The value of performance weights and discussion in aggregated expert judgements

In risky situations characterized by imminent decisions, scarce resources, and insufficient data, policymakers rely on experts to estimate model parameters and their associated uncertainties. Different elicitation and aggregation methods can vary substantially in their efficacy and robustness. While it is generally agreed that biases in expert judgments can be mitigated using structured elicitations involving groups rather than individuals, there is still some disagreement about how to best elicit and aggregate judgments. This mostly concerns the merits of using performance‐based weighting schemes to combine judgments of different individuals (rather than assigning equal weights to individual experts), and the way that interaction between experts should be handled. This article aims to contribute to, and complement, the ongoing discussion on these topics

iIRSL dating of K-feldspar and its application to Fajiagouwan, Salawusu site in Central China

Dating Protocols Improvements: abstract no. P19published_or_final_versio

Incorporating detectability of threatened species into environmental impact assessment

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a key mechanism for protecting threatened plant and animal species. Many species are not perfectly detectable and, even when present, may remain undetected during EIA surveys, increasing the risk of site-level loss or extinction of species. Numerous methods now exist for estimating detectability of plants and animals. Despite this, regulations concerning survey protocol and effort during EIAs fail to adequately address issues of detectability. Probability of detection is intrinsically linked to survey effort; thus, minimum survey effort requirements are a useful way to address the risks of false absences. We utilized 2 methods for determining appropriate survey effort requirements during EIA surveys. One method determined the survey effort required to achieve a probability of detection of 0.95 when the species is present. The second method estimated the survey effort required to either detect the species or reduce the probability of presence to 0.05. We applied these methods to Pimelea spinscens subsp. spinescens, a critically endangered grassland plant species in Melbourne, Australia. We detected P. spinescens in only half of the surveys undertaken at sites where it was known to exist. Estimates of the survey effort required to detect the species or demonstrate its absence with any confidence were much higher than the effort traditionally invested in EIA surveys for this species. We argue that minimum survey requirements be established for all species listed under threatened species legislation and hope that our findings will provide an impetus for collecting, compiling, and synthesizing quantitative detectability estimates for a broad range of plant and animal species

Transparent planning for biodiversity and development in the urban fringe

In Australia, over 50% of threatened species occur within the urban fringe and accelerating urbanization is now a key threat. Biodiversity near and within urban areas brings much social benefit but its maintenance involves complex trade-offs between competing land uses. Urban design typically views biodiversity as a development constraint, not a value to be enhanced into the future. We argue that decisions could be more transparent and systematic and we demonstrate that efficient development solutions can be found that avoid areas important for biodiversity. We present a case study in the context of land use change across the city of Wyndham, a local Government west of Melbourne, Australia. We use reserve design tools in a novel way to identify priority development sites, based on a synthesis of ecological, social and economic data. Trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and other key development objectives and constraints (transport planning, flood risk and food production) are quantified. The analysis can be conducted dynamically with visually compelling output, facilitating more transparent, efficient and democratically derived urban planning solutions. We suggest that government agencies could adopt similar approaches to identify efficient planning solutions for both biodiversity and development in urban environments

Beyond advocacy: making space for conservation scientists in public debate

The topic of advocacy by scientists has been debated for decades, yet there is little agreement about whether scientists can or should be advocates. The fear of crossing a line into advocacy continues to hold many scientists back from contributing to public discourse, impoverishing public debate about important issues. We believe that progress in this debate is limited by a misconception about the relationship between scientific integrity and objectivity. We begin by unpacking this relationship and debunking three common misconceptions about advocacy by scientists: namely, that advocacy is harmful to scientific credibility, beyond the scope of science, and incompatible with science, which is value-free. We propose new ways of thinking about responsible advocacy by conservation scientists, drawing on practices from the health sciences, where researchers and professional bodies are empowered to act as health advocates.In so doing, we hope to open further space for conservation scientists to actively and legitimately engage in public debate about conservation issues

Craft, Community and the Material Culture of Place and Politics, 19th–20th Century

Book Review: Craft, Community and the Material Culture of Place and Politics, 19th-20th century Edited by Janice Helland, Beverley Lemire and Alena Buis Ashgate, February 2014; 245pp. 46 b&w illustrations; hardback £60.00 ISBN: 978-1-4094-6207-

The use of dynamic landscape metapopulation models for forest management: a case study of the red-backed salamander

Spatial models of population dynamics have been proposed as a useful method for predicting the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity. Here, we demonstrate advances in dynamic landscape metapopulation modelling and its use as a decision support tool for evaluating the impacts of forest management scenarios. This novel modelling framework incorporates both landscape and metapopulation model stochasticity and allows their relative contributions to model output variance to be characterized. It includes a detailed sensitivity analysis, allowing defensible uncertainty bounds and the prioritization of future data gathering to reduce model uncertainties. We demonstrate this framework by modelling the landscape-level impacts of eight forest management scenarios on the red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus (Green, 1818)) in the boreal forest of Ontario, Canada, using the RAMAS Landscape package. The 100 year forest management scenarios ranged in intensity of timber harvesting and fire suppression. All scenarios including harvesting predicted decreases in salamander population size and the current style of forest management is predicted to produce a 9%-17% decrease in expected minimum population size compared with scenarios without harvesting. This method is amenable to incorporating many forms of environmental change and allows a meaningful treatment of uncertainty

Improving the design of a conservation reserve for a critically endangered species

Setting aside protected areas is a key strategy for tackling biodiversity loss. Reserve effectiveness depends on the extent to which protected areas capture both known occurrences and areas likely to support the species. We assessed the effectiveness of the existing reserve network for Leadbeater’s Possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) and other forest-dependent species, and compared the existing reserve system to a set of plausible reserve expansion options based on area targets implied in a recent Population Viability Analysis (PVA). The existing Leadbeater’s Reserve and surrounding reserve system captured 7.6% and 29.6% of cumulative habitat suitability, respectively, across the landscape. Expanded reserve scenarios captured 34% to 62% of cumulative habitat suitability. We found acute trade-offs between conserving Leadbeater’s Possum habitat and conserving habitat of other forest-dependent species. Our analysis provides a template for systematically expanding and evaluating reserve expansion options in terms of trade-offs between priority species’ needsNC and BW were support by ARC Future Fellowship FT100100819. DBL was supported by ARC Laureate Fellowship FL12010010

A framework for improving the cross-jurisdictional governance of a marine migratory species

Marine migratory species require collaborative decision-making because individuals move across jurisdictional boundaries within and between countries. However, governance of these species is not always harmonized or truly collaborative. We analyzed the Recovery Plan for Marine Turtles in Australia 2017 (the Plan) and three of its subsidiary plans for evidence of collaborative governance using a two part gap analysis and interviews with environmental managers, scientists, and other stakeholders involved in the development of the Plan and in managing marine migratory species in Australia more generally. We applied existing adaptive and collaborative governance frameworks, which focused mainly on the social components of collaborative governance, and identified a need for a new, interdisciplinary framework for the collaborative governance of marine turtles in Australia. We applied our new framework to the Plan and identified that while the biological components of the Plan were well-developed, stakeholder analysis and engagement details were largely missing. We recognize that recovery plans are inevitably silent about certain issues but suggest that plans would benefit from including better guidance on stakeholder engagement and analysis. Our framework is directly relevant to harmonizing the management of marine turtles across jurisdictions in Australia but it could also be applied to managing threats towards other migratory species that inhabit large marine jurisdictions

Thermoluminescence of zircon: a kinetic model

The mineral zircon, ZrSiO4, belongs to a class of promising materials for geochronometry by means of thermoluminescence (TL) dating. The development of a reliable and reproducible method for TL dating with zircon requires detailed knowledge of the processes taking place during exposure to ionizing radiation, long-term storage, annealing at moderate temperatures and heating at a constant rate (TL measurements). To understand these processes one needs a kinetic model of TL. This paper is devoted to the construction of such amodel. The goal is to study the qualitative behaviour of the system and to determine the parameters and processes controlling TL phenomena of zircon. The model considers the following processes: (i) Filling of electron and hole traps at the excitation stage as a function of the dose rate and the dose for both (low dose rate) natural and (high dose rate) laboratory irradiation. (ii) Time dependence of TL fading in samples irradiated under laboratory conditions. (iii) Short time annealing at a given temperature. (iv) Heating of the irradiated sample to simulate TL experiments both after laboratory and natural irradiation. The input parameters of the model, such as the types and concentrations of the TL centres and the energy distributions of the hole and electron traps, were obtained by analysing the experimental data on fading of the TL-emission spectra of samples from different geological locations. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) data were used to establish the nature of the TL centres. Glow curves and 3D TL emission spectra are simulated and compared with the experimental data on time-dependent TL fading. The saturation and annealing behaviour of filled trap concentrations has been considered in the framework of the proposed kinetic model and comparedwith the EPR data associated with the rare-earth ions Tb3+ and Dy3+, which play a crucial role as hole traps and recombination centres. Inaddition, the behaviour of some of the SiOmn− centres has been compared with simulation results.