Genetic variation in defense chemistry in wild cabbages affects herbivores and their endoparasitoids

Populations of wild Brassica oleracea L. grow naturally along the Atlantic coastlines of the United Kingdom and France. Over a very small spatial scale (i.e., <15 km) these populations differ in the expression of the defensive compounds, glucosinolates (GS). Thus far, very few studies have examined interactions between genetically distinct populations of a wild plant species and associated consumers in a multitrophic framework. Here, we compared the development of a specialist (Pieris rapae) and a generalist (Mamestra brassicae) insect herbivore and their endoparasitoids (Cotesia rubecula and Microplitis mediator, respectively) on three wild populations and one cultivar of B. oleracea under controlled greenhouse conditions. Herbivore performance was differentially affected by the plant population on which they were reared. Plant population influenced only development time and pupal mass in P. rapae, whereas plant population also had a dramatic effect on survival of M. brassicae. Prolonged development time in P. rapae corresponded with high levels of the indole GS, neoglucobrassicin, whereas reduced survival in M. brassicae coincided with high levels of the aliphatic GS, gluconapin and sinigrin. The difference between the two species can be explained by the fact that the specialist P. rapae is adapted to feed on plants containing GS and has evolved an effective detoxification system against aliphatic GS. The different B. oleracea populations also affected development of the endoparasitoids. Differences in food-plant quality for the hosts were reflected in adult size in C. rubecula and survival in M. mediator, and further showed that parasitoid performance is also affected by herbivore diet.     

Valuing environmental damage remediation and liability using value estimates for ecosystem services

The European Environmental Liability Directive aims to ensure that damaged habitats are restored where possible, but allows for complementary remediation with replacement habitat where restoration is not possible within a reasonable time. It also allows for compensatory remediation of the resource based on an assessment of environmental values in cases where there are interim social losses. This paper concurs with the argument that physical remediation without consideration of social values can fail to be equivalent to the resource that has been lost. Using, as a case study, a river in Ireland, it demonstrates that estimating social value can be challenging in practice, noting also differences between the value of environmental gains and losses. The paper argues that estimates of final ecosystem service values, including wastewater treatment costs, can provide a measure of social value and makes a case for the systematic collection of these data to inform decision-making.     

Navigating the Perfect Storm: Research Strategies for Socialecological Systems in a Rapidly Evolving World

The ‘Perfect Storm’ metaphor describes a combination of events that causes a surprising or dramatic impact. It lends an evolutionary perspective to how social-ecological interactions change. Thus, we argue that an improved understanding of how social-ecological systems have evolved up to the present is necessary for the modelling, understanding and anticipation of current and future social-ecological systems. Here we consider the implications of an evolutionary perspective for designing research approaches. One desirable approach is the creation of multi-decadal records produced by integrating palaeoenvironmental, instrument and documentary sources at multiple spatial scales. We also consider the potential for improved analytical and modelling approaches by developing system dynamical, cellular and agent-based models, observing complex behaviour in social-ecological systems against which to test systems dynamical theory, and drawing better lessons from history. Alongside these is the need to find more appropriate ways to communicate complex systems, risk and uncertainty to the public and to policy-makers.     

Understanding and Integrating Local Perceptions of Trees and Forests into Incentives for Sustainable Landscape Management

We examine five forested landscapes in Africa (Cameroon, Madagascar, and Tanzania) and Asia (Indonesia and Laos) at different stages of landscape change. In all five areas, forest cover (outside of protected areas) continues to decrease despite local people's recognition of the importance of forest products and services. After forest conversion, agroforestry systems and fallows provide multiple functions and valued products, and retain significant biodiversity. But there are indications that such land use is transitory, with gradual simplification and loss of complex agroforests and fallows as land use becomes increasingly individualistic and profit driven. In Indonesia and Tanzania, farmers favor monocultures (rubber and oil palm, and sugarcane, respectively) for their high financial returns, with these systems replacing existing complex agroforests. In the study sites in Madagascar and Laos, investments in agroforests and new crops remain rare, despite government attempts to eradicate swidden systems and their multifunctional fallows. We discuss approaches to assessing local values related to landscape cover and associated goods and services. We highlight discrepancies between individual and collective responses in characterizing land use tendencies, and discuss the effects of accessibility on land management. We conclude that a combination of social, economic, and spatially explicit assessment methods is necessary to inform land use planning. Furthermore, any efforts to modify current trends will require clear incentives, such as through carbon finance. We speculate on the nature of such incentive schemes and the possibility of rewarding the provision of ecosystem services at a landscape scale and in a socially equitable manner.     

Canada's Model Forests 20 years on: towards forest and community sustainability?

We review how Canadian Model Forests pursued forest and community sustainability over the course of two decades (1992–2012). Given its roots in the forest industry and forest science, Model Forest programming initially faced some challenges in pursuing the socio‐economic dimensions of sustainable forest management (SFM) in order to fulfil mandated community sustainability objectives. This was due, in part, to how objectives, stakeholders, and expertise were brought together to develop SFM. The programme helped to define sustainability and the SFM paradigm, advance forest science and social research, and bring together a mix of usually adversarial partners in the name of innovation. Ultimately, the termination of federal programming was linked to high‐level policy shifts, yet difficulty in delivering on the socio‐economic dimensions of SFM during a period of forest sector and community crisis was also a factor.     

Valuing Urban Green Space: Hypothetical Alternatives and the Status Quo

Although many cities have guidelines on the quantity of green open space that should accompany residential development, there is less guidance on the type or facilities of these spaces. The study uses an approach to determine whether green space can be valued on the basis of its constituent characteristics and, if so, what characteristics are preferred. The results indicate that preferences vary depending on whether the green space in question is a small local park or a larger municipal park. However, where a base alternative of usual park destination is included in the analysis, the results are affected by collinearity and the actual availability of relevant green space attributes in these destinations. A mixed logit approach is used to tease out this effect from the underlying preference values.     

A synthesis of progress and uncertainties in attributing the sources of mercury in deposition

A panel of international experts was convened in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2005, as part of the 8th International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant. Our charge was to address the state of science pertinent to source attribution, specifically our key question was: "For a given location, can we ascertain with confidence the relative contributions of local, regional, and global sources, and of natural versus anthropogenic emissions to mercury deposition?" The panel synthesized new research pertinent to this question published over the past decade, with emphasis on four major research topics: long-term anthropogenic change, current emission and deposition trends, chemical transformations and cycling, and modeling and uncertainty. Within each topic, the panel drew a series of conclusions, which are presented in this paper. These conclusions led us to concur that the answer to our question is a "qualified yes," with the qualification being dependent upon the level of uncertainty one is willing to accept. We agreed that the uncertainty is strongly dependent upon scale and that our question as stated is answerable with greater confidence both very near and very far from major point sources, assuming that the "global pool" is a recognizable "source." Many regions of interest from an ecosystem-exposure standpoint lie in between, where source attribution carries the greatest degree of uncertainty.     

WATER RESERVOIR SYSTEMS1

. Water Reservoir Systems were investigated for urban areas as an alternative or complement to storm water drainage systems for flood control which could provide benefits in water conservation and reduce drainage system costs. The study consisted of: (1) gathering of engineering data on the topographical, hydrological, and precipitation characteristics of the area and urban development and economic statistics