Quantifying the impact of vegetation-based metrics on species persistence when choosing offsets for habitat destruction

Developers are often required by law to offset environmental impacts through targeted conservation actions. Most offset policies specify metrics for calculating offset requirements, usually by assessing vegetation condition. Despite widespread use, there is little evidence to support the effectiveness of vegetation-based metrics for ensuring biodiversity persistence. We compared long-term impacts of biodiversity offsetting based on area only; vegetation condition only; area × habitat suitability; and condition × habitat suitability in development and restoration simulations for the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. We simulated development and subsequent offsetting through restoration within a virtual landscape, linking simulations to population viability models for 3 species. Habitat gains did not ensure species persistence. No net loss was achieved when performance of offsetting was assessed in terms of amount of habitat restored, but not when outcomes were assessed in terms of persistence. Maintenance of persistence occurred more often when impacts were avoided, giving further support to better enforce the avoidance stage of the mitigation hierarchy. When development affected areas of high habitat quality for species, persistence could not be guaranteed. Therefore, species must be more explicitly accounted for in offsets, rather than just vegetation or habitat alone. Declines due to a failure to account directly for species population dynamics and connectivity overshadowed the benefits delivered by producing large areas of high-quality habitat. Our modeling framework showed that the benefits delivered by offsets are species specific and that simple vegetation-based metrics can give misguided impressions on how well biodiversity offsets achieve no net loss.     

Effectiveness of biodiversity-conservation marketing

Conservation marketing holds potential as a means to engage audiences with biodiversity conservation and help to address the human dimensions of biodiversity loss. Empirical evaluations of conservation marketing indicatives are growing, so we reviewed the literature on this research to inform future directions in the field. We used a systematic search strategy to identify studies that evaluated the effects of conservation marketing interventions (techniques and campaigns) on psychosocial outcomes, categorized as cognitive, affective, or behavioral. Six academic databases (Business Source Complete, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Greenfile, Proquest, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collections), 3 gray-literature databases (BASE, Zenodo, and Google Scholar), and 2 websites (Rare and WildAid) were searched. Articles were subjected to critical appraisal to assess their methodological quality, and data were extracted from each article and analyzed using narrative synthesis. Altogether 28 studies from 26 articles were included in the review. Twenty-five studies were conducted from 2014 through 2016. Methodological quality of most studies was weak (n = 16, 57%) (moderate quality n = 8, 29%; high quality n = 4, 14%). The proportion of studies that evaluated a conservation-marketing technique (e.g., variants of texts, images, or videos) versus a campaign (e.g., community-based campaigns targeting locally relevant issues, such as unsustainable palm oil agriculture, light pollution, or wood fuel fire use) was relatively balanced. Although many studies reported statistically significant results in the intended direction, the utility of findings was limited by persistent methodological limitations, such as a lack of a comparator group, use of non-validated assessment tools, and a focus on self-reported data and subjective outcomes. Conservation marketing is clearly a nascent field of scientific enquiry that warrants further, high-quality research investigations.     

The moral residue of conservation

Should conservationists use lethal management to control introduced wildlife populations? Should they kill individual animals to protect endangered species? Are trade-offs that prioritize some values at the expense of others morally appropriate? These sorts of ethical questions are common in conservation. In debating such questions, conservationists often seem to presume 1 of 2 possible answers: the act in question is right or it is wrong. But morality in conservation is considerably more complex than this simple binary suggests. A robust conservation ethic requires a vocabulary that gives voice to the uncertainty and unease that arise when what seems to be the best available course of action also seems to involve a measure of wrongdoing. The philosophical literature on moral residue and moral dilemmas supplies this vocabulary. Moral dilemmas arise when one must neglect certain moral requirements to fulfill others. Under such circumstances, even the best possible decision leaves a moral residue, which is experienced emotionally as some form of grief. Examples of conservation scenarios that leave a moral residue include management of introduced rabbits in Australia, trophy hunting in Africa, and forest management trade-offs in the Pacific Northwest. Moral residue is integral to the moral experience of conservationists today, and grief is an appropriate response to many decisions conservationists must make. Article impact statement: Defensible conservation decisions may neglect moral requirements, leaving a moral residue; conservationists should respond with grief.     

Applying the zoo model to conservation of threatened exceptional plant species

Maintaining a living plant collection is the most common method of ex situ conservation for plant species that cannot be seed banked (i.e., exceptional species). Viability of living collections, and their value for future conservation efforts, can be limited without coordinated efforts to track and manage individuals across institutions. Using a pedigree-focused approach, the zoological community has established an inter-institutional infrastructure to support long-term viability of captive animal populations. We assessed the ability of this coordinated metacollection infrastructure to support the conservation of 4 plant species curated in living collections at multiple botanic gardens around the world. Limitations in current practices include the inability to compile, share, and analyze plant collections data at the individual level, as well as difficulty in tracking original provenance of ex situ material. The coordinated metacollection framework used by zoos can be adopted by the botanical community to improve conservation outcomes by minimizing the loss of genetic diversity in collections. We suggest actions to improve ex situ conservation of exceptional plant species, including developing a central database to aggregate data and track unique individuals of priority threatened species among institutions and adapting a pedigree-based population management tool that incorporates life-history aspects unique to plants. If approached collaboratively across regional, national, and global scales, these actions could transform ex situ conservation of threatened plant species.     

铝粉爆炸无火焰泄压技术及装备研究

为有效防止粉尘爆炸泄爆引起的二次爆炸及火灾问题，基于泄压理论、消火机理，设计开发无火焰泄压装置，装置主要由消火结构、底座、爆破片及夹持机构组成，消火结构由不锈钢金属丝网组成。选择铝粉尘为测试粉尘，通过自建除尘系统试验平台进行试验研究。结果表明:无火焰泄压装置可成功阻止火焰传播，装置释放的冲击波在5 m外均小于5 kPa，除尘系统内部最大泄爆压力为0.1 MPa，装置前端火焰传播速度均大于100 m/s。     

Validating graph-based connectivity models with independent presence–absence and genetic data sets

Habitat connectivity is a key objective of current conservation policies and is commonly modeled by landscape graphs (i.e., sets of habitat patches [nodes] connected by potential dispersal paths [links]). These graphs are often built based on expert opinion or species distribution models (SDMs) and therefore lack empirical validation from data more closely reflecting functional connectivity. Accordingly, we tested whether landscape graphs reflect how habitat connectivity influences gene flow, which is one of the main ecoevolutionary processes. To that purpose, we modeled the habitat network of a forest bird (plumbeous warbler [Setophaga plumbea]) on Guadeloupe with graphs based on expert opinion, Jacobs’ specialization indices, and an SDM. We used genetic data (712 birds from 27 populations) to compute local genetic indices and pairwise genetic distances. Finally, we assessed the relationships between genetic distances or indices and cost distances or connectivity metrics with maximum-likelihood population-effects distance models and Spearman correlations between metrics. Overall, the landscape graphs reliably reflected the influence of connectivity on population genetic structure; validation R² was up to 0.30 and correlation coefficients were up to 0.71. Yet, the relationship among graph ecological relevance, data requirements, and construction and analysis methods was not straightforward because the graph based on the most complex construction method (species distribution modeling) sometimes had less ecological relevance than the others. Cross-validation methods and sensitivity analyzes allowed us to make the advantages and limitations of each construction method spatially explicit. We confirmed the relevance of landscape graphs for conservation modeling but recommend a case-specific consideration of the cost-effectiveness of their construction methods. We hope the replication of independent validation approaches across species and landscapes will strengthen the ecological relevance of connectivity models.     

铝粉表面超声波化学镀Ni-Co合金的研究

目的在铝粉表面进行镀Ni-Co合金层的研究,为制备新型的空心陶瓷吸波材料提供基础原料。方法利用超声波化学镀法。结果铝粉经过超声波化学镀Ni-Co合金,质量增加平均百分率达到了89.0%,通过SEM,EDS和XRD分析,表明在铝粉表面形成了Ni-Co合金层。结论利用超声波化学镀法能够在铝粉表面形成Ni-Co合金层。     

加速腐蚀环境下LD2CS铝合金腐蚀损伤分析方法

目的研究LD2CS铝合金腐蚀损伤数据的分析方法。方法针对LD2CS铝合金腐蚀坑深度值,采用最小二乘支持向量机、BP人工神经网络和求和自回归移动平均等3种模型进行回归和预测分析。对比总结各种模型在小样本递增时间序列下的应用特点。结果对于LD2CS铝合金腐蚀坑深度值预测,最小二乘支持向量机在回归和预测上都有较高的精度。结论最小二乘支持向量机模型最适合LD2CS铝合金的腐蚀坑深度值预测。     

预腐蚀LY12CZ铝合金的疲劳寿命预测模型

目的研究铝合金预腐蚀疲劳的寿命评估模型。方法利用损伤力学模型,建立预腐蚀构件疲劳寿命预测模型,并利用LY12CZ铝合金进行预腐蚀疲劳的验证性实验。结果利用损伤力学建立的模型所得到的预腐蚀铝合金试件的疲劳寿命与实验结果吻合程度良好。结论基于损伤力学的铝合金预腐蚀疲劳寿命预测模型合理有效。