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    New machine learning-based automatic high-throughput video tracking system for assessing water toxicity using Daphnia Magna locomotory responses

    Test organisms and exposuresIn this study, we used test organisms and reagents according to the Acute Toxicity Test Method of Daphnia magna Straus(Cladocera, Crustacea); ES 04704.1b29. Daphnia magna were fostered at the National Institute of Environmental Research and were adopted. During the test, adult female Daphnia magna over two weeks of age, cultured over several generations, were transferred to a freshly prepared container the day before the test. Daphnia magna are neonates for less than 24 h after birth29. To maintain the sensitivity of the organism, young individuals less than 24 h old that reproduced the following day were used. Individuals of a similar size were selected for the test. Daphnia magna was fed YCT, which is a mixture of green algae in Chlorella sp., yeast, Cerophy II(R), and trout chow. Sufficient amounts of prey were supplied 2 h before the test to minimize the effects of prey during the test. The test medium was prepared by dissolving KCl (8 mg/L), (text {MgSO}_4) (120 mg/L), (text {CaSO}_4 cdot 2 text {H}_2 text {O} ) (120 mg/L), and (text {NaHCO}_3) (192 mg/L) in deionized water.Automatic high-throughput Daphnia magna tracking systemTo build an automatic high-throughput Daphnia magna tracking system, we equipped the system with a video analysis algorithm as well as flow cells (Fig. 1). In the tracking system, six flow cells filled with culture medium were installed in the device. Each flow cell contained 10 Daphnia magna. Subsequently, to automatically measure the state of Daphnia magna, the six flow cells were photographed at 15 frames per second using a camera (Industrial Development Systems imaging) equipped with a CMOSIS sensor capable of infrared imaging. A red light close to the infrared spectrum was placed at the back of the flow cells for uniform illumination and to minimize stress on Daphnia magna. To capture the size and movement of the Daphnia magna as accurately as possible, the camera was set to a frame rate of 15 fps and a resolution of 2048 (times ) 1088 (2.23 MB), using a 12 mm lens. The distance between the flow cell and the camera was set to 16 cm. To measure the number of mobile Daphnia magna, their lethality, and swimming inhibition automatically and simultaneously, one camera for every two cells was used to collect the status data of Daphnia magna. For assessing ecotoxicity, the video analysis system used images obtained from the six flow cells to track each Daphnia magna and estimate key statistics such as the number of mobile individuals, average distance, and radius of activity.Figure 1New automatic high-throughput video tracking system for behavioral analysis using Daphnia magna as a model organismFull size imageThe automatic high-throughput video tracking system in the ecotoxicity measuring device was designed to continuously measure the ecotoxicity of Daphnia magna (Fig. 2). Daphnia magna moves faster at high temperatures and is less active at low temperatures. Thus, a constant temperature module that can be set to an appropriate Daphnia magna habitat temperature (20 ± 2 (^{circ })C) was added to create a suitable culture environment for Daphnia magna29. Natural pseudo-light ((lambda >590) nm, 3000 k) was installed on the upper part of the detector for proper habitat light intensity (500 Lux–1000 Lux). The size of the flow cell was set as small as possible while observing the movement of the Daphnia magna. An automatic feeding system was installed so that food could be injected during the replacement cycle. The six independent multi-flow cells were designed with an automatic dilution injection module; therefore, these flow cells were diluted to six different concentrations (100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, 6.25%, and 0%).Figure 2Schematic representation of the automatic high-throughput video tracking systemFull size imageAutomatic tracking algorithmThe CPU used for Daphnia magna tracking was Intel i5-9300H @ 2.40 GHz, with 8 GB of memory and Windows 10 Pro 64-bit operating system. In this experiment, the algorithms were trained using 12 Daphnia magna videos and tested using an additional four Daphnia magna videos. Subsequently, the detection and tracking methods were compared. The videos, each of which had a duration of 30 s, were captured at a rate of 15 frames per second. Generally, for long-time or real-time videos, the following factors must be considered in tracking Daphnia magna: automatic binarization between the object and background, effective classification of Daphnia magna or noise, and the speed of the algorithm. Therefore, to develop an efficient tracking algorithm, we propose the following tracking process (Fig. 3A). In this process, each frame is initially converted into an image and the background is identified from the obtained video (Fig. 3B). The background is the average of the frames over the previous 20 s, and the tracking system takes 20 s to capture the first background image. The background is subtracted from the image for object detection (Fig. 3C). The objects include Daphnia magna and noise such as droplets and sediment. The difference between the background and frame images is binarized, and each area of the binarized values is regarded as an object. Conventionally, the binarized values are manually generated using specific thresholds. In this study, the images are automatically binarized using k-means clustering to select the threshold value. After binarization, several machine learning methods are used to classify the objects as Daphnia magna or noise (Fig. 3D). For a faster tracking algorithm, we use simple machine learning methods such as random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM). The predicted Daphnia magna are tracked using SORT24, which is a fast and highly accurate tracking algorithm (Fig. 3E). Finally, based on the tracked results, statistics for assessing ecotoxicity, such as the number of mobile individuals, average distance, and radius of activity, are estimated to evaluate the toxicity of the aquatic environment.Figure 3Automatic Daphnia magna tracking algorithm process. (A) Overview of automatic tracking algorithm process. (B) Image extraction step. (C) Background subtraction step. (D) Daphnia magna detection step. (E) Daphnia magna tracking step.Full size imagek-means clustering for automatic background subtractionMany tracking algorithms assume that the background is fixed. With fixed backgrounds, the difference between the frame and background can be used to identify objects. However, automatically selecting the precise threshold value for image pixel binarization becomes one of the key problems in identifying objects. The proposed method applies k-means clustering to the pixel values of the subtracted image30, and the center value of each calculated cluster mean is selected as the threshold value (Fig. 4). In the k-means clustering method, grouping is repeatedly performed using the distance between data points31. For binarization, two groups are formed. Let (mu _1 (t)) be the mean of pixels less than the threshold and (mu _2(t)) be the mean of pixels greater than the threshold. At first, (mu _1(t), mu _2(t)) are randomly initialized. Subsequently, each pixel is grouped into a closer mean of each group. The above steps are repeated several times until the group experiences a few changes. Finally, the threshold is calculated as an average of the two means.Figure 4Example of automatic threshold value setting for binarization between objects and background using k-means clusteringFull size imageClassification methodsObject detection based solely on the subtraction between the background and frame images may have low accuracy. As the background in the proposed process is the average value of the frame images, noise may occur. Although this noise is removed by threshold selection in binarization, using only the threshold selection is not efficient for long or real-time videos. Therefore, additional noise must be classified and removed using machine learning models, requiring the construction of a database. In the database, the obtained objects are manually labeled as noise or Daphnia magna and are called ground truth. For classification, the resized 8 (times ) 8 image of each object is stored in the database. The resized image is transformed into a feature using the Sobel edge detection algorithm32 and entered as inputs to the classification models. In this study, classification models such as RF33 SVM34 were used.RF is a model that integrates several decision tree models35. All training data are sampled with a replacement for training each decision tree model. The decision tree model is trained to split intervals of each independent variable by minimizing the gini index (Eq. 1) or entropy index (Eq. 2). The gini index and entropy index denote the impurity within the intervals.$$begin{aligned} G= & {} 1- sum _{i=1}^{c} p_i ^2 end{aligned}$$
    (1)
    $$begin{aligned} E= & {} – sum _{i=1}^{c} p_i log_2 p_i end{aligned}$$
    (2)
    where (p_i) is a probability within i-th interval, and c is the number of intervals. For better performance, the RF selects independent variables of training data randomly. This step serves to reduce the correlation of each model. If predictions of each decision tree are uncorrelated, then the variance of an integrated prediction of models is smaller than the variance of each model. RF integrates several model predictions using the voting method. An advantage of the RF method is that it avoids overfitting because the model uses the average of many predictions.SVM is a model designed to search for a hyperplane to maximize the distance, or margin, between support vectors. The hyperplane refers to the plane that divides two different groups, and the support vector represents the closest vector to the hyperplane. Let (D=({textbf{x}}_i, y_i), i=1, ldots , n, {textbf{x}}_i in {mathbb {R}}^p, y_n in { -1,1 }) be training data. Suppose that the training data are completely separated linearly by a hyperplane; then, the hyperplane is expressed as Eq. 3.$$begin{aligned} {textbf{w}}^T {textbf{x}} + b = 0, end{aligned}$$
    (3)
    where ({textbf{w}}) is a weight vector of the hyperplane, and b is a bias. The weight vector is updated by minimizing Eq. 4.$$begin{aligned} L = {1 over 2} {textbf{w}}^T {textbf{w}} text { subject to } y_i ({textbf{w}}^T {textbf{x}} + b) ge 1 end{aligned}$$
    (4)
    We can transform Eqs. 4 to  5 by using the Lagrange multiplier method.$$begin{aligned} L^* = {1 over 2} {textbf{w}}^T {textbf{w}} – sum _{i=1}^n a_i { y_i ({textbf{w}}^T x_i + {-}) – 1 }, end{aligned}$$
    (5)
    where (a_i) is the Lagrange multiplier. We can efficiently solve Eq. 5 using a dual form. Furthermore, Eq. 5 can be solved in a case where it is not completely separated using a slack variable and a kernel trick can be used to estimate the nonlinear hyperplane.SORT trackerSORT, one of the frameworks for solving the multiple object tracking (MOT) problem, aims to achieve efficient real-time tracking24. The SORT method framework is created by combining the estimation step and the association step. The estimation step forecasts the next position of each predicted Daphnia magna. The association step matches the forecasting position and next true position of each predicted Daphnia magna. In the estimation step, the SORT framework uses the Kalman filter to forecast the position of the predicted Daphnia magna in the next frame. The position of each predicted Daphnia magna is expressed as Eq. 6.$$begin{aligned} {textbf{x}} = [u,v,s,r,{dot{u}}, {dot{v}}, {dot{s}}]^T end{aligned}$$
    (6)
    where u and v are the center positions of each predicted Daphnia magna, s is the scale size of the bounding box, and r is the aspect ratio of the bounding box. ({dot{u}}), ({dot{v}}), and ({dot{s}}) are the amounts of change in each variable. In the association step, to associate the forecasting position and true position, the framework adopts the intersection-over-union (IOU)36 as the association metric. The Hungarian algorithm is loaded into the SORT framework to perform fast and efficient Daphnia magna association prediction. In this study, a mixed metric of IOU36 and Euclidean distance37 was used instead of only the IOU that is used in SORT (Eq. 7) for more efficient association.$$begin{aligned} C_{ij} = (1-lambda ) {max_d – d_{ij} over max_d} + lambda cdot IOU_{ij} end{aligned}$$
    (7)
    where (d_{ij}) is the Euclidean distance between the i-th predicted Daphnia magna in the before frame and the j-th predicted Daphnia magna in the next frame, and (lambda ) is the weight of (IOU_{ij}). (IOU_{ij}) is the IOU between the i-th predicted Daphnia magna in the before-frame and the j-th predicted Daphnia magna in the next frame.MetricsThe binary confusion matrix consists of true positive (TP), true negative (TN), false positive (FP), and false negative (FN)38. TP is the number of cases where the predicted Daphnia magna matches the actual Daphnia magna, TN is the number of cases where the objects predicted as noise are actual noise, FP is the number of cases where the predicted Daphnia magna differs from the actual Daphnia magna, and FN is the number of cases where the objects predicted as noise are not actual noise. In this study, accuracy, recall, precision, and F1 scores (Eq. 8) were used as the metrics for comparing the machine learning methods.$$begin{aligned} begin{aligned} Accuracy&= {TP + FP over TP + TN + FP + FN} \ Recall&= {TP over TP + TN} \ Precision&= {TP over TP + FP} \ F1 score&= 2 times {Precision times Recall over Precision + Recall} end{aligned} end{aligned}$$
    (8)
    Standard MOT metrics to evaluate tracking performance include multi-object tracking accuracy (MOTA) and multi-object tracking precision (MOTP). An important task of MOT is to identify and track the same object across two frames. Identification (ID) precision (IDP), ID recall (IDR), ID F1 measure (IDF1), and ID switches (IDs) may be used as measures for evaluating the identification and tracking of the same objects39,40.Data analysisThe toxicity test using Daphnia magna was performed following the Korean official Acute Toxicity Test Method29. The test medium was prepared by dissolving KCl (8 mg/L), (text {MgSO}_4) (120 mg/L), (text {CaSO}_4 cdot 2 text {H}_2 text {O} ) (120 mg/L), and (text {NaHCO}_3) (192 mg/L) in deionized water. Considering that Daphnia magna are neonates for less than 24 h after birth29, five neonates were exposed to 50 mL of different concentrations of heavy metals such as Potassium dichromate, Copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate, and Lead(II) sulfate (6.25, 12.5, 25, 50, and 100%) and 50 mL of culture media. Potassium dichromate is a common inorganic reagent used as an oxidizing agent in chemical industries. Copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate is a trace material widely used in industrial processes and agriculture. A significant amount of copper is emitted in semiconductor manufacturing processes, which adversely impacts the aquatic ecosystem. When present as an ion in water, copper can be acutely toxic to aquatic organisms such as Daphnia magna. Lead(II) sulfate is another nonessential and nonbiodegradable heavy metal. It is highly toxic to numerous organisms even at low concentrations and can accumulate in aquatic ecosystems41. Twenty Daphnia magna (four replicates of five each) were exposed to each test solution for 24 h. The term “immobility” means that the Daphnia magna remains stationary after exposure to chemicals such as Potassium dichromate, Copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate, and Lead(II) sulfate. In this study, immobility was used as an endpoint identifier, and the number of mobile Daphnia magna were counted to evaluate the EC50 values for the samples using the ToxCalc 5.0 program (Tidepoll Software, USA).The locomotory responses of Daphnia magna were tested after 0, 12, 18, and 24 h of exposure at different concentrations. Potassium dichromate ((text {K}_2text {Cr}_2text {O}_7)) at 2 mg/L was connected to the Daphnia magna tracking system, and standard toxic substances were automatically diluted to 100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, and 6.25%. The automatic high-throughput Daphnia magna tracking system automatically measured the tracking results of a 1-minute-long video at hourly intervals. The average moving distance for 20 s of each Daphnia magna in each chamber was analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA (RMANOVA). RMANOVA was used for the analysis of data obtained by repeatedly measuring the same Daphnia magna42. It analyzes the concentration effect excluding the time effect at each hour. The time effect means the change in average distance per 20 s. RMANOVA was implemented using the agricolae package of the R 4.0.4 program43. To remove the noise affecting RMANOVA, the Daphnia magna that remained stationary for 20 s or more were removed from the observations. In this study, we used the significance level at 5%. More

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    Rescuing Botany: using citizen-science and mobile apps in the classroom and beyond

    Global biodiversity has been dramatically declining over the last decades1,2,3,4. The current biodiversity crisis is primarily driven by human-induced factors, the most serious of which are land-use change, habitat fragmentation, and climate change5. While global public awareness of climate change matters is high6,7, public recognition of biodiversity loss has, historically, been low8. The understanding of biodiversity concepts highly varies among countries and social groups9,10,11: in Nigeria, the biodiversity concept was known of 20.5% of non-professional Nigerians (with basic education or no formal training) while among 88.8% of professionals with tertiary education, it reached 88.8%; 60% of participants in a study in Switzerland had never heard the term biodiversity and Chinese farmers in another pilot study have never heard about biodiversity. In the European Union, the global leader of the environmental movement on both the political and discursive levels12,13, in 2018, 71% of EU citizens had heard of biodiversity, but only around 41% of these knew what biodiversity meant14. This illiteracy is a significant constraint for conservation strategies because the development and success of actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss strongly rely on public support15.If general awareness of biodiversity loss is low, knowledge about plant diversity is even lower16. Plants have traditionally been overlooked, and expressions such as “plant blindness”, defined as a human tendency to ignore plant species17, perfectly illustrate the situation in terms of plant conservation. And yet, current estimates suggest that two out of five plant species are threatened with extinction18. Moreover, plants play a crucial role in the world ecosystems by providing habitat, shelter, oxygen, and food, including for humans19. Local community support boosts the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation actions20,21,22. However, how biodiversity is perceived and the benefits it provides to local populations have a significant influence on this support23. Therefore, stopping the loss of plant biodiversity and the impact it has on ecosystem health and human well-being must also strive to raise public awareness on the importance of plant conservation24.A big challenge, however, is to engage people with conservation. Nowadays, in a world where a large part of the human population lives in urban areas, the contact of people with nature is declining. This is a trend that will be even more accentuated in the future25. Perhaps society’s interest in plants is decreasing because of limited exposure to plants in daily lives, schools, and work. However, by critically examining our roles as plant scientists and educators, we realize that there are probably things we could, and should, do differently. New strategies to connect people to nature are required to spark people’s interest in and knowledge of plants. Citizen science programs and mobile applications (apps) are noteworthy initiatives that are helping to achieve this goal.Citizen science is defined as the general public involvement in scientific research activities and currently is a mainstream approach to collect information and data on a wide range of scientific subjects26,27. The development of mobile technologies and the widespread use of smartphones have boosted citizen science and enabled the development of mobile apps, which are digital tools that integrate, in real-time, data from multiple sources28.The goal of this article is to show how citizen science and mobile apps can be used as educational tools to raise awareness about plant biodiversity and conservation among the general public. We focused on formal education activities, at the Bachelor of Science (BSc) level, that were designed to collect data on various aspects of plant community and functional ecology. We also present the outcomes of two informal education initiatives that used citizen science to gather data on the distribution of plant diversity. We discuss these activities and results in light of their potential to engage the public into biodiversity conservation, and as educational and outreach tools.Formal education: UniversityDuring the COVID-19 pandemic (2021), Ecology practical classes of the Bologna Bachelor Degree in Biology (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon) had to be adapted to remote learning. Fortunately, during the States of Emergency imposed by the Portuguese Government, citizens were allowed to take brief walks. Taking advantage of citizen’s ability to briefly travel outdoors, we created three activities for students, as alternatives to those typically carried out in the classroom/campus, which we describe below.Activity 1—Analysis of the impact of disturbance on plant diversity in grasslandsThe objective of this activity was for students to explore the impact of disturbance and site attributes (such as soil type) on the diversity of the herbaceous plant community and its associated pollinators. This was undertaken in grasslands located near their homes, within walking distance (due to COVID lockdown movement restrictions). To achieve this goal, we developed a comprehensive sampling protocol that included methods for (i) selecting and characterizing sampling sites based on the level of human perturbation, (ii) soil characterization, (iii) sampling, identifying, and registering plants using the iNaturalist/Biodiversity4All platform and Flora-on web (Box 1), and (iv) pollinator sampling (Supplementary Data 1). To ensure accurate plant and pollinators identification, all observations were verified by professors responsible for each topic.First, each student chose one sampling site and teachers, using photographs, classified all sites regarding their perturbation level (low, medium, and high). Then, using the sampling protocol, students were invited to study different aspects of their sampling site, in loco or at their homes. Soil samples were analysed using simple methods and available household instruments (such as plastic cups, kitchen scale, and oven). Students were introduced to soil biodiversity as well as soil parameters (humidity, texture, structure, infiltration and draining) during the remote classes. Plants were sampled using a home-made 1 m2 quadrat. All species within were counted and identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible, using the mentioned apps and website. Before plant sampling, students were also asked to count and identify pollinators within their quadrats (broad taxonomic groups, bees, butterflies, flies, beetles) for 5 min, again using the apps to aid identification.Following field sampling, students were asked to calculate two taxonomic indices of plant communities. These included species richness, which measures the number of different species that occur in a sample, and the Simpson Diversity Index, which evaluates the probability that two individuals randomly selected from a sample will belong to the same species. Students also calculated functional diversity indices such as Functional Richness and Functional Dissimilarity, since functional diversity explores functional differences between species and how these differences reflect and affect the interactions with the environment and with other species29. Then, students assessed the relation between these indices and perturbation level. They analysed several functional traits of plants that are likely to respond to local perturbation (e.g., height, leaf size). Finally, they attempted to relate plant indices with the occurrence of pollinators.Overall, students sampled 147 grasslands that were affected by low (n = 17); medium (n = 86) and high (n = 40) levels of perturbation, scattered across mainland Portugal (Fig. 1a). In total, 3015 observations corresponding to 543 species of plant and 88 of insects (Fig. 1b) were registered in the iNaturalist/Biodiversity4All project Ecologia2_FCUL, created specifically to record all of the diversity data associated with this activity. Other registered taxa included six species of molluscs and 13 of arachnids, and other occasional soil macrofauna.Fig. 1: Analysis of the impact of disturbance on plant diversity in grasslands.a Location of grasslands sampled; b Banner and overview of main results of the project created in the platform iNaturalist/Biodiversity4All to register the sampled species; c Boxplots include data of the taxonomic diversity indices (plant species richness and Simpson Diversity Index) of sampled grasslands at three different perturbation levels: low, medium and high. Central lines represent median values, box limits indicate the upper and lower quartiles, whiskers correspond to 1.5 × the interquartile range above and below the upper and lower quartiles and points are the outliers. Boxplots with different letters indicate statistically significant differences among perturbation levels based on multiple pairwise comparisons.Full size imageThe results showed that the number of species (richness) decreased consistently with the level of perturbation. Simpson Diversity Index values increased, indicating low diversity values in highly perturbed herbaceous plant communities (Fig. 1c). Results revealed a trend towards an increase in the proportion of species with lower stature as perturbation increased. However, with no clear relationship with either biodiversity or perturbation. Finally, results indicated no clear relation of pollinator abundance or richness with plant richness and diversity, although field records relate a lower number of pollinators as wind intensity increased. In fact, pollinator sampling is extremely weather sensitive, which may have contributed to the lack of consistent relationships between pollinator diversity and perturbation.Box 1 Citizen science platforms and apps used for formal and informal educational activitiesiNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/home): is a social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists that is based on mapping and sharing biodiversity observations. They describe themselves as “an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information in order to help each other learn about nature”. iNaturalist may be accessed via website or mobile app. Records are validated by the iNaturalist community. Observations reached approximately 110 million as of July 2022. This app allows the development of both open-access and registration-restricted projects. BioDiversity4All (https://www.biodiversity4all.org/) is a Portuguese biodiversity citizen science platform created by the Biodiversity for All Association. This platform was founded in 2010 and is currently linked to the “iNaturalist” network43. All the projects presented in this article were developed on the Biodiversity4All platform.Flora-on (https://flora-on.pt/): this portal contains occurrence data of vascular plants from the Portuguese flora collected by project collaborators (over 575,000 records as of July 2022). Flora-on was created by the Botanical Society of Portugal (SPBotânica), a Portuguese association devoted to the promotion and study of botany in Portugal. Botanists and naturalists provide most of the data, but occasional contributors are welcomed. Records are supervised by the portal editors, ensuring the dataset’s quality level. The portal includes stunning images of leaves, flowers, fruits, and other plant parts for 2299 of the 3300 taxa occurring in Portugal44. Additionally, the portal includes a powerful search engine that allows geographical, morphological, and taxonomical searches.LeafBite (https://zoegp.science/leafbyte): is a free, open-source iPhone app that measures total leaf area as well as consumed leaf area when herbivory is present45.Leaf-IT is a free and simple Android app created for scientific purposes. It was designed to measure leaf area under challenging field conditions. It has simple features for area calculation and data output, and can be used for ecological research and education46.Activity 2—Leaf trait assessment of shrub and tree speciesStudents were asked to assess three leaf traits Specific leaf area (SLA), Specific leaf mass (LMA), and Leaf Water Content (LWC) of two or three shrub or tree species. Each species should ideally fall into one of three functional groups known for their water adaptations, namely Hydrophytes, Mesophytes and Xerophytes. Students were challenged to choose charismatic Mediterranean species that grew nearby, such as Olea europaea, Nerium oleander or Phillyrea angustifolia. Alternatively, they could take the “Quercus challenge”, which involved ranking the Portuguese oak species based on their drought tolerance. A detailed protocol was developed to assist students for this purpose (Supplementary Data 2). In this protocol was demonstrated how to calculate the leaf area using the LeafBite and Leaf-IT apps (Box 1).The students calculated the SLA, LMA, and LWC of a total of 104 species (Supplementary Data 3) belonging to the main functional groups under study. Regarding the “Quercus challenge”, they were able to classify the six most representative oak species in Portugal and confirm the relationship among these indices and their tolerance to drought (Fig. 2).Fig. 2: Leaf trait assessment of shrub and tree species: Quercus challenge.Classification of Portuguese oak species regarding their drought tolerance (higher tolerance, left-up, lower tolerance right-down).Full size imageOne of the students, accomplished to present his own learning experience related to these activities at the XXIII Conference of the Environmental Research Network of Portuguese-speaking Nations – REALP, under the title “Plant Ecology during Confinement – A Digital Approach”.Activity 3—Evaluating the impact on the biodiversity of lawn management at the University of Lisbon campusAlthough, after the lockdown, practical classes returned to the laboratories and the field in 2021/22, we continued to use the iNaturalist/Biodiversity4All platform and the Flora-on website for biodiversity registering and identification, because of the success of the activities, as evidenced by the positive comments we received from students.The goal of this activity was to study the impact of lawn management on plant diversity and pollination on the University of Lisbon campus. To accomplish this, the students described the herbaceous communities and pollinators on four lawns (named C8, RL, RR, and TT) that had different management practices (mowing and irrigation). A comprehensive document with sampling guidelines was developed (Supplementary Data 4).The project Ecologia 2 Relvados 2022 registered 100 plant and 17 pollinator species (Fig. 3a). Given that the sampling took place during a cold and rainy week, which limited pollinator activity, the low number of pollinators registered was expectable (Lawson and Rands 2019). Following these analyses, the TT lawn (Fig. 3b), which had low levels of mowing and no watering, showed a significantly higher value of diversity, indicating it had the best management strategy for these systems (Fig. 3c), if the goal is to increase biodiversity.Fig. 3: Evaluating the impact on the biodiversity of lawn management at the University of Lisbon campus.a Banner and overview of main results of the project Ecologia 2 Relvados created in the platform iNaturalist/BioDiversity4All to register the sampled species; b Location of the lawns sampled in the Campus of the University of Lisbon; c Boxplots include data of the taxonomic diversity indices (plant species richness and Simpson Diversity Index) of sampled grasslands. Central lines represent median values, box limits indicate the upper and lower quartiles, whiskers correspond to 1.5 × the interquartile range above and below the upper and lower quartiles and points are the outliers. Boxplots with different letters indicate statistically significant differences among lawns based on multiple pairwise comparisons.Full size imageInformal education: BioBlitzesIntense biological surveys known as “BioBlitz” are carried out to record all organisms found in certain locations, such as cities, protected areas, or even entire countries. They are being used all over the world to collect and share georeferenced biodiversity data30. We developed two Plant Bioblitzes based on the BioDiversity4All/iNaturalist and Flora-on platforms. Social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, were used to promote these events and engage citizens (Fig. 4). The BioBlitzes were developed by SPBotânica in collaboration with BioDiversity4All.Fig. 4: Bioblitz I & II – Flora of Portugal.Posters created for the promotion of the two Flora of Portugal Bioblitzes.Full size imageBioblitz I & II – Flora of PortugalThe celebration of Fascination of Plants Day (18th of May) served as the backdrop for the organization of two-weekend Bioblitzes: Bioblitz Flora of Portugal I and Bioblitz Flora of Portugal II.In 2021, the Bioblitz was solely focused on project members, which meant that only those who had voluntarily joined the initiative could participate. In total, the 119 project members registered 4234 observations of 890 plant species. In contrast, the 2022 Bioblitz was an open project (no registration required). In total, the 323 observers made 6547 records of 1198 species. To evaluate the impact of the Bioblitz events, we compared the data registered in BioDiverstiy4All during the weekends of both events (2021 and 2022) with (i) the data registered in the platform during the equivalent weekends of 2019 and 2020 and (ii) also during the weekends before both Bioblitzes. The number of species, observations, and observers increased significantly from 2019 to 2020, 2021, and 2022, but, when comparing values from 2020 with 2021 and 2022, this rise was only verified during the Bioblitz weekends, proving the importance of Bioblitzes in this increase (Fig. 5).Fig. 5: Number of observations, species and observers registered on the BioDiversity4All/iNaturalist platform over equivalent weekends in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.Numbers for 2021 and 2022 correspond to the weekends in which Bioblitzes I & II – Flora of Portugal were conducted, as well as previous ones.Full size image More

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    Individual personality predicts social network assemblages in a colonial bird

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    Combining socioeconomic and biophysical data to identify people-centric restoration opportunities

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    Untitled public forestlands threat Amazon conservation

    There is a recent change in the modus operandi of Brazilian Amazon deforestation. The proportion of illegal deforestation in public land increased from ~43–44% (2015–2018) to ~49–52% (2019–2021)10. Land grabbers occupy public lands (deforesting or raising cattle) in a high-risk expectation of receiving title to the land and/or trading the land with significant returns (land speculation)6,7. Therefore, we argue that it is crucial to rapidly assign most of the Amazon’s UPFs to land tenure regimes associated with conservation. Land-tenure security will bring greater governance and protection to these areas. Achieving this goal requires a combination of three measures: (1) careful attention to the choice of land tenure categories for UPFs, (2) technological improvements, and (3) law enforcement.Choice of land tenure category for UPFsPublic lands in Brazil include several categories, such as conservation areas (with several subcategories under law number 9985/2000), Indigenous lands, and rural settlements, among others. Therefore, the category choice for each undesignated public land area requires studies to determine those lands’ social, environmental, or productive suitability, taking note of their histories of occupation, cultural importance, and potential uses. The unpopulated forest is a myth. Most of the areas in the Amazon have been occupied by human populations—traditional communities, indigenous villages, uncontacted tribes, “riverside” (ribeirinho) peoples, or small farmers—for generations. Ancestral occupation of land without proof or associated studies, however, does not guarantee land rights. Therefore, to avoid unfair competition for land and unilateral political decisions, the best choice of land category for a given UPF to meet social, ecological and economic demands would benefit from active social participation, multidisciplinary scientific studies, in situ observations, and innovative technologies (e.g., remote sensing, data processing capabilities, machine learning, cloud computing) to provide fast, scalable, and quality information.Final allocation decisions, however, must be preceded by participatory and transparent consultation processes to avoid conflicts and safeguard land rights. The measure of assigning tenure categories to the UPFs has a high level of complexity in itself and may benefit from the support of multi-actors (e.g., governments, academia, civil society, private sector) at multi-levels (e.g., studies, participation processes, decision-making processes) and multi-scales (local, regional and national). Despite the complexity, there are examples in the early 2000s of joint efforts to allocate land (“Terra Legal” Program) and create protected areas on a large scale and in a short period of time in the Brazilian Amazon. We emphasize, however, that the tenure categories selected for the UPFs need to maintain forest cover, remain in the public domain in compliance with national laws, and enhance long-term Amazon conservation, respecting the rights of resident populations.Technological improvements to control land grabbing in UPFLasting conservation of the Amazon rainforest depends on ending land-grabbing and illegal deforestation in public forests (designated or undesignated). However, land grabbers are using a self-declaratory tool to declare illegally invaded public lands as private properties, which demands immediate technological improvements to the system.The Rural Environmental Registry (CAR is the Portuguese acronym) is a mechanism of environmental oversight of private lands under the Brazilian Forest Code (Law 12,651/2012). CARs are registered on a web-based platform (Rural Environmental Registry System – SICAR). By law, landowners must self-declare their property boundaries and land use types (e.g., residential, agricultural, protection) in SICAR, respecting legally required protection of certain forest areas and watercourses. Then, a state environmental agency must validate the information. Unfortunately, the validation process has been extremely slow (e.g., More