26 research outputs found

    Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

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    Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time, and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space. While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes, vast areas of the tropics remain understudied. In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity, but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases. To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge, it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

    National context as a predictor of high-performance work system effectiveness in small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): a UK–French comparative analysis

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    High-performance work systems (HPWSs), a large firm model, have recently attracted interest within small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, institutional settings have been shown as an important determinant in the types of human resource management (HRM) practices adopted by employers. This paper progresses these topics through a comparative analysis of SMEs within Cote d’Opale/Nord Pas de Calais (French) and Kent (UK) regions. Clear divergence is evident in the nature of HPWS. Whilst UK SMEs are found to adopt a wider range of practices, French firms exhibit a higher degree of integration portrayed through a collective range of practices that engender employee participation and commitment
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