Global and national trends, gaps, and opportunities in documenting and monitoring species distributions

Conserving and managing biodiversity in the face of ongoing global change requires sufficient evidence to assess status and trends of species distributions. Here, we propose novel indicators of biodiversity data coverage and sampling effectiveness and analyze national trajectories in closing spatiotemporal knowledge gaps for terrestrial vertebrates (1950 to 2019). Despite a rapid rise in data coverage, particularly in the last 2 decades, strong geographic and taxonomic biases persist. For some taxa and regions, a tremendous growth in records failed to directly translate into newfound knowledge due to a sharp decline in sampling effectiveness. However, we found that a nation’s coverage was stronger for species for which it holds greater stewardship. As countries under the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework renew their commitments to an improved, rigorous biodiversity knowledge base, our findings highlight opportunities for international collaboration to close critical information gaps.

Life in the Canopy: Using Camera-Traps to Inventory Arboreal Rainforest Mammals in Borneo

Arboreal mammals form a diverse group providing ecologically important functions such as predation, pollination and seed dispersal. However, their cryptic and elusive nature, and the heights at which they live, makes studying these species challenging. Consequently, our knowledge of rainforest mammals is heavily biased towards terrestrial species, limiting our understanding of overall community structure and the possible impacts of human-induced disturbance. We undertook the first in-depth appraisal of an arboreal mammal community in Southeast Asia, using camera-traps set in unlogged and logged tropical rainforest in Sabah, Borneo. Using paired canopy and terrestrial camera-traps at 50 locations (25 in unlogged forest, 25 in logged), we assessed the effectiveness of camera-trapping at characterising the arboreal versus terrestrial community, and tested the influence of strata and forest type on community structure and composition. The paired design detected 55 mammal species across 15,817 camera-trap nights (CTNs), and additional canopy sampling in a subset of trees added a further two arboreal species to the inventory. In total, thirty species were detected exclusively by terrestrial camera-traps, eighteen exclusively by canopy camera-traps, and nine by units set at both heights, demonstrating significant differences between arboreal and terrestrial communities. This pattern was strongest in unlogged forest, reflecting greater structural diversity of this habitat, but held in logged forest as well. Species accumulation curves revealed that canopy camera-trapping significantly boosted species inventories compared to terrestrial-only sampling, and was particularly effective at detecting gliding mammals, rodents and primates. Canopy inventories took longer to reach an asymptote, suggesting that a greater sampling effort is required when deploying canopy camera-traps compared to those set on the ground. We demonstrate that arboreal mammals in Borneo’s rainforest form a diverse and distinct community, and can be sampled effectively using canopy camera-traps. However, the additional costs incurred by sampling in the canopy can be substantial. We provide recommendations to maximise sampling effectiveness, while bringing down costs, to help encourage further study into one of the last frontiers of tropical forest research.

The Miocene Red Lake macroflora of the Deadman River Formation (Chilcotin Group), Interior Plateau, British Columbia, Canada

Despite early interest in Neogene floras, primarily Miocene sites associated with Mio–Pliocene volcanic deposits of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia, few systematic accounts of the Miocene macrofloras of British Columbia – or elsewhere in non-Arctic Canada – have been published since the pioneering studies of J.W. Dawson and his contemporaries in the late 19th century. In this report, the Red Lake macroflora from sediments of the middle Miocene Deadman River Formation exposed in the Red Lake diatomite mine north of Kamloops, British Columbia, is illustrated, and a preliminary assessment presented, along with a brief review of Miocene floras from British Columbia and the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The Red Lake macroflora contains rare Ginkgo leaves, shoots of Cupressaceae (Cupressinocladus, Metasequoia, Taxodium) and shoots and seeds of Pinaceae (Pseudotsuga, Tsuga), maple (Acer) seeds and leaves, Liquidambar (fruit), Trochodendraceae (Zizyphoides auriculata leaves, Nordenskioeldia interglacialis fruits), leaves of 4 species of red and white oaks (Quercus columbiana, Q. prelobata, Q. pseudolyrata, Quercus sp.), leaves of an alder (Alnus harneyana) and birch (Betula thor), chestnut (Castanea spokanensis), beech (Fagus pacifica), sycamore (Platanus dissecta), elm (Ulmus speciosa), leaves of unidentified taxa, fruits of Tilia pedunculata (Malvaceae) and fruits and inflorescences of other unidentified taxa, and leaves of a reed or rush (indet. monocot). The Red Lake middle Miocene climate reconstructed from leaf physiognomy was temperate and mesic, with mean annual temperature ~11–13°C, mild winters (coldest month mean temperature ~3°C), mean annual precipitation 170 −51/+73 cm/yr, and growing season precipitation ~92 cm, with moderate seasonality of precipitation (three wettest months ~51 cm vs. three driest months ~25 cm). The Red Lake flora shows similarities to middle to late Miocene floras from the U.S. Pacific Northwest (i.e., richness in oaks) but is of much lower diversity and lacks key elements common to many of the contemporaneous U.S. Miocene floras (e.g., foliage of Pinaceae esp. Pinus), and is missing taxa detected in the microflora, a pattern likely due to sampling effectiveness at the Red Lake Mine and sampling of different lithofacies for macro- and microfloras.

Global and national trends in documenting and monitoring species distributions

Conserving and managing biodiversity in the face of ongoing global change requires sufficient evidence to assess status and trends of species distributions. Here we analyze national trajectories in closing spatiotemporal knowledge gaps for terrestrial vertebrates (1950-2019) based on novel indicators of data coverage and sampling effectiveness. Despite a rapid rise in data coverage, particularly in the last two decades, strong geographic and taxonomic biases persist. For some taxa and regions, a tremendous growth in records failed to directly translate into newfound knowledge due to a sharp decline in sampling effectiveness. But nation’s coverage is stronger for species they hold greater stewardship for. As countries under the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework renew their commitments to an improved, rigorous biodiversity knowledge base, our findings highlight opportunities for international collaboration to close critical information gaps.

Product Sampling as a Sales Promotion Tool

Product sampling in the retail chains relates to marketing, it makes part of the in-store marketing, and it is one of the sale promotion tools. It used to promote the sales of non-durable products, i.e. food. The paper aimed to find out how it is perceived by customers of retail chains (consumers) in Slovakia. An essential aspect of the sampling effectiveness was verified, namely the addressing of potential customers by the promoters. The article focused on ethical practices during the samplings. The subject of interest was to confirm whether promoters keep basic ethical and moral principles. The repeated request for sampling was one of the points. The vital aspect of the sampling ethics was also considered as well as the truthfulness of customer responses to promoter questions about the taste of the product. The sampling ethics was judged from both viewpoints of the sampling participants. The questionnaire survey was carried out to meet the goal, and the sampling participants were addressed. The online questionnaire method was applied, in which 484 respondents were directed. The survey results have shown that customers perceive samplings positively. Sampling has found its application in Slovakia, and it is a relatively accessible tool for promotion of sales (also from the viewpoint of producers). The promoter is the major contributor to the number of participating customers. The main aspects influencing the level of sampling ethics are the age and gender of the customers. It is believed that at any time, it is appropriate to verify the ethics of one of the sales promotion tools – sampling, and at the same time to find out how customers perceive it. The paper contributes to the area of in-store marketing. It brings findings focused on the popularity of the sampling in practice, purchasing habits of the customers, and at the same time, it opens a space for further improvements. Keywords sampling, sampling perception, sampling ethics, customers, promoters.

Does researcher activity affect Dromiciops gliroides capture rates? A test in two contrasting forest habitats

Aiming to understand the low D. gliroides capture rates at the Valdivian Coastal Reserve, we disposed camera-traps at two contrasting forest habitats: a native forest habitat and a transformed habitat composed by a Eucalyptus globulus plantation with native understory vegetation. Camera-trap survey was conducted before and during live-trap operation. We found a large number of photographic records at the pre-bait period (41 photos at the native habitat and 22 at the transformed habitat). Then, when we conducted the live-trapping survey, photographic records decrease to 7 at the native habitat and 5 at the transformed habitat. Compared to similar locations in southern Chile, our study site shows low sampling effectiveness and capture success values, which could be explained by the disturbance generated by the researcher by checking the trap grid in a daily basis in a remote place where human presence is sporadic.

High sampling effectiveness for non-bee pollinators using vane traps in both open and wooded habitats

Non-bee insects are important for pollination, yet few studies have assessed the effectiveness of sampling these taxa using low cost passive techniques, such as coloured vane traps, among different habitat types.This study sampled 192 sites—108 in wooded and 84 in open habitats within an agricultural region of southern Australia. Pairs of blue and yellow vane traps were placed at each site for a period of seven days during the austral spring.Overall, 3114 flies (Diptera) from 19 families and 528 wasps (non-bee and non-formicid Hymenoptera) from 16 families were collected during the study. This sampling was representative of the region, with vane traps equally or more likely to collect as many families from both taxa as those reported on the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) database for the sampling area.Blue vane taps (BVTs) had greater average richness of both flies and wasps and greater abundance of individuals than yellow vane traps (YVTs). BVTs were particularly favoured by certain fly and wasp families known to pollinate flowers (e.g. Syrphidae, Bombyliidae and Scoliidae), whilst YVTs sampled some less common fly families, such as Acroceridae and Bibionidae that also provide additional ecosystem services to pollination.Vane traps are an effective passive sampling technique for non-bee pollinators, such as flies and wasps. This study supports the use of vane traps as a component of the sampling protocol for ecological census and population monitoring within multiple habitat types, to effectively sample a more complete pollinator community.