Invasive species pose a threat to the livelihoods of many people living on rangelands of the western United States. Invasive species impact many ecosystem goods and services of the areas they invade and represent one of the largest causes of habitat degradation. On private ranches, economic analyses often find that conservation practices, such as invasive species control, are not economically viable, in contrast to what is found at the landscape scale. In northeast Wyoming, ventenata [Ventenata dubia (Leers) Coss.] is a relatively new invader in the Great Plains ecoregion that threatens forage production on ranches. Our objective was to explore the economic costs of V. dubia for two options available to a ranch operation: purchasing extra hay to offset losses in forage and controlling V. dubia with herbicide. Using a partial budget analysis, we compare these two options in three invasion scenarios using a range of forage utilization rates and discount rates. Controlling V. dubia with herbicide was a cheaper option compared with purchasing additional hay in many cases. In fact, at 50% utilization, it is cheaper to control V. dubia in all of our scenarios at all discount rates given our assumptions. For lower grazing utilization rates, it becomes cheaper to purchase hay in some cases other than in our worst-case invasion scenario. In these cases, coordination among ranchers is needed to effectively control V. dubia. There are many ranch-specific differences that may make a different option more feasible, and we did not explore options of reducing herd sizes. However, our results suggest that controlling V. dubia can be an economically viable option under certain circumstances. Additional assistance in the form of a cost-share program, and facilitation of coordination is needed to overcome the difficulties of private management of invasive species.

The Meadowcroft Rockshelter in southwestern Pennsylvania is best known for its pre-Clovis occupation. Potentially important for later times is the recovery of maize macrobotanical remains from higher strata dating as early as the 4th century BC based on radiometric radiocarbon (14C) dates on wood charcoal. These remains have been considered to be potentially as old as the earliest microbotanical evidence for maize in Michigan, New York and Québec recovered from directly dated charred cooking residues adhering to pottery. The results of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating 17 samples from maize specimens from all Meadowcroft strata producing maize, indicate that the specimens originated from historical use of the shelter, most likely after AD 1800. These results further emphasize the need to obtain direct dates on maize macrobotanical remains recovered from early contexts prior to the development and common use of AMS dating.

The Endangered dryas monkey Cercopithecus dryas, endemic to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is one of Africa's most enigmatic primates. The discovery of a dryas monkey killed by a hunter in the buffer zone of Lomami National Park in 2014 prompted field research on the species’ distribution, habitat use and stratum preference. We used local knowledge to determine the distribution of this species and to select sites for camera-trap surveys in Lomami National Park and its buffer zone. We employed a multi-strata (0–29 m) camera-trap placement technique to determine habitat use at Camp Bartho in Lomami National Park and Bafundo Forest in the Park's buffer zone. We confirmed the occurrence of the dryas monkey at seven locations over a total area of 3,453 km2, in both the Park and its buffer zone. Dryas monkeys were detected most frequently (2.22 events/100 trap-days) in disturbed areas of Bafundo Forest and less in mature forest in Camp Bartho (0.82 events/100 trap-days). Dryas monkeys appear to prefer structurally complex understories and forest edges. We found that camera traps at 2–10 m above ground over at least 365 trap-days are required to determine if the species is present. We recommend utilizing local knowledge and using this species-specific camera-trap method in other areas of the central Congo basin to determine the wider distribution of the dryas monkey.

We employ social network analysis of collar decoration on Iroquoian vessels to conduct a multiscalar analysis of signaling practices among ancestral Huron-Wendat communities on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Our analysis focuses on the microscale of the West Duffins Creek community relocation sequence as well as the mesoscale, incorporating several populations to the west. The data demonstrate that network ties were stronger among populations in adjacent drainages as opposed to within drainage-specific sequences, providing evidence for west-to-east population movement, especially as conflict between Wendat and Haudenosaunee populations escalated in the sixteenth century. These results suggest that although coalescence may have initially involved the incorporation of peoples from microscale (local) networks, populations originating among wider mesoscale (subregional) networks contributed to later coalescent communities. These findings challenge previous models of village relocation and settlement aggregation that oversimplified these processes.

Emerson and colleagues (2020) provide new isotopic evidence on directly dated human bone from the Greater Cahokia region. They conclude that maize was not adopted in the region prior to AD 900. Placing this result within the larger context of maize histories in northeastern North America, they suggest that evidence from the lower Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River valley for earlier maize is “enigmatic” and “perplexing.” Here, we review that evidence, accumulated over the course of several decades, and question why Emerson and colleagues felt the need to offer opinions on that evidence without providing any new contradictory empirical evidence for the region.

The global community needs to be aware of the potential psychosocial consequences that may be experienced by health care workers who are actively managing patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19). These health care workers are at increased risk for experiencing mood and trauma-related disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this concept article, strategies are recommended for individual health care workers and hospital leadership to aid in mitigating the risk of PTSD, as well as to build resilience in light of a potential second surge of COVID-19.

Exposure to adverse events is prevalent among youths and robustly associated with risk for depression, particularly during adolescence. The Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology (DMAP) distinguishes between adverse events that expose youths to deprivation versus threat, positing unique mechanisms of risk (cognitive functioning deficits for deprivation, and altered fear and emotion learning for threat) that may require different approaches to intervention. We examined whether deprivation and threat were distinctly associated with behavioral measures of cognitive processes and autonomic nervous system function in relation to depression symptom severity in a community sample of early adolescents (n = 117; mean age 12.73 years; 54.7% male). Consistent with DMAP, associations between threat and depression symptoms, and between economic deprivation and depression symptoms, were distinctly moderated by physiological and cognitive functions, respectively, at baseline but not follow-up. Under conditions of greater cognitive inhibition, less exposure to deprivation was associated with lower symptom severity. Under conditions of blunted resting-state autonomic response (electrodermal activity and respiratory sinus arrhythmia), greater exposure to threat was associated with higher symptom severity. Our findings support the view that understanding risk for youth depression requires parsing adversity: examining distinct roles played by deprivation and threat, and the associated cognitive and biological processes.

In 1969, a public debate between President Nixon and Congress took place during the legislative passage of the National Environmental Policy Act and centered on two very different and competing conceptions of how presidential advice should be organized in the Executive Office of the President. It focused on the proposed establishment of the Council on Environmental Quality. The outcome of the ensuing battle represented a complete victory for congressional interests against the expressed wishes of the president. The nature of the debate has been overlooked in the literature on the presidency, but it highlights fundamental issues about agency design and presidential control of the institutional presidency. It also highlights broader concerns about the degree of congressional involvement in shaping the Executive Office of the President.

The results of Bayesian analysis using 43 new high-precision AMS radiocarbon dates on maize, faunal remains, and ceramic residues from 18 precontact Iroquoian village sites in Northern New York are presented. Once thought to span AD 1350–1500, the period of occupation suggested by the modeling is approximately AD 1450–1510. This late placement now makes clear that Iroquoians arrived in the region approximately 100 years later than previously thought. This result halves the time in which population growth and significant changes in settlement occurred. The new chronology allows us to better match these events within a broader Northeast temporal framework.

In recent years, researchers in pre-Hispanic Central America have used new approaches that greatly amplify and enhance evidence of plants and their uses. This paper presents a case study from Puerto Escondido, located in the lower Ulúa River valley of Caribbean coastal Honduras. We demonstrate the effectiveness of using multiple methods in concert to interpret ethnobotanical practice in the past. By examining chipped-stone tools, ceramics, sediments from artifact contexts, and macrobotanical remains, we advance complementary inquiries. Here, we address botanical practices “in the home,” such as foodways, medicinal practices, fiber crafting, and ritual activities, and those “close to home,” such as agricultural and horticultural practices, forest management, and other engagements with local and distant ecologies. This presents an opportunity to begin to develop an understanding of ethnoecology at Puerto Escondido, here defined as the dynamic relationship between affordances provided in a botanical landscape and the impacts of human activities on that botanical landscape.