Plant Parasitic Nematodes Associated with Olive in Algeria

Surveys were conducted during 2010–2013 in olive growing areas of south and north of Algeria to identify plant parasitic nematodes associated with this crop. Sixteen genera of plant-parasitic nematodes were identified. Among them four are considered as having economic importance for olive. Among these the endoparasites Pratylenchus spp. were detected in the majority of the sampled areas and were the most frequent. Meloidogyne spp. were also present in some areas. Helicotylenchus spp. were present with a high frequency in almost all surveyed sites. Among the ectoparasites, only Xiphinema spp. have potential to damage olive. Other nematodes of less importance were poorly represented. Nematode densities varied according to taxa identified and areas surveyed. Excepted Pratylenchus spp. and Helicotylenchus spp., the others taxa are reported for the first time on olive in Algeria

Integrated use of phosphorus fertilizer and farmyard manure improves wheat productivity by improving soil quality and P availability in calcareous soil under subhumid conditions

IntroductionLow soil fertility and high fertilizer costs are constraints to wheat production, which may be resolved with integrating fertilizer phosphorus (P) and farm-yard manure (FYM). Study objectives were to evaluate P source impacts on soil, P efficiency, and wheat growth in a calcareous soil.MethodsTreatments included P fertilizer (0, 17, 26, or 39 kg P ha-1) and/or FYM (0 or 10 T ha-1) in a: 1) incubation experiment and 2) wheat (Triticum aestivum spp.) field experiment.Results and DiscussionSoil organic matter increased (30-72%) linearly for both fertilizer and FYM, whereas pH decreased (0.1-0.3 units) with fertilizer only. Addition of fertilizer and FYM increased plant available P (AB-DTPA extractable soil P) an average of 0.5 mg P kg-1 soil week-1 with incubation. The initial increase was 1-9 mg P kg-1, with further increase after 84 d of ~3-17 mg P kg-1. There was also a significant increase of available P in the soil supporting plants in the field study, although the magnitude of the increase was only 2 mg kg-1 at most for the highest fertilizer rate + FYM. Grain (66 to 119%) and straw (25-65%) yield increased significantly, peaking at 26 kg P ha-1 + FYM. The P Absorption Efficiency (PAE), P Balance (PB), and P Uptake (PU) increased linearly with P rate, with the highest levels at the highest P rate. The P Use Efficiency (PUE) was highest at the lowest rates of P, with general decreases with increasing P, although not consistently. Principal component analysis revealed that 94.34 % of the total variance was accounted for with PC1 (84.04 %) and PC2 (10.33 %), with grain straw yield significantly correlated to SOM, PU, and PAE. Regression analysis showed highly significant correlation of PB with P-input (R2= 0.99), plant available P (R2= 0.85), and PU (R2= 0.80). The combination of FYM at the rate of 10 T ha-1 and fertilizer P at 26 kg P ha-1 was found as the optimum dose that significantly increased yield. It is concluded that FYM concoction with fertilizer-P not only improved SOM and residual soil P, but also enhanced wheat yields with reasonable P efficiency

Improving the forecast for biodiversity under climate change

Acknowledgments: This paper originates from the “Ecological Interactions and Range Evolution Under Environmental Change” and “RangeShifter” working groups, supported by the Synthesis Centre of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (DFG-FZT-118), DIVERSITAS, and its core projects bioDISCOVERY and bioGENESIS. Supported by the Canada Research Chair, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science (A.G.); the University of Florida Foundation (R.D.H.); KU Leuven Research Fund grant PF/2010/07, ERA-Net BiodivERsA TIPPINGPOND, and Belspo IAP SPEEDY (L.D.M.); European Union Biodiversity Observation Network grant EU-BON-FP7-308454 (J.-B.M. and G.P.); KU Leuven Research Fund (J.P.); and NSF grants DEB-1119877 and PLR-1417754 and the McDonnell Foundation (M.C.U.).Peer reviewedPostprin

Building essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) of species distribution and abundance at a global scale

Much biodiversity data is collected worldwide, but it remains challenging to assemble the scattered knowledge for assessing biodiversity status and trends. The concept of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) was introduced to structure biodiversity monitoring globally, and to harmonize and standardize biodiversity data from disparate sources to capture a minimum set of critical variables required to study, report and manage biodiversity change. Here, we assess the challenges of a 'Big Data' approach to building global EBV data products across taxa and spatiotemporal scales, focusing on species distribution and abundance. The majority of currently available data on species distributions derives from incidentally reported observations or from surveys where presence-only or presence-absence data are sampled repeatedly with standardized protocols. Most abundance data come from opportunistic population counts or from population time series using standardized protocols (e.g. repeated surveys of the same population from single or multiple sites). Enormous complexity exists in integrating these heterogeneous, multi-source data sets across space, time, taxa and different sampling methods. Integration of such data into global EBV data products requires correcting biases introduced by imperfect detection and varying sampling effort, dealing with different spatial resolution and extents, harmonizing measurement units from different data sources or sampling methods, applying statistical tools and models for spatial inter- or extrapolation, and quantifying sources of uncertainty and errors in data and models. To support the development of EBVs by the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON), we identify 11 key workflow steps that will operationalize the process of building EBV data products within and across research infrastructures worldwide. These workflow steps take multiple sequential activities into account, including identification and aggregation of various raw data sources, data quality control, taxonomic name matching and statistical modelling of integrated data. We illustrate these steps with concrete examples from existing citizen science and professional monitoring projects, including eBird, the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring network, the Living Planet Index and the Baltic Sea zooplankton monitoring. The identified workflow steps are applicable to both terrestrial and aquatic systems and a broad range of spatial, temporal and taxonomic scales. They depend on clear, findable and accessible metadata, and we provide an overview of current data and metadata standards. Several challenges remain to be solved for building global EBV data products: (i) developing tools and models for combining heterogeneous, multi-source data sets and filling data gaps in geographic, temporal and taxonomic coverage, (ii) integrating emerging methods and technologies for data collection such as citizen science, sensor networks, DNA-based techniques and satellite remote sensing, (iii) solving major technical issues related to data product structure, data storage, execution of workflows and the production process/cycle as well as approaching technical interoperability among research infrastructures, (iv) allowing semantic interoperability by developing and adopting standards and tools for capturing consistent data and metadata, and (v) ensuring legal interoperability by endorsing open data or data that are free from restrictions on use, modification and sharing. Addressing these challenges is critical for biodiversity research and for assessing progress towards conservation policy targets and sustainable development goals

Adaptive responses of animals to climate change are most likely insufficient

Biological responses to climate change have been widely documented across taxa and regions, but it remains unclear whether species are maintaining a good match between phenotype and environment, i.e. whether observed trait changes are adaptive. Here we reviewed 10,090 abstracts and extracted data from 71 studies reported in 58 relevant publications, to assess quantitatively whether phenotypic trait changes associated with climate change are adaptive in animals. A meta-analysis focussing on birds, the taxon best represented in our dataset, suggests that global warming has not systematically affected morphological traits, but has advanced phenological traits. We demonstrate that these advances are adaptive for some species, but imperfect as evidenced by the observed consistent selection for earlier timing. Application of a theoretical model indicates that the evolutionary load imposed by incomplete adaptive responses to ongoing climate change may already be threatening the persistence of species. © 2019, The Author(s)

Adaptive responses of animals to climate change are most likely insufficient

Biological responses to climate change have been widely documented across taxa and regions, but it remains unclear whether species are maintaining a good match between phenotype and environment, i.e. whether observed trait changes are adaptive. Here we reviewed 10,090 abstracts and extracted data from 71 studies reported in 58 relevant publications, to assess quantitatively whether phenotypic trait changes associated with climate change are adaptive in animals. A meta-analysis focussing on birds, the taxon best represented in our dataset, suggests that global warming has not systematically affected morphological traits, but has advanced phenological traits. We demonstrate that these advances are adaptive for some species, but imperfect as evidenced by the observed consistent selection for earlier timing. Application of a theoretical model indicates that the evolutionary load imposed by incomplete adaptive responses to ongoing climate change may already be threatening the persistence of species

Communal roosting sites are potential ecological traps: experimental evidence in a Neotropical harvestman

Situations in which animals preferentially settle in low-quality habitat are referred to as ecological traps, and species that aggregate in response to conspecific cues, such as scentmarks, that persist after the animals leave the areamay be especially vulnerable. We tested this hypothesis on harvestmen (Prionostemma sp.) that roost communally in the rainforest understory. Based on evidence that these animals preferentially settle in sites marked with conspecific scent, we predicted that established aggregation sites would continue to attract new recruits even if the animals roosting there perished. To test this prediction, we simulated intense predation by repeatedly removing all individuals from 10 established roosts, and indeed, these sites continued to attract new harvestmen. A more likely reason for an established roost to become unsuitable is a loss of overstory canopy cover caused by treefalls. To investigate this scenario, without felling trees, we established 16 new communal roosts by translocating harvestmen into previously unused sites. Half the release sites were located in intact forest, and half were located in treefall gaps, but canopy cover had no significant effect on the recruitment rate. These results support the inference that communal roost sites are potential ecological traps for species that aggregate in response to conspecific scent

Adaptive responses of animals to climate change are most likely insufficient

Biological responses to climate change have been widely documented across taxa and regions, but it remains unclear whether species are maintaining a good match between phenotype and environment, i.e. whether observed trait changes are adaptive. Here we reviewed 10,090 abstracts and extracted data from 71 studies reported in 58 relevant publications, to assess quantitatively whether phenotypic trait changes associated with climate change are adaptive in animals. A meta-analysis focussing on birds, the taxon best represented in our dataset, suggests that global warming has not systematically affected morphological traits, but has advanced phenological traits. We demonstrate that these advances are adaptive for some species, but imperfect as evidenced by the observed consistent selection for earlier timing. Application of a theoretical model indicates that the evolutionary load imposed by incomplete adaptive responses to ongoing climate change may already be threatening the persistence of species.Peer reviewe