Search

The continuing circulation and reassortment with low-pathogenicity avian influenza Gs/Gd (goose/Guangdong/1996)-like avian influenza viruses (AIVs) has caused huge economic losses and raised public health concerns over the zoonotic potential. Virologic surveillance of wild birds has been suggested as part of a global AIV surveillance system. However, underreporting and biased selection of sampling sites has rendered gaining information about the transmission and evolution of highly pathogenic AIV problematic. We explored the use of the Citizen Scientist eBird database to elucidate the dynamic distribution of wild birds in Taiwan and their potential for AIV exchange with domestic poultry. Through the 2-stage analytical framework, we associated nonignorable risk with 10 species of wild birds with >100 significant positive results. We generated a risk map, which served as the guide for highly pathogenic AIV surveillance. Our methodologic blueprint has the potential to be incorporated into the global AIV surveillance system of wild birds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Declining waterbird populations and increasing overlapping habitats with human activities necessitate the identification and conservation management of biodiversity hotspots to ensure sustainable utilization of natural resources and preservation of biodiversity. We conducted a comprehensive analysis of an eBird dataset, a global citizen science initiative, to systematically assess the winter waterbird biodiversity hotspots at a 1-km grid scale throughout Taiwan. This assessment considered five criteria: species richness, abundance, and national, regional, and local importance values. We identified 994 grids as hotspots, with 132, 154, 137, 205, and 366 grids meeting all five, four, three, two, and one of the five criteria, respectively. The hotspots are located in the coastline region, and only 32.60% are located within the protected areas, implying that winter waterbird hotspots extend beyond the protected areas and significantly overlap with anthropogenic activity area. Our findings highlight the limitations of traditional protected areas in effectively conserving winter waterbird hotspots, thereby demanding the adoption of more proactive and strategic management approaches to promote sustainable coexistence between humans and nature. By analyzing the crowdsourced scientific data, this study fills spatial gaps and provides a systematic method for rapidly assessing biodiversity distribution, generating up-to-date information for biodiversity management that aligns with the current status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the comparison of the number of labial tooth rows of the tadpoles of Rana sauteri Boulenger, 1961 and R. multiderticulata Chou & Lin, 1997. In the authors' study, they aim to determine the relationships and the taxonomic status of the two species. The 331 tadpoles used in the study was collected in the central-northern region of Taiwan and its DNA was extracted with the use of phenol-chloroform method and QIAGEN DNeasy extraction kits. They found that the two transects showed significant genetic differentiation and correlated significantly with geographic distances. They conclude that R. sauteri is the representative species while R. multiderticulatais its synonym.