Bicol University Program: MS in Biodiversity and Environmental Management

Graduate School Subject: MSBEM 202- Biodiv. Concepts, Principles and Practices
Legazpi City Professor: Prof. Ma. Julieta Gonzales

Snaddon, J.L., Jepson, P. R., Petrokofsky, G., Willis, K. J. (2013). “Biodiversity technologies: Tools
as change agents.” Biology Letters, 75-77.

A Critical Review
*Neil Dominic D. Careo, 2nd Year MS BEM
March 15, 2021

The information revolution is bringing about rapid advances in computer and communication

technologies, which are transforming our ability to collect, analyze and store data at faster speeds and

volumes than ever before. The use of global virtual software applications (apple store and android market)

also enables the development, distribution and acquisition of bespoke biodiversity applications, hence

increases the development of rapid, accurate gene technologies which have transformed genetic research

generally and the study of biodiversity to be specific. To give emphasis on these innovations on biodiversity

technologies, the journal article “Biodiversity technologies: Tools as change agents” authored by Jake L.

Snaddon, Paul R. Jepson, Gillian Petrokofsky and Katherine J. Willis presents a perspective on the latest

researches on emerging technologies in biodiversity science and conservation during the meeting on

“Biodiversity Technologies.” The symposium was hosted by the Biodiversity Institute, Oxford on the 27–28 of

September 2012 at the Department of Zoology at University of Oxford.

The aims of the symposium were clearly stated in the article, namely: to (i) highlight new biodiversity

technologies; (ii) demonstrate how they are changing the quality and type of data being collected; (iii) examine

how they are influencing the way biodiversity data can be analysed; and (iv) identify knowledge gaps and

future research avenues. Sessions included talks on bioacoustics, genetic techniques, genomic

observatories, citizen science, virtual tools and the technology-inspired future visions. The authors

highlighted that over half the presentations in the symposium discussed developments in the collection of

field data, either as new tools or new data types. Many of the innovations in this area have come from the

exponential growth in capabilities of digital electronic devices—increasing processing speeds, storage and

network capacity, battery life, at the same time as decreasing the cost and size of devices. They also

mentioned the growing use of bioacoustics in biodiversity science, that are being developed for a wide array
of applications from identification of terrestrial and aquatic animals, monitoring habitat quality and the health

of the environment, to public engagement. However, the authors failed to mention the accuracy of these

automated technologies/devices in terms of sound recognition and noise filtering capabilities, to name a few.

With the increasing speed and connectivity of handheld devices, the article emphasized that researches

relating to biodiversity science are moving towards creating portable components for widespread use, such

as smartphone apps for species detection—creating a ‘Shazam for biodiversity’. The growth of personal

portable devices, such as smartphones and tablets, with advanced computing and connectivity capabilities,

such as GPS and geo-referencing, is expanding the interface between citizen science, public engagement

and education—reforming the collection, management and quality control of data. This enables non-technical

people to record and monitor their environment. In addition, one of the themes of the genetic technologies

and genomic observatories sessions was that DNA is a foundation layer to biodiversity, from which both

evolutionary and functional information can be gained. The article then presented two projects that support

this particular field, namely: The Moorea Biocode project, the first comprehensive inventory of all non-

microbial life in a complex tropical ecosystem; and Ocean Sampling Day), the first global mega-sequencing

campaign from which microbial diversity and function can be described. Biodiversity science and

conservation are also benefiting from the development of global biodiversity informatics databases, which

are facilitating the mobilization and access to taxonomic data.

In the last part of the article, the authors reiterated the theme of the conducted symposium by asking

the audience some questions to ponder. As well as hearing about innovations in the use of technologies as

tools for progressing research, the meeting paused to ask how should we as a scientific community approach

the exciting but uncertain times ahead? Should we ‘go with the flow’—adopt and innovate with new

technologies and allow a new biodiversity science to emerge? Or should we start outlining visions of a future

biodiversity science and conservation that technologies could enable, as a means to develop new agendas,

identify opportunities and think through issues before they arise? In my personal point of you, my answer

would be yes to the questions being raised. It is increasingly acknowledged that humanity is entering an

‘information revolution’. New technological forces are introducing new dynamics and forms of agency into the

socio-ecological system of biodiversity science and conservation. There is in fact a talk of a fourth scientific

paradigm in which transformations in data availability led to patterns being sought directly rather than through

more traditional hypothetico-deductive methods. At a time when research funding continues to come under
extreme pressure in almost all countries, policy-makers will seek implementation solutions and tools that

deliver value for money, and technologies that combine high speed, high accuracy and cloud-sourcing are

likely to be those that gain traction.

The journal article is concise and well written, and it clearly presents the message it wants to convey

to the readers. It is also properly concluded—stating that new technological forces are causing biodiversity

scientists to innovate, to forge new cross-disciplinary collaborations and to think bigger and more ambitiously

in the field of biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.

Bicol University Program: MS in Biodiversity and Environmental Management
Graduate School Subject: MSBEM 202- Biodiv. Concepts, Principles and Practices
Legazpi City Professor: Ms. Ma. Julieta Gonzales

Yadav, P.K., Sarma, K., Dookia, S. (2013). “The review of biodiversity and conservation study in
India using geospatial technology.” International Journal of Remote Sensing and GIS, Vol. 2, Issue
1, 1-10

A Critical Review
*Neil Dominic D. Careo, 2nd Year MS BEM
March 15, 2021

Biodiversity conservation is closely related to other global environmental changes and globalization
issues, such as climate change, land use and land cover change, and sustainable development (Gude et al.
2007; Liu et al.2011). For many of the conservation ecologists, question remains unclear to estimate species
richness, as there is rapid decline in species diversity. Hence, geospatial techniques have been used to
monitor the land use changes and have an important role in study of biodiversity as well as in determination
of natural resources. In the review study article titled “The review of biodiversity and conservation study in
India using geospatial technology,” authored by Pramond Yadav, Sumit Dookia and Kiranmay Sarma
attempts to evaluate how widely geospatial tools can be used in conservation, management, monitoring and
assessment of biodiversity in India. Using remote sensing techniques to develop land use classification
mapping is useful to improve the management of areas designed for wildlife habitat and biodiversity
assessment.
In the introduction part of the article, the authors presented how humans have been changing
ecosystems more rapidly which resulted to the drastic decline of variety of genes, species and ecosystems.
They argued that this loss is compounded by the loss of knowledge of biodiversity especially among people
with close relationship with the natural ecosystem. India is known for its genetic and species richness in a
wide variety of ecological zones. Increasing human intervention and excessive exploitation of resources have
resulted in great changes and provide alarming signals of accelerated biodiversity loss. To study the rate of
this losses, this will require frequent and spatially detailed assessments of the species diversity and
distribution. However, such information can be prohibitively expensive to collect directly. Hence the authors
suggested that measuring the distribution and status of biodiversity remotely, with airborne or satellite
sensors, seems to be an ideal way to gather these crucial data. This remote sensing-based information on
vegetation and land cover provides a potential spatial framework and works as one of the vital input layers in
assessing and monitoring of biodiversity. The authors then reviewed each types of geospatial techniques in
the later part of the article such as Geographic Information System (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS), Global
Positioning System (GPS), and information and communication technologies.
The applications and benefits of these geospatial tools are then discussed thoroughly by the authors
such as: for biodiversity assessment and monitoring, landscape dynamics, assessing natural habitat
fragmentation assessment, species habitat model, assessing biodiversity conservation priorities, and gap
analysis of protected area for conservation planning. They cited several researches supporting the integration
of these tools to describe ecosystems, identify a species distribution and habitat use, gathering the
information on physical parameters of the wildlife habitats and to organize conservation strategies for both
endemic and introduced species, to name a few.
The outcome of this review study reveals that geospatial techniques provides a powerful tool for
assessing geospatial information for monitoring land use and land cover changes, changes in landscape,
mapping potential, species distributions and monitoring and biodiversity losses. However, a few critical areas
of research should still be addressed. Assessment and quantification need to be geospatial data driven which
are dependent on multi-scale spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions for conservation and management of
natural resources have been utilized globally in various aspects. In addition, understanding the biodiversity
fragmentations, species distributions and levels of species richness and how they operate in different
geospatial contexts is also a fundamental challenge of modern conservation biology. This challenge is
considered important with the ongoing simplification of native ecosystems, declining populations and rising
loss of biodiversity.
This article contributes to our knowledge by presenting new tools and techniques to study biodiversity
conservation and sustainable use. However, it fails to present recommendations to the future researches that
would guide them to continue or venture more on the mentioned study. Also, even though the use of these
sophisticated tools can greatly help conservation ecologists/researchers to obtain more accurate and detailed
data, I think the problem would be their availabilities because not all can afford and operate them because of
their procurement cost and regular maintenance.
Bicol University Program: MS in Biodiversity and Environmental Management
Graduate School Subject: MSBEM 202- Biodiv. Concepts, Principles and Practices
Legazpi City Professor: Ms. Ma. Julieta Gonzales

Kurten, Erin L., Wright, Joseph S., Carson, Walter P., “Hunting alters seedling functional trait
composition in a Neotropical forest: A possible threat to biodiversity conservation”, Ecology, 96(7),
2015, pp. 1923–1932

Journal Critique
*Neil Dominic D. Careo, 2nd Year MS BEM
March 15, 2021

Defaunation has been linked to major declines in woody species diversity. The underlying causes

for these declines have been indefinable because defaunation causes the simultaneous loss of seed

dispersers, seed predators, and herbivores. To shed light on this issue, the research paper entitled “Hunting

alters seedling functional trait composition in a Neotropical forest”, authored by Erin L. Kurten, Joseph S.

Wright and Walter P. Carson attempts to identify the effects of defaunation caused by over hunting on the

interaction between plants and vertebrates as well as the changes in plant diversity and species composition

in a neotropical forest. The researchers emphasized that existing comparative studies of hunted vs. protected

forests cannot identify the specific interactions or mechanisms underlying changes in plant diversity and

species composition in the introductory part of the paper. To support their statement, the researchers

presented a comparison between protected and heavily hunted forests and complement this comparison with

an experimental approach using fences to exclude a subset of the hunted vertebrates in protected forests to

better understand the effects of different vertebrate consumers on plant compositional change. In addition,

their focus was also on how functional traits of plant species change when contrasting vertebrate groups are

either present or absent.

[5] The researchers highlighted that the changes in plant functional traits occurring with defaunation

may help identify the species interactions affected by defaunation and the potential for other cascading effects

of defaunation. To prove their claim, three (3) hypotheses have been presented in the paper. The first

hypothesis stated that the loss of vertebrate dispersers will disfavor plant species with large seeds dispersed

by game species. The loss of primates and large birds should have caused this group of plant species to

decline in abundance because of intense density-dependent mortality that occurs around parent trees, loss

of directed dispersal, and decreased frugivore seed handling, which can enhance germination and survival.

Their second hypothesis assumed that defaunation would reduce seed predation, thereby favoring larger-
seeded species. The loss of vertebrate seed predators will favor plant species with large seeds that are

consumed by game species. The third and last hypothesis focused on the effect of defaunation on the

reduced herbivory. Loss of vertebrate herbivores will favor species with traits associated with increased

palatability or low tolerance of herbivory, specifically low leaf mass per unit area (LMA), low leaf toughness,

and low wood density.

To test these hypotheses, the researchers applied a series of experimental methods comprising of

the following components: study sites, experimental design, exclosure effectiveness, plant censuses at

hunted vs. protected sites, plant traits, and statistical analysis used in the study. The researchers censused

a total of 32,306 seedlings, 20,231 were from their survey of heavily poached vs. protected sites comprising

of 279 species and the remaining 12, 075 seedlings were from the exclosure experiment comprising of 249

species. Results of the conducted experiment were presented in terms of (1) seedling censuses, (2)

exclosure effectiveness, (3) dispersal mode, (4) life forms, (5) seed mass, wood density, and leaf traits and

(6) correlated trait response. Their research revealed that exclosures reduced terrestrial frugivores,

granivores, and herbivores, while hunters also reduced volant and arboreal frugivores and granivores. The

comparison of exclosures and hunting allowed them to analyze the impacts of arboreal and volant species

(reduced by hunters only) and terrestrial species (reduced by both hunters and exclosures). They found out

that the loss of terrestrial vertebrates alone had limited effects on plant trait composition. The additional loss

of volant and arboreal vertebrates caused significant shifts in plant species composition towards communities

with more species dispersed abiotically, including lianas and low wood-density tree species, and fewer

species dispersed by large vertebrates. Consequently, community seed mass did not decline significantly in

hunted sites as compared to the previous studies. Their exclosure results suggested that reducing seed

predators disproportionately benefits large-seeded species, partially compensating for the reduction of seed

dispersers at hunted sites. In addition, the results of the experiment demonstrated that decreased seed

dispersal and seed predation are important determinants of seedling community compositional change as a

consequence of defaunation. Lastly, the researchers stated that defaunation may also negatively impact

carbon storage in tropical forests by favoring lianas and low wood density tree species.

[6] After reading and analyzing the whole research paper, I can say that the abstract was specific and

it represented the whole research paper very well. It was also in correct form since the important parts were

reflected such as the problem that needs to be addressed, the hypotheses to be tested, methods used
as well as the results and major conclusions of the study conducted. However, the abstract would’ve been

more complete if the researchers included at least one of their recommendations to serve as a basis for the

future researchers and readers as well.

[7] One idea that I think was underemphasized and overlooked in the study is the possible effects of

not excluding climbing vertebrates in the analysis of the data obtained from the exclosure experiment

conducted by the researchers. The presence of spiny rats inside the exclosure fence may have compensated

for the removal of other seedling predators, leading to the lack of differences in wood density and leaf traits

in the exclosure experiment thus lowering the data accuracy. They should’ve included this in the limitation of

the study and in their recommendation for future researches to have an idea on where to start for the

continuity of the said study. Nevertheless, the research paper was well written and has proved a lot of points

that need to be verified and answered.