8 research outputs found
The positive impact of conservation action
Governments recently adopted new global targets to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity. It is therefore crucial to understand the outcomes of conservation actions. We conducted a global meta-analysis of 186 studies (including 665 trials) that measured biodiversity over time and compared outcomes under conservation action with a suitable counterfactual of no action. We find that in two-thirds of cases, conservation either improved the state of biodiversity or at least slowed declines. Specifically, we find that interventions targeted at species and ecosystems, such as invasive species control, habitat loss reduction and restoration, protected areas, and sustainable management, are highly effective and have large effect sizes. This provides the strongest evidence to date that conservation actions are successful but require transformational scaling up to meet global targets
The cognitive neuroscience of prehension: recent developments
Prehension, the capacity to reach and grasp, is the key behavior that allows humans to change their environment. It continues to serve as a remarkable experimental test case for probing the cognitive architecture of goal-oriented action. This review focuses on recent experimental evidence that enhances or modifies how we might conceptualize the neural substrates of prehension. Emphasis is placed on studies that consider how precision grasps are selected and transformed into motor commands. Then, the mechanisms that extract action relevant information from vision and touch are considered. These include consideration of how parallel perceptual networks within parietal cortex, along with the ventral stream, are connected and share information to achieve common motor goals. On-line control of grasping action is discussed within a state estimation framework. The review ends with a consideration about how prehension fits within larger action repertoires that solve more complex goals and the possible cortical architectures needed to organize these actions
Quantifying and mapping species threat abatement opportunities to support national target setting
Holding-on: co-evolution between infant carrying and grasping behaviour in strepsirrhines
The origin and evolution of manual grasping remain poorly understood. The ability to cling requires
important grasping abilities and is essential to survive in species where the young are carried in the
fur. A previous study has suggested that this behaviour could be a pre-adaptation for the evolution
of fine manipulative skills. In this study we tested the co-evolution between infant carrying in the fur
and manual grasping abilities in the context of food manipulation. As strepsirrhines vary in the way
infants are carried (mouth vs. fur), they are an excellent model to test this hypothesis. Data on food
manipulation behaviour were collected for 21 species of strepsirrhines. Our results show that furcarrying
species exhibited significantly more frequent manual grasping of food items. This study clearly
illustrates the potential novel insights that a behaviour (infant carrying) that has previously been largely
ignored in the discussion of the evolution of primate manipulation can bring.peerReviewe