Patterns of contribution to citizen science biodiversity projects increase understanding of volunteers' recording behaviour.

The often opportunistic nature of biological recording via citizen science leads to taxonomic, spatial and temporal biases which add uncertainty to biodiversity estimates. However, such biases may also give valuable insight into volunteers' recording behaviour. Using Greater London as a case-study we examined the composition of three citizen science datasets - from Greenspace Information for Greater London CIC, iSpot and iRecord - with respect to recorder contribution and spatial and taxonomic biases, i.

Spatio-Temporal Variation of Core and Satellite Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungus Communities in Miscanthus giganteus.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are a group of obligate plant symbionts which can promote plant nutrition. AMF communities are diverse, but the factors which control their assembly in space and time remain unclear. In this study, the contributions of geographical distance, environmental heterogeneity and time in shaping AMF communities associated with Miscanthus giganteus (a perennial grass originating from south-east Asia) were determined over a 13 months period.

Spatial and temporal variability in the potential of river water biofilms to degrade p-nitrophenol.

In order to predict the fate of chemicals in the environment, a range of regulatory tests are performed with microbial inocula collected from environmental compartments to investigate the potential for biodegradation. The abundance and distribution of microbes in the environment is affected by a range of variables, hence diversity and biomass of inocula used in biodegradation tests can be highly variable in space and time. The use of artificial or natural biofilms in regulatory tests could enable more consistent microbial communities be used as inocula, in order to increase test consistency.

Impacts of neonicotinoid use on long-term population changes in wild bees in England.

Wild bee declines have been ascribed in part to neonicotinoid insecticides. While short-term laboratory studies on commercially bred species (principally honeybees and bumblebees) have identified sub-lethal effects, there is no strong evidence linking these insecticides to losses of the majority of wild bee species. We relate 18 years of UK national wild bee distribution data for 62 species to amounts of neonicotinoid use in oilseed rape.

Empirical validation of the InVEST water yield ecosystem service model at a national scale.

A variety of tools have emerged with the goal of mapping the current delivery of ecosystem services and quantifying the impact of environmental changes. An important and often overlooked question is how accurate the outputs of these models are in relation to empirical observations. In this paper we validate a hydrological ecosystem service model (InVEST Water Yield Model) using widely available data.

Learning and the transformative potential of citizen science.

The number of collaborative initiatives between scientists and volunteers (i.e., citizen science) is increasing across many research fields.

Trade-offs and mixed infections in an obligate-killing insect pathogen.

Natural populations of pathogens are frequently composed of numerous interacting strains. Understanding what maintains this diversity remains a key focus of research in disease ecology. In addition, within-host pathogen dynamics can have a strong impact on both infection outcome and the evolution of pathogen virulence, and thus, understanding the impact of pathogen diversity is important for disease management.

Tracking pan-continental trends in environmental contamination using sentinel raptors-what types of samples should we use?

Biomonitoring using birds of prey as sentinel species has been mooted as a way to evaluate the success of European Union directives that are designed to protect people and the environment across Europe from industrial contaminants and pesticides. No such pan-European evaluation currently exists. Coordination of such large scale monitoring would require harmonisation across multiple countries of the types of samples collected and analysed-matrices vary in the ease with which they can be collected and the information they provide.

How much flower-rich habitat is enough for wild pollinators? Answering a key policy question with incomplete knowledge.

In 2013, an opportunity arose in England to develop an agri-environment package for wild pollinators, as part of the new Countryside Stewardship scheme launched in 2015. It can be understood as a 'policy window', a rare and time-limited opportunity to change policy, supported by a narrative about pollinator decline and widely supported mitigating actions. An agri-environment package is a bundle of management options that together supply sufficient resources to support a target group of species.

Improving the quantity, quality and transparency of data used to derive radionuclide transfer parameters for animal products. 1. Goat milk.

Under the MODARIA (Modelling and Data for Radiological Impact Assessments Programme of the International Atomic Energy Agency), there has been an initiative to improve the derivation, provenance and transparency of transfer parameter values for radionuclides. The approach taken for animal products is outlined here and the first revised table for goat milk is provided. Data from some references used in TRS 472 were removed and reasons given for removal.

Experimental evidence for drought induced alternative stable states of soil moisture.

Ecosystems may exhibit alternative stable states (ASS) in response to environmental change. Modelling and observational data broadly support the theory of ASS, however evidence from manipulation experiments supporting this theory is limited. Here, we provide long-term manipulation and observation data supporting the existence of drought induced alternative stable soil moisture states (irreversible soil wetting) in upland Atlantic heath, dominated by Calluna vulgaris (L.

The Ecological Dynamics of Fecal Contamination and Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Paratyphi A in Municipal Kathmandu Drinking Water.

One of the UN sustainable development goals is to achieve universal access to safe and affordable drinking water by 2030. It is locations like Kathmandu, Nepal, a densely populated city in South Asia with endemic typhoid fever, where this goal is most pertinent. Aiming to understand the public health implications of water quality in Kathmandu we subjected weekly water samples from 10 sources for one year to a range of chemical and bacteriological analyses.

Declining resilience of ecosystem functions under biodiversity loss.

The composition of species communities is changing rapidly through drivers such as habitat loss and climate change, with potentially serious consequences for the resilience of ecosystem functions on which humans depend. To assess such changes in resilience, we analyse trends in the frequency of species in Great Britain that provide key ecosystem functions--specifically decomposition, carbon sequestration, pollination, pest control and cultural values. For 4,424 species over four decades, there have been significant net declines among animal species that provide pollination, pest control and cultural values.

A restatement of recent advances in the natural science evidence base concerning neonicotinoid insecticides and insect pollinators.

A summary is provided of recent advances in the natural science evidence base concerning the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on insect pollinators in a format (a 'restatement') intended to be accessible to informed but not expert policymakers and stakeholders. Important new studies have been published since our recent review of this field (Godfray et al. 2014 Proc.

Don't let spurious accusations of pseudoreplication limit our ability to learn from natural experiments (and other messy kinds of ecological monitoring).

Pseudoreplication is defined as the use of inferential statistics to test for treatment effects where treatments are not replicated and/or replicates are not statistically independent. It is a genuine but controversial issue in ecology particularly in the case of costly landscape-scale manipulations, behavioral studies where ethics or other concerns may limit sample sizes, ad hoc monitoring data, and the analysis of natural experiments where chance events occur at a single site. Here key publications on the topic are reviewed to illustrate the debate that exists about the conceptual validity of pseudoreplication.

Biodiversity and Resilience of Ecosystem Functions.

Accelerating rates of environmental change and the continued loss of global biodiversity threaten functions and services delivered by ecosystems. Much ecosystem monitoring and management is focused on the provision of ecosystem functions and services under current environmental conditions, yet this could lead to inappropriate management guidance and undervaluation of the importance of biodiversity. The maintenance of ecosystem functions and services under substantial predicted future environmental change (i.

Use of terrestrial field studies in the derivation of bioaccumulation potential of chemicals.

Field-based studies are an essential component of research addressing the behavior of organic chemicals, and a unique line of evidence that can be used to assess bioaccumulation potential in chemical registration programs and aid in development of associated laboratory and modeling efforts. To aid scientific and regulatory discourse on the application of terrestrial field data in this manner, this article provides practical recommendations regarding the generation and interpretation of terrestrial field data. Currently, biota-to-soil-accumulation factors (BSAFs), biomagnification factors (BMFs), and bioaccumulation factors (BAFs) are the most suitable bioaccumulation metrics that are applicable to bioaccumulation assessment evaluations and able to be generated from terrestrial field studies with relatively low uncertainty.

Vasoconstriction induced by salivary gland extracts from ixodid ticks.

In their quest for blood, most haematophagous parasites secrete vasodilators in their saliva to counter the host haemostatic response of vasoconstriction. Surprisingly, salivary gland extracts from adult female Dermacentor reticulatus and Rhipicephalus appendiculatus ticks induced constriction in a rat femoral artery model; males induced vasoconstriction or vasodilation depending on the time of feeding. Based on comparative HPLC fractionation, the active compounds inducing vasoconstriction do not appear to be prostaglandins (which ticks normally use as vasodilators).

Wildlife-friendly farming increases crop yield: evidence for ecological intensification.

Ecological intensification has been promoted as a means to achieve environmentally sustainable increases in crop yields by enhancing ecosystem functions that regulate and support production. There is, however, little direct evidence of yield benefits from ecological intensification on commercial farms growing globally important foodstuffs (grains, oilseeds and pulses). We replicated two treatments removing 3 or 8% of land at the field edge from production to create wildlife habitat in 50-60 ha patches over a 900 ha commercial arable farm in central England, and compared these to a business as usual control (no land removed).