Coffee Shade Tree Management : An Adaptation Option for Climate Change Impact for Small Scale Coffee Growers in South-West Ethiopia

Peer reviewe

Health care seeking behavior for diarrhea in children under 5 in rural Niger: results of a cross-sectional survey

Diarrhea remains the second leading cause of death in children under 5 years of age in sub-Saharan Africa. Health care seeking behavior for diarrhea varies by context and has important implications for developing appropriate care strategies and estimating burden of disease. The objective of this study was to determine the proportion of children under five with diarrhea who consulted at a health structure in order to identify the appropriate health care levels to set up surveillance of severe diarrheal diseases

A strong conditional mutualism limits and enhances seed dispersal and germination of a tropical palm

Seed predation and seed dispersal can have strong effects on early life history stages of plants. These processes have often been studied as individual effects, but the degree to which their relative importance co-varies with seed predator abundance and how this influences seed germination rates is poorly understood. Therefore, we used a combination of observations and field experiments to determine the degree to which germination rates of the palm Astrocaryum mexicanum varied with abundance of a small mammal seed predator/disperser, Heteromysdesmarestianus, in a lowland tropical forest. Patterns of abundance of the two species were strongly related; density of H. desmarestianus was low in sites with low density of A. mexicanum and vice versa. Rates of predation and dispersal of A. mexicanum seeds depended on abundance of H. desmarestianus; sites with high densities of H. desmarestianus had the highest rates of seed predation and lowest rates of seed germination, but a greater total number of seeds were dispersed and there was greater density of seedlings, saplings, and adults of A. mexicanum in these sites. When abundance of H. desmarestianus was experimentally reduced, rates of seed predation decreased, but so did dispersal of A. mexicanum seeds. Critically, rates of germination of dispersed seeds were 5 times greater than undispersed seeds. The results suggest that the relationship between A. mexicanum and H. desmarestianus is a conditional mutualism that results in a strong local effect on the abundance of each species. However, the magnitude and direction of these effects are determined by the relative strength of opposing, but related, mechanisms. A. mexicanum nuts provide H. desmarestianus with a critical food resource, and while seed predation on A. mexicanum nuts by H. desmarestianus is very intense, A. mexicanum ultimately benefits because of the relatively high germination rates of its seeds that are dispersed by H. desmarestianus

The PREDICTS database: A global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts

© 2014 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species' threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project - and avert - future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups - including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems - www.predicts.org.uk). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015. The collation of biodiversity datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents is necessary to understand historical declines and to project - and hopefully avert - future declines. We describe a newly collated database of more than 1.6 million biodiversity measurements from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world

Intraoperative Fracture of a Pyrocarbon PIP Total Joint—A Case Report

Pain or dysfunction of the finger joints due to arthritis or traumatic injuries that fail medical management may necessitate arthroplasty or joint replacement. The goals of the finger joint implant arthroplasty are to relieve pain, to correct deformity, and to improve the function and appearance of the hand. Several prosthetic implants have been used for the replacement of the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint. Pyrocarbon materials, a form of pyrolytic carbon, a ceramic-like material, have proven to be strong, durable, resistant to wear and nonreactive in the body. The Ascension PIP pyrocarbon total joint is a bicondylar, anatomically shaped, articulating implant that allows joint flexion–extension, while providing some restriction of adduction–abduction motion. A review of the literature of pyrocarbon PIP prosthesis reveals little clinical data. The case of a 33-year-old man with posttraumatic arthritis proximal interphalangeal joint right long finger is reported. The case was treated surgically using the Ascension PIP total joint. During the insertion of the implant, the proximal component fractured at the sub-articular collar. The component was removed, and a new implant was inserted without complication. Critical evaluation revealed that there was an inadequate resection of the volar lip resulting in a stress riser on the implant during impaction. Careful attention to this technical point will hopefully minimize the occurrence of this complication as the availability and use of these implants increases

The importance of species range attributes and reserve configuration for the conservatin of angiosperm diversity in Western Australia

In order to better understand the relationship between reserve design and the species represented by such designs, we examined the effectiveness of the Western Australian reserve system for conserving angiosperm diversity, and examined the characteristics of those species conserved. We overlayed species distribution data for 14 plant lineages with the distribution of the reserve system (8.5% of the State’s area) and identified the species that remained unprotected. We found that, depending upon the method employed, between 174 (5.7%) and 570 (18.7%) of species were not included within the reserve system. Two main unprotected regions were identified, one of which was also a centre of high diversity. Geographical range sizes of unprotected species were six times smaller than those species that were protected, while species richness of small-ranged endemic species coincided with general patterns of species richness. At the level of Western Australia’s bioregions we found that conservation effectiveness was most dependent on characteristics of the reserve system rather than characteristics (size and positioning) of species ranges. At this scale, the most effective way to conserve more species in Western Australia would be to conserve more land, while conservation would be most successful in a uniformly dispersed reserve system. Our results highlight the fact that reserve systems may take on two design approaches based on scale––at continental scales, reserves should be clustered around the hotspots of endemic species, while within regions, an evenly distributed reserve system will most adequately sample species