Simple but long-lasting: A specimen imaging method applicable for small- and medium-sized herbaria

Major international herbaria, natural history museums and universities have recently begun to digitise their collections to facilitate studies and improve access to collections. In Japan, more than 10 million herbarium specimens are housed in various universities/museums; however, only 1% of these have been digitised. In this paper, we describe a new method for imaging herbarium specimens that is applicable to local/small herbaria. It is safe, fast, simple and inexpensive, but also satisfies usage guidelines for minimum image quality and can produce digital files suitable for long-term storage and future post production. During an eight-month trial at the Museum of Nature and Human Activities, Hyogo, with three part-time workers using a custom-made copy stand and a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera with a large LED light bank system, we were able to image 73,180 herbarium specimens (571 per day on average), obtaining two RAW and two JPEG files for each specimen

Reconciling biodiversity conservation and flood risk reduction : The new strategy for freshwater protected areas

Aim: Natural disaster risk reduction (DRR) is becoming a more important function of protected area (PAs) for current and future global warming. However, biodiversity conservation and DRR have been handled separately and their interrelationship has not been explicitly addressed. This is mainly because, due of prevailing strategies and criteria for PA placement, a large proportion of PAs are currently located far from human-occupied areas, and habitats in human-occupied areas have been largely ignored as potential sites for conservation despite their high biodiversity. If intensely developed lowland areas with high flooding risk overlap with important sites for biodiversity conservation, it would be reasonable to try to harmonize biodiversity conservation and human development in human-inhabited lowland areas. Here, we examined whether extant PAs can conserve macroinvertebrate and freshwater fish biodiversity and whether human-inhabited lowland flood risk management sites might be suitable to designate as freshwater protected areas (FPAs). Location: Across Japan. Methods: We examined whether extant PAs can conserve macroinvertebrate and freshwater fish biodiversity and analysed the relationship between candidate sites for new FPAs and flood disaster risk and land use intensity at a national scale across Japan based on distribution data for 131 freshwater fish species and 1395 macroinvertebrate species. Results: We found that extant PAs overlapped with approximately 30% of conservation-priority grid cells (1 km2) for both taxa. Particularly for red-listed species, only one species of freshwater fish and three species of macroinvertebrate achieved the representation target within extant PAs. Moreover, more than 40% of candidate conservation-priority grid cells were located in flood risk and human-occupied areas for both taxa. Main conclusions: Floodplain conservation provides suitable habitat for many freshwater organisms and helps control floodwaters, so establishing new FPAs in areas with high flood risk could be a win-win strategy for conserving freshwater biodiversity and enhancing ecosystem-based DRR (eco-DRR)

Areas of Increasing Agricultural Abandonment Overlap the Distribution of Previously Common, Currently Threatened Plant Species

<div><p>Human-driven land-use changes increasingly threaten biodiversity. In agricultural ecosystems, abandonment of former farmlands constitutes a major land-use shift. We examined the relationships between areas in which agriculture has been abandoned and the distribution records of threatened plant species across Japan. We selected 23 plant species that are currently identified as threatened but were previously common in the country as indicators of threatened plant species. The areas of abandoned farmlands within the distribution ranges of the indicator species were significantly larger than the proportion of abandoned farmland area across the whole country. Also, abandoned farmland areas were positively correlated with the occurrence of indicator species. Therefore, sections of agricultural landscape that are increasingly becoming abandoned and the distribution ranges of indicator species overlapped. These results suggest that abandoned farmland areas contain degraded or preferred habitats of threatened plant species. We propose that areas experiencing increased abandonment of farmland can be divided into at least two categories: those that threaten the existence of threatened species and those that provide habitats for these threatened species. </p> </div

Distribution maps of abandoned farmland (a) and total farmland (b).

<p>Distribution maps of abandoned farmland (a) and total farmland (b).</p

Data from: Distribution and drift dispersal dynamics of a caddisfly grazer in response to resource abundance and its ontogeny

Stream grazers have a major impact on food web structure and the productivity of stream ecosystems; however, studies on the longitudinal (upstream versus downstream) and temporal changes in their drift dynamics and resulting distributions remain limited. Here, we investigated the longitudinal and temporal distributions and drift propensity of a trichopteran grazer, the caddisfly, Micrasema quadriloba, during its life cycle in a Japanese stream. The distribution of larvae significantly shifted downstream during the fifth instar larval stage during late winter; with periphyton abundance (i.e. their food source) showing similar shifts downstream. Therefore, our results show that the drift dispersal the caddisfly occurs in response to decline in available food resources (i.e. food-resource scarcity) and an increase in food requirements by growing individuals. Furthermore, our results show that this observed longitudinal shift in larval distribution varies through their life cycle, because the drift dispersal of fifth instar larvae was greater than that of immature larvae. The correlation between periphyton abundance and drift propensity of fourth instar larvae was not statistically significant, whereas that of fifth instar larvae was significantly negative. In conclusion, we detected an ontogenetic shift in drift propensity, which might explain the longitudinal and temporal distributions of this species

Study area and units selected for this study.

<p>Locations and sizes of grids were defined by the Japanese government.</p

Dataset-Katano_et_al_RSOS

The all data used in the paper, grazer (M. quadriloba larvae) density and chlorophyll (chl) a of periphyton in the stream

Fig. S1 Abiotic factors (water temperature, electric conductivity (EC), and precipitation) at each survey station in the Shigo-gawa stream during downstream surveys. Precipitation was observed at Nara Meteorological Observatory. Table S1. Environmental variables (mean ± 1 SD) of each sampling site. The values in parentheses are sample sizes. from Distribution and drift dispersal dynamics of a caddisfly grazer in response to resource abundance and its ontogeny

Stream grazers have a major impact on food web structure and the productivity of stream ecosystems; however, studies on the longitudinal (upstream versus downstream) and temporal changes in their drift dynamics and resulting distributions remain limited. Here, we investigated the longitudinal and temporal distributions and drift propensity of a trichopteran grazer, the caddisfly, <i>Micrasema quadriloba</i>, during its life cycle in a Japanese stream. The distribution of larvae significantly shifted downstream during the fifth instar larval stage during late winter; with periphyton abundance (i.e. their food source) showing similar shifts downstream. Therefore, our results show that the drift dispersal the caddisfly occurs in response to decline in available food resources (i.e. food-resource scarcity) and an increase in food requirements by growing individuals. Furthermore, our results show that this observed longitudinal shift in larval distribution varies through their life cycle, because the drift dispersal of fifth instar larvae was greater than that of immature larvae. The correlation between periphyton abundance and drift propensity of fourth instar larvae was not statistically significant, whereas that of fifth instar larvae was significantly negative. In conclusion, we detected an ontogenetic shift in drift propensity, which might explain the longitudinal and temporal distributions of this species

Reconciling biodiversity conservation and flood risk reduction : The new strategy for freshwater protected areas

Aim Natural disaster risk reduction (DRR) is becoming a more important function of protected area (PAs) for current and future global warming. However, biodiversity conservation and DRR have been handled separately and their interrelationship has not been explicitly addressed. This is mainly because, due of prevailing strategies and criteria for PA placement, a large proportion of PAs are currently located far from human-occupied areas, and habitats in human-occupied areas have been largely ignored as potential sites for conservation despite their high biodiversity. If intensely developed lowland areas with high flooding risk overlap with important sites for biodiversity conservation, it would be reasonable to try to harmonize biodiversity conservation and human development in human-inhabited lowland areas. Here, we examined whether extant PAs can conserve macroinvertebrate and freshwater fish biodiversity and whether human-inhabited lowland flood risk management sites might be suitable to designate as freshwater protected areas (FPAs). Location Across Japan. Methods We examined whether extant PAs can conserve macroinvertebrate and freshwater fish biodiversity and analysed the relationship between candidate sites for new FPAs and flood disaster risk and land use intensity at a national scale across Japan based on distribution data for 131 freshwater fish species and 1395 macroinvertebrate species. Results We found that extant PAs overlapped with approximately 30% of conservation-priority grid cells (1 km(2)) for both taxa. Particularly for red-listed species, only one species of freshwater fish and three species of macroinvertebrate achieved the representation target within extant PAs. Moreover, more than 40% of candidate conservation-priority grid cells were located in flood risk and human-occupied areas for both taxa. Main conclusions Floodplain conservation provides suitable habitat for many freshwater organisms and helps control floodwaters, so establishing new FPAs in areas with high flood risk could be a win-win strategy for conserving freshwater biodiversity and enhancing ecosystem-based DRR (eco-DRR)