Methods for calculating Protection Equality for conservation planning

Protected Areas (PAs) are a central part of biodiversity conservation strategies around the world. Today, PAs cover c15% of the Earth’s land mass and c3% of the global oceans. These numbers are expected to grow rapidly to meet the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Biodiversity target 11, which aims to see 17% and 10% of terrestrial and marine biomes protected, respectively, by 2020. This target also requires countries to ensure that PAs protect an “ecologically representative” sample of their biodiversity. At present, there is no clear definition of what desirable ecological representation looks like, or guidelines of how to standardize its assessment as the PA estate grows. We propose a systematic approach to measure ecological representation in PA networks using the Protection Equality (PE) metric, which measures how equally ecological features, such as habitats, within a country’s borders are protected. Extending research in Barr et al. (2011), we present an R package and two Protection Equality (PE) measures; proportional to area PE, and fixed area PE, which measure the representativeness of a country’s PA network. We illustrate the PE metrics with two case studies: coral reef protection across countries and ecoregions in the Coral Triangle, and representation of ecoregions of six of the largest countries in the world. Our results provide repeatable transparency to the issue of representation in PA networks and provide a starting point for further discussion, evaluation and testing of representation metrics. They also highlight clear shortcomings in current PA networks, particularly where they are biased towards certain assemblage types or habitats. Our proposed metrics should be used to report on measuring progress towards the representation component of Aichi Target 11. The PE metrics can be used to measure the representation of any kind of ecological feature including: species, ecoregions, processes or habitats

Using the DPSIR framework for transdisciplinary training and knowledge elicitation in the Gulf of Thailand

No abstract available

From Marxan to management: ocean zoning with stakeholders for Tun Mustapha Park in Sabah, Malaysia

Tun Mustapha Park, in Sabah, Malaysia, was gazetted in May 2016 and is the first multiple-use park in Malaysia where conservation, sustainable resource use and development co-occur within one management framework. We applied a systematic conservation planning tool, Marxan with Zones, and stakeholder consultation to design and revise the draft zoning plan. This process was facilitated by Sabah Parks, a government agency, and WWF-Malaysia, under the guidance of the Tun Mustapha Park steering committee and with support from the University of Queensland. Four conservation and fishing zones, including no-take areas, were developed, each with representation and replication targets for key marine habitats, and a range of socio-economic and community objectives. Here we report on how decision-support tools informed the reserve design process in three planning stages: prioritization, government review, and community consultation. Using marine habitat and species representation as a reporting metric, we describe how the zoning plan changed at each stage of the design process. We found that the changes made to the zoning plan by the government and stakeholders resulted in plans that compromised the achievement of conservation targets because no-take areas were moved away from villages and the coastline, where unique habitats are located. The design process highlights a number of lessons learned for future conservation zoning, which we believe will be useful as many other places embark on similar zoning processes on land and in the sea

Spatio-temporal marine conservation planning to support high-latitude coral range expansion under climate change

Aim: Increasing sea-surface temperatures (SST) have resulted in poleward range expansions of scleractinian corals and declines in their core ranges. These changes may provide management opportunities for the long-term persistence of corals, but spatial prioritization rarely considers and anticipates these changes. We developed a spatio-temporal conservation plan that accommodates future coral range expansions based on projections of future SST. Our spatial planning approach is particularly useful in places with limited information about species distributions. Our aims were to (1) identify areas that consistently remain important for conservation through time and (2) determine the differences between priorities for conservation that account for potential coral range expansions and those that ignore them. Location: Japan. Methods: We developed spatial planning approaches using predicted coral habitat distributions for current conditions, the near future and the distant future. Using the Marxan conservation planning software, we designed conservation plans for scenarios that incorporated different types of spatial and temporal connections. Spatial connections are physical connections between adjacent and nearby areas, whereas temporal connections connect planning areas throughout time. Results: We found that protecting areas important for current and future coral habitat distributions is possible by prioritizing places that are consistently important through time. A spatially and temporally cohesive plan was accomplished with only a 14% increase in the overall reserve system costs, compared with reserve systems ignoring future coral habitat distributions. The attributes of priority areas (e.g. locations, outside boundary length and size) were substantially different when we varied the types of connections. Main conclusions: This study demonstrated that areas with highest conservation priority now will not necessarily be optimal when planning for future change, such as coral range expansions. Furthermore, we showed that incorporating spatio-temporal connections into spatial prioritization achieves objectives of simultaneously conserving corals in the current climate and facilitating their expansions as SST rises

Use cases, best practice and reporting standards for metabolomics in regulatory toxicology

Metabolomics is a widely used technology in academic research, yet its application to regulatory science has been limited. The most commonly cited barrier to its translation is lack of performance and reporting standards. The MEtabolomics standaRds Initiative in Toxicology (MERIT) project brings together international experts from multiple sectors to address this need. Here, we identify the most relevant applications for metabolomics in regulatory toxicology and develop best practice guidelines, performance and reporting standards for acquiring and analysing untargeted metabolomics and targeted metabolite data. We recommend that these guidelines are evaluated and implemented for several regulatory use cases

Co-variation of fish and coral traits in relation to habitat type and fishery status

Escalating climate impacts on coral reefs are increasingly expanding management goals beyond preserving biodiversity to also maintaining ecosystem functions. Morphological and ecological species traits can help assess changes within reef communities beyond taxonomic identities alone. However, our limited understanding of trait interactions between habitat-building corals and associated reef fishes and whether they are captured by current monitoring practices hampers management. Here, we apply co-inertia analyses to test whether trait assemblages in corals and fishes co-vary across different habitats and test whether different components of the reef fish community (fisheries vs. non-target species) display distinct relationships. We find that spatial co-variation across habitat types between coral and fish traits is strengthened by the addition of non-target fishes. Additionally, even in fisheries with diverse targets, non-target species make unique contributions to the overall trait structure and highlight the importance of considering monitoring protocols when drawing conclusions about traits and ecosystems

Supporting medical decisions for treating rare diseases through genetic programming

Bakurov, I., Castelli, M., Vanneschi, L., & Freitas, M. J. (2019). Supporting medical decisions for treating rare diseases through genetic programming. In P. Kaufmann, & P. A. Castillo (Eds.), Applications of Evolutionary Computation: 22nd International Conference, EvoApplications 2019, Held as Part of EvoStar 2019, Proceedings (pp. 187-203). (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 11454 LNCS). Springer Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16692-2_13. ISBN: 978-3-030-16691-5; Online ISBN: 978-3-030-16692-2Casa dos Marcos is the largest specialized medical and residential center for rare diseases in the Iberian Peninsula. The large number of patients and the uniqueness of their diseases demand a considerable amount of diverse and highly personalized therapies, that are nowadays largely managed manually. This paper aims at catering for the emergent need of efficient and effective artificial intelligence systems for the support of the everyday activities of centers like Casa dos Marcos. We present six predictive data models developed with a genetic programming based system which, integrated into a web-application, enabled data-driven support for the therapists in Casa dos Marcos. The presented results clearly indicate the usefulness of the system in assisting complex therapeutic procedures for children suffering from rare diseases.authorsversionpublishe

Integrated planning for land-sea ecosystem connectivity to protect coral reefs

Coral reefs are threatened by human activities both on the land and in the sea. However, standard approaches for prioritizing locations for marine and terrestrial reserves neglect to consider connections between ecosystems. We demonstrate an integrated approach for coral reef conservation with the objective of prioritizing marine reserves close to catchments with high forest cover in order to facilitate ecological processes that rely upon intact land-sea protected area connections and minimize negative impact of land-based runoff on coral reefs. Our aims are to (1) develop and apply simple models of connections between ecosystems that require little data and (2) incorporate different types of connectivity models into spatial conservation prioritization. We compared how, if at all, the locations and attributes (e.g., costs) of priorities differ from an approach that ignores connections. We analyzed spatial prioritization plans that allow for no connectivity, adjacent connectivity in the sea, symmetric and asymmetric land-sea connectivity, and the combination of adjacent connectivity in the sea and asymmetric land-sea connectivity. The overall reserve system costs were similar for all scenarios. We discovered that integrated planning delivered substantially different spatial priorities compared to the approach that ignored connections. Only 11-40% of sites that were high priority for conservation were similar between scenarios with and without connectivity. Many coral reefs that were a high priority when we considered adjacent connectivity in the sea and ignored land-sea connectivity were assigned to low priorities when symmetric land-sea connectivity was included, and vice versa. Our approach can be applied to incorporate connections between ecosystems. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved