It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, March 26, 2021
Insufficient financial reporting may lead to underestimation of environmental liabilities
European listed companies in the energy and mining sector provide, to say the least, sparse information on future environmental costs in their annual reports. Researchers believe that stricter guidelines are required as the lack of information may lead to underestimation of environmental liabilities, resulting in that future generations may have to bear the burden of cleanup costs.
"I believe that the future environmental liabilities such as decommissioning costs are often underestimated and few understand the burden these costs might impose on future generations. If, for example, an oil & gas company fails, it costs an incredible amount to clean up after old oil wells and the risk is great that the taxpayers will have to pay the bill. Therefore, it is important that environmental obligations are made visible to investors, lenders and the public so that we can discuss the problem," says Mari Paananen, associate professor of business administration at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg.
In fact, as there is no clear claimant for this type of future obligations, there is little demand for information either.
"The International Accounting Standards Board* needs to provide clearer requirements about what information should be included in the annual reports in order to make it possible to assess environmental liabilities. I think that such guidelines would make companies inclined to disclose more information and would also provide, for example, auditors a mandate to demand specific information," says Mari Paananen.
Using a sample of 164 European listed companies active in oil, gas, energy (nuclear power) and mining, Mari Paananen and her research colleagues have analyzed environmental disclosures in annual reports over a twelve-year period. Specifically, the researchers use computerized text analysis, to examine information on environment-related restoration costs in the notes to annual reports. Among other things, they searched for information about the discount rate and estimated time horizon for payments - key information needed to assess the size of environmental liabilities.
"Even though we could see that the disclosure of environmental information in the annual reports has increased over time, companies are, are on average, not very forthcoming with information. Approximately 60 percent of the companies provided information about discount rates and 65 percent disclosed the time horizon for the expected future cash outflow. On the other hand, only just over a third provided information about both," says Mari Paananen.
The researchers also investigated whether the level of disclosure increased when companies faced media exposure focusing on environmental issues or how companies' take responsibility for the environment.
"We clearly saw that if companies were exposed in the media, the environmental information increased and the companies provided more specific disclosure on environmental liabilities in the following annual report. Above all, there was more information if the media used an uncertain or litigious tone," says Mari Paananen.
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* International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is an international organization that works to improve the quality of international financial reporting. They are responsible for the accounting standard IFRS, International Financial Reporting Standards, which are used by listed companies in the EU.
About the study:
Mari Paananen , Emmeli Runesson & Niuosha Samani (2021): Time to clean up environmental liabilities reporting: disclosures, media exposure and market implications, Accounting Forum.
IMAGE: THIS MAP SHOWS THE DISTRIBUTION OF CROPLAND AND PASTURELAND WITHIN ABOUT 140 MILES OF DOWNTOWN CHICAGO. view more
CREDIT: CHRISTINE COSTELLO/PENN STATE
While urban agriculture can play a role in supporting food supply chains for many major American cities -- contributing to food diversity, sustainability and localizing food systems -- it is unrealistic to expect rooftop gardens, community plots and the like to provide the majority of nutrition for the population of a metropolis.
That's the conclusion of a team of researchers who analyzed the nutritional needs of the population of Chicago and calculated how much food could be produced in the city by maximizing urban agriculture, and how much crop land would be needed adjacent to the city to grow the rest. The study was the first to evaluate land required to meet food demand while accounting for a range of nutritional needs instead of only calories or quantities.
"There is a tremendous enthusiasm around the country for localized food systems and urban agriculture," said lead researcher Christine Costello, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering, College of Agricultural Sciences, Penn State. "We wanted to determine how much nutrition urban agriculture really can contribute -- to find out what's feasible -- as well as how much land is required to meet the population's needs."
Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic exposing weaknesses in food supply chains, the focus on localizing food systems has sharpened, especially in and around big cities. Answering questions about how much food urban agriculture actually can contribute is more important than ever, Costello pointed out. For example, a recent study found that 30% of Boston's fruit and vegetable demand could be met in Boston through soil-based and rooftop urban agriculture.
With growing populations and affluence, urban food demand will increase, which presents considerable challenges to achieving economic, environmental and social sustainability, Costello noted. At the same time, more people are living in urban environments. In 2018 in the U.S., 82% of the population lived in urban areas, with an anticipated increase to 89% by 2050.
"Urban agriculture is attractive because it uses land or rooftops not currently used for food production and could increase habitat and biodiversity, enhance stormwater management, and provide fruits and vegetables, resulting in positive nutritional outcomes," Costello said. "However, fruits and vegetables do not contain sufficient calories, protein or other critical nutrients, such as vitamin B12, to support the full range of human needs."
Cultivation in soil on a rooftop typically is limited without significant restructuring of the roof, often making it infeasible, Costello explained. For this reason, hydroponic or vertical farming systems may be preferable. Hydroponic systems are best suited to produce leafy greens, such as kale and lettuce, and herbs.
In the study, researchers calculated the land required to meet the needs of Chicago and adjacent communities with and without urban agriculture food production, which they estimated two ways. One used average yields from urban and conventional farming methods; the other used optimization techniques to produce necessary nutrients using the smallest land base possible.
The team estimated the total nutrient requirements of Chicago's population using the daily food nutrient requirements recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Twenty-eight nutrients were considered. Foods included in the study were selected based on their current prevalence in the American agricultural system and for their nutritional qualities.
The scientists estimated the amount of land required for each animal-based commodity using a formula based on USDA recommendations and prior research done by Costello. The researchers created linkages between crops and livestock in a model and used national inventory data to estimate both cropland and pastureland utilized for each kilogram -- about 2 pounds -- of animal food commodity.
The study used satellite data to define land-type availability and incorporated USDA data on yield for conventionally grown crops over a 10-year period. Soil-based urban agricultural yield data for the 2015 and 2016 growing seasons came from the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture, located in Missouri.
The findings, recently published in Environmental Science and Technology, suggested that it is not possible -- using the predominant commodities and common urban agricultural production of today -- to meet the nutritional needs of Chicago within a radius under 400 miles, given the cropland and pastureland available, without fortifying foods with vitamin D and supplementing foods with vitamin B12.
With vitamin D fortification, a common U.S. practice, the radius required is reduced to 110-140 miles. With vitamin B12 supplementation, the radius was further reduced to 40-50 miles. The inclusion of urban agriculture reduced the radius by another 6-9 miles and increased the diversity of foods available.
"This work demonstrates the need to include a full list of nutrients when evaluating the feasibility of localizing food systems," Costello said. "Key nutrient fortification or supplementation may significantly reduce the land area required to meet the nutritional needs of a population."
CAPTION
This graphic shows overlapping land areas the researchers used to estimate the effective population in relation to the land base within a specified radius from the center point of Chicago.
CREDIT
Christine Costello/Penn State
Also involved in the research were Zeynab Oveysi and Ronald McGarvey, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, University of Missouri; and Bayram Dundar, formerly with the University of Missouri, currently at Bartin University in Turkey.
The University of Missouri's seed grant program, Mizzou Advantage, partially supported this work.
Headline: How energy modelling influences policymaking and vice versa
INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED SUSTAINABILITY STUDIES E.V. (IASS)
Energy models are used to explore different options for the development of energy systems in virtual "laboratories". Scientists have been using energy models to provide policy advice for years. As a new study shows, energy models influence policymaking around the energy transition. Similarly, policymakers influence the work of modellers. Greater transparency is needed to ensure that political considerations do not set the agenda for future research or determine its findings, the researchers demand.
Renewable energies bring many changes, including fluctuations in the energy supply and a more geographically distributed generation system. Despite the myriad uncertainties, politicians must make important decisions around the future development of the energy system. Key issues include the choice of technologies and the location of renewable energy infrastructure, the integration of the electricity, heating, transportation and industry sectors, as well as the balancing of interests of diverse stakeholders and population groups. A team of researchers has studied both the role of computer-based energy models in the political decision-making process and, conversely, how policymakers influence energy modelling.
Energy models inform policy decisions that shape our energy future
The researchers analysed a range of documents, including legislative texts, position papers and progress reports as well as secondary literature on political processes. They also conducted 32 interviews with various actors from politics, science, industry, and non-governmental organisations in Germany, Sweden, Poland, Greece and at the European Union level. "The results of this research clearly show that models help to explore possible energy futures. Their influence on policymaking is growing accordingly: politicians draw on modelling outputs to define energy and climate targets and study policy measures to achieve them," says lead author Diana Süsser.
Likewise, policymakers influence modelling, for example by helping to define research questions and the scope of studies, and by deciding how the results will be used. In interviews, however, policymakers suggested that modelling results were often too general for their purposes and left specific questions unanswered. According to these respondents, models lack transparency, which can undermine the credibility of their results. The respondents said that they would like researchers to engage with them more closely so that models could be developed to address the issues relevant to policy development.
Modelling can help to shape the energy transition
This interest in co-creative cooperation is welcome in principle, says Diana Süsser. Energy models are well-suited to tackle real-world issues and achieve societal impacts. "But it is vital that neither side loses sight of the fact that researchers are committed to generating knowledge, rather than to serving political ends. The transformation of the energy system is a complex challenge and, in terms of scientific policy advice, as much as politicians would like one, there is no 'silver bullet'.
Co-author Johan Lilliestam adds: "Models help us to understand the impacts of possible goals and policy options. What our study has shown is that they are sometimes also used to legitimise policy decisions that have already been made. Transparency, open data and open models are essential in order to protect the credibility of models and to improve their utility for policy advice." The IASS project "Sustainable Energy Transitions Laboratory," (SENTINEL) is developing a modelling framework for user-friendly models to improve cooperation between science and politics. Used properly, energy models can play an important role in the development and design of our future energy system and help us to achieve ambitious energy and climate goals.
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Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the
'Keep off the grass': the biofuel that could help us achieve net zero
The Miscanthus genus of grasses, commonly used to add movement and texture to gardens, could quickly become the first choice for biofuel production. A new study shows these grasses can be grown in lower agricultural grade conditions - such as marginal land - due to their remarkable resilience and photosynthetic capacity at low temperatures.
Miscanthus is a promising biofuel thanks to its high biomass yield and low input requirements, which means it can adapt to a wide range of climate zones and land types. It is seen as a viable commercial option for farmers but yields can come under threat from insufficient or excessive water supply, such as increasing winter floods or summer heat waves.
With very little known about its productivity in flooded and moisture-saturated soil conditions, researchers at the Earlham Institute in Norwich wanted to understand the differences in water-stress tolerance among Miscanthus species to guide genomics-assisted crop breeding.
The research team - along with collaborators at TEAGASC, The Agriculture and Food Development Authority in the Republic of Ireland, and the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences in Wales - analysed various Miscanthus genotypes to identify traits that provided insight into gene adaptation and regulation during water stress.
They found specific genes that play key roles in response to water stress across different Miscanthus species, and saw consistencies with functional biological processes that are critical during the survival of drought stress in other organisms.
Dr Jose De Vega, author of the study and Group Leader at the Earlham Institute, said: "Miscanthus is a commercial crop due to its high biomass productivity, resilience, and ability to continue photosynthesis during the winter months. These qualities make it a particularly good candidate for growth on marginal land in the UK, where yields might otherwise be limited by scorching summers and wet winters."
Previously, a decade-long trial in Europe showed that Miscanthus produced up to 40 tonnes of dry matter per hectare each year. This was reached after just two years of establishment, proving its biofuel capacity was more efficient in ethanol production per hectare than switchgrass and corn.
Miscanthus species have been used as forage species in Japan, Korea and China for thousands of years and, due to its high biomass yield and high ligno-cellulose (plant dry matter) content, they are commercially used as feedstock for bioenergy production.
Ligno-cellulose biomass is the most abundantly available raw material on Earth for the production of biofuels, mainly producing bio-ethanol. Miscanthus's high biomass ability makes the grass a valuable commodity for farmers on marginal land but the crop's responses to water-stress vary depending on the Miscanthus species' origin.
The scientists compared the physiological and molecular responses among Miscanthus species in both water-flooded and drought conditions. The induced physiological conditions were used for an in-depth analysis of the molecular basis of water stress in Miscanthus species.
A significant biomass loss was observed under drought conditions in all of the four Miscanthus species. In flooded conditions, biomass yield was as good as or better than controlled conditions in all species. The low number of differentially expressed genes, and higher biomass yield in flooded conditions, supported the use of Miscanthus in flood-prone marginal land.
"The global challenge of feeding the ever-increasing world population is exacerbated when food crops are being used as feedstock for green energy production," said Dr De Vega.
"Successful plant breeding for ethanol and chemical production requires the ability to grow on marginal lands alongside prioritising the attributes; non-food related, perennial, high biomass yield, low chemical and mechanical input, enhanced water-use efficiency and high carbon storage capacity. Miscanthus fulfils these for enhanced breeding - saving money and space for farmers, and lending a hand to our over polluted environment by emitting CO2.
"The research team is in the early selection process of high biomass genotypes from large Miscanthus populations that are better adapted to the UK conditions and require low inputs. The use of genomic approaches is allowing us to better understand the traits that make some Miscanthus species a commercially sustainable alternative for marginal lands and applying this to agri-practices."
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The paper 'Physiological and transcriptional response to drought stress among bioenergy grass Miscanthus species' is published in Biotechnology for Biofuels.
Massive study reveals few differences between men and women's brains
Study by Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science neuroscientists conduct meta-synthesis of three decades of research
ROSALIND FRANKLIN UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND SCIENCE
How different are men and women's brains? The question has been explored for decades, but a new study led by Rosalind Franklin University neuroscientist Lise Eliot is the first to coalesce this wide-ranging research into a single mega-synthesis. And the answer is: hardly at all.
"Men and women's brains do differ slightly, but the key finding is that these distinctions are due to brain size, not sex or gender," Dr. Eliot said. "Sex differences in the brain are tiny and inconsistent, once individuals' head size is accounted for."
The unusually large study of studies, "Dump the 'dimorphism': Comprehensive synthesis of human brain studies reveals few male-female differences beyond size," published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, finds that size is the only clear-cut difference between male and female brains. Women's brains are about 11% smaller than men's, in proportion to their body size. Smaller brains allow certain features, such as a slightly higher ratio of gray matter to white matter, and a higher ratio of connections between, versus within, cerebral hemispheres.
"This means that the brain differences between large- and small-headed men are as great as the brain differences between the average man and woman," Dr. Eliot said. "And importantly, none of these size-related differences can account for familiar behavioral differences between men and women, such as empathy or spatial skills."
This is not the story typically publicized about sex differences in the human brain.
"Since the dawn of MRI, studies finding statistically significant sex differences have received outsized attention by scientists and the media," said Dr. Eliot, whose books include "Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps."
"Researchers have been quietly accumulating massive amounts of data comparing male and female brains, but it's only the differences that get hyped," Dr. Eliot continued. "Unlike other areas of health research, women have been equally included in brain imaging from the outset."
Dr. Eliot and her collaborators -- fourth-year Chicago Medical School students Adnan Ahmed, Hiba Khan and Julie Patel -- conducted a meta-synthesis of three decades of research, assimilating hundreds of the largest and most highly-cited brain imaging studies addressing 13 distinct measures of alleged sex difference. For nearly every measure, they found almost no differences that were widely reproduced across studies, even those involving thousands of participants. For example, the volume or thickness of specific regions in the cerebral cortex is often reported to differ between men and women. However, the meta-synthesis shows that the regions identified differ enormously between studies.
Male-female brain differences are also poorly replicated between diverse populations, such as Chinese versus American, meaning there is no universal marker that distinguishes men and women's brains across the human species.
"The handful of features that do differ most reliably are quite small in magnitude," Dr. Eliot said. "The volume of the amygdala, an olive-sized part of the temporal lobe that is important for social-emotional behaviors, is a mere 1% larger in men across studies."
The study also rebuts a longstanding view that men's brains are more lateralized, meaning each hemisphere acts independently, whereas women's two hemispheres are said to be better connected and to operate more in sync with each other. Such a difference could make males more vulnerable to disability following brain injury such as stroke. Here again, the consensus of many studies shows that the difference is extremely small, accounting for even less than 1% of the range of left-right connectivity across the population. This finding does agree with large datasets that have found no gender difference in aphasia, or the loss of language, following a stroke in the left hemisphere, contrary to long belief.
A last focus of the new study is on functional MRI. This method allows neuroscientists to see areas that "light up" during particular mental tasks and has been widely used to look for male-female differences during language, spatial and emotional tasks.
Across hundreds of such studies, Dr. Eliot's team found extremely poor reliability in sex difference findings -- nearly all specific brain areas that differed in activity between men and women were not repeated across studies. Such poor reproducibility agrees with recent research out of Stanford University demonstrating "false discovery," or the over-publication of false-positive findings in the scientific literature on functional MRI sex difference.
"Sex comparisons are super easy for researchers to conduct after an experiment is already done. If they find something, it gets another publication. If not, it gets ignored," Dr. Eliot said. Publication bias is common in sex-difference research, she added, because the topic garners high interest.
"Sex differences are sexy, but this false impression that there is such a thing as a 'male brain' and a 'female brain' has had wide impact on how we treat boys and girls, men and women," Dr. Eliot said.
"The truth is that there are no universal, species-wide brain features that differ between the sexes. Rather, the brain is like other organs, such as the heart and kidneys, which are similar enough to be transplanted between women and men quite successfully."
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About Rosalind Franklin University
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science is committed to serving the population through the interprofessional education of health and biomedical professionals and the discovery of knowledge dedicated to improving wellness. The university embodies the spirit of inquiry and excellence modeled by its namesake Dr. Rosalind Franklin, whose Photo 51 was crucial to solving the structure of DNA. The university is currently commemorating the 100th anniversary of the scientist's birth. Recognized for its research in areas including neuroscience, brain-related diseases, inherited disorders, diabetes, obesity, and gait and balance, RFU encompasses the Chicago Medical School, College of Health Professions, College of Pharmacy, School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and the Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine. Learn more at rosalindfranklin.edu.
Study introduces 13 new, threatened species of sparkly moths from Hawaii
One of the islands' oldest animal groups, can these tiny insects survive the next century?
IMAGE: MICROMOTHS ARE OFTEN POORLY STUDIED DUE TO THEIR SMALL SIZE, BUT THEY CAN PLAY KEY ROLES IN THEIR ECOSYSTEMS. MANY PHILODORIA MOTHS, SUCH AS THIS PHILODORIA AUROMAGNIFICA, FEATURE GLITTERING SCALES... view more
CREDIT: CHRIS JOHNS/FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Akito Kawahara was snapping pictures at a scenic outlook in Hawaii when he spotted the moth equivalent of a dodo.
An entomologist, Kawahara recognized the squiggly patterns on nearby plants as trails carved by leaf-mining caterpillars and lowered his camera to take a closer look. To his astonishment, he saw a tiny moth most experts assumed was extinct. It belonged to a genus known as Philodoria, a type of moth found only in Hawaii and one that hadn’t been documented in the wild since 1976.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, there’s a Philodoria right here,’” said Kawahara, associate curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity. “That was the beginning. It opened my eyes to the fact that at least one species had not gone extinct. Were there others?”
Kawahara’s chance sighting along a tourist footpath would kick off a hunt for the moths across all major volcanic islands of Hawaii, as well as in museum collections and back through time, resulting in the rediscovery of one of the archipelago’s oldest living lineages of native animals. Over the past eight years, Kawahara and collaborators have labored to fill gaps in our understanding of these poorly-studied insects: what they look like, where they live and what they eat. When the researchers began their work, 30 species of the slender, feathery moths were recorded in the scientific literature. That number has since grown to 51.
Now, the team is capping its project with a nearly 200-page-long study, the first to detail the natural history of all members of Philodoria, including 13 species new to science. The paper also offers a Hawaiian name for the genus, which had no known local epithet: Hunelele ‘elilau (HOO-neh-LEH-leh EH-lee-LAU), which roughly translates as a combination of “tiny flier” and “leaf excavator.”
“This is an amazing opportunity to add another key piece that deepens the Hawaiian story,” said study co-author Chris Johns, who carried out the project’s fieldwork during his doctoral studies in the Kawahara Lab. “Because of its rarity and isolated existence, Philodoria is as unique as it gets. The universe of a Philodoria species could be the size of a room.”
Many of the newly described species are named after native Hawaiian plants, places and people who have contributed to conservation on the islands, Kawahara said. One moth, Philodoria obamaorum, was christened in honor of Barack and Michelle Obama.
Shrinking habitat, disease and invasive species have wiped out much of Hawaii’s native flora and fauna, and more than 530 species on the islands are federally listed as endangered or threatened. Somehow, these micromoths, with a wingspan the length of an eyelash, have persisted.
But their restricted range and the scarcity of their host plants place them in danger of extinction. The researchers were unable to find living representatives of 10 Philodoria species known from museum specimens, and another 12 could be severely threatened, based on how scant their food sources are.
According to research led by Johns, the moths’ lineage likely dates back about 21 million years. Can they survive the next century?
CAPTION
One newly described species, Philodoria obamaorum, was named in honor of Barack and Michelle Obama for their support of conservation efforts in Hawaii.
CREDIT
Shigeki Kobayashi
An insect with deep island roots
Though Philodoria is found nowhere except Hawaii, it is related to the common caterpillars that tunnel inside the leaves of tomato plants and other garden staples, creating what look like intricate sketches as they chew through the tissue. The Hawaiian branch of the leaf-mining moth family, however, has a highly specialized diet, the product of millions of years of co-evolution with the islands’ plant life, including relatives of the iconic and endangered silversword plants.
“This tiny, tiny insect has a special relationship to Hawaiian plants,” said study lead author Shigeki Kobayashi, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Kawahara Lab and now a visiting researcher at Japan’s Osaka Prefecture University.
While the diet of the genus as a whole includes 12 families of Hawaiian plants, about 80% of Philodoria species feed exclusively on a single plant genus. More than half of the plant genera they eat contain threatened or endangered species, and three-quarters of the moth species themselves are restricted to one island or volcano. The insects and their host plants are among the many examples of life unique to the Hawaiian archipelago, an incubator for evolution before the arrival of humans.
It’s a delicate system in which the balance can easily be tipped. Invasive species, in particular, can disrupt an island’s native ecosystems with mind-boggling speed, Johns said.
“Within a couple of years, a forest that is fully functioning can be completely erased and replaced with non-native species,” he said. “This can happen in places that researchers just can’t reach. A pig or goat or bird could bring an invasive plant up there. It’s a huge problem.”
Blown or rafted from parts unknown, Philodoria likely first appeared on islands that today are nearly underwater. As new islands rose from the sea, the moths colonized them, and as host plants spread and diversified, the moths followed suit. Over time, they developed intimate links with certain plant species and now depend on them for survival.
Some of their leaf-mining relatives in other parts of the world have become so intertwined with their hosts that neither species can live without the other. In the South Pacific, a local species of plant relies on another leaf-mining moth species for pollination. In turn, the moth deposits its eggs in the plants’ flowers, which will later provide food for its offspring. Whether any members of Philodoria also have this mutually beneficial relationship with their host plants was a question Kawahara hoped to answer.
“The problem is that, in some cases, there’s only one or two of the plants left on the planet,” he said. “They’re often growing off steep cliffs, very hard to find, and you have to be in the right place at the right time to see them flowering. It was hard enough to find the larvae.”
CAPTION
A chance sighting of a Philodoria moth along a tourist footpath led to a hunt for the tiny insects, long presumed extinct, across the Hawaiian Islands. Researchers found many new species in the process. Here, Philodoria auromagnifica rests on a leaf.
CREDIT
Chris Johns/Florida Museum of Natural History
Recruiting aPhilodoriawhisperer
Kawahara should know. After spotting that first moth as a postdoctoral researcher 10 years ago, he spent months combing the jungle for others with no success.
He had moved halfway across the world for a faculty position at the Florida Museum when Johns knocked on his door. Johns was a recent University of Florida anthropology graduate and a plant guy in search of a moth job. As he described his previous conservation work in Hawaii, an idea began to take shape in Kawahara’s mind. Would Johns be willing to scour the rainforest for an ultra-rare moth that had eluded researchers for nearly half a century?
Johns’ response: Game on.
“Most people think about Hawaii as this vacation spot with Mai-Tais and beaches, but it’s so much more than that,” he said. “It really all revolves around the culture, which revolves around its nature. There are so many things in Hawaii that are small and understated. The fact that Philodoria is this amazing story that no one knew about, just doing its thing – it’s an interesting reflection of what I think true Hawaii is.”
After a month on the islands, Johns appeared in Kawahara’s doorway in Gainesville with a small cooler. Inside were Philodoria.
“I was shocked,” Kawahara said. “I was convinced he was going to come back empty-handed. That was the best plane ticket I ever bought.”
The way to Philodoria is through its stomach
Johns’ strategy was to look not for the moths, but their host plants. He leaned on his ties with local conservation biologists to reach some of the islands’ most remote forests, accessible only by helicopter, four-by-four or a long hike. Once there, he searched for Philodoria’s food sources, using leads from papers published in the early 1900s and an eye already trained to distinguish native plant species from invasive ones.
It wasn’t easy. Some mountainsides were so difficult to get to, he had to be dropped off in the middle of a stream, the helicopter touching a single skid to a rock long enough for him to hop out. He would spot a piece of flagging tied to a faraway tree across a dense forest – that was the trail. Navigating it was “mostly falling,” he recalled.
“You’re on a volcano in the middle of the biggest ocean in the world,” Johns said. “When you get up into these places, you really get a sense of how quiet, still and slow the entire place is. You understand the isolation so much better.”
But due to the islands’ conelike shape, Johns could look out and see the rows of hotels and condominiums packing the distant coastline.
Micromoths often play important but overlooked roles in ecosystems, and Philodoria is no exception. The connections between the moths, their host plants and their habitat are so strong that the team could use traces of leaf mines on century-old herbarium specimens to provide clues to the insects’ current whereabouts.
In one study, Johns, Kawahara and collaborators at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu discovered the dried pupae of an undescribed and possibly extinct Philodoria species on a specimen of Hesperomannia in the Bishop’s herbarium. The plant specimen was collected in 1929 on the island of Lanai where today it no longer grows. In fact, Hesperomannia has become one of the islands’ most critically endangered plants, so rare it must be pollinated by hand – perhaps an example of a host plant that has lost its moth pollinator.
“The only way we could document this particular moth-plant interaction was through museum collections,” Kawahara said. “Whoever collected those leaves may not have even realized there were pupae attached, but that’s the only record we have of that moth.”
The lifecycle of Hawaii
The team also used the moths to revisit a classic evolutionary puzzle: When did plants and animals first appear in Hawaii?
On a map, Hawaii may look like a smattering of islands surrounded by ocean in all directions, but it’s actually the easternmost tip of a vast underwater mountain range that spans more than 3,600 miles, ending off the coast of Russia.
The main Hawaiian Islands – the youngest and largest – sit atop a hotspot, a single magma plume that has been birthing volcanoes for about 85 million years, which are sent on a slow westward journey by the movement of tectonic plates. The farther from the hotspot the islands travel, the more they sink and erode, finally disappearing beneath the ocean surface.
The hotspot has created an estimated 180,000 cubic miles of rock over its history. About 23 million years ago, it formed the Northwest Hawaiian Islands of Lisianski and Laysan. Once enormous landmasses rivalling the size of today’s main islands, they’re now in advanced stages of erosion: Lisianski’s highest point above sea level is a 40-foot sand dune, and Laysan – more than 800 nautical miles west of Honolulu – will likely be submerged this century.
The first of the main Hawaiian Islands to appear, Kauai, surfaced about 4.7 million years ago. Many researchers believe Hawaii’s existing native plants and animals date from this period. But evidence is mounting that some, including certain kinds of insects and spiders, hail from a much earlier era, when Lisianski and Laysan were in their prime.
This is the problem with using the ages of islands to timestamp the origin of species, Kawahara said. Plants and animals can predate the islands they now inhabit.
“Islands can also go extinct,” he said. “There are a lot of gaps in our knowledge, not just in terms of insects and plants, but also in terms of island geology.”
Hawaii’s flora and fauna may have been riding a conveyor belt of islands for millions of years, gradually vanishing from older islands and moving to new ones.
Philodoria is a good example.
Using a combination of DNA evidence, island ages and studies of closely related insect groups, Johns and Kawahara estimated that the moth lineage originated more than 21 million years ago, at least 19 million years before the formation of Kauai. If accurate, this would make the moths the islands’ oldest known living lineage of native arthropods – and possibly their oldest animal lineage alive today.
This timeline and fossil pollen evidence from the moths’ host plants suggest that Lisianski and Laysan were the moths’ first Hawaiian homes.
How did such tiny insects wind up on volcanoes in the middle of the ocean?
“Plants and animals arrived in Hawaii somehow,” Kawahara said. “How they got there, when they got there and how they ended up this way are some of the most fundamentally interesting evolutionary questions.”
Small moth, big dream
The future of Philodoria depends on the conservation of its host plants, Kawahara said. Like other native Hawaiian species, such as land snails, preserving habitat and protecting against invasive species are crucial to ensuring their survival.
While the Philodoria team helped put the shimmering moths back on the map, many questions remain. No one knows exactly how the insects interact with their environment or even the identity of the group’s ancestor. But for Kawahara, publishing a compilation of all known information about the moths carries personal weight.
“This was one of my dreams,” he said. “It’s not necessarily flashy science. It’s natural history. We’re doing it for the moths. We’re doing it for conservation. We’re doing it because it’s important.”
From one Hawaiian’s perspective, the moths are essential to the islands, regardless of whether or not we ever learn their precise roles within the ecosystem.
“Our culture depends on the existence of these moths and other insects and plants,” said collaborator and conservationist Keahi Bustamante in an award-winning video created by Johns. “It’s talked about. It’s put into songs and legends. It’s documented that we respect these things and they respect us in a way that allows us to survive.”
Funding for the research was provided by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Entomological Society of America, the University of Florida Entomology and Nematology Department, the Florida Museum of Natural History, the UF Tropical Conservation and Development Program, the International Biodiversity Foundation and the Society for Systematic Biologists.
Consumers will dub activist brands as 'woke-washers' if they cannot prove moral competency
New research shows that consumers judge 'activist brands' based on how morally competent they are perceived to be when challenging free speech.
The report, co-authored by experts at the Business School (formerly Cass), Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Sussex Business School explains that stakeholders draw their conclusions on the biggest brands by measuring three moral skills: sensitivity, vision, and integration.
Lacking these traits, a brand raising controversy is judged as transgressing, reproducing and manipulating the boundaries of free speech. Displaying these traits proves the brand is not merely 'woke-washing' -- using customers' social awareness to meet their own ends.
Based on the analysis of 113 controversies involving 18 brand companies such as Nike, Ben & Jerry's, Greenpeace, and Starbucks over the last 38 years, the report authors have created a new method of calculating whether consumers will think of an activist brand as 'real' or 'fake' based on their approach.
Moral sensitivity -- a brand must recognise the moral content of a situation as failure to do so is likely to damage customer satisfaction, customer-brand relations, and brand equity. For example, in 2014 Greenpeace activists in Peru hung a banner on the Nazca lines to appeal for renewable energy, but as this is considered a world heritage site and a Peruvian cultural symbol they were declared morally insensitive.
Moral vision -- a brand must show a clear moral vision when outlining challenges to free speech that help solve problems for markets and society as failure to do so results in brands being dubbed as 'conformists' -- those who reproduce the dominant moral judgments about what is acceptable to say publicly. For example, Mattel's introduction of Barbie Entrepreneur was criticised for promoting 'unhelpful stereotype career images' in 2014, because of the brand's roots in how women are defined by appearance.
Moral integration -- a brand must have the ability to pursue their moral beliefs in all situations as failure to do so results in brands being dubbed as 'opportunists' and 'fame-seekers' -- manipulating the boundaries of free speech to serve personal interest rather than reform morality. For example, cosmetics brand Lush has been praised for its continued stance as ethical, fair, and sustainable, without seeking attention.
The study also introduces new strategies by which brands can implement their activist stance and avoid 'woke-washing'. The three methods managers can use controversies to communicate their brand effectively are;
Creating monstrous hybrids -- breaking down taboos and revitalizing interest around important but displaced causes, such as environmentalism, or bringing to light emerging values in public debates, such as gender non-binaries.
Challenging the moral establishment -- bringing to light the flaws in the moral judgments promoted by powerful social actors.
Demonstrating moral exemplarity -- by pioneering moral precepts, supporting emerging moral leaders whose values align with theirs, or even creating their own social movement.
Dr Laetitia Mimoun, Lecturer in Marketing at the Business School and co-author of the report, said: "This report illuminates new ways of revising free speech boundaries but also the risks and responsibilities for brands that engage in such debates. It is imperative that consumers can trust brands and for that to happen brands must not overstep the mark by falsely labelling themselves as activists to further their own agenda."
Dr Olivier Sibai, Lecturer in Marketing at Birkbeck, University of London, and co-author of the report, said: "Believers in brand activism embrace the trend as a branding revolution, while cynics discount it as a marketing gimmick. We find that brand activism matters because it changes the boundaries of free speech. Yet, marketers must use it responsibly or they will waste an amazing opportunity to turn brands into a force for good."
Dr Achilleas Boukis, Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Sussex and co-author of the report, said: "Our work is a roadmap for activist brands so that they can harmonise their brand comms with their activist profile and stay afloat among the myriads of brands that recklessly jump on the social activism bandwagon."
'Authenticating Brand Activism: Negotiating the Boundaries of Free Speech to Make a Change' by Dr Olivier Sibai, Lecturer in Marketing at Birkbeck, University of London and former visiting scholar at the Business School, Dr Mimoun, Lecturer in Marketing at the Business School, and Dr Achilleas Boukis, Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Sussex, is published in 'Psychology & Marketing'.
