Urbanization favors the proliferation of Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus in urban areas of Miami-Dade County, Florida

Urbanization processes are increasing globally. Anthropogenic alterations in the environment have profound effects on biodiversity. Decreased biodiversity due to biotic homogenization processes as a consequence of urbanization often result in increased levels of mosquito vector species and vector-borne pathogen transmission. Understanding how anthropogenic alterations in the environment will affect the abundance, richness, and composition of vector mosquito species is crucial for the implementation of effective and targeted mosquito control strategies. We hypothesized that anthropogenic alterations in the environment are responsible for increasing the abundance of mosquito species that are adapted to urban environments such as Aedesaegypti and Culexquinquefasciatus. Therefore, our objective was to survey mosquito relative abundance, richness, and community composition in Miami-Dade County, Florida, in areas with different levels of urbanization. We selected 24 areas, 16 remote areas comprised of natural and rural areas, and 8 urban areas comprised of residential and touristic areas in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Mosquitoes were collected weekly in each area for 24 h for 5 consecutive weeks from August to October 2020 using BG-Sentinel traps baited with dry ice. A total of 36,645 mosquitoes were collected, from which 34,048 were collected in the remote areas and 2,597 in the urban areas. Our results show a clear and well-defined pattern of abundance, richness, and community composition according to anthropogenic modifications in land use and land cover. The more urbanized a given area the fewer species were found and those were primary vectors of arboviruses, Ae.aegypti and Cx.quinquefasciatus.

Unusual lack of reproduction in toad populations from agricultural habitats

Anthropogenic alterations of habitats can have detrimental consequences for biodiversity. Documenting these effects require monitoring in multiple sites that vary in the degree of alterations over long temporal scales, a task that is challenging. Yet, simple naturalist observations can reveal major ongoing events affecting wild populations, and serve as a basis for further investigations. We quantified breeding parameters of spined toad (Bufo spinosus) populations from forested (preserved) and agricultural (altered) habitats. We found that reproduction did not occur at the sites surrounded by agriculture, while it occurred successfully in ponds from forests. Males were present at all sites, but females, amplexus, egg strings and tadpoles remained absent from agricultural sites. Observations made at the same sites indicated that breeding occurred during previous years. Our observations of habitat- and sex-specific lack of reproduction may have critical consequences for the persistence of populations of a widespread amphibian species in agricultural areas.

Land Use and Endemic Avian Biodiversity on Nusa Penida

Understanding anthropogenic alterations to land use and their effects can inform conservation efforts in tropical biodiversity hotspots. In 2004 the Indonesian Palau Penida Archipelago, off the coast of Bali, was established as an unofficial bird reserve; however, studies of the island's land use and avian biodiversity were never conducted and have not been monitored. I surveyed birds across 32 transects in land use categories designated: agriculture, deforested, developed, and forest. Forest transects presented the greatest endemic species richness, but overall, Shannon diversity different significantly among land use categories, particularly forested and deforested. ANOVA indicated exotic bird density was significantly higher than endemic bird density across all transects. Birds serve as a common biodiversity barometer and this study can serve to inform land use management decisions on the Archipelago and throughout reserves and protected areas throughout the tropics.

300 years of change for native fish species in the upper Danube River Basin - historical flow alterations versus future climate change

River ecosystems belong to the most threatened ecosystems on Earth. Historical anthropogenic alterations have, and future climate change will further affect river ecosystems and the species therein. While many studies assess the potential effects of expected future changes on species, little is known about the severity of these changes compared to historical alterations. Here, we used a unique 300-year time series of hydrological and climate data to assess the vulnerability of 48 native fish species in the upper Danube River Basin. We calculated species-specific vulnerability estimates relative to the reference period (1970-2000) for the periods 1800-1830, 1900-1930, and 2070-2100, including two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and 8.5) and identified the environmental drivers of vulnerability estimates. Models showed that future changes under RCP 4.5 would result in moderate species vulnerability compared to historical conditions, while under RCP 8.5, the vulnerability for all species increased substantially. In addition, species vulnerability was mainly driven by hydrology in the past and is likely to be driven by temperature in the future. Our results show that future climate change would alter environmental conditions for riverine fish species at a similar magnitude as historical anthropogenic hydrological river alterations have. Shedding light on such long-term historical and possible future anthropogenic alterations provides valuable insights for prioritising conservation actions for riverine fish species.

Using mechanical experiments to study Ground Stone Tool use: exploring the formation of percussive and grinding wear traces on limestone tools

Ground Stone Tools (GST) have been identified in several Levantine archaeological sites dating to the Middle Paleolithic. These tools, frequently made of limestone, are often interpreted based on their morphology and damage as having been used for knapping flint, and sometimes for breaking animal bones or processing vegetal materials as well. However, the lack of experimental referential collections on limestone is a major obstacle for the identification of diagnostic traces on these types of tools and raw material. In this sense, the understanding of the specific function of these GST and the association between tool types and activity often remains unknown or merely speculative.Recent discoveries at the site of Nesher Ramla revealed one of the largest Middle Paleolithic assemblages of limestone GST. Our use-wear analysis has identified several types of both macro and micro-wear traces on different tools. Such diversity highlights the need for developing an experimental reference collection that can enable detailed comparison between experimental and archaeological use-wear evidence.In this paper, we present the results of mechanical experiments specially designed to understand and quantify major characteristics of macro and micro use-wear traces on limestone GST as a result of three main activities: 1) animal bone breaking, 2) flint knapping and 3) grinding acorns. This study pursues three main goals: a) improving our ability to distinguish natural from anthropogenic alterations on limestone; b) identifying and characterizing differences between wear-traces (macro and micro) produced by different activities, and c) building a reference collection for thorough comparisons of use-wear and residues on archaeological tools.Our results indicate that it is possible not only to identify anthropogenic alterations but also to specifically distinguish the use-wear traces formed on limestone as result of percussive activities of bone and flint. This is shown by controlled experiments allowing variables other than the worked material to remain constant. This study aims to contribute towards establishing an experimental and multi-scale library of use-wear traces on limestone.

Evolving tides aggravate nuisance flooding along the U.S. coastline

Nuisance flooding (NF) is defined as minor, nondestructive flooding that causes substantial, accumulating socioeconomic impacts to coastal communities. While sea-level rise is the main driver for the observed increase in NF events in the United States, we show here that secular changes in tides also contribute. An analysis of 40 tidal gauge records from U.S. coasts finds that, at 18 locations, NF increased due to tidal amplification, while decreases in tidal range suppressed NF at 11 locations. Estuaries show the largest changes in NF attributable to tide changes, and these can often be traced to anthropogenic alterations. Limited long-term measurements from estuaries suggest that the effects of evolving tides are more widespread than the locations considered here. The total number of NF days caused by tidal changes has increased at an exponential rate since 1950, adding ~27% to the total number of NF events observed in 2019 across locations with tidal amplification.

Clustering Simultaneous Occurrences of the Extreme Floods in the Neckar Catchment

Flood protection is crucial for making socioeconomic policies due to the high losses of extreme floods. So far, the synchronous occurrences of flood events have not been deeply investigated. In this paper, multivariate analysis was implemented to reveal the interconnection between these floods in spatiotemporal resolution. The discharge measurements of 46 gauges with a continuous daily time series for 55 years were taken over the Neckar catchment. Initially, the simultaneous floods were identified. The Kendall correlation between the pair sets of peaks was determined to scrutinize the similarities between the simultaneous events. Agglomerative hierarchical clustering tree (AHCT) and multidimensional scaling (MDS) were employed, and obtained clusters were compared and evaluated with the Silhouette verification method. AHCT shows that the Average and Ward algorithms are appropriate to detect reasonable clusters. The Neckar catchment has been divided into three major clusters: the first cluster mainly covers the western part and is bounded by the Black Forest and Swabian Alps. The second cluster is mostly located in the eastern part of the upper Neckar. The third cluster contains the remaining lowland areas of the Neckar basin. The results illustrate that the clusters act relatively as a function of topography, geology, and anthropogenic alterations of the catchment.

Multispecies entanglements in the virosphere: Rethinking the Anthropocene in light of the 2019 coronavirus outbreak

In this essay, we reevaluate the 2019 outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) from the perspective of multispecies entanglements. It is argued that anthropogenic alterations in the biosphere will most likely accelerate the rate of multispecies pandemics in the Anthropocene. Using a textual analysis approach of anthropological and historical sources on the example of coronaviruses and live animal markets in China, we trace how the virosphere of wild animals from tropical regions comes into contact with the virosphere of humans and farmed animals in highly industrialized landscapes. We suggest that adopting a multispecies perspective on viruses can allow them to be understood as living processes that interact with other species in a realm called the virosphere. The rate at which novel infectious diseases are transmitted by bacteria and viruses has increased in recent decades. We argue that this is caused by side effects of the Anthropocene, such as deforestation, the surge in population growth and density, and anthropogenic climate change, which give rise to an increased number of unusual encounters between humans, nonhuman companion species, and wild animals. In this way, the virospheres of host organisms, which were formerly partly isolated, are allowed to converge and freely exchange infectious diseases, leading to a more homogenized virosphere. As anthropogenic alterations are set to continue in the future, we suggest that multispecies pandemics will likely increase in the following decades.