Royal Manas National Park, Bhutan: A Hot Spot for Wild Felids

The non-uniformity of the distribution of biodiversity makes allocation of the limited resources available for conservation of biodiversity a difficult task. Approaches such as biodiversity hotspot identification, endemic bird areas, crisis ecoregions, global 200 ecoregions, and the Last of the Wild are used by scientists and international conservation agencies to prioritize conservation efforts. As part of the biodiverse Eastern Himalayan region, Bhutan has been identified as a conservation priority area by all these different approaches, yet data validating these assessments are limited. To examine whether Bhutan is a biodiversity hot spot for a key taxonomic group, we conducted camera trapping in the lower foothills of Bhutan, in Royal Manas National Park, from November 2010 to February 2011. We recorded six species of wild felids of which five are listed on the IUCN Red List: tiger Panthera tigris, golden cat Pardofelis temminckii, marbled cat Pardofelis marmorata, leopard cat Prionailurus bengalensis, clouded leopard Neofelis nebulosa and common leopard Panthera pardus. Our study area of 74 km(2) has c. 16% of felid species, confirming Bhutan as a biodiversity hot spot for this group

A Discussion on the Singing Dialogue Tsangmo : Bridging Culture Between Bhutan and Japan, from the Past to the Future

Bhutanese tsangmo is a unique cultural heritage that has been at the heart of folk culture in many regions of Bhutan. It was considered to be on the verge of extinction due to the trends toward globalization and modernization. However, new attempts have already been made in schools, through radio programming, teacher education, and other means to ensure its continuation. These attempts involve wisely transformed styles of traditional ways of playing. Our research group has been investigating the real-life circumstances and unique value of these songs since 2010. In this paper, we describe our findings and exchange opinions between Bhutanese and Japanese, each discussing tsangmo from our own viewpoints, including the cultural heritage in Bhutan, the language as it relates to tsangmo, new attempts to promote passing on tsangmo, Bhutanese creative dialogue and Japanese education, and finally, understanding the importance of tsangmo within the prospects for Asia from the perspective of ethnomusicology. Through our discussion we hope to shine a light on the remarkable and rich cultural heritage of Bhutan so that it may thrive in future generations.This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP 26301043

Potential application of membrane capacitive deionisation for bromide removal in seawater desalination

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.The freshwater shortage is becoming an increasingly scarce resource due to rapid population growth and increased freshwater demand for industrial activities. The situation is further getting worse due to the effect of climate change as evident from extreme events such as droughts. In order to secure freshwater availability, most countries, including Australia are resorting to seawater desalination because seawater provides a reliable and climate-independent water source. Among desalination technologies, seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) is the dominant technology due to its better energy efficiency and also its high salt rejection rates. While single-stage SWRO is adequate for the production of high-quality drinking water in most countries, in Australia, due to the strict requirement for bromide removal to prevent the formation of toxic bromide related disinfection by-products in the water, additional stage such as 2nd pass brackish water reverse osmosis (BWRO) has to be used. As a result, all the SWRO plants are designed as two-stage SWRO, which adds significant cost to the overall SWRO plant. Recently, capacitive deionisation (CDI) has emerged as a suitable alternative for desalination of low-saline water sources compared with membrane processes. CDI is an electrosorption process where ions are removed by the charged carbon electrodes. Some of the advantages of CDI technology are low energy consumption, removal of all types of charged ions such as bromide and its ability to effectively desalinate water at a very low voltage (1 V) application. Therefore, in this research, the application potential of membrane CDI, which is an advanced version of CDI, is investigated for bromide removal. A detailed assessment of bromide removal efficiency and energy consumption were compared with that of conventional 2nd pass BWRO. Several investigations related to bromide removal in MCDI were evaluated both at lab-scale and pilot-scale studies. The fundamental studies using lab-scale showed that bromide could be effectively removed using a commercially available carbon electrode. Further, a pilot-scale MCDI demonstrated that MCDI can be operated at high water recovery using variable flow rates during the adsorption and desorption stages. It was also found that using a much lower flow rate during desorption compared to adsorption stage can produce an acceptable water quality with high water recovery. The energy consumption of lab-scale and pilot-scale studies were between 0.11-0.16 kWh/m³ of treated water, which is only about 30-45% of the energy consumed by the 2nd pass BWRO in Perth desalination plant. A fundamental lab-scale study on the selectivity between bromide and iodide, which is another important inorganic halide for the formation of toxic disinfection by-products was also conducted. The results showed that iodide was more selectively removed over bromide even in the presence of significant background concentration of sodium chloride mainly due to the high partial-charge transfer coefficient of iodide compared to bromide ions although both these ions have similar ionic charge and hydrated radius. The result also showed that MCDI could be a potential alternative for the removal of both bromide and iodide during water treatment. One of the major disadvantages of capacitive deionisation-based desalination is the inability of the electrodes to selectively remove the target ions from a mixture of other background ions. Although bromide can be effectively removed in MCDI, especially in low salinity water, its removal efficiency can be reduced if the total salt content in the feed water is high. Therefore, a bromide selective composite electrode was developed by coating a slurry of grounded bromide selective resin and anion exchange polymer on the surface of the commercial carbon electrode. The composite electrode demonstrated high selectivity for the bromide, which was 3.4 times that of conventional MCDI. A further test on bromide selectivity in a complex mixture of several anions showed that bromide removal was 10 times that of conventional MCDI. The incorporation of bromide selective resin enhanced the capture and transport of bromide ions onto the carbon electrode while impeding the transport of other competing ions. The use of bromide selective electrodes in MCDI is expected to further reduce energy consumption while improving bromide removal efficiency

High relative abundance of wild ungulates near agricultural croplands in a livestock-dominated landscape in Western Bhutan: Implications for crop damage and protection

There is little information on the underlying causes of wildlife crop damage, especially in agro-pastoralist communities situated close to, or inside, protected areas that are frequented by domestic livestock. Knowledge on wild ungulate distribution near crop field boundaries, and how it is affected by cattle that dominate the landscape, may offer insights into methods for reducing wildlife damage. In 2012, we investigated the distribution of three wild ungulates, sambar (Rusa unicolor), muntjac (Muntiacus muntjac), and wild pig (Sus scrofa), and domestic cattle (Bos taurus) in Jigme Dorji National Park, western Bhutan, at varying distances from croplands. At each of the 20 study villages, three transects were laid parallel to cropland boundaries at 500 m intervals. Transects were seasonally surveyed for wild ungulate and cattle scats, and scat frequency was used as a relative abundance index of wild ungulates and cattle. We also interviewed 111 household members from the 20 villages with crop fields situated near a forest edge, and recorded the seasonal frequency of crop damage. We used a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) to evaluate how relative abundance of each ungulate species differed across transects and seasons. We also performed a one-way ANOVA to compare seasonal differences in frequency of crop damage, along with a simple linear regression to determine if there were significant relationships between crop damage frequency and relative ungulate abundance at transects situated closest to croplands. The relative abundance of wild herbivores was significantly higher in transects closest to croplands, and lower for transects located farther away in deep forests. An increased concentration of wild herbivores near agricultural fields during spring, which is the crop-growing period, explained the observed persistent damage to crops. Because of their very low overall densities in Bhutan, culling of wild herbivores is not recommended. Alternatively, cost-effective fencing methods for crop protection during spring are needed in the short term. In the long term, interdisciplinary solutions should involve enhancing the populations of natural predators, or habitat enrichment programs for ungulates, in concert with livestock intensification programs

The ecological benefit of tigers (Panthera tigris) to farmers in reducing crop and livestock losses in the eastern Himalayas: Implications for conservation of large apex predators

Ecologists have primarily focused their attention on how predator loss influences ecosystem structure and function in intact ecosystems, but rarely tested these ecological concepts in agricultural landscapes. We conducted a study in western Bhutan on the inter-specific dynamics between tigers, leopards, and dholes, and their subsequent impact on livestock and crop losses faced by agro-pastoralists. We found that when a tiger was present in forests surrounding villages, leopards and dholes occupied areas closer to village croplands and preyed on a higher relative abundance of wild herbivore crop raiders, thereby significantly reducing crop (β = −2.25, p

Corrigendum to “The ecological benefit of tigers (Panthera tigris) to farmers in reducing crop and livestock losses in the eastern Himalayas: Implications for conservation of large apex predators.” [Biological Conservation, 219,119-125]

Thinley et al. while acknowledging and giving due credence to the following study conducted in the same area: Wangchuk, T., 2004. Predator-prey dynamics: the role of predators in the control of problem species. J. Bhutan Stud. 10, 68-89., they inadvertently omitted further reference to the study which had similar findings. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused

Palladium Recovery through Membrane Capacitive Deionization from Metal Plating Wastewater

The potential application of membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI) for recovery of palladium (Pd) ions from catalyst solution wastewater generated from the plating industry was investigated in this study. Several major issues were explored in this work to verify the suitability of MCDI for Pd recovery from a practical perspective: adsorption and desorption efficiencies, desorption mechanisms into high concentration of Pd concentrate, and its sustainability in long-term operation. The lab-scale MCDI operation achieved satisfactory and highly competitive Pd removal (99.07–99.94% removal with 1.42–1.52 of Pd selectivity over ammonium ions) showing that Pd can be effectively collected from plating industry wastewater. A high concentration of Pd concentrate (64.77 and 919.44 mg/L of Pd from the 10 and 100 mg/L Pd containing catalyst solution, respectively) was obtained through successive five operation cycles of adsorption/desorption phases. However, it is significant to note that the desorption efficiency was inversely proportional to the concentration of Pd concentrate which is likely due to the Pd ions discharged from carbon electrode toward Pd solution against the enhanced concentration gradient. The long-term operation results suggest that scaling could reduce the MCDI efficiency during Pd recovery (0.17% decrease in Pd removal for every cycle on average) and hence may require an adequate electrode cleaning regime

New Herpetofaunal Records from the Kingdom of Bhutan Obtained through Citizen Science

Social media has, in the past decade, emerged unexpectedly as a powerful tool in citizen science (Liberatore et al. 2018). Whether unintended or formally integrated, it offers, among other benefits, mass participation in activities such as data collection in inventories, monitoring, or natural history observations (Tulloch 2013). It can be argued that such activities often do not consume taxpayers’ contributions, as formal research projects tend to do, and can provide a cost-effective means of data collection (Goldstien et al. 2014). The vast number of (and rapidly rising) online resources and virtual specialists available to identify samples serve as references and reviewers of such data, increasing the speed over traditional forms of data collection (e.g., scientific publishing) and providing the capacity to absorb multiple opinions. Nonetheless, challenges that remain in citizen science programs are directing the data towards priority scientific objectives and needs, and achieving high standards in data quality (Ambrose-Oji et al. 2014)