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Phylogeographic studies have been conducted on many different mammal species in order to track their recent demographic histories. The climatic fluctuations associated with the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) appear to have had a profound influence on the geographic patterning of genetic diversity in mammals. However, most phylogenetic studies have focused on single species. Few have used a holistic approach covering multiple taxa to explore common patterns. Here, we conducted meta-analyses of mitochondrial DNA control region sequences, identifying haplotype diversity and private allelic richness patterns in a geographic context. Four general patterns emerged among European mammals: an east–west decline in variation, a Western-Central belt of the highest diversity, southern richness, and homogeneity with no geographic pattern. These patterns likely reflect the refugial origins of modern populations. The east–west variation decline suggests species with eastern LGM refugia; the Western-Central belt of the highest diversity may harbor taxa with cryptic northern refugia, while southern richness may correspond to traditional southern refugia. Species with homogeneity and no geographic pattern may have been panmictic without a specific refugium or may reflect the occurrence of both southern and cryptic northern refugia. Surprisingly, the "no pattern" phenomenon is seldom discussed and may frequently have been discounted. Our study emphasizes the importance of considering multiple taxa, providing valuable insights into the responses of European mammals to past climatic changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A target to conserve 30% of oceans by designating marine protected areas (MPAs) has been agreed, yet the effectiveness of existing MPAs is often low, with few weakly implemented restrictions on impacting uses. Drawing on coevolutionary governance and social-ecological systems concepts, we hypothesize that (1) effective governance frameworks for MPAs rely on various combinations of diverse incentives, which encourage people (actors) to behave in a manner that reduces the impacts of their uses and thereby more effectively achieves conservation objectives; (2) effective MPAs will tend to employ a higher diversity of governance incentives, creating resilient MPAs analogous to resilient ecosystems with higher species diversity. This multiple case study empirical analysis of the governance of 50 MPAs supports these hypotheses and demonstrates that: (a) there is strong correlation between the effectiveness of MPAs and the number of governance incentives used; (b) combinations of economic, legal, communication, knowledge and participatory incentives are shown to be employed in effective MPAs and mostly needed in less effective MPAs; (c) whilst some incentives are frequently identified as being important to promote effectiveness, no particular 'magic wand' incentive or 'best practice' combinations of incentives guarantee this. These findings show that effectiveness is not determined by any specific governance approaches or incentives, but rather the combination of a diversity of functionally integrated incentives, which interact with and support one another to promote MPA effectiveness and resilience, i.e. diversity is the key to resilience, both of species in ecosystems and incentives in governance systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An artificial, and generally unhelpful, divide between lecturers and students frequently occurs in higher education, especially among recent school-leavers. Bridging that divide allows lecturers and students to develop collaboratively to the benefit of both parties. Residential field courses provide an important forum to develop more mature relationships between lecturers and students and the informal opportunities presented allow both pastoral and educational issues to be discussed and often resolved. Here, we discuss the crucial role that field courses can have in student development and we introduce some techniques that can be used to engender pastoral and academic engagement. This provides long-term benefits to learners and develops student-lecturer collaborations that exist well beyond the field course experience.

Designing manipulative ecological experiments is a complex and time-consuming process that is problematic to teach in traditional undergraduate classes. This study investigates the effectiveness of using a computer simulation--the Virtual Rocky Shore (VRS)--to facilitate rapid, student-centred learning of experimental design. We gave a series of tests to biology undergraduates to determine how well experimental design and data analysis was understood: 1) before any teaching sessions on this topic; 2) after theory sessions on experimental design; and 3) after an additional practical session using the VRS. Due to poor weather, sample sizes were small with a total of 12 students participating in all three sessions. Nevertheless, marks increased significantly between the initial and final tests (1 and 3). The variability of marks during test 2 was also significantly higher than for the other two tests. Thus some students learned experimental design effectively from the theory sessions alone, while others only understood the process after the experiential learning component of the VRS. Feedback from students on the process was mainly positive, although some students found the VRS too abstract, indicating that the use of digital learning resources may need to be supported by real experience in the field or laboratory. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Author(s): Benjamin Mordmller [1]; Gzin Surat [1]; Heimo Lagler [1, 2]; Sumana Chakravarty [3]; Andrew S. Ishizuka [4]; Albert Lalremruata [1]; Markus Gmeiner [1]; Joseph J. Campo [5]; Meral Esen [...]

Environmental volunteering can benefit participants and nature through improving physical and mental well‐being while encouraging environmental stewardship. To enhance achievement of these outcomes, conservation organizations need to reach different groups of people to increase participation in environmental volunteering. This paper explores what engages communities searching online for environmental volunteering.We conducted a literature review of 1,032 papers to determine key factors fostering participation by existing volunteers in environmental projects. We found that the most important factor was to tailor projects to the motivations of participants. Also important were promoting projects to people with relevant interests, meeting the perceived benefits of volunteers and removing barriers to participation.We then assessed the composition and factors fostering participation of the NatureVolunteers's online community (n = 2,216) of potential environmental volunteers and compared findings with those from the literature review. We asked whether projects advertised by conservation organizations meet the motivations and interests of this online community.Using Facebook insights and Google Analytics we found that the online community were on average younger than extant communities observed in studies of environmental volunteering. Their motivations were also different as they were more interested in physical activity and using skills and less in social factors. They also exhibited preferences for projects which are outdoor based, and which offer close contact with wildlife. Finally, we found that the online community showed a stronger preference for habitat improvement projects over those involving species survey‐based citizen science.Our results demonstrate mismatches between what our online community are looking for and what is advertised by conservation organizations. The online community are looking for projects which are more solitary, more physically active and more accessible by the organized transport. We discuss how our results may be used by conservation organizations to better engage with more people searching for environmental volunteering opportunities online.We conclude that there is a pool of young people attracted to environmental volunteering projects whose interests are different to those of current volunteers. If conservation organizations can develop projects that meet these interests, they can engage larger and more diverse communities in nature volunteering. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]