad de los polinizadores y el efecto de la tasa de visitas en la calidad de la fruta.
Encontramos que los principales polinizadores de las pitayas son los murciélagos nectarívoros del género Leptonycteris. Cuando los murciélagos fueron excluidos de las flores y éstas fueron polinizadas por otros taxones (es decir, aves e insectos diurnos), el rendimiento de las pitayas disminuyó en un 35%, aunque esta dependencia de polinización varió entre los cultivares. La calidad de la fruta disminuyó significativamente en ausencia de la polinización de murciélagos en todos los cultivares, con frutas 46% más livianas y 13% menos dulces cuando se polinizaron por otros taxones, reduciendo así el valor económico ya que su tamaño determina su precio en el mercado. Adicionalmente, el número de semillas (un indicador de polinización efectiva) fue significativamente menor en ausencia de los murciélagos polinizadores. La tasa de visitas no tuvo efecto sobre la calidad del fruto.
Síntesis y aplicaciones. Este estudio muestra que los murciélagos proporcionan un servicio ecosistémico vital al polinizar un cultivo de gran importancia socioeconómica, y que la consideración de la calidad y el rendimiento del cultivo son esenciales para comprender completamente los beneficios de la polinización de los murciélagos. Una reducción de este servicio resultaría en una disminución tanto en el tamaño como en la calidad de la cosecha, causando una pérdida sustancial de ingresos para las comunidades rurales. Los murciélagos en todo el mundo enfrentan muchas amenazas y los esfuerzos de manejo dirigidos a la mejora de las poblaciones de murciélagos polinizadores apoyarían a la conservación tanto de los cultivos polinizados por murciélagos como de las plantas silvestres.
This paper describes the deployment and experimentation architecture of the Internet of Things experimentation facility being deployed at Santander city. The facility is implemented within the ...SmartSantander project, one of the projects of the Future Internet Research and Experimentation initiative of the European Commission and represents a unique in the world city-scale experimental research facility. Additionally, this facility supports typical applications and services of a smart city. Tangible results are expected to influence the definition and specification of Future Internet architecture design from viewpoints of Internet of Things and Internet of Services. The facility comprises a large number of Internet of Things devices deployed in several urban scenarios which will be federated into a single testbed. In this paper the deployment being carried out at the main location, namely Santander city, is described. Besides presenting the current deployment, in this article the main insights in terms of the architectural design of a large-scale IoT testbed are presented as well. Furthermore, solutions adopted for implementation of the different components addressing the required testbed functionalities are also sketched out. The IoT experimentation facility described in this paper is conceived to provide a suitable platform for large scale experimentation and evaluation of IoT concepts under real-life conditions.
Plant–pollinator interactions are highly relevant to society as many crops important for humans are animal pollinated. However, changes in climate and land use may put such interacting patterns at ...risk by disrupting the occurrences between pollinators and the plants they pollinate. Here, we analyse how the co‐occurrence patterns between bat pollinators and 126 plant species they pollinate may be disrupted given changes in climate and land use, and we forecast relevant changes of the current bat–plant co‐occurrence distribution patterns for the near future. We predict under RCP8.5 21% of the territory will experience a loss of bat species richness, plants with C3 metabolism are predicted to reduce their area of distribution by 6.5%, CAM species are predicted to increase their potential area of distribution up to 1% and phanerophytes are predicted to have a 14% reduction in their distribution. The potential bat–plant interactions are predicted to decrease from an average of 47.1 co‐occurring bat–plant pairs in the present to 34.1 in the pessimistic scenario. The overall changes in suitable environmental conditions for bats and the plant species they pollinate may disrupt the current bat–plant co‐occurrence network and will likely put at risk the pollination services bat species provide.
Changes in climate and land use put plant–pollinator interactions at risk by disrupting their distribution patterns. We show that in the worst‐case climatic scenario, 21% of the Mexican territory, a biodiversity hotspot, will experience a loss of bat species richness. The potential bat–plant interactions are predicted to decrease from an average of 47.1 co‐occurring bat–plant pairs in the present to 34.1 in the pessimistic scenario. The overall changes in environmental conditions may disrupt the current bat–plant co‐occurrence network and will likely putt at risk the pollination services bat species provide.
Purpose
To validate the performance of a commercially available, CE‐certified deep learning (DL) system, RetCAD v.1.3.0 (Thirona, Nijmegen, The Netherlands), for the joint automatic detection of ...diabetic retinopathy (DR) and age‐related macular degeneration (AMD) in colour fundus (CF) images on a dataset with mixed presence of eye diseases.
Methods
Evaluation of joint detection of referable DR and AMD was performed on a DR‐AMD dataset with 600 images acquired during routine clinical practice, containing referable and non‐referable cases of both diseases. Each image was graded for DR and AMD by an experienced ophthalmologist to establish the reference standard (RS), and by four independent observers for comparison with human performance. Validation was furtherly assessed on Messidor (1200 images) for individual identification of referable DR, and the Age‐Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) dataset (133 821 images) for referable AMD, against the corresponding RS.
Results
Regarding joint validation on the DR‐AMD dataset, the system achieved an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 95.1% for detection of referable DR (SE = 90.1%, SP = 90.6%). For referable AMD, the AUC was 94.9% (SE = 91.8%, SP = 87.5%). Average human performance for DR was SE = 61.5% and SP = 97.8%; for AMD, SE = 76.5% and SP = 96.1%. Regarding detection of referable DR in Messidor, AUC was 97.5% (SE = 92.0%, SP = 92.1%); for referable AMD in AREDS, AUC was 92.7% (SE = 85.8%, SP = 86.0%).
Conclusion
The validated system performs comparably to human experts at simultaneous detection of DR and AMD. This shows that DL systems can facilitate access to joint screening of eye diseases and become a quick and reliable support for ophthalmological experts.
ABSTRACT
Animal acoustic communication often takes the form of complex sequences, made up of multiple distinct acoustic units. Apart from the well‐known example of birdsong, other animals such as ...insects, amphibians, and mammals (including bats, rodents, primates, and cetaceans) also generate complex acoustic sequences. Occasionally, such as with birdsong, the adaptive role of these sequences seems clear (e.g. mate attraction and territorial defence). More often however, researchers have only begun to characterise – let alone understand – the significance and meaning of acoustic sequences. Hypotheses abound, but there is little agreement as to how sequences should be defined and analysed. Our review aims to outline suitable methods for testing these hypotheses, and to describe the major limitations to our current and near‐future knowledge on questions of acoustic sequences. This review and prospectus is the result of a collaborative effort between 43 scientists from the fields of animal behaviour, ecology and evolution, signal processing, machine learning, quantitative linguistics, and information theory, who gathered for a 2013 workshop entitled, ‘Analysing vocal sequences in animals’. Our goal is to present not just a review of the state of the art, but to propose a methodological framework that summarises what we suggest are the best practices for research in this field, across taxa and across disciplines. We also provide a tutorial‐style introduction to some of the most promising algorithmic approaches for analysing sequences. We divide our review into three sections: identifying the distinct units of an acoustic sequence, describing the different ways that information can be contained within a sequence, and analysing the structure of that sequence. Each of these sections is further subdivided to address the key questions and approaches in that area. We propose a uniform, systematic, and comprehensive approach to studying sequences, with the goal of clarifying research terms used in different fields, and facilitating collaboration and comparative studies. Allowing greater interdisciplinary collaboration will facilitate the investigation of many important questions in the evolution of communication and sociality.
English is widely recognized as the language of science, and English‐language publications (ELPs) are rapidly increasing. It is often assumed that the number of non‐ELPs is decreasing. This ...assumption contributes to the underuse of non‐ELPs in conservation science, practice, and policy, especially at the international level. However, the number of conservation articles published in different languages is poorly documented. Using local and international search systems, we searched for scientific articles on biodiversity conservation published from 1980 to 2018 in English and 15 non‐English languages. We compared the growth rate in publications across languages. In 12 of the 15 non‐English languages, published conservation articles significantly increased every year over the past 39 years, at a rate similar to English‐language articles. The other three languages showed contrasting results, depending on the search system. Since the 1990s, conservation science articles in most languages increased exponentially. The variation in the number of non‐English‐language articles identified among the search systems differed markedly (e.g., for simplified Chinese, 11,148 articles returned with local search system and 803 with Scopus). Google Scholar and local literature search systems returned the most articles for 11 and 4 non‐English languages, respectively. However, the proportion of peer‐reviewed conservation articles published in non‐English languages was highest in Scopus, followed by Web of Science and local search systems, and lowest in Google Scholar. About 20% of the sampled non‐English‐language articles provided no title or in English; thus, in theory, they were undiscoverable with English keywords. Possible reasons for this include language barriers and the need to disseminate research in countries where English is not widely spoken. Given the known biases in statistical methods and study characteristics between English‐ and non‐English‐language studies, non‐English‐language articles will continue to play an important role in improving the understanding of biodiversity and its conservation.
Resumen
Resumen: El inglés es reconocido como el idioma de la ciencia y las publicaciones en inglés (PI) cada vez son más. Con frecuencia se asume que el número de publicaciones en idiomas diferentes al inglés está disminuyendo. Esta suposición contribuye al uso reducido de las publicaciones que no están en inglés en las ciencias, prácticas y políticas de la conservación, especialmente a nivel internacional. Sin embargo, el número de artículos de conservación publicados en diferentes idiomas está muy mal documentado. Usamos sistemas de búsqueda locales e internacionales para buscar artículos científicos sobre la conservación de la biodiversidad publicados entre 1980 y 2018 en inglés y en quince idiomas diferentes al inglés. También comparamos la tasa de incremento de publicaciones en los diferentes idiomas. En doce de los quince idiomas diferentes al inglés, los artículos de conservación publicados incrementaron significativamente cada año durante los últimos 39 años, una tasa similar a los artículos en inglés. Los otros tres idiomas mostraron resultados contrastantes según el sistema de búsqueda. Desde la década de 1990, los artículos sobre ciencias de la conservación incrementaron exponencialmente en la mayoría de los idiomas. La variación en el número de artículos identificados en idiomas diferentes al inglés difirió notablemente de acuerdo con los sistemas de búsqueda (p. ej.: en el caso del chino simplificado, obtuvimos 11,148 artículos con el sistema de búsqueda local y 803 con Scopus). Google Scholar y los sistemas locales de búsqueda arrojaron la mayor cantidad de artículos en 11 y 4 idiomas diferentes al inglés, respectivamente. Sin embargo, la proporción de artículos sobre conservación revisados por pares y publicados en idiomas diferentes al inglés fue mayor en Scopus, seguida por Web of Science y los sistemas locales de búsqueda, con la menor proporción en Google Scholar. Aproximadamente el 20% de la muestra de artículos en idiomas diferentes al inglés no contaban con título o con resumen en inglés; por lo tanto, en teoría, eran imposibles de encontrar mediante palabras clave en inglés. Las posibles explicaciones de esto incluyen las barreras del idioma y la necesidad de difundir la investigación en países en los que el inglés no se habla extensamente. Con los sesgos conocidos de los métodos estadísticos y de las características de estudio entre los trabajos en inglés y en otros idiomas, los artículos en idiomas diferentes al inglés seguirán desempeñando un papel importante en el entendimiento de la biodiversidad y su conservación.
Incremento de la Literatura sobre la Conservación de la Biodiversidad en Idiomas Diferentes al Inglés
摘要
如今, 英语在科学研究中被广泛的使用, 同时英语出版物 (ELPs) 也在迅速增加。非英语科学出版物的数量通常被认为正在减少。这一假设导致非英语出版物在保护科学、实践和政策中的使用不足, 特别是在国际层面。并且, 关于以不同语言发表的保护科学的文献数量的报道也鲜有记载。因此，我们使用本土和国际搜索系统搜索并统计了1980年至2018年间以英语和15种非英语发表的关于生物多样性和保护的文献。此外, 我们还比较了不同语言文献的增长率。我们发现, 在过去39年中, 每年出版的关于保护的非英语文献中, 至少有12种语言的文献数量显著增加, 增长速度与英语文献相似。根据搜索系统的不同, 另外3种语言文献的结果却相反。保护相关的文献从20世纪80年代初开始出现, 自20世纪90年代以来, 大多数语言的保护相关的文献呈指数级增长。我们还观察到, 在搜索系统中发现的非英语文献数量存在显著差异。谷歌学术和本土文献搜索系统中共有11种和4种非英语语言的文献最多。然而, 以非英语语言发表同行评议的相关文献的比例在Scopus中最高, 其次是Web of Science和本土搜索系统, 在谷歌学术中最低。在抽样的非英语文献中, 约有20%的文献没有英文标题或摘要。因此, 理论上 无法使用英语关键词检索。造成这种情况的原因可能是因为语言障碍, 或者在英语不普及的国家是否有必要传播科学研究。鉴于英语和非英语研究在统计结果和研究特征方面存在的已知差异, 非英语文献将继续在提高我们对生物多样性和保护的理解方面发挥重要作用。
增长中的生物多样性保护的非英语文献
Aim
Climate and land use change are among the most important threatening processes driving biodiversity loss, especially in the tropics. Although the potential impacts of each threat have been widely ...studied in isolation, few studies have assessed the impacts of climate and land cover change in combination. Here, we evaluate the exposure of a large mammalian clade, bats, to multiple scenarios of environmental change and dispersal to understand potential consequences for biodiversity conservation.
Location
Mexico.
Methods
We used ensemble species distribution models to forecast changes in environmental suitability for 130 bat species that occur in Mexico by 2050s under four dispersal assumptions and four combined climate and land use change scenarios. We identified regions with the strongest projected impacts for each scenario and assessed the overlap across scenarios.
Results
The combined effects of climate and land use change will cause an average reduction in environmental suitability for 51% of the species across their range, regardless of scenario. Overall, species show a mean decrease in environmental suitability in at least 46% of their current range in all scenarios of change and dispersal. Climate scenarios had a higher impact on species environmental suitability than land use scenarios. There was a spatial overlap of 43% across the four environmental change scenarios for the regions projected to have the strongest impacts.
Main conclusions
Combined effects of future environmental change may result in substantial declines in environmental suitability for Mexican bats even under optimistic scenarios. This study highlights the vulnerability of megadiverse regions and an indicator taxon to human disturbance. The consideration of combined threats can make an important difference in how we react to changes to conserve our biodiversity as they pose different challenges.
Vertebrate pollinators are increasingly threatened worldwide, but little is known about the potential consequences of declining pollinator populations on plants and ecosystems. Here, we present the ...first global assessment of the importance of vertebrate pollinators in the reproductive success of selected flowering plants. Our meta-analysis of 126 experiments on animal-pollinated plants revealed that excluding vertebrate pollinators - but not insect pollinators - reduced fruit and/or seed production by 63% on average. We found bat-pollinated plants to be more dependent on their respective vertebrate pollinators than bird-pollinated plants (an average 83% reduction in fruit/seed production when bats were excluded, as compared to a 46% reduction when birds were excluded). Plant dependence on vertebrate pollinators for fruit/seed production was greater in the tropics than at higher latitudes. Given the potential for substantial negative impacts associated with the loss of vertebrate pollinators, there is a clear need for prompt, effective conservation action for threatened flower-visiting vertebrate species. Additional research on how such changes might affect wider ecosystems is also required.
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