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Conservation governance requires inter-disciplinary approaches aimed at bridging science, management, and policy divides, which introduces capacity development challenges in developing countries. In particular, there is a need to establish how best to direct capacity development efforts in order to achieve long-term conservation benefits. To help meet this challenge, a deliberative-Delphi method was developed and tested in Namibia based on an integrated Delphi and workshop-based approach. Deliberative-Delphi involves rapid responses to questions followed by consensus workshops to agree emerging themes. The method was applied to researchers in the fields of conservation ecology, conservation governance, and futures thinking (FT) identifying and prioritising ten conservation themes over a two-day period. These themes were then aligned with Namibian conservation policy and explicated through literature review, providing a roadmap for capacity development interventions (through setting university curricula, research agendas, and future policy changes). The approach can be applied elsewhere to focus conservation capacity development interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is an important environmental policy instrument to proactively inform development decisions that might impact biodiversity, especially in internationally recognised biodiversity hotspots. One such hotspot region is the Succulent Karoo Biodiversity Hotspot (SKBH), known for its rich endemism of flora and fauna. The aim of this research is to determine the quality of biodiversity inputs to EIA in areas with high biodiversity value, such as the SKBH. This was achieved by reviewing the quality of biodiversity inputs to 16 EIAs against a tailor-made review package. The review produced 'unsatisfactory' results related to the integration of biodiversity impacts, public participation, and continual monitoring. 'Satisfactory' results were achieved for the consideration of ecological approaches, description of the baseline environment, and the application of the precautionary principle. To address the unsatisfactory results, we recommend the development of context specific guidelines dealing with (i) significance thresholds, (ii) alternatives and mitigation, and (iii) monitoring plans. Standard approaches, guidelines, and general competencies do not suffice for EIA in biodiversity hotspots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the results of a study on the productivity and flux of nutrients in some coral reef communities at Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands. The authors established transects parallel to the currents flowing across the shallow windward inter-island reefs to measure reef community metabolism. They add that the currents flowed continually from the ocean to the lagoon irrespective of tide or wind conditions. They also discuss the flux of nitrogen and phosphorus, productivity, organic carbon flux and carbonate flux.

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic complex disease of the gastrointestinal tract. Patients with IBD can experience a wide range of symptoms, but the pathophysiological mechanisms that cause these individual differences in clinical presentation remain largely unknown. In consequence, IBD is currently classified into subtypes using clinical characteristics. If we are to develop a more targeted treatment approach, molecular subtypes of IBD need to be discovered that can be used as new drug targets. To achieve this, we need multiple layers of molecular data generated from the same IBD patients.Construction and Content: We initiated the 1000IBD project ( https://1000ibd.org ) to prospectively follow more than 1000 IBD patients from the Northern provinces of the Netherlands. For these patients, we have collected a uniquely large number of phenotypes and generated multi-omics profiles. To date, 1215 participants have been enrolled in the project and enrolment is on-going. Phenotype data collected for these participants includes information on dietary and environmental factors, drug responses and adverse drug events. Genome information has been generated using genotyping (ImmunoChip, Global Screening Array and HumanExomeChip) and sequencing (whole exome sequencing and targeted resequencing of IBD susceptibility loci), transcriptome information generated using RNA-sequencing of intestinal biopsies and microbiome information generated using both sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene and whole genome shotgun metagenomic sequencing.Utility and Discussion: All molecular data generated within the 1000IBD project will be shared on the European Genome-Phenome Archive ( https://ega-archive.org , accession no: EGAS00001002702). The first data release, detailed in this announcement and released simultaneously with this publication, will contain basic phenotypes for 1215 participants, genotypes of 314 participants and gut microbiome data from stool samples (315 participants) and biopsies (107 participants) generated by tag sequencing the 16S gene. Future releases will comprise many more additional phenotypes and -omics data layers. 1000IBD data can be used by other researchers as a replication cohort, a dataset to test new software tools, or a dataset for applying new statistical models.Conclusions: We report on the establishment and future development of the 1000IBD project: the first comprehensive multi-omics dataset aimed at discovering IBD biomarker profiles and treatment targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]