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Status and Ecological Effects of the World’s Largest Carnivores
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The largest terrestrial species in the order Carnivora are wide-ranging and rare
because of their positions at the top of food webs. They are some of the world’s most admired mammals
and, ironically, some of the most imperiled. Most have experienced substantial population
declines and range contractions throughout the world during the past two centuries. Because of the
high metabolic demands that come with endothermy and large body size, these carnivores often
require large prey and expansive habitats. These food requirements and wide-ranging behavior
often bring them into confl ict with humans and livestock. This, in addition to human intolerance,
renders them vulnerable to extinction. Large carnivores face enormous threats that have caused
massive declines in their populations and geographic ranges, including habitat loss and degradation,
persecution, utilization, and depletion of prey. We highlight how these threats can affect the
conservation status and ecological roles of this planet’s 31 largest carnivores.
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From Past to Future Warming
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Analyses of past observations help to
predict the human contribution to future
climate change.
21 FEBRUARY 2014 VOL 343 SCIENCE
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Wildlife decline and social conflict
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Policies aimed at reducing
wildlife-related conflict
must address the
underlying causes
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The Global Plight of Pollinators
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Wild pollinators are in decline, and managed
honeybees cannot compensate for their loss.
29 MARCH 2013 VOL 339 SCIENCE
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Marine Taxa Track Local Climate Velocities
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Organisms are expected to adapt or move in response to climate change, but observed
distribution shifts span a wide range of directions and rates. Explanations often emphasize
biological distinctions among species, but general mechanisms have been elusive. We tested an
alternative hypothesis: that differences in climate velocity—the rate and direction that climate
shifts across the landscape—can explain observed species shifts. We compiled a database of
coastal surveys around North America from 1968 to 2011, sampling 128 million individuals
across 360 marine taxa. Climate velocity explained the magnitude and direction of shifts in
latitude and depth much more effectively than did species characteristics. Our results demonstrate
that marine species shift at different rates and directions because they closely track the complex
mosaic of local climate velocities.
SCIENCE VOL 341 13 SEPTEMBER 2013
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Is Embracing Change Our Best Bet?
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Restoration ecology and conservation
biology are both under pressure to
adapt to accelerated anthropogenic
global change. Pristine areas free from human
infl uence no longer exist and, arguably, have
not for thousands of years ( 1). Major landcover
transformations for agriculture affected
vast territories more than 3000 years ago ( 2).
Large mammal extinctions in the late Pleistocene
(circa 12,000 years ago) were related to
human expansion ( 3). And relocation of nowwidespread
naturalized species was already
happening 4230 years ago, when domestic
dogs (dingos) were introduced into Australia
by way of southeast Asia ( 4). Thus, humansculpted
landscapes are what we have been
mostly managing for millennia. Because the
rate of alteration has dramatically increased
over the past 200 years, those ancient localized
impacts now affect most of the world.
Additionally, other indirect impacts act at a
planetary scale—e.g., increased carbon dioxide
concentration and nitrogen deposition
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Pathways for Conservation
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NEXT WEEK, CONSERVATION SCIENTISTS WILL GATHER AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS FOR
Conservation Biology (ICCB) in Baltimore, Maryland, to grapple with the challenges of
preserving our natural world in the face of a growing and increasingly consumptive human
population. The natural world provides countless services, such as clean water, protection
from fl ooding, and carbon sequestration, while offering opportunities for new medicines,
foods, and energy production. Yet these valuable services and opportunities are disappearing
along with the species and natural areas that supply them. The needs of a growing human
population must be met while conserving the planet’s natural systems. Accomplishing both
will depend on making clearer connections between scientifi c results regarding issues such
as biodiversity loss and the critical decisions that must be made about conditions that underlie
change, such as greenhouse gas emissions and freshwater availability. The good news is
that today’s conservation scientists are developing innovative tools
and strategies.
SCIENCE VOL 341
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Water in the Balance
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Satellite data may enable improved management of regional groundwater reserves.
VOL 340 SCIENCE
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Physical Laws Shape Biology
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IN THE PERSPECTIVE “A DYNAMICAL-SYSTEMS VIEW OF STEM CELL
biology” (12 October 2012, p. 215), C. Furusawa and K. Kaneko discuss
the relevance of dynamic systems biology approaches and the
concept of “attractors” to understand cell differentiation and proliferation.
We share their excitement in using computational models that
apply physical laws to cell fate decision.
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What Does Zero Deforestation Mean?
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Ambiguous defi nitions and metrics create risks
for forest conservation and accountability.
SCIENCE VOL 342
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