Volunteers get a well-deserved boost with a write up in the Cape Times

Nolwethu's study on how volunteers was written up in a piece for the Cape Times today. 

Nice to see this work getting the attention it deserves!

Jubase, N., Shackleton, R. & Measey, J. Help Heroes Fight Invasive Alien Plants Cape Times  20 Aug 2021

The southwestern Cape is getting warmer and drier - bad news for frogs

Many of you will be aware that the extreme southwestern Cape of South Africa is a frog biodiversity hotspot. There are four endemic genera and 36 endemic species that occur in the fynbos alone (see Colville et al.2014). It is also a hotspot where many species are threatened, as shown in the following image from Angulo et al. (2011). Reasons for the threats include habitat transformation and invasive species, but new data from the IPCC suggest what many of us have been thinking that the climate is getting worse for amphibians in this area.

Frogs from this area breed in seasonal temporary vernal pools, puddles or have direct-developing tadpoles that rely on seepages and moist environments. A combination of reduced rainfall and increased temperatures in this region is therefore bad news for frogs. 

This area of the world is also under high anthropogenic pressure. The City of Cape Town has expanded to include ~4.6 million people, all of whom require food grown in the lowland areas North and East of the city. Species in the mountains are generally impacted by invasive plants such as pines and acacias. 

The new IPCC WGI interactive Atlas (https://interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch/) with regional information allows users to plot mean temperatures and mean precipitation per decade from 1980 to 2015. The trended data demonstrates that this region of the world is getting warmer and drier. This is within living memory, and chimes with comments from the community that frogs are becoming generally less abundant when walking in the mountains. According to Barry Rose, who as a boy in the 1950s collected frogs for his grandfather, when walking in the mountains of the Cape peninsula he saw an abundance of frogs that would jump out of his path as he moved through the fynbos. Now they seem to be far fewer.

We have also seen this trend in our research on toadlets from the genusCapensibufo. Cressey et al. (2015) that are no longer in many of the places where they were found in the 1970s. We have also seen general analyses on the assemblage frogs in this area from Mokhatla et al. (2015).

Is climate to blame for enigmatic declines?

It is very hard to know whether climate change alone is reducing the overall numbers of frogs in the fynbos. But this does underline the importance of monitoring populations of the species that remain. Very few areas are being monitored, but we appreciate that there is a need for long term support for initiatives that are collecting data (Measey et al.2019). 

See the recent blog posts (hereandhere) to find out more about how the MeaseyLab is attempting to monitor populations of frogs by usingaSCRto quantify the density of calling males.

Literature

Angulo, A., Hoffmann, M. & Measey, G.J. (2011). Introduction: Conservation assessments of the amphibians of South Africa and the world. In: Ensuring a future for South Africa’s frogs: a strategy for conservation research. (ed. G.J. Measey), pp. 1-9. SANBI Biodiversity Series 19. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. 

Colville, J.C., Potts, A.J., Bradshaw, P.L., Measey, G.J., Snijman, D., Picker, M.D., ProcheŞ, S., Bowie, R.C.K. and Manning, J.C. (2014) Floristic and faunal Cape biochoria: do they exist? In: Fynbos: ecology, evolution, and conservation of a megadiverse region. (eds. Allsopp, N., Colville, J.F., Verboom, G.A.) pp 73-93. Oxford University Press. 

Cressey, E.R., Measey, G.J., & Tolley, K.A. (2015). Fading out of view: the enigmatic decline of Rose’s mountain toad Capensibufo rosei. Oryx, 49, 521–528.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605313001051 

Measey, J., Tarrant, J., Rebelo, A.D., Turner, A.A., Du Preez, L.H., Mokhatla, M.M., Conradie, W. (2019) Has strategic planning made a difference to amphibian conservation research in South Africa? African Biodiversity & Conservation - Bothalia  49(1), a2428.https://doi.org/10.4102/abc.v49i1.2428

Mokhatla, M. M., Rödder, D. & Measey, G.J. (2015) Assessing the effects of climate change on distributions of Cape Floristic Region amphibians. South African Journal of Science;111, 2014-0389.https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2015/20140389

Impacts of volunteers on invasive plants

As a volunteer, it can sometimes be very disheartening to work clearing alien invasive plants, because they pop back up so quickly and the task seems so much bigger than you are. But, in a recently published study by Nolwethu Jubase, we show that not only do volunteers make a significant impact on the problem, but they get a lot more from it than just cutting down aliens. 

Being faced with a never ending barrage of invasive plants might seem enough to get your spirits down and give up. But in the Western Cape, volunteer groups are strong and derive great satisfaction from ridding the area of invasive species. Nolwethu estimated that their work amounts to nearly 5 300 ha of land cleared of aliens per year with labour costs equivalent to ZAR 5.1 million! This is a significant input into the fight against invasive plants, but the groups could do with better support. Currently, volunteers put their own monies into work needed at the sites, but need training for many of the aspects of removal and use of herbicides.

Of the many problems that the groups face, support from authorities seems particularly lacking. There is a great need for coordinating the groups so that their activities fit into the bigger picture. This role needs to be taken on by a national authority, such as SANBI. Particular problems faced by the groups included the movement of governmental organised alien clearing. Sometimes land cleared by volunteers is then cleared by government workers the next week. 

On the up side, volunteers get a lot out of their time spent removing invasive woody aliens from the fynbos of the Western Cape. They learn and get inspiration from others in the group and receive feelings of satisfaction, happiness and a sense of achievement. 

Read more about the study:

Jubase, N., Shackleton, R.T., Measey, J. (2021) Motivations and contributions of volunteer groups in the management of invasive alien plants in South Africa’s Western Cape province. Bothalia - African Biodiversity & Conservation 51(2), a3. http://dx.doi.org/10.38201/btha.abc.v51.i2.3 pdf

10 years of monitoring the Rough Moss Frog

It was 2011 when I first visited the Klein Swartberg, near Caledon, to carry out aSCR recordings to measure density of calling male Rough Moss frogs, Arthroleptella rugosa, with Andrew Turner from CapeNature. Some of you will remember the visit of Debra Stark in 2015. Debra also conducted recordings of Rough Moss frogs on the mountain (see here).

Since then, the mountain burned and recovered, and we have been back most years to measure density of the frogs. In 2013, the mountain looked the best I've ever seen it. The fire that went through in February 2012 had taken out most of the large pines, and the seepage where the frogs call was free of invaders (see top image below). 

Last week we were back with Oliver Angus (lower image) who is looking at the aSCR data from all years for his Honours project in the MeaseyLab. That same seep was not only invaded by pines, Pinus pinaster, but the frogs were no longer calling from what had been a stronghold for them. 

Happily, they are still calling at other sites on the mountain. 

In this image you see a male Rough Moss Frog that was ~20 mm long (SVL). For their small size they make quite a good noise that we can use to measure their population size.

Stay tuned for more news on this project...

Recycling text - new guidelines clarify a thorny issue

I have written elsewhere on this blog about plagiarism. Plagiarism is when you copy text from a source document somebody else has written, and paste it into your own document. You will be aware that plagiarism is not acceptable either for any documents that you hand in at the University or for anything that you want to publish (see blog entry on plagiarism). 

• But what if the source document that you want to copy from is something that you've written yourself?
• Does this still count as plagiarism?
• Or is it text recycling?

In some new guidelines, recently published, Hall et al (2021) help demystify text recycling in its different formats and explain what is permissible when and why.

Text recycling	Example
Developmental	Reusing text that you have written but not published, for example in your proposal or thesis.
Generative	Use of already published text that becomes more obscure when you attempt to reword it, such as technical settings in your methods.
Adaptive	Using text published in one format on the same subject but for a different audience. For example, using some text published in a paper for a popular article.
Duplicate	Repeating published text wholesale for intention to publish again for the same audience.

Developmental recyclingis when you are reusing text that you have written for example between your proposal and something you intend for publication or in an ethics application that you also want to use in your thesis. All of this sort of developmental recycling is permitted and actually encouraged. I would further encourage you to use the opportunity of recycling this text to develop it and refine it further, condensing and improving where you can. 

Generative recyclingis where you take pieces of already published text for example from the methods when it does not make sense to change the text or actually makes it more obscure to reword it in order to avoid plagiarism. In my experience this doesn't amount to more than a few sentences describing technical settings on equipment. However this will depend strongly on your own subject area and may amount to larger chunks of text. In my previous advice on generative recycling I suggested that it is usually possible to reword most of the methods sections of papers. I reiterate here that this is the most preferable outcome and that you avoid any text recycling at all. You should really only be generatively recycling material if you cannot avoid it. These are situations where the text becomes more obscure by your attempts to reword it. There are some extra guidelines for generative recycling where you should have been an author preferably the lead author on the original text and that you make it transparent that the text has been recycled to readers (via a citation) and you may also want to declare it in your cover letter if there are no journal guidelines. Also make sure that any co-authors are aware.

Adaptive recyclingis where you are using published text for example for my paper as the basis for content in a popular article online or in a magazine or op-ed. I think that this kind of text recycling is quite unnecessary because you almost certainly need to reword your text for a different audience. There maybe times such as figure legends where you need to reuse text that was already published. If you do find yourself in such a position then check with the copyright owner of the material that you are able to reuse the text that you want without legal issues.

Duplicate recyclingis where large tracts of texts are essentially the same for the same message and audience. This is never likely to be sanctioned as it suggests that you are attempting to publish the same work twice. It will not be legal or ethical.

Read More:

Hall, S, Moskovitz, C, and Pemberton, M (2021) “Understanding text recycling. A Guide for Researchers” Text Recycling Research Project:https://textrecycling.org/resources/