Low‐Altitude UAV Imaging Accurately Quantifies Eelgrass Wasting Disease From Alaska to California

Declines in eelgrass, an important and widespread coastal habitat, are associated with wasting disease in recent outbreaks on the Pacific coast of North America. This study presents a novel method for mapping and predicting wasting disease using Unoccupied Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with low‐altitude autonomous imaging of visible bands. We conducted UAV mapping and sampling in intertidal eelgrass beds across multiple sites in Alaska, British Columbia, and California. We designed and implemented a UAV low‐altitude mapping protocol to detect disease prevalence and validated against in situ results. Our analysis revealed that green leaf area index derived from UAV imagery was a strong and significant (inverse) predictor of spatial distribution and severity of wasting disease measured on the ground, especially for regions with extensive disease infection. This study highlights a novel, efficient, and portable method to investigate seagrass disease at landscape scales across geographic regions and conditions.Alternate abstract:Plain Language SummaryDiseases of marine organisms are increasing in many regions worldwide, therefore, efficient time‐series monitoring is critical for understanding the dynamics of disease and examining its progression in time to implement management interventions. In the first study of its kind, we use high‐resolution Unoccupied Aerial Vehicle (UAV) imagery collected to detect disease at 12 sites across the North‐East Pacific coast of North America spanning 18 degrees of latitude. The low altitude UAV visible‐bands imagery achieved 1.5 cm spatial resolution, and analysis was performed at the seagrass leaf scale based on object‐oriented image analysis. Our findings suggest that drone mapping of coastal plants may substantially increase the scale of disease risk assessments in nearshore habitats and further our understanding of seagrass meadow spatial‐temporal dynamics. These can be scaled up by searching for environmental signals of the pathogen, for example, with surveillance of wastewater for signs of Covid in human populations. This application could easily apply to other areas to construct a high‐resolution monitoring network for seagrass conservation.

Zoonoses Transfer, Factory Farms and Unsustainable Human–Animal Relations

Infectious diseases are rooted in unsustainable and unjust human–animal relationships. Zoonoses are facilitated by human proximity to animals, epidemiological risk embedded within factory farms, and exploitation of animals and humans in these intensive livestock production systems. The five major categories of epidemiological risk that factory farms propel include: intensification of production for which homogenous populations are congregated, creation of multi-species farms for which different animals are held within the same farm, long and intensive animal transport increases the likelihood of interaction with other wildlife, ecological characteristics of the pathogen lead to altered pathogen dynamics and antibiotic resistance within a human population through the overuse of antibiotics. Layer and broiler operations in the North American context illustrate these linkages. One Health is offered as a concluding conceptual and aspirational frame for pursuing a more sustainable and just world. This article offers two main messages. First, our relationships with animals directly impact the health of human populations through the transmission and creation of Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDs). Second, adopting One Health offers a means forward for more just and sustainable human–animal relations and reduction of zoonoses transmission.

Disturb forests, trigger new pandemics — study

“Halting and reversing forest loss is increasingly recognised as a means to mitigate the effects of climate change and address biodiversity collapses” Johan Oldekop, University of Manchester FAO’s State of the World’s Forests Report 2020 says that the majority of new infectious diseases are zoonotic and their emergence may be linked to changes in forest areas, as well as the expansion of human populations into forest areas. According to the study, the unprecedented exodus of forest communities to urban areas is shaping the future of forests. According to the study, during 2001—2015, 27 per cent of forest disturbance was attributed to commodity-driven deforestation.

Exploring the Relationship between Energy and Food Security in Africa with Instrumental Variables Analysis

The well-being of human populations and their sustainable development are strongly predicated on energy and food security. This is even more true of Africa due to often suboptimal food production, undernourishment, and extreme poverty. This article researches the relationship between energy and food security using Cobb–Douglas production functions based on the World Development Indicators data for 28 African countries. The methodological approach includes cross-sectional dependence and unit root tests, instrumental variables two-stage least-squares and generalized method of moments, and panel Driscoll–Kraay standard errors. Results suggest that the promotion of energy security promotes food security. This is possible because food production and distribution are energy-intensive. Therefore, energy is fundamental to achieving food security and zero hunger. The availability, affordability, accessibility, and acceptability of energy can thus help to fix the growing agricultural production shortage in Africa. An important policy focus should be on achieving energy security.

Urban climate changes during the COVID-19 pandemic: integration of urban-building-energy model with social big data

The changes in human behaviour associated with the spread of COVID-19 infections have changed the urban environment. However, little is known about the extent to which they have changed the urban climate, especially in air temperature (T), anthropogenic heat emission (QF) and electricity consumption (EC). We quantitatively evaluated these effects using a unique method that integrates real-time human population data (social big data) with an urban climate model. The results showed that in an office district in the city centre of Tokyo, the biggest metropolis in the world, under a significantly reduced population, EC (CO2 emissions) would be 30% and QF would be 33% of pre-COVID levels (without the stay-at-home advisories). This resulted in a T decrease of about 0.2 °C, representing about 20% of the past greenhouse gas-induced warming (about 1.0 °C) in Tokyo. This method can be benchmarked and then applied to worldwide. The results suggest that changes in human behaviour can represent an adaptation and decarbonising strategies to climate change in cities.

The Impact of Global Disasters on Our Pets: Lessons from COVID-19

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic provided a unique insight into the impacts of global disasters on pet ownership and companion animal services. This talk will review research on the impacts of various stages of the pandemic on the human-animal relationship, surprising increases in the adoption of pets from animal shelters around the world, and the potential reasons for those increases. I will also present new research on the impact of the pandemic on pet support services within the city of Vancouver, Canada, that will highlight the complex relationships between vulnerable human populations, the city’s response to the pandemic, and pet care. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic, and its associated economic impact, have completely re-shaped the field of animal sheltering and companion animal support services. In addition to being recognized as an essential service, animal shelter and veterinary staff were confronted with the need to identify only necessary operations to ensure care of animals and their communities without the risk of contracting and transmitting the virus. As a result, emergent animal sheltering trends now emphasize community-based approaches, abolishing harmful discriminative practices, and aiming to keep pets and their original owners together – all from the framework of One Health/ One Welfare. As global disasters are projected to increase in frequency due to climate change, a better understanding of impacts on the human-animal bond and support services will ensure that we can be better prepared for the future.

Letter from the Editor

The BI was chartered in 1994 by Utah State University's (USU) Board of Trustees and given the mission of improving human-wildlife interactions by reducing humanwildlife conflicts through research, teaching, outreach, and education. The changes in land use that accompany human population growth, the increased global transportation of wildlife and livestock and their products, and increases in both domestic and international travel increase the risk of new dis- ease outbreaks of pandemic scale. Wildlife professionals working at the interface where conflicts arise between people and wild animals have a responsibility in the long-term interest of sustaining society's support for wildlife and its conservation by resolving human-wildlife conflicts so that humans continue to view wildlife as a valued resource.

Unveiling the Bioactive Potential of Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Waste in Human Health from a Consumer Perspective

Food supply disruption and shortage verified during the current pandemic events are a scenario that many anticipate for the near future. The impact of climate changes on food production, the continuous decrease in arable land, and the exponential growth of the human population are important drivers for this problem. In this context, adding value to food waste is an obvious strategy to mitigate food shortages, but there is a long way to go in this field. Globally, it is estimated that one-third of all food produced is lost. This is certainly due to many different factors, but the lack of awareness of the consumer about the nutritional value of certain foods parts, namely peels and seeds, is certainly among them. In this review, we will unveil the nutritional and bioactive value of the waste discarded from the most important fresh fruit and vegetables consumed worldwide as a strategy to decrease food waste. This will span the characterization of the bioactive composition of selected waste from fruits and vegetables, particularly their seeds and peels, and their possible uses, whether in our diet or recycled to other ends.

The COVID-19 pandemic: geography matters

Location, place, distance, movement and environment are of course some of the building blocks of the discipline of geography, while the mapping of the disease (COVID-19) draws on a long tradition of cartography. There is no definitive answer, but the current informed view is that it has origins in the trade in wild animals in city markets in Wuhan, China, where the virus is thought to have transferred from bats to pangolins, both natural hosts of coronaviruses, and then to human populations, causing the disease known as COVID-19. A Commission on Creating a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future (National Academy of Medicine, 2016) suggested four years ago that about £3 billion a year should be invested to prepare for future pandemics. If countries in the global north (notably, the UK and USA) have struggled for bed capacity, personal protective equipment, and ventilators, what hope is there for countries in sub-Saharan Africa and war-ravaged parts of the world, not to mention overcrowded refugee camps?

Ethnobotany in the Andes and the Amazon in a world of Nagoya Protocol and post SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Plants provide humankind with our most basic resources — food, medicines, fiber, and a whole array of other useful products. Relatives of wild crops and traditional plant varieties have been the foundation of crop domestication, plant breeding, and indeed the whole of modern agriculture. Plants provide the molecular basis of many pharmaceuticals, as direct compounds or as molecular blueprints. Modern science has started to confirm that the distinction between nutrition and medicine is blurred. With economic development empowering a greater percentage of the world’s people, urban areas continuing to expand, and human populations projected to double in the next 50 years, it seems certain that natural resources will face increasing threat. Habitat loss, unsustainable extraction of plants, spread of invasive species, climate change, and other human activities will have tremendous impacts. In this overview, we assess the changes in ethnobotanical research in the Andes and Amazon in the last decades using the Chábobo Ethnobotany Project as an example for modern ethnobotanical research under Convention on Biological Diversity and the attached Nagoya Protocol, and reflect on the possibilities of using this model for future ethnobotanical studies in a post-SARS-CoV-2 world.Alternate :Les plantes fournissent à l’humanité nos ressources les plus élémentaires — nourriture, médicaments, fibres et toute une gamme d’autres produits utiles. Les parents des cultures sauvages et des variétés traditionnelles ont été à la base de la domestication des cultures, de la sélection végétale et, en fait. Les plantes fournissent la base moléculaire de nombreux produits pharmaceutiques, sous forme de composés directs ou de plans moléculaires. La science moderne commence à confirmer que la distinction entre nutrition et médecine est floue. Étant donné que le développement économique autonomise un plus grand pourcentage de la population mondiale, que les zones urbaines continuent de s’étendre et que la population humaine devrait doubler au cours des 50 prochaines années, il semble certain que les ressources naturelles seront de plus en plus menacées. La perte d’habitat, l’extraction non durable de plantes, la propagation d’espèces envahissantes, le changement climatique et d’autres activités humaines auront un impact considérable. Les espèces végétales seront perdues, la diversité génétique des espèces survivantes sera diminuée et les connaissances traditionnelles associées à l’utilisation des plantes seront érodées. Dans cet aperçu, nous évaluons les changements dans la recherche ethnobotanique dans les Andes et l’Amazonie au cours des dernières décennies en utilisant le Projet Ethnobotanique Chábobo comme exemple pour la recherche ethnobotanique moderne dans le cadre de la Convention sur la diversité biologique et du Protocole de Nagoya, et réfléchir aux possibilités d’utiliser ce modèle pour de futures études ethnobotaniques dans un monde SARS-CoV-2.

Biofortification of Diverse Basmati Rice Cultivars with Iodine, Selenium, and Zinc by Individual and Cocktail Spray of Micronutrients

Given that an effective combined foliar application of iodine (I), selenium (Se), and zinc (Zn) would be farmer friendly, compared to a separate spray of each micronutrient, for the simultaneous biofortification of grain crops, we compared effectiveness of foliar-applied potassium iodate (KIO3, 0.05%), sodium selenate (Na2SeO4, 0.0024%), and zinc sulfate (ZnSO4∙7H2O, 0.5%), separately and in their combination (as cocktail) for the micronutrient biofortification of four Basmati cultivars of rice (Oryza sativa L.). Foliar-applied, each micronutrient or their cocktail did not affect rice grain yield, but grain yield varied significantly among rice cultivars. Irrespective of foliar treatments, the brown rice of cv. Super Basmati and cv. Kisan Basmati had substantially higher concentration of micronutrients than cv. Basmati-515 and cv. Chenab Basmati. With foliar-applied KIO3, alone or in cocktail, the I concentration in brown rice increased from 12 to 186 µg kg−1. The average I concentration in brown rice with foliar-applied KIO3 or cocktail was 126 μg kg−1 in cv. Basmati-515, 160 μg kg−1 in cv. Chenab Basmati, 153 μg kg−1 in cv. Kisan Basmati, and 306 μg kg−1 in cv. Super Basmati. Selenium concentration in brown rice increased from 54 to 760 µg kg−1, with foliar-applied Na2SeO4 individually and in cocktail, respectively. The inherent Zn concentration in rice cultivars ranged between 14 and 19 mg kg−1 and increased by 5–6 mg Zn per kg grains by foliar application of ZnSO4∙7H2O and cocktail. The results also showed the existence of genotypic variation in response to foliar spray of micronutrients and demonstrated that a foliar-applied cocktail of I, Se, and Zn could be an effective strategy for the simultaneous biofortification of rice grains with these micronutrients to address the hidden hunger problem in human populations.

Synergies Between COVID-19 and Climate Change Impacts and Responses

The COVID-19 pandemic and anthropogenic climate change are global crises. We show how strongly these crises are connected, including the underlying societal inequities and problems of poverty, substandard housing, and infrastructure including clean water supplies. The origins of all these crises are related to modern consumptive industrialisation, including burning of fossil fuels, increasing human population density, and replacement of natural with human dominated ecosystems. Because business as usual is unsustainable on all three fronts, transformative responses are needed. We review the literature on risk management interventions, implications for COVID-19, for climate change risk and for equity associated with biodiversity, water and WaSH, health systems, food systems, urbanization and governance. This paper details the considerable evidence base of observed synergies between actions to reduce pandemic and climate change risks while enhancing social justice and biodiversity conservation. It also highlights constraints imposed by governance that can impede deployment of synergistic solutions. In contrast to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governance systems have procrastinated on addressing climate change and biodiversity loss as these are interconnected chronic crises. It is now time to address all three to avoid a multiplication of future crises across health, food, water, nature, and climate systems.

Port Dickson Surface Water Quality Status: A Year with COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a planetary concern that affecting the sustenance of the human population all around the globe. The effective measured has been taken in Malaysia to control the virus transmission by limiting the human vitality which unsurprisingly propitious to the environment. A monitoring study was conducted to assess the water quality status of surface seawater along the Port Dickson coast based on the Malaysian Marine Water Quality Index (MMWQI) and Malaysian Marine Water Quality Standards (MMWQCS) with an interval period of a year (March 2020-March 2021). In situ, water quality parameters incorporate temperature, pH, salinity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen (DO), and total dissolved solids (TDS) were measured at 14 sampling sites to evaluate the biochemical characteristics of water. Surface water samples were collected from the same sites and transported back to Universiti Putra Malaysia for nitrate (NO3-), ammonia (NH3), phosphate (PO4), biochemical oxygen demands (BOD), fecal coliform (Escherichia coli), and total suspended solids (TSS) analyses. The MMWQI showed the status of surface water from the Port Dickson coast was classified as moderate quality (50.41 - 64.05) for both sampling events. However, there are some indexes that showed significant decreases (p< 0.05) in the latter year. The concentration of nutrient pollution such as phosphate, nitrates, ammonia, fecal coliform as well as oil and grease, was decreased by 11.12%, 77.39%, 82.4%, 90.26%, and 99.9% respectively. The water parameters namely TDS, pH, and BOD levels were significantly decreased by 1.77%, 20.73%, and 77.16%. Certain parameters listed in the MMWQS such as temperature, pH, ammonia, fecal coliform, oil and grease were classified as Class 1 in March 2021. These occurrences recorded were greatly influenced by the reduction of the substantial human activities around the recreational beach of Port Dickson followed by the declaration of Movement Control Order (MCO) in Malaysia.