Insufficient protection and intense human pressure threaten islands worldwide

The small size, degree of isolation, and particular evolutionary processes occurring in islands make them highly diverse and an essential target for conservation. For the same characteristics, they are also extremely vulnerable to human-mediated disturbances. During the last centuries, nearly 80% of species extinctions have occurred on islands. While there is information on the human threats, level of protection, and conservation importance of islands, an integrative picture combining these aspects and aimed at determining conservation priorities to inform decision-making is still missing. Here, we jointly analyzed these three aspects producing a worldwide island conservation assessment based on terrestrial vertebrates. Considering the Aichi target of >17% of protection and all protected area categories, we found that 5397 islands, encompassing a quarter of the worldwide island area, face high human modification and have a low level of protection, with 33% of them showing extreme levels of human modification. Also, if we were to consider the new threshold of protected area coverage proposed to accurately protect the world's biodiversity and ecosystems (Nature Needs Half initiative), 77% of the world's islands would face this dramatic scenario. Furthermore, most large islands harboring the highest number of threatened vertebrates are found on this critical situation (low protection and high human modification). Based on the analysis of these conservation scenarios, we identified potential priority islands that provide opportunities to improve island conservation worldwide. The mbest opportunities are located in 58 islands with a low level of protection and human modification, which harbor more than 5 threatened vertebrates’ species and are located in different regions of the world.Fil: Nori, Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal; ArgentinaFil: Villalobos Camacho, Crisoforo Fabricio. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. Instituto de Ecología; MéxicoFil: Osorio Olvera, Luis Alfredo. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; MéxicoFil: Loyola, Rafael. Universidade Federal de Goiás; Brasi

Diferencias conceptuales entre modelación de nichos y modelación de áreasde distribución

The ideas of modeling niches of species and modeling areas of distribution, for some reason are confused terminologically. The terms " Species Distribution Models (SDM), and" Ecological Niche Models "(ENM) are very often considered synonymous, leaving aside the purely semantic problem, the modeling of niches and the modeling of distribution areas are strictly related activities. but clearly distinct, in this contribution we clarify these differences, presenting some examples

Introducción a los análisis espaciales con énfasis en modelos de nicho ecológico

En 2016 implementamos un sistema de seminarios de enseñanza, en formato de videos libres y accesibles desde internet, con la finalidad de dar a conocer de forma sencilla y en castellano, las bases conceptuales y aplicaciones de los modelos de nicho ecológico en estudios de ecología, conservación biológica, epidemiología y agrobiodviersidad, así como su implementación para el diseño de políticas públicas de los recursos naturales. Cada seminario fue desarrollado por uno o varios expertos discutiendo conceptos, métodos y diferentes herramientas disponibles para elaborar modelos de distribución de especies. Este manuscrito reúne los resúmenes de cada uno de los seminarios en línea, dando referencias clave para cada tema y el enlace al video correspondiente. Los videos están disponibles de forma libre en YouTube o en formato .mp4 bajo solicitud

On the Relationship Between habitat suitability and population abundance under different scenarios dispersal

Recent studies based on niche modeling to estimate the distribution of species have provided evidence that the abundance of a species decreases as the distance to the centroid of the climatic niche of the species increases. This empirical relationship is determined using correlative models that relate the presence/absence of a species with abiotic factors under the assumption that species are in equilibrium with its environment, but without taking into account population processes explicitly. The lack of a mechanism that explicitly relates population processes to the niche hinders to interpret results and obtain general conclusions. In this paper the relationship between habitat suitability and abundance under different dispersal scenarios is explored using a virtual species. A clear correlation between abundance and habitat suitability in scenarios without dispersal was found, on the other hand, this correlation decreased as the proportion of individuals who are dispersed increases. These results support the idea that there is a relationship between habitat suitability and abundances, however, they also show that this relationship is modulated by dispersal. Trabajos recientes basados en modelación del nicho para estimar la distribución de las especies han aportado evidencias de que la abundancia de una especie decrece conforme aumenta la distancia al centroide del nicho climático de la especie. Esta relación empírica se ha determinado utilizando modelos correlativos que relacionan datos de presencia/ausencia de una especie con factores abióticos, bajo el supuesto de que las especies se encuentran en equilibrio con su ambiente, pero sin tomar en cuenta explícitamente procesos poblacionales. La falta de un mecanismo que relacione explícitamente procesos poblacionales con el nicho de la especie dificulta la interpretación de los resultados y la obtención de conclusiones generales. En este trabajo se explora la relación entre la idoneidad del hábitat y la abundancia bajo diferentes escenarios de dispersión, utilizando una especie virtual. Se encontró que, en un escenario sin dispersión, hay una clara correlación entre la abundancia y la idoneidad del hábitat, pero en aquellos en los que se incluye el proceso de dispersión, a medida que se incrementa la proporción de individuos que se dispersan, la correlación entre abundancia e idoneidad del hábitat disminuye. Estos resultados apoyan la idea de que existe una relación entre idoneidad del hábitat y las abundancias, sin embargo, también muestran que esta se encuentra modulada por la dispersión

Contrasting biogeographical patterns of threatened vertebrates on islands emerge from disparities between expert-derived maps and Global Biodiversity Information Facility data

Aim: The most popular sources of information on species distributions are the expert-derived maps and georeferenced occurrences, mainly those compiled by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). These sources have been constantly used with biogeographical and conservation goals. However, their degree of accuracy in representing geographical biodiversity patterns remains poorly understood. Here, we compared both sources of information on species distributions to estimate global patterns of richness and species composition of threatened vertebrates on marine islands. Location: Global. Taxon: Terrestrial vertebrates. Methods: We gathered distributional data of all threatened terrestrial vertebrate species inhabiting 22,471 marine islands worldwide from GBIF and expert derived maps. Then, to assess strengths and biases from each source, using geographical information systems, we calculated and compared: (a) species richness per island, (b) general patterns of richness and (c) the number of shared species from both sources per island. Results: There were dramatic differences between the information derived from both data sources. The species richness estimated with expert-derived maps resulted in 10 more species per island, on average, than the estimations obtained from GBIF data. The mean proportion of shared species per island (between both data sources) was very low (3.1% of the species), and the general patterns of richness were markedly different. The most significant differences occurred in tropical areas and Europe. Conclusion: Differences between the two sources emerged from intrinsic biases: expert-derived maps tend to overestimate species' counts, whereas GBIF occurrences tend to do the opposite, except for some well-sampled regions where both data types converge. Our findings suggest that previous global assessments performed with these information sources on species distributions, especially those focusing on protected areas, should be carefully considered.Fil: Nori, Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal; ArgentinaFil: Prieto Torres, David Alexander. Red de Biogeografía Neotropical; México. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Facultad de Estudios Superiores de Iztacala; MéxicoFil: Villalobos Camacho, Crisoforo Fabricio. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Instituto de Ecología; México. Red de Biogeografía Neotropical; MéxicoFil: Loyola, Rafael. Red de Biogeografía Neotropical; México. Universidade Federal de Goiás; BrasilFil: Rojas Soto, Octavio. Red de Biogeografía Neotropical; México. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Instituto de Ecología; MéxicoFil: Parra, Juan L.. Universidad de Antioquia; Colombia. Red de Biogeografía Neotropical; MéxicoFil: Lira-Noriega, Andrés. Red de Biogeografía Neotropical; México. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Instituto de Ecología; MéxicoFil: Ortega-Andrade, H. Mauricio. Red de Biogeografía Neotropical; México. Universidad Regional Amazónica Ikiam; EcuadorFil: Monjeau, Jorge Adrian. Fundación Bariloche; Argentina. Red de Biogeografía Neotropical; México. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Hernández de La Fuente, Sebastián. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Facultad de Estudios Superiores de Iztacala; MéxicoFil: Martínez Meyer, Enrique. Red de Biogeografía Neotropical; México. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; MéxicoFil: Osorio Olvera, Luis Alfredo. Red de Biogeografía Neotropical; México. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Instituto de Ecología; Méxic

Evolution over Time of Ventilatory Management and Outcome of Patients with Neurologic Disease∗

OBJECTIVES: To describe the changes in ventilator management over time in patients with neurologic disease at ICU admission and to estimate factors associated with 28-day hospital mortality. DESIGN: Secondary analysis of three prospective, observational, multicenter studies. SETTING: Cohort studies conducted in 2004, 2010, and 2016. PATIENTS: Adult patients who received mechanical ventilation for more than 12 hours. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Among the 20,929 patients enrolled, we included 4,152 (20%) mechanically ventilated patients due to different neurologic diseases. Hemorrhagic stroke and brain trauma were the most common pathologies associated with the need for mechanical ventilation. Although volume-cycled ventilation remained the preferred ventilation mode, there was a significant (p < 0.001) increment in the use of pressure support ventilation. The proportion of patients receiving a protective lung ventilation strategy was increased over time: 47% in 2004, 63% in 2010, and 65% in 2016 (p < 0.001), as well as the duration of protective ventilation strategies: 406 days per 1,000 mechanical ventilation days in 2004, 523 days per 1,000 mechanical ventilation days in 2010, and 585 days per 1,000 mechanical ventilation days in 2016 (p < 0.001). There were no differences in the length of stay in the ICU, mortality in the ICU, and mortality in hospital from 2004 to 2016. Independent risk factors for 28-day mortality were age greater than 75 years, Simplified Acute Physiology Score II greater than 50, the occurrence of organ dysfunction within first 48 hours after brain injury, and specific neurologic diseases such as hemorrhagic stroke, ischemic stroke, and brain trauma. CONCLUSIONS: More lung-protective ventilatory strategies have been implemented over years in neurologic patients with no effect on pulmonary complications or on survival. We found several prognostic factors on mortality such as advanced age, the severity of the disease, organ dysfunctions, and the etiology of neurologic disease