Potential Biodiversity Research Articles

Effect Jamblang Stem Barks, Mangosteen Peel, and Cinnamon to Blood Sugar Levels

Diabetes mellitus ranks seventh as the most deadly disease with a prevalence of 1.9% and is dominated by type 2 diabetes mellitus with 95%. A solution is needed to overcome this problem, one of which is by utilizing jamblang stem barks, cinnamon, and mangosteen peel which are packaged in a popular product, namely steeping tea bags. This research aimed to determine the effect and potential biodiversity of extracts of jamblang stem barks, cinnamon and mangosteen peel as an antidiabetic drug in the form of infusion in rats induced by alloxan. This research used one-factor completely randomized design (CRD) with a linear model. Data were analyzed by One Way ANOVA and Post-hoc Tukey. The sample used was male mice aged 2-3 months with a body weight of ± 20 grams. The sample consisted of 25 individuals and divided into 5 groups. group I (control), group II (alloxan induction + jamblang stem barks extract, cinnamon, and mangosteen peel 1.35 grams / 200gBB), group III (alloxan induction + mangosteen peel 1.35 grams / 200gBB), group IV (alloxan induction + wood sweet 1.35 gram / 200gBB), group V (alloxan induction + jamblang stem barks 1.35 gram / 200gBB). Day 21, the amount of increase in blood sugar levels was observed and assessed based on the results of the tools used. The results showed that the infusion of jamblang stem barks, cinnamon and mangosteen peel had a significant effect on reducing blood sugar so that it could prevent type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Trends in national biodiversity footprints of land use

Rising incomes (and associated expenditures) have been shown to be a major driver of environmental problems. Lately, several studies have pointed to a break between the income driver and biodiversity loss on a per-capita level. The increase in land-use efficiency is pointed to as a key factor in this decoupling. However, a lot of the previous work on biodiversity footprints has been cross-sectional and there is limited analysis with a temporal perspective. In this work, we couple a database that links land use to potential biodiversity impacts for ecoregions, with a multiregional environmentally-extended input-output database available in a time series, with high regional detail. We perform a panel regression analysis for three regional quantile groups and six consumption categories that links trends in affluence to trends in biodiversity loss. The findings suggest that high-income regions from 2005 to 2015 have an income elasticity of biodiversity footprint higher than one, while the production-based accounts show that high-income countries have a declining impact on biodiversity in the time period, suggesting a strong outsourcing of biodiversity loss to low-income countries. In the early 2000s a peak in biodiversity footprint for the high-income region is not explained by increasing income, but rather consumption of traded goods associated with land use in countries in South East Asia prone to biodiversity loss. On a product level we find that although food consumption is causing the largest share of biodiversity footprints in all regional groups, manufacturing products, shelter, and clothing and footwear have the strongest income elasticity of footprint in high-income countries, suggesting that these are consumption areas to focus on as affluence grows, particularly in developing regions.

Paleobiology of a large mammal community from the late Pleistocene of Sonora, Mexico

AbstractA paleontological deposit near San Clemente de Térapa represents one of the very few Rancholabrean North American Land Mammal Age sites within Sonora, Mexico. During that time, grasslands were common, and the climate included cooler and drier summers and wetter winters than currently experienced in northern Mexico. Here, we demonstrate restructuring in the mammalian community associated with environmental change over the past 40,000 years at Térapa. The fossil community has a similar number of carnivores and herbivores whereas the modern community consists mostly of carnivores. There was also a 97% decrease in mean body size (from 289 kg to 9 kg) because of the loss of megafauna. We further provide an updated review of ungulates and carnivores, recognizing two distinct morphotypes ofEquus, includingE.scottiand a slighter species; as well asPlatygonus compressus;Camelops hesternus;Canis dirus; andLynx rufus;and the first regional records ofPalaeolama mirifica,Procyon lotor, andSmilodoncf.S.fatalis. The Térapa mammals presented here provide a more comprehensive understanding of the faunal community restructuring that occurred in northern Mexico from the late Pleistocene to present day, indicating further potential biodiversity loss with continued warming and drying of the region.

An alternative approach to delineate wetland influence zone of a tropical intertidal mudflat using geo-information technology

Mudflats are important tropical coastal wetlands having high carbon sequestration and biodiversity potentials. The actual reach of a mudflat environment spreads far beyond its perennial wetland areas in a coastal site. Accurate demarcation of the extent of these buffer areas is imperative for sustainable wetland management. This study tried to delineate the wetland influence zone (WIZ) of an intertidal mudflat in the Medinipur coastal plain, India as a functional extension around the considerably smaller yet hydrous cum muddy depressions. Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), derived from Sentinel-2 MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) datasets, and Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI), derived from the coupled use of Sentinel-2 MSI and Landsat-8 datasets, had been analyzed and merged to develop nine characteristic zones. Among these, eight zones (Zone I to Zone VIII) were identified as part of the WIZ and the rest one (NDWI: < −0.15, TVDI > 0.7) was considered as a supra-tidal zone, devoid of the mudflat features. Although the overall extent of WIZ (Minimum: 339.20 ha, Maximum: 350.22 ha) did not change much from 2016 to 2020, the inter-zonal spatial arrangements of vegetation and physiography transformed continuously. The gradual disappearance of the major tidal creek from the south-western parts and increasing human footprints throughout the mudflat had expedited this transformation. Accordingly, periodic assessments incorporating microwave and optical datasets along with high precision in-situ measurements of soil moisture was suggested for the efficient monitoring of these fragile tropical ecosystems.

Classification of Nemoral Forests with Fusion of Multi-Temporal Sentinel-1 and 2 Data

Mapping forest extent and forest cover classification are important for the assessment of forest resources in socio-economic as well as ecological terms. Novel developments in the availability of remotely sensed data, computational resources, and advances in areas of statistical learning have enabled the fusion of multi-sensor data, often yielding superior classification results. Most former studies of nemoral forests fusing multi-sensor and multi-temporal data have been limited in spatial extent and typically to a simple classification of landscapes into major land cover classes. We hypothesize that multi-temporal, multi-sensor data will have a specific strength in the further classification of nemoral forest landscapes owing to the distinct seasonal patterns in the phenology of broadleaves. This study aimed to classify the Danish landscape into forest/non-forest and further into forest types (broadleaved/coniferous) and species groups, using a cloud-based approach based on multi-temporal Sentinel 1 and 2 data and a random forest classifier trained with National Forest Inventory (NFI) data. Mapping of non-forest and forest resulted in producer accuracies of 99% and 90%, respectively. The mapping of forest types (broadleaf and conifer) within the forested area resulted in producer accuracies of 95% for conifer and 96% for broadleaf forest. Tree species groups were classified with producer accuracies ranging 34–74%. Species groups with coniferous species were the least confused, whereas the broadleaf groups, especially Quercus species, had higher error rates. The results are applied in Danish national accounting of greenhouse gas emissions from forests, resource assessment, and assessment of forest biodiversity potentials.

DETERMINING THE SOIL QUALITY INDEX IN THE BATUMI DELTA, GEORGIA

The soil quality index is a quantitative assessment concept and it is used in the evaluation of ecosystem components. Because of the high potential for agriculture and biodiversity, deltas are the most valuable parts of the ecosystem. This study aimed to determine the soil quality index (SQI) in the Batumi Delta, Georgia. For this purpose, the study area was divided into five plots due to their morphological positions (L1, L2, L3, L4, and L5). A total of 125 soil samples were taken for analysis including clay content (CC), silt content (SC), sand content (SaC), mean weight diameter (MWD), aggregate stability (AS), amount of water retained under -33 kPa (FC) and -1500 kPa (WP) pressures and organic matter content (OM). These properties were used as the main criteria, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Factor Analysis were used for weighting them. Sub-criteria were scored using expert opinion and the linear score functions, such as “more is better” and “optimum value”. For determining SQI, the additive method (SQIA), the weighted method with AHP (SQIAHP), and the weighted method with factor analysis (SQIFA) were used. The resulting SQI scores of the three methods were ordered as SQIAHP&gt;SQIA&gt;SQIFA, but these differences were not significant. However, the SQI scores of the plots (p≤0.01) showed statistically significant differences and were ordered as L5&gt;L4&gt;L3&gt;L2&gt;L1.

Rural tourism, biodiversity and sustainable development: complementarity and impact on the well-being of rural population

Methods. In the research, the following methods were used: analysis, content analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, hypothetical, deductive method, modeling method. Results. There is revealed the observance of harmony between economic, socio-cultural, political, environmental aspects is today the strategy of world policy in tourism. The general factors of development of business in a countryside for many countries of the world are defined. Such factors are: integration of rural areas into the global competitive economy; reducing the importance of agriculture as a branch in rural production; socio-economic transformations of rural space; capacity to use the resources of a rural family; compliance with the provisions on cooperation of farms; sustainability of financial and technological support to farmers. It is determined that the European integration vector requires the formation of the principles of structural policy of rural development in Ukraine. However, this policy should be implemented taking into account historical experience, the specifics of cultural traditions, modern practice in tourism. It is determined that the preservation and restoration of biological diversity is important for the diversification of rural tourism. Novelty. The interrelationships and interdependencies of sustainable development of rural tourism, ensuring biodiversity, improving the welfare of the rural population are revealed. Ukraine has significant biodiversity potential and can be considered as one of the powerful reserves for biodiversity restoration in Europe. According to the theoretical analysis of scientific publications (T. Zinchuk, N. Kutsmus) it is revealed that diversification of the rural economy is a strategy to minimize risks: both climatic and biological; reduction of agricultural employment and increasing tensions in the labour market; adverse fluctuations in market conditions and the level of profitability of the enterprise, and thus - the socio-economic stability of the industry and rural development. Practical value. There is a new vector of state policy on sustainable tourism development based on the formation of rural tourism, taking into account the characteristics of rural areas, biodiversity conservation, improving the economic and social condition of the rural population, enrichment of national culture and agro-ecosystem of Ukraine.

The Role of Socio-Economic Determinants of Horse Farms for Grassland Management, Vegetation Composition and Ecological Value

Socio-economic context is increasingly seen as a decisive factor for sustainable agricultural land use. The high prevalence of part-time farming and frequent lack of formal agricultural education within the equine sector are often seen as reasons why horse-grazed pastures do not fulfill their biodiversity potential. In spite of the substantial variability within horse farming, little is known about the relationship of socio-economic determinants with vegetation characteristics of horse-grazed grasslands. We surveyed 122 horse farms in Germany, classifying them into four socio-economic classes according to farm income type and farm managers’ agricultural education. We recorded farm structure parameters, grassland management practices and vegetation characteristics. Socio-economic class partly explained the great variability in farm structure that we observed. In contrast to our expectation, income type and agricultural education did not distinctly affect grassland management and were neither directly nor indirectly related to vegetation characteristics. Part-time farming and lack of agricultural education thus did not adversely affect the ecological value of horse-grazed grasslands. By contrast, both farm structure and paddock level management affected grassland vegetation and ecological value. Therefore, the socio-economic context of horse farms should be addressed in further research with strategies targeting the development of sustainable grassland management in horse keeping.

KEANEKARAGAMAN JENIS BURUNG DIURNAL DI HUTAN JAJAU KECAMATAN MENTEBAH KABUPATEN KAPUAS HULU KALIMANTAN BARAT

Mentabah sub-district is one of the territories in Kapuas Hulu, the province of West Borneo. The width is about 781,26 km² with enormous potential for biodiversity. One of them is Jajau forest. The local people called it Jajau Forest that also known as Kerangas forest. The purpose of this research is to collect data about the diversity of Diurnal species in Jajau Forest in Mentabah sub-district, Kapuas Hulu, the province of West borneo. IPA ((Index Point Abundance) is used in this research that placed purposively. The result of this research shows that there are 111 birds species could be indetified with 938 birds include 39 families. This research showh that the variety of birds in this are is so high, it is 4.4221.Keywords: diversity of birds, Jajau Forest, Mentebah District

Status of aquatic and riparian biodiversity in artificial lake ecosystems with and without management for recreational fisheries: Implications for conservation

Abstract Humanity is facing a biodiversity crisis, with freshwater‐associated biodiversity in a particularly dire state. Novel ecosystems created through human use of mineral resources, such as gravel pit lakes, can provide substitute habitats for the conservation of freshwater and riparian biodiversity. Many of these artificial ecosystems are subject to a high intensity of recreational use, however, which may limit their biodiversity potential. The species richness of several taxa (plants, amphibians, dragonflies, damselflies, waterfowl, and songbirds) was assessed and a range of taxonomic biodiversity metrics were compared between gravel pit lakes managed for recreational fisheries (n = 16) and unmanaged reference lakes (n = 10), controlling for non‐fishing‐related environmental variation. The average species richness of all the taxa examined was similar among lakes in both lake types and no substantial differences in species composition were found when examining the pooled species inventory. Similarly, there were no differences between lake types in the presence of rare species and in the Simpson diversity index across all of the taxa assessed. Variation in species richness among lakes was correlated with woody habitat, lake morphology (surface area and steepness), and land use, but was not correlated with the presence of recreational fisheries. Thus, non‐fishing‐related environmental variables had stronger effects on local species presence than recreational fisheries management or the presence of recreational anglers. Collectively, no evidence was found that anglers and recreational fisheries management constrain the development of aquatic and riparian biodiversity in gravel pit lakes in the study region; however, the conservation of species diversity in gravel pit lakes could benefit from an increasing reliance on habitat enhancement activities.

Human footprint defining conservation strategies in Patagonian landscapes: Where we are and where we want to go?

Understanding human influence on ecosystems and their services is crucial to achieve sustainable development and ensure the conservation of biodiversity. In this context, the human footprint index (HFI) represents the anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems and the natural environment. Our objective was to characterize the HFI in Southern Patagonia (Argentina) across the landscape, qualifying the differences among the main ecological areas and especially the forested landscapes. We also assessed the potential utility of HFI to identify priority conservation areas according to their wilderness quality and potential biodiversity values. We created a HFI map (scores varied from 0 representing high wilderness quality to 1 representing maximum human impact) using variables related to direct (e.g. infrastructure) and indirect (e.g. derived from economic activities) human impacts, including settlements, accessibility, oil industry, and sheep production. HFI varied significantly across the natural landscapes, being lower (0.07−0.11) in remote ecosystems close to the Andes Mountains and higher (0.38−0.40) in southern areas close to the provincial capital city. Forested landscapes presented different impact values, which were directly related to the economical values of the different forest types. We determined that the current protected area network is not equally distributed across the different ecological areas and forest types. Priority conservation areas were also identified using the fragmentation produced by the human impact, the patch size, and the potential biodiversity values. HFI can present high compatibility with other land-use management decision making tools, acting as a complement to the existing tools for conservation planning or management.

Complex causes and consequences of rangeland greening in South America – multiple interacting natural and anthropogenic drivers and simultaneous ecosystem degradation and recovery trends

Land-surface greening has been reported globally over the past decades. While often seen to represent ecosystem recovery, the impacts on biodiversity and society can also be negative. Greening has been widely reported from rangelands, where drivers and processes are complex due to its high environmental heterogeneity and societal dynamics. Here, we assess the complexity behind greening and assess its links to various drivers in an iconic, heterogeneous rangeland area, the Iberá Wetlands and surroundings, in Argentina. Time-series satellite imagery over the past 19 years showed overall net greening, but also substantial local browning both in protected and unprotected areas, linking to land use, temporal changes in surface water, fire, and weather. We found substantial woody expansion mainly in the unprotected land, with 37% contributed by tree plantations and the remaining 63% by spontaneous woody expansion, along with widespread transitions from terrestrial land to seasonal surface water. Fire occurrences tended to reduce greening with unprotected areas experiencing widespread and frequent fire. However, protected areas had more browning in unburnt areas than burned areas. Temporal variation in annual precipitation and temperature tended to nonlinearly influence fire occurrences with an interplay of human fire management, further shaping the vegetation greening, pointing to high complexity behind the observed rangeland greening involving interactions among local drivers. Our findings highlight that the observed overall greening is an outcome of multiple trends with clear negative impacts on biodiversity and the local livestock-oriented culture (notably expanding tree plantations) and spontaneous vegetation dynamics, partly involving spontaneous woody expansion. The latter has positive potential for biodiversity and ecosystem services in terms of woodland recovery, but can become negative in such a natural savanna region if expansions develop on a too broad scale, highlighting the importance of ensuring recovery of natural fire and herbivory regimes in protected areas along with sustainable rangeland management elsewhere.

Controlling biodiversity impacts of future global hydropower reservoirs by strategic site selection

Further reservoir-based hydropower development can contribute to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) on affordable and clean energy, and climate action. However, hydropower reservoir operation can lead to biodiversity impacts, thus interfering with the SDGs on clean water and life on land. We combine a high-resolution, location-specific, technical assessment with newly developed life cycle impact assessment models, to assess potential biodiversity impacts of possible future hydropower reservoirs, resulting from land occupation, water consumption and methane emissions. We show that careful selection of hydropower reservoirs has a large potential to limit biodiversity impacts, as for example, 0.3% of the global hydropower potential accounts for 25% of the terrestrial biodiversity impact. Local variations, e.g. species richness, are the dominant explanatory factors of the variance in the quantified biodiversity impact and not the mere amount of water consumed, or land occupied per kWh. The biodiversity impacts are mainly caused by land occupation and water consumption, with methane emissions being much less important. Further, we indicate a trade-off risk between terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity impacts, as due to the weak correlation between terrestrial and aquatic impacts, reservoirs with small aquatic biodiversity impacts tend to have larger terrestrial impacts and vice versa.

Environmental impact on the variability in quality of Gentiana rigescens, a medicinal plant in southwest China

Medicinal plants play an important role in traditional medicine and new drug development, but the increased use of wild plant-based traditional medicine presents a potential biodiversity conservation threat. A better understanding of environmental factors on bioactive compounds in medicinal plants is necessary to ensure the suitability of cultivation location, the sustainability of market supply, and the future conservation of the wild populations. Gentiana rigescens Franch. ex Hemsl. has been used as a medicinal plant in China for hundreds of years due to containing iridoid glycoside compounds, but we knew little about how these compounds respond to environmental changes. We therefore investigated the accumulation and distribution of four iridoid glycosides (loganic acid, sweroside, swertiamarin, and gentiopicroside) in G. rigescens individuals from 28 wild populations in the elevation range of 1260–2978 m in southwest China. We also analyzed the impact of environmental factors (geography, climate, and soil) on the content of gentiopicroside (the dominant compound) in this species. We found significant variations of the contents of the four iridoid glycosides in each part of G. rigescens among populations (p < 0.05), and the gentiopicroside contents showed higher variability in the aboveground part (stem, leaf, and flower), when compared with the content in root. Meanwhile, the root gentiopicroside content was negatively correlated with the contents in other parts of the plant individual. The masses and mass ratios of the four iridoid glycosides also varied among different plant parts among populations. In roots, gentiopicroside dominated the mass proportion of the four iridoid glycosides, while the mass proportions of the four iridoid glycosides varied differently in other plant parts (stem, leaf, and flower). The gentiopicroside content in the root was negatively correlated with latitude and soil C:N ratio, but it was positively correlated with mean annual precipitation, mean annual temperature, soil N:P ratio, and soil N content. However, the effect of climate change on the quality (gentiopicroside content) of G. rigescens materials may be complicated to predict due to the future global warming and spatial heterogeneity of precipitation on the Yunnan-Guizhou plateau. Our study demonstrates the comprehensive influence of environmental factors on the gentiopicroside contents in G. rigescens. The findings have implications for understanding the environmental impact on the bioactive compounds in medicinal Gentiana plants. Further study is needed on how environmental factors influence on the gene expression of iridoid glycoside biosynthesis.

Effect of Salinity on the Zooplankton Community in the Pearl River Estuary

Understanding the relationship between the zooplankton distribution and salinity may provide key information to understand ecosystem function under the condition of a global mean sea level rise caused by global climate change. However, little is known about how increasing salinity level will affect the entire zooplankton community on a large scale. Here we completed 1 year of field investigations on the Pearl River Estuary and analyzed the distribution and structure of the zooplankton community. A total of 68 zooplankton species were identified during the survey. The number and diversity (richness, evenness, Shannon index, and Simpson’s index) of the zooplankton species decreased as salinity increased from 0.10 to 21.26. Salinity negatively affected the abundances of rotifers, cladocerans, and total zooplankton, while it had little effect on copepod abundance. Some salt-tolerant species, such as Keratella tropica, Polyarthra vulgaris, and Paracalanus crassirostris, survived at high-salinity sites. A pattern was observed at all sites: the peak in copepod abundance always occurred when rotifers were abundant (sites S1 and S2) or after rotifer abundance reached a maximum level (sites S3, S4, and S5). In general, salinity was the most important environmental factor shaping zooplankton biodiversity and abundance. This study provides insight into potential biodiversity and structure of the zooplankton community in response to salinity change.

Investigating the impact of the mycorrhizal inoculum on the resident fungal community and on plant growth

In the last few decades, microbial inoculants have been used as organic fertilizers worldwide. Among the most widely used commercial products are arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, as these fungi can associate with a variety of crops. Despite the potential benefits for soil quality and crop yield associated with AM fungal colonization, experiments assessing the persistence of the fungi in the field have yielded inconsistent results. Additionally, it is not yet clear whether or not the introduction of commercial inoculants could lead to changes to the resident fungal community, and eventually to invasion of the commercial products with a possible displacement of resident species. Here we use a partial differential equation model to assess the potential biodiversity risks and productivity benefits deriving from inoculation. We study the impact of AM fungal inoculation on the resident fungal community and on plant growth at a landscape scale. We determine how inoculant persistence and spread are affected by its competition with resident fungal species, by its mutualist quality, and by fungal dispersal. Our findings suggest that the increase in fungal abundance due to inoculation always leads to a short-term increase in host productivity, regardless of inoculant identity. However, the use of strongly competing inoculants constitutes a biodiversity risk, and may result in the invasion of low quality mutualists.

Gaps and challenges in the knowledge of algal biodiversity in Paraguay

ABSTRACT Tropical environments comprise some of the largest megadiverse centres on earth, and yet, even in the face of rapid biodiversity loss, a lack of knowledge of such areas prevails today. Paraguay is a landlocked, tropical country, which still holds enormous forested areas despite intense degradation. The country shows enormous potential algal biodiversity. We searched published records of algal species within Paraguay, checked their taxonomic status, and provided their locations, resulting in a thorough list of the algae known to date in Paraguay. Only 33 articles were published between 1897 and 2020. From the early 20th century and until the late 1970s, there were few publications on algae, and most studies were conducted within the last 7 years. We compiled records of 893 species from 54 orders and 10 phyla. Only freshwater algal records were found; none were terrestrial or from brackish lagoons. Most species belong to Charophyta, Chlorophyta, and Bacillariophyta. The Lower Paraguay basin showed the highest number of records, i.e. 564 species, 309 not found in any other basin in Paraguay. The highest number of algal records are from the Humid Chaco ecoregion, with 610 species, 343 of which did not occur in any other ecoregion of the country. Our results indicate that Paraguay requires extensive research and human resource training programs in phycology. Because of its threatened status, we consider the Dry Chaco to be the most important area where research should be intensified.

Fragmented dry grasslands preserve unique components of plant species and phylogenetic diversity in agricultural landscapes

In intensively used landscapes biodiversity is often restricted to fragmented habitats. Exploring the biodiversity potential of habitat fragments is essential in order to reveal their complementary role in maintaining landscape-scale biodiversity. We investigated the conservation potential of dry grassland fragments in the Great Hungarian Plain, i.e. patch-like habitats on ancient burial mounds and linear-shaped habitats in verges, and compared them to continuous grasslands. We focused on plant taxonomic diversity, species richness of specialists, generalists and weeds, and the phylogenetic diversity conserved in the habitats. Verges meshing the landscape are characterised by a small core area and high level of disturbance. Their species pool was more similar to grasslands than mounds due to the lack of dispersal limitations. They held high species richness of weeds and generalists and only few specialists. Verges preserved only a small proportion of the evolutionary history of specialists, which were evenly distributed between the clades. Isolated mounds are characterised by a small area, a high level of environmental heterogeneity, and a low level of disturbance. Steep slopes of species accumulation curves suggest that high environmental heterogeneity likely contributes to the high species richness of specialists on mounds. Mounds preserved the same amount of phylogenetic diversity represented by the branch-lengths as grasslands. Abundance-weighted evolutionary distinctiveness of specialists was more clustered in these habitats due to the special habitat conditions. For the protection of specialists in transformed landscapes it is essential to focus efforts on preserving both patch-like and linear grassland fragments containing additional components of biodiversity.

Patterns of Rotifer Diversity in the Chihuahuan Desert

Desert aquatic systems are widely separated, lack hydrologic connections, and are subject to drought. However, they provide unique settings to investigate distributional patterns of micrometazoans, including rotifers. Thus, to understand rotifer biodiversity we sampled 236 sites across an array of habitats including rock pools, springs, tanks, flowing waters, playas, lakes, and reservoirs in the Chihuahuan Desert of the USA (n = 202) and Mexico (n = 34) over a period of &gt;20 years. This allowed us to calculate diversity indices and examine geographic patterns in rotifer community composition. Of ~1850 recognized rotifer species, we recorded 246 taxa (~13%), with greatest diversity in springs (n = 175), lakes (n = 112), and rock pools (n = 72). Sampling effort was positively related to observed richness in springs, lakes, rivers, and tanks. Nestedness analyses indicated that rotifers in these sites, and most subsets thereof, were highly nested (support from 4 null models). Distance was positively correlated with species composition dissimilarity on small spatial scales. We predicted species richness for unsampled locations using empirical Bayesian kriging. These findings provide a better understanding of regional rotifer diversity in aridlands and provide information on potential biodiversity hotspots for aquatic scientists and resource managers.

The Overlooked Genetic Diversity in the Dryland Soil Surface-Dwelling Cyanobacterium Nostoc flagelliforme as Revealed by the Marker Gene wspA.

Biodiversity is recognized to be relatively low in the dryland ecosystem. However, we might overlook the accumulating genetic variation in those dryland micro-populations, which should eventually increase the dryland biodiversity. In the xeric steppes of western and northwestern China, there are two soil surface-dwelling and genetically close cyanobacterial species, Nostoc commune and Nostoc flagelliforme. They respectively exhibit lamellate and filamentous colony shapes. Their individual colony is consisted of hundreds of trichomes and the common exopolysaccharide matrix.N. flagelliforme is exclusively distributed in the dryland and supposed to be evolved from N. commune. We previously reported that the morphological diversity of N. flagelliforme colonies was very limited, being either cylindrical or strip-like. In this communication, we performed single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis of the marker gene wspA as well as phylogenetic analysis of the WspA protein in N. flagelliforme colonies to gain insights into its genetic diversity. SNP analysis suggested that there existed plentiful nucleotide variations in the individual colonies and meanwhile these variations shared certain evolutionary regularity. Phylogenetic analysis of the deduced proteins from the cloned wspA sequences suggested that the relatively regular variations were possibly dispersed in the N. flagelliforme populations of different regions. Thus, these results presented a scenario of the underestimated genetic diversity hidden behind the limited morphotype of dryland cyanobacteria. Maybe, we can consider the individual cyanobacterial colony as a potential biodiversity pool in the drylands.