Woodcutting Activities in Tabuk Region (Saudi Arabia): Assessment of Conservation Knowledge

The present study aims to investigate the effect of different social factors on the woodcutting frequency in Tabuk Region. A total of 100 people participated in this study by answering the questionnaire questions. The conservation knowledge of the participants was also assessed through 4 questions (Yes or No). The final score of the conservation knowledge assessment is 4. The present study findings showed that most of people like to cut the wood for heating during winter and fall seasons. The frequency of woodcutting in Tabuk Region was once a month. Among the social factors involved in this study, education showed negative and significant relationship with the number of logging times. However, age had positive relationship with the number of logging times. The most favourbale species to be cut and used for heating and cooking in Tabuk are; Acacia tortilis, Acacia ehrenbergiana, Retama reaetam and Calligonum comosum. For the assessment of the public conservation knowledge, it was found that most of participants had moderate to good conservation knowledge as most of them answered 3 questions correctly out of 4. The conservation knowledge showed to be affected positively by education level and negatively by the number of family members. In conclusion, it was found that there is remarkable woodcutting stress on wild plants in Tabuk Region and immediate and effective actions should be performe

Diversity and distribution of dipterous flies of medical and veternary importance in Tayma, Saudi Arabia

The present study aims to investigate the distribution and diversity of dipterous flies in Tayma (Saudi Arabia) during the spring of 2018. A total of 12 dipterous species were collected from three different sites located in Tayma (Tabuk, Saudi Arabia) located in the Northern part of Saudi Arabia. The taxa of flies were dominated by Musca domestica and Musca sorbens. No significant difference were observed between the total number of flies collected using different traps (t-test, P0.05) and among the studied sites (ANOVA, P0.05). The highest number of flies was recorded from Site 3 (a cattle farm). However, lower number of flies was reported from the dates palm farms. In conlusion, the species Musca domestica were found to be the most abundant species in all locations with remarkable high abundance in animal facilities (slaughter house and animal farm). The pheromone traps were found to be the most effective trap catching high number of individuls and high number of fly species.

Monitoring Diptera species of medical and veterinary importance in Saudi Arabia: Comparative efficacy of lure-baited and chromotropic traps

Abstract A number of Diptera species have medical and veterinary importance as they cause myiasis and act as vectors for protozoans, helminth eggs, as well as bacterial pathogens. In this research here, eleven Diptera species were monitored in five locations in Northwestern part of Saudi Arabia, using three types of traps (lure-baited traps, window fly trap and yellow sticky traps). As a general trend, the dominant flies were Musca domestica, Musca sorbens, Calliphora sp., blowfly Chrysomya sp. and Sarcophaga haemorrhidalis. No significant differences were observed among the total number of flies collected indoor and outdoor at each site using different traps. In the slaughter house, the three types of traps showed significant differences in the mean of collected flies (F = 4.135). Lure-baited traps showed significant differences in the abundance of the flies collected over the other two traps. In vegetable markets, fly abundance varied significantly among the three types of traps (F = 13.934). In the animal market, the mean number of flies collected varied significantly among the three types of traps (F = 4.792). Similar patterns of variation in the number of flies collected by different traps were shown in farms (F = 4.747). However, in the residential area, no significant difference was detected in the mean number of flies collected by three traps (F = 2.620). M. domestica was found to be the most abundant species in all locations with a remarkable high abundance in animal facilities, and the lure-baited traps were found to be the most effective for monitoring fly abundance. Overall, our research adds basic knowledge for future control programs against flies of medical and veterinary importance in Saudi Arabia

Biomonitoring of heavy metals in intertidal snails: the importance of aquatic ecosystem management

Samplings of intertidal snails were done in January-April 2005 along the northern part of Peninsular Malaysia. Five taxa of intertidal snails (Pomacea canaliculata, Nerita lineata, Chicoreus capucinus, Thais sp. and Telescopium telescopium) were analysed for Cd, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb and Zn. Based on the analyses of the different species, it can be concluded that 1) the highest and the lowest levels of metals in all species were Fe and Cd, respectively, which is in line with the abundance of these metals in the nature; 2) the levels of metals in the soft tissues and shells of the snails species were significantly different which were due to metal handling strategies and regulations; and 3) these metal accumulations in the soft tissues and shells shed lights on effective management of marine ecosystem in future studies

Genotoxicity In Chironomus Kiiensis (Chironomidae: Diptera) after Exposure To Polluted Sediments from Rivers of North Peninsular Malaysia: Implication For Ecotoxicological Monitoring

Rapid industrialization and urbanization has led to increasing input of chemical contaminants into the aquatic environment of Malaysia. Despite the threat civilization poses to the biota, there are still very few relevant studies on ecotoxicological testing of river ecosystems. To overcome this knowledge gap,we examined lethal and genotoxic effects of sediments fromdifferent rivers of the northernMalaysia against Chironomus kiiensis, a group well represented in the aquatic fauna of this region.We exposed the larvae to sediments from Selama River (SR), Permatang Rawa River (PRR) and Kilang Ubi River (KUR) at various durations (0, 6, 12, 24 and 48 h). The larval mortality was monitored, whereas DNA damage in survivors’ cells was determined using the comet assay. Pollution level indexed by the amounts of heavy metals and other organic contaminants in the sediment showed progressive increases from SR to PRR to KUR. Highly polluted sediments (PRR to KUR) were detrimental to C. kiiensis larvae, most of which did not survive following exposure for long periods. DNA analyses revealed greater damages in nuclei derived from larvae maintained on polluted sediments, in particular, those from KUR. The effects on the genomic material of C. kiiensis larvae occurred in a timedependent manner, with damage level increasing as exposure time progressed. Our results highlight the genotoxic properties of polluted sediments.More importantly, this study showed that C. kiiensis larvae could respond to different levels of pollution with respect to exposure time. It is concluded that C. kiiensis larvae is a potential candidate for river ecotoxicological monitoring

Congruence patterns of aquatic communities in a tropical river basin, Malaysia

The loss of aquatic biodiversity in tropical streams of SE Asia is evident due to increasing anthropogenic activities. Therefore, there is a necessity for immediate and feasible conservation plans. Effective conservation planning depends on successful application of surrogate groups. However, progress of this approach is hindered by the paucity of relevant reports based on cross-taxon congruence analysis. In this study, we investigated congruence patterns among aquatic groups (Plecoptera, Trichoptera, Ephemeroptera, Odonata and fish) in six rivers located in the Kerian River Basin (KRB), Malaysia. Species richness was significantly correlated among aquatic groups (except for Ephemeroptera and Trichoptera where r = 0.040 and P = 0.202). The strongest relationship in species richness was reported between Ephemeroptera and Plecoptera. The Mantel's r coefficient of similarity matrices (based on the Bray-Curtis distance measure) showed a positive correlation between the matrices of Ephemeroptera-Trichoptera and Plecoptera-Trichoptera. However, a negative relationship was reported between Odonata-fish matrices. The relationships between average Trichoptera-Odonata distance to the centroid (i.e. beta diversity) among the aquatic groups were also investigated. The strongest relationship in the average to the centroids was reported between Ephemeroptera and Odonata (R2 = 0.424, P < 0.05). However, the weakest relationship was reported between Trichoptera and fish with R2 value of 0.024. It is concluded that richness of Plecoptera, Odonata and fish showed correlations patterns, and these can be used as surrogates for each other with some restrictions

The global EPTO database: Worldwide occurrences of aquatic insects

Motivation: Aquatic insects comprise 64% of freshwater animal diversity and are widely used as bioindicators to assess water quality impairment and freshwater ecosystem health, as well as to test ecological hypotheses. Despite their importance, a comprehensive, global database of aquatic insect occurrences for mapping freshwater biodiversity in macroecological studies and applied freshwater research is missing. We aim to fill this gap and present the Global EPTO Database, which includes worldwide geo-referenced aquatic insect occurrence records for four major taxa groups: Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera and Odonata (EPTO). Main type of variables contained: A total of 8,368,467 occurrence records globally, of which 8,319,689 (99%) are publicly available. The records are attributed to the corresponding drainage basin and sub-catchment based on the Hydrography90m dataset and are accompanied by the elevation value, the freshwater ecoregion and the protection status of their location. Spatial location and grain: The database covers the global extent, with 86% of the observation records having coordinates with at least four decimal digits (11.1 m precision at the equator) in the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84) coordinate reference system. Time period and grain: Sampling years span from 1951 to 2021. Ninety-nine percent of the records have information on the year of the observation, 95% on the year and month, while 94% have a complete date. In the case of seven sub-datasets, exact dates can be retrieved upon communication with the data contributors.Major taxa and level of measurement: Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera and Odonata, standardized at the genus taxonomic level. We provide species names for 7,727,980 (93%) records without further taxonomic verification. Software format: The entire tab-separated value (.csv) database can be downloaded and visualized at https://glowa bio.org/proje ct/epto_datab ase/. Fifty individual datasets are also available at https://fred.igb-berlin. de, while six datasets have restricted access. For the latter, we share metadata and the contact details of the authors

A comparative analysis reveals weak relationships between ecological factors and beta diversity of stream insect metacommunities at two spatial levels.

The hypotheses that beta diversity should increase with decreasing latitude and increase with spatial extent of a region have rarely been tested based on a comparative analysis of multiple datasets, and no such study has focused on stream insects. We first assessed how well variability in beta diversity of stream insect metacommunities is predicted by insect group, latitude, spatial extent, altitudinal range, and dataset properties across multiple drainage basins throughout the world. Second, we assessed the relative roles of environmental and spatial factors in driving variation in assemblage composition within each drainage basin. Our analyses were based on a dataset of 95 stream insect metacommunities from 31 drainage basins distributed around the world. We used dissimilarity-based indices to quantify beta diversity for each metacommunity and, subsequently, regressed beta diversity on insect group, latitude, spatial extent, altitudinal range, and dataset properties (e.g., number of sites and percentage of presences). Within each metacommunity, we used a combination of spatial eigenfunction analyses and partial redundancy analysis to partition variation in assemblage structure into environmental, shared, spatial, and unexplained fractions. We found that dataset properties were more important predictors of beta diversity than ecological and geographical factors across multiple drainage basins. In the within-basin analyses, environmental and spatial variables were generally poor predictors of variation in assemblage composition. Our results revealed deviation from general biodiversity patterns because beta diversity did not show the expected decreasing trend with latitude. Our results also call for reconsideration of just how predictable stream assemblages are along ecological gradients, with implications for environmental assessment and conservation decisions. Our findings may also be applicable to other dynamic systems where predictability is low