ORCID Profile
0000-0002-4471-9055
Current Organisations
The University of Auckland
,
Open University
,
University of Warwick
,
University of Leicester
,
University of Helsinki
,
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
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Publisher: Wiley
Date: 28-07-2023
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.14157
Abstract: Bats frequently inhabit caves and other subterranean habitats and play a critical role in subterranean food webs. With escalating threats to subterranean ecosystems, identifying the most effective measures to protect subterranean‐roosting bats is critical. We conducted a meta‐analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of conservation and management interventions for subterranean‐roosting bats. We used network analyses to determine to what extent interventions for bats overlap those used for other subterranean taxa. We conducted our analyses with data extracted from 345 papers recommending a total of 910 conservation interventions. Gating of roost entrances was applied to preserve bat populations in 21 studies, but its effectiveness was unclear. Habitat restoration and disturbance reduction positively affected bat populations and bat behavior, respectively, in ≤4 studies. Decontamination was assessed in 2 studies and positively affected bat populations, particularly in studies focused on reducing fungal spores associated with white‐nose syndrome in North America. Monitoring of bat populations as an effective conservation strategy was unclear and infrequently tested. Only 4% of bat studies simultaneously considered other subterranean organisms. However, effective interventions for bat conservation had similarities with all other organisms. If other subterranean organisms are considered when applying interventions to conserve bats, they might also benefit.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 30-07-2021
Abstract: The use of functional ersity analyses in ecology has grown exponentially over the past two decades, broadening our understanding of biological ersity and its change across space and time. Virtually all ecological sub‐disciplines recognise the critical value of looking at species and communities from a functional perspective, and this has led to a proliferation of methods for estimating contrasting dimensions of functional ersity. Differences between these methods and their development generated terminological inconsistencies and confusion about the selection of the most appropriate approach for addressing any particular ecological question, h ering the potential for comparative studies, simulation exercises and meta‐analyses. Two general mathematical frameworks for estimating functional ersity are prevailing: those based on dissimilarity matrices (e.g. Rao entropy, functional dendrograms) and those relying on multidimensional spaces, constructed as either convex hulls or probabilistic hypervolumes. We review these frameworks, discuss their strengths and weaknesses and provide an overview of the main R packages performing these calculations. In parallel, we propose a way for organising functional ersity metrics in a unified scheme to quantify the richness, ergence and regularity of species or in iduals under each framework. This overview offers a roadmap for confidently approaching functional ersity analyses both theoretically and practically. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 21-02-2023
Abstract: Virtual laboratory (VLab) has been observed for its function for the merit of online course delivery. It is believed that the existence of VLab may enhance students’ academic achievements. However, the study which researches its impact on the students’ independence is still limited. This systematic review study aims to determine students’ self-regulated learning (SRL) on the use of VLab by implementing PICOS (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, Study Design). Further, we examined whether the strategies of SRL, such as cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, behavioral, and contextual strategies owned by students at higher education levels, increased because of leveraging the VLab. We identified 267 articles from Scopus and the Web of Science databases, then utilized the PRISMA guidelines to specify the 249 eligible articles. As a result, only 20 articles passed the criteria of the feasibility stage (1) higher education level, (2) informing online learning, (3) containing materials discussing VLab, and (4) representing the concept of SRL. However, the finding showed that all interventions had positively affected students’ performance. Based on the analyzed data, we confirm that VLab can be considered for providing the learning experience since it bridges the gap between students’ prior knowledge and experience and provides an active social experience.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 19-03-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.03.17.435827
Abstract: Understanding the variation in community composition and species abundances, i.e., β- ersity, is at the heart of community ecology. A common approach to examine β- ersity is to evaluate directional turnover in community composition by measuring the decay in the similarity among pairs of communities along spatial or environmental distances. We provide the first global synthesis of taxonomic and functional distance decay along spatial and environmental distance by analysing 149 datasets comprising different types of organisms and environments. We modelled an exponential distance decay for each dataset using generalized linear models and extracted r 2 and slope to analyse the strength and the rate of the decay. We studied whether taxonomic or functional similarity has stronger decay across the spatial and environmental distances. We also unveiled the factors driving the rate of decay across the datasets, including latitude, spatial extent, realm, and organismal features. Taxonomic distance decay was stronger along spatial and environmental distances compared with functional distance decay. The rate of taxonomic spatial distance decay was the fastest in the datasets from mid-latitudes while the rate of functional decay increased with latitude. Overall, datasets covering larger spatial extents showed a lower rate of decay along spatial distances but a higher rate of decay along environmental distances. Marine ecosystems had the slowest rate of decay. This synthesis is an important step towards a more holistic understanding of patterns and drivers of taxonomic and functional β- ersity.
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 06-04-2022
Abstract: Abstract. The Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) Science Plan, released in 2015, addressed a need for a holistic system understanding and outlined the most urgent research needs for the rapidly changing Arctic-boreal region. Air quality in China, together with the long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants, was also indicated as one of the most crucial topics of the research agenda. These two geographical regions, the northern Eurasian Arctic-boreal region and China, especially the megacities in China, were identified as a “PEEX region”. It is also important to recognize that the PEEX geographical region is an area where science-based policy actions would have significant impacts on the global climate. This paper summarizes results obtained during the last 5 years in the northern Eurasian region, together with recent observations of the air quality in the urban environments in China, in the context of the PEEX programme. The main regions of interest are the Russian Arctic, northern Eurasian boreal forests (Siberia) and peatlands, and the megacities in China. We frame our analysis against research themes introduced in the PEEX Science Plan in 2015. We summarize recent progress towards an enhanced holistic understanding of the land–atmosphere–ocean systems feedbacks. We conclude that although the scientific knowledge in these regions has increased, the new results are in many cases insufficient, and there are still gaps in our understanding of large-scale climate–Earth surface interactions and feedbacks. This arises from limitations in research infrastructures, especially the lack of coordinated, continuous and comprehensive in situ observations of the study region as well as integrative data analyses, hindering a comprehensive system analysis. The fast-changing environment and ecosystem changes driven by climate change, socio-economic activities like the China Silk Road Initiative, and the global trends like urbanization further complicate such analyses. We recognize new topics with an increasing importance in the near future, especially “the enhancing biological sequestration capacity of greenhouse gases into forests and soils to mitigate climate change” and the “socio-economic development to tackle air quality issues”.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-05-2022
DOI: 10.1111/GEB.13513
Abstract: Understanding the variation in community composition and species abundances (i.e., β‐ ersity) is at the heart of community ecology. A common approach to examine β‐ ersity is to evaluate directional variation in community composition by measuring the decay in the similarity among pairs of communities along spatial or environmental distance. We provide the first global synthesis of taxonomic and functional distance decay along spatial and environmental distance by analysing 148 datasets comprising different types of organisms and environments. Global. 1990 to present. From diatoms to mammals. We measured the strength of the decay using ranked Mantel tests (Mantel r ) and the rate of distance decay as the slope of an exponential fit using generalized linear models. We used null models to test whether functional similarity decays faster or slower than expected given the taxonomic decay along the spatial and environmental distance. We also unveiled the factors driving the rate of decay across the datasets, including latitude, spatial extent, realm and organismal features. Taxonomic distance decay was stronger than functional distance decay along both spatial and environmental distance. Functional distance decay was random given the taxonomic distance decay. The rate of taxonomic and functional spatial distance decay was fastest in the datasets from mid‐latitudes. Overall, datasets covering larger spatial extents showed a lower rate of decay along spatial distance but a higher rate of decay along environmental distance. Marine ecosystems had the slowest rate of decay along environmental distances. In general, taxonomic distance decay is a useful tool for biogeographical research because it reflects dispersal‐related factors in addition to species responses to climatic and environmental variables. Moreover, functional distance decay might be a cost‐effective option for investigating community changes in heterogeneous environments.
Publisher: California Digital Library (CDL)
Date: 15-04-2022
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.CUB.2022.07.026
Abstract: In the internet era, the digital architecture that keeps us connected and informed may also lify the spread of misinformation. This problem is gaining global attention, as evidence accumulates that misinformation may interfere with democratic processes and undermine collective responses to environmental and health crises
Publisher: California Digital Library (CDL)
Date: 27-10-2021
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 19-05-2021
DOI: 10.5194/ACP-2021-341
Abstract: Abstract. The Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) Science Plan, released in 2015, addressed a need for a holistic system understanding and outlined the most urgent research needs for sustainable development in the Artic-boreal region. Air quality in China and long-range transport of the atmospheric pollutants was also indicated as one of the most crucial topics of the research agenda. This paper summarizes results obtained during the last five years in the Northern Eurasian region. It also introduces recent observations on the air quality in the urban environments in China. The main regions of interest are the Russian Arctic, Northern Eurasian boreal forests (Siberia) and peatlands and on the mega cities in China. We frame our analysis against research themes introduced in 2015. We summarize recent progress in the understanding of the land – atmosphere – ocean systems feedbacks. Although the scientific knowledge in these regions has increased, there are still gaps in our understanding of large-scale climate-Earth surface interactions and feedbacks. This arises from limitations in research infrastructures and integrative data analyses, hindering a comprehensive system analysis. The fast-changing environment and ecosystem changes driven by climate change, socio-economic activities like the China Silk Road Initiative, and the global trends like urbanization further complicate such analyses. We recognize new topics with an increasing importance in the near future, such as enhancing biological sequestration capacity of greenhouse gases into forests and soils to mitigate the climate change and the socio-economic development to tackle air quality issues.
Publisher: American Arachnological Society
Date: 30-09-2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 30-08-2022
DOI: 10.1111/ECOG.06287
Abstract: The widespread use of species traits in basic and applied ecology, conservation and biogeography has led to an exponential increase in functional ersity analyses, with 10 000 papers published in 2010–2020, and 1800 papers only in 2021. This interest is reflected in the development of a multitude of theoretical and methodological frameworks for calculating functional ersity, making it challenging to navigate the myriads of options and to report detailed accounts of trait‐based analyses. Therefore, the discipline of trait‐based ecology would benefit from the existence of a general guideline for standard reporting and good practices for analyses. We devise an eight‐step protocol to guide researchers in conducting and reporting functional ersity analyses, with the overarching goal of increasing reproducibility, transparency and comparability across studies. The protocol is based on: 1) identification of a research question 2) a s ling scheme and a study design 3–4) assemblage of data matrices 5) data exploration and preprocessing 6) functional ersity computation 7) model fitting, evaluation and interpretation and 8) data, metadata and code provision. Throughout the protocol, we provide information on how to best select research questions, study designs, trait data, compute functional ersity, interpret results and discuss ways to ensure reproducibility in reporting results. To facilitate the implementation of this template, we further develop an interactive web‐based application ( stepFD ) in the form of a checklist workflow, detailing all the steps of the protocol and allowing the user to produce a final ‘reproducibility report' to upload alongside the published paper. A thorough and transparent reporting of functional ersity analyses ensures that ecologists can incorporate others' findings into meta‐analyses, the shared data can be integrated into larger databases for consensus analyses, and available code can be reused by other researchers. All these elements are key to pushing forward this vibrant and fast‐growing field of research.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-05-2021
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2020
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 19-06-2019
Abstract: In light of recent alarming trends in human population growth, climate change, and other environmental modifications, a “Warning to humanity” manifesto was published in BioScience in 2017. This call reiterated most of the ideas originally expressed by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 1992, including the fear that we are “pushing Earth's ecosystems beyond their capacities to support the web of life.” As subterranean biologists, we take this opportunity to emphasize the global importance and the conservation challenges associated with subterranean ecosystems. They likely represent the most widespread nonmarine environments on Earth, but specialized subterranean organisms remain among the least documented and studied. Largely overlooked in conservation policies, subterranean habitats play a critical role in the function of the web of life and provide important ecosystem services. We highlight the main threats to subterranean ecosystems and propose a set of effective actions to protect this globally important natural heritage.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 23-06-2023
Abstract: Ecological systems are quintessentially complex systems. Understanding and being able to predict phenomena typical of complex systems is, therefore, critical to progress in ecology and conservation amidst escalating global environmental change. However, myriad definitions of complexity and excessive reliance on conventional scientific approaches h er conceptual advances and synthesis. Ecological complexity may be better understood by following the solid theoretical basis of complex system science (CSS). We review features of ecological systems described within CSS and conduct bibliometric and text mining analyses to characterize articles that refer to ecological complexity. Our analyses demonstrate that the study of complexity in ecology is a highly heterogeneous, global endeavor that is only weakly related to CSS. Current research trends are typically organized around basic theory, scaling, and macroecology. We leverage our review and the generalities identified in our analyses to suggest a more coherent and cohesive way forward in the study of complexity in ecology.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-03-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41597-022-01197-6
Abstract: Mass media plays an important role in the construction and circulation of risk perception associated with animals. Widely feared groups such as spiders frequently end up in the spotlight of traditional and social media. We compiled an expert-curated global database on the online newspaper coverage of human-spider encounters over the past ten years (2010–2020). This database includes information about the location of each human-spider encounter reported in the news article and a quantitative characterisation of the content—location, presence of photographs of spiders and bites, number and type of errors, consultation of experts, and a subjective assessment of sensationalism. In total, we collected 5348 unique news articles from 81 countries in 40 languages. The database refers to 211 identified and unidentified spider species and 2644 unique human-spider encounters (1121 bites and 147 as deadly bites). To facilitate data reuse, we explain the main caveats that need to be made when analysing this database and discuss research ideas and questions that can be explored with it.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2020
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 10-2021
Abstract: Spiders are a highly ersified group of arthropods and play an important role in terrestrial ecosystems as ubiquitous predators, which makes them a suitable group to test a variety of eco-evolutionary hypotheses. For this purpose, knowledge of a erse range of species traits is required. Until now, data on spider traits have been scattered across thousands of publications produced for over two centuries and written in erse languages. To facilitate access to such data, we developed an online database for archiving and accessing spider traits at a global scale. The database has been designed to accommodate a great variety of traits (e.g. ecological, behavioural and morphological) measured at in idual, species or higher taxonomic levels. Records are accompanied by extensive metadata (e.g. location and method). The database is curated by an expert team, regularly updated and open to any user. A future goal of the growing database is to include all published and unpublished data on spider traits provided by experts worldwide and to facilitate broad cross-taxon assays in functional ecology and comparative biology. Database URL: spidertraits.sci.muni.cz/
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Stefano Mammola.