Wildlife impacts and changing climate pose compounding threats to human food security.

High-level policy debates surrounding elephant management often dominate global conservation headlines, yet realities for people living with wildlife are not adequately incorporated into policymaking or evident in related discourse.1,2 Human health and livelihoods can be severely impacted by wildlife and indirectly by policy outcomes.3 In landscapes where growing human and elephant (Loxodonta spp. and Elephas maximus) populations compete over limited resources, human-elephant conflict causes crop loss, human injury and death, and retaliatory killing of wildlife.4-6 Across Africa, these problems may be increasingly compounded by climate change, which intensifies resource competition and food insecurity.6-9 Here, we examine how human-wildlife impacts interact with climate change and household food insecurity across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, the world's largest terrestrial transboundary conservation area, spanning five African nations. We use hierarchical Bayesian statistical models to analyze multi-country household data together with longitudinal satellite-based climate measures relevant to rainfed agriculture. We find that crop depredation by wildlife, primarily elephants, impacts 58% of sampled households annually and is associated with significant increases in food insecurity. These wildlife impacts compound effects of changing climate on food insecurity, most notably observed as a 5-day shortening of the rainy season per 10 years across the data record (1981-2018). To advance sustainability goals, global conservation policy must better integrate empirical evidence on the challenges of human-wildlife coexistence into longer term strategies at transboundary scales, specifically in the context of climate change.3,9-11.

Wildlife impacts and vulnerable livelihoods in a transfrontier conservation landscape.

Interactions between humans and wildlife resulting in negative impacts are among the most pressing conservation challenges globally. In regions of smallholder livestock and crop production, interactions with wildlife can compromise human well-being and motivate negative sentiment and retaliation toward wildlife, undermining conservation goals. Although impacts may be unavoidable when human and wildlife land use overlap, scant large-scale human data exist quantifying the direct costs of wildlife to livelihoods. In a landscape of global importance for wildlife conservation in southern Africa, we quantified costs for people living with wildlife through a fundamental measure of human well-being, food security, and we tested whether existing livelihood strategies buffer certain households against crop depredation by wildlife, predominantly elephants. To do this, we estimated Bayesian multilevel statistical models based on multicounty household data (n = 711) and interpreted model results in the context of spatial data from participatory land-use mapping. Reported crop depredation by wildlife was widespread. Over half of the sample households were affected and household food security was reduced significantly (odds ratio 0.37 [0.22, 0.63]). The most food insecure households relied on gathered food sources and welfare programs. In the event of crop depredation by wildlife, these 2 livelihood sources buffered or reduced harmful effects of depredation. The presence of buffering strategies suggests a targeted compensation strategy could benefit the region's most vulnerable people. Such strategies should be combined with dynamic and spatially explicit land-use planning that may reduce the frequency of negative human-wildlife impacts. Quantifying and mitigating the human costs from wildlife are necessary steps in working toward human-wildlife coexistence.

Impactos de la Fauna y Medios de Subsistencia Vulnerables en unkl Paisaje de Conservación Transfronteriza Resumen Las interacciones entre los humanos y la fauna que resultan en impactos negativos se encuentran entre los desafíos más apremiantes para la conservación a nivel mundial. En las regiones de ganaderos y agricultores minifundistas, las interacciones con la fauna pueden poner en peligro el bienestar humano y motivar sentimientos negativos y represalias hacia la fauna, lo que debilita los objetivos de conservación. Aunque los impactos pueden evitarse cuando el uso de suelo por humanos y fauna se traslapa, existen pocos datos humanos a gran escala que cuantifiquen el costo directo de la fauna para los medios de subsistencia. Cuantificamos el costo para las personas que conviven con animales silvestres en un paisaje de importancia global para la conservación de fauna en el sur de África. La cuantificación fue realizada por medio de una medida fundamental de bienestar humano y seguridad alimentaria, y probamos si las estrategias existentes de subsistencia amortiguan a ciertos hogares ante la depredación de cultivos realizada por animales silvestres, predominantemente los elefantes. Para realizar esto, estimamos algunos modelos estadísticos bayesianos de niveles múltiples basados en los datos de hogares ubicados en múltiples condados (n = 711) e interpretamos los resultados de los modelos en el contexto de los datos espaciales a partir de un mapeo participativo de uso de suelo. La depredación de cultivos por animales silvestres fue reportada de manera generalizada. Más de la mitad de los hogares en la muestra estuvieron afectados y la seguridad alimenticia de los hogares se redujo significativamente (proporción de probabilidades 0.37 [0.22, 0.63]). Los hogares con la menor seguridad alimentaria dependían de fuentes de recolección de alimentos y programas de bienestar. En el evento de la depredación por fauna de los cultivos, estas dos fuentes de subsistencia amortiguaron o redujeron los efectos dañinos de la depredación. La presencia de las estrategias de amortiguamiento sugiere que una estrategia de compensación enfocada podría beneficiar a las personas más vulnerables de la región. Dichas estrategias deberían estar combinadas con la planeación del uso de suelo dinámica y espacialmente explícita, la cual podría reducir la frecuencia de los impactos negativos entre los humanos y la fauna. La cuantificación y mitificación del costo humano a partir de la fauna son pasos necesarios en el camino hacia la coexistencia entre los humanos y la fauna.

The role of polymerization in adhesive dentistry.

Adhesive systems are resin-based materials that reach their final mechanical properties through a polymerization process. Previous literature correlated the failure of the adhesive interface to low polymer setting. Adhesives systems are elaborate mixtures of different molecules of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic nature, included in the formulation to adequately infiltrate the complex dental substrate or added to prolong the stability of the adhesive layer over time. Each adhesive component may influence the polymerization reaction of the material. Photopolymerization is a complex reaction that has several clinical implications, and besides the material composition, it is influenced by multiple factors, including the substrate characteristics, the operator technique, and the light cure unit properties. This review is focused on the analysis of factors that have a potential role in the setting of adhesive materials and thus the ultimate characteristics of the adhesive layer and the stability of the resin-dentin interface.