Dispatches

Many plant species rely on animals to spread their seeds, and these dispersers therefore play essential roles in ecosystem maintenance and recovery. Understandably, the vast majority of research on animal‐ driven seed dispersal has focused on frugivores, but that means key dispersers whose primary fare isn’t fruit are often overlooked, says Fabián Alejandro Rubalcava‐ Castillo (Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes; Aguascalientes, Mexico). “There is this idea that carnivorous animals like foxes, bears, and even cougars or bobcats have no contribution to the regeneration of ecosystems and are only part of the food chain”, he explains, even though many predators also eat fruit. But even strictly carnivorous species can consume and pass seeds eaten by their prey, a secondary dispersal mechanism known as diploendozoochory. Rubalcava‐ Castillo and his colleagues examined seed dispersal by predators in Mexico’s temperate and tropical dry forests. The researchers collected mammal scat from established transects monthly for 2 years, with each scat identified to species and crumbled to identify and count any seeds found within. For each predator species, subsamples of up to 30 seeds from five plant species were then examined for wear and subjected to viability and germination tests to determine if the passage of these seeds through the animals’ digestive tracts impacted their survival or potential success. “The main results showed that carnivorous mammals are capable of dispersing large amounts of seeds”, says Rubalcava‐ Castillo (Ecol Evol 2021; doi.org/10.1002/ ece3.7201). In temperate forests, gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) particularly stood out, as seeds were always present in their scat. Viable seeds were also found in the scat of three other predatory species, including – to the team’s surprise – that of the hyper‐ carnivorous bobcat (Lynx rufus), although only when rabbit fur was also present, suggesting diploendozoochory. Meanwhile, in tropical forests, seeds were found at roughly equal proportions in the scat of gray foxes, ringtails (Bassariscus astutus), white‐ nosed coatis (Nasua narica), and badgers (Taxidea taxus). The data also suggested that predators could improve germination, and therefore they may make a substantial contribution to plant dispersal. Even strict carnivores likely play their part, Rubalcava‐ Castillo notes. “For this reason, it is important to preserve these fauna, since they are an important part of the forest regeneration process.” Bobcats (Lynx rufus) can spread seeds eaten by their prey. D T ar ab or el li; C C 0 1. 0

Rubalcava-Castillo and his colleagues examined seed dispersal by predators in Mexico's temperate and tropical dry forests. The researchers collected mammal scat from established transects monthly for 2 years, with each scat identified to species and crumbled to identify and count any seeds found within. For each predator species, subsamples of up to 30 seeds from five plant species were then examined for wear and subjected to viability and germination tests to determine if the passage of these seeds through the animals' digestive tracts impacted their survival or potential success.
"The main results showed that carnivorous mammals are capable of dispersing large amounts of seeds", says Rubalcava-Castillo (Ecol Evol 2021;doi.org/10.1002/ ece3.7201). In temperate forests, gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) particularly stood out, as seeds were always present in their scat. Viable seeds were also found in the scat of three other predatory species, including -to the team's surprise -that of the hyper-carnivorous bobcat (Lynx rufus), although only when rabbit fur was also present, suggesting diploendozoochory. Meanwhile, in tropical forests, seeds were found at roughly equal proportions in the scat of gray foxes, ringtails (Bassariscus astutus), white-nosed coatis (Nasua narica), and badgers (Taxidea taxus).
The data also suggested that predators could improve germination, and therefore they may make a substantial contribution to plant dispersal. Even strict carnivores likely play their part, Rubalcava-Castillo notes. "For this reason, it is important to preserve these fauna, since they are an important part of the forest regeneration process. " Bobcats (Lynx rufus) can spread seeds eaten by their prey. D Taraborelli; CC0 1.0 Alaska Natives and Navigating the New Arctic

Tom Oates
Navigating the New Arctic (NNA), a US National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative introduced in 2016 as one of its "10 Big Ideas", seeks to establish an observing network of platforms and tools across the Arctic to track the rapid biological, physical, chemical, and social changes in the region driven by from climate change. The initiative emphasizes collaboration, and raised hopes among Alaska's Indigenous peoples for their meaningful involvement -incorporating their traditional knowledge and lived experience.
Those hopes have not been realized, however, as expressed in a lengthy, detailed March 2020 letter released jointly by Tribes and Tribal organizations representing a large portion of Western Alaska and communities along the Bering Sea, including the Aleut (Unangan) Community of St Paul Island, the Association of Village Council Presidents, the Bering Sea Elders Group, and Kawerak, Inc. A brief follow-on letter of allyship released in January 2021 and signed by more than 200 Arctic researchers confirmed those hopes remain unrealized.
"It's frustrating when all this research money gets focused on funding the Western scientific approach, where year after year folks come into Alaska and do research and do not include any local traditional knowledge. It's not aligned with any of the research strategies that we have for these communities", says Amos Philemonoff, president of the Aleut Community of St Paul Island (Unangan; St Paul, AK). "They get grants saying they're going to collaborate with our communities and people, and then they come to us with a just-about-finished product and want us to sign off that we were collaborating the whole way. " Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq, an incoming faculty member at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Iñupiat; Blacksburg, VA), says, "Well-intended programs such as NNA can have oppressive outcomes so that the intention does not equal the impact. Even the structure of how someone filled out or writes their proposal privileges a set of knowledge and trained expertise in how to apply for these grants".
"Clearly, if you want to address these real-world problems you want to talk to people experiencing them firsthand, and that's not typically how many scientists work and not how they're trained", says Colleen Strawhacker, NSF program director for Arctic System Science (Alexandria, VA). "I think there's been a bit of a learning curve on the scientific community side on how best to really engage Indigenous communities' members to craft their science to address these questions. " She adds, "We have funded an NNA community office to focus on how to build these relationships".
Reacquainting with "old friends" may improve health

Ken Ferguson
Parasites generally have adverse effects on human health, but a new study suggests that controlled exposure to helminth parasites could potentially ease inflammation associated with numerous chronic and aging-related ailments (eLife 2021; doi. org/10.7554/eLife.65180).
Homo sapiens have historically played host to an enormous assortment of parasites, but advancements in medicine, hygiene, sanitation, water quality, and other factors have greatly reduced parasite prevalence in many parts of the world. Although a lighter parasite burden contributes to improved overall health, research now suggests that several disorders may be exacerbated by the absence of some of these co-evolutionary "old friends".
"As human beings evolved there were all sorts of bacteria and parasites around all the time, so our immune system adapted to function normally in their presence", explains David Gems, research director at University College London's Institute of Healthy Ageing (IHA; London, UK) and a coauthor of the study. "But if you grow up with too little exposure to these things, your immune system becomes abnormal, causing various health problems. " Gems and Bruce Zhang, an undergraduate assistant at IHA, reviewed the growing body of evidence showing that proteins produced by helminths -a catchall group consisting of a vast array of flukes, tapeworms, and nematodes -may help curb excessive inflammation, and could therefore potentially be used to help alleviate autoimmune conditions like asthma, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, and others. "Helminths are incredibly good at modulating host immunity -particularly at dampening it downto protect themselves, through the secretion of various immunomodulatory proteins", says Gems. "The [human] immune system has gotten used to that effect, so when there are no helminths, it goes into overdrive. " Although helminths can cause illness, intentional exposure under controlled conditions could be used to rein in hyperactive immune response, and given the longevity of some helminth species -for instance, adult Necator americanus hookworms can remain in the human intestine for up to 14 years -such treatment may also prove to be extremely cost-effective. Moreover, while still experimental, helminth immunotherapy may hold greatest promise in mitigating "inflammaging", or age-associated inflammation believed to contribute to heart disease, dementia, cancer, and other risk factors that become more common with age.
"There's growing interest in the idea of helminth therapy, either with live animals or purified immunomodulatory proteins, to prevent hyperinflammatory disorders up to mid-adulthood", notes Gems. "The question we pose is: what about later? Could these therapies help older people? Are some aging-related diseases made worse by the loss of 'old friends'? We hope these ideas will provoke future investigation of these questions. "

Virginia Gewin
To support global efforts to slow deforestation, Norway's Ministry of Climate and Environment is providing free access to high-resolution (5-m) commercial satellite imagery to monitor the world's tropical forests over a 2-year period. Monthly base maps, valued at ~US$43 million and covering 45 million km 2 of tropical forest in 64 developing countries, will be made available through August 2022.
Conservation-minded technology organizations, such as SkyTruth and Global Forest Watch, have been granted licenses to offer easy access to view-only versions of the data and some basic tools for comparison to better enable everyday citizens to monitor forest changes. Individuals who wish to download the full dataset for analysis must register and create an account with the Ministry's Planet Explorer program (www.planet.com/nicfi).
"The world cannot reach the Sustainable Development Goals or the goals of the Paris Agreement without stopping the destruction of tropical rainforests", says Norway's Minister of Climate and Environment, Sveinung Rotevatn, in an email (Oslo, Norway). "These images can be used to detect illegal logging or roads, to map and monitor forest lands, and to document changes. " Target audiences for the data include forest country governments, NGOs, academia, private companies, and the general public. Until now, access to such data has been limited, as they are expensive to collect and subject to restrictive licenses.
With the cost of satellite imagery no longer a limiting factor, however, conservation organizations plan to convene the manpower needed to detect deforestation events. "We see this as a way to build a rapid-response reconnaissance army around the world to do triage and identify any changes", says John Amos, president of SkyTruth (Shepherdstown, WV). As one example, such a crew of volunteers could help monitor the extensive remote areas of South American national parks, which often lack the resources to conduct on-the-ground monitoring programs.
"What I'm excited about is the precedent such a huge data-buy for the social good sets for philanthropy", says Amos. "When you make a big, high-quality, global dataset freely available in the public space for all kinds of experts to take advantage of, new doors open for policy making and management of resources that the world is critically dependent on for human welfare. " Norway offers access to 2 years of satellite imagery for monitoring tropical forests.

DISPATCHES
Surprising response of Nunavut's lakes to climate change

Niki Wilson
The territory of Nunavut spans over 2 million km 2 of northern Canada, much of it underlain with ancient rock known as the Canadian Shield. The Shield's surface is dominated by lakes that are experiencing ever-longer ice-free seasons and altered biogeochemistry due to climate change. In other parts of the world, including the Arctic and sub-Arctic, these kinds of changes are projected to increase the amounts of greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere. But the authors of a new study suggest that may not be the case for these Nunavut lakes -at least not yet (Global Biogeochem Cy 2021; doi. org/10.1029/2020G B006850).
A team of scientists from the University of Guelph (Guelph, Canada) assembled 23 years of data (1994-2017) on the water chemistry of 19 sub-Arctic tundra lakes near Rankin Inlet. They paired their own field data with data from long-term environmental assessments performed at a proposed mine site; analysis of the combined dataset revealed that the temperature, alkalinity, and pH of the lakes have increased over time. They then used these values to calculate the surface carbon (C) emissions of the lakes, and found they were decreasing over time.
The authors suggested several reasons for this trend. Warmer temperatures may be promoting an increase of lake biotaparticularly bottom-growing algae -that absorb carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). More icefree days may further enhance algal growth, as well as increase the rate of evaporation in the summer; as water evaporates, the chemistry of the lakes may be shifting to favor C sequestration in the form of bicarbonate. Potentially key to this trend is the fact that the Canadian Shield is covered by thin, C-poor soils as compared to other northern regions. This means that permafrost thaw is not associated with massive organic C loading from the catchment of these lakes, which elsewhere would likely increase CO 2 emissions in inland waters.
Lead author Soren Brothers (now at Utah State University; Logan, UT) says the work underscores the importance of investigating climate change in areas that have historically been neglected. "Most Arctic research has been performed in Alaska and Sweden, and those studies don't necessarily represent what is happening across northern Canada. " But he cautions that the results in this study represent only a snapshot in time. "We don't know what these lakes were doing before 1994", he says, noting paleoanalyses showing that Arctic lake biota have undergone dramatic changes since the 1950s, "and we don't know what they are going to do in the next decade".
On the shore of a sub-Arctic lake sampled near Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Canada.

P Sibley
Preventing pandemics by protecting tropical forests

Janet Pelley
Outbreaks of pathogens that jump from animals to people are becoming increasingly common. Scientists have linked these spillover events to habitat destruction, especially the conversion of tropical forests to cropland. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic is shining a light on these linkages, potentially galvanizing action to prevent pandemics and slow climate change by protecting tropical forests, according to an editorial written by an international team of scientists (Glob Change Biol 2021; doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15508).
Although scientists don't yet know from which animal the COVID-19 pandemic originated, they suspect it fits the pattern of previous outbreaks, such as Nipah, a batborne virus that causes deadly encephalitis in humans. When the conversion of forests to oil-palm plantations destroyed fruit bat habitat throughout Indonesia, many bats crossed into Malaysia, where some found new homes in fruit trees overhanging pig farms. As the bats dropped Nipah viruslaced urine onto the farms, the pigs became infected and then passed the virus on to farmers, who in turn spread the disease throughout the community, explains Thomas Gillespie, a disease ecologist at Emory University (Atlanta, GA), the editorial's lead author.
"We're seeing the strongest pattern of disease emergence in disturbed tropical forest systems", Gillespie says. These forests have high levels of pathogen diversity, and the removal of trees for human uses like agriculture brings humans and wildlife disease reservoirs into intimate contact. The greatest risk of pathogen spillover occurs when people destroy between 30-40% of a tropical forest, notes Gillespie.
But when forest conservation goes hand-in-hand with providing healthcare for local people and monitoring for outbreaks, emergent disease risk goes down, according to Patricia Wright, a primatologist at Stony Brook University (Stony Brook, NY). Wright and her colleagues have seamlessly integrated healthcare with rainforest restoration in and around Madagascar's Ranomafana National Park. As watersheds regain tree cover, water becomes cleaner, populations of diseasebearing mosquitoes drop, and public health improves, she says.
Given the health and climate-change benefits of forests, the UN's call to protect 30% of the planet by 2030, while a positive step, must focus on tropical forests, cautions Gillespie. "Other solutions include incorporating sustainability commitments into upfront financing for palm oil, soy, and beef operations, which are the main drivers of forest loss. " Farmland is also prime elephant habitat

Jake Buehler
Human-elephant conflict is a major source of tension in rural Southeast Asia, and human retaliation for crop damage contributes to elephant population decline. Now, new research suggests that methods commonly employed to reduce conflict are based on flawed assumptions about the animals' habitat preferences: much of the agricultural land where this drama plays out is actually prime elephant habitat.
Local decision makers in farming communities are under pressure to find solutions, but these are often based on capturing and removing elephants from agricultural areas, according to Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz (Chinese Academy of Sciences; Menglun, China). "This narrative is powerful because it comes as a win-win situation in which 'stranded' elephants are returned to their home (the forest) and suffering farmers are relieved from the presence of problem elephants", he explains.
But Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are more often found in disturbed, forestedge habitats than in pristine forest patches. The mismatch between what was known about Asian elephant ecology and common perceptions of impacted communities led Campos-Arceiz and his colleagues to investigate habitat suitability in places where human-elephant conflicts occur.
The team analyzed GPS telemetry data from 48 elephants monitored from 2011 to 2018 across Peninsular Malaysia and compared this with environmental factors to develop a model describing relative habitat quality for elephants. The researchers then gathered more than 5,600 reports of human-elephant conflicts over the same time period, using these to determine the relationship between habitat preferences and incidence rates.
They found that the elephants preferentially sought out areas of disturbed vegetation like forest gaps and plantations: the same environments where most instances of human-elephant conflict took place (Anim Conserv 2021; doi. org/10.1111/acv.12668).
Because agricultural areas also tend to be ideal habitat for elephants, translocating problem individuals from cropland sites may not be effective, points out Campos-Arceiz. "We can expect that elephants released inside the forest will move back to their preferred habitats in mixeduse landscapes, hence the conflict will persist. " Instead of elephant removal, Campos-Arceiz argues that measures emphasizing coexistence should be embraced. Potential solutions include land-use planning that avoids areas at high risk of human-elephant conflict, installation of barriers like fences and trenches around plantations, and compensation for farmers that suffer heavy economic losses from elephant-caused crop damage.
"This is important, because if people living near elephants bear unsustainable costs of elephant conservation, they develop resentment and can boycott [future] conservation", warns Campos-Arceiz. He adds that next steps should focus on testing how well these ideas work for mitigating clashes with elephants.
Reframing the societal perception of hunting large carnivores

Lesley Evans Ogden
Hunting large carnivores has always been a highly contentious activity, and social media has further inflamed the debate, which has been widely distributed through such examples as the killing of "Cecil the Lion" in Zimbabwe and the now-banned grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) trophy hunt in western Canada. Controversy is most intense around the hunting of large carnivores for trophies, not for food. The authors of a recent essay -led by Chris Darimont, a conservation scientist at the University of Victoria (Victoria, Canada) and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation (Sidney, Canada) -adopted the conceptual model of a "social license" as a means to reframe large carnivore hunting and examine its public acceptance (Conserv Biol 2020; doi. org/10.1111/cobi.13657).
Historically, wildlife management has had a very "hunter-centric approach", says Darimont, although fewer than 10% of North Americans and Europeans hunt, with participation rates generally falling. A "social license to operate" framework, in contrast, focuses on the majority of the population who do not hunt publicly owned natural resources, viewing them as "stakeholders" with minority hunters as "operators". The concept of the social license borrows from the business world, and is often applied in mining and forestry to refer to the informal but increasingly important social licensemeaning public tolerance -to do business.
"Large [stakeholder] surveys tell us that the public generally shows strong support for hunting to feed your family", notes Darimont, a hunter himself. However, in examining case studies of social media campaigns around hunting opposition that led to action or policy change, the authors found that societal acceptance of hunting carnivores is diminishing, with potential for negative and positive impacts on conservation.
"Fringe hunters who kill predators for trophies can tarnish the [image of the] food-hunting majority", says Darimont, adding that repercussions may include a loss of interest by conservationists in partnering with hunters on conservation initiatives.
Viorel Popescu, a conservation biologist at Ohio University (Athens, OH), suggests that this novel conceptual framework has the potential to shift the conversation in the rapidly evolving landscape of societal values "beyond pros and cons, and toward a more informed debate where social science has an important role and clearly delineates socially acceptable and unacceptable hunting practices".
In western Canada, public opposition to trophy hunting for grizzly bears led to a provincial government ban.

Adrian Burton
On February 15th, a group of San people and their supporters finished a 300-mile walk from Knysna to Cape Town (South Africa), raising awareness of plans to prospect for, and ultimately extract, petroleum and natural gas in the Kavango Basin -activities they insist will degrade the Okavango wilderness, part of the San's ancestral homeland and an area of exceptional environmental importance.
Permits issued to Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica, a Canadabased company) allow it to prospect across 13,000 square miles of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia and Botswana, reaching the edge of the Okavango Delta. Home to some of Africa's most iconic wildlife, this UNESCO World Heritage Site -the largest of all Ramsar wetlandsreceives an annual life-giving flood from rains that fall in its catchment zone, which includes the area to be prospected.
"While the Delta is not in that area per se, the pollution caused by drilling for oil and fracking for gas does not know this", says San Youth Leader and lead walker Craige Beckett (South Africa). "It will affect water that ultimately flows into the Delta. Oil industry activities will also impact the wildlife that provides ecotourism livelihoods to Indigenous people, and it will destroy sacred San homeland. We believe such exploitation is contrary to national and international requirements to protect the environment and the rights of Indigenous peoples. " Upon reaching their destination, the walkers handed the Namibian Consulate a letter explaining their objections, signed by representatives of the San United Khwe Royal House (https://bit.ly/2P1vx7T). The same letter was sent to the government of Botswana.
ReconAfrica, which began drilling its first exploration well on January 10th, and recently announced plans for seismic surveys to be performed by Canadian firm Polaris Natural Resources Inc, insists that the project brings employment and development to the region. Via its publication The Voices of Kavango (https://bit.ly/ 3btlVdI), ReconAfrica presents a view that local people are supportive of its endeavors and looking forward to new opportunities. Unfortunately, the company did not reply to requests for comment.
But not everyone is convinced. "We are in a climate emergency and our priority is to protect future generations by transitioning beyond the fossil-fuel era as rapidly as possible", comments Molly Scott-Cato (Roehampton University; London, UK). "In that context there can be no justification for new oil and gas projects. In the case of the Okavango Delta, it is clear that any [fossil-fuel] development also threatens the biodiversity of a very special area. " Anthropogenic climate change has contributed to larger, hotter, and more frequent wildfires worldwide. When forests burn, entire watersheds can lose a substantial proportion of their vegetation and soils, and smoke may billow thousands of kilometers across continents and oceans.
Burning wood releases smoke that contains combustion products called methoxyphenols, detectable in the atmosphere, air-borne particulate matter, rivers, and drinking water. In clouds and fog, on the surfaces of aerosol particles, methoxyphenols form various chemically reactive, watersoluble degradation compounds that, when inhaled, can damage lung cells.
Yet the effects of these degradation compounds on ecosystems and non-human organisms are poorly understood. To learn more, a team of researchers in Croatia and Slovenia explored how methoxyphenols and their nitrated intermediates affect fish development. They found that zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos exposed to high concentrations of two common methoxyphenols and three nitrated forms often failed to hatch, developed malformations, or died, with more severe consequences occurring at higher concentrations of the compounds. Malformations of the eyes, head, heart, yolk sac, and tail were most common (Sci Rep 2021; doi.org/10.1038/ s4159 8-021-81789 -1).
That's important, says author Olga Malev, a researcher at the Ruđer Bošk-ović Institute (Zagreb, Croatia), because methoxyphenols and some of their derivatives are known to bioaccumulate in the tissues of aquatic organisms and reach concentrations as high as 1000 times that in the environment.
Degradation compounds from wood enter the environment in myriad ways, including wildfires and biomass burning, as well as paper manufacturing and other industrial sources. Globally, wildfires alone incinerate 3-8% of total plant productivity every year. With more fires, says first author Sanja Babić (also at the Ruđer Bošković Institute), "it's of crucial importance to establish links between the concentration of these chemicals in aquatic ecosystems and their impact on environmental organisms and consequently on humans".
The team hopes to inspire more research, especially in the Brazilian Amazon, where 2.2 million ha of standing rainforest burned in 2020. "We encourage scientists from Brazil and neighboring countries to start a long-term research project to regularly monitor these compounds in aquatic ecosystems and their impact on wildlife, especially during the summer months, when there is an increased number of fires", says Babić.