Testing a global standard for quantifying species recovery and assessing conservation impact.

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a "Green List of Species" (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species' progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement against benchmarks of species' viability, functionality, and preimpact distribution) to determine current species recovery status (herein species recovery score) and application of that method to estimate past and potential future impacts of conservation based on 4 metrics (conservation legacy, conservation dependence, conservation gain, and recovery potential). We tested the framework with 181 species representing diverse taxa, life histories, biomes, and IUCN Red List categories (extinction risk). Based on the observed distribution of species' recovery scores, we propose the following species recovery categories: fully recovered, slightly depleted, moderately depleted, largely depleted, critically depleted, extinct in the wild, and indeterminate. Fifty-nine percent of tested species were considered largely or critically depleted. Although there was a negative relationship between extinction risk and species recovery score, variation was considerable. Some species in lower risk categories were assessed as farther from recovery than those at higher risk. This emphasizes that species recovery is conceptually different from extinction risk and reinforces the utility of the IUCN Green Status of Species to more fully understand species conservation status. Although extinction risk did not predict conservation legacy, conservation dependence, or conservation gain, it was positively correlated with recovery potential. Only 1.7% of tested species were categorized as zero across all 4 of these conservation impact metrics, indicating that conservation has, or will, play a role in improving or maintaining species status for the vast majority of these species. Based on our results, we devised an updated assessment framework that introduces the option of using a dynamic baseline to assess future impacts of conservation over the short term to avoid misleading results which were generated in a small number of cases, and redefines short term as 10 years to better align with conservation planning. These changes are reflected in the IUCN Green Status of Species Standard

Identification of Potent Anti-immunogenic Agents Through Virtual Screening, 3D-QSAR Studies, and in vitro Experiments

A wealth of literature has highlighted the discovery of various immune modulators, frequently used in clinical practice, yet associated with numerous drawbacks. In light of this pharmacological deficiency, medical scientists are motivated to develop new immune modulators with minimized adverse effects yet retaining the improved therapeutic potential. T-cell differentiation and growth are central to human defense and are regulated by interleukin-2 (IL-2), an immune-modulatory cytokine. However, scientific investigation is hindered due to its flat binding site and widespread hotspot residues. In this regard, a prompt and logical investigation guided by integrated computational techniques was undertaken to unravel new and potential leads against IL-2. In particular, the combination of score-based and pharmacophore-based virtual screening approaches were employed, reducing the data from millions of small molecules to a manageable number. Subsequent docking and 3D-QSAR prediction via CoMFA further helped remove false positives from the data. The reliability of the model was assessed via standard metrics, which explain the model’s fitness and the robustness of the model in predicting the activity of new compounds. The extensive virtual screening herein led to the identification of a total of 24 leads with potential anti-IL-2 activity. Furthermore, the theoretical findings were corroborated with in vitro testing, further endorsing the anti-inflammatory potential of the identified leads

Prioritising river stretches using multi-modelling habitat suitability of Gangetic dolphin (Platanista gangetica) as a flagship species for aquatic biodiversity conservation in the Ganga River Basin, India

Globally, the river ecosystems are threatened due to human-driven exploitation and indiscriminate resource use. The rate of species loss is a magnitude higher in these ecosystems, hence, identifying conservation priority areas as refugia, using the flagship-cum-indicator species approach can aid in long-term conservation of multiple species and ensure uninterrupted functioning of ecological processes. For effective conservation planning, we derived the site occupancy and abundance of Gangetic dolphin (Platanista gangetica) as a flagship species in the Ganga River Basin, and modelled their distribution vis-à-vis river conditions for identifying Conservation Priority Stretches (CPS). The study incorporates the first-ever basin-wide (4635 km river) Gangetic dolphin (GD) sightings to estimate range decline, abundance, and identify CPS of select rivers in the Basin. A total of 2151 sightings of surfacing dolphins with mean encounter rate of 0.55 ± 0.09 sightings/km of the river was observed from the surveyed stretch. The GD encounter rate varied significantly across the surveyed rivers (Analysis of Variance, F = 3.08, p < 0.001). We estimated 24.37 % decline in the dolphin distribution range in the basin since 19th Century. The estimated population size of the dolphin in the Basin was 3330 individuals ± 620 individuals (Confidence Interval 95 % = 2304–4668; Coefficient of Variance = 18.61) which varied across the river. The site occupancy and abundance were best predicted by channel depth (β = 0.82 ± 0.46), meanders (β = 02.56 ± 0.87) and individual rivers, whereas channel width (β = 0.11 ± 0.08) and survey efforts influenced detection probabilities. Further, we identified 610 km (12.2 %) of river stretches as high CPS in the Basin based on the prediction probability (≥0.70) of GD. Protection of these stretches is likely to ensure sustained reproduction of GD and provide refugia for other threatened species of the Ganga River and its tributaries, which is under increasing anthropogenic pressure