The Un-Common Leopard: presence, distribution and abundance in Gallies and Murree Forest Division, Northern Pakistan

The leopard Panthera pardus is thought to be sparsely distributed across Pakistan and there is limited understanding of the demographic structure and distribution of the species in this country. We conducted a study, from April to July 2017, and, from March to June 2018, in the northern Pakistan region to establish the presence and distribution of leopards, mindful at the outset of their abundance in that region. The presence of leopards was confirmed in the Swat, Dir and Margalla Hills region. The leopard population in Gallies and Murree Forest Division was preliminarily assessed via camera-trapping. As a result, a total of 63 potential areas of leopard population were identified initially. The leopard was photo captured at 27 locations (hotspots) with 34 capture events yielding 195 images over the course of 3,022 active trap-nights. Camera trap images were examined to identify leopard individuals using their rosette patterns on both the left and right flanks and the dorsal side of the tail. Ultimately, 15 leopard individuals were identified during the first survey period of the study and four individuals were recaptured in the second survey period, together with three new individuals. The detection probability of individual leopards from MARK varied from 0.10 and 0.20 with a population size (preliminarily estimated to be 16–25 (SE = 3.18) in 2107 and 7–13 (SE = 1.87) in 2018. This gave a density of 4.5 to 9.5 leopards/100 km2, respectively. A home range of various individual leopards was found to extend from the Gallies Reserved Forest to the extended corridors of Guzara Forest. In general, this study suggests that the Guzara Forest is crucially important for the conservation of leopards in the region as this area allows them extended movement while searching for food and mates.

Prediction of Short-Distance Aerial Movement of Phakopsora pachyrhizi Urediniospores Using Machine Learning

Dispersal of urediniospores by wind is the primary means of spread for Phakopsora pachyrhizi, the cause of soybean rust. Our research focused on the short-distance movement of urediniospores from within the soybean canopy and up to 61 m from field-grown rust-infected soybean plants. Environmental variables were used to develop and compare models including the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression, zero-inflated Poisson/regular Poisson regression, random forest, and neural network to describe deposition of urediniospores collected in passive and active traps. All four models identified distance of trap from source, humidity, temperature, wind direction, and wind speed as the five most important variables influencing short-distance movement of urediniospores. The random forest model provided the best predictions, explaining 76.1 and 86.8% of the total variation in the passive- and active-trap datasets, respectively. The prediction accuracy based on the correlation coefficient (r) between predicted values and the true values were 0.83 (P < 0.0001) and 0.94 (P < 0.0001) for the passive and active trap datasets, respectively. Overall, multiple machine learning techniques identified the most important variables to make the most accurate predictions of movement of P. pachyrhizi urediniospores short-distance.

Controlled droplet discretization and manipulation using membrane displacement traps

Active trap arrays allow on-demand droplet formation, ejection, metering, capture, and merging using a simple membrane-actuated design.

Terrestrial Small Mammal Communities from Hârtibaciu Plateau (Romania)/Comunităţi de mamifere mici terestre din Podişul Hârtibaciu (România)

Small mammal communities were studied by live trapping during August-September 2010 and June-September 2011 in three localities from Hârtibaciu Plateau, in southern Transylvania. The area is situated between 420 and 550 m a.s.l., and represents a mosaic of small patches of different land use. 200 traps were set in lines for three consecutive nights, in 80 different habitats representing 12 habitat types, both cultivated and semi-natural. 1235 small mammals belonging to 15 species (four soricomorphs and 11 rodents) were captured. Abundance of small mammals was expressed by means of capture index (number of individuals caught per 100 active trap-nights). The community structure was strongly shaped by habitat type, even in case of small land patches. Microtus arvalis prevailed in the investigated area, being the dominant species in open fields with high grassy vegetation. The density of this species increased strongly from the beginning of summer to autumn, when the traps were occasionally saturated with field voles.