From Poachers to Protectors: Engaging Local Communities in Solutions to Illegal Wildlife Trade

Combating the surge of illegal wildlife trade (IWT) devastating wildlife populations is an urgent global priority for conservation. There are increasing policy commitments to take action at the local community level as part of effective responses. However, there is scarce evidence that in practice such interventions are being pursued and there is scant understanding regarding how they can help. Here we set out a conceptual framework to guide efforts to effectively combat IWT through actions at community level. This framework is based on articulating the net costs and benefits involved in supporting conservation versus supporting IWT, and how these incentives are shaped by anti-IWT interventions. Using this framework highlights the limitations of an exclusive focus on "top-down," enforcement-led responses to IWT. These responses can distract from a range of other approaches that shift incentives for local people toward supporting conservation rather than IWT, as well as in some cases actually decrease the net incentives in favor of wildlife conservation

COVID-19, systemic crisis, and possible implications for the wild meat trade in sub-Saharan Africa

Wild animals play an integral and complex role in the economies and ecologies of many countries across the globe, including those of West and Central Africa, the focus of this policy perspective. The trade in wild meat, and its role in diets, have been brought into focus as a consequence of discussions over the origins of COVID-19. As a result, there have been calls for the closure of China’s “wet markets”; greater scrutiny of the wildlife trade in general; and a spotlight has been placed on the potential risks posed by growing human populations and shrinking natural habitats for animal to human transmission of zoonotic diseases. However, to date there has been little attention given to what the consequences of the COVID-19 economic shock may be for the wildlife trade; the people who rely on it for their livelihoods; and the wildlife that is exploited. In this policy perspective, we argue that the links between the COVID-19 pandemic, rural livelihoods and wildlife are likely to be more complex, more nuanced, and more far-reaching, than is represented in the literature to date. We develop a causal model that tracks the likely implications for the wild meat trade of the systemic crisis triggered by COVID-19. We focus on the resulting economic shockwave, as manifested in the collapse in global demand for commodities such as oil, and international tourism services, and what this may mean for local African economies and livelihoods. We trace the shockwave through to the consequences for the use of, and demand for, wild meats as households respond to these changes. We suggest that understanding and predicting the complex dynamics of wild meat use requires increased collaboration between environmental and resource economics and the ecological and conservation sciences

Organic-walled mucrophytoplankton assemblage of the Middle Devonian (Givetian) Arkona, Hungry Hollow and Widder formations, Ontario, Canada: biostratigraphic and palaeographic significance

A diverse and abundant organic-walled microphytoplankton assemblage, consisting of 49 species of acritarchs, prasinophyte phycomata and chitinozoans, was recovered from a 13.3 m-section of the Middle Devonian (Givetian) Arkona, Hungry Hollow and Widder formations at Hungry Hollow, Ontario, Canada. Close similarity exists between this assemblage and others described previously from the Givetian of North America. Marine palynofloras of comparable age from elsewhere in North America share between 59-96% of the species identified in the present assemblage, thus testifying to its stratigraphic-correlative applicability in a regional context. Species widely occurring in North America and typically Givetian (although not restricted therein) include: Arkonites bilixus, Cymatiosphaera canadense, Diexallophasis simplex, Duvernaysphaera angelae, D. tenuicingulata, Estiastra rhytidoa, Exochoderma arca, Gorgonisphaeridium inflatum, Hapsidopalla chela, Leiofusa pyrena, Muraticavea munifica, Oppilatala sparsa, Palacanthus ledanoisii, Polyedryxium ambitum, Staplinium cuboides, Tyligmasoma alargada, Uncinisphaera acantha, Veryhachium pastoris, Villosacapsula compta and V. rosendae. Palaeogeographically, Middle Devonian organic-walled microphytoplankton taxa display a conspicuous degree of cosmopolitanism, with many species shared with Laurasia (Laurentia, Avalonia, Baltica), Gondwana (principally Argentina, Ghana, Libya, Algerian Sahara, Western Australia) and Kazakhstan (northwestern China)

Marine and terrestrial palynofloras from transitional Devonian–Mississippian strata, Illinois Basin, U.S.A.

Diverse and reasonably well preserved palynoforal assemblages are described from a 12.9 m-thick section of the Upper Devonian Saverton Shale and a 17.0 m-thick section of the Lower Mississippian Hannibal Shale exposed along a bluff at Atlas South, Pike County, Illinois, U.S.A. The microphytoplankton assemblage, consisting of acritarchs and prasinophytes, comprises 17 genera and 38 species, including two new species (Cymatiosphaera scitula and Gorgonisphaeridium savertonense) and one new combination (Puteoscortum sprucegrovense). The miospore assemblage contains 14 species - one new (Punctatisporites hannibalensis) and one new combination (Vallatisporites hystricosus) - distributed among 13 genera. The overwhelming majority of microphytoplankton and miospore taxa occur in the Saverton Shale. The Saverton microphytoplank-ton assemblage indicates a latest Devonian (Strunian) age and is most similar in composition to previously described Late Devonian assemblages from North America and China. There is a low to moderate degree of similarity between the Saverton microphytoplankton assemblage and those reported elsewhere in the world. The miospore assemblage further corroborates a latest Devonian age (LN miospore Zone), as signifed by its content of Retispora lepidophyta, Verrucosisporites nitidus, Indotriradites explanatus, and Vallatisporites hystricosus. Based on the significant drop in diversity of the microphytoplankton, the presence of morphologically simple morphotypes, and several taxa, whose range extends into the Early Mississippian, a Kinderhookian date for the Hannibal Shale is reasonable. The Hannibal miospore palynofora is even more impoverished than the associated microphytoplankton, and its few named taxa are consonant with, albeit not independently corroborative of, an Early Mississippian age. Sedimentologic and paleontologic-palynologic evidence indicates that the Saverton and Hannibal shales were both deposited in a low energy, somewhat offshore, normal marine environment within the Illinois Basin

Acritarchs and spores from the Upper Devonian Lime Creek Formation, Iowa, U.S.A.

A well-preserved acritarch and spore assemblage is described from an 18.3 m section of the Upper Devonian (upper Frasnian, Palmatolepis gigas conodont zone) Juniper Hill and Cerro Gordo members of the Lime Creek Formation, Floyd County, Iowa, USA. The palynomorph assemblage comprises 23 genera and 43 species of acritarchs, and 12 genera and 12 species of spores. We propose two new acritarch genera, Centrasphaeridium and Pratulasphaera; nine new acritarch species; and two new spore species. In addition, one new combination, Dictyotidium craticulum (=Cymatiosphaera craticula Wicander and Loeblich 1977) is proposed. The palynomorph assemblage indicates a nearshore, normal marine environment, consistent with the interpretation provided by the associated shelly fauna. Comparison with other Frasnian palynomorph assemblages indicates similarity mostly in terms of long-ranging and cosmopolitan acritarch species while of the 12 miospore species present, only Geminospora lemurata and Laiphospora membrana have been previously reported.-Author

Eomerismopedia maureeniae n.g. n.sp., a chroococcacean cyanobacterium from the lower Ordovician Coolibah Formation, Georgina Basin, Queensland, Australia

Eomerismopedia maureeniae, a new palynomorph genus and species, is described from the lower Ordovician Coolibah Formation, Georgina Basin, Queensland Australia. Originally assigned to Gloeocapsomorpha prisca ZALESSKY 1917 emend. FOSTER, REED and WICANDER 1989, reexamination of this colonial palynomorph indicates that it is not G. prisca, but a fossil representative of the extant cyanobacterial family Chroococcaceae. Paleontological and sedimentological evidence indicates a subtidal and/or intertidal marine paleoenvironment for the Coolibah Formation, a setting consistent with the environment of modern growth of Merismopedia MEYEN 1839