RecruitNet: A global database of plant recruitment networks.

Plant recruitment interactions (i.e., what recruits under what) shape the composition, diversity, and structure of plant communities. Despite the huge body of knowledge on the mechanisms underlying recruitment interactions among species, we still know little about the structure of the recruitment networks emerging in ecological communities. Modeling and analyzing the community-level structure of plant recruitment interactions as a complex network can provide relevant information on ecological and evolutionary processes acting both at the species and ecosystem levels. We report a data set containing 143 plant recruitment networks in 23 countries across five continents, including temperate and tropical ecosystems. Each network identifies the species under which another species recruits. All networks report the number of recruits (i.e., individuals) per species. The data set includes >850,000 recruiting individuals involved in 118,411 paired interactions among 3318 vascular plant species across the globe. The cover of canopy species and open ground is also provided. Three sampling protocols were used: (1) The Recruitment Network (RN) protocol (106 networks) focuses on interactions among established plants ("canopy species") and plants in their early stages of recruitment ("recruit species"). A series of plots was delimited within a locality, and all the individuals recruiting and their canopy species were identified; (2) The paired Canopy-Open (pCO) protocol (26 networks) consists in locating a potential canopy plant and identifying recruiting individuals under the canopy and in a nearby open space of the same area; (3) The Georeferenced plot (GP) protocol (11 networks) consists in using information from georeferenced individual plants in large plots to infer canopy-recruit interactions. Some networks incorporate data for both herbs and woody species, whereas others focus exclusively on woody species. The location of each study site, geographical coordinates, country, locality, responsible author, sampling dates, sampling method, and life habits of both canopy and recruit species are provided. This database will allow researchers to test ecological, biogeographical, and evolutionary hypotheses related to plant recruitment interactions. There are no copyright restrictions on the data set; please cite this data paper when using these data in publications.

A Recovery-Oriented Intervention for People With Psychosis: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVE: This pilot randomized controlled trial evaluated the effectiveness of critical time intervention-task shifting (CTI-TS) for people with psychosis in Santiago, Chile, and Rio de Janeiro. CTI-TS is a 9-month intervention involving peer support workers and is designed to maintain treatment effects up to 18 months. METHODS: A total of 110 people with psychosis were recruited when they enrolled in community mental health clinics (Santiago, N=60; Rio de Janeiro, N=50). Participants within each city were randomly assigned to either CTI-TS or usual care for 9 months. Primary outcomes were quality of life, measured with the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment-Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF), and unmet needs, measured with the Camberwell Assessment of Need (CAN), at 18-month follow-up. Results were analyzed according to intention-to-treat guidelines. Generalized estimating equations, with observations clustered within cities, and multiple imputation for missing data were used. RESULTS: At 18 months, both groups showed improved primary outcomes. In both unadjusted and fully adjusted analyses, no significant differences between CTI-TS and usual care (WHOQOL-BREF question on quality of life and CAN mean number of unmet needs) were found. CONCLUSIONS: Three factors might explain the lack of difference between CTI-TS and usual care: first-contact enrollment precluded rapport prior to randomization, a minority of patients were uncomfortable with peers being on the treatment team, and primary outcome measures may not have been sensitive enough to capture the effects of a recovery-oriented intervention. The results have implications for the design of transitional services for people with psychosis, especially in Latin America.