TY - JOUR A1 - Thorn, Simon A1 - Chao, Anne A1 - Georgiev, Konstadin B. A1 - Müller, Jörg A1 - Bässler, Claus A1 - Campbell, John L. A1 - Jorge, Castro A1 - Chen, Yan-Han A1 - Choi, Chang-Yong A1 - Cobb, Tyler P. A1 - Donato, Daniel C. A1 - Durska, Ewa A1 - Macdonald, Ellen A1 - Feldhaar, Heike A1 - Fontaine, Jospeh B. A1 - Fornwalt, Paula J. A1 - Hernández Hernández, Raquel María A1 - Hutto, Richard L. A1 - Koivula, Matti A1 - Lee, Eun-Jae A1 - Lindenmayer, David A1 - Mikusinski, Grzegorz A1 - Obrist, Martin K. A1 - Perlík, Michal A1 - Rost, Josep A1 - Waldron, Kaysandra A1 - Wermelinger, Beat A1 - Weiß, Ingmar A1 - Zmihorski, Michal A1 - Leverkus, Alexandro B. T1 - Estimating retention benchmarks for salvage logging to protect biodiversity JF - Nature Communications N2 - Forests are increasingly affected by natural disturbances. Subsequent salvage logging, a widespread management practice conducted predominantly to recover economic capital, produces further disturbance and impacts biodiversity worldwide. Hence, naturally disturbed forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world, with consequences for their associated biodiversity. However, there are no evidence-based benchmarks for the proportion of area of naturally disturbed forests to be excluded from salvage logging to conserve biodiversity. We apply a mixed rarefaction/extrapolation approach to a global multi-taxa dataset from disturbed forests, including birds, plants, insects and fungi, to close this gap. We find that 757% (mean +/- SD) of a naturally disturbed area of a forest needs to be left unlogged to maintain 90% richness of its unique species, whereas retaining 50% of a naturally disturbed forest unlogged maintains 73 +/- 12% of its unique species richness. These values do not change with the time elapsed since disturbance but vary considerably among taxonomic groups. Salvage logging has become a common practice to gain economic returns from naturally disturbed forests, but it could have considerable negative effects on biodiversity. Here the authors use a recently developed statistical method to estimate that ca. 75% of the naturally disturbed forest should be left unlogged to maintain 90% of the species unique to the area. KW - natural disturbance KW - bird communities KW - forest KW - management KW - beetle KW - conservation KW - windthrow KW - diversity KW - impact KW - fire Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-230512 VL - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stiegler, Jonas A1 - von Hoermann, Christian A1 - Müller, Jörg A1 - Benbow, M. Eric A1 - Heurich, Marco T1 - Carcass provisioning for scavenger conservation in a temperate forest ecosystem JF - Ecosphere N2 - Carrion plays an essential role in shaping the structure and functioning of ecosystems and has far‐reaching implications for biodiversity conservation. The change in availability and type of carcasses throughout ecosystems can involve negative effects for scavenging communities. To address this issue, there have been recent conservation management measures of carrion provision in natural systems. However, the optimal conditions under which exposing carcasses to optimize conservation outcomes are still limited. Here, we used camera traps throughout elevational and vegetational gradients to monitor the consumption of 48 deer carcasses over a study period of six years by evaluating 270,279 photographs resulting out of 15,373 trap nights. We detected 17 species visiting carcass deployments, including five endangered species. Our results show that large carcasses, the winter season, and a heterogeneous surrounding habitat enhanced the frequency of carcass visits and the species richness of scavenger assemblages. Contrary to our expectations, carcass species, condition (fresh/frozen), and provision schedule (continuous vs single exposure) did not influence scavenging frequency or diversity. The carcass visitation frequency increased with carcass mass and lower temperatures. The effect of large carcasses was especially pronounced for mesopredators and the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx). Lynx were not too influenced in its carrion acquisition by the season, but exclusively preferred remote habitats containing higher forest cover. Birds of prey, mesopredators, and top predators were also positively influenced by the visiting rate of ravens (Corvus corax), whereas no biotic or abiotic preferences were found for wild boars (Sus scrofa). This study provides evidence that any ungulate species of carrion, either in a fresh or in previously frozen condition, attracts a high diversity of scavengers especially during winter, thereby supporting earlier work that carcass provisions may support scavenger communities and endangered species. KW - anthropogenic food subsidies KW - carrion ecology KW - diversity KW - nature conservation KW - necrobiome KW - vertebrate scavenger KW - wildlife management Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-218054 VL - 11 IS - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Isaacs, Darren A1 - Mikasi, Sello Given A1 - Obasa, Adetayo Emmanuel A1 - Ikomey, George Mondinde A1 - Shityakov, Sergey A1 - Cloete, Ruben A1 - Jacobs, Graeme Brendon T1 - Structural comparison of diverse HIV-1 subtypes using molecular modelling and docking analyses of integrase inhibitors JF - Viruses N2 - The process of viral integration into the host genome is an essential step of the HIV-1 life cycle. The viral integrase (IN) enzyme catalyzes integration. IN is an ideal therapeutic enzyme targeted by several drugs; raltegravir (RAL), elvitegravir (EVG), dolutegravir (DTG), and bictegravir (BIC) having been approved by the USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Due to high HIV-1 diversity, it is not well understood how specific naturally occurring polymorphisms (NOPs) in IN may affect the structure/function and binding affinity of integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs). We applied computational methods of molecular modelling and docking to analyze the effect of NOPs on the full-length IN structure and INSTI binding. We identified 13 NOPs within the Cameroonian-derived CRF02_AG IN sequences and further identified 17 NOPs within HIV-1C South African sequences. The NOPs in the IN structures did not show any differences in INSTI binding affinity. However, linear regression analysis revealed a positive correlation between the Ki and EC50 values for DTG and BIC as strong inhibitors of HIV-1 IN subtypes. All INSTIs are clinically effective against diverse HIV-1 strains from INSTI treatment-naïve populations. This study supports the use of second-generation INSTIs such as DTG and BIC as part of first-line combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) regimens, due to a stronger genetic barrier to the emergence of drug resistance. KW - integrase KW - naturally occurring polymorphisms KW - HIV-1 KW - molecular modelling KW - molecular docking KW - diversity Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-211170 SN - 1999-4915 VL - 12 IS - 9 ER -