Global data on earthworm abundance, biomass, diversity and corresponding environmental properties

Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provided directly by authors, were collated with information on site locations, including coordinates, habitat cover, and soil properties. Datasets were required, at a minimum, to include abundance or biomass of earthworms at a site. Where possible, site-level species lists were included, as well as the abundance and biomass of individual species and ecological groups. This global dataset contains 10,840 sites, with 184 species, from 60 countries and all continents except Antarctica. The data were obtained from 182 published articles, published between 1973 and 2017, and 17 unpublished datasets. Amalgamating data into a single global database will assist researchers in investigating and answering a wide variety of pressing questions, for example, jointly assessing aboveground and belowground biodiversity distributions and drivers of biodiversity change.Peer reviewe

Global data on earthworm abundance, biomass, diversity and corresponding environmental properties

Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provided directly by authors, were collated with information on site locations, including coordinates, habitat cover, and soil properties. Datasets were required, at a minimum, to include abundance or biomass of earthworms at a site. Where possible, site-level species lists were included, as well as the abundance and biomass of individual species and ecological groups. This global dataset contains 10,840 sites, with 184 species, from 60 countries and all continents except Antarctica. The data were obtained from 182 published articles, published between 1973 and 2017, and 17 unpublished datasets. Amalgamating data into a single global database will assist researchers in investigating and answering a wide variety of pressing questions, for example, jointly assessing aboveground and belowground biodiversity distributions and drivers of biodiversity change

Magnesite soapstone in use of fire chamber constructions:composition and structure adaptation

Abstract The Finnish soapstone industry has found through practical experience that the surface of the magnesite soapstone used in fire chambers and funnels hardens over time. We have studied a magnesite soapstone used in a fireplace continuously for 60 years. The mineralogical changes, that took place during heating and subsequent cooling of the fireplace have been investigated with electron probe microanalyzer and X-ray diffractometer to find an explanation, what kind of reactions caused the hardening. We found that ferromagnesite has been altered to pseudomorphic aggregates composed of ferropericlase and magnesioferrite in the nearest ~30 mm from the surface exposed to fire. Iron has been mobilized in the uppermost 3 mm, enriched in the rims, and depleted from the cores of the ferropericlase aggregates. Magnesioferrite occurs preferably in the fire chamber side of the aggregates in the uppermost 0.20 mm. Talc rims are altered to forsterite and/or enstatite in the reaction with ferromagnesite or its alteration products in the uppermost ~1 mm. In addition, wood combustion gases caused considerable enrichment of zinc and potassium in the chamber surface rock to the depth on 0.20 mm and 3 mm, respectively. The enrichment occurred by crystallization of Zn bearing ferropericlase and magnesioferrite and by crystallization of K bearing sheet silicates

The relationship between people’s activities and values with the protection level and biodiversity

Abstract We investigated how people’s recreational activities, values, and land use preferences are related to the protection level, biodiversity and cultural heritage values of nature-based tourism areas in northern Finland. We assessed peoples’ opinions using a public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) and analyzed the data together with spatial biodiversity and cultural heritage data from the same area. Associations between the PPGIS place markings with the protection level and biodiversity values were quite low, and for the cultural heritage sites they were altogether missing. Negative preferences were often marked in areas with high numbers of sites rated as pleasant and they overlapped with each other, indicating conflicting preferences. Since most activities are not noticeably related to the protection level or biodiversity values of a site they can be planned so as to protect the biodiversity of the area

Agamas exhibit behavioral syndromes: bolder males bask and feed more but may suffer higher predation

According to basic evolutionary theory, individuals within a population should adapt their behavior in response to their current physical and social environment. However, there is now evidence from a diverse range of taxa that behavior is instead constrained by individuals' broad behavioral syndromes or personalities. Bold individuals are generally shown to take greater risks than shy individuals. Theory suggests that there should be fitness trade-offs associated with personalities. We aimed to answer the following 3 questions using the Namibian rock agama (Agama planiceps) as a study species: 1) Is the boldness of individual male agamas repeatable? 2) Do male agamas show a behavioral syndrome? and 3) Are there any possible fitness trade-offs associated with individual behavioral syndromes. We measured boldness of 30 male agamas by quantifying flight initiation distance. We found that individual agama behavior was significantly consistent through time. Also, bolder males were found to spend significantly more time basking and moving throughout their home ranges in sight of predators, indicating a behavioral syndrome in this species. Bolder males also had larger home ranges and fed more than shyer males but suffered higher levels of tail loss, possibly due to predation. The rates of visual signaling in the form of assertion displays of bolder and shyer males did not differ. We suggest that males of this species show a significant behavioral syndrome that may lead to fitness trade-offs. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.

Summary of the 2015 International Paediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute

In the United States alone, ∼14,000 children are hospitalised annually with acute heart failure. The science and art of caring for these patients continues to evolve. The International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was held on February 4 and 5, 2015. The 2015 International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was funded through the Andrews/Daicoff Cardiovascular Program Endowment, a philanthropic collaboration between All Children’s Hospital and the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida (USF). Sponsored by All Children’s Hospital Andrews/Daicoff Cardiovascular Program, the International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit assembled leaders in clinical and scientific disciplines related to paediatric heart failure and created a multi-disciplinary “think-tank”. The purpose of this manuscript is to summarise the lessons from the 2015 International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute, to describe the “state of the art” of the treatment of paediatric cardiac failure, and to discuss future directions for research in the domain of paediatric cardiac failure

Global distribution of earthworm diversity

Soil organisms, including earthworms, are a key component of terrestrial ecosystems. However, little is known about their diversity, their distribution, and the threats affecting them. We compiled a global dataset of sampled earthworm communities from 6928 sites in 57 countries as a basis for predicting patterns in earthworm diversity, abundance, and biomass. We found that local species richness and abundance typically peaked at higher latitudes, displaying patterns opposite to those observed in aboveground organisms. However, high species dissimilarity across tropical locations may cause diversity across the entirety of the tropics to be higher than elsewhere. Climate variables were found to be more important in shaping earthworm communities than soil properties or habitat cover. These findings suggest that climate change may have serious implications for earthworm communities and for the functions they provide.status: publishe

Global data on earthworm abundance, biomass, diversity and corresponding environmental properties

Data collated from data provided by original data collectors or from data provided within published articles. The MetaData.csv provides information on each of the original data sources, including bibliographic information about the original article and information on how many sites were sampled. The SiteData.csv gives site-level variables, such as geographic coordinates, the environmental parameters as well as site-level community metrics (species richness, total abundance and total biomass). The SppOccData.csv provides the observation level data - the occurrence, abundance and/or biomass of individual species/morpho-species/life-stage at a particular site. Not every data source contained such observation level data. Metadata information about the variables in each file are provided in the files MetaData_info.csv, SiteData_info.csv and SppOccData_info.csv, respectively. All files provided use the character encoding UTF-8, and missing values are represented by "NA"