Understanding variation in impacts from private protected areas across regions and protection mechanisms to inform organizational practices.

Private land protection is an important and growing tool to address biodiversity loss and climate change. Thus, better empirical evidence on the effectiveness of private land protection and organizational practices, such as targeting of lands for protection and choice of protection mechanism (i.e., fee simple land acquisition and conservation easements), is needed. We addressed this gap by estimating the impacts of The Nature Conservancy's (TNC) (a large nongovernmental organization with relatively decentralized management) conservation land acquisitions and easements from 1988 to 2016 in three regions of the United States (Mid-Atlantic, New England and New York, and California). We estimated impact in terms of avoided conversion by comparing natural land cover on 3179 protected parcels with matched unprotected parcels. Nineteen of 21 ecoregional plans used threats of agriculture and development to identify priorities for protection. When regions and protection mechanisms were pooled, on average there was no evidence of avoided conversion from 1988 to 2016. Accounting for mechanisms, TNC land acquisitions avoided conversion and easements did not. TNC's easements on parcels acquired by conservation partners did avoid conversion. Limitations of these results include focus on a single measure of impact, inability to capture future avoided conversion, and low land cover change accuracy in California. Our results suggest that private land protection managers who seek to avoid land conversion in the near to medium term should increase focus on areas with higher threats. Special attention should be paid to strengthening accountability and the role of partners, improving or clarifying how easements are used, and facilitating the flow of resources to work with the greatest potential impact.

Comprensión de la variación en el impacto de las áreas protegidas privadas sobre las regiones y los mecanismos de protección para guiar las prácticas organizativas Resumen La protección de terreno privado es una herramienta importante, aunque su naturaleza voluntaria puede sesgar la protección hacia parcelas menos amenazadas­lo que resulta en que la conversión no se evite o se evite muy poco. Además, muchos programas de protección privada tienen una supervisión limitada y pocos reportes de sus resultados. Por lo tanto, se necesitan mejores evidencias empíricas de la efectividad de la protección en suelo privado y las prácticas organizativas, como el enfoque en tierras para protección y la selección de los mecanismos de protección (adquisición de terrenos a título oneroso y servidumbres de conservación). Abordamos esta brecha con la estimación de impactos de las adquisiciones de suelo de The Nature Conservancy (TNC, una gran organización no gubernamental con un manejo relativamente descentralizado) y las servidumbres implementadas entre 1988 y 2016 en tres regiones de los Estados Unidos: Atlántico Medio, Nueva Inglaterra y Nueva York, y California. Estimamos el impacto en términos de la conversión que se evitó al comparar la cobertura de suelo en 3,179 parcelas protegidas con parcelas desprotegidas equivalentes. Diecinueve de los 21 planes eco­regionales usaron las amenazas a la agricultura y al desarrollo para identificar las prioridades de protección. Cuando agrupamos las regiones y los mecanismos de protección, en promedio no hubo impacto alguno. Si se consideran los mecanismos, las adquisiciones de suelo de la TNC tuvieron un impacto mientras que las servidumbres no. Las servidumbres de la TNC en las parcelas adquiridas por socios de conservación sí tuvieron un impacto, aunque esta manera de proteger sólo se presentó en las regiones del Atlántico Medio y de Nueva Inglaterra y Nueva York. Nuestros resultados sugieren que la protección privada, especialmente mediante servidumbres, puede estar sesgada hacia suelos no amenazados. Los gestores que buscan evitar la conversión del suelo a mediano o corto plazo deberían enfocarse más en las áreas con más amenazas. Se debería prestar especial atención al fortalecimiento del papel y las responsabilidades de los socios, a la mejora o aclaración de cómo se usan las servidumbres y la facilitación del flujo de recursos para trabajar con el mayor impacto potencial.

Replacement of feline foamy virus bet by feline immunodeficiency virus vif yields replicative virus with novel vaccine candidate potential.

BACKGROUND: Hosts are able to restrict viral replication to contain virus spread before adaptive immunity is fully initiated. Many viruses have acquired genes directly counteracting intrinsic restriction mechanisms. This phenomenon has led to a co-evolutionary signature for both the virus and host which often provides a barrier against interspecies transmission events. Through different mechanisms of action, but with similar consequences, spumaviral feline foamy virus (FFV) Bet and lentiviral feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) Vif counteract feline APOBEC3 (feA3) restriction factors that lead to hypermutation and degradation of retroviral DNA genomes. Here we examine the capacity of vif to substitute for bet function in a chimeric FFV to assess the transferability of anti-feA3 factors to allow viral replication. RESULTS: We show that vif can replace bet to yield replication-competent chimeric foamy viruses. An in vitro selection screen revealed that an engineered Bet-Vif fusion protein yields suboptimal protection against feA3. After multiple passages through feA3-expressing cells, however, variants with optimized replication competence emerged. In these variants, Vif was expressed independently from an N-terminal Bet moiety and was stably maintained. Experimental infection of immunocompetent domestic cats with one of the functional chimeras resulted in seroconversion against the FFV backbone and the heterologous FIV Vif protein, but virus could not be detected unambiguously by PCR. Inoculation with chimeric virus followed by wild-type FFV revealed that repeated administration of FVs allowed superinfections with enhanced antiviral antibody production and detection of low level viral genomes, indicating that chimeric virus did not induce protective immunity against wild-type FFV. CONCLUSIONS: Unrelated viral antagonists of feA3 cellular restriction factors can be exchanged in FFV, resulting in replication competence in vitro that was attenuated in vivo. Bet therefore may have additional functions other than A3 antagonism that are essential for successful in vivo replication. Immune reactivity was mounted against the heterologous Vif protein. We conclude that Vif-expressing FV vaccine vectors may be an attractive tool to prevent or modulate lentivirus infections with the potential option to induce immunity against additional lentivirus antigens.

A randomized clinical trial of the efficacy of extended smoking cessation treatment for adolescent smokers.

INTRODUCTION: Relatively few well-designed smoking cessation studies have been conducted with teen smokers. This study examined the efficacy of extended cognitive-behavioral treatment in promoting longer term smoking cessation among adolescents. METHODS: Open-label smoking cessation treatment consisted of 10 weeks of school-based, cognitive-behavioral group counseling along with 9 weeks of nicotine replacement (nicotine patch). A total of 141 adolescent smokers in continuation high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area were randomized to either 9 additional group sessions over a 14-week period (extended group) or 4 monthly smoking status calls (nonextended group). Intention-to-treat logistic regression analysis was used to assess the primary outcome of biologically confirmed (carbon monoxide < 9 ppm) point prevalence abstinence at Week 26 (6-month follow-up from baseline). RESULTS: At Week 26 follow-up, the extended treatment group had a significantly higher abstinence rate (21%) than the nonextended treatment (7%; OR = 4.24, 95% CI: 1.20-15.02). Females also were more likely to be abstinent at the follow-up than males (OR = 4.15, 95% CI: 1.17-14.71). CONCLUSIONS: The significantly higher abstinence rate at follow-up for the extended treatment group provides strong support for continued development of longer term interventions for adolescent smoking cessation.

Accounting for ecosystem alteration doubles estimates of conservation risk in the conterminous United States.

Previous national and global conservation assessments have relied on habitat conversion data to quantify conservation risk. However, in addition to habitat conversion to crop production or urban uses, ecosystem alteration (e.g., from logging, conversion to plantations, biological invasion, or fire suppression) is a large source of conservation risk. We add data quantifying ecosystem alteration on unconverted lands to arrive at a more accurate depiction of conservation risk for the conterminous United States. We quantify ecosystem alteration using a recent national assessment based on remote sensing of current vegetation compared with modeled reference natural vegetation conditions. Highly altered (but not converted) ecosystems comprise 23% of the conterminous United States, such that the number of critically endangered ecoregions in the United States is 156% higher than when calculated using habitat conversion data alone. Increased attention to natural resource management will be essential to address widespread ecosystem alteration and reduce conservation risk.