Factors influencing property selection for conservation revolving funds

Finding sustainable ways to increase the amount of private land protected for biodiversity is challenging for many conservation organizations. In some countries, organizations use revolving‐fund programs, whereby land is purchased and then sold to conservation‐minded owners under condition they enter into a conservation covenant or easement. The sale proceeds are used to purchase, protect, and sell additional properties, incrementally increasing the amount of protected private land. Because the effectiveness of this approach relies on selecting appropriate properties, we explored factors currently considered by practitioners and how these are integrated into decision making. We conducted exploratory, semistructured interviews with managers from each of the 5 major revolving funds in Australia. Responses indicated although conservation factors are important, financial and social factors are also highly influential. A major determinant was whether the property could be resold within a reasonable period at a price that replenishes the fund. To facilitate resale, often selected properties include the potential for the construction of a dwelling. Practitioners face with clear trade‐offs between conservation, financial, amenity, and other factors in selecting properties and 3 main challenges: recovering the costs of acquisition, protection, and resale; reselling the property; and meeting conservation goals. Our findings suggest the complexity of these decisions may constrain revolving‐fund effectiveness. Drawing from participant responses, we identified potential strategies to mitigate these risks, such as providing adequate recreational space without jeopardizing ecological assets. We suggest managers could benefit from a shared‐learning and adaptive approach to property selection given the commonalities between programs. Understanding how practitioners deal with complex decisions in the implementation of revolving funds helps identify future research to improve the performance of this conservation tool.     

Progress and challenges in consolidating the management of Amazonian protected areas and indigenous territories

Effective management refers to the ability of a protected area or indigenous territory to meet its objectives, particularly as they relate to the protection of biodiversity and forest cover. Effective management is achieved through a process of consolidation, which among other things requires legally protecting sites, integrating sites into land‐use planning, developing and implementing management and resource‐use plans, and securing long‐term funding to pay for recurrent costs. Effectively managing all protected areas and indigenous territories in the Amazon may be needed to avoid a deforestation tipping point beyond which regional climatic feedbacks and global climate change interact to catalyze irreversible drying and savannization of large areas. At present, protected areas and indigenous territories cover 45.5% (3.55 million km²) of the Amazon, most of the 60–70% forest cover required to maintain hydrologic and climatic function. Three independent evaluations of a long‐term large‐scale philanthropic initiative in the Amazon yielded insights into the challenges and advances toward achieving effective management of protected areas and indigenous territories. Over the life of the initiative, management of sites has improved considerably, particularly with respect to management planning and capacity building, but few sites are effectively managed and many lack sufficient long‐term financing, adequate governance, support of nongovernmental organizations, and the means to withstand economic pressures. The time and money required to complete consolidation is still poorly understood, but it is clear that philanthropic funding is critical so long as essential funding needs are not met by governments and other sources, which could be on the order of decades. Despite challenges, it is encouraging that legal protection has expanded greatly and management of sites is improving steadily. Management of protected areas in other developing countries could be informed by improvements that have occurred in Amazonian countries.     

g-C_3N_4/C@Bi_2MoO_6复合光催化剂的制备及其光催化活性

通过水热合成法和液相沉积法制备g-C_3N_4/C@Bi_2MoO_6复合光催化剂,并采用X射线衍射、扫描电子显微镜、氮气吸脱附、紫外-可见漫反射等技术对其进行表征。研究了可见光下g-C_3N_4/C@Bi_2MoO_6催化降解罗丹明B(Rh B)的影响因素,并对其光催化反应机理进行初步探讨。实验结果表明:g-C_3N_4掺杂量为60%(w)时g-C_3N_4/C@Bi_2MoO_6的光催化活性最高;在60%g-C_3N_4/C@Bi_2MoO_6的投加量为1.00 g/L、初始Rh B质量浓度为2.50 mg/L、可见光照射150 min的条件下,Rh B的降解率达到97.90%;在g-C_3N_4/C@Bi_2MoO_6光催化降解体系中,h~+和·O_2~-是主要活性物种。     

Use of genetic,climatic, and microbiological data to inform reintroduction of a regionally extinct butterfly

Species reintroductions are increasingly used as means of mitigating biodiversity loss. Besides habitat quality at the site targeted for reintroduction, the choice of source population can be critical for success. The butterfly Melanargia russiae (Esper´s marbled white) was extirpated from Hungary over 100 years ago, and a reintroduction program has recently been approved. We used museum specimens of this butterfly, mitochondrial DNA data (mtDNA), endosymbiont screening, and climatic‐similarity analyses to determine which extant populations should be used for its reintroduction. The species displayed 2 main mtDNA lineages across its range: 1 restricted to Iberia and southern France (Iberian lineage) and another found throughout the rest of its range (Eurasian lineage). These 2 lineages possessed highly divergent wsp alleles of the bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia. The century‐old Hungarian specimens represented an endemic haplotype belonging to the Eurasian lineage, differing by one mutation from the Balkan and eastern European populations. The Hungarian populations of M. russiae occurred in areas with a colder and drier climate relative to most sites with extant known populations. Our results suggest the populations used for reintroduction to Hungary should belong to the Eurasian lineage, preferably from eastern Ukraine (genetically close and living in areas with the highest climatic similarity). Materials stored in museum collections can provide unique opportunities to document historical genetic diversity and help direct conservation.     

Estimating abundance without recaptures of marked pallid sturgeon in the Mississippi River

Abundance estimates are essential for assessing the viability of populations and the risks posed by alternative management actions. An effort to estimate abundance via a repeated mark‐recapture experiment may fail to recapture marked individuals. We devised a method for obtaining lower bounds on abundance in the absence of recaptures for both panmictic and spatially structured populations. The method assumes few enough recaptures were expected to be missed by random chance. The upper Bayesian credible limit on expected recaptures allows probabilistic statements about the minimum number of individuals present in the population. We applied this method to data from a 12‐year survey of pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) in the lower and middle Mississippi River (U.S.A.). None of the 241 individuals marked was recaptured in the survey. After accounting for survival and movement, our model‐averaged estimate of the total abundance of pallid sturgeon ≥3 years old in the study area had a 1%, 5%, or 25% chance of being <4,600, 7,000, or 15,000, respectively. When we assumed fish were distributed in proportion to survey catch per unit effort, the farthest downstream reach in the survey hosted at least 4.5–15 fish per river kilometer (rkm), whereas the remainder of the reaches in the lower and middle Mississippi River hosted at least 2.6–8.5 fish/rkm for all model variations examined. The lower Mississippi River had an average density of pallid sturgeon ≥3 years old of at least 3.0–9.8 fish/rkm. The choice of Bayesian prior was the largest source of uncertainty we considered but did not alter the order of magnitude of lower bounds. Nil‐recapture estimates of abundance are highly uncertain and require careful communication but can deliver insights from experiments that might otherwise be considered a failure.     

预氧化聚丙烯腈/g-C3N4光催化降解罗丹明B

以聚丙烯腈(PAN)和g-C_3N_4为原料,采用超声波辅助分散的溶液浸渍法及煅烧法制备了具有共轭结构的预氧化聚丙烯腈/g-C_3N_4复合光催化剂(CPAN/g-C_3N_4),采用XRD、SEM、FTIR、UV-Vis DRS、EIS等技术对光催化剂进行了表征,考察了CPAN/g-C_3N_4对罗丹明B(Rh B)的可见光催化降解性能。结果表明:CPAN与g-C_3N_4具有良好的协同作用,使g-C_3N_4片状结构堆叠体颗粒显著减小,明显增强了光催化剂在全部光谱范围内的光吸收,有效提高了光生电子-空穴分离效率;在PAN与g-C_3N_4质量比为1∶200、煅烧温度250 ℃、煅烧时间1 h条件下所制备的CPAN/g-C_3N_4光催化活性最高,且具有良好的光催化活性稳定性。超氧自由基和光生空穴为CPAN/g-C_3N_4复合光催化剂光降解罗丹明B的主要活性物种。     

Discounting in the presence of scarce ecosystem services

The discount rate for cost-benefit analysis has to take account of future scarcity of ecosystem services in consumption and production. Previous literature focuses on the first aspect and shows the importance of the relative price effect, for given growth rates of consumption and ecosystem services. This paper focuses on intermediate ecosystem services in production and shows that for limited substitutability and a low growth rate of these ecosystem services, the growth rate of consumption, and thus the discount rate, declines towards a low value. Using a Ramsey growth model, the paper distinguishes three cases. If ecosystem services can be easily substituted, the discount rate converges to the usual value in the long term. Secondly, if ecosystem services can be easily substituted in production but not in consumption, the relative price effect is important. Finally, and most interestingly, if ecosystem services cannot be easily substituted in production, the discount rate declines towards a low value and the relative price effect is less important. Another part of the previous literature has shown that a declining discount rate is the result of introducing several forms of uncertainty, but this paper reaches that conclusion from an endogenous effect on the growth rate of the economy.     

CePO4-TiO2固溶体的NH3-SCR活性

采用共沉淀法合成了不同Ce与Ti摩尔比的CePO₄-TiO₂复合材料,利用XRD、TEM、NH₃-TPD和H₂-TPR技术对其物理化学性质进行了表征,并对其NH₃-SCR活性进行了评价。实验结果表明：随着CePO₄含量的增加,催化剂的活性提高;当Ce与Ti的摩尔比为8:2时催化剂的活性最高,230 ℃的NO转化率达到100%,且具有更广的温度窗口,优于纯CePO₄。表征结果显示,CePO₄与TiO₂形成固溶体后,颗粒尺寸较为均匀,强酸位的数量增多,氧化还原性能提升,从而提高了催化剂的SCR反应活性,同时改善了其抗水抗硫性能。     

Ti3C2纳米层状材料对废水中Cr（Ⅵ）的光催化去除性能

以Ti₃AlC₂为原料,采用HF刻蚀工艺制备出12种Ti₃C₂纳米层状材料,对其形貌进行了表征,并考察了以其作为光催化剂对废水中Cr（Ⅵ）的处理效果。实验结果表明：HF体积分数为80%、刻蚀时间为48 h时得到的MX-80-48的形貌较好;MX-80-48具有类似石墨烯的二维层状结构,纳米层厚度约20~50 nm,孔径2~10 nm,比表面积14.8 m²/g,在400~700 nm可见光范围内表现出强烈的吸光性;当Cr（Ⅵ）的初始质量浓度为40.00 mg/L、MX-80-48投加量为200 mg/L、pH=2、反应时间4 h（暗反应1 h+光照3 h）时,Cr（Ⅵ）去除率可达100%。     

When and how to use Q methodology to understand perspectives in conservation research

Understanding human perspectives is critical in a range of conservation contexts, for example, in overcoming conflicts or developing projects that are acceptable to relevant stakeholders. The Q methodology is a unique semiquantitative technique used to explore human perspectives. It has been applied for decades in other disciplines and recently gained traction in conservation. This paper helps researchers assess when Q is useful for a given conservation question and what its use involves. To do so, we explained the steps necessary to conduct a Q study, from the research design to the interpretation of results. We provided recommendations to minimize biases in conducting a Q study, which can affect mostly when designing the study and collecting the data. We conducted a structured literature review of 52 studies to examine in what empirical conservation contexts Q has been used. Most studies were subnational or national cases, but some also address multinational or global questions. We found that Q has been applied to 4 broad types of conservation goals: addressing conflict, devising management alternatives, understanding policy acceptability, and critically reflecting on the values that implicitly influence research and practice. Through these applications, researchers found hidden views, understood opinions in depth and discovered points of consensus that facilitated unlocking difficult disagreements. The Q methodology has a clear procedure but is also flexible, allowing researchers explore long‐term views, or views about items other than statements, such as landscape images. We also found some inconsistencies in applying and, mainly, in reporting Q studies, whereby it was not possible to fully understand how the research was conducted or why some atypical research decisions had been taken in some studies. Accordingly, we suggest a reporting checklist.