Tool identifies ecologically equivalent areas to guide restoration projects

Model designed to comply with current legislation uses biodiversity, landscape, and ecosystem services data and could support public policies.

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

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The study system for the tool was the Atlantic Rainforest, one of the world’s most biodiverse and threatened biomes

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Credit: Clarice Borges-Matos

With successive records of high temperatures around the world and an increase in extreme weather events, the ecological restoration of degraded areas and the new markets associated with it, such as carbon and biodiversity, have gained prominence. In this context, Brazilian researchers have developed a tool to make environmental compensation schemes – a legal obligation to minimize or repair environmental damage caused by human action – more effective.

The new tool, called the Condition Assessment Framework, makes it possible to assess the ecological equivalence of an area to be restored or protected in relation to a degraded area. It considers three important attributes: biodiversity, landscape, and ecosystem services. Designed to meet the legal reserve requirements of the Law for the Protection of Native Vegetation (No. 12,651, enacted by the Brazilian government in 2012), the tool provides more precise compensation. Its study system was the Atlantic Rainforest, one of the most biodiverse and threatened biomes in the world.

It pointed out that combining protection and restoration is the best way to solve the so-called “native vegetation deficits,” guaranteeing environmental and socio-economic benefits. These deficits occur when the forest cover on a property is below the minimum required by law, and is insufficient to maintain functioning ecosystems with biodiversity and balanced water and carbon cycles.

Applying the Condition Assessment Framework revealed that protection followed by restoration solved 99.47% of the deficit in the Atlantic Rainforest biome in the state of São Paulo, with intermediate additionality and cost (USD 1.29 billion). It is worth explaining that, in the environmental context, additionality occurs when the positive results generated, such as reduced emissions, would not have occurred otherwise, i.e. without the specific project being carried out.

When analyzed individually, restoration is the most effective strategy with the highest additionality (98.99% resolution), though it is also the most expensive (USD 2.1 billion). The protection strategies were next, with much lower effectiveness (40.22%) and a much lower value (USD 14.3 million). Land regularization in Conservation Units was the least effective (0.15%) and had the lowest value (USD 104 thousand).

According to the scientists, the model is the first to integrate current equivalence assessment demands using a relatively simple method and spatially explicit data analyzed in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Its flexibility allows it to be adapted to other biomes and legislation, making it a promising innovation for use in compensation and conservation projects.

In the future, it could be adapted for biodiversity credits – a new market being formulated that seeks to finance conservation initiatives to protect or restore native species – and for analyzing ecological corridors.

The results of applying the methodology were published in an article in the journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review.

“We did the test in the Atlantic Rainforest, evaluating a region in the interior of the state of São Paulo and another on the coast. We found that the method really does detect environmental differences between areas. Inland, despite being more deforested, it’s possible to find more ecologically equivalent areas than near the coast, where there’s a lot of environmental heterogeneity,” says researcher Clarice Borges-Matos, first author of the article, who at the time was at the Institute of Biosciences of the University of São Paulo (IB-USP) and is currently at USP’s Engineering School (POLI).

Supported by FAPESP through the FAPESP Program for Research on the Characterization, Conservation, Restoration, and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity (BIOTA) and grants (17/26684-4 and 18/22881-2), the study is part of Borges-Matos’ doctoral research under the supervision of Professor Jean Paul Metzger.

Borges-Matos and Metzger also co-signed a previous article in the journal Environmental and Sustainability Indicators in which they describe the methodology.

“The thesis was focused on how to measure ecological equivalence and show the possibility of making a compensation using these criteria. By taking equivalence into account, the areas to be compensated will be similar to those originally devastated, both in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services. For example, if a forest offered the service of pollination, it must continue to exist in the areas to be compensated. The equivalence must be both in terms of species composition and ecological function,” Metzger explained to Agência FAPESP.

The legislation

The Native Vegetation Protection Law, also known as the new Forest Code, establishes land use and environmental protection rules for private properties, also known as legal reserves. It requires that a portion of rural areas be maintained with native vegetation, without prejudice to the application of rules on Permanent Preservation Areas.

In the nine states that comprise the Legal Amazon, an area designated by the Brazilian government for socio-economic development purposes and covering the territory where the Amazon biome occurs, it is mandatory to maintain 80% vegetation cover on properties located in the forest, 35% in the Cerrado (the Brazilian savannah-like biome), and 20% in general fields – the same percentage as the rest of the country.

Deficits in the extent of the legal reserve must be compensated for by protecting or restoring existing vegetation on another property. The only environmental requirement is that the compensation take place within the same biome as the deficit.

In 2018, the Brazilian judiciary’s highest court, the Federal Supreme Court (STF), ruled on the ecological equivalence of specific species and ecosystems in legal reserve compensation negotiations. Five years later a new judgment established that equivalence should be extended to all forms of compensation under the law. However, this requirement was challenged based on the lack of a definition for measuring ecological equivalence and the levels of equivalence to be sought.

In 2024, the STF (https://portal.stf.jus.br/processos/detalhe.asp?incidente=4961436) upheld the biome as the only compensation mechanism. Using this criterion as the only environmental requirement could lead to compensation being implemented in areas that are very different from those where vegetation has been lost since Brazil’s biomes are very heterogeneous. Furthermore, in some regions, such as São Paulo, it is possible that all or most of the compensated areas will be surplus legal reserves, i.e. existing vegetation with little restoration.

Ecological equivalence is important not only to ensure environments and resources for native animals and plants, but also to protect springs and watercourses, contain erosion, and maintain other ecosystem services, including natural pollination, which is essential for much of agriculture.

“Ecological restoration has been seen as a functional issue, not just an area issue. In the mitigation hierarchy [a scheme used to control the environmental impact of projects], if we can’t avoid the damage, we need to minimize it and compensate for it with a positive impact. In this sense, metrics like these are very useful and can be used in various ways,” adds Metzger, who has studied the subject for years and participated as a lead author of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Brazil recently reaffirmed its commitment to the Paris Agreement’s goal of restoring at least 12 million hectares of forest by 2030 – an area slightly smaller than Greece. In October 2024, Brazil launched the revision of the National Plan for the Recovery of Native Vegetation (PLANAVEG), which establishes guidelines for accelerating and scaling up restoration.

According to MapBiomas, a collaborative network of non-governmental organizations, universities, and technology startups that maps land cover and land use in Brazil, the country had between 11% and 25% of its native vegetation susceptible to degradation between 1986 and 2021. This corresponds to an area ranging from 60.3 million hectares to 135 million hectares. The Amazon, for example, experienced its greatest degradation in the last 15 years alone due to an increase in fires. Unlike deforestation, which involves the complete cutting down of vegetation, degradation involves a gradual loss due to fire, the removal of selected trees, and the effects of climate change.

In practice

When applying the method to the Atlantic Rainforest in São Paulo, the researchers concluded that the regions closest to the coast (in the south of the state) had more positive environmental attributes and greater spatial heterogeneity than inland areas (in the northwest), which exhibited the opposite pattern.

The ecological equivalence attributes were selected based on an analysis of data ranging from the variety of bird, amphibian, and tree species to forest cover and carbon stock. These attributes are entered individually, allowing for multiple analyses. The selected attributes are presented separately to ensure transparency and an understanding of what will be compensated.

Borges-Matos began her thesis by carrying out a literature review of the ecological equivalence metrics used in environmental offsets already developed and proposed up to 2023. The result was published in the journal Environmental Management.

The results of the research are even more important in the year that the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) is being held for the first time in the Amazon, as they can broaden the understanding that integrating ecological equivalence into negotiations brings social, economic, and environmental benefits. As well as conserving biodiversity and restoring lost ecosystem services, they contribute to mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change, providing benefits to local communities and rural producers, according to the scientists.

About FAPESP

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration.

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Journal

Environmental Impact Assessment Review

DOI

10.1016/j.eiar.2025.107922 

Article Title

Combining protection and restoration strategies enables cost-effective compensation with ecological equivalence in Brazil

 

Dan David Prize, world’s largest history prize, announces 2025 winners

Nine historians, archaeologists and filmmakers receive $300,000 (USD) each as the Dan David Prize honors innovative research on the human past

Dan David Prize

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June 10, 2025 - The Dan David Prize, the largest history prize in the world, today announced its 2025 winners. The nine winners, whose work explores the human past through exceptional scholarship and research, will each receive $300,000 (USD) in recognition of their achievements and to support their future endeavors. The nine winners, all in early and mid stages of their career, are researchers and filmmakers who work in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. 

 

The winners are selected after an open nomination process by a global committee of historians that changes annually. This year’s selection committee members are affiliated with leading academic institutions including the University of Toronto, the Cyprus Institute, and the University of Cambridge.

 

“The work of this year’s winners ranges from enlisting the methods of archaeology to explore Nazi death camps to rewriting what we know about the development and use of glass in Africa,” said Ariel David, board member of the Prize and son of Dan David, the founder of the Prize. “By making groundbreaking discoveries or applying new methods to historical research, our winners constantly challenge us to think about the past while rethinking how we shed light on it. We are also particularly excited that two winners this year work in the film industry, helping bring scholarly findings to broader audiences and thus highlighting the importance of historical research for society at large.”

 

The 2025 Dan David Prize winners are:

 

• Abidemi Babatunde Babalola, British Museum - An anthropological archaeologist who uses material science to uncover the history of technological development in premodern West Africa. His research has transformed our understanding of how glass was produced in Africa, proving that glass production in the region predated European colonialism and was developed independently. In addition to authoring academic articles, Babalola - a research archaeologist at the British Museum - is active in public outreach in Nigeria, bringing the knowledge he produces through archaeological work to the communities that are connected to this history. He served as lead archaeologist ahead of construction of the upcoming Museum of West African Arts set to open in Benin City, Nigeria this year.

 

• Mackenzie Cooley, Hamilton College - A historian of science and medicine in the early modern Hispanic world. Combining intellectual history, the history of science and environmental history, Cooley’s work explores how humans have shaped, classified and extracted knowledge from nature - and, in so doing, redefined their own bodies, societies and empires. Her first book, The Perfection of Nature (2022), reveals how Renaissance breeding practices shaped ideas of race, human potential and dominion over animals. Her current research explores “bioprospecting” - the quest to harness nature for human health and medicine.

 

• Bar Kribus, Tel Aviv University - An archaeologist specializing in Late Antique to Early Modern Ethiopian archaeology and the history and material culture of the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews). He combines archaeological methodologies, fieldwork and written and oral histories in order to explore the religious traditions of the Beta Israel and the interreligious interactions between different religious groups in Ethiopia. He has written books and articles on the Jewish monastic tradition of the Beta Israel and the Jewish political autonomy in the Semen Mountains of Northern Ethiopia. He is currently working on a comparative study of prayer houses in the Ethiopian highlands.

 

• Fred Kudjo Kuwornu, Do the Right Films - An artist, filmmaker, educator and cultural innovator, whose work is deeply influenced by his African heritage and explores the complex intersections of identity, race and historical representation. He has directed several documentary films, including Inside Buffalo (2010), focusing on African American soldiers in World War II, 18 Ius Soli (2012), exploring the citizenship rights of second-generation immigrants in Italy, and Blaxploitalian (2016), examining Black representation in Italian cinema from 1915 to the present day. His most recent film, We Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, was presented at the 60th Venice Art Biennale in 2024.

 

• Dmitri Levitin, University of Utrecht and All Souls College, Oxford - A historian of premodern knowledge who has published on the histories of scholarship, science, medicine, philosophy, theology, and European encounters with and perceptions of global societies. His books include Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and The Kingdom of Darkness (Cambridge University Press, 2022); he has just completed a trade book on the history of the humanities and the sciences from ancient Mesopotamia to 1700, arguing that intellectual change is underpinned above all by educational structures. He is currently undertaking a collaborative research project on a remarkable new discovery: the notebook written by Isaac Newton’s university roommate. 

 

• Beth Lew-Williams, Princeton University - A historian of race and migration in the United States, specializing in the study of Asian Americans. Her work demonstrates how restrictions on Chinese immigration to the United States was pivotal in the construction of American concepts of citizenship and “alienage.” She is the author of the forthcoming book, John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law (Harvard University Press, September 2025), which uncovers thousands of laws that regulated the everyday lives of Chinese immigrants and tells the stories of those who refused to accept a conditional place in American life. 

 

• Hannah Marcus, Harvard University - A historian of science whose work focuses on the scientific culture of early modern Europe between 1400-1700. She is the author of Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2020) and is currently completing a book on the history of old age in early modern Italy. She is also the Faculty Director of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments at Harvard University.

 

• Alina Șerban, Founder of Untold Stories - An award-winning film and theater director, actress and writer whose work foregrounds the history, culture and identity of the Roma. Șerban challenges dehumanizing stereotypes and addresses the historical silencing of Roma experiences, in particular Roma slavery. Șerban’s medium includes films such as Letter of Forgiveness and theater productions like The Great Shame. Șerban is currently working on her first feature film. She is the first Roma woman recipient of one of the highest distinctions offered by the Romanian state: The Order of Cultural Excellence, for her artistic contribution, as well as for her commitment to representing Roma identity and combating racism and xenophobia.

 

• Caroline Sturdy Colls, University of Huddersfield - A Professor of Holocaust Archaeology and Genocide Investigation, Sturdy Colls combines methodologies from forensic archaeology, history, digital humanities and the arts to document the evidence of genocide, particularly the Holocaust. Using these methodologies, she was able to discover evidence of the gas chambers in Treblinka, which had been razed to the ground by the Nazis, while honoring the Jewish halachic requirement to avoid disturbing buried human remains. She is the author of numerous books and articles, and her work has been the subject of two Smithsonian documentaries: Treblinka: Hitler’s Killing Machine and Adolf Island, which focuses on her research about the occupation of Alderney. 

 

“We’re delighted to add another nine outstanding individuals to our growing community of scholars, curators and filmmakers from around the globe,” said Professor Tim Cole, historian and Academic Advisor to the Dan David Prize. “They will join the 27 previous winners who, together, research varied aspects of the human past. The originality of the questions being asked and the methods deployed show how archaeologists and historians are creatively working within and across disciplines to offer new understandings of our collective past.” 

 

The 2025 winners recently received the Prize at a gathering in Italy. Nominations for the 2026 Dan David Prize are now being accepted online.  

 

The Dan David Prize was first established in 2001 by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Dan David, to reward innovative and interdisciplinary work that contributed to humanity. In 2021, the Prize was relaunched with a focus on historical research, honoring the founder’s passion for history and archaeology. It now rewards early and mid-career scholars to help them fulfill their potential at a time when historical knowledge and scholarship are under attack, many university departments are threatened with closure, and budgets for research, archives, libraries and museums are being slashed or eliminated.

 

The late Dan David lived through persecution in Nazi-occupied and then Communist Romania, becoming an accomplished photographer and later an entrepreneur and philanthropist. David was fascinated by automatic instant photography, and he built a company that introduced countries around the globe to the automatic photo booth. Dan had a keen interest in history and archaeology, which feature in many of the projects of the Dan David Foundation. His full bio is available here.

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About the Dan David Prize

The Dan David Prize, endowed by the Dan David Foundation and headquartered at Tel Aviv University, is the largest history prize in the world. Dan David, the founder of the Prize, believed that knowledge of the past enriches us and helps us grapple with the challenges of the present, and is crucial for reimagining our collective future. At a time of diminishing support for the humanities, the Prize celebrates the next generation of outstanding historians, archaeologists, curators and digital humanists. Each year, up to nine researchers are awarded $300,000 each in recognition of their achievements and to support their future endeavors.

 

To learn more about Dan David, the Prize and the 2025 winners, visit www.dandavidprize.org.

 

Media Contact: DKCDanDavidPrize@dkcnews.com

DEI

Intersectionality of sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity in medical school attrition

JAMA Network Open

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About The Study: 

This cross-sectional study revealed high attrition rates among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) medical students, with the highest observed among LGB Hispanic male and female students. Our findings highlight the importance of intersectionality in understanding attrition from medical school. Although future studies need to examine the cause of these disparities in attrition, LGB students experience discrimination within medical training environments, which may lead to risk of attrition.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Mytien Nguyen, MS, email mytien.nguyen@yale.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14515)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14515?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=061025

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

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JAMA Network Open

 

Parental firearm storage and their teens’ perceived firearm access in US households

JAMA Network Open

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About The Study:

 This study found that parent-reported firearm storage may be a poor estimator of teen perceived firearm access, regardless of teen gender, parental education, and urbanicity. Strictly focusing safety efforts on locked and unloaded firearm storage may not fully negate teen’s perceptions that they can access and load household firearms. Storing additional firearms securely may not prevent teen access if at least 1 household firearm remains unlocked.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Katherine G. Hastings, MPH, email katiegh@student.ubc.ca.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14443)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article 

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14443?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=061025

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

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JAMA Network Open

 

100 new ribbon worm species and counting

Florida Museum of Natural History

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Researchers recently found over 100 species of ribbon worm, most of which are new to science, off of the coast of Oman.

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Credit: Svetlana Maslakova

Most are smaller than a toothpick, though some can grow longer than a blue whale. Some of them come in an unassuming brown or beige color, while others stand out in varied palettes with everything from neon pinks to electric blues. They’re called ribbon worms, and about 1,350 different species have been formally described so far. However, scientists estimate this is only about 10% of the total count, a point emphasized in a new study that documents the discovery of over 100 ribbon worm species off the coast of Oman, most of which are new to science.

“What we know is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what's really out there,” said Svetlana Maslakova, a professor at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology and lead author on the study published in PeerJ. Maslakova has studied ribbon worms, or nemerteans, for over 25 years and is one of only a handful of ribbon worm experts in the world.

Part of the reason many ribbon worms remain unknown is that scientists haven’t been looking in the right places. About a third of the world’s named ribbon worm species were found in temperate waters of Europe and North America. Meanwhile, the tropics, among the world’s most biodiverse regions, remain relatively unstudied.

Oman is one of these overlooked places. “It's one of the most amazing parts of the ocean,” said Gustav Paulay, curator of invertebrate zoology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “There are really strange ecosystems there. You know about kelp forests, and you know about coral reefs — well, in Oman, you get the two together in one ecosystem. That's almost unheard of.”

Surveying these uncharted waters has become a priority for scientists. Paulay spends much of his time conducting biodiversity surveys in oceans around the world. During these short surveys, Paulay and his colleagues work to sample as many species as possible. They’ve surveyed in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Micronesia and Hawaii; uncovered invasive shrimp-sucking parasites off the coast of Canada; and in one survey collected over 6,000 specimens lurking in the coral reefs of the Red Sea.

This was the first survey accompanied by DNA sequencing of ribbon worms off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula and the first ever in Oman, where no nemertean species has previously been identified. Because many species look alike, DNA sequencing is critical to identifying these worms and understanding their distribution.

The blazing stripes and striking hues of some species make them visually appealing to humans but have the opposite effect on predators. The bright colors are a warning that ribbon worms are full of toxins.

They use these toxins to do their own hunting, too. When an unfortunate victim crosses a worm’s path, it shoots out a flexible pipe called a proboscis that stuns its prey. In some species, the proboscis has a tiny stylet that punctures the prey’s skin, so a cocktail of paralyzing venom and digestive juices can flow into the wound. In others, the proboscis branches out, not unlike the bronchi in human lungs, allowing the ribbon worm to ensnare the animal in a deadly embrace as the toxins seep into its body.

Once the prey is immobilized, the slender ribbon worm will contort its body, stretching to swallow the animal whole. In contrast, ribbon worms armed with stylets bide their time, allowing the digestive juices to liquefy the prey’s tissues, at which point the ribbon worm slurps up the nutritious smoothie.

With these gruesome methods, ribbon worms can take down other worms, clams, crabs, amphipods and even fish. As carnivores, they play an important role in shaping local ecosystems, but they also offer insights on a larger scale. Paulay is working to close the gaps in our understanding of biodiversity across the oceans.

“Nemerteans turn out to be a really cool group for this kind of work,” Paulay said. The large number of newly discovered and unnamed species offers “a window into biodiversity overall.”

And peering through that window reveals just how limited our view is. Like with ribbon worms, scientists’ understanding of global marine biodiversity is woefully incomplete. While there are currently about a quarter million known marine animal species, Maslakova said this represents an estimated 10% of what is living in the ocean.

“We went to Oman, and we found 107 species there. That instantly doubled the number of DNA-barcoded species of nemerteans known for the entire Indo-West Pacific region,” Maslakova said. “It was stunning to see just how little we know of what diversity is actually out there.” Of the species found, 93% appear to exist only in Arabia, which further underscores how rich ribbon worm diversity may be worldwide.

Maslakova and her team are making large strides in species discovery, but searching for ribbon worms can be challenging. If they’re lucky, researchers may find ribbon worms by turning over boulders and rubble during low tide or while scuba diving. More often, it’s like searching for a needle in a coral stack. The tiny worms often tuck themselves in crevices, burrow in soft mud or hide in mats of algae.

Instead of searching for individual worms, researchers will collect hunks of dead coral rubble. Back on land, they submerge them in containers of seawater and wait for the worms to come up to the surface as the water begins to stagnate.

While scientists work quickly to identify as many species as they can, climate change threatens to bring the animals’ extinction. And with many species still unknown, we may not realize the true cost of losing ribbon worms before it is too late. In addition to the cascading effects of losing these predators in their ecosystems, humans may miss out on their biomedical potential.

“Many potent toxins also turn out to be potent medicine,” Maslakova said. “Ribbon worm toxins have shown promise in treating conditions such as schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s disease. And those are just a few of many that they produce. And that’s just one ribbon worm out of the thousands of species that are out there. We’re rapidly losing species that could potentially save our lives or treat our diseases. And we haven’t even discovered them yet.”

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Journal

PeerJ

DOI

10.7717/peerj.19438 

Article Title

A hundred species, mostly new—first assessment of ribbon worm diversity and distribution in Oman