Safe Passage to the End of Earth

Safe Passage to the End of Earth is representative of my work as a poet and my ideas about the world. It’s broken down into four sections that approach the world from different perspectives. Each section reflects my interests mostly independent of one another, though they connect thematically. The order of the sections, and the order of the poems within the sections, reflects what I felt was the strongest sense of motion from one idea to the next, beginning with a poem that touches on many of the themes in a single page and moving through politics, history, religion, and space in a neatly-ordered progression. There are few deviations from these primary themes, and where they exist, I’ve tried to place them where they fit best. For example, “Discovering Mortality” isn’t explicitly religious, but I felt that it belonged in “Some Unanswered Prayers” because it dealing with mortality is often a religious experience. Safe Passage to the End of Earth also represents my work because it showcases various forms, from short free-verse lines of “Discovering Mortality” to the sestina, “The Literalist’s Bible”, with few repeats in structure. There are two sonnets. Otherwise, the structure of the poems in the manuscript varies. While the subject matter of these poems are tailored to my interests, I hope that readers can find something compelling in them

Assessment of national-level progress towards elements of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets

Progress towards the Aichi Targets adopted through the Convention on Biological Diversity has been measured globally via indicators linked to elements of targets (the 20 targets consist of 54 elements), and nationally based on reporting by parties to the convention in the 5th (2010–2014) and 6th (2014–2018) National Reports. Here we used selected indicators that are readily available for each country to score national level progress (‘moving towards the target’, ‘little or no progress’, or ‘moving away from target’) for 11 elements of eight Aichi Targets (1, 4, 5, 7, 11, 12, 19, 20). Across the selected indicators, elements, and countries for which data were available, in 24.2% of cases countries were moving towards the elements, for 22.3% they were moving away, and for 53.5% there was little or no progress. This overall level of progress is similar to progress to targets as reported in the 5th and 6th National Reports. National progress to three of the 11 elements was positively correlated with progress to targets reported in the 5th National Reports, while progress to none of the elements was correlated with progress reported in the 6th National Reports. Progress to many of the elements considered was positively correlated with better governance, and to a lesser extent GDP per capita, population density and urbanisation. We suggest that post-2020 biodiversity targets should be designed taking greater account of their measurability, and will require improved biodiversity monitoring, both of which would facilitate more effective assessment of progress and enable more insightful policy responses

Complex long-term biodiversity change among invertebrates, bryophytes and lichens

Large-scale biodiversity changes are measured mainly through the responses of a few taxonomic groups. Much less is known about the trends affecting most invertebrates and other neglected taxa, and it is unclear whether well-studied taxa, such as vertebrates, reflect changes in wider biodiversity. Here, we present and analyse trends in the UK distributions of over 5,000 species of invertebrates, bryophytes and lichens, measured as changes in occupancy. Our results reveal substantial variation in the magnitude, direction and timing of changes over the last 45 years. Just one of the four major groups analysed, terrestrial non-insect invertebrates, exhibits the declining trend reported among vertebrates and butterflies. Both terrestrial insects and the bryophytes and lichens group increased in average occupancy. A striking pattern is found among freshwater species, which have undergone a strong recovery since the mid-1990s after two decades of decline. We show that, while average occupancy among most groups appears to have been stable or increasing, there has been substantial change in the relative commonness and rarity of individual species, indicating considerable turnover in community composition. Additionally, large numbers of species have experienced substantial declines. Our results suggest a more complex pattern of biodiversity change in the United Kingdom than previously reported

Relating characteristics of global biodiversity targets to reported progress

To inform governmental discussions on the nature of a revised Strategic Plan for Biodiversity of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), we reviewed the relevant literature and assessed the framing of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets in the current strategic plan. We asked international experts from nongovernmental organizations, academia, government agencies, international organizations, research institutes, and the CBD to score the Aichi Targets and their constituent elements against a set of specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic, unambiguous, scalable, and comprehensive criteria (SMART based, excluding time bound because all targets are bound to 2015 or 2020). We then investigated the relationship between these expert scores and reported progress toward the target elements by using the findings from 2 global progress assessments (Global Biodiversity Outlook and the Intergovernmental Science‐Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). We analyzed the data with ordinal logistic regressions. We found significant positive relationships (p < 0.05) between progress and the extent to which the target elements were perceived to be measurable, realistic, unambiguous, and scalable. There was some evidence of a relationship between progress and specificity of the target elements, but no relationship between progress and ambition. We are the first to show associations between progress and the extent to which the Aichi Targets meet certain SMART criteria. As negotiations around the post‐2020 biodiversity framework proceed, decision makers should strive to ensure that new or revised targets are effectively structured and clearly worded to allow the translation of targets into actionable policies that can be successfully implemented nationally, regionally, and globally

Use of an Opt-Out vs Opt-In Strategy Increases Use of Residency Mental Health Services.

Background Residents report high levels of distress but low utilization of mental health services. Prior research has shown several barriers that prevent residents from opting into available mental health services. Objective To determine the impact of a mental health initiative centered around an opt-out versus an opt-in approach to help-seeking, on the use of psychotherapy. Methods Resident use of psychotherapy was compared between 2 time frames. During the first time frame (July 1, 2020 to January 31, 2021), residents were offered access to therapy that they could self-initiate by calling to schedule an appointment (opt-in). The second time frame (February 1, 2021 to April 30, 2021) involved the switch to an opt-out structure, during which the same residents were scheduled for a session but could choose to cancel. Additional changes were implemented to reduce stigma and minimize barriers. The outcome was psychotherapy use by residents. Results Of the 114 residents, 7 (6%) self-initiated therapy during the opt-in period. When these same residents were placed in an opt-out context, 59 of the remaining 107 residents (55%) kept their initial appointment, and 23 (39%) self-initiated additional sessions. Altogether, across both phases, a total of 30 of the 114 residents initiated therapy (ie, 7 during the opt-in and 23 during the opt-out). The differences in therapy use between the 2 phases are statistically significant (P&lt;.001 by McNemar's test). Conclusions There was a substantial increase in residents' use of psychotherapy after the opt-out initiative that included efforts to reduce stigma and encourage mental health services

Prior specification in Bayesian occupancy modelling improves analysis of species occurrence data

Multi-species biodiversity indicators are increasingly used to assess progress towards the 2020 ‘Aichi’ targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity. However, most multi-species indicators are biased towards a few well-studied taxa for which suitable abundance data are available. Consequently, many taxonomic groups are poorly represented in current measures of biodiversity change, particularly invertebrates. Alternative data sources, including opportunistic occurrence data, when analysed appropriately, can provide robust estimates of occurrence over time and increase the taxonomic coverage of such measures of population change. Occupancy modelling has been shown to produce robust estimates of species occurrence and trends through time. So far, this approach has concentrated on well-recorded taxa and performs poorly where recording intensity is low. Here, we show that the use of weakly informative priors in a Bayesian occupancy model framework greatly improves the precision of occurrence estimates associated with current model formulations when analysing low-intensity occurrence data, although estimated trends can be sensitive to the choice of prior when data are extremely sparse at either end of the recording period. Specifically, three variations of a Bayesian occupancy model, each with a different focus on information sharing among years, were compared using British ant data from the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society and tested in a simulation experiment. Overall, the random walk model, which allows the sharing of information between the current and previous year, showed improved precision and low bias when estimating species occurrence and trends. The use of the model formulation described here will enable a greater range of datasets to be analysed, covering more taxa, which will significantly increase taxonomic representation of measures of biodiversity change

Structural colour in Chondrus crispus.

The marine world is incredibly rich in brilliant and intense colours. Photonic structures are found in many different species and provide extremely complex optical responses that cannot be achieved solely by pigments. In this study we examine the cuticular structure of the red alga Chondrus crispus (Irish Moss) using anatomical and optical approaches. We experimentally measure the optical response of the multilayer structure in the cuticle. Using finite-difference time-domain modelling, we demonstrate conclusively for the first time that the dimensions and organisation of lamellae are responsible for the blue structural colouration on the surface of the fronds. Comparison of material along the apical-basal axis of the frond demonstrates that structural colour is confined to the tips of the thalli and show definitively that a lack of structural colour elsewhere corresponds with a reduction in the number of lamellae and the regularity of their ordering. Moreover, by studying the optical response for different hydration conditions, we demonstrate that the cuticular structure is highly porous and that the presence of water plays a critical role in its ability to act as a structural light reflector.The research leading to these results has received funding from the BBSRC David Phillips fellowship (BBSRC David Phillips, BB/K014617/1). BJG thanks the Leverhulme Trust grant (F/09-741/G). RHW thanks the British Phycological Society for a Project Award (2012).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from NPG via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep1164