Maintaining species-rich and resilient ecosystems is key to preserving biodiversity and mitigating climate change. Here, megafauna — the part of the animal population in an area that is made up of the largest animals — plays an important role. In a new study published in the scientific journal One Earth, an international research team, of which Lund University is a part, has investigated the intricate interplay between the number of voracious herbivores and the diversity of trees in the world’s protected areas.

“Our findings reveal a fascinating and complex story of how large herbivorous animals shape the world’s natural landscapes. The tree cover in these areas is sparser, but the diversity of the tree cover is much higher than in areas without large herbivores,” says Lanhui Wang, a researcher in physical geography and ecosystem science at Lund University.

“In our global analysis, we find a substantial association between the biomass of large herbivores and varied tree cover in protected areas, notably for browsers and mixed-feeders such as elephants, bison and moose and in non-extreme climates,” explains the study’s senior author, Jens-Christian Svenning, professor at Aarhus University.

Hereby, the study supports that large wild herbivores promote a diverse vegetation structure, creating a rich habitat for many other species. This is due to the animals’ consumption of vegetation as well as physical disturbances.

According to Lanhui Wang, these new research findings highlight the need to integrate large herbivores into restoration and conservation strategies. Not only for the sake of the animals themselves but also for the vital role they play in shaping landscapes and influencing biodiversity. The researchers argue that this aspect is not sufficiently considered within the framework of sustainable land management and ecosystem restoration.

“At a time when global initiatives are intensely focused on combating climate change and biodiversity loss, our findings highlight the need for a broader and more nuanced discussion about ecosystem management and conservation measures. It is of utmost importance to integrate understanding of the ecological impact of megafauna into this,” says Lanhui Wang.

The UN has declared the 2020s as the decade of ecosystem restoration. In total, 115 countries have agreed to restore up to 100,000 square kilometres of nature in total. To achieve this, more wild-living large herbivores are needed worldwide, says Lanhui Wang.

“I believe that we will need to protect and conserve large herbivores to achieve the UN goals. Megafauna are crucial for tree cover, which in turn promotes carbon sequestration and a diversity of habitats,” says Lanhui Wang.

“For many years now, I’ve been working with citizen stakeholders in the southeastern corner of Massachusetts,” says Boutt, “and in 2021, the Pine Barrens Alliance, an environmental group interested in preserving the area’s unique environmental character, approached me with an idea for a project to help assess how communities along the coast could best prepare for climate change.”

Boutt and his colleagues, including recent UMass graduate and research assistant Alexander Kirshen, undergraduates Rachel King and Carly Lombardo, graduate student Daniel Corkran and postdoctoral researcher Brendan Moran, jumped at the opportunity to apply their academic research to an urgent, real-world problem close to home.

Plymouth sits on top of a freshwater aquifer — the town’s sole source of water. Because Plymouth extends to the ocean’s edge, it is extremely susceptible to rising sea levels. For their study, Boutt, Kirshen and colleagues peeked underground to see what was happening.

Groundwater, flowing beneath the surface of the land, and the ocean’s water, which, likewise, flows subterraneanly, push against each other and reach an equilibrium state. A well sunk on the freshwater side will flow with sweet water, but one that drills down into the brackish meeting point between fresh and salt will come up briny. As the oceans rise, that sub-surface saltwater pushes farther inland, and wells that have delivered pure water for generations can suddenly turn salty.

While the theory might seem intuitive enough, actually mapping, to say nothing of predicting, the flows and interactions of both fresh and salt water is an enormously complex task.

To start, the team built a salinity database that gathered all the available data from groundwater wells and surface water, such as ponds and streams, in the Plymouth area and measured them for salinity. This gave them a baseline understanding of the current locations and likely sources of elevated water salinity.

Next, Boutt and Kirshen adopted an existing U.S. Geological Survey hydrogeological model, which only focused on the onshore half of the hydrogeology equation, by extending its reach five kilometers offshore. The model includes ponds, streams, terrestrial recharge — or the rate and amount of precipitation that seeps down into the aquifer — as well the various wells that draw from the aquifer and the wastewater that is returned to the aquifer via re-infiltration or septic systems.

Finally, they conducted a series of model runs that took into consideration various scenarios in terms of future precipitation, sea-level rise, groundwater usage and changes in water returned to the aquifer.

“We found that, under the high sea-level rise scenario, areas of the aquifer will increase in salinity by up to 17,000 milligrams per liter by 2100,” says Kirshen, “and the mixing zone between the ocean and freshwater will migrate inland by up to 200 meters.” While a few ponds might see significant rise in water elevation, by up to 1.8 meters, most ponds would not see their salinity increase from this source of salinization.

The team also learned that water returned to the aquifer by septic systems plays a major role in helping to limit saltwater intrusion. “About 66% of the water that gets pumped out of the aquifer ends up returning to it,” says Kirshen.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is that the highest levels of salinity today aren’t near the coast, but inland, and especially around the roads. “This surprised me,” says Boutt, “and it looks like road salt is one of the main sources of elevated salinity today.”

“In partnering with UMass Amherst, we were always thinking beyond the municipal boundaries of Plymouth,” says SEMPBA Vice President Frank Mand. “We share an aquifer and a geological foundation with over 30 communities in our ecoregion. So, though the news for Plymouth is good, more importantly we now have a scientific foundation — and new methods for evaluating susceptibility to saltwater intrusion — that are transferrable to those other communities and will help inform Plymouth’s and other communities’ planning for years to come.”

“We were not looking to science to help us recover from our mistakes,” Mand adds. “We were seeking to avoid problems in the future. That, in and of itself, was a worthy goal.”

To prepare for the future, Boutt and Kirshen recommend further, finer-grained analyses of the region’s hydrogeography, the creation of an early warning system to monitor the sites most vulnerable to saltwater intrusion, developing new wells in areas that are at the least risk of salt contamination and reconsidering practices, such as salting the roads in the winter, which are currently responsible for the majority of saltwater contamination in the area.

Professor of International Security at Lancaster University Joe Burton argues that AI and algorithms are not just tools deployed by national security agencies to prevent malicious activity online, but can be contributors to polarization, radicalism and political violence — posing a threat to national security.

Further to this, he says, securitization processes (presenting technology as an existential threat) have been instrumental in how AI has been designed, used and to the harmful outcomes it has generated.

Professor Burton’s article ‘Algorithmic extremism? The securitization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its impact on radicalism, polarization and political violence’ is published in Elsevier’s high impact Technology in Society Journal.

“AI is often framed as a tool to be used to counter violent extremism,” says Professor Burton. “Here is the other side of the debate.”

The paper looks at how AI has been securitized throughout its history, and in media and popular culture depictions, and by exploring modern examples of AI having polarizing, radicalizing effects that have contributed to political violence.

The article cites the classic film series, The Terminator, which depicted a holocaust committed by a ‘sophisticated and malignant’ artificial intelligence, as doing more than anything to frame popular awareness of Artificial Intelligence and the fear that machine consciousness could lead to devastating consequences for humanity — in this case a nuclear war and a deliberate attempt to exterminate a species.

“This lack of trust in machines, the fears associated with them, and their association with biological, nuclear and genetic threats to humankind has contributed to a desire on the part of governments and national security agencies to influence the development of the technology, to mitigate risk and (in some cases) to harness its positive potentiality,” writes Professor Burton.

The role of sophisticated drones, such as those being used in the war in Ukraine, are, says Professor Burton, now capable of full autonomy including functions such as target identification and recognition.

And, while there has been a broad and influential campaign debate, including at the UN, to ban ‘killer robots’ and to keep the human in the loop when it comes to life-or-death decision-making, the acceleration and integration into armed drones has, he says, continued apace.

In cyber security — the security of computers and computer networks — AI is being used in a major way with the most prevalent area being (dis)information and online psychological warfare.

Putin’s government’s actions against US electoral processes in 2016 and the ensuing Cambridge Analytica scandal showed the potential for AI to be combined with big data (including social media) to create political effects centred around polarization, the encouragement of radical beliefs and the manipulation of identity groups. It demonstrated the power and the potential of AI to divide societies.

And during the pandemic, AI was seen as a positive in tracking and tracing the virus but it also led to concerns over privacy and human rights.

The article examines AI technology itself, arguing that problems exist in the design of AI, the data that it relies on, how it is used, and in its outcomes and impacts.

The paper concludes with a strong message to researchers working in cyber security and International Relations.

“AI is certainly capable of transforming societies in positive ways but also presents risks which need to be better understood and managed,” writes Professor Burton, an expert in cyber conflict and emerging technologies and who is part of the University’s Security and Protection Science initiative.

“Understanding the divisive effects of the technology at all stages of its development and use is clearly vital.

“Scholars working in cyber security and International Relations have an opportunity to build these factors into the emerging AI research agenda and avoid treating AI as a politically neutral technology.

“In other words, the security of AI systems, and how they are used in international, geopolitical struggles, should not override concerns about their social effects.”

As one of only a handful of universities whose education, research and training is recognised by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of GCHQ, Lancaster is investing heavily in the next generation of cyber security leaders. As well as boosting the skills and talent pipeline in the region by building on its NCSC certified Masters degree with a new undergraduate degree in cyber security, it launched a trailblazing Cyber Executive Masters in Business Education.