Apis honeybees are very important pollinators in tropical Asia but their diversity declines rapidly north of the tropics. This suggests that climate is a major control on their distributions and that climate change may influence the services they provide. Four Apis honeybees coexist in a flower-rich botanical garden in Yunnan, China, on the northern margin of the tropics (21^o41′N): A. florea and A. andreniformis (small, open-nesting), A. cerana (medium, cavity-nesting), and A. dorsata (large, open-nesting). We made standardized observations of their diurnal and seasonal activity patterns and recorded temperature, humidity, and solar radiation at flowers being visited. A. dorsata comprised two-thirds of honeybee individuals observed, although this species was largely absent from July to November. A. cerana was active on each day that observations were made and tolerated temperatures of 7℃–41.5℃ (including observations from two other sites in Yunnan). The other species had higher minimum temperature thresholds for activity, but A. florea had a higher maximum temperature tolerance (46.5℃) and A. dorsata was sometimes active at night. Generalized linear models showed abundances of A. cerana and A. dorsata had positive relationships with numbers of flowers and negative ones with temperature. A. florea abundance had a positive relationship with temperature, while the presence of A. andreniformis was positively related to temperature and humidity. Apis bees visited 48.6% of the flower species observed. Impacts of projected warming over coming decades are expected to vary among species, but overall pollination services by honeybees at this site seem likely to be resilient.

The white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari) and the collared peccary (Pecari tajacu) are social ungulates of great ecological and economic importance. Both species represent important sources of animal protein in the diet of indigenous and rural communities in Neotropical forests, which has contributed to reducing their populations throughout their geographic distribution. It is still not well understood how the social ecology of peccaries is affected by hunting. This study analyzed the relationship between hunting and group size, group composition, daily activity patterns, and the relative abundance of the two peccary species. Camera-traps and direct observation were used from February 2014 through February 2015 in two sites differing in their degree of protection and hunting pressure: the first was Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (a site with no hunting) and the second was the community of Nuevo Becal (a hunting site). Our analyses suggest that hunting negatively affects group size, structure, composition and the relative abundance of both peccary species. We propose that management and conservation plans, particularly for key resources such as water, and monitoring and hunting controls in the habitats of both peccary species, might ensure their survival in the Calakmul region.

In western Tanzania’s wildlife ecosystems, both commercial and subsistence uses of wildlife take place. Commercial use is largely through trophy hunting in designated hunting areas while subsistence use is predominantly carried out by local people for food and as a source of cash income. Assessing the status of wildlife populations in hunting areas is of supreme importance if unsustainable use is to be controlled. In this study, we carried out road transect surveys to estimate the density, group size and sex ratio of selected species of exploited wildlife in Ugalla Game Reserve, western Tanzania, to determine whether population characteristics differed between the Ugalla east and Ugalla west hunting sites. Overall, estimates of density and group size were higher at Ugalla east than Ugalla west. Of the individual species, the helmeted guineafowl had the highest population density, followed by impala and topi. Waterbuck had the lowest population density. When comparing our findings with population densities reported in other studies, especially in the more protected Katavi National Park in western Tanzania, our estimates were much lower. Sex ratios varied considerably among species although they were generally skewed towards females. Future studies should integrate data from subsistence and trophy hunting and evaluate the status of wildlife taking into account habitat characteristics.

The conservation of the Magnoliaceae family is considered a priority worldwide, especially in Colombia, where all of its 36 species are seriously endangered while frustratingly little is known about their ecology. We therefore, assessed some ecological aspects of two lowland forest species: laurel arenillo (Magnolia katiorum) and molinillo (M. sambuensis). The first is an endemic species of the Urabá region in northwestern Colombia, and the second is distributed from Panama to Colombia along the Chocó Biogeographical region. Both species have a very low tree density and are found in forest stands that are disturbed by the timber exploitation of valuable woody species. The trees of both species had an average height of 26 m and shared similar environmental conditions such as soil (25°C) and air (28°C) temperatures, soil moisture (113%), and slope (25%). A redundancy analysis showed that each Magnolia species grows in a different community. Laurel arenillo was not a clear dominant species in a more diverse forest community, and was positively associated to altitude, longitudinal slope, and soil humidity. In contrast, molinillo was positively associated to air temperature and transversal slope and was negatively associated with longitudinal slope. This species was the most dominant in its community, which was less diverse than that of laurel arenillo. The last species should be considered a priority for conservation while the conservation status of molinillo should be further reviewed. Both species displayed large, fragrant, eye-catching flowers throughout most of the year.