Conservation conundrum – red listing of subtropical-temperate coastal forested wetlands of South Africa

Africa’s range-restricted and transitional subtropical-temperate coastal forested wetlands are facing interlinking threats of climate and anthropogenic pressures. We assessed their conservation status using the criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Their total areal extent was hind-casted to the reference epoch 2000, followed by the quantification of subsequent total losses in areal extents for the epochs 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2017. South Africa had 120 km2 of coastal swamp and floodplain forests in 2000 of which the majority (116.5 km2) occurred on the Maputaland Coastal Plain (MCP). By 2011, 20% of the areal extent was lost, and at the lowest rate of decline we estimate that ≥ 80% of the rest will be lost in the next 50 years. An ecosystem collapse assessment therefore indicated that the habitat is very likely Critically Endangered. Fragmentation and types of transformations were used as degradation indices to show functional collapse. These results showed that forest patches became increasingly fragmented, from 511 to 1 145 patches between 2000 and 2017 and that > 23% of the areal extent showed severe transformation. Several faunal species, with a close association to the forested wetlands of the MCP, are considered threatened with numbers declining because of transformation to timber plantations or agriculture and coupled with a prolonged drought. Of these, a sub-species of the Samango monkey, Cercopithecus mitis erythrarchus, considered to be a primary ecosystem engineer of the habitat, was red listed with a restricted distribution, being endemic, Near Threatened and declining. Also under pressure, because of habitat fragmentation and degradation is the Peregrine crab (Varuna litterata), a euryhaline species requiring connectivity across the land-seascape, ranging from freshwater forested wetlands to estuarine and off-shore environments. Functionally, these coastal forested wetlands are therefore also considered Critically Endangered. The final IUCN conservation status of South Africa’s subtropical-temperate coastal forested wetlands are recommended to be very likely Critically Endangered. Irrespective of 62% of the areal extent of these forested wetlands being within protected areas, severe degradation (metrics of fragmentation and transformation) were observed even inside these areas for the past two decades. The conservation conundrum is that despite existing legislation and management measures, there has been no stop or reversal of the negative trends to date. As a supplementary method, we therefore recommend a transdisciplinary community-based approach to conservation practice, continued and improved monitoring of the habitat losses, the identifying priority areas for rehabilitation and addressing data deficiencies in important species associations.CSIR’s Parliamentary Grant Project P1BEO00/P1CCS02, titled “Marine Observational and Predictive System Capabilities (MAROPS)”; as well as the African Union Commission (AUC) Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) MARCOSOUTH (K8MARCO). The Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) and National Research Foundation (NRF) Chair in Shallow Water Ecosystems (UID 84375) supported time of Prof. Janine Adams.https://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolindam2022Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorolog

Terrestrial laser scanning for plot-scale forest measurement

Plot-scale measurements have been the foundation for forest surveys and reporting for over 200 years. Through recent integration with airborne and satellite remote sensing, manual measurements of vegetation structure at the plot scale are now the basis for landscape, continental and international mapping of our forest resources. The use of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) for plot-scale measurement was first demonstrated over a decade ago, with the intimation that these instruments could replace manual measurement methods. This has not yet been the case, despite the unparalleled structural information that TLS can capture. For TLS to reach its full potential, these instruments cannot be viewed as a logical progression of existing plot-based measurement. TLS must be viewed as a disruptive technology that requires a rethink of vegetation surveys and their application across a wide range of disciplines. We review the development of TLS as a plotscale measurement tool, including the evolution of both instrument hardware and key data processing methodologies. We highlight two broad data modelling approaches of gap probability and geometrical modelling and the basic theory that underpins these. Finally, we discuss the future prospects for increasing the utilisation of TLS for plot-scale forest assessment and forest monitoring

ECOSTRESS: NASA's next generation mission to measure evapotranspiration from the International Space Station

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station ECOSTRESS) was launched to the International Space Station on June 29, 2018. The primary science focus of ECOSTRESS is centered on evapotranspiration (ET), which is produced as level‐3 (L3) latent heat flux (LE) data products. These data are generated from the level‐2 land surface temperature and emissivity product (L2_LSTE), in conjunction with ancillary surface and atmospheric data. Here, we provide the first validation (Stage 1, preliminary) of the global ECOSTRESS clear‐sky ET product (L3_ET_PT‐JPL, version 6.0) against LE measurements at 82 eddy covariance sites around the world. Overall, the ECOSTRESS ET product performs well against the site measurements (clear‐sky instantaneous/time of overpass: r2 = 0.88; overall bias = 8%; normalized RMSE = 6%). ET uncertainty was generally consistent across climate zones, biome types, and times of day (ECOSTRESS samples the diurnal cycle), though temperate sites are over‐represented. The 70 m high spatial resolution of ECOSTRESS improved correlations by 85%, and RMSE by 62%, relative to 1 km pixels. This paper serves as a reference for the ECOSTRESS L3 ET accuracy and Stage 1 validation status for subsequent science that follows using these data

Improved functionalization of oleic acid-coated iron oxide nanoparticles for biomedical applications

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles can providemultiple benefits for biomedical applications in aqueous environments such asmagnetic separation or magnetic resonance imaging. To increase the colloidal stability and allow subsequent reactions, the introduction of hydrophilic functional groups onto the particles’ surface is essential. During this process, the original coating is exchanged by preferably covalently bonded ligands such as trialkoxysilanes. The duration of the silane exchange reaction, which commonly takes more than 24 h, is an important drawback for this approach. In this paper, we present a novel method, which introduces ultrasonication as an energy source to dramatically accelerate this process, resulting in high-quality waterdispersible nanoparticles around 10 nmin size. To prove the generic character, different functional groups were introduced on the surface including polyethylene glycol chains, carboxylic acid, amine, and thiol groups. Their colloidal stability in various aqueous buffer solutions as well as human plasma and serum was investigated to allow implementation in biomedical and sensing applications.status: publishe

Conservation conundrum – Red listing of subtropical-temperate coastal forested wetlands of South Africa

Africa's range-restricted and transitional subtropical-temperate coastal forested wetlands are facing interlinking threats of climate and anthropogenic pressures. We assessed their conservation status using the criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Their total areal extent was hind-casted to the reference epoch 2000, followed by the quantification of subsequent total losses in areal extents for the epochs 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2017. South Africa had 120 km2 of coastal swamp and floodplain forests in 2000 of which the majority (116.5 km2) occurred on the Maputaland Coastal Plain (MCP). By 2011, 20% of the areal extent was lost, and at the lowest rate of decline we estimate that ≥ 80% of the rest will be lost in the next 50 years. An ecosystem collapse assessment therefore indicated that the habitat is very likely Critically Endangered. Fragmentation and types of transformations were used as degradation indices to show functional collapse. These results showed that forest patches became increasingly fragmented, from 511 to 1 145 patches between 2000 and 2017 and that > 23% of the areal extent showed severe transformation. Several faunal species, with a close association to the forested wetlands of the MCP, are considered threatened with numbers declining because of transformation to timber plantations or agriculture and coupled with a prolonged drought. Of these, a sub-species of the Samango monkey, Cercopithecus mitis erythrarchus, considered to be a primary ecosystem engineer of the habitat, was red listed with a restricted distribution, being endemic, Near Threatened and declining. Also under pressure, because of habitat fragmentation and degradation is the Peregrine crab (Varuna litterata), a euryhaline species requiring connectivity across the land-seascape, ranging from freshwater forested wetlands to estuarine and off-shore environments. Functionally, these coastal forested wetlands are therefore also considered Critically Endangered. The final IUCN conservation status of South Africa's subtropical-temperate coastal forested wetlands are recommended to be very likely Critically Endangered. Irrespective of 62% of the areal extent of these forested wetlands being within protected areas, severe degradation (metrics of fragmentation and transformation) were observed even inside these areas for the past two decades. The conservation conundrum is that despite existing legislation and management measures, there has been no stop or reversal of the negative trends to date. As a supplementary method, we therefore recommend a transdisciplinary community-based approach to conservation practice, continued and improved monitoring of the habitat losses, the identifying priority areas for rehabilitation and addressing data deficiencies in important species associations

Insights into the Digital Recovery of the Scythica Vindobonensia

The article provides insights into the digital recovery of the Scythica Vindobonensia, the new fragments on Gothic incursions into Roman provinces in the Balkans in the 3rd century AD, which were discovered some years ago in four palimpsest folios of the Greek manuscript Hist. gr. 73 of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The fragments come most probably from the lost work Scythica by the 3rd-century historian Dexippus of Athens. In order to render the palimpsested writing of the 11th-century copy of the ancient text visible, the involved scholars invited several technical and scientific teams who provide state-of-the-art expertise in the field of digital recovery of erased writings to apply non-invasive imaging and advanced image processing on the Vienna palimpsest