Addressing risks to biodiversity arising from a changing climate: The need for ecosystem restoration in the Tana River Basin, Kenya

Analysis of the Low-Carbon Transition Effect and Development Pattern of Green Credit for Prefecture-Level Cities in the Yellow River Basin

Green credit is a vital instrument for promoting low-carbon transition. However, designing a reasonable development pattern and efficiently allocating limited resources has become a challenge for developing countries. The Yellow River Basin, a critical component of the low-carbon transition in China, is still in the early stages of green credit development. Most cities in this region lack green credit development plans that suit their economic conditions. This study examined the impact of green credit on carbon emission intensity and utilized a k-means clustering algorithm to categorize the green credit development patterns of 98 prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin based on four static indicators and four dynamic indicators. Regression results based on city-level panel data from 2006 to 2020 demonstrated that the development of green credit in the Yellow River Basin can effectively reduce local carbon emission intensity and promote low-carbon transition. We classified the development patterns of green credit in the Yellow River Basin into five types: mechanism construction, product innovation, consumer business expansion, rapid growth, and stable growth. Moreover, we have put forward specific policy suggestions for cities with different development patterns. The design process of this green credit development patterns is characterized by its ability to achieve meaningful outcomes while relying on fewer numbers of indicators. Furthermore, this approach boasts a significant degree of explanatory power, which may assist policy makers in comprehending the underlying mechanisms of regional low-carbon governance. Our findings provide a new perspective for the study of sustainable finance.

Phylogeography and evolutionary lineage diversity in the small-eared greater galago, Otolemur garnettii (Primates: Galagidae)

Assessing the true lineage diversity in elusive nocturnal organisms is particularly challenging due to their subtle phenotypic variation in diagnostic traits. The cryptic small-eared greater galago (Otolemur garnettii) offers a great opportunity to test if currently recognized subspecies, suggested by discontinuities in coat colour pattern and geographic barriers, represent distinct evolutionary lineages. To answer this question, we conducted the first population-level phylogeographic study of the species, sampling wild specimens from across almost its entire latitudinal range, including the Zanzibar Archipelago. We applied five species-delimitation algorithms to investigate the genetic diversity and distribution pattern of mitochondrial DNA across the geographic range of three out of four subspecies. Our results suggest that far-northern populations of O. g. lasiotis potentially represent an independently evolving lineage, but populations assigned to O. g. garnettii from Zanzibar Island and of O. g panganiensis from mainland Tanzania do not constitute two independent lineages. A dated phylogeny suggests that this northern clade diverged from all remaining samples approximately 4 Mya. Such old divergence age is in line with the split between many galagid species. This northern lineage could potentially represent an incipient species; however, there is not yet enough evidence to support a new taxonomic status for this unique mitochondrial group.