Integrating Global Citizen Science Platforms to Enable Next-Generation Surveillance of Invasive and Vector Mosquitoes

Este artículo contiene 24 páginas, 6 figuras.Mosquito-borne diseases continue to ravage humankind with >700 million infections and nearly one million deaths every year. Yet only a small percentage of the >3500 mosquito species transmit diseases, necessitating both extensive surveillance and precise identification. Unfortunately, such efforts are costly, time-consuming, and require entomological expertise. As envisioned by the Global Mosquito Alert Consortium, citizen science can provide a scalable solution. However, disparate data standards across existing platforms have thus far precluded truly global integration. Here, utilizing Open Geospatial Consortium standards, we harmonized four data streams from three established mobile apps—Mosquito Alert, iNaturalist, and GLOBE Observer’s Mosquito Habitat Mapper and Land Cover—to facilitate interoperability and utility for researchers, mosquito control personnel, and policymakers. We also launched coordinated media campaigns that generated unprecedented numbers and types of observations, including successfully capturing the first images of targeted invasive and vector species. Additionally, we leveraged pooled image data to develop a toolset of artificial intelligence algorithms for future deployment in taxonomic and anatomical identification. Ultimately, by harnessing the combined powers of citizen science and artificial intelligence, we establish a next-generation surveillance framework to serve as a united front to combat the ongoing threat of mosquito-borne diseases worldwide.This research was funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. IIS-2014547 to R.M.C., S.C., R.D.L. and A.B. The GLOBE Observer app and citizen science programming are supported through National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) cooperative agreement NNX16AE28A to the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) for the NASA Earth Science Education Collaborative (NESEC, PI: Theresa Schwerin). F.B. and J.R.B.P. acknowledge funding from: (a) the European Commission, under Grants CA17108 (AIM-COST Action), 874735 (VEO), 853271 (H-MIP), and 2020/2094 (NextGenerationEU, through CSIC’s Global Health Platform, PTI Salud Global); (b) the Dutch National Research Agenda (NWA), under Grant NWA/00686468; and (c) “la Caixa” Foundation, under Grant HR19-00336.Peer reviewe

Seed Dispersal and Regeneration in a Tanzanian Rainforest

This work is united by the themes of plant-animal interactions and the ways in which human activity can alter the interactions, with a focus on Afrotropical forests. The Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania and Kenya are biodiversity hotspots with numerous species of plants and animals that occur nowhere else. Many of the plants rely on birds, bats, primates, rodents, or other mammals to disperse their seeds. One of the best-studied areas in Eastern Arc Mountains is the East Usambara Mountains in northeastern Tanzania. The first four chapters examine seed dispersal in and around the Amani Nature Reserve, which protects the largest area of submontane rainforest in the East Usambaras. Chapters one and four deal with seed dispersal by fruit bats in the family Pteropodidae. The first chapter draws attention to the importance of bats as seed dispersers by using observations from Amani and other published observations to point out the general neglect of bats as seed dispersers in Africa. The fourth chapter quantifies seed rain from bats in the context of comparisons between continuous forest and forest fragments. Chapters two and three examine how seed harvest by humans of a rodent-dispersed endemic canopy tree may affect dispersal and fate of the remaining seeds, and if enrichment planting of seeds could be a useful management tool. The last chapter takes a continental perspective on seed dispersal and frugivory in Africa by using thousands of published observations in an attempt to reveal patterns that may be more difficult to see at the local scale. These broad-scale patterns have potential to reveal trends in plant-animal coevolution, and may allow us to predict the ramifications of local extinction for other plant and animal groups

First record of the servaline genet (Genetta Servaina) in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

Recently rediscovered in the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania, with more distributional records from several central and southern Eastern Arc Mountains, the servaline genet Genetta servalina Pucheran, 1855 remains a rarely recorded species in East Africa. Using camera traps, we document several locations for G. servalina in and around the Amani Nature Reserve, East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania. These records extend the range of G. servalina to the northern part of the Eastern Arc Mountains.Keywords: Genetta servalina, Servaline genet, Eastern Arc Mountains, Viverridae, camera trapsJournal of East African Natural History 101(1): 17–27 (2012

Seed harvesting of a threatened African tree dispersed by rodents: Is enrichment planting a solution?

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) provide income to local communities with less ecological harm than timber extraction. Yet overharvesting can still influence the regeneration and sustainability of these resources. Developing sustainable harvesting practices for emerging NTFPs depends on the biology of the NTFP species, the ecological context in which management occurs, and its cost in terms of effort and resources. Allanblackia stuhlmannii (Clusiaceae) is a canopy tree species whose seeds are a source of vegetable oil and an important food for rodents. In an experiment within the Amani Nature Reserve (Tanzania), we studied how enrichment planting of A. stuhlmannii seeds affected germination and establishment rates under varying local levels of seed abundance and rodent activity. Overall, germination and establishment rates were high (4.8% and 2.2%, respectively, after 11 months), while local ecological conditions had a short lived (1–2 weeks) and unexpectedly small influence on the persistence of planted seeds. Given these rates, we estimate a cost of approximately US$0.14 per seedling. Enrichment planting of seeds, across a range of local ecological conditions, appears to be a viable and cost effective management strategy for increasing A. stuhlmannii recruitment in harvested areas

The benefits of contributing to the citizen science platform iNaturalist as an identifier.

As the number of observations submitted to the citizen science platform iNaturalist continues to grow, it is increasingly important that these observations can be identified to the finest taxonomic level, maximizing their value for biodiversity research. Here, we explore the benefits of acting as an identifier on iNaturalist