Positioning human heritage at the center of conservation practice

Conservation projects subscribing to a community-based paradigm have predominated in the 21st century. We examined the context in which the phrase was coined and traced its growth over time. Community-based conservation first appeared in the literature in the early 1990s; but grew little until after the 5th World Parks Congress in 2003. Thereafter, publications describing community-based conservation approaches increased exponentially. The conference theme was Benefits Beyond Boundaries, and its goal was to provide an economic model based on revenue accrued from conservation fundraising and ecotourism to support ecosystems, wildlife, and people, particularly in the Global South. Such models tended not to incorporate, as a core principle, the heritage of local human communities. Human heritage varies substantially over time and space making generalization of conservation principles across scales challenging. Pitfalls that have grown out of the community-based conservation approaches in the Global South include fortress conservation, conservation militarism, consumptive and nonconsumptive ecotourism, and whiz-bang solutions. We propose 10 tenets in a human heritage-centered conservation framework (e.g., engage in conservation practices using local languages, thoughtfully propose and apply solutions consistent with human heritage, provide clear professional development pathways for individuals from local communities, and promote alternative revenue-generating programs centered in local communities, among others). Progressive philosophies can derive from authentic and ethical integration of local communities in conservation practice.     

大肠杆菌吸附-化学还原法用废含金催化剂制备金纳米线

采用大肠杆菌吸附-化学还原法,以大肠杆菌(ECCs)为模板、十六烷基三甲基溴化铵为保护剂、抗坏血酸为还原剂,由废含金催化剂制备金纳米线(AuNWs)。采用XRD,SEM,TEM等技术对AuNWs进行表征。研究了AuNWs对罗丹明6G(R6G)和4-巯基苯甲酸(4-MBA)的拉曼散射信号的增强效果。实验结果表明:在制备过程中加入微生物ECCs,可使金回收率提高约20百分点;当溶液pH小于4时,反应2 h后,有大量呈线状的AuNWs聚集沉降,金回收率可达99%1以上。表征结果显示,AuNWs呈多晶结构,晶格间距为0.23 nm。表面增强拉曼散射分析表明,AuNWs对R6G和4-MBA具有良好的拉曼光谱增强性能。     

Efficacy-based and normative interventions for facilitating the diffusion of conservation behavior through social networks

Research suggests that encouraging motivated residents to reach out to others in their social network is an effective strategy for increasing the scale and speed of conservation action adoption. However, little is known about how to effectively encourage large numbers of residents to reach out to others about conservation causes. We examined the influence of normative and efficacy-based messaging at motivating residents to engage in and to encourage others to participate in native plant gardening in their community. To do so, we conducted a field experiment with messages on mailings and tracked native plant vouchers used. Efficacy messages tended to be more effective than normative messages at increasing residents’ willingness to reach out to others to encourage conservation action, as indicated by a several percentage point increase in native plant voucher use by residents’ friends and neighbors. Messages sometimes had different impacts on residents based on past behaviors and perceptions related to native plant gardening. Among these subgroups, efficacy and combined efficacy and norm messages most effectively encouraged individual and collective actions, as indicated by increased voucher usage. Our findings suggest that interventions that build residents’ efficacy for engaging in a conservation behavior and for reaching out to others may be a promising path forward for outreach. However, given our results were significant at a false discovery rate cutoff of 0.25 but not 0.05, more experimental trials are needed to determine the robustness of these trends.     

Understanding implications of consumer behavior for wildlife farming and sustainable wildlife trade

Unsustainable wildlife trade affects biodiversity and the livelihoods of communities dependent upon those resources. Wildlife farming has been proposed to promote sustainable trade, but characterizing markets and understanding consumer behavior remain neglected but essential steps in the design and evaluation of such operations. We used sea turtle trade in the Cayman Islands, where turtles have been farm raised for human consumption for almost 50 years, as a case study to explore consumer preferences toward wild‐sourced (illegal) and farmed (legal) products and potential conservation implications. Combining methods innovatively (including indirect questioning and choice experiments), we conducted a nationwide trade assessment through in‐person interviews from September to December 2014. Households were randomly selected using disproportionate stratified sampling, and responses were weighted based on district population size. We approached 597 individuals, of which 37 (6.2%) refused to participate. Although 30% of households had consumed turtle in the previous 12 months, the purchase and consumption of wild products was rare (e.g., 64–742 resident households consumed wild turtle meat [i.e., 0.3–3.5% of households] but represented a large threat to wild turtles in the area due to their reduced populations). Differences among groups of consumers were marked, as identified through choice experiments, and price and source of product played important roles in their decisions. Despite the long‐term practice of farming turtles, 13.5% of consumers showed a strong preference for wild products, which demonstrates the limitations of wildlife farming as a single tool for sustainable wildlife trade. By using a combination of indirect questioning, choice experiments, and sales data to investigate demand for wildlife products, we obtained insights about consumer behavior that can be used to develop conservation‐demand‐focused initiatives. Lack of data from long‐term social–ecological assessments hinders the evaluation of and learning from wildlife farming. This information is key to understanding under which conditions different interventions (e.g., bans, wildlife farming, social marketing) are likely to succeed.     

Fishing‐gear restrictions and biomass gains for coral reef fishes in marine protected areas

Considerable empirical evidence supports recovery of reef fish populations with fishery closures. In countries where full exclusion of people from fishing may be perceived as inequitable, fishing‐gear restrictions on nonselective and destructive gears may offer socially relevant management alternatives to build recovery of fish biomass. Even so, few researchers have statistically compared the responses of tropical reef fisheries to alternative management strategies. We tested for the effects of fishery closures and fishing gear restrictions on tropical reef fish biomass at the community and family level. We conducted 1,396 underwater surveys at 617 unique sites across a spatial hierarchy within 22 global marine ecoregions that represented 5 realms. We compared total biomass across local fish assemblages and among 20 families of reef fishes inside marine protected areas (MPAs) with different fishing restrictions: no‐take, hook‐and‐line fishing only, several fishing gears allowed, and sites open to all fishing gears. We included a further category representing remote sites, where fishing pressure is low. As expected, full fishery closures, (i.e., no‐take zones) most benefited community‐ and family‐level fish biomass in comparison with restrictions on fishing gears and openly fished sites. Although biomass responses to fishery closures were highly variable across families, some fishery targets (e.g., Carcharhinidae and Lutjanidae) responded positively to multiple restrictions on fishing gears (i.e., where gears other than hook and line were not permitted). Remoteness also positively affected the response of community‐level fish biomass and many fish families. Our findings provide strong support for the role of fishing restrictions in building recovery of fish biomass and indicate important interactions among fishing‐gear types that affect biomass of a diverse set of reef fish families.     

Isolation and Identification of Enterococci from Seawater Samples: Assessment of Their Resistance to Antibiotics and Heavy Metals

A hundred Enterococcus strains were isolated from seawater samples collected from coastal areas of Istanbul. Isolates were identified to the species level using standard biochemical tests specified by Facklam and Collins. The species distribution was as follows Enterococcus faecalis (96%), Enterococcus gallinarum (3%) and Enterococcus solitarius (1%). The resistance of bacteria to both heavy metals (zinc [Zn], iron [Fe], cadmium [Cd], chrome [Cr], cobalt [Co]) and antibiotics (ampicillin 10 μg [AP], penicillin G 10 Units [PG], gentamycin 10 μg [GM], streptomycin 10 μg [S], chloramphenicol 10 μg [C], erythromycin 15 μg [E], kanamycin 30 μg [K], amikacin 30 μg [AK], nalidixic acid 30 μg [NA], and vancomycin 30 μg [VA]) was evaluated. None of the strains was resistant to VA. It was found that among the 100 isolates, those that exhibit resistance to antibiotics, particularly NA, S and K, were also resistant all the heavy metals tested. To our knowledge this is the first report focusing on determination of resistance of environmental enterococci found in Istanbul against heavy metals and antibiotics. Thus, combined expressions of antibiotic and heavy metal resistance may help to reinforce ecological and epidemiological studies and to determine the role of these strains in antibiotic and heavy metal resistance dissemination.     

核算间接冷却水污染当量数的研讨

针对间接冷却水的特点和核算其污染当量数过程中存在的问题，阐述了间接冷却水的界定，水源水的采样监测技术，本底值的扣除以及超标排放的判别等环节的技术要求和注意事项，并就与之密切相关的几个问题展开了讨论,为核算间接冷却水当量数提供了一定的参考依据，建议增加水湿排放指标，以切实控制间接冷却水造成的主要污染－热污染。     

论生态园林及其建设的基本原则

生态园林是城市绿地建设的新思维,也是生态学具体应用的实践.生态园林建设应遵循生态优先、物种多样性保护和重建、因地制宜、处理好种间关系、建立群落自维持机制、重视生态文化内涵等六要素.     

Exploring Chemical Variables in Ligustrum lucidum Ait. F. Tricolor (Rehd.) Rehd. in Relation to Air Pollutants and Environmental Conditions

Ligustrum lucidum Ait. f. tricolor (Rehd.) Rehd. in relation to atmospheric pollutants in Córdoba city, Argentina. The study area receives regional pollutants and was categorized taking into account traffic level, industrial density, type of industry, location of the sample point in relation to the street corner, treeless condition, and topographic level. Dried weight/fresh weight ratio (DW/FW) and specific leaf area (SLA) were calculated, and concentrations of chlorophylls, carotenoids, total sulfur, soluble proteins, malondialdehyde (MDA), and hydroperoxy conjugated dienes (HPCD) were determined in leaf samples. Sulfur content correlates positively with traffic density and SLA correlates negatively with some combinations of the categorical variables; MDA correlates positively with topographic level and total protein concentration correlates negatively with treeless condition. On the basis of our results, traffic, location of trees, type of industry, situation of a tree with respect to others, and topographic level are the environmental variables to bear in mind when selecting analogous sampling points in a passive monitoring program. An approximation to predict tree injury may be obtained by measuring DW/FW ratio, proteins, pigments, HPCD, and MDA as they are responsible for the major variability of data.     

垃圾焚烧烟气中HCl与消石灰的反应机理研究

测试了两种消石灰与垃圾焚烧烟气中HCl的反应率,得出了消石灰的反应率与反应时间的反应曲线,分析了消石灰与HCl的反应机理及影响消石灰最终反应率的因素。试验结果表明,消石灰与HCl反应初期按灰层扩散控制进行,两种消石灰的最终反应率分别为16％和36％。