Rural industrial structure and landscape diversity: Correlation research

Landscape diversity reflects the integrated natural characteristics of rural areas, to some extent, while industrial structure shows the regional social economic characteristics. Therefore, correlation research on rural industrial structure and landscape diversity may couple the natural environment and social economy, which is of great importance to rural sustainable development. In this paper, we carried through this research from two aspects. First, we made a qualitative analysis of the hierarchical correlation beween rural industrial structure and landscape diversity, and the correlation during different historical periods was also summarized. Second, taking Yongsheng County, Yunnan Province, China as a case study, we applied the method of hierarchical clustering to make a quantitative analysis of the clustering correlation between rural industrial structure and landscape diversity. The results show that there are correlations between rural industrial structure and landscape diversity. That is, different industrial structures may result in similar landscape diversity in developed rural areas; while in developing rural areas industrial structure cannot exclusively determine landscape diversity, which is also influenced by natural factors, such as landform, physiognomy and climate.     

A proposal for environmental indicators towards industrial building sustainable assessment

The construction sector carries out a very important role in the development of society. It is a basic component of economic activity, having a great influence on employment generation and country growth. The sector generates appreciable environmental changes and effects throughout the planet, leading to gradual exhaustion of natural resources and contamination of basic elements, such as air, water and soil. Recently, there have been advances in favour of more environmentally friendly buildings. Basically, sustainable construction has centred on residential and office buildings. It could be said that there is a lack of sustainability in the construction of industrial buildings, as they present characteristics which differ from other building typologies. This article aims to assess and analyze industrial building environmental effects, and considers a set of green study criteria, such as: location, materials, energy and water consumption, construction and deconstruction characteristics, and waste management in industrial building. At the same time, the studies are hierarchically structured into different assessment elements, such as: criteria, subcriteria and, finally, indicators, comprising the assessment model.     

Integrated water resource management at the industrial park level: A case of the Tianjin Economic Development Area

Water reuse and wastewater minimization are becoming increasingly important strategies for industrial parks. However, integrated industrial water management systems at an industrial park level have not yet been adequately investigated to determine synergies. This paper employs a case study of the Tianjin Economic Development Area (TEDA) to examine the importance of developing an integrated water resources management framework at the industrial park level. The paper presents a framework for effective and efficient management of water resources within an industrial park by taking a systems approach to conventional water management practices, designed to minimize industrial water use and maximize wastewater reuse among different tenants of an industrial park. The framework is composed of four elements: a management information system, policies and regulations, economic instruments and capacity building. The paper then considers how to implement such an integrated approach.     

Technological influences and abatement strategies for industrial sulphur dioxide in China

Industrial SO₂ is the most important air pollutant in China. This paper outlines the technological impacts on industrial SO₂ emissions in China in terms of: amount, intensity, structure of energy consumption and structure of energy-intensive industries. It shows that industrial SO₂ emissions have linear growth alongside increases in energy consumption, particularly the rise in coal consumption. The contribution of technological factors to decreases in the intensity of energy consumption is 25%, while the structural factor is 75%. The power industry accounts for 52.6% of total industrial SO₂. Optimisation of the structure of energy consumption can reduce SO₂ emissions by 1.98 million tonnes per year. We propose the following technological strategies for industrial SO₂ abatement: adjustment of the system and structure of thermal power generating units, acceleration of flue gas desulphurisation projects, transformation of industrial structures, development of eco-industries and a reduction in energy consumption per unit product. In addition, an effective way to abate industrial SO₂ emissions is to promote governance strategies to stricly enforce SO₂ emission standards, conduct emission trading, and formulate incentives for encouraging cleaner production and clean energy development.     

Designing for nature and sustainability

Humankind is now using natural resources more rapidly than natural systems can replace them and has been doing so for approximately two and a half decades. Moreover, both natural capital and the ecosystem services it provides are being diminished at an unprecedented rate. Finally, the human population is expected to increase by three billion by 2050. This situation is clearly unsustainable, but it can be made less so by redesigning societal wastes so that they benefit the biospheric life-support system. Nature initiates and maintains a system of energy and nutrient cycling and, if the system integrity is maintained, provides alternative and redundant means that help stabilize functional capacity. The system is composed of opportunistic individuals that compete with other individuals to acquire the resources essential to their survival. The interrelationships within this aggregation of individuals (i.e. system components) are based on energy flow. This self-organizing and self-maintaining system is increasingly stressed by human activities. Humans are a part of, not apart from, this system and are governed by the same laws of nature. In short, an ecologically-based economic system is essential to sustainable use of the planet. The planet's life-support system has been a superb model of sustainability, which humans should emulate and become a part of more than they now are. When the biospheric life-support system is stressed to the point of disequilibrium, the results are disastrous for societies, individuals and ecosystems. Evolutionary processes have produced replacement systems following the five great biological extinctions. However, the probability is high that the next replacement system will not be as suitable for humankind as the present system. Sustainable practices are intended to prevent biospheric disequilibrium and maintain the present environmental conditions so favorable to humankind, including posterity.     

湖南野生鹿角杜鹃资源的园林应用价值开发初探

在简述鹿角杜鹃的生长、生态习性及自然分布的基础上,针对目前湖南野生鹿角杜鹃资源的种质资源开发、引种驯化、栽培繁殖现状,重点阐述野生鹿角杜鹃资源在园林应用上的开发利用措施,旨在保护野生资源、合理开发利用,以期增加园林植物多样性．参12．     

Landscape constraints on functional diversity of birds and insects in tropical agroecosystems

In this paper, we analyzeatabases on birds and insects to assess patterns of functional diversity in human-dominated landscapes in the tropics. A perspective from developed landscapes is essential for understanding remnant natural ecosystems, because most species experience their surroundings at spatial scales beyond the plot level, and spillover between natural and managed ecosystems is common. Agricultural bird species have greater habitat and diet breadth than forest species. Based on a global data base, bird assemblages in tropical agroforest ecosystems were composed of disproportionately more frugivorous and nectarivorous, but fewer insectivorous bird species compared with forest. Similarly, insect predators of plant-feeding arthropods were more diverse in Ecuadorian agroforest and forest compared with rice and pasture, while, in Indonesia, bee diversity was also higher in forested habitats. Hence, diversity of insectivorous birds and insect predators as well as bee pollinators declined with agricultural transformation. In contrast, with increasing agricultural intensification, avian pollinators and seed dispersers initially increase then decrease in proportion. It is well established that the proximity of agricultural habitats to forests has a strong influence on the functional diversity of agroecosystems. Community similarity is higher among agricultural systems than in natural habitats and higher in simple than in complex landscapes for both birds and insects, so natural communities, low-intensity agriculture, and heterogeneous landscapes appear to be critical in the preservation of beta diversity. We require a better understanding of the relative role of landscape composition and the spatial configuration of landscape elements in affecting spillover of functionally important species across managed and natural habitats. This is important for data-based management of tropical human-dominated landscapes sustaining the capacity of communities to reorganize after disturbance and to ensure ecological functioning.     

Diversity pattern and spatial scale: a study of a tropical rain forest of Malaysia

Scale is emerging as one of the critical problems in ecology because our perception of most ecological variables and processes depends upon the scale at which the variables are measured. A conclusion obtained at one scale may not be valid at another scale without sufficient knowledge of the scaling effect, which is also a source of misinterpretation for many ecological problems, such as the design of reserves in conservation biology.This paper attempts to study empirically how scaling may affect the spatial patterns of diversity (tree density, richness and Shannon diversity) that we may perceive in tropical forests, using as a test-case a 50 ha forest plot in Malaysia. The effect of scale on measurements of diversity patterns, the occurrence of rare species, the fractal dimension of diversity patterns, the spatial structure and the nearest-neighbour autocorrelation of diversity are addressed. The response of a variable to scale depends on the way it is measured and the way it is distributed in space.We conclude that, in general, the effect of scaling on measures of biological diversity is non-linear; heterogeneity increases with the size of the sampling units, and fine-scale information is lost at a broad scale. Our results should lead to a better understanding of how ecological variables and processes change over scale.     

Limited salvage logging effects on forest regeneration after moderate-severity windthrow.

Recent conceptual advances address forest response to multiple disturbances within a brief time period, providing an ideal framework for examining the consequences of natural disturbances followed by anthropogenic management activities. The combination of two or more disturbances in a short period may produce "ecological surprises," and models predict a threshold of cumulative disturbance severity above which forest composition will be drastically altered and regeneration may be impaired. Salvage logging (the harvesting of timber after natural disturbances; also called "salvaging" or "sanitary logging") is common, but there have been no tests of the manner in which salvaging after natural wind disturbance affects woody plant regeneration. Here we present findings from three years after a moderate-severity wind disturbance in west-central Tennessee, USA. We compare two unsalvaged sites and two sites that had intermediate-intensity salvaging. Our approach demonstrates the calculation of cumulative severity measures, which combine natural windthrow severity and anthropogenic tree cutting and removal, on a plot-by-plot basis. Seedling/sapling density and species richness were not influenced by cumulative disturbance severity, but species diversity showed a marginal increase with increasing cumulative severity. The amount of compositional change (from predisturbance trees to post-disturbance seedlings/saplings) increased significantly with cumulative severity of disturbance but showed no evidence of thresholds within the severity range examined. Overall, few deleterious changes were evident in these sites. Moderate-severity natural disturbances followed by moderate-intensity salvaging may have little detrimental effect on forest regeneration and diversity in these systems; the ecological surprises and threshold compositional change are more likely after combinations of natural and anthropogenic disturbances that have a much greater cumulative severity.     

城市自然生态空间的价值评估及规划启示

城市自然生态空间是城市生态文明建设重要的物质基础。在规划过程中,应该将城市自然生态空间的生态价值评估作为城市规划的重要理论基础,通过相应的规划方法引导城市生态化建设和品质提升。文章通过对城市自然生态空间的界定,以及对城市自然生态空间生态价值评估的理论模型的研究,提出对规划建设的启示：积极构建城市自然生态空间统一的评估指标体系和建立适应中国本土的动态评估模型能够理性的指导城市的生态化建设,同时通过对城市自然生态空间的价值评估能够科学制定城市生态调控政策和正确引导公共参与城市生态化建设。     

农业生态系统中生物多样性的功能--兼论其保护途径与今后研究方向

重点论述了农业生态系统中生物多样性的功能 ,其功能主要表现在害虫控制、土壤侵蚀防治、退化环境恢复、消除污染和促进养分循环等方面。探讨了农业生态系统中生物多样性的保护途径及今后应开展的研究重点。     

The consequences of genetic diversity in competitive communities

Several lines of evidence suggest that the species diversity and composition of communities should depend on genetic diversity within component species, but there has been very little effort to directly assess this possibility. Here I use models of competition among genotypes and species to demonstrate a strong positive effect of the number of genotypes per species on species diversity across a range of conditions. Genetic diversity allows species to respond to selection imposed by competition, resulting in both functional convergence and divergence among species depending on their initial niche positions. This ability to respond to selection promotes species coexistence and contributes to a reduction in variation in species composition among communities. These models suggest that whenever individual fitness depends on the degree of functional similarity between a focal individual and its competitors, genetic diversity should promote species coexistence; this prediction is consistent with the few relevant empirical data collected to date. The results point to the importance of considering the genetic origin and diversity of material used in ecological experiments and in restoration efforts, in addition to highlighting potentially important community consequences of the loss of genetic diversity in natural populations.     

城市河流在城市生态建设中的意义和应用方法

城市河流是城市生态系统的重要组分之一。本文分析了城市河流在城市生态建设中的水源地,减弱城市热岛效应和洪涝灾害,绿地建设基地,景观多样性的组成,物种多样性保护,组成捷交通,亲近自然场所,自然教育标本等方面的多种意义,指出保持河流的自然地貌特征,维持自然水文过程,控制城市河流水污染,综合规划城市河流与城市建设的关系是发挥城市河流在城市生态系统中作用的基本方法。     

Advances in pollination ecology from tropical plantation crops

Although ecologists traditionally focus on natural ecosystems, there is growing awareness that mixed landscapes of managed and unmanaged systems provide a research environment for understanding basic ecological relationships on a large scale. Here, we show how tropical agroforestry systems can be used to develop ideas about the mechanisms that influence species diversity and subsequent biotic interactions at different spatial scales. Our focus is on tropical plantation crops, mainly coffee and cacao, and their pollinators, which are of basic ecological interest as partners in an important mutualistic interaction. We review how insect-mediated pollination services depend on local agroforest and natural habitats in surrounding landscapes. Further, we evaluate the functional significance of pollinator diversity and the explanatory value of species traits, and we provide an intercontinental comparison of pollinator assemblages. We found that optimal pollination success might be best understood as a consequence of niche complementarities among pollinators in landscapes harboring various species. We further show that small cavity-nesting bees and small generalist beetles were especially affected by isolation from forest and that larger-bodied insects in the same landscapes were not similarly affected. We suggest that mixed tropical landscapes with agroforestry systems have great potential for future research on the interactions between plants and pollinators.     

面向21世纪城市绿化发展的思路与对策——以上海为例

本文以上海为例,探讨了生态平衡、生态位配置、互惠共生和物种多样性等生态学原理在绿地生态建设中的理论和实际应用意义,并从城市绿地指标确定、合理规划布局、丰富植物材料、城市自然公园建设及立体绿化等方面分析讨论了面向２１世纪我国城市绿化发展的思路与对策。     

河南省淮河流域伏牛山区主要生态恢复演替序列构建

为构建河南省淮河流域内伏牛山区的主要植被类型在生态恢复过程中的演替序列,选取了登封市、鲁山县、确山县和泌阳市4个典型地点,利用空间代替时间方法调查了不同演替系列的主要群落类型,采用排序并结合演替度、分层频度等分析方法构建了该区域的演替序列。结果表明：河南省淮河流域伏牛山区生态恢复过程中的植被群落可分为5种类型,即生态林封禁抚育群落、灌草坡封禁保护群落、梯田耕作经济林群落、梯田经济林弃耕群落、禁牧禁樵生态林群落;群落稳定性大小依次为栎类林、经济林与人工针叶林;植被演替可构建为自然恢复、人工种植后的自然恢复、人工经济林、进展与逆行等4个演替序列;其基本序列可识别为草丛、灌丛、人工林、经济林弃耕恢复林、栎类幼龄林、栎类中龄林等,演替度平均值分别为1.06、5.33、6.19、11.09、12.86、12.26;阔叶树种通常具有较大的分层频度,表明其良好的进展性与稳定性,以其为主要种类所构成的群落类型基本上均处于演替序列中的后期阶段;因此,可以将阔叶林以及特殊条件下的人工林设定为该区域生态恢复的目标植被类型。将几种演替分析方法综合运用,可以较全面地从区域微观尺度上揭示植被的演替过程,能较好地阐明植被演替过程;研究结果可以为生态恢复过程中植被动态与水文生态功能动态相关性、流域生态功能区划、生态恢复目标的制定与过程设计、以及流域生态保护策略制定等提供依据。     

Land-use planning of Minoo Island,Iran, towards sustainable land-use management

Land-use planning is one aspect of sustainable development that determines the integrity of socioeconomic and ecological nuance. Land evaluation is an approach to sustainable land-use planning, which predicts the capability of the land-use system. This means that a specific land area should be under specific use, considering certain factors and characteristics of the land and its location. In other words, lack of proper information on land capability and rational and irrational use of land leads to destruction of land resources. This paper discusses the findings of ecological and socioeconomic resource issues for Minoo Island and the surrounded zone. The study covers an area of about 172km² in southwest Iran. To establish environmental unit maps, digital layer maps of the soil texture were overlapped. The study empirically established that the area has the capability to accommodate ‘levels two’ urban and industrial development. Moreover, Minoo Island is considered to have potential for conservation and ecotourism, with a 60% potentiality for dryland farming.     

Predator diversity and trophic interactions

The recognition that predators play important roles in ecosystems has prompted research to resolve how combinations of predator species influence ecosystem functions. Interactions among predator species and their prey can lead to a host of linear and nonlinear effects. Understanding the conditions causing these effects is critical for assigning predator species to functional groups in ways that lead to predictive theory of predator diversity effects on trophic interactions. To this end, I provide a synthesis of experiments examining multiple-predator-species effects on mortality of single shared prey. I show how experimental design and experimental venue can determine the conclusion about the importance of predator diversity on trophic interactions. In addition, I link natural history insights on predator species habitat and hunting behavior with linear and nonlinear multiple-predator effects to derive a new concept of predator diversity effects on trophic interactions. This concept holds that the nature of predator diversity effects is contingent upon predator species hunting mode plus predator and prey species habitat domain (defined as the spatial extent to which a microhabitat is used by a species). This concept allows the classification of multiple-predator effects into four broad functional categories: substitutable, nonlinear due to predator species interference, nonlinear due to intraguild predation, and nonlinear due to predator species synergism. Experimental evidence so far provides ample and comparatively equal support for substitutable, interference, and intraguild effects, and equivocal support for nonlinear synergisms. The paper closes by discussing ways to further a research program aimed at using the building blocks presented here to understand predator functional diversity and trophic interactions in complex ecological systems.     

Human impact on the landscape of small islands in the West-Estonian archipelago

Research on the development of the interrelationship between society and environment is crucial for the understanding of contemporary landscapes. The West-Estonian archipelago provides an opportunity for such investigations because of its small size, landscape diversity, and well-defined economic activities. The contemporary landscapes of the islands reflect environmental changes resulting from centuries of human activity. This paper describes both natural and human factors in the change in landscape of small Estonian islands during the last centuries. During the period 1850–1940, human activity diversified the landscape structure. During World War II, with the establishment of Soviet rule, the islets were depopulated; their landscape became more uniform and lost their economic and ecological vitality. The re-establishment of private ownership of land and a market economy is predicted to result in positive changes in the landscape of the islets.     

Assessing biological variation from the perspective of diversity

Particularly in ecological and evolutionary genetics, methods of discerning complex traits are improving at a considerable rate. As a consequence, the resolution of intrinsically qualitative traits such as species affiliation or genetic type is increasing to degrees that blur their distinction from continuously varying characteristics. The common notion of diversity, however, relies on distinct features such as the states of qualitative traits, and it aims to assess variation as a counting of these features or types. This situation brings up the question of whether and how the diversity perspective of variation can be broadened to cover higher levels of complexity without sacrificing its concept. The present paper suggests two approaches that refer to established criteria for measures of diversity and that complement each other. The partitions approach treats complexity through general measures of difference between trait states, and the relations approach rests on general binary relations that capture structural aspects of diversity. Both approaches are shown to consistently imply effective numbers of types even in cases where distinct types are not explicitly specified. Practically all of the common methods of measuring diversity can be classified into either of the two approaches, and new opportunities for analyses of the diversity of complex traits are provided. The latter analyses include those of diversity in subdivided collections. Other perspectives of variation (such as dispersion, variances, etc.) are discussed and analyzed for their distinction from the diversity perspective. In many cases, the distinction can be made apparent with the help of diversity portraits.