Deep uncertainty, public reason, the conservation of biodiversity and the regulation of markets for lion skeletons

Public reason is a formal concept in political theory. There is a need to better understand how public reason might be elicited in making public decisions that involve deep uncertainty, which arises from pernicious and gross ignorance about how a system works, the boundaries of a system, and the relative value (or disvalue) of various possible outcomes. This article is the third in a series to demonstrate how ethical argument analysis—a qualitative decision-making aid—may be used to elicit public reason in the presence of deep uncertainty. The first article demonstrated how argument analysis is capable of probing deep into a single argument. The second article demonstrated how argument analysis can analyze a broad set of arguments and how argument analysis can be operationalized for use as a decision-making aid. This article demonstrates (i) the relevance of argument analysis to public reasoning, (ii) the relevance of argument analysis for decision-making under deep uncertainty, an emerging direction in decision theory, and (iii) how deep uncertainty can arise when the boundary between facts and values is inescapably entangled. This article and the previous two make these demonstrations using, as an example, the conservation and sustainable use of lions

Finding purpose in the conservation of biodiversity by the commingling of science and ethics

Averting the biodiversity crisis requires closing a gap between how humans tend to behave, individually and collectively, and how we ought to behave—“ought to” in the sense of behaviors required to avert the biodiversity crisis. Closing that gap requires synthesizing insight from ethics with insights from social and behavioral sciences. This article contributes to that synthesis, which presents in several provocative hypotheses: (i) Lessening the biodiversity crisis requires promoting pro-conservation behavior among humans. Doing so requires better scientific understanding of how one’s sense of purpose in life affects conservation-relevant behaviors. Psychology and virtue-focused ethics indicate that behavior is importantly influenced by one’s purpose. However, conservation psychology has neglected inquiries on (a) the influence of one’s purpose (both the content and strength of one’s purpose) on conservation-related behaviors and (b) how to foster proconservation purposes; (ii) lessening the biodiversity crisis requires governance—the regulation of behavior by governments, markets or other organization through various means, including laws, norms, and power—to explicitly take conservation as one of its fundamental purposes and to do so across scales of human behaviors, from local communities to nations and corporations; (iii) lessening the biodiversity crisis requires intervention via governance to nudge human behavior in line with the purpose of conservation without undue infringement on other basic values. Aligning human behavior with conservation is inhibited by the underlying purpose of conservation being un derspecified. Adequate specification of conservation’s purpose will require additional interdisciplinary research involving insights from ethics, social and behavioral sciences, and conservation biology

The ethics of human-animal relationships and public discourse: A case study of lions bred for their bones

Conservation and natural resource management are increasingly attending the ethical elements of public decisions. Ethical considerations are challenging, in part, because they typically require accounting for the moral consideration of various human and nonhuman forms of life, whose interests sometimes conflict (or seem to conflict). A valuable tool for such evaluations is the formal analysis of ethical arguments. An ethical argument is a collection of premises, logically interrelated, to yield a conclusion that can be expressed in the form, “We ought to…” According to the rules of logic, a conclusion is supported by an argument if all its premises are true or appropriate and when it contains no mistaken inferences. We showed how the formal analysis of ethical arguments can be used to engage stakeholders and decision-makers in decision-making processes. We summarised the method with ten specific guidelines that would be applicable to any case. We illustrated the technique using a case study focused on captive-bred lions, the skeletons of which form part of an international trade to supply traditional medicine markets in Southeast Asia with felid bones. As a matter of public policy, the practice is a complicated nexus of concerns for entrepreneurial freedom, wildlife conservation, and the fair treatment of animals

Is there an elephant in the room? A Response to Batavia et al

Non peer reviewe

Relative efforts of countries to conserve world’s megafauna

Surprisingly little attention has been paid to variation among countries in contributions to conservation. As a first step, we developed a Megafauna Conservation Index (MCI) that assesses the spatial, ecological and financial contributions of 152 nations towards conservation of the world’s terrestrial megafauna. We chose megafauna because they are particularly valuable in economic, ecological and societal terms, and are challenging and expensive to conserve. We categorised these 152 countries as being above- or below-average performers based on whether their contribution to megafauna conservation was higher or lower than the global mean; ‘major’ performers or underperformers were those whose contribution exceeded 1 SD over or under the mean, respectively. Ninety percent of countries in North/Central America and 70% of countries in Africa were classified as major or above-average performers, while approximately one-quarter of countries in Asia (25%) and Europe (21%) were identified as major underperformers. We present our index to emphasize the need for measuring conservation performance, to help nations identify how best they could improve their efforts, and to present a starting point for the development of more robust and inclusive measures (noting how the IUCN Red List evolved over time). Our analysis points to three approaches that countries could adopt to improve their contribution to global megafauna conservation, depending on their circumstances: 1) upgrading or expanding their domestic protected area networks, with a particular emphasis on conserving large carnivore and herbivore habitat, 2) increase funding for conservation at home or abroad, or 3) ‘rewilding’ their landscapes. Once revised and perfected, we recommend publishing regular conservation rankings in the popular media to recognise major-performers, foster healthy pride and competition among nations, and identify ways for governments to improve their performance

Integrating Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) conservation into development and restoration planning in Sabah (Borneo)

Changes in land use/cover are the main drivers of global biodiversity loss, and thus tools to evaluate effects of landscape change on biodiversity are crucial. In this study we integrated several methods from landscape ecology and landscape genetics into a GIS-based analytical framework, and evaluated the impacts of development and forest restoration scenarios on landscape connectivity, population dynamics and genetic diversity of Sunda clouded leopard in the Malaysian state of Sabah. We also investigated the separate and interactive effects of changing mortality risk and connectivity. Our study suggested that the current clouded leopard population size is larger (+26%) than the current carrying capacity of the landscape due to time lag effects and extinction debt. Additionally, we predicted that proposed developments in Sabah may decrease landscape connectivity by 23% and, when including the increased mortality risk associated with these developments, result in a 40–63% decrease in population size and substantial reduction in genetic diversity. These negative impacts could be mitigated only to a very limited degree through extensive and targeted forest restoration. Our results suggest that realignment of roads and railways based on resistance to movement, without including mortality risk, might be misleading and may in some cases lead to decrease in population size. We therefore recommend that efforts to optimally plan road and railway locations base the optimization on effects of development on population size, density and distribution rather than solely on population connectivity

Multi-scale habitat modelling identifies spatial conservation priorities for mainland clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa)

Aim Deforestation is rapidly altering Southeast Asian landscapes, resulting in some of the highest rates of habitat loss worldwide. Among the many species facing declines in this region, clouded leopards rank notably for their ambassadorial potential and capacity to act as powerful levers for broader forest conservation programmes. Thus, identifying core habitat and conservation opportunities are critical for curbing further Neofelis declines and extending umbrella protection for diverse forest biota similarly threatened by widespread habitat loss. Furthermore, a recent comprehensive habitat assessment of Sunda clouded leopards (N. diardi) highlights the lack of such information for the mainland species (N. nebulosa) and facilitates a comparative assessment. Location Southeast Asia. Methods Species–habitat relationships are scale‐dependent, yet <5% of all recent habitat modelling papers apply robust approaches to optimize multivariate scale relationships. Using one of the largest camera trap datasets ever collected, we developed scale‐optimized species distribution models for two con‐generic carnivores, and quantitatively compared their habitat niches. Results We identified core habitat, connectivity corridors, and ranked remaining habitat patches for conservation prioritization. Closed‐canopy forest was the strongest predictor, with ~25% lower Neofelis detections when forest cover declined from 100 to 65%. A strong, positive association with increasing precipitation suggests ongoing climate change as a growing threat along drier edges of the species’ range. While deforestation and land use conversion were deleterious for both species, N. nebulosa was uniquely associated with shrublands and grasslands. We identified 800 km2 as a minimum patch size for supporting clouded leopard conservation. Main conclusions We illustrate the utility of multi‐scale modelling for identifying key habitat requirements, optimal scales of use and critical targets for guiding conservation prioritization. Curbing deforestation and development within remaining core habitat and dispersal corridors, particularly in Myanmar, Laos and Malaysia, is critical for supporting evolutionary potential of clouded leopards and conservation of associated forest biodiversity.Dr. Holly Reed Conservation Fund; Langtang National Park; World Animal Protection; Robertson Foundation; Point Defiance Zoo & Aquariu

Ecological implications of pedogenesis and geochemistry of ultramafic soils in Kinabalu Park (Malaysia)

In Sabah, Malaysia, ultramafic rock outcrops are widespread (totalling 3500 km2, one of the main outcrops in the tropical zone), and predominantly of the peridotite type. However, strongly serpentinised peridotite is also locally common, particularly along fault lines in the Mt. Kinabalu area. This study aimed to determine the extent of chemical variation in ultramafic soils in relation to the degree of serpentinisation and the weathering intensity, and consequent potential ecological implications linked to resulting soil chemical fertility. It was hypothesized that young soils and soils derived from bedrock with a significant degree of serpentinisation strongly differ from typical Geric Ferralsols and result in soil chemistries with more adverse properties to plant life (e.g. low availability of the essential nutrients N, P, K and Ca and high concentrations of potentially phytotoxic Mg and Ni). Ultramafic soil diversity linked to the age of the soil or the degree of serpentinisation would thus be a main factor of plant diversity and distribution. The diverse topography of Kinabalu Park (ultramafic soils present between 400 and 2950 m asl) has given rise to high pedodiversity with the broad overall ultramafic soil types being: (i) deep laterite soils (Geric Ferralsols); (ii) moderately deep montane soils (Dystric Cambisols) with mor humus; (iii) shallow skeletal soils at high altitude (Eutric Cambisols Hypermagnesic); and (iv) bare serpentinite soils (Hypereutric Leptosols Hypermagnesic) at low altitude (200–700 m asl). Leptosols on serpentinite and Eutric Cambisols have the most extreme chemical properties in the whole Kinabalu Park area both with very high Mg:Ca molar quotients, with either high available Ni (Cambisols) or high pH (Leptosols). These soils host specific and adapted vegetation (high level of endemism) that tolerates geochemical peculiarities, including Ni hyperaccumulators. Geric Ferralsols present far less chemical constraints than Hypermagnesian Cambisols soils to the vegetation and host a tall and very diverse rainforest, not so different than that on non-ultramafic soils. It therefore appears that altitude, soil age and degree of bedrock serpentinisation are the main determining factors of soil properties: the qualifier “ultramafic” alone is not sufficient to define soil geochemical and ecological conditions in the Kinabalu Park area, probably more than in any other ultramafic region in the world

An immune dysfunction score for stratification of patients with acute infection based on whole-blood gene expression

Dysregulated host responses to infection can lead to organ dysfunction and sepsis, causing millions of global deaths each year. To alleviate this burden, improved prognostication and biomarkers of response are urgently needed. We investigated the use of whole-blood transcriptomics for stratification of patients with severe infection by integrating data from 3149 samples from patients with sepsis due to community-acquired pneumonia or fecal peritonitis admitted to intensive care and healthy individuals into a gene expression reference map. We used this map to derive a quantitative sepsis response signature (SRSq) score reflective of immune dysfunction and predictive of clinical outcomes, which can be estimated using a 7- or 12-gene signature. Last, we built a machine learning framework, SepstratifieR, to deploy SRSq in adult and pediatric bacterial and viral sepsis, H1N1 influenza, and COVID-19, demonstrating clinically relevant stratification across diseases and revealing some of the physiological alterations linking immune dysregulation to mortality. Our method enables early identification of individuals with dysfunctional immune profiles, bringing us closer to precision medicine in infection.peer-reviewe

Ranging ecology of roving (bachelor) and resident male Erythrocebus patas : implications for male mating strategies

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