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Abstract
Over 91% of the Paraguayan Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest has been cleared and the Gran Chaco is the fastest disappearing habitat on the continent. One of the compounding issues for conservation in Paraguay is the lack of knowledge of the importance of nature amongst the population. Fundación Para La Tierra (PLT) began the country’s first Eco-Club program, “Voces de la Naturaleza” (Voices of Nature), in 2016. Three of the curriculums participatory lessons focus on primate conservation. These lessons formed the basis of PLT’s Atlantic Forest education programme in 2018 when the team began visiting 22 schools around San Rafael (Tekoha Guasu). To date 26 schools (1,500+ children) across two political departments and four districts have participated in this programme which is now entering its 6th year. The biggest challenges have included the COVID-19 pandemic and the logistics and costs involved in reaching rural and remote schools. Though it is too soon to record observable behavioural change ongoing monitoring over the six year period indicates that children remember the information gained through the participatory methods for several years. We believe that the main reasons for the success of this programme are the collaborations that we have built with the teachers of the schools based on open communication and mutual respect. Though costs can be an issue when beginning, or running, a long-term project we recommend that potential educators not be put off trying and that a lot of good can be achieved with a small amount of funding.
Abstract
Opportunities for young people to directly experience nature can have positive impacts on the individual, the social group and on society as a whole, through future increased conservation action. We developed a program which engaged young people from Fort Dauphin in a field trip to see wild animals at Nahampoana Reserve. Our aim in offering field trips to young people living in the city was to create a positive emotional opportunity to engage directly with nature with the ultimate goal of protecting lemurs and their habitat. In our analysis, we predicted that participants who completed a survey after a presentation and field trip (assessment post field trip) would recall more correct and detailed facts than those participants who completed their surveys after the presentation only (assessment pre field trip). Our program used a variety of arts-based data collection methods including an initial essay writing component on conservation of lemurs and drawing analysis of observed plants and animals. Our results show, in part, that (A) initial written essays by participants showed misperceptions about lemurs, (B) participants who had attended the field trip prior to drawing their favourite aspect of the reserve, produced more species-specific plant depictions, and (C) participants who were involved in a presentation, field trip, and final group discussion came up with four principles for protecting lemurs and their environment. Upon analysis after the study, we gained the additional insight of being able to evaluate our survey methods.
Abstract
In this article, I discuss a precondition of moral consideration that sets the bar lower at sentience. The popular sentience thesis identifies the capacity to feel pain as its condition of consideration. By appealing to the capacity to feel, it is possible to address some fundamental questions about anthropocentrism such as a threat to sentient animals in factory farming and unnecessary experimentation on nonhuman animals. This article interrogates the issue of animal welfare and exposes how discussions on moral considerations focusing on animal sentience exclude non-sentience animals from public welfare policy. While the sentience thesis is a well-established approach in the animal welfare literature, I argue that it lacks robust normative force and, as such, is inadequate for promoting animal welfare since it forces fragmentation of our moral life.
Abstract
The phylogenetic relationships of members of the hydroporine tribe Bidessini (and particularly of the Neotropical endemic genus Hydrodessus J. Balfour-Browne, 1953) are investigated based on a cladistic analysis of larval characteristics, including 26 Hydroporinae species in 25 genera. For this purpose, the larvae of Hydrodessus latotibialis Miller, 2016 are described for the first time including detailed morphometric and chaetotaxic analyses of the cephalic capsule, head appendages, legs, last abdominal segment and urogomphi. Larval morphology supports a monophyletic origin of the Bidessini based on the absence of the primary pore ABc, a unique feature within Hydroporinae. Hydrodessus was recovered as sister to other Bidessini studied, being characterized by several unique character states. This result supports a previous hypothesis of a basal position of this genus within Bidessini based on adult characters. The presence of natatory setae on femur, tibia and tarsus could represent an adaption to life in lotic environments.
Abstract
Chirality has been recognised as a potentially important mechanism in the speciation of land snails because it leads to reproductive isolation between individuals with different coiling directions. The Satsuma batanica species group comprises the sinistral S. batanica and the dextral S. bacca, despite the observed sympatric distributions of the two chiral morphs. This study examines the population structure, phylogeographic history and taxonomy of the species group by analyzing mitochondrial COI gene sequences. A total of 127 haplotypes were identified from 367 individuals collected from 39 locations. The phylogenetic trees, constructed using Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood methods, along with the median-joining network, identified 14 clades. The reconstructed ancestral states indicate that the most recent common ancestor of the S. batanica species group was sinistral. The frequent occurrence of the dextral morph, the shared haplotype, the sympatric distribution, and the co-occurrence of the two chiral morphs within the same phylogenetic clades recovered here do not support reproductive isolation and single-gene speciation based on chiral differences. All the names belonging to the S. batanica species group are considered synonyms because of their molecular and morphological similarities. This species is estimated to have originated approximately 615 thousand years ago from the northern margin of its current distribution. Two major genetic divergence stages occurred around 440 and 50–100 thousand years ago. The formation of ancient islands through orogenic activities is utilised to explain the phylogeographic history of the species.
Abstract
Predation causes suffering and the premature deaths of prey animals. With innovative technologies on the horizon, humanity could phase it out. We argue that herbivorisation, i.e., turning carnivorous species into herbivorous ones with biotechnologies, is better than other strategies for ending predation, because it is the one most likely to preserve environmental values such as biodiversity and receive democratic support. Pressure on vegetation in herbivorised ecosystems would increase, but fertility control could relieve this pressure. We respond to other objections and conclude that the process should be considered as a future megaproject to reduce naturogenic harms.