Spatial and temporal patterns of indicators of climate change and variability in the Arab world in the past four decades.

A comprehensive assessment of the spatial and temporal patterns of the most common indicators of climate change and variability in the Arab world in the past four decades was carried out. Monthly maximum and minimum air temperature and precipitation amount data for the period 1980-2018 were obtained from the CHELSA project with a resolution of 1 km2, which is suitable for detecting local geographic variations in climatic patterns. This data was analyzed using a seasonal-Kendall metric, followed by Sen's slope analysis. The findings indicate that almost all areas of the Arab world are getting hotter. Maximum air temperatures increased by magnitudes varying from 0.027 to 0.714 °C/decade with a mean of 0.318 °C/decade while minimum air temperatures increased by magnitudes varying from 0.030 to 0.800 °C/decade with a mean of 0.356 °C/decade. Most of the Arab world did not exhibit clear increasing or decreasing precipitation trends. The remaining areas showed either decreasing or increasing precipitation trends. Decreasing trends varied from -0.001 to -1.825 kg m-2/decade with a mean of -0.163 kg m-2/decade, while increasing trends varied from 0.001 to 4.286 kg m-2/decade with a mean of 0.366 kg m-2/decade. We also analyzed country-wise data and identified areas of most vulnerability in the Arab world.

Positive effects of COVID-19 lockdown on air quality of industrial cities (Ankleshwar and Vapi) of Western India.

On January 30, 2020, India recorded its first COVID-19 positive case in Kerala, which was followed by a nationwide lockdown extended in four different phases from 25th March to 31st May, 2020, and an unlock period thereafter. The lockdown has led to colossal economic loss to India; however, it has come as a respite to the environment. Utilizing the air quality index (AQI) data recorded during this adverse time, the present study is undertaken to assess the impact of lockdown on the air quality of Ankleshwar and Vapi, Gujarat, India. The AQI data obtained from the Central Pollution Control Board was assessed for four lockdown phases. We compared air quality data for the unlock phase with a coinciding period in 2019 to determine the changes in pollutant concentrations during the lockdown, analyzing daily AQI data for six pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, O3, and SO2). A meta-analysis of continuous data was performed to determine the mean and standard deviation of each lockdown phase, and their differences were computed in percentage in comparison to 2019; along with the linear correlation analysis and linear regression analysis to determine the relationship among the air pollutants and their trend for the lockdown days. The results revealed different patterns of gradual to a rapid reduction in most of the pollutant concentrations (PM10, PM2.5, CO, SO2), and an increment in ozone concentration was observed due to a drastic reduction in NO2 by 80.18%. Later, increases in other pollutants were also observed as the restrictions were eased during phase-4 and unlock 1. The comparison between the two cities found that factors like distance from the Arabian coast and different industrial setups played a vital role in different emission trends.

Public transit use in the United States in the era of COVID-19: Transit riders' travel behavior in the COVID-19 impact and recovery period.

COVID-19 has upended travel across the world, disrupting commute patterns, mode choices, and public transit systems. In the United States, changes to transit service and reductions in passenger volume due to COVID-19 are lasting longer than originally anticipated. In this paper we examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on individual travel behavior across the United States. We analyze mobility data from Janurary to December 2020 from a sample drawn from a nationwide smartphone-based panel curated by a private firm, Embee Mobile. We combine this with a survey that we administered to that sample in August 2020. Our analysis provides insight into travel patterns and the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on transit riders. We investigate three questions. First, how do transit riders differ socio-demographically from non-riders? Second, how has the travel behavior of transit riders changed due to the pandemic in comparison to non-riders, controlling for other factors? And third, how has this travel behavior varied across different types of transit riders? The travel patterns of transit riders were more significantly disrupted by the pandemic than the travel of non-riders, as measured by the average weekly number of trips and distance traveled before and after the onset of the pandemic. This was calculated using GPS traces from panel member smartphones. Our survey of the panel revealed that of transit riders, 75% reported taking transit less since the pandemic, likely due to a combination of being affected by transit service changes, concerns about infection risk on transit, and trip reductions due to shelter-in-place rules. Less than 10 percent of transit riders in our sample reported that they were comfortable using transit despite COVID-19 infection risk, and were not affected by transit service reductions. Transit riders were also more likely to have changed their travel behavior in other ways, including reporting an increase in walking. However, lower-income transit riders were different from higher-income riders in that they had a significantly smaller reduction in the number of trips and distance traveled, suggesting that these lower-income households had less discretion over the amount of travel they carried out during the pandemic. These results have significant implications for understanding the way welfare has been affected for transportation-disadvantaged populations during the course of the pandemic, and insight into the recovery of U.S. transit systems. The evidence from this unique dataset helps us understand the future effects of the pandemic on transit riders in the United States, either in further recovery from the pandemic with the anticipated effects of mass vaccination, or in response to additional waves of COVID-19 and other pandemics.

Primates Can Be a Rallying Symbol to Promote Tropical Forest Restoration.

With 60% of all primate species now threatened with extinction and many species only persisting in small populations in forest fragments, conservation action is urgently needed. But what type of action? Here we argue that restoration of primate habitat will be an essential component of strategies aimed at conserving primates and preventing the extinctions that may occur before the end of the century and propose that primates can act as flagship species for restoration efforts. To do this we gathered a team of academics from around the world with experience in restoration so that we could provide examples of why primate restoration ecology is needed, outline how primates can act as flagship species for restoration efforts of tropical forest, review what little is known about how primate populations respond to restoration efforts, and make specific recommendations of the next steps needed to make restoration of primate populations successful. We set four priorities: (1) academics must effectively communicate both the value of primates and the need for restoration; (2) more research is needed on how primates contribute to forest restoration; (3) more effort must be put into Masters and PhD level training for tropical country nationals; and finally (4) more emphasis is needed to monitor the responses of regenerating forest and primate populations where restoration efforts are initiated. We are optimistic that populations of many threatened species can recover, and extinctions can be prevented, but only if concerted large-scale efforts are made soon and if these efforts include primate habitat restoration.

Social Behaviours and Networks of Vervet Monkeys Are Influenced by Gastrointestinal Parasites.

Substantial research has shown that while some parasite infections can be fatal to hosts, most infections are sub-clinical and non-lethal. Such sub-clinical infections can nonetheless have negative consequences for the long-term fitness of the host such as reducing juvenile growth and the host's ability to compete for food and mates. With such effects, infected individuals are expected to exhibit behavioural changes. Here we use a parasite removal experiment to quantify how gastrointestinal parasite infections affect the behaviour of vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) at Lake Nabugabo, Uganda. Behavioural profiles and the structure of nearest neighbour relationships varied significantly. As predicted, after deworming the duration of the resting events decreased, which is consistent with the idea that parasite infections are energetically costly. In contrast to what was predicted, we could not reject the null hypothesis and we observed no change in either the frequency or duration of grooming, but we found that the duration of travel events increased. A network analysis revealed that after deworming, individuals tended to have more nearest neighbours and hence probably more frequent interactions, with this effect being particularly marked for juveniles. The heightened response by juveniles may indicate that they are avoiding infected individuals more than other age classes because it is too costly to move energy away from growth. We consider that populations with high parasite burden may have difficulties developing social networks and behaviours that could have cascading effects that impact the population in general.

Options for Optimal Coverage of Free C-Section Services for Poor Mothers in Indian State of Gujarat: Location Allocation Analysis Using GIS.

BACKGROUND: Gujarat, a western state of India, has seen a steep rise in the proportion of institutional deliveries over the last decade. However, there has been a limited access to cesarean section (C-Section) deliveries for complicated obstetric cases especially for poor rural women. C-section is a lifesaving intervention that can prevent both maternal and perinatal mortality. Poor women bear a disproportionate burden of maternal mortality, and lack of access to C-section, especially for these women, is an important contributor for high maternal and perinatal mortality in resource limited settings. To improve access for this underserved population in the context of inadequate public provision of emergency obstetric services, the state government of Gujarat initiated a public private partnership program called "Chiranjeevi Yojana" (CY) in 2005 to increase the number of facilities providing free C-section services. This study aimed to analyze the current availability of these services in three districts of Gujarat and to identify the best locations for additional service centres to optimize access to free C-section services using Geographic Information System technology. METHODOLOGY: Supply and demand for obstetric care were calculated using secondary data from sources such as Census and primary data from cross-sectional facility survey. The study is unique in using primary data from facilities, which was collected in 2012-13. Information on obstetric beds and functionality of facilities to calculate supply was collected using pretested questionnaire by trained researchers after obtaining written consent from the participating facilities. Census data of population and birth rates for the study districts was used for demand calculations. Location-allocation model of ArcGIS 10 was used for analyses. RESULTS: Currently, about 50 to 84% of populations in all three study districts have access to free C-section facilities within a 20km radius. The model suggests that about 80-96% of the population can be covered for free C-section services with addition of 4-6 centres in critical but underserved regions. It was also suggested that upgrading of public sector facilities with minimal investment can improve the services. CONCLUSION: This study highlights utility of Geographic Information System technology for planning service centres to optimize access to vital lifesaving procedure such as C-section. Although the location allocation methodology has been available for decades, it has been used sparsely by public health professionals. This paper makes an important contribution to the literature for use of the method for planning in resource limited settings.

How is shrimp aquaculture transforming coastal livelihoods and lagoons in Estero Real, Nicaragua? The need to integrate social-ecological research and ecosystem-based approaches.

Ecosystem-based approaches to aquaculture integrate environmental concerns into planning. Social-ecological systems research can improve this approach by explicitly relating ecological and social dynamics of change at multiple scales. Doing so requires not only addressing direct effects of aquaculture but also considering indirect factors such as changes in livelihood strategies, governance dynamics, and power relations. We selected the community of Puerto Morazán, Nicaragua as a case study to demonstrate how the introduction of small-scale aquaculture radically transformed another key livelihood activity, lagoon shrimp fishing, and the effects that these changes have had on lagoons and the people that depend on them. We find that shrimp aquaculture played a key role in the collapse, in the 1990s, of an existing lagoon common-property management. Shrimp aquaculture-related capital enabled the adoption of a new fishing technique that not only degraded lagoons but also led to their gradual privatization. The existence of social ties between small-scale shrimp farmers and other community members mitigated the impacts of privatization, illustrating the importance of social capital. Since 2008, community members are seeking to communally manage the lagoons once again, in response to degraded environmental conditions and a consolidation of the shrimp industry at the expense of smaller actors. This research shows that shrimp aquaculture intersects with a complex set of drivers, affecting not only how ecosystems are managed but also how they are perceived and valued. Understanding these social-ecological dynamics is essential to implement realistic policies and management of mangrove ecosystems and address the needs of resource-dependent people.

The potential connectivity of waterhole networks and the effectiveness of a protected area under various drought scenarios.

Landscape connectivity is considered a priority for ecosystem conservation because it may mitigate the synergistic effects of climate change and habitat loss. Climate change predictions suggest changes in precipitation regimes, which will affect the availability of water resources, with potential consequences for landscape connectivity. The Greater Calakmul Region of the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico) has experienced a 16% decrease in precipitation over the last 50 years, which we hypothesise has affected water resource connectivity. We used a network model of connectivity, for three large endangered species (Baird's tapir, white-lipped peccary and jaguar), to assess the effect of drought on waterhole availability and connectivity in a forested landscape inside and adjacent to the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. We used reported travel distances and home ranges for our species to establish movement distances in our model. Specifically, we compared the effects of 10 drought scenarios on the number of waterholes (nodes) and the subsequent changes in network structure and node importance. Our analysis revealed that drought dramatically influenced spatial structure and potential connectivity of the network. Our results show that waterhole connectivity and suitable habitat (area surrounding waterholes) is lost faster inside than outside the reserve for all three study species, an outcome that may drive them outside the reserve boundaries. These results emphasize the need to assess how the variability in the availability of seasonal water resource may affect the viability of animal populations under current climate change inside and outside protected areas.

Emergent group level navigation: an agent-based evaluation of movement patterns in a folivorous primate.

The foraging activity of many organisms reveal strategic movement patterns, showing efficient use of spatially distributed resources. The underlying mechanisms behind these movement patterns, such as the use of spatial memory, are topics of considerable debate. To augment existing evidence of spatial memory use in primates, we generated movement patterns from simulated primate agents with simple sensory and behavioral capabilities. We developed agents representing various hypotheses of memory use, and compared the movement patterns of simulated groups to those of an observed group of red colobus monkeys (Procolobus rufomitratus), testing for: the effects of memory type (Euclidian or landmark based), amount of memory retention, and the effects of social rules in making foraging choices at the scale of the group (independent or leader led). Our results indicate that red colobus movement patterns fit best with simulated groups that have landmark based memory and a follow the leader foraging strategy. Comparisons between simulated agents revealed that social rules had the greatest impact on a group's step length, whereas the type of memory had the highest impact on a group's path tortuosity and cohesion. Using simulation studies as experimental trials to test theories of spatial memory use allows the development of insight into the behavioral mechanisms behind animal movement, developing case-specific results, as well as general results informing how changes to perception and behavior influence movement patterns.

Is Markhamia lutea's abundance determined by animal foraging?

Understanding the determinants of tropical forest tree richness and spatial distribution is a central goal of forest ecology; however, the role of herbivorous mammals has received little attention. Here we explore the potential for red colobus monkeys (Procolobus rufomitratus) to influence the abundance of Markhamia lutea trees in a tropical forest by feeding extensively on the tree's flowers, such that this tree population is not able to regularly set fruit. Using 14 years of data from Kibale National Park, Uganda, we quantify M. lutea flower and fruit production. Similarly, using 21 years of data, we quantify temporal changes in the abundance of stems in size classes from 1 m tall and above. Our analyses demonstrate that M. lutea is rarely able to produce fruit and that this corresponds to a general decline in its abundance across all size classes. Moreover, using 7 years of feeding records, we demonstrate that red colobus feed on M. lutea, consuming large amounts of leaf and flower buds whenever they were available, suggesting that this behavior limits fruit production. Therefore, we suggest that red colobus are presently important for structuring the distribution and abundance of M. lutea in Kibale. This dynamic raises the intriguing question of how a large M. lutea population was able to originally establish. There is no evidence of a change in red colobus population size; however, if this old-growth forest is in a non-equilibrium state, M. lutea may have become established when red colobus ate a different diet.