Conservation education needs more parasites

Formal training in conservation biology education is an important component of the suite of solutions to current environmental problems. As conservation biology textbooks underpin many conservation education programs at both undergraduate and graduate levels, the portrayal of conservation issues and coverage of specific biotic groups plays a potentially important role in guiding the training of the next generation of conservation professionals. Parasites represent the majority of species diversity on earth, play critical roles in ecology and evolution, and are often at higher risk of decline and extinction than their free-living counterparts. Yet parasites continue to receive scant attention from conservation scientists and educators. We searched the index of 77 English language conservation biology textbooks for parasite or pathogen related content, published between 1970 and 2009. When present, we categorized a textbook’s parasite content as positive, neutral or negative with respect to the author’s portrayal of parasite biodiversity. The vast majority (72%) of conservation textbooks either portray parasites uniquely as threats to conservation goals established for free-living species or do not mention parasites at all. While no single textbook can be expected to provide extensive treatment of conservation-related topics across all biological groups, we outline three reasons why parasites should feature more prominently in formal conservation education, and suggest several ways in which greater incorporation of these parasite topics could strengthen the teaching and practice of conservation biology.     

HPC-EPIC for high resolution simulations of environmental and sustainability assessment

Multiple concerns over the impact of wide scale changes in land management have motivated comprehensive analyses of environmental sustainability of food and biofuel production. These call for high-resolution land management tools that enable comprehensive analyses of natural resources for decision-making. The agroecosystem simulation models with the most biophysical detail are point models, which often have a user interface that allows users to provide inputs and examine results for agricultural field scale analyses. These are not able to meet the needs of high-resolution regional or national simulations. We describe an efficient computational approach for deployment of the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model at high-resolution spatial scales using high performance computing (HPC) techniques. We developed an integrated procedure for executing the millions of simulations required for high-resolution, regional studies, and also address building databases for model initialization, model forcing data, and model outputs. We first ported EPIC from Windows to an HPC platform and validated output from both platforms. We then developed methods of packaging simulations for efficient, unattended parallel execution on the HPC cluster. The job queuing system, Portable Batch System (PBS) is employed to control job submission. Simulation outputs are extracted to PostgreSQL database for analysis. In a case study covering four counties in central Wisconsin using HPC-EPIC, we finished over 140 K simulations in a total of 10 h on an HPC cluster using 20 nodes. This is a speedup of 40 times. More nodes could be used to achieve larger speedups. The HPC-EPIC model developed in this study is anticipated to provide information useful for high-resolution land use management and decision making. The framework for high-performance computing can be extended to other traditional, point-based biophysical simulation models.     

Wetting properties of dried-out nursery container media

Container mixes consisting of Pinus radiata bark and brown coal or clay loam soil have poor wetting properties when they are dry, because of the shrinkage of all three and the hydrophobic nature of dry pinebark. The wettability of coarse sand, which is independent of its dryness, is quantitatively transferred to container mixes in proportion to the amount used.