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The public acceptance of evolution is under constant scrutiny. Surveys and polls regularly measure whether the public accepts evolutionist "or" creationist views. The differences between groups, such as people from various countries, are then explained by variations in religious views. But what is often overlooked, is that the data also show that a large proportion of the population, about one-third, is unsure what to believe. This figure generally goes unnoticed. We argue that the emphasis on religious variables obscures another, perhaps more important, variable: the conceptual understanding of evolution. This factor may help explain why so many people are unsure about evolution and offers a greater potential to increase public understanding and acceptance of the theory, perhaps with the active involvement of science educators.

Local biodiversity trends over time are likely to be decoupled from global trends, as local processes may compensate or counteract global change. We analyze 161 long-term biological time series (15–91 years) collected across Europe, using a comprehensive dataset comprising ~6,200 marine, freshwater and terrestrial taxa. We test whether (i) local long-term biodiversity trends are consistent among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, and (ii) changes in biodiversity correlate with regional climate and local conditions. Our results reveal that local trends of abundance, richness and diversity differ among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, demonstrating that biodiversity changes at local scale are often complex and cannot be easily generalized. However, we find increases in richness and abundance with increasing temperature and naturalness as well as a clear spatial pattern in changes in community composition (i.e. temporal taxonomic turnover) in most biogeoregions of Northern and Eastern Europe. The global biodiversity decline might conceal complex local and group-specific trends. Here the authors report a quantitative synthesis of longterm biodiversity trends across Europe, showing how, despite overall increase in biodiversity metric and stability in abundance, trends differ between regions, ecosystem types, and taxa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective erosion control requires both a sound understanding of the physical context and sufficient motivation on the part of farmers to act, and in Europe this almost inevitably depends on financial subsidies. In south-west France, intense spring and summer storms lead to large scale sediment deposition on roadways, and cleanup costs are a major concern for local authorities. Current erosion control subsidy rates are not sufficient to encourage farmers to limit erosion and reduce cleanup costs. The objective of this study was to define the topographic characteristics which control sediment deposition on roadways in order to compare the cost of planting grass strips along these roads to current cleanup costs. Topographic conditions were characterised by midslope inclination (with a range of from 6 to 8%) and distance of this slope to the road (range of 50–200 m), and these were defined by a combination of field visits, air photos, and GIS techniques. The effect of grass buffer strips on sediment deposition was estimated using the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE). The financial benefits of planting grass strips were based on the estimated efficiency of the buffer strips and the length of roads affected according to the topographic conditions. More than 70% of roads requiring regular cleanup occur within 200 m of a midlsope inclination of 6%. Errors in predicting sediment deposition sites according to topography occur mainly when small scale changes in topography are beneath the resolution of the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) or when sediment deposition occurs due to the intersection of talwegs with roads. Modelling the effects of grass strips on soil erosion rates suggests that buffer strips of 12 or 24 m wide reduce sediments leaving the field by 32 and 54%, respectively. Planting grass buffer strips along predicted problem road sections can reduce cleanup costs associated with sediment deposition. Savings in the first year of planting are in the order of about 2% of current estimated cleanup costs (100,000 €) for 12 m wide strips, and this amount increases to almost 35% in subsequent years for 24 m strips. Savings in cleanup costs can be used to increase erosion control subsidies, thereby ensuring a higher level of farmer participation. In addition to reducing sediment deposition on roadways, the grass buffer strips serve as demonstration plots for the farming community. The strategy does not directly eliminate soil degradation upslope, but it is a first step towards better erosion control. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Shorebird populations, especially those feeding on shellfish, have strongly declined in recent decades and identifying the drivers of these declines is important for conservation. Changing food stocks are thought to be a key driver of these declines and may also explain why trends have not been uniform across Europe's largest estuary. We therefore investigated how winter population trends of Eurasian oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) were linked to food availability in the Dutch Wadden Sea. Our analysis incorporated two spatial scales, a smaller scale focused on roost counting areas and food available to birds in these areas and a larger spatial scale of tidal basins. A novelty in our study is that we quantify the connectivity between roosting and foraging areas, identified from GPS tracking data. This allowed us to estimate food available to roosting birds and thus how food availability may explain local population trends. At the smaller spatial scale of roost counting areas, there was no clear relationship between available food and the number of roosting oystercatchers, indicating that other factors may drive population fluctuations at finer spatial scales. At the scale of tidal basins, however, there was a significant relationship between population trends and available food, especially cockle Cerastoderma edule ,. Mortality and recruitment alone could not account for the large fluctuations in bird counts, suggesting that the site choice of wintering migratory oystercatchers may primarily drive these large fluctuations. Furthermore, the relationship between oystercatcher abundance and benthic food stocks, suggests winter shorebird counts could act as ecological indicators of ecosystem health, informing about the winter status of food stocks at a spatial scale of tidal basins. • Understanding the link between predators and prey is important for conservation. • We estimated available prey biomass in foraging areas of GPS-tracked shorebirds. • We relate available prey biomass to population trends at shorebird roosting areas. • A significant positive relationship was found at the scale of tidal basins. • Estimating benthic prey biomass in foraging areas may assist population assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate warming challenges animals to advance their timing of reproduction [1], but many animals appear to be unable to advance at the same rate as their food species [2, 3]. As a result, mismatches can arise between the moment of largest food requirements for their offspring and peak food availability [4-6], with important fitness consequences [7]. For long-distance migrants, adjustment of phenology to climate warming may be hampered by their inability to predict the optimal timing of arrival at the breeding grounds from their wintering grounds [8]. Arrival can be advanced if birds accelerate migration by reducing time on stopover sites [9, 10], but a recent study suggests that most long-distance migrants are on too tight a schedule to do so [11]. This may be different for capital-breeding migrants, which use stopovers not only to fuel migration but also to acquire body stores needed for reproduction [12-14]. By combining multiple years of tracking and reproduction data, we show that a long-distance migratory bird (the barnacle goose, Branta leucopsis) accelerates its 3,000 km spring migration to advance arrival on its rapidly warming Arctic breeding grounds. As egg laying has advanced much less than arrival, they still encounter a phenological mismatch that reduces offspring survival. A shift toward using more local resources for reproduction suggests that geese first need to refuel body stores at the breeding grounds after accelerated migration. Although flexibility in body store use allows migrants to accelerate migration, this cannot solve the time constraint they are facing under climate warming., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Migrants, such as birds or representatives of other taxa, usually make use of several stopover sites to cover the distance between their site of origin and destination. Potentially, multiple routes exist, but often little is known about the causes and consequences of alternative migration routes. Apart from their geographical distribution, the suitability of potential sites might play an important role in the animals' decisions for a particular itinerary. We used an optimal-migration model to test three nonmutually exclusive hypotheses leading to variations in the spring migration routes of a subspecies of Red Knot, Calidris canutus islandica, which migrates from wintering grounds in Western Europe to breeding grounds in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic: the breeding location hypothesis, the energy budget hypothesis, and the predation risk hypothesis. Varying only breeding location, the model predicted that birds breeding in the Canadian Arctic and on West Greenland stop over on Iceland, whereas birds breeding in East and Northeast Greenland migrate via northern Norway, a prediction that is supported by empirical findings. Energy budgets on stopover sites had a strong influence on the choice of route and staging times. Varying foraging-intensity and mass-dependent predation risk prompted the birds to use less risky sites, if possible. The effect of simultaneous changes in the energy budget and predation risk strongly depended on the site where these occurred. Our findings provide potential explanations for the observations that C. canutus islandica uses a diverse array of migration routes. Scrutinizing the three alternative driving forces for the choice of migratory routes awaits further, specific data collection in rapidly developing fields of research (e.g., predation risk assessment, GPS tracking). Generally, the type of modeling presented here may not only highlight alternative explanations, but also direct follow-up empirical research.