Global boards show progress in sustainability, but AI and geopolitical risks loom large

New global survey by INSEAD, Heidrick & Struggles and BCG, reveals growing confidence in sustainability governance, but boards and CEOs still lack confidence in each other’s leadership

INSEAD Asia Campus

 

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 Boards and Society: How Boards Are Evolving to Meet Challenges from Sustainability to Geopolitical Volatility

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Credit: INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre, Heidrick & Struggles and Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre, in partnership with Heidrick & Struggles and Boston Consulting Group (BCG),  today published a report exploring how boards are responding to complex trends and disruptions they currently face.

The report Boards and Society: How Boards Are Evolving to Meet Challenges from Sustainability to Geopolitical Volatility reveals boards have made meaningful advances to address sustainability topics, but are less confident when it comes to their understanding of other issues such as the rising importance of generative AI, intensifying trade and geopolitical disruptions. These four interconnected pillars are forcing directors and CEOs to navigate an increasingly unpredictable environment filled with conflicting and often politically charged demands.  

Additionally, the report shows evidence of simmering discord among company leadership on how best to enhance competitiveness amid the challenges they face.

Key Findings from the Boardroom

• 77% of boards believe their company has a responsibility to address sustainability concerns
• 36% feel prepared to leverage the disruptive potential of AI
• 37% believe their company has a sufficient strategy around geopolitical risk
• 29% of directors do not have faith in their CEO to navigate uncertainty 
• 26% of CEOs do not have faith in their board’s effectiveness
• Half of respondents are not confident their company is equipped to identify new threats and opportunities related to sustainability, generative AI and geopolitics

The report reveals that 77% of the global board members surveyed believe their company has a responsibility to address societal concerns, although more than half (54%) believe that business objectives should remain the primary focus. In contrast to this enthusiasm around sustainability, only 36% of directors feel prepared to leverage the disruptive potential of AI, while just 37% agree that their companies have sufficient strategies in place to manage geopolitical risks.

These findings highlight an urgent need for greater balance between traditional governance with forward-looking strategies and increased investment in board competency. Despite lower levels of confidence for the prevailing risks and emerging technologies of our time, it is encouraging to note that more than 60% of directors stated that their boards are “leaning in” on risk management, suggesting a desire to tackle these challenges head on, regardless of their complexity.

Lack of Confidence Amid Growing Complexity
In a concerning indication of division within the boardroom, the new report reveals that 29% of directors lack confidence in their CEO’s ability to navigate disruption and boost long-term value. Meanwhile, a comparable number of CEOs (26%) are equally skeptical of their board’s effectiveness, reflecting an increasing tension between top leadership teams grappling with a more complex and diverse range of issues than ever before.

The report also finds that roughly half of directors are not confident their company is equipped to identify new threats and opportunities related to sustainability, generative AI and geopolitics, nor are they able translate them into a competitive advantage. As global business landscapes continue to shift, the ability of boards to stay cohesive, align with leadership, and adapt to new challenges with innovative corporate strategy will be more critical than ever. Effective governance that embraces both foresight and resilience will be key in turning these disruptions into opportunities, allowing businesses not only to survive but to thrive in an increasingly volatile world.

Sonia Tatar, Executive Director of INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre, said, "Boards today can benefit from moving from being reactive to proactive. Beyond understanding disruptions, they can focus on looking ahead—anticipating future shocks and potential risks and finding ways to capitalize on the emerging trends to leverage opportunities. By translating insights that inform decision-making into strategic actions, they will be better positioned to guide companies in becoming more resilient and navigating change effectively."  
  
Commenting on the findings, Jeremy Hanson, Partner with Heidrick & Struggles and Co-author of the report, commented: “While it is encouraging that boards are stepping up on sustainability, this year’s survey reveals tensions between directors and management regarding each other’s capacity to navigate disruption. With so much at stake—and an increasing complexity to unpack—alignment between board directors and management isn’t just a best practice; it’s essential for addressing both today’s challenges and those of the future. Importantly, alignment does not mean boards should shy away from constructive debate with management. In fact, fostering open, even difficult, conversations is crucial for boards to reach resilient, well-rounded decisions in today’s demanding environment.”

Also commenting on the report, David Young, Managing Director and Senior Partner of BCG added: “Boards are facing new and increasingly complex challenges, amid geopolitical uncertainty, rapid advances in technology, and continued concerns over the impact of climate change. But boards have made notable progress in tackling sustainability--and now there is opportunity for them to learn from these efforts as they engage in deep conversations with executive leadership to confront this expanding agenda.”

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Media Inquiries:

Heidrick & Struggles: heidrick@cw8-communications.com

BCG: Gregoire.Eric@bcg.com 

INSEAD: news@insead.edu 

 

 

About Heidrick & Struggles

Heidrick & Struggles (Nasdaq: HSII) is a premier provider of global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions, serving the senior-level talent and consulting needs of the world's top organizations. In our role as trusted leadership advisors, we partner with our clients to develop future-ready leaders and organizations, bringing together our services and offerings in executive search, diversity and inclusion, leadership assessment and development, organization and team acceleration, culture shaping and on-demand, independent talent solutions. Heidrick & Struggles pioneered the profession of executive search more than 70 years ago. Today, the firm provides integrated talent and human capital solutions to help our clients change the world, one leadership team at a time. For more, please visit www.heidrick.com

 

About BCG

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we work closely with clients to embrace a transformational approach aimed at benefiting all stakeholders—empowering organizations to grow, build sustainable competitive advantage, and drive positive societal impact.

Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives that question the status quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting, technology and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling them to make the world a better place.

About INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre  

The INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre (ICGC) has been actively engaged in making a distinctive contribution to the knowledge and practice of corporate governance globally. Its vision is to be the leading center for research, innovation, and impact in corporate governance. Through its educational portfolio and advocacy, the ICGC seeks to build greater trust within the public and stakeholder communities, so that businesses are a powerful force for improvement, not only of economic markets but also for the global societal environment. For more, visit www.insead.edu/centres/corporate-governance.

Researchers catalog the microbiome of US rivers

River microbes found near wastewater treatment plants expressed high levels of antibiotic resistance genes

Colorado State University

Rivers and streams serve as critical connectors across vast geographical landscapes, trickling out of tucked-away headwaters and snaking thousands of miles toward oceans and deep seas. These waterways directly impact human and environmental health, agriculture and energy production, and supply the United States with two-thirds of its drinking water. And yet, compared with other larger waterbodies, the microbiology of rivers is relatively understudied.

A Colorado State University-led team of scientists have contributed to changing that — detailing for the first time both broad and specific information about the presence and function of microorganisms in rivers covering 90% of the watersheds in the continental U.S. Cataloging the microbiome of these rivers is the result of a yearslong participatory science effort published this week in the journal Nature.

This new research suggests that microbes play a significant role in shaping the overall health of rivers. The paper’s authors describe river microbes as “master orchestrators of nutrient and energy flows that will likely dictate water quality under current and future water scenarios.” What’s more, the authors found these microbes are interacting with contaminants found in the water, adding new detail to an existing body of evidence showing that rivers are impacted by artificial inputs such as antibiotics, disinfection products, fluorinated compounds, fertilizers and microplastics. Notably, river microbes had the ability to degrade microplastics into smaller carbon compounds, and microbes found near wastewater treatment plants expressed high levels of antibiotic resistance genes.

The study also found that river microbe behavior supports a decades-old idea known as the River Continuum Concept — a macro-ecological theory that views rivers as one continuously integrated system. For example, a particular type of fish thriving at a particular spot in a river is inextricably linked to what’s happening upstream. Turns out, this is also true of river microorganisms.

“People used to think of rivers almost just as pipes, a way to move water from one place to another,” said CSU Research Professor Mikayla Borton, lead author on the Nature paper. “But rivers are much more than that — they’re performing all kinds of activities. And there’s a pattern to it; those activities can be predicted. Now, we know what microbes are performing some of those activities.”

The study involved cataloging more than 2,000 microbial genomes from about 100 rivers across North America — a majority from water samples collected by local community members through a sampling program run by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, or PNNL, an environmental and physical sciences research lab located in Washington state and operated by Battelle, a private nonprofit, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy.

“When we look at how the land around a river is managed, we can see the processing of certain kinds of anthropogenic contaminants or chemicals through the microbes in their DNA,” said Kelly Wrighton, a professor in CSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences and a co-author on the paper. “There’s a very strong relationship — it suggests there’s a signal in the microbiome of how we’re living on and managing the land that is perpetuated into the river system and then downstream.”

Microbiome science is an emerging scientific field. One of the key promises of this research area is that microbes can function as a kind of canary in the coal mine for the health of both humans and critical ecosystems — soils, oceans, or, say, the overall wellness of a river. “Our hope,” said Wrighton, one of the leaders of CSU’s Microbiome Network, an interdisciplinary research group, “is that this information can eventually be used to develop new diagnostics that are indicators of a healthy river versus an unhealthy river.”

Participatory science on a large scale

In addition to unlocking new insight into river microorganisms, the research published this week also showcases how participatory science can be successfully executed on a large scale, Wrighton said.

Wrighton first considered the project in 2018, while attending a national Department of Energy research meeting in Washington, D.C. At the meeting, Wrighton met James Stegen, a PNNL earth scientist, and learned that Stegen and his colleague, Amy Goldman, were already overseeing a massive, worldwide river sampling effort known as the Worldwide Hydrobiogeochemistry Observation Network for Dynamic River Systems, or WHONDRS. The program enlisted both scientists and non-scientists to collect river samples locally and send the samples to PNNL for analysis. Wrighton realized those same samples could also be analyzed for microbial data.

“There’s a lot of interest in mapping microbiomes, and there was this huge absence of microbial river data,” Wrighton said. “But I was also thinking, ‘Can we do this science at scale?’ Because if we can do science like this, if we can demonstrate that it works, we can tackle the world’s big problems like climate change. We could take this and apply it everywhere. We’re already working on a similar approach with wetlands.”

Stegen is excited by the results and the possibilities for new research to flow out of this work. “This is new frontier kind of stuff; we’re really opening the doors to a deeply under-characterized part of the Earth,” Stegen said. “It is extremely gratifying to have built something that will benefit a lot of folks beyond our team.”

One of the keys in opening this work to a broader audience, Borton said, was to make the information accessible in a user-friendly database. To accomplish that, Borton turned to CSU Associate Professor Matt Ross, an ecosystem scientist who works with data analytics. Ross’ lab helped build the river microbiome data into a searchable, web-friendly platform.

“I’m really proud of the data accessibility part of this project,” Borton said.

Ross, a co-author on the paper, also helped Borton contextualize the data for the paper’s final analysis. He was somewhat surprised that granular microbial data connected so well to longstanding theories about big river ecosystems. “One of the key ideas from the paper was that this tied back to river theory — how rivers change from small creeks to really large rivers,” Ross said. “This work aligns quite well with these old theories.”

In addition to being impacted by land use, river microbes were affected by other variables such as the size of the river, how much light hit the water surface, air temperature and the speed of the water flowing in the river. Those same factors also impact larger river species. What’s more, these factors were predictive of what microbes the researchers found, regardless of where in the U.S. the river was located. In fact, the team found six microbes in particular that were present and active in each of the roughly 100 rivers they studied. All six of those core microorganisms used light as an energy source.

“Microbes are active in these systems in such a way that is predictable across the continental U.S.,” Borton said. “I thought that we would find similar organisms in these different river systems, but I didn’t think the microbes would follow the tenets of these old river concepts for macro-organisms. That’s very cool, and I think says a lot about the robustness of the science that was done prior to our work.”

Borton hopes non-microbiome scientists will start using the data infrastructure they’ve built around river microbiomes, including incorporating microbial processes into efforts to better model ecosystems on a large scale. “We need to be better at studying across landscapes,” Borton said, “and better understanding rivers can help us do that.”

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-024-08240-z 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

‘A functional microbiome catalogue crowdsourced from North American rivers’

Article Publication Date

20-Nov-2024

 

Females sleep less, awaken more frequently than males

A new study in mice shows that males and females have profoundly different sleep patterns

University of Colorado at Boulder

Females sleep less, wake up more often and get less restorative sleep than males, according to a new animal study by CU Boulder researchers.

The findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, shed new light on what may underlie sleep differences in men and women and could have broad implications for biomedical research, which for decades has focused primarily on males.

“In humans, men and women exhibit distinct sleep patterns, often attributed to lifestyle factors and caregiving roles,” said senior author Rachel Rowe, assistant professor of integrative physiology. “Our results suggest that biological factors may play a more substantial role in driving these sleep differences than previously recognized.”

Sleep research has exploded in recent years, with thousands of animal studies exploring how insufficient sleep impacts risk of diseases like diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s and immune disorders—and how such diseases impact sleep. Meanwhile, mice have often been the first to be tested to see whether new drugs, including medications for sleep, work and what the side effects are.

But many of those results may have been skewed due to a lack of female representation, the study suggests.

“Essentially, we found that the most commonly used mouse strain in biomedical research has sex-specific sleep behavior and that a failure to properly account for these sex differences can easily lead to flawed interpretations of data,” said first author Grant Mannino, who graduated with degrees in psychology and neuroscience and was named outstanding undergraduate of the College of Arts and Sciences in May.

How mice sleep

For the non-invasive study, the authors used specialized cages lined with ultrasensitive movement sensors to assess the sleep patterns of 267 “C57BL/6J” mice.

Males slept about 670 minutes total per 24-hour period, about an hour more than female mice. That extra sleep was non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep—the restorative sleep when the body works to repair itself.

Mice are nocturnal and are “polyphasic sleepers”—napping for a few minutes before arousing briefly to survey their environment and then resuming their slumber. Females, the study found, have even shorter bouts of sleep—essentially, their sleep is more fragmented.

Similar sex differences have been seen in other animals, including fruit flies, rats, zebrafish and birds. Evolutionarily, it makes sense.

“From a biological standpoint, it could be that females are designed to be more sensitive to their environment and be aroused when they need to be because they are typically the one who is caring for the young,” Rowe said. “If we slept as hard as males sleep, we would not move forward as a species, right?”

Stress hormones like cortisol (which promotes wakefulness) and sex hormones likely play a role. For instance, women tend to report worse sleep during the time in their menstrual cycle when estrogen and progesterone are at their lowest.

Some have hypothesized that females inherently require less sleep.

“For me, the question is: Are we creating too much stress for ourselves because we don’t sleep as much as our husband or partner and think our sleep is poor when actually that is a normal sleep profile for ourselves?” said Rowe.

The authors hope their findings inspire more research into underlying biological differences. More importantly, they hope the study prompts scientists to re-evaluate how they do research.

Progress made but more work to be done

In 2016, the National Institutes of Health began requiring scientists applying for funding for animal studies to consider “sex as a biological variable.” Progress has been made, but research has shown that sex bias still exists. And it can have real consequences, the authors found.

When they simulated a sleep treatment that worked best in females, they found that it was accurately reflected only if the sample size was made up evenly of males and females.

Bottom line: If females are underrepresented, drugs that work best for them may seem ineffective, or side effects that hit hardest may go unnoticed.

“The pipeline from bench to bedside is decades-long and often things that work in animals fail when they get to clinical trials. Is it taking so long because sex isn’t being considered enough?” said Rowe.

The authors encourage researchers to include both sexes equally when possible, analyze data for males and females separately, and re-evaluate past studies that underrepresented females.

“The most surprising finding here isn’t that male and female mice sleep differently. It’s that no one has thoroughly shown this until now,” said Rowe. “We should have known this long before 2024.”

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Journal

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-024-70996-1 

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

The importance of including both sexes in preclinical sleep studies and analyses

 DESANTISLAND

Manatees might be relatively recent arrivals to Florida, USF study finds

Research suggests they may not have become Sunshine State fixtures until after Europeans colonization began

University of South Florida

 

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Manatees and tourists crowd the Three Sisters Spring at Crystal River, Florida, on a cold morning.

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Credit: Thomas J. Pluckhahn

TAMPA, Fla. (Nov. 20, 2024) – New research suggests that while manatees are an indelible part of Florida’s seascape, they might also be relatively new residents in the Sunshine State.

The findings are detailed in a study co-authored by University of South Florida anthropologist Thomas Pluckhahn and David Thulman, an archaeology professor at George Washington University, and scheduled to publish in PLOS ONE on Nov. 20 at 2 p.m. The embargo will lift at that time.

The paper, “Historical Ecology Reveals the ‘Surprising’ Direction and Extent of Shifting Baselines for the Florida Manatee,” (link will be live when the embargo lifts) concludes that for centuries, manatees might have occasionally swum in Florida waters, but possibly more so as tourists than residents, staying for a short visit before returning to their Caribbean homes like Cuba.

It is possible that they did not become Florida fixtures until after Europeans colonized the future state, the research suggests.

In Tampa Bay, the manatee population wasn’t deemed plentiful until the 1950s. And, in a twist of irony, manatees’ Florida residency was fueled by the same factor that now threatens their existence – climate change.

“It is commonly assumed that Florida manatee populations were once larger than they are today,” Pluckhahn said. “Many will find the results surprising, not only because it contradicts this assumption but also because it indicates the complexity of changes that have taken place in the Anthropocene,” the current period during which human activity has most-influenced climate and the environment.

The motivation for the research was fueled by Pluckhahn’s realization that there was a lack of evidence pointing to a large population of manatees in Florida’s pre-colonial era.

“Based on my own experience and talking to other archaeologists, we agreed there was a rarity of manatee bones on archaeological sites,” said Pluckhahn, who has been a part of archaeological excavations in the Tampa Bay area since 2008. “It was particularly impressive to me because I’ve worked at Crystal River, which is an epicenter for manatees. We became more curious and decided to do a comprehensive review of archaeological and archival sources.”

That analysis involved reviewing around 70 archaeological reports that detailed the systematic collection and analysis of nearly two million animal bones. Essentially none of them were manatee.

An expanded review of other excavations did find a dozen reports of manatee bones that had been modified into tools or ornaments, but that is not enough to proclaim that the sea mammals had a large pre-colonial Florida population.

The paper hypothesizes that it is possible that manatees were not present at all in precolonial Florida and the tools and ornaments arrived here via Native Americans trading with those from the Caribbean.

“The problem with that is people have been looking for proof of contact between Florida and the Caribbean during the pre-colonial era for a long time and haven’t been able to nail it down,” Pluckhahn said.

Or, perhaps, manatees were in abundance but there is a lack of bones at excavation sites because the mammals were not hunted. However, manatees are not described in accounts of expeditions by explorers who landed in Tampa Bay in between 1528 and 1595.

The most logical hypothesis is that manatees were then later “present only in very low numbers in Florida as occasional visitors from the Caribbean and then settled here permanently,” Pluckhahn said.

The first reliable written narratives of manatees in Florida date to the period of British rule in the late 1700s, the paper says. But, even then, sightings were rare.

Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, the print media began writing of routine sightings in Miami and St. Augustine, and by the mid-1950s “there were reports that manatees were ‘becoming more plentiful’ in Tampa Bay and a few were said to have become permanent residents’ of Crystal River,” the paper says.

What changed?

In short, Florida’s waters were once too frigid for manatees due to what is known as the Little Ace Age, a period of intermittent cooling beginning in the 1200s and lasting through the 1800s.

The authors suggest that as the effects of the Little Ice Age faded, manatees began extending their range northward to Florida. Warming waters caused by the advancements of humans subsequently helped convince the manatees to stay and breed.

Newspaper accounts from the late 1800s and early 1900s describe manatee sightings in warm water refuges like yacht basins and canals harbors, and later in areas near power plants.

The state’s current manatee population is between 8,350–11,730, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. That’s enough that, in 2017, they were reclassified from endangered to threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.

But manmade climate change is still a threat to Florida manatees, Pluckhahn said. “Pollution is killing a lot of the sea grass that the manatees eat. Plus, as we wean ourselves off fossil fuels and shut down power plants, we are taking away a refuge from them.”

Fossilized bones of Sirenians (the order that includes past and present manatee species), such as these examples from a site in Tampa Bay, are not uncommon on archaeological sites in Florida. But unfossilized bones of more recent manatees (from the last 12,000 years) are quite rare — suggesting sea cows may have been infrequent visitors to the Florida peninsula before the modern era.

Credit

Thomas J. Pluckhahn

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About the University of South Florida

The University of South Florida, a high-impact research university dedicated to student success and committed to community engagement, generates an annual economic impact of more than $6 billion. Across campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota-Manatee and USF Health, USF serves approximately 50,000 students who represent nearly 150 different countries. U.S. News & World Report has ranked USF as one of the nation’s top 50 public universities for six consecutive years and, for the second straight year, as the best value university in Florida. In 2023, USF became the first public university in Florida in nearly 40 years to be invited to join the Association of American Universities, a group of the leading 3% of universities in the United States and Canada. With an all-time high of $692 million in research funding in 2023 and a ranking as a top 15 public university for producing new U.S. patents, USF is a leader in solving global problems and improving lives. USF is a member of the American Athletic Conference. Learn more at  www.usf.edu.

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Journal

PLOS ONE

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Historical Ecology Reveals the ‘Surprising’ Direction and Extent of Shifting Baselines for the Florida Manatee

Article Publication Date

20-Nov-2024

Scientists develop groundbreaking method for detecting DNA of invasive snakes in Florida

University of Florida

 

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Melissa Miller in the Florida Everglades taking measurements of an invasive species. 

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Credit: UF/IFAS Croc Docs

Scientists at the University of Florida have developed a pioneering tool to bolster Florida’s defenses against invasive species: a DNA-based environmental monitoring test that can pinpoint where they’ve been, aiding eradication efforts.

Once a nonnative species gets into an environment, it is often too late to get rid of it, and the focus shifts to containment or long-term management. Both approaches come with heavy costs concerning native wildlife and funding, explained Melissa Miller, lead author on the study and an invasion ecologist at the UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center (UF/IFAS FLREC).

“We hope this novel eDNA sampling tool we have designed will help increase efficiency in invasive species management, allowing for early detection and rapid removal of nonnative species,” she said.

Known as a tetraplex digital PCR assay, this method of testing allows researchers to use water or soil samples for rapid and precise identification of Burmese pythons, northern African pythons, boa constrictors and rainbow boas from environmental DNA -- which scientists refer to as eDNA -- collected in the wild. The test can identify four invasive snake species simultaneously.

That eDNA refers to genetic material shed by organisms into their surroundings. Published in the journal of Ecology and Evolution, scientists at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) tout this as a significant advancement in detecting invasive snakes and a strategic tool for protecting Florida’s ecosystems.

“Cryptic species, like most snakes, are problematic when introduced outside of their range, as detectability is low, even in high densities. With this new method, we increase our ability to detect these cryptic species tremendously, no matter how many there are,” said Sergio Balaguera-Reina, co-author and research assistant scientist at the UF/IFAS FLREC.

Florida is home to over 500 nonnative species, with reptiles leading the way. More than 50 nonnative reptile species are now established across the state, with many posing severe threats to agriculture, native ecosystems, public safety and the state’s economy.

Current monitoring methods depend on visual surveys by scientists, which often fail to detect invasive constrictors because they’re elusive and cryptic. Traditional survey techniques are estimated to identify less than 5% of Burmese pythons. In contrast, the newly developed tetraplex assay by UF/IFAS scientists can identify DNA traces of these snakes even weeks after they have left an area.

This breakthrough offers wildlife managers a crucial tool to verify the presence of these hidden species and assess the success of removal efforts. “While eDNA sampling has been applied to detect non-native wildlife, the benefit of our methodology is that we can now sample for numerous target species within a single sample. This can aid natural resource managers by reducing costs required to survey for non-native species in multi-invaded ecosystems,” Miller said.

“With the high accuracy and specificity of this testing for detecting invasive constrictor snakes, resource managers can implement effective management strategies, such as removal efforts, quickly and with confidence,” Miller said.

The test was designed to operate seamlessly in Florida’s varied and challenging environments, from dense Everglades habitats to urban areas where non-native constrictors are now found. With this DNA-based approach, wildlife managers can implement programs that monitor multiple species, prioritize response efforts and ultimately mitigate the ecological impacts of these snakes on Florida’s ecosystems and Everglades restoration efforts.

Developing this tool required considerable work and significant technical advancements to ensure each target snake species’ DNA is precisely identified.

“The initial stage was designing the molecular test, which is essentially four tests in one,” said Brian Bahder, a senior author who developed the eDNA methodology and an associate professor of vector entomology at UF/IFAS FLREC. “Each test is specific to a different snake species and was designed to detect DNA from the Burmese python, northern African rock python, rainbow boa and boa constrictor, ensuring no cross-detection among species.”

Bahder, whose expertise traditionally involves detecting lethal bronzing in palm trees, explained that the fundamental process of molecular testing is similar across different organisms, with the main difference being the DNA sequence. This makes many of the techniques easily transferable.

Once the researchers successfully got the molecular test working, they conducted controlled experiments using known concentrations of DNA placed in water. They then used a vacuum pump to concentrate the DNA on a filter, which they tested to confirm that they could extract DNA from the samples and obtain accurate results.

Following this, they conducted an experiment by placing a Burmese python in water and taking water samples at different time intervals to demonstrate the method’s effectiveness. The data estimated the amount of snake DNA present in the water if sampled nearby. A field experiment also showed that snake DNA could be detected in soil where a snake had been resting up to two weeks after its removal.

“These concentration estimates are the first steps in a larger monitoring effort, with further experimentation needed to determine the effects of time, distance and environmental factors on DNA detection rates,” said Bahder. “Ultimately, this technology will be used to monitor and locate these invasive snakes, thereby validating removal efforts.”

The new assay aligns with ongoing efforts by state and federal agencies, which have invested more than $10 million from 2004 to 2021 to manage the Burmese pythons alone.

“Successful detection and monitoring programs for invasive wildlife hinge on rapid detection and accurate identification of nonnative species,” said Miller.

 The UF team plans to explore the tool’s potential further, by expanding the assay to include additional invasive species and applications for monitoring ecological restoration outcomes.

“There are two important next steps for harnessing the power of this eDNA analysis. First, we plan on adding additional species that can be identified using the tetraplex digital PCR assay, especially fish such as Asian swamp eels and bullseye snakeheads,” said Frank Mazzotti, co-author and professor of wildlife ecology at UF/IFAS FLREC. “Second, to fully take advantage of this new methodology, we plan on implementing a regional multi-species sampling network with the purpose of early detection for rapid response to new invasions and evaluating success of removal efforts on existing invasions in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan footprint.”

A Burmese python is submerged for eDNA analysis

Credit

Analise Fussell

Brian Bahder in the lab extracting samples

Credit

UF/IFAS Tyler Jones

DOI

10.1002/ece3.70598 

Article Title

Development of a Tetraplex Digital PCR Assay for the Detection of Invasive Snake Species in Florida, USA

Article Publication Date

20-Nov-2024

 

New Editors-in-Chief join the lead at invasion science journal NeoBiota

Pensoft Publishers

NeoBiota, a leading peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to the study of alien species and biological invasions, announces the appointment of new Editors-in-Chief. 

The new leadership team sees Dr. Ana Novoa Perez, Prof. Tammy Robinson, Prof. Phil Hulme and Dr. Andrew ("Sandy") Liebhold join forces to bring a wealth of expertise to NeoBiota. 

They have already begun working in close collaboration with Prof. Ingolf Kühn, who has been serving as Editor-in-Chief ever since the journal was founded in 2011. Throughout these years, he has played a pivotal role in establishing NeoBiota as a leading platform for invasion science, contributing to the journal's growth and impact. 

“After more than 13 years, I thought that it was time to hand the responsibilities for NeoBiota over to dedicated colleagues. We thought of our dream team, and fortunately, all agreed without hesitation.”

Covering both an extensive range of invasion science fields and a wide international representation, this diverse editorial team will be looking to maintain NeoBiota's reputation as a leading outlet in its field and expand its global reach and impact.

Today, NeoBiota is one of the most prominent open-access journals in biological invasions, with a Journal Impact Factor of 3.8 and a Scopus CiteScore of 8.1 for 2023. Currently, the journal ranks 11th in the Biodiversity Conservation category on Web of Science and 9th in the Ecological Modelling category on Scopus.

 

Meet the editors

Dr. Ana Novoa is a scientist at the Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (EEZA-CSIC) in Spain and the Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Her research explores the socioecological factors influencing the invasion and management of alien species, with a particular interest in the human and social dimensions of biological invasions. She is also Secretary of the European Group on Biological Invasions (NEOBIOTA).

“I’m honored to collaborate with Ingolf, Tammy, Phil and Sandy in guiding the journal forward,” said Ana. “I look forward to supporting innovative research across the diverse aspects of invasion science.”

Prof. Tammy Robinson holds a Research Chair at the Centre for Invasion Biology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She is a marine invasion biologist with an ecological background, an interest in evidence-based management of alien species, and a focus on protected areas. She is an associate member of INVASIVESNET, the global network of networks on invasive species. 

“I’m really excited about joining this dynamic team,” said Tammy. “I’m looking forward to fostering an increase in the number of aquatic papers that appear in NeoBiota.”

Prof. Philip Hulme is a Distinguished Professor of Plant Biosecurity at Lincoln University, New Zealand, and Director of the Centre for One Biosecurity Research, Analysis and Synthesis (COBRAS). His research focuses on predicting risks associated with plant invasions, examining traits of successful invasive species, identifying introduction pathways, assessing spread rates, evaluating habitat vulnerability, quantifying impacts, and predicting the influence of climate change on invasive species distributions. His work also includes broader assessments of biosecurity policy and implementation across the human, animal, plant and ecosystem sectors, emphasizing human perspectives, such as trade and economic impacts. Having authored, reviewed, and edited numerous papers in NeoBiota, he was also one of the people behind the journal’s foundation.

“Having been involved with the journal since its foundation it is a real pleasure to have the opportunity to shape its future and continue the amazing work Ingolf has undertaken to ensure NeoBiota is THE leading biological invasions journal in the world”.

Dr. Andrew "Sandy" Liebhold is a lead scientist with the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, where he directs The Forest Risk Research Centre. He is also a Scientist Emeritus with the U.S. Forest Service. His research focuses on the macroecology, population ecology, community ecology, and management of insect invasions. He has received numerous awards, including the IUFRO Scientific Achievement Award and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Entomological Society of America. 

“I am excited about being part of the NeoBiota editorial team and look forward to working with my colleagues to continue the journal’s high level of excellence and advance the field of invasion biology.”

 

Meet the NeoBiota journal

Founded in 2011 after participants at the 6th NEOBIOTA conference in Copenhagen agreed that a new international, open-access, peer-reviewed journal would definitely benefit the research community, and published by Pensoft Publishers, NeoBiota focuses  on the mechanisms and consequences of biological invasions across all disciplines.

Featuring research on the ecology, evolution, biogeography and human and social dimensions of biological invasions, the journal is committed to publishing high-quality research on the introduction, establishment, spread, and management of invasive alien species worldwide. As biological invasions pose a set of social, legal, and policy challenges, NeoBiota is keen on exploring how they can be managed and controlled.

The open-access journal prides itself on a rapid publication process, typically completing publication within 1-2 weeks after a manuscript's acceptance. NeoBiota also supports advanced data publishing workflows, strongly encouraging open data publication. This commitment to open access and rapid publication, combined with a broad, interdisciplinary scope, makes it a leading journal in the field of invasion science. 

“The onboarding of additional well-renowned Editors-in-chief at NeoBiota promises a dynamic new chapter for the journal. There is no doubt that the team's diverse expertise and commitment to open science will set the journal on a positive trajectory as one of the leading academic outlets in invasion science,” said Prof. Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft.