Consumption of bushmeat around a major mine, and matched communities, in Madagascar

Mining can have serious biodiversity consequences and many mining operations take steps to mitigate their impacts. Evaluating their success poses a significant challenge because appropriate counterfactuals (what would have happened in the absence of the mine) are often unavailable. We aimed to estimate the effects of education and enforcement measures carried out by a large mine in eastern Madagascar on local consumption of illegal bushmeat. We adopt a quasi-experimental approach and use an interview technique designed to reduce sensitivity biases to compare levels of consumption amongst mine employees and people living within the mine�s intervention area with those of statistically matched control groups, and to relate differences to respondents� knowledge of relevant wildlife laws. Consumption was lower, and awareness of the law higher, amongst mine employees and those living in the mine�s intervention area. However caution should be applied in interpreting these results as evidence of the effectiveness of anti-bushmeat efforts by the mine due to potential confounding factors: for example abundance of bushmeat species may vary between the study areas, and our method may not have completely removed the sensitivity of questions about illegal consumption. This illustrates the challenges of evaluating conservation impacts. We highlight the low level of understanding of wildlife laws, including among mine employees, and suggest better communication of these laws, as part of an education programme, could be a useful first step towards reducing illegal hunting

PCSK6 and Survival in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

Rationale: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a devastating disease characterized by limited treatment options and high mortality. A better understanding of the molecular drivers of IPF progression is needed. Objectives: To identify and validate molecular determinants of IPF survival. Methods: A staged genome-wide association study was performed using paired genomic and survival data. Stage I cases were drawn from centers across the United States and Europe and stage II cases from Vanderbilt University. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to identify gene variants associated with differential transplantation-free survival (TFS). Stage I variants with nominal significance (P < 5 x 10(-5)) were advanced for stage II testing and meta-analyzed to identify those reaching genome-wide significance (P < 5 x 10(-8)). Downstream analyses were performed for genes and proteins associated with variants reaching genome-wide significance. Measurements and Main Results: After quality controls, 1,481 stage I cases and 397 stage II cases were included in the analysis. After filtering, 9,075,629 variants were tested in stage I, with 158 meeting advancement criteria. Four variants associated with TFS with consistent effect direction were identified in stage II, including one in an intron of PCSK6 (proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 6) reaching genome-wide significance (hazard ratio, 4.11 [95% confidence interval, 2.54-6.67]; P = 9.45 x 10(-9)). PCSK6 protein was highly expressed in IPF lung parenchyma. PCSK6 lung staining intensity, peripheral blood gene expression, and plasma concentration were associated with reduced TFS. Conclusions: We identified four novel variants associated with IPF survival, including one in PCSK6 that reached genome-wide significance. Downstream analyses suggested that PCSK6 protein plays a potentially important role in IPF progression

Extinction risk of Mesoamerican crop wild relatives

Ensuring food security is one of the world's most critical issues as agricultural systems are already being impacted by global change. Crop wild relatives (CWR)—wild plants related to crops—possess genetic variability that can help adapt agriculture to a changing environment and sustainably increase crop yields to meet the food security challenge. Here we report the results of an extinction risk assessment of 224 wild relatives of some of the world's most important crops (i.e. chilli pepper, maize, common bean, avocado, cotton, potato, squash, vanilla and husk tomato) in Mesoamerica—an area of global significance as a centre of crop origin, domestication and of high CWR diversity. We show that 35% of the selected CWR taxa are threatened with extinction according to The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List demonstrates that these valuable genetic resources are under high anthropogenic threat. The dominant threat processes are land use change for agriculture and farming, invasive and other problematic species (e.g. pests, genetically modified organisms) and use of biological resources, including overcollection and logging. The most significant drivers of extinction relate to smallholder agriculture—given its high incidence and ongoing shifts from traditional agriculture to modern practices (e.g. use of herbicides)—smallholder ranching and housing and urban development and introduced genetic material. There is an urgent need to increase knowledge and research around different aspects of CWR. Policies that support in situ and ex situ conservation of CWR and promote sustainable agriculture are pivotal to secure these resources for the benefit of current and future generations

On the shoulders of lemurs: Pinpointing the ecotouristic potential of Madagascar's unique herpetofauna

Based on 667 tourist interviews in five protected areas (PAs), carried out between January and September 2008, we assessed the ecotouristic potential of Madagascar's amphibians and reptiles compared with that of other components of its unique fauna. Visitors were best informed about mammals and reptiles, and information levels increased with subsequent visits to Madagascar. In contrast, tourists were not well informed about amphibian diversity. However, 27% of the tourists considered encounters with the Malagasy herpetofauna as a factor for deciding to visit the island, and tourists with high zoological interest were willing to pay higher prices for specialised biodiversity tours in PAs and were positive about increased supply in herpetofauna-related activities. Tourists' income affected travel expenditure, trip length and spending behaviour; a higher total trip budget resulted in a higher number of sites visited, but not in an increased number of PAs visited. We estimated that expenditures in Madagascar by ecotourists who visit PAs amounts to 26-29 million USD per year. Currently, only one-quarter of all Madagascar's leisure tourists visit parks (around 49,000), highlighting the importance of improving and diversifying ecotouristic supplies to attract more tourists to Madagascar's nature reserves. © 2011 Taylor & Francis

Raising awareness of amphibian chytridiomycosis will not alienate ecotourists visiting Madagascar

Chytridiomycosis (Bd) is contributing to amphibian extinctions worldwide but has so far not been detected in Madagascar. The high likelihood for Bd to spread to the island and efface this amphibian diversity and endemism hotspot requires respective conservation policies to be developed. Bd could be introduced by the large number of tourists that visit protected areas; therefore, increasing awareness among tourists and encouraging them to participate in safety measures should be a priority conservation action. However, concerns have been raised that tourists would not be able to distinguish between an amphibian disease harmless to humans and emerging diseases that would imply a danger for human health, invoking a negative image of Madagascar as an ecotourism destination. We evaluated whether informing tourists about this infectious animal disease would cause health scare and diminish trip satisfaction. Based on 659 respondents we found that most ecotourists favored to be informed about Bd and were proactive about participating in prevention measures, refuting previous concerns. © 2010 International Association for Ecology and Health

Prepayment Behavior of Dutch Mortgagors: An Empirical Analysis

The suboptimal exercise of the prepayment option in a mortgage is relevant for mortgage pricing and the management of a mortgage portfolio. Construction of an accurate prepayment model requires quantification of driving factors such as seasoning, seasonality, refinance incentive and burnout. We focus on Dutch mortgages but also discuss the Dutch market in a European setting. Within the euro-denominated MBS market, the Dutch market is often referred to as the benchmark market. In our application we include typical Dutch market and contract characteristics such as the annual penalty-free prepayment of 10 to 20% of the original loan amount. We use loan-level historical data on mortgages originated between January 1989 and June 1999 to estimate separate models for two popular redemption types: savings mortgages and interest-only mortgages. In both models we allow for suboptimal prepayment behavior. The results clearly indicate that prepayment rates depend on interest rates and the age of the mortgage contract. Moreover, we find that burnout is an important element in describing the prepayment behavior of Dutch mortgagors. Copyright 2003 by the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association

Species undersampling in tropical bat surveys: effects on emerging biodiversity patterns

International audience1. Undersampling is commonplace in biodiversity surveys of species-rich tropical assemblages in which rare taxa abound, with possible repercussions for our ability to implement surveys and monitoring programmes in a cost-effective way. 2. We investigated the consequences of information loss due to species undersampling (missing subsets of species from the full species pool) in tropical bat surveys for the emerging patterns of species richness (SR) and compositional variation across sites. 3. For 27 bat assemblage data sets from across the tropics, we used correlations between original data sets and subsets with different numbers of species deleted either at random, or according to their rarity in the assemblage, to assess to what extent patterns in SR and composition in data subsets are congruent with those in the initial data set. We then examined to what degree high sample representativeness (r ≥ 0 8) was influenced by biogeographic region, sampling method, sampling effort or structural assemblage characteristics. 4. For SR, correlations between random subsets and original data sets were strong (r ≥ 0 8) with moderate (ca. 20%) species loss. Bias associated with information loss was greater for species composition; on average ca. 90% of species in random subsets had to be retained to adequately capture among-site variation. For non random subsets, removing only the rarest species (on average c. 10% of the full data set) yielded strong correlations (r > 0 95) for both SR and composition. Eliminating greater proportions of rare species resulted in weaker correlations and large variation in the magnitude of observed correlations among data sets. 5. Species subsets that comprised ca. 85% of the original set can be considered reliable surrogates, capable of adequately revealing patterns of SR and temporal or spatial turnover in many tropical bat assemblages. Our analyses thus demonstrate the potential as well as limitations for reducing survey effort and streamlining sampling protocols, and consequently for increasing the cost-effectiveness in tropical bat surveys or monitoring programmes. The dependence of the performance of species subsets on structural assemblage characteristics (total assemblage abundance, proportion of rare species), however, underscores the importance of adaptive monitoring schemes and of establishing surrogate performance on a site by site basis based on pilot surveys