Biology subjects

Jones, J. P.

Publications and source records attributed to Jones, J. P..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Invisible people: Exploring how well remote-sensed datasets reveal the distribution of forest-proximate populations

Accurate information on the location and density of people living at the forest frontier is vital for effective and equitable forest conservation. We compare the location of settlements and estimated population density from three global-scale, remote-sensed datasets (World Settlement Footprint 2015, Open Buildings, WorldPop) with a fine-scale, manually-derived dataset of 3,136 human settlements, of which 95% had fewer than 150 households. The study region is located in north-eastern Madagascar, contains three protected areas and the largest unprotected block of humid forest of the island. The Open Buildings dataset detected a much higher proportion (94%) of settlements than did World Settlement Footprint (15%). Population density from WorldPop matches poorly with that estimated from our manually-derived dataset. The accuracy of all three datasets is worse in more remote, forested areas, further away from basic infrastructure. Open Buildings appears to best reveal the distribution of low density scattered populations in forested areas. However, further testing in other climatic regions is still needed. Making good use of appropriate remote-sensed data could revolutionize the inclusion of local communities in conservation policy and practice, improve the quality of inference in conservation research, particularly in times of a planned expansion of the global protected area network.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Sensitivity of estimates of the effectiveness of REDD+ projects to matching specifications and moving from pixels to polygons as the unit of analysis

There is a substantial interest in the potential of carbon credits generated by Reducing Emissions from tropical Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) and traded on the voluntary carbon market for generating the finance needed to slow forest loss. However, such credits have become marred in controversy. Recent global-scale analysis using a range of methods for estimating the counterfactual rate of deforestation ex post suggest that many REDD+ projects have overestimated their effectiveness at reducing deforestation and consequently issued more credits than can be justified. All such methods include potentially arbitrary choices which can affect the estimate of the treatment effect. In addition, using pixels as the sampling unit, as some of the studies do, can introduce biases. One study which has been widely cited in the debate (Guizar-Coutino et al. 2022) estimated avoided deforestation using statistical matching of pixels and a single set of matching options. We estimate avoided deforestation from the same set of projects using 7-hectare plots rather than pixels to sample deforestation and explore the sensitivity of the results to matching choices (exploring 120 matched sets in total). We filtered the results on three criteria: 1) post-matching covariate balance, 2) proportion of REDD+ samples that were successfully matched, and 3) similarity of trends in deforestation rates prior to REDD+ implementation (parallel trends). While one of the 44 REDD+ projects failed these quality control process, we estimate treatment effects for the remaining 43 projects. There was a substantial correlation between our new estimates and those published in Guizar-Coutino et al. 2022 (0.72 measured in annual percent change, and 0.9 measured in total area change) and our headline estimate of 0.22% per yr (95% CI: 0.13 to 0.34) is essentially unchanged. At a time when confidence in the voluntary carbon markets is low, we hope these results provide reassurance that ex-post counterfactual estimates of avoided deforestation are consistent, helping accelerate their widespread adoption and rebuild trust in nature-based climate solutions.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Therapeutic doses of paracetamol with co-administration of cysteine and mannitol during early development result in long term behavioral changes in laboratory rats.

Based on several lines of evidence, numerous investigators have suggested that paracetamol exposure during early development can induce neurological disorders. We had previously postulated that paracetamol exposure early in life, if combined with antioxidants that prevent accumulation of NAPQI, the toxic metabolite of paracetamol, might be innocuous. In this study, we administered paracetamol at or below the currently recommended therapeutic dose to male laboratory rat pups aged 4-10 days. The antioxidants cysteine and mannitol were included to prevent accumulation of NAPQI. In addition, animals were exposed to a cassette of common stress factors: an inflammatory diet, psychological stress, antibiotics, and mock infections using killed bacteria. At age 37-49 days, observation during introduction to a novel conspecific revealed increased rearing behavior, an asocial behavior, in animals treated with paracetamol plus antioxidants, regardless of their exposure to oxidative stress factors (2-way ANOVA; P < 0.0001). This observation would suggest that the initial hypothesis is incorrect, and that oxidative stress mediators do not entirely eliminate the effects of paracetamol on neurodevelopment. This study provides additional cause for caution when considering the use of paracetamol in the pediatric population, and provides evidence that the effects of paracetamol on neurodevelopment need to be considered both in the presence and in the absence of oxidative stress.

animal behavior and cognition↗