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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]

Historical data on co‐occurring taxa are extremely rare. As such, the extent to which distinct co‐occurring taxa experience similar long‐term patterns in species richness and compositional change (e.g., when exposed to a changing environment) is not clear. Using data from a diverse ecological community surveyed in the 1930s and resurveyed in the 2010s, we investigated whether local plant and insect assemblages displayed cross‐taxon congruence—that is, spatiotemporal correlation in species richness and compositional change—across six co‐occurring taxa: vascular plants, non‐vascular plants, grasshoppers and crickets (Orthoptera), ants (Hymenoptera: Formicinae), hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae), and dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata). All taxa exhibited high levels of turnover across the ca. 80‐year time period. Despite minimal observed changes at the level of the whole study system, species richness displayed widespread cross‐taxon congruence (i.e., correlated temporal change) across local assemblages within the study system. Hierarchical logistic regression models suggest a role for shared responses to environmental change underlying cross‐taxon correlations and highlight stronger correlations between vascular plants and their direct consumers, suggesting a possible role for biotic interactions between these groups. These results provide an illustration of cross‐taxon congruence in biodiversity change using data unique in its combination of temporal and taxonomic scope, and highlight the potential for cascading and comparable effects of environmental change (abiotic and biotic) on co‐occurring plant and insect communities. However, analyses of historical resurveys based on currently available data come with inherent uncertainties. As such, this study highlights a need for well‐designed experiments, and monitoring programs incorporating co‐occurring taxa, to determine the underlying mechanisms and prevalence of congruent biodiversity change as anthropogenic environmental change accelerates apace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Knowledge of trophic interactions is of vital importance for understanding ecological community dynamics. While techniques such as direct observation of prey consumption and stomach content analysis are suitable for some species; for wide ranging carnivores, especially those of conservation concern, analysis of matter in faecal scats or regurgitated pellets is still common practice. This study investigates sample sizes needed to predict changes in the diversity of the diet of three carnivore species (grey seals, Mexican wolves and long horned owls). Using a bootstrapping process, estimations of precision of diet diversity (i.e. the number and evenness of prey species, as measured using Simpson''s index) were made with increasing sample sizes (numbers of scats/pellets sampled). Precision of diversity of diet was much greater for grey seals than for owls or wolves, largely because the number of prey items (remains of individuals of the same or different species) in a scat was much higher. When these results are used to test hypotheses to determine difference in diet diversity, the results show that changes in seal diet diversity between different areas of the North Sea could be elucidated with analysis of as few as three scats from each region. However, demonstrating differences in diet diversity between different, but related, owl species from the same area would not be possible even if the contents of >>500 pellets were analysed. This study provides tools and guidelines for sample size requirements in scat or pellet analysis for future studies, as well as indicating that in some cases – for example in grey seals – scat samples may be an efficient method of investigating changes in diet diversity, and hence niche breath, which may alter with prey availability as caused by anthropogenic pressures such as climate change and fishing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Monitoring change in species diversity, community composition and phenology is vital to assess the impacts of anthropogenic activity and natural change. However, monitoring by trained scientists is time consuming and expensive. Methodology/Principal Findings: Using social networks, we assess whether it is possible to obtain accurate data on bee distribution across the UK from photographic records submitted by untrained members of the public, and if these data are in sufficient quantity for ecological studies. We used Flickr and Facebook as social networks and Flickr for the storage of photographs and associated data on date, time and location linked to them. Within six weeks, the number of pictures uploaded to the Flickr BeeID group exceeded 200. Geographic coverage was excellent; the distribution of photographs covered most of the British Isles, from the south coast of England to the Highlands of Scotland. However, only 59% of photographs were properly uploaded according to instructions, with vital information such as 'tags' or location information missing from the remainder. Nevertheless, this incorporation of information on location of photographs was much higher than general usage on Flickr (<13%), indicating the need for dedicated projects to collect spatial ecological data. Furthermore, we found identification of bees is not possible from all photographs, especially those excluding lower abdomen detail. This suggests that giving details regarding specific anatomical features to include on photographs would be useful to maximise success. Conclusions/Significance: The study demonstrates the power of social network sites to generate public interest in a project and details the advantages of using a group within an existing popular social network site over a traditional (specificallydesigned) web-based or paper-based submission process. Some advantages include the ability to network with other individuals or groups with similar interests, and thus increasing the size of the dataset and participation in the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on a study measured intra- and inter-specific variability in multiple biometrics and its influence on accurate measurement of biometric-based condition indices. A review of the related literature on biometrics is offered. Findings showed that inter-observer variability was greater than intra-observer variability for all parameters. The implications for studies on species' ecology, taxonomy and behavior are elaborated.