The importance of unique populations for conservation: the case of the Great Orme’s Head grayling butterfly Hipparchia semele (Linnaeus, 1758) (Lepidoptera: Satyrinae)

Small populations with unusual characteristics subject to extreme conditions provide opportunities for exploring adaptability in the face of environmental changes. Two sets of data have been examined to determine how unusual is the population of Hipparchia semele on the Great Orme’s Head, North Wales, compared with other sites in the UK. The population on the Great Orme is shown to have unique features, including significantly reduced wing expanse and wing ocellation and extreme flight period characteristics. Analyses of flight period data from the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) using over a 100 sites reveals that, although the Great Orme population is one of a number of sites from the Channel Islands to northern Scotland with an early mean flight period, it has by far the earliest flight period and longest flight period of all populations—the latter raising the mean flight period date. Furthermore the unique characteristics of H. semele on the Orme may well be underestimated, inasmuch as sampling of individuals for the phenotype study is incomplete, including only the area along the North Wales coast into Cheshire, while the UKBMS transect is restricted to the south-west portion of the headland. Unique populations are often accorded focused conservation effort; especially potential flagship species in decline as in the case of British H. semele. As the Great Orme population presents a rare opportunity for studying adaptations in an extreme local environment, particularly considering current projections for climate changes, we advocate further research and attention being given to this unusual population

Insect population trends and the IUCN Red List process

Reliable assessment of extinction risk is a key factor in the preparation of Red Lists and in prioritizing biodiversity conservation. Temporal population trends can provide important evidence for such assessments, but imperfect sampling (observation errors) and short-term stochastic variation in population levels caused by environmental variability (process errors) can reduce the reliability of trends and lead to incorrect quantification of extinction risk. The assessment of insect taxa is likely to be particularly prone to these problems, due to the highly dynamic nature of many insect populations, driven by short life-cycles and sensitivity to environmental factors such as the weather. Using long-term United Kingdom monitoring data for 54 butterfly and 431 macro-moth species, we demonstrate the impact of insect population variability on the assessment of extinction risk using the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List Criterion A (reduction in population size over the last 10 years). For both taxa, varying the start year of the 10-year population trend had a substantial effect on whether particular species met Red List thresholds and on the overall number of species assessed as threatened. We conclude that for these insect taxa strict application of the 10-year rule produces Red List classifications that are unacceptably biased by the start year. Use of long-term trends with adjustment based on species performance over the last decade may offer a pragmatic solution to this problem. We call for further IUCN guidance for practitioners undertaking Red List assessments of taxa with populations that have high temporal variability

Asynchrony in terrestrial insect abundance corresponds with species traits

Asynchrony in population abundance can buffer the effects of environmental change leading to greater community and ecosystem stability. Both environmental (abiotic) drivers and species functional (biotic) traits can influence population dynamics leading to asynchrony. However, empirical evidence linking dissimilarity in species traits to abundance asynchrony is limited, especially for understudied taxa such as insects. To fill this knowledge gap, we explored the relationship between pairwise species trait dissimilarity and asynchrony in interannual abundance change between pairs of species for 422 moth, butterfly, and bumblebee species in Great Britain. We also explored patterns differentiating traits that we assumed to capture ‘sensitivity to environmental variables’ (such as body mass), and traits that may reflect ‘diversity in exposure’ to environmental conditions and lead to niche partitioning (for example, habitat uses, and intra-annual emergence periods). As expected, species trait dissimilarity calculated overall and for many individual traits representing response and exposure was positively correlated with asynchrony in all three insect groups. We found that ‘exposure’ traits, especially those relating to the phenology of species, had the strongest relationship with abundance asynchrony from all tested traits. Positive relationships were not simply due to shared evolutionary history leading to similar life-history strategies: detected effects remained significant for most traits after accounting for phylogenetic relationships within models. Our results provide empirical support that dissimilarity in traits linked to species exposure and sensitivity to the environment could be important for temporal dissimilarity in insect abundance. Hence, we suggest that general trait diversity, but especially diversity in ‘exposure’ traits, could play a significant role in the resilience of insect communities to short-term environmental perturbations through driving asynchrony between species abundances

The influence of chalk grasslands on butterfly phenology and ecology

The influence of large-scale variables such as climate change on phenology has received a great deal of research attention. However, local environmental factors also play a key role in determining the timing of species life cycles. Using the meadow brown butterfly Maniola jurtina as an example, we investigate how a specific habitat type, lowland calcareous grassland, can affect the timing of flight dates. Although protracted flight periods have previously been reported in populations on chalk grassland sites in the south of England, no attempt has yet been made to quantify this at a national level, or to assess links with population genetics and drought tolerance. Using data from 539 sites across the UK, these differences in phenology are quantified, and M. jurtina phenology is found to be strongly associated with both site geology and topography, independent of levels of abundance. Further investigation into aspects of M. jurtina ecology at a subset of sites finds no genetic structuring or drought tolerance associated with these same site conditions

Insect population trends and the IUCN Red List process

Reliable assessment of extinction risk is a key factor in the preparation of Red Lists and in prioritizing biodiversity conservation. Temporal population trends can provide important evidence for such assessments, but imperfect sampling (observation errors) and short-term stochastic variation in population levels caused by environmental variability (process errors) can reduce the reliability of trends and lead to incorrect quantification of extinction risk. The assessment of insect taxa is likely to be particularly prone to these problems, due to the highly dynamic nature of many insect populations, driven by short life-cycles and sensitivity to environmental factors such as the weather. Using long-term United Kingdom monitoring data for 54 butterfly and 431 macro-moth species, we demonstrate the impact of insect population variability on the assessment of extinction risk using the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List Criterion A (reduction in population size over the last 10 years). For both taxa, varying the start year of the 10-year population trend had a substantial effect on whether particular species met Red List thresholds and on the overall number of species assessed as threatened. We conclude that for these insect taxa strict application of the 10-year rule produces Red List classifications that are unacceptably biased by the start year. Use of long-term trends with adjustment based on species performance over the last decade may offer a pragmatic solution to this problem. We call for further IUCN guidance for practitioners undertaking Red List assessments of taxa with populations that have high temporal variability

Comprehensive analysis of methods used for the evaluation of compounds against Mycobacterium tuberculosis

10.1016/j.tube.2012.07.003Tuberculosis926453-488TUBE

Coupled Air Quality and Boundary-Layer Meteorology in Western U.S. Basins during Winter: Design and Rationale for a Comprehensive Study.

Wintertime episodes of high aerosol concentrations occur frequently in urban and agricultural basins and valleys worldwide. These episodes often arise following development of persistent cold-air pools (PCAPs) that limit mixing and modify chemistry. While field campaigns targeting either basin meteorology or wintertime pollution chemistry have been conducted, coupling between interconnected chemical and meteorological processes remains an insufficiently studied research area. Gaps in understanding the coupled chemical-meteorological interactions that drive high pollution events make identification of the most effective air-basin specific emission control strategies challenging. To address this, a September 2019 workshop occurred with the goal of planning a future research campaign to investigate air quality in Western U.S. basins. Approximately 120 people participated, representing 50 institutions and 5 countries. Workshop participants outlined the rationale and design for a comprehensive wintertime study that would couple atmospheric chemistry and boundary-layer and complex-terrain meteorology within western U.S. basins. Participants concluded the study should focus on two regions with contrasting aerosol chemistry: three populated valleys within Utah (Salt Lake, Utah, and Cache Valleys) and the San Joaquin Valley in California. This paper describes the scientific rationale for a campaign that will acquire chemical and meteorological datasets using airborne platforms with extensive range, coupled to surface-based measurements focusing on sampling within the near-surface boundary layer, and transport and mixing processes within this layer, with high vertical resolution at a number of representative sites. No prior wintertime basin-focused campaign has provided the breadth of observations necessary to characterize the meteorological-chemical linkages outlined here, nor to validate complex processes within coupled atmosphere-chemistry models

As câmaras setoriais e o meso-corporativismo The "sectorial chambers" and meso-corporativism

Com base no caso das "câmaras setoriais" na industria automobilística examina-se a introdução de uma experiência de organização "meso-corporativa" no contexto brasileiro.<br>Regarding the case of the "sectorial chambers" in the automotive industry the introduction of a "meso-corporative" experience in the Brazilian context is examined