Percepción y conocimiento de la biodiversidad por estudiantes urbanos y rurales de las tierras áridas del centro-oeste de Argentina

Los ecosistemas áridos y semiáridos de las provincias de Mendoza y San Juan en la actualidad sufren una degradación fuerte, con pérdida de biodiversidad. En este escenario, la difusión y la educación acerca de la biodiversidad nativa y su valor resultan indispensables a los fines de conservación. El presente trabajo revisa tres estudios llevados a cabo en las provincias de Mendoza y San Juan. Estos estudios fueron los primeros que, por un lado, intentaron reflejar las percepciones, conocimientos y apreciaciones de los estudiantes urbanos y rurales acerca de la biodiversidad y, por el otro, presentaron los resultados de la evaluación de una intervención educativa orientada a mejorar conocimientos y actitudes hacia la biodiversidad. Los trabajos muestran que si bien la procedencia, el género y la edad de los estudiantes afectan la percepción y el conocimiento acerca de la biodiversidad, en general, los niños aprecian y conocen más a las especies exóticas que a las nativas y, como en el resto del mundo, están familiarizados con las mascotas, las plantas ornamentales y los mamíferos carismáticos. Los estudiantes aprenden sobre biodiversidad utilizando diferentes fuentes; el contacto inicial de los más jóvenes con las especies ocurre a través de los medios masivos de comunicación y los libros. Los niños están poco familiarizados con las especies nativas locales con problemas de conservación y conocen poco acerca de sus adaptaciones evolutivas a las zonas áridas. Luego de una corta intervención educativa se observan cambios en percepciones y conocimientos en el corto plazo, pero a largo plazo se pierden. Es importante aumentar el esfuerzo en las escuelas, la familia, las organizaciones no gubernamentales y otros para mejorar el conocimiento y la apreciación de las biodiversidad nativa a través de actividades que se mantengan en el tiempo e impliquen el contacto directo con la naturaleza.Perception of and knowledge about biodiversity by urban and rural students of central-west drylands of Argentina: Arid and semiarid ecosystems of Mendoza and San Juan are currently undergoing severe degradation with the subsequent loss of biodiversity. In this scenario, diffusion and education about native biodiversity and its value are indispensable to the purposes of conservation. The present work reviews three previous studies conducted in the provinces of Mendoza and San Juan. This review attempts to reflect the perceptions, knowledge and appreciation of urban and rural students about biodiversity, within the framework of studies conducted worldwide, and discusses the effect of educational interventions aimed at improving knowledge of and attitudes toward biodiversity. Studies find that, although the place of residence, sex and age of students affect their perception and knowledge of biodiversity, overall, children appreciate and know exotic species better than native ones and, just as in the rest of the world, they are familiar with pets, ornamental plants and charismatic mammals. Students learn about biodiversity from different sources; the initial contact of the youngest children with species is through the mass media and books. Children are scarcely familiar with local native species with conservation issues or with their evolutionary adaptations to arid regions. After a short educational intervention, changes in perceptions and knowledge are observed in the short term, but these are lost in the long term. We consider it important to increase efforts in schools, family, non-governmental organizations, etc., to improve knowledge and appreciation of native biodiversity through activities that are maintained over time and involve direct contact with nature.Fil: Campos, Claudia Monica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de Zonas Aridas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Interacciones Biológicas del Desierto; ArgentinaFil: Nates, Juliana. University of Zürich. Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies; SuizaFil: Lindemannn Matthies, Petra. University of Education. Institute of Biology; Alemani

The Impact of a Short Conservation Education Workshop on Argentinean Students’ Knowledge about and Attitudes towards Species

This study investigated the impact of a one-day conservation education workshop on knowledge about and attitudes towards species of 88 students from Valle Fértil, Argentina. Immediately before and after the workshop and one year later, students (aged 12 to 16) had to identify native and introduced exotic plant and animal species as well as artificial ones ("Simpsons") on flashcards, to point out those "species" they considered most beautiful and useful, and to name adaptations of local species to arid conditions. Immediately after the workshop, students strongly increased their knowledge about plants and adaptations. One year later, this was still the case for those plant species students had been already somewhat familiar with in the pretest. The workshop hardly changed attitudes

Perception of and knowledge about biodiversity by urban and rural students of central-west drylands of Argentina

Los ecosistemas áridos y semiáridos de las provincias de Mendoza y San Juan en la actualidad sufren una degradación fuerte, con pérdida de biodiversidad. En este escenario, la difusión y la educación acerca de la biodiversidad nativa y su valor resultan indispensables a los fines de conservación. El presente trabajo revisa tres estudios llevados a cabo en las provincias de Mendoza y San Juan. Estos estudios fueron los primeros que, por un lado, intentaron reflejar las percepciones, conocimientos y apreciaciones de los estudiantes urbanos y rurales acerca de la biodiversidad y, por el otro, presentaron los resultados de la evaluación de una intervención educativa orientada a mejorar conocimientos y actitudes hacia la biodiversidad. Los trabajos muestran que si bien la procedencia, el género y la edad de los estudiantes afectan la percepción y el conocimiento acerca de la biodiversidad, en general, los niños aprecian y conocen más a las especies exóticas que a las nativas y, como en el resto del mundo, están familiarizados con las mascotas, las plantas ornamentales y los mamíferos carismáticos. Los estudiantes aprenden sobre biodiversidad utilizando diferentes fuentes; el contacto inicial de los más jóvenes con las especies ocurre a través de los medios masivos de comunicación y los libros. Los niños están poco familiarizados con las especies nativas locales con problemas de conservación y conocen poco acerca de sus adaptaciones evolutivas a las zonas áridas. Luego de una corta intervención educativa se observan cambios en percepciones y conocimientos en el corto plazo, pero a largo plazo se pierden. Es importante aumentar el esfuerzo en las escuelas, la familia, las organizaciones no gubernamentales y otros para mejorar el conocimiento y la apreciación de las biodiversidad nativa a través de actividades que se mantengan en el tiempo e impliquen el contacto directo con la naturaleza.Arid and semiarid ecosystems of Mendoza and San Juan are currently undergoing severe degradation with the subsequent loss of biodiversity. In this scenario, diffusion and education about native biodiversity and its value are indispensable to the purposes of conservation. The present work reviews three previous studies conducted in the provinces of Mendoza and San Juan. This review attempts to reflect the perceptions, knowledge and appreciation of urban and rural students about biodiversity, within the framework of studies conducted worldwide, and discusses the effect of educational interventions aimed at improving knowledge of and attitudes toward biodiversity. Studies find that, although the place of residence, sex and age of students affect their perception and knowledge of biodiversity, overall, children appreciate and know exotic species better than native ones and, just as in the rest of the world, they are familiar with pets, ornamental plants and charismatic mammals. Students learn about biodiversity from different sources; the initial contact of the youngest children with species is through the mass media and books. Children are scarcely familiar with local native species with conservation issues or with their evolutionary adaptations to arid regions. After a short educational intervention, changes in perceptions and knowledge are observed in the short term, but these are lost in the long term. We consider it important to increase efforts in schools, family, non-governmental organizations, etc., to improve knowledge and appreciation of native biodiversity through activities that are maintained over time and involve direct contact with nature

CropPol: a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination

Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions. Here, we present CropPol, a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination. It contains measurements recorded from 202 crop studies, covering 3,394 field observations, 2,552 yield measurements (i.e. berry weight, number of fruits and kg per hectare, among others), and 47,752 insect records from 48 commercial crops distributed around the globe. CropPol comprises 32 of the 87 leading global crops and commodities that are pollinator dependent. Malus domestica is the most represented crop (32 studies), followed by Brassica napus (22 studies), Vaccinium corymbosum (13 studies), and Citrullus lanatus (12 studies). The most abundant pollinator guilds recorded are honey bees (34.22% counts), bumblebees (19.19%), flies other than Syrphidae and Bombyliidae (13.18%), other wild bees (13.13%), beetles (10.97%), Syrphidae (4.87%), and Bombyliidae (0.05%). Locations comprise 34 countries distributed among Europe (76 studies), Northern America (60), Latin America and the Caribbean (29), Asia (20), Oceania (10), and Africa (7). Sampling spans three decades and is concentrated on 2001-05 (21 studies), 2006-10 (40), 2011-15 (88), and 2016-20 (50). This is the most comprehensive open global data set on measurements of crop flower visitors, crop pollinators and pollination to date, and we encourage researchers to add more datasets to this database in the future. This data set is released for non-commercial use only. Credits should be given to this paper (i.e., proper citation), and the products generated with this database should be shared under the same license terms (CC BY-NC-SA). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Pollination supply models from a local to global scale

Ecological intensification has been embraced with great interest by the academic sector but is still rarely taken up by farmers because monitoring the state of different ecological functions is not straightforward. Modelling tools can represent a more accessible alternative of measuring ecological functions, which could help promote their use amongst farmers and other decision-makers. In the case of crop pollination, modelling has traditionally followed either a mechanistic or a data-driven approach. Mechanistic models simulate the habitat preferences and foraging behaviour of pollinators, while data-driven models associate georeferenced variables with real observations. Here, we test these two approaches to predict pollination supply and validate these predictions using data from a newly released global dataset on pollinator visitation rates to different crops. We use one of the most extensively used models for the mechanistic approach, while for the data-driven approach, we select from among a comprehensive set of state-of-the-art machine-learning models. Moreover, we explore a mixed approach, where data-derived inputs, rather than expert assessment, inform the mechanistic model. We find that, at a global scale, machine-learning models work best, offering a rank correlation coefficient between predictions and observations of pollinator visitation rates of 0.56. In turn, the mechanistic model works moderately well at a global scale for wild bees other than bumblebees. Biomes characterized by temperate or Mediterranean forests show a better agreement between mechanistic model predictions and observations, probably due to more comprehensive ecological knowledge and therefore better parameterization of input variables for these biomes. This study highlights the challenges of transferring input variables across multiple biomes, as expected given the different composition of species in different biomes. Our results provide clear guidance on which pollination supply models perform best at different spatial scales – the first step towards bridging the stakeholder–academia gap in modelling ecosystem service delivery under ecological intensification

People's familiarity with and attitudes towards native and exotic plant and animal species - case studies from Argentina, Colombia and China

This thesis studied people’s familiarity with and attitudes towards native and exotic species in Argentina, Colombia and China with a focus on amphibians and the effect of a workshop on perception and appreciation of local plants and animals

Los proyectos de aula; una estrategia pedagógica para el desarrollo de la dimensión comunicativa de los niños y niñas de 4-6 años del centro de desarrollo comunitario Siloé- anexo Usb Cali

Las nuevas generaciones de estudiantes requieren nuevas propuestas educativas, acordes a las necesidades económicas, religiosas, políticas de las sociedades actuales. En ese sentido, “Los proyectos de Aula: Una estrategia pedagógica para el desarrollo de la dimensión comunicativa de los niños y niñas de 4 a 6 años del Centro Psicopedagógico Siloé, anexo USB Cali”; se presenta como una estrategia de aprendizaje a través de la cual se pretende ofrecer a los estudiantes la posibilidad de interactuar en situaciones reales y funcionales que deben resolver. El objetivo principal de esta investigación es determinar la factibilidad de la puesta en marcha de un proyecto de aula, por medio de estrategias pedagógicas que propicien situaciones de trabajo grupal, de investigación, acción, experimentación, reflexión y de debate compartido y enmarcado dentro de valores como el respeto, compañerismo, cuidado del entorno y de sí, entre otros. El proyecto se ejecutará en las instalaciones del Centro Psicopedagógico Siloé

Students' perception of plant and animal species: A case study from rural Argentina

Exotic species seriously affect local biodiversity in Argentina. This article investigates how students in San Juan province perceive native and exotic species. With the help of a written questionnaire, 865 students (9-17 years old) were asked to name the plant and animal they liked most, disliked most, and perceived as most useful, and to name local species and describe their uses in the region. Students' preferences and perceptions were strongly directed toward exotic domestic species. Consequently, workshops were developed in which students were introduced by local ecologists to the diversity of native wild species and their importance for the ecosystem

Pollination supply models from a local to global scale

Ecological intensification has been embraced with great interest by the academic sector but is still rarely taken up by farmers because monitoring the state of different ecological functions is not straightforward. Modelling tools can represent a more accessible alternative of measuring ecological functions, which could help promote their use amongst farmers and other decision-makers. In the case of crop pollination, modelling has traditionally followed either a mechanistic or a data-driven approach. Mechanistic models simulate the habitat preferences and foraging behaviour of pollinators, while data-driven models associate georeferenced variables with real observations. Here, we test these two approaches to predict pollination supply and validate these predictions using data from a newly released global dataset on pollinator visitation rates to different crops. We use one of the most extensively used models for the mechanistic approach, while for the data-driven approach, we select from among a comprehensive set of state-of-The-Art machine-learning models. Moreover, we explore a mixed approach, where data-derived inputs, rather than expert assessment, inform the mechanistic model. We find that, at a global scale, machine-learning models work best, offering a rank correlation coefficient between predictions and observations of pollinator visitation rates of 0.56. In turn, the mechanistic model works moderately well at a global scale for wild bees other than bumblebees. Biomes characterized by temperate or Mediterranean forests show a better agreement between mechanistic model predictions and observations, probably due to more comprehensive ecological knowledge and therefore better parameterization of input variables for these biomes. This study highlights the challenges of transferring input variables across multiple biomes, as expected given the different composition of species in different biomes. Our results provide clear guidance on which pollination supply models perform best at different spatial scales-the first step towards bridging the stakeholder-Academia gap in modelling ecosystem service delivery under ecological intensification.ISSN:1399-118