Search Results (23)

The alpine marmot (Marmota marmota) once vanished from Romania’s Carpathian Mountains, but a reintroduction initiative launched in 1973 has since fostered population recovery. This study evaluates the long-term success of those efforts and explores the feasibility of further reintroductions. Population data from 2004 to 2025 across the Rodna, Retezat, and Făgăraș Mountains show a steady growth trend, culminating in a national population of approximately 815 individuals by 2025. Habitat quality was assessed using a Habitat Suitability Index, identifying robust colonies that could serve as donor populations. Additionally, an Ecological Diagnostic Key was developed to evaluate 27 potential reintroduction sites in the Țarcu, Ciucaș, and Bucegi Mountains. Findings reveal that 61 ha are suitable for reintroduction, with 40.5 ha rated as highly suitable. The study proposes a phased reintroduction strategy, combining individuals from established Romanian colonies with genetically diverse founders from Western Europe. It emphasizes soft-release protocols and calls for mitigation of anthropogenic pressures. This research supports a broader conservation framework that integrates habitat evaluation, demographic stability, and genetic health to enhance the alpine marmot’s persistence and expansion in Romania. Full article

Burrowing mammals function as ecosystem engineers by creating spatial heterogeneity in the soil structure and vegetation composition, thereby providing microhabitats for a wide range of organisms. These keystone species play a crucial role in maintaining local ecosystem functions and delivering ecosystem services. However, in Mongolia, where overgrazing has accelerated due to the expansion of a market-based economy, scientific knowledge remains limited regarding the impacts of human activities on such species. In this study, we focused on the Siberian marmot (Marmota sibirica), an ecosystem engineer inhabiting typical Mongolian steppe ecosystems. We assessed the relationship between the spatial distribution of marmot burrows and vegetation conditions both inside and outside Hustai National Park. Burrow locations were recorded in the field, and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was calculated, using Planet Lab, Dove-2 satellite imagery (3 m spatial resolution). Through a combination of remote sensing analyses and vegetation surveys, we examined how the presence or absence of anthropogenic disturbance (i.e., livestock grazing) affects the ecological functions of marmots. Our results showed that the distance between active burrows was significantly shorter inside the park (t = −2.68, p = 0.0087), indicating a higher population density. Furthermore, a statistical approach, using beta regression, revealed a significant interaction between the burrow type (active, non-active, off-colony area) and region (inside vs. outside the park) on the NDVI (e.g., outside × non-active: z = −5.229, p < 0.001). Notably, in areas with high grazing pressure outside the park, the variance in the NDVI varied significantly as a function of burrow presence or absence (e.g., July 2023, active vs. off-colony area: F = 133.46, p < 0.001). Combined with vegetation structure data from field surveys, our findings suggest that marmot burrowing activity may contribute to the enhancement of vegetation quality and spatial heterogeneity. These results indicate that the Siberian marmot remains an important component in supporting the diversity and stability of steppe ecosystems, even under intensive grazing pressure. The conservation of this species may thus provide a promising strategy for utilizing native ecosystem engineers in sustainable land-use management. Full article

We measured the alert distance (AD), flight-initiation distance (FID), buffer distance (BD), and distance fled (DF) of Himalayan marmots (Marmota himalayana) from four populations experiencing human disturbances of the same persistence but different intensities when subjected to varied stimuli (a running or walking man with or without a leashed dog and a dog alone). We analyzed the effects of different stimuli on the AD, FID, BD, and DF of marmots from each population and the relationship among the AD, FID, and DF to illustrate the escape strategy diversification of the studied marmots for different human disturbances when disturbed by varied stimuli. We found that intra-population diversification emerged when the marmots were threatened by different stimuli. The AD and FID were shorter when an individual was walking toward than when he was running toward the focal marmots. A man with a leashed dog as a stimulus produced a similar result to that of a man alone. Nevertheless, no diversification emerged when a single dog was the threat, and all three distances triggered due to the dog were significantly shorter than those triggered due to a man alone (walking or running) or a man with a leashed dog approaching the marmots. Inter-population diversification also emerged when the marmots from the four populations were disturbed by the same stimulus: when threatened by an individual or a man with a leashed dog, their escape behavior was determined by the intensity of the disturbance. The changes in the AD and FID were similar across all four populations, with the two distances increasing with the decrease in disturbance intensity, but the DF showed no significant variation across all the four areas. No significant inter-population diversification emerged when the marmots were threatened by a single dog. These diversifications may result from the different levels of habituation of marmots to human disturbances and the different sizes and, consequently, visibilities of humans and dogs. Full article

In recent years, significant progress has been achieved in understanding and processing tabular data. However, existing approaches often rely on task-specific features and model architectures, posing challenges in accurately extracting table structures amidst diverse layouts, styles, and noise contamination. This study introduces a comprehensive deep learning methodology that is tailored for the precise identification and extraction of rows and columns from document images that contain tables. The proposed model employs table detection and structure recognition to delineate table and column areas, followed by semantic rule-based approaches for row extraction within tabular sub-regions. The evaluation was performed on the publicly available Marmot data table datasets and demonstrates state-of-the-art performance. Additionally, transfer learning using VGG-19 is employed for fine-tuning the model, enhancing its capability further. Furthermore, this project fills a void in the Marmot dataset by providing it with extra annotations for table structure, expanding its scope to encompass column detection in addition to table identification. Full article

In this study, virological surveillance focused on coronaviruses in marmots in the Alpine region in 2022, captured as part of a population control reduction program in the Livigno area. Seventy-six faecal samples were randomly collected from marmots at the time of capture and release and tested for genome detection of pan-coronavirus, pan-pestivirus, canine distemper virus, and influenza A and D virus. Nine faecal samples were positive in the Pan-CoV RT-PCR, while all were negative for the other viruses. Pan-coronavirus positives were further identified using Illumina’s complete genome sequencing, which showed the highest homology with Bovine Coronavirus previously detected in roe deer in the Alps. Blood samples (n.35) were collected randomly from animals at release and tested for bovine coronavirus (BCoV) antibodies using competitive ELISA and VNT. Serological analyses revealed that 8/35 sera were positive for BCoV antibodies in both serological tests. This study provides molecular and serological evidence of the presence of BCoV in an alpine marmot population due to a likely spillover event. Marmots share areas and pastures with roe deer and other wild ruminants, and environmental transmission is a concrete possibility. Full article

Gut microbes play a vital role in the health and disease of animals, especially in relation to pathogen infections. Chinchillas, ferrets, and marmots are commonly used as important laboratory animals for infectious disease research. Here, we studied the bacterial and fungal microbiota and discovered that chinchillas had higher alpha diversity and a higher abundance of bacteria compared to marmots and ferrets by using the metabarcoding of 16S rRNA genes and ITS2, coupled with co-occurrence network analysis. The dominant microbes varied significantly among the three animal species, particularly in the gut mycobiota. In the ferrets, the feces were dominated by yeast such as Rhodotorula and Kurtzmaniella, while in the chinchillas, we found Teunomyces and Penicillium dominating, and Acaulium, Piromyces, and Kernia in the marmots. Nevertheless, the dominant bacterial genera shared some similarities, such as Clostridium and Pseudomonas across the three animal species. However, there were significant differences observed, such as Vagococcus and Ignatzschineria in the ferrets, Acinetobacter and Bacteroides in the chinchillas, and Bacteroides and Cellvibrio in the marmots. Additionally, our differential analysis revealed significant differences in classification levels among the three different animal species, as well as variations in feeding habitats that resulted in distinct contributions from the host microbiome. Therefore, our data are valuable for monitoring and evaluating the impacts of the microbiome, as well as considering potential applications. Full article

The Vancouver Island marmot (Marmota vancouverensis) is Canada’s most endangered endemic mammal. In 1997, a conservation breeding-for-release program was established to supplement wild marmot populations. Retrospective analyses of captive breeding studbook records since 2000 indicate the age of the sire and the dam significantly impacted the odds of successfully weaning a litter. Dams and sires between 5 and 7 years of age had more than double the odds of reproductive success compared to older animals. Successful reproduction by the dam in the previous year also doubled the odds of successfully weaning a litter in subsequent years. Assessment of adrenal function via fecal glucocorticoid analyses indicated established breeding pairs had decreased stress compared to new pairs (5.74 ± 0.28 ng/g vs. 7.60 ± 0.34 ng/g; p < 0.0001). Pairs that were ultimately successful at weaning pups in a breeding season had decreased stress compared to unsuccessful pairs (6.05 ± 0.34 ng/g vs. 7.22 ± 0.28 ng/g; p = 0.0006). These endocrine results suggest social buffering via familiarity and breeding/pair bond formation may be decreasing stress in established and successful pairs, respectively. The results of this study will be used to assist in the captive breeding management of this species to optimise numbers of animals produced to supplement the wild populations. Full article

Climate warming and human activities impact the expansion and contraction of species distribution. The Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana) is a unique mammal and an ecosystem engineer in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP). This pest aggravates grassland degradation and is a carrier and transmitter of plagues. Therefore, exploring the future distribution of Himalayan marmots based on climate change and human activities is crucial for ecosystem management, biodiversity conservation, and public health safety. Here, a maximum entropy model was explored to forecast changes in the distribution and centroid migration of the Himalayan marmot in the 2050s and 2070s. The results implied that the human footprint index (72.80%) and altitude (16.40%) were the crucial environmental factors affecting the potential distribution of Himalayan marmots, with moderately covered grassland being the preferred habitat of the Himalayan marmot. Over the next 30–50 years, the area of suitable habitat for the Himalayan marmot will increase slightly and the distribution center will shift towards higher latitudes in the northeastern part of the plateau. These results demonstrate the influence of climate change on Himalayan marmots and provide a theoretical reference for ecological management and plague monitoring. Full article

Tatra chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra tatrica (Blahout 1972)) and Tatra marmot (Marmota marmota latirostris (Kratochvíl 1961)) are significant endemic subspecies of the subalpine and alpine ranges of the Tatra Mountains in Central Europe. In four studied localities in the range of their typical biotopes in Slovakia and Poland, we investigated intestinal parasites of Tatra chamois and Tatra marmots, with an emphasis on anoplocephalid tapeworms. We also studied the occurrence, species diversity, and abundance of oribatid mites as intermediate hosts thereof, and the prevalence of cysticercoid larval stages of anoplocephalid tapeworms in collected oribatids using morphological and molecular methods. Coprological analyses revealed the average positivity of Moniezia spp. in chamois faeces at 23.5% and Ctenotaenia marmotae in marmot samples at 71.1%, with significant differences between the localities under study. Morphological analyses determined the presence of cysticercoids in five oribatid species: Ceratozetes gracilis, Edwardzetes edwardsi, Scheloribates laevigatus, Trichoribates novus, and Tectocepheus velatus sarekensis. This is the first record of T. v. sarekensis as an intermediate host of anoplocephalid tapeworms, as well as the first report of Andrya cuniculi occurrence in the territory of the Tatra Mountains, confirmed also by molecular methods. Full article

With the widespread use of deep learning in leading systems, it has become the mainstream in the table detection field. Some tables are difficult to detect because of the likely figure layout or the small size. As a solution to the underlined problem, we propose a novel method, called DCTable, to improve Faster R-CNN for table detection. DCTable came up to extract more discriminative features using a backbone with dilated convolutions in order to improve the quality of region proposals. Another main contribution of this paper is the anchors optimization using the Intersection over Union (IoU)-balanced loss to train the RPN and reduce the false positive rate. This is followed by a RoI Align layer, instead of the ROI pooling, to improve the accuracy during mapping table proposal candidates by eliminating the coarse misalignment and introducing the bilinear interpolation in mapping region proposal candidates. Training and testing on a public dataset showed the effectiveness of the algorithm and a considerable improvement of the F1-score on ICDAR 2017-Pod, ICDAR-2019, Marmot and RVL CDIP datasets. Full article

It is vitally important to understand the ecological roles of medium and small carnivores in the context of the massive decline in the number of large carnivores around the world. Based on a spatial association network of terrestrial birds and mammals, this study analyzed the ecological roles of medium and small carnivores in the community in Liancheng National Nature Reserve. From October 2019 to June 2020, we obtained 3559 independent detections of 20 terrestrial birds and mammals from 112 camera traps. There are seven species that are medium and small carnivores present in the study area, including red fox (Vulpes vulpes), leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), Chinese mountain cat (Felis bieti), stone marten (Martes foina), Asian badger (Meles leucurus), Siberian weasel (Mustela sibirica) and mountain weasel (Mustela altaica). By calculating the Phi coefficient of all species pairs, a spatial association network composed of twelve species was constructed. We analyzed the characterization of spatial associations by the Shannon–Wiener index and Lambda statistic. The results showed that: (1) the status of the network reflects the changes of community composition and structure after the decline in large carnivores and other species; (2) with the exception of the Chinese mountain cat and stone marten, the other five medium and small carnivores were located in the network, which played an important role in the complexity of the network and the maintenance of the community; (3) the medium and small carnivores could not take the place of the large carnivores in order to control the population of herbivores, such as Siberian roe deer (Capreolus pygargus) and Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana). The results of this study provide guidance for determining the direction and focus of conservation efforts. Full article

Plague persists in the plague natural foci today. Although previous studies have found climate drives plague dynamics, quantitative analysis on animal plague risk under climate change remains understudied. Here, we analyzed plague dynamics in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) which is a climate-sensitive area and one of the most severe animal plague areas in China to disentangle variations in marmot plague enzootic foci, diffusion patterns, and their possible links with climate and anthropogenic factors. Specifically, we developed a time-sharing ecological niche modelling framework to identify finer potential plague territories and their temporal epidemic trends. Models were conducted by assembling animal records and multi-source ecophysiological variables with actual ecological effects (both climatic predictors and landscape factors) and driven by matching plague strains to periods corresponding to meteorological datasets. The models identified abundant animal plague territories over the TP and suggested the spatial patterns varied spatiotemporal dimension across the years, undergoing repeated spreading and contractions. Plague risk increased in the 1980s and 2000s, with the risk area increasing by 17.7 and 55.5 thousand km², respectively. The 1990s and 2010s were decades of decreased risk, with reductions of 71.9 and 39.5 thousand km², respectively. Further factor analysis showed that intrinsic conditions (i.e., elevation, soil, and geochemical landscape) provided fundamental niches. In contrast, climatic conditions, especially precipitation, led to niche differentiation and resulted in varied spatial patterns. Additionally, while increased human interference may temporarily reduce plague risks, there is a strong possibility of recurrence. This study reshaped the plague distribution at multiple time scales in the TP and revealed multifactorial synergistic effects on the spreading and contraction of plague foci, confirming that TP plague is increasingly sensitive to climate change. These findings may facilitate groups to take measures to combat the plague threats and prevent potential future human plague from occurring. Full article

With the outbreak of the 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the issue of increasing health disparities has received a great deal of attention from scholars and organizations. This study analyzes 2282 papers on COVID-19-related health disparities that have been retrieved from the WOS database, with 58,413 references. Using bibliometric analysis and knowledge mapping visualizations, the paper focuses on the academic structure and research trends by examining the research distribution of countries, journals and authors, keywords, highly cited articles, and reference co-citation. The results show that the United States has contributed the most, and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health has published the largest number of papers on this topic. As for the core authors, Michael Marmot is the most productive. Issues such as racial health, mental health, and digital health disparities have been the trending topics of the COVID-19-related health disparities. The research directions include the features, factors, and interventions of health disparities under the influence of COVID-19. As such, this study provides literature support and suggestions to investigate COVID-19-related health disparities. The findings of the paper also remind public health regulators to consider factors of health disparities when developing long-term public health regulatory policies related to the pandemic. Full article

The high-altitude ecosystem of the Tibetan Plateau in China is a biodiversity hotspot that provides unique habitats for endemic and relict species along an altitudinal gradient at the eastern edge. Acquiring biodiversity information in this area, where the average altitude is over 4000 m, has been difficult but has been aided by recent developments in non-invasive technology, including infrared-triggered camera trapping. We used camera trapping to acquire a substantial number of photographic wildlife records in Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China, from 2013 to 2016. We collected information of the habitat surrounding the observation sites, resulting in a dataset covering 37 species and 12 environmental factors. We performed a multivariate statistical analysis to discern the dominant environmental factors and cluster the mammals and birds of the ecosystem in order to examine environmental factors contributing to the species’ relative abundance. Species were generalized into three main types, i.e., cold-resistant, phyllophilic, and thermophilic, according to the identified key environmental drivers (i.e., temperature and vegetation) for their abundances. The mammal species with the highest relative abundance were bharal (Pseudois nayaur), Moupin pika (Ochotona thibetana), and Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana). The bird species with highest relative abundance were snow partridge (Lerwa lerwa), plain mountain finch (Leucosticte nemoricola), Chinese monal (Lophophorus lhuysii), and alpine accentor (Prunella collaris). Full article

Table detection is a preliminary step in extracting reliable information from tables in scanned document images. We present CasTabDetectoRS, a novel end-to-end trainable table detection framework that operates on Cascade Mask R-CNN, including Recursive Feature Pyramid network and Switchable Atrous Convolution in the existing backbone architecture. By utilizing a comparativelyightweight backbone of ResNet-50, this paper demonstrates that superior results are attainable without relying on pre- and post-processing methods, heavier backbone networks (ResNet-101, ResNeXt-152), and memory-intensive deformable convolutions. We evaluate the proposed approach on five different publicly available table detection datasets. Our CasTabDetectoRS outperforms the previous state-of-the-art results on four datasets (ICDAR-19, TableBank, UNLV, and Marmot) and accomplishes comparable results on ICDAR-17 POD. Upon comparing with previous state-of-the-art results, we obtain a significant relative error reduction of $56.36\%$, $20\%$, $4.5\%$, and $3.5\%$ on the datasets of ICDAR-19, TableBank, UNLV, and Marmot, respectively. Furthermore, this paper sets a new benchmark by performing exhaustive cross-datasets evaluations to exhibit the generalization capabilities of the proposed method. Full article