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The increasing expansion of monoculture plantations poses a major threat to Asian tropical biodiversity. Yet, in many countries such as the Philippines, the ability of species to persist within plantations has never been explored. We studied the seasonal activity and response of fruit bats in two types of monocultural plantations (rubber and oil palm) in the Southern Philippines from 2016–17 for 12 months. Our mist-netting and monitoring data showed that both plantations can support cosmopolitan species of fruit bats (Cynopterus brachyotis, Eonycteris spelaea, Macroglossus minimus, Ptenochirus jagori, and Rousettus amplexicaudatus), yet a significant variation in the abundance and guild distribution between plantations was observed. Rubber hosted a higher bat abundance than oil palm, which may be influenced by better habitat structure of the matrix (e.g., presence of orchard and fruit plantations) and practices occurring in the rubber plantation. We find that, among seasonal climatic variables, temperature showed significant negative effects on fruit bat abundance. Our results suggest that although monoculture plantations host low diversity (i.e., richness and endemism) they still support generalists which are still ecologically important species. Furthermore, wildlife-friendly commercial plantation practices could both enhance economic growth and biodiversity conservation in the Philippines. Our data both provide the potential for long-term monitoring in the Philippines and highlight the need for more comprehensive monitoring of other bat functional groups and their ability to transverse plantations to provide a more in-depth understanding of the roles and impacts of plantations and other land-use changes.

Resources for evaluating the ecological outcomes of ecosystem restoration projects are often limited, especially within government‐funded programs. In order to rapidly assess the ecological outcomes of wetland restoration, an improved approach has been developed, which was applied in the assessment of the ecological outcomes at nine restoration sites of South Africa's Working for Wetlands program. The sites encompass a diversity of restoration problems and land use contexts. The approach begins by distinguishing hydrogeomorphic (HGM) units, for which ecological condition is assessed and reported for hydrology, geomorphology, and vegetation pre‐ and post‐restoration. These three components are closely linked but, as demonstrated at some of the sites, may respond differentially to restoration interventions. For most HGM units, overall ecological condition was improved by between 10 and 30%, with the greatest contribution of restoration generally being to the hydrology component. Having determined the integrity and costs of the interventions, cost‐effectiveness is then reported in South African Rands per hectare equivalent restored, which was found to vary by more than an order of magnitude across the HGM units assessed. Cost‐effectiveness must be interpreted in the light of the long‐term integrity of the interventions, the site's landscape context, and the contribution of restoration to ecosystem services provision. Some sites may be considerably less cost‐effective than others, but the cost may nonetheless be justified if the sites make key contributions to ecosystem services provision. The study was conducted in the context of a formative evaluation and the findings are envisaged to improve wetland restoration practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although diamondback terrapins appear to be declining throughout much of their geographic range, more information is required to evaluate population trends. Unfortunately, sampling terrapin populations is both time and labor intensive. We initiated studies to examine the efficacy of using head counts in tidal creeks as a rapid-assessment technique for monitoring terrapin populations. From 2005 to 2007, we conducted head-count surveys in conjunction with regular aquatic sampling. Head-count surveys consisted of recording the number of terrapins we observed from a boat going up (run 1) and down (run 2) tidal creeks. These surveys were conducted before aquatic sampling (i.e., low tide) as well as other times (e.g., high tide). We found the strongest positive relationship between the number of terrapins observed in run 1 combined with run 2 and the number of terrapins captured (R2 = 0.538). We examined the effects of variables such as day of year, time of day, cloud cover, and creek location on the number of heads seen. Such models will allow effective monitoring of terrapin population trends and improve implementation of appropriate conservation measures. We recommend a refinement of head-count surveys and the involvement of citizen scientists to aid in the establishment of a range-wide monitoring program that will greatly increase survey effort while saving time and money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major impediment to the identification of priority areas for marine biodiversity conservation is a fundamental lack of information about the distribution of many marine species. Comprehensive species inventories for many areas currently do not exist, and performing detailed taxonomic surveys is often prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. Accordingly, there is a need to develop simple and reliable rapid-assessment techniques for mapping marine biodiversity. One potential approach is to use ‘surrogates’ that function as proxies for the distribution of other, less easily sampled, ‘cryptic’ biota. Two potential surrogates for predicting arthropod faunal biodiversity on rock subtidal reefs were investigated in this study: (1) macroalgae, and (2) faunal subsets derived by aggregating the arthropod fauna at higher taxonomic levels. Faunal and macroalgal assemblage composition was only weakly correlated across sites reflecting broad faunal responses to changes in algal structural complexity and/or common environmental gradients. This suggests that algal species composition may not be very informative in mapping patterns of faunal species distribution on reefs. Instead, the best surrogates were related (i.e. nested), subsets of the faunal assemblages such as family-level taxon richness which was found to be a good predictor of arthropod species richness at independent test sites. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Certain communities in the United States experience greater opioid-involved overdose mortality than others. Interventions to stem overdose benefit from contextual understandings of communities' needs and strengths in addressing the opioid crisis. This project aims to understand multiple stakeholder perspectives on the opioid epidemic in communities disproportionately affected by opioid-involved overdose mortality. Methods: We performed a rapid-cycle qualitative assessment study utilizing in-depth interviews with community stakeholders and observations of community meetings in eight communities in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, disproportionately impacted by opioid-involved overdose mortality. Stakeholder categories included: current and past illicit users of opioids; medical and social service providers; emergency medical services; law enforcement; spouse or other family members of illicit users/former users of opioids; government officials; school officials; community members. Content analysis was utilized to identify themes and answer study questions. Regular feedback to stakeholders was provided to support targeted interventions. Results: We performed semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 130 community stakeholders and 29 community meeting observations in 2018-2019. Participants perceived similar economic and social determinants as origins of the opioid overdose epidemic including lack of economic resources, loss of jobs, transient populations and dilapidated housing. However, they differed in their awareness of and attention to the epidemic. Awareness was dependent on the visibility of opioid use (presence of paraphernalia litter, location of drug users, media coverage, and relationship to users). Overall, there was good knowledge of naloxone for opioid overdose reversal but less knowledge about local syringe services programs. Perceptions of harm reduction efforts were ambivalent. Conclusions: Members of communities impacted by the opioid epidemic perceived that economic downturn was a major factor in the opioid overdose epidemic. However, the varied beliefs within and between communities suggest that interventions need to be tailored according to the cultural norms of place.