Estimating willingness to pay for a threatened species within a threatened ecosystem

This study conducts a choice experiment to determine the willingness to pay for Palouse Prairie conservation. The giant Palouse earthworm (Driloleirus americanus), a rare species endemic to the Palouse region, is included as an attribute of conservation and serves as a method for determining the willingness to pay for protecting the species. This method evaluates the value of the earthworm as an attribute of an overall willingness to pay for threatened ecosystem preservation rather than a direct willingness to pay for protecting the species. This method is expected to yield a more accurate measure of willingness to pay for rare species. The annual willingness to pay per household for the giant Palouse earthworm is $20.45 based on the conditional logit model and $19.30 based on the mixed logit model. Ranking and relative importance are included as methods for representing a non-monetary value and importance of the giant Palouse earthworm.     

Ecologically Functional Floodplains: Connectivity,Flow Regime,and Scale1

Opperman, Jeffrey J., Ryan Luster, Bruce A. McKenney, Michael Roberts, and Amanda Wrona Meadows, 2010. Ecologically Functional Floodplains: Connectivity, Flow Regime, and Scale. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 46(2):211-226. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2010.00426.x Abstract: This paper proposes a conceptual model that captures key attributes of ecologically functional floodplains, encompassing three basic elements: (1) hydrologic connectivity between the river and the floodplain, (2) a variable hydrograph that reflects seasonal precipitation patterns and retains a range of both high and low flow events, and (3) sufficient spatial scale to encompass dynamic processes and for floodplain benefits to accrue to a meaningful level. Although floodplains support high levels of biodiversity and some of the most productive ecosystems on Earth, they are also among the most converted and threatened ecosystems and therefore have recently become the focus of conservation and restoration programs across the United States and globally. These efforts seek to conserve or restore complex, highly variable ecosystems and often must simultaneously address both land and water management. Thus, such efforts must overcome considerable scientific, technical, and socioeconomic challenges. In addition to proposing a scientific conceptual model, this paper also includes three case studies that illustrate methods for addressing these technical and socioeconomic challenges within projects that seek to promote ecologically functional floodplains through river-floodplain reconnection and/or restoration of key components of hydrological variability.     

Stewardship among lifestyle oriented rural landowners

Changes in landownership associated with amenity migration are affecting the demographic, cadastral and ecological conditions of rural landscapes. These changes and concerns about their impacts on natural resource management, including ecological conservation, relate to both the structural consequences of landownership change, land subdivision and to the motivations, management ability and attitudes of lifestyle oriented rural landowners. Based on an Australian case study near Sydney, NSW, this paper examines the motivations and practices of such landowners, assesses potential consequences for vegetation and characterises the landowners according to three stewardship types.     

太湖湿地生态系统服务功能价值评估

随着生物资源价值估算方法的日益成熟，生态系统的服务评估成为生态系统研究的热点。运用市场价值、影子工程、碳税法等方法对太湖湿地生态系统的物质生产功能、环境调节功能和文化社会功能等直接与间接价值进行评估。结果表明：太湖湿地生态系统具有巨大和多重服务价值，总价值为112.39×10⁸元。其中，生态环境调节与维护功能价值最大，占总服务价值的48.98%；其次是物质生产与供给功能，占29.1%；文化社会功能最小，占21.91%。通过对9项子功能进行评估得出，调蓄洪水的功能价值最大，约占26.23%，供水功能其次，约占24.56%，气候调节功能，约占18.23%，科研教育价值约占13.16%，植被资源生产功能价值最小，约占0.09%。此项研究首次定量评估了太湖湿地生态系统的服务功能价值，研究成果对于认识太湖湿地的价值，有针对性地保护太湖湿地具有现实意义。     

Distribution and bioavailability of ceria nanoparticles in an aquatic ecosystem model

Along with the increasing utilization of engineered nanoparticles, there is a growing concern for the potential environmental and health effects of exposure to these newly designed materials. Understanding the behavior of nanoparticles in the environment is a basic need. The present study aims to investigate the distribution and fate of ceria nanoparticles in an aquatic system model which consists of sediments, water, hornworts, fish and snails, using a radiotracer technique. Concentrations of ceria in the samples at regular time intervals were measured. Ceria nanoparticles were readily removed from the water column and partitioned between different organisms. Both snail and fish have fast absorption and clearance abilities. Hornwort has the highest bioaccumulation factors. At the end of the experiment, sediments accumulated most of the nanoparticles with a recovery of 75.7 ± 27.3% of total ceria nanoparticles, suggesting that sediments are major sinks of ceria nanoparticles.     

Incorporating Social and Cultural Significance of Large Old Trees in Conservation Policy

In addition to providing key ecological functions, large old trees are a part of a social realm and as such provide numerous social‐cultural benefits to people. However, their social and cultural values are often neglected when designing conservation policies and management guidelines. We believe that awareness of large old trees as a part of human identity and cultural heritage is essential when addressing the issue of their decline worldwide. Large old trees provide humans with aesthetic, symbolic, religious, and historic values, as well as concrete tangible benefits, such as leaves, branches, or nuts. In many cultures particularly large trees are treated with reverence. Also, contemporary popular culture utilizes the image of trees as sentient beings and builds on the ancient myths that attribute great powers to large trees. Although the social and cultural role of large old trees is usually not taken into account in conservation, accounting for human‐related values of these trees is an important part of conservation policy because it may strengthen conservation by highlighting the potential synergies in protecting ecological and social values. Incorporación del Significado Social y Cultural de Árboles Añejos a Políticas de Conservación     

Virtual Garden Computer Program for use in Exploring the Elements of Biodiversity People Want in Cities

Urban ecology is emerging as an integrative science that explores the interactions of people and biodiversity in cities. Interdisciplinary research requires the creation of new tools that allow the investigation of relations between people and biodiversity. It has been established that access to green spaces or nature benefits city dwellers, but the role of species diversity in providing psychological benefits remains poorly studied. We developed a user‐friendly 3‐dimensional computer program (Virtual Garden [ www.tinyurl.com/3DVirtualGarden ]) that allows people to design their own public or private green spaces with 95 biotic and abiotic features. Virtual Garden allows researchers to explore what elements of biodiversity people would like to have in their nearby green spaces while accounting for other functions that people value in urban green spaces. In 2011, 732 participants used our Virtual Garden program to design their ideal small public garden. On average gardens contained 5 different animals, 8 flowers, and 5 woody plant species. Although the mathematical distribution of flower and woody plant richness (i.e., number of species per garden) appeared to be similar to what would be expected by random selection of features, 30% of participants did not place any animal species in their gardens. Among those who placed animals in their gardens, 94% selected colorful species (e.g., ladybug [Coccinella septempunctata], Great Tit [Parus major], and goldfish), 53% selected herptiles or large mammals, and 67% selected non‐native species. Older participants with a higher level of education and participants with a greater concern for nature designed gardens with relatively higher species richness and more native species. If cities are to be planned for the mutual benefit of people and biodiversity and to provide people meaningful experiences with urban nature, it is important to investigate people's relations with biodiversity further. Virtual Garden offers a standardized tool with which to explore these relations in different environments, cultures, and countries. It can also be used by stakeholders (e.g., city planners) to consider people's opinions of local design. Programa de Computadora de Jardín Virtual para Uso en la Exploración de los Elementos de Biodiversidad que la Gente Desea en las Ciudades     

基于不同价值构成的耕地资源价值评估——以湖南省为例

正确认识和科学评估耕地资源的完全价值，对缓解征地补偿标准过低、土地收益分配不合理以及粮食安全和生态环境等问题具有一定指导意义。基于耕地的不同价值构成，选用相应的评估方法对湖南省不同等级耕地的总价值进行了评估，评估结果为：1~5等耕地资源单位面积的总价值分别为547 24813、481 61077、430 74534、385 86049和336 19093元/hm2；不同等级耕地上3种耕地价值的构成不一样，社会保障价值在所有不同等级耕地总价值中所占比重最大。这一研究结论对于显化耕地资源的完全价值以及抑制耕地资源的过度流失具有积极的作用     

CHEMISTRY RESPONSE OF TWO FORESTED WATERSHEDS TO ACID ATMOSPHERIC DEPOSITION1

ABSTRACT: The deposition and chemistry of precipitation were estimated for one year in two forest ecosystems in the South-Central United States. Precipitation, throughfall, litter leachate, and soil leachate were analyzed for a small catchment of pine-hardwoods in southeastern Oklahoma and for a catchment of loblolly pines (Pinus taeda L.) in northern Mississippi. In the pine-hardwood forest, 98 percent of the acid deposition was neutralized, 50 percent in the forest canopy, and 48 percent in the forest floor. In the pine forest, 75 percent of the acid deposition was neutralized, all in the forest floor. The pine-hardwood ecosystem accumulated sulfate, nitrate, and ammonia ions, and lost base cations. During seasons of deficient precipitation, dry deposition appeared to enrich the concentrations of hydrogen, nitrate, sulfate, and ammonia ions in throughfall samples at both locations.     

Development of a bird integrity index: using bird assemblages as indicators of riparian condition

We describe the development of a bird integrity index (BII) that uses bird assemblage information to assess human impacts on 13 stream reaches in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, USA. We used bird survey data to test 62 candidate metrics representing aspects of bird taxonomic richness, tolerance or intolerance to human disturbance, dietary preferences, foraging techniques, and nesting strategies that were affected positively or negatively by human activities. We evaluated the metric responsiveness by plotting each one against a measure of site disturbance that included aspects of land use/land cover, road density, riparian cover, and stream channel and substrate conditions. In addition, we eliminated imprecise and highly correlated (redundant) metrics, leaving 13 metrics for the final index. Individual metric scores ranged continuously from 0 to 10, and index scores were weighted to range from 0 to 100. Scores were calibrated using historical species information to set expectations for the number of species expected under minimally disturbed conditions. Site scores varied from 82 for the least disturbed stream reach to 8.5 for an urban site. We compared the bird integrity index site scores with the performance of other measures of biotic response developed during this study: a fish index of biointegrity (IBI) and two benthic macroinvertebrate metrics. The three assemblages agreed on the general level of disturbance; however, individual sites scored differently depending on specific indicator response to in-stream or riparian conditions. The bird integrity index appears to be a useful management and monitoring tool for assessing riparian integrity and communicating the results to the public. Used together with aquatic indicator response and watershed data, bird assemblage information contributes to a more complete picture of stream condition.