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Protected Areas (PAs) are key to avoiding habitat destruction and biodiversity loss. Most research conducted in PAs has focused on the geological, biological or ecological aspects of sites, while few studies have examined the policymaking process. However, PA designation might reflect the political history of a country regarding environmental protection and whether PA designation is based on a strong conservation commitment or is instead propaganda yielding 'paper parks'. Argentina, the first Latin American nation to set land aside to protect it, provides a case study of the process of constructing a PA system, and certain elements apply to other developing countries. Its first national park was created in 1922, and the first law concerning PAs was promulgated in 1934. Since then, a succession of democratic governments interrupted by military regimes has modified parks and promulgated laws changing conservation priorities. The conservation goal of PAs was not always manifest in government policies. Despite the number of PAs (48 by 2019) and area covered(14,718,420 hectares total by 2019), most of these lands face the same challenges as PAs in many other developing nations, including limited budgets, lack of field staff, absence of strategic planning, insufficient political support and corruption. Since the return to democracy in 1983, new laws have been enacted based on experience gathered in other nations. However, existence of a law does not guarantee its enforcement. Environmental NGOs, the scientific community and a growing concerned citizenry nowadays constitute the most important forces supporting the conservation function of PAs and environmental conservation in general in Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological control entails introducing non‐native natural enemies to control weeds and pests. Instances of poorly regulated biocontrol have had harmful consequences leading to significant efforts to improve risk assessment of agents before release.Laricobius naganoensis (Coleoptera: Derodontidae) was inadvertently imported to eastern North America with Laricobius osakensis, introduced from Japan to control the hemlock woolly adelgid Adelges tsugae (Hemiptera: Adelgidae). The United States Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) subsequently permitted introduction of L. naganoensis as a biocontrol agent and contaminant, requiring no study or monitoring owing to difficulty of the effort required to distinguish it from L. osakensis.The Plant Protection Act of 2000 (7 U.S.C. § § 7701–7786) assigns U.S.D.A. responsibility for vetting and reducing risk from biocontrol agents while ensuring the process is transparent, accessible, and based on scientific evidence. Typically, release of a new agent involves a 30‐day period when the public may review and comment on an assessment of risk associated with the introduction, an Environmental Assessment (EA). No public review and comment period was allowed before L. naganoensis' introduction, and the EA was not made public.Biocontrol practitioners and stakeholders agree that critical scientific evaluation of multiple lines of evidence is necessary to evaluate risk associated with new introductions. The importance of accurate agent identification and avoidance of contamination has long been recognised, and procedures to minimise risk are well known. While such processes might be difficult to implement, those challenges should not justify a release that circumvents regulatory safeguards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the role of the meristem in plant growth and reproduction, somatic mutations in plants have long been suspected of conferring herbivore and pathogen resistance on individual plants and, in the case of trees, individual branches within single plants. A few instances of resistance to phytophagous insects owing to somatic mutations have been reported in the literature. More recently, a striking example has demonstrated how somatic mutations confer resistance to an herbicide on an invasive plant, Hydrilla verticillata. The array of new methods for manipulating genomes (e.g., gene‐editing) plus existing examples of somatic mutation‐associated resistance suggest that such mutations might be useful in silviculture, agriculture, and horticulture. Answering several general questions about somatic mutations in plants would facilitate such applications: Why are so few examples reported? Do other cases exist but go undetected for want of adequate attention or methods? Under what circumstances do somatic mutations enter gametophytes? © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry A schematic of the E. melliodora (left) and the E. sideroxylon (right) mosaic trees. The white areas in the canopy represent the leaves resistant to herbivory and the grey areas represent leaves that are susceptible to herbivory (graphic by Erin Walsh 2012). Reproduced from Padovan A, Patel HR, Chuah A, Huttley GA, Krause ST, Degenhardt J, Foley WJ and Külheim C, Transcriptome sequencing of two phenotypic mosaic Eucalyptus trees reveals large scale transcriptome remodeling. PloS ONE doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0123226 (2015). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the views of several researchers on their experience with graduate student Daniel Simberloff and advisor Edward O. Wilson. Topics discussed includes maintenance of biodiversity and role of community composition in regulating ecosystem function, need of increasing in beta diversity and shifts in species composition, and monitoring of re-colonization dynamics and track community turnover.

First-instar hemlock woolly adelgid Adelges tsugae nymphs were observed on eastern hemlock Tsuga canadensis in Blount County, Tennessee, 3 months earlier than all previous worldwide accounts and during the warmest recorded December (2015) in North America., Subsequent quantification of maturing nymphs, adults and egg-laying adults, followed by the hatching and development of first-instar nymphs into egg-laying adults and implantation of their offspring, indicates newly documented, early A. tsugae reproduction in Blount and Knox Counties, Tennessee, shifted in time and with life stages overlapping within an earlier and shorter window., Warm winter temperatures may accelerate the A. tsugae life cycle, contributing offspring to A. tsugae populations outside of recognized cycles and possibly confounding management., Historic warm winter temperatures throughout the introduced range of A. tsugae in eastern North America may have contributed to its escalation from 'introduced' to 'invasive'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]