Climate policy support under political consensus: exploring the varying effect of partisanship and party cues

By creating attitudinal rifts among partisan voters, political polarization is expected to negatively affect chances of effectively mitigating climate change. While such expectations generally have found support, less attention has been paid to the opposite claim that political consensus should eliminate the partisan dimension in climate change politics. This study tests this claim by studying how party identification, and party cues specifically, affects public policy attitudes in a context defined by political consensus. Using data from a large online access panel in Sweden, party identification and party cues are shown to matter for policy attitudes even in a consensus context. This effect is not limited to certain issues but is found across a wide range of policies, and the effect of party cues, for a given issue, varies across parties. The implications of this study and areas for future work are discussed.     

深圳地铁施工影响区环境安全与第三方监测

在讨论如何确保地铁施工影响区环境安全的基础上 ,给出了深圳地铁土建施工第三方监测的概念 ,详细阐述了第三方监测的目的、作用、管理体系、实施内容和工作程序 ,论述了第三方监测与业主、承包商、监理之间的关系。深圳地铁建设的实践表明 ,第三方监测是业主确保地铁施工影响区环境安全的有效管理模式 ,在地铁建设中极有推广价值。     

Elite cues,media coverage,and public concern: an integrated path analysis of public opinion on climate change, 2001–2013

To analyze the factors affecting US public concern about the threat of climate change between January 2002 and December 2013, data from 74 separate surveys are used to construct quarterly measures of public concern over global climate change. Five factors should account for changes in levels of concern: extreme weather events, public access to accurate scientific information, media coverage, elite cues, and movement/countermovement advocacy. Structural equation modeling indicates that elite cues, movement advocacy efforts, weather, and structural economic factors influence the level of public concern about climate change. While media coverage exerts an important influence, it is itself largely a function of elite cues and economic factors. Promulgation to the public of scientific information on climate change has no effect. Information-based science advocacy has had only a minor effect on public concern, while political mobilization by elites and advocacy groups is critical in influencing climate change concern.     

The Many Modalities of Social Networking: The Role of Twitter in Greens Politics

The popular microblogging service, Twitter, contains a variety of potential orientations—interpersonal, broadcast, news, advertising, public service, political, and so on—in its operation and applications. As an evolving social media platform, specificity and context are essential in understanding its significance and use-value. This paper investigates the multiple modalities of Twitter in the context of formal politics and, in particular, the Greens party in Australia. Presenting original evidence drawn from the Greens Members of Parliament and their advisers, it is shown how Twitter is mobilized in response to particular news agendas and stories, unfolding political events and processes, and an ongoing need for the Greens to speak simultaneously to committed environmentalists and the broader electorate. These uses reveal that Twitter is an important addition to the “media ecology mix” in the conduct of environmental politics, playing a direct role in political communication, strategies, and actions.     

大型底栖动物生物评价指数比较与应用

采用不同生物指数评价河流健康,结果往往有差异,如何识别各种生物指数的关系和适用性成为亟待解决的问题.基于太子河流域大型底栖动物群落研究,比较了5种大型底栖动物生物指数评价结果的差异.结果表明,5种指数具有极显著的相关性,但由于健康等级划分标准差异,造成不同指数的健康评价等级存在一定差异.同时分析了不同指数对不同类型人为活动影响的敏感性,研究其在河流健康评价中的适用性.结果表明在太子河流域中,BI指数与土地利用类型和溶氧具有较好的相关关系,对这两类的干扰具有较好的指示作用;FBI指数对酸污染和氨氮污染具有较强的指示作用;ASPT指数与耗氧相关的水质指标有较强的负相关;B-IBI指数与总氮呈显著的负相关关系,可较好指示氮污染,而且B-IBI指数与其他类型人为干扰活动均呈显著的相关关系,对土地利用和水质污染也具有较好的指示作用.综上所述,大型底栖动物BI指数和ASPT指数应该分别适用于评价流域土地利用和水化学指标对河流生态系统的影响,而B-IBI可用于评估多种类型人为干扰活动.     

Settlement decisions in blue tits: difference in the use of social information according to age and individual success

Dispersers are expected to assess breeding habitat quality before settlement. Although cues reflecting habitat quality are well studied, social cues have not been as well evaluated. In this paper, we studied breeding habitat selection during 3 years in a natural population of blue tits, Cyanistes caeruleus, breeding in nest-boxes. Our aim was to investigate if this species used conspecific density and/or reproductive success of con- and heterospecifics (i.e., social cues) in settlement decisions. The patterns observed were consistent with the idea that juveniles, when dispersing from their natal patches, did not react to any of the cues that we tested. In contrast, breeders that dispersed seemed to respond to both conspecific mean patch reproductive success (PRS) and breeding density of the settlement patch in the year of dispersal, their response differing according to their own reproductive success. Indeed, failed breeders moved to areas with high PRS and low density relative to source patches, while successful breeders behaved the opposite. The comparison between juveniles and adults might be modulated by the limited time available to juveniles to gather information on PRS and density at the end of the dispersing year. Adults lacking these time constraints, however, seemed to rely on these conspecific cues although limited by their own quality. Additionally, breeders were more likely to be immigrants in patches with relatively low breeding success and density the previous year, suggesting that settlement is influenced by multiple cues, which may reveal information on different aspects of habitat and be available at different moments. Collectively, our results support the importance of social cues for blue tits’ settlement.     

自动监测站第三方运维管理的思考

随着自动监测技术的不断发展,其连续、稳定的监测优势正在逐步代替手工监测,各地监测部门投入了大量的资源和精力建成了大量的空气、水质自动站,在灰霾监测、河道水质监管、大环境预警方面等都起到了积极作用。由于自动站数量多,工作任务复杂繁重,因此大部分地区都采用第三方托管模式进行自动站日常运维管理。如何有效的进行权责分配、提高工作效率、减少管理摩擦等成为业主方不可回避和亟待解决的问题。根据实际管理实践,结合一些实用的管理经验,提出了一系列相关措施。     

Predator cues and an herbicide affect activity and emigration in an agrobiont wolf spider

Animals use chemical cues for signaling between species. However, anthropogenic chemicals might interrupt this natural chemical information flow, with potential impacts on predator-prey interactions. Our goal was to explore how Buccaneer® Plus, a common herbicide similar to Round-up® (active ingredient glyphosate), affected the interactions between intraguild predators. The wolf spider Pardosa milvina (Hentz, 1844) is numerically dominant in agricultural systems across the eastern United States, and often falls prey to or competes with the larger wolf spider, Hogna helluo (Walckenaer, 1837) and/or the carabid beetle, Scarites quadriceps (Chaudoir, 1843). We tested the effects of chemical cues from these intraguild predators and exposure to herbicide on the activity, emigration, and survival of P. milvina using a full-factorial laboratory experiment. Both predator cues and herbicide led to a decrease in movement by P. milvina. However, although H. helluo cues alone decreased movement, S. quadriceps cues only decreased movement when combined with herbicide. These results indicate that predation risk and herbicide application likely interact in complex ways to affect the movement of a major arthropod predator in agricultural systems, and thus may have complex effects on the food web.     

Whitefly wax as a cue for phoresy in the broad mite, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Polyphagotarsonemus latus</Emphasis>(Acari: Tarsonemidae)

Summary. Broad mite, Polyphagotarsonemus latus (Acari: Tarsonemidae) exhibits a specific phoretic relationship with whiteflies. Under field conditions most broad mites, caught in sticky traps, are attached to whiteflies. Under laboratory conditions, attachment occurs equally well in the dark and light. Mites do not differentiate between the sexes of their phoretic host Bemisia tabaci. However, mite attachment to B. tabaci is greatly diminished by washing the host with various organic solvents, chloroform in particular. The effect of whitefly waxy particles on broad mite behavior was studied using wax from the whitefly Aleyrodes singularis and from the mealybug Planococcus citri. Broad mites were not only attracted specifically to the A. singularis waxy particles-treated leaf areas but were also attached to leaf trichomes in this area. The results of this study suggests the importance of olfactory cues from the whitefly waxy particles in the recognition process of the phoretic host and/or the induction of the attachment behavior to whitefly legs or leaf trichomes.     

Herbicide exposure affects the chemical recognition of a non native predator in common toad tadpoles (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Bufo bufo</Emphasis>)

Summary. In amphibians and fishes, evidence is increasing that chemical cues from injured conspecifics can play a role in the chemical labelling and learned recognition of unfamiliar predators. In this laboratory study, we tested the prediction that prior chemical exposure to a non-native predator feeding on conspecific tadpoles will subsequently allow tadpoles of the common toad (Bufo bufo) to recognize the chemical cues specifically released by this starved predator. Furthermore, we investigated the vulnerability of this chemically-mediated process to herbicide contamination. With these aims in view, groups of tadpoles were kept either unexposed or exposed for ten days to chemical cues from Turkish crayfish (Astacus leptodactylus) previously fed on tadpoles, both in uncontaminated water and in the presence of four sublethal concentrations of amitrole (0.01, 0.1, 1 and 10 mg.l⁻¹). We then assessed the effects of the six conditioning treatments on general activity and behavioural response to chemical cues from starved crayfish. Larval treatments did not affect the general activity of the tadpoles. By contrast, the treatments had significant effects on the behavioural response to the test solution prepared form starved crayfish. The only tadpoles to show an antipredator behavioural response to the chemical stimulation from starved crayfish belonged to the groups derived from chemical exposure to tadpole-fed crayfish in uncontaminated water and in contaminated water with the lowest concentration of amitrole (0.01 mg.l⁻¹). Conversely, this chemical stimulation produced no behavioural change in the control group or in the groups derived from exposure to tadpole-fed crayfish in contaminated water containing 0.1, 1 and 10 mg.l⁻¹ of amitrole. This study demonstrates that chemical cues released during the predator’s feeding activity can subsequently be used by common toad tadpoles in the recognition of an unfamiliar predator. In addition, our results show that the presence of sublethal amitrole concentrations can impair this recognition process. Such a pesticide effect might be especially detrimental for amphibian populations threatened by invasive predators.