Nested vulnerability: exploring cross-scale linkages and vulnerability teleconnections in Mexican and Vietnamese coffee systems

Analyses of the vulnerability of farm populations and food systems to exogenous change, whether in relation to climatic extremes, market shocks, epidemics or other concerns, have typically been approached through a focus on the place of food production or the specific sub-sector exposed to stress. Relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which national institutions, history and social expectations transform the same signals of global change into very different outcomes in distinct geographic contexts. The channels that convey signals of change from the global to the local may also work in reverse, connecting the responses and choices of households in one geographic context to outcomes and choices of other households in quite distant places. We draw from recent case studies of farm-level vulnerability and livelihood security in Mexico and Vietnam to demonstrate that coffee smallholders’ independent responses to the risks and opportunities associated with global scale economic and environmental change, are teleconnected and thus can create feedbacks which in turn affect the present and future vulnerabilities of other smallholders around the globe.     

Pollinator diversity increases fruit production in Mexican coffee plantations: The importance of rustic management systems

Pollination is an ecological process that provides important services to humans. Pollination service in agroecosystems depends on several factors, including the land management systems used by farmers. Here we focused on the effects of insect pollinator diversity on coffee fruit production along a gradient of management systems in central Veracruz, Mexico. The gradient ranged from low environmental impact management systems (the native forest is not completely removed) to high environmental impact management systems (the native forest is completely removed). We hypothesized that pollinator diversity should be higher in low-impact systems. Then, if fruit production is positively related to pollinator diversity, plantations with low-impact management systems should display higher fruit production than plantations with high-impact management systems. We used observational and experimental data to test this hypothesis. Our results indicated that low-impact management systems have higher species richness and relative diversity (measured with the Shannon-Wiener diversity index) of pollinators than high-impact management systems. In all cases, fruit production was positively related with species richness and diversity of pollinators. Moreover, fruit production was higher in low-impact than in high-impact management systems. These results suggest that the diversity of insect pollinators can be influenced by the management system applied by farmers, and that such effects may have strong consequences on coffee fruit production.     

Effects of a winter legume on phosphorus,potassium, calcium and magnesium cycling in a humid subtropical agroecosystem

Phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium cycling were compared in sorghum agroecosystems with winter legume (Trifolium incarnatum L.) or inorganic fertilizer nitrogen inputs. The system with fertilizer N input had winter rye (Secale cereale L.) as a winter cover crop. Nutrient uptake by winter and summer crops, double acid extractable soil nutrients, soil pH and soil ammonium/nitrate ratio were measured. The legume took up more of all nutrients than the rye and also provided higher amounts of available nutrients in soil for the subsequent summer crop. Soil pH was also increased in the clover-N treatment. Nutrient uptake by winter crops is important for reducing leaching losses and chemical fixation of nutrients in humid subtropical regions.     

Forest and agroecosystem fire management in Ghana

The threat of wildfires to the economic potential of forestry and agriculture is one of the persistent national and international concerns. Improving and applying indigenous wildfire management (IWM) approaches is seen as one of the main hopes for mitigating and adapting to this threat to rural forest communities. Identifying the contextual causes and adaptation measures practiced by local people is essential for planning an appropriate mechanism for IWM. Yet only limited studies are available on IWM practices and most of those studies were conducted outside of this study region. To fill this gap, this study examined the wildfire mitigation and adaptation methods of forest communities in Ghana using interviews with 266 farming households. Their perceptions of the causes, cost and risk factors were also examined. The result suggests that wildfires are annual events. More than half of the wildfires reported were caused by slash-and-burn land preparation, with hunting-related fires in second place. Forest households loose about 208 Ghana cedi (US$ 231 in 2006) in value due to damaged crops and tree seedlings annually (i.e. about 50% of annual income of a Ghanaian farmer). The respondents had the operational skill and coping abilities to deal with small-scale wildfires and were supported by well-established local arrangements, community rules and silvicutural techniques. In addition, they were well informed about the basic risk factors (e.g. fuel load, climate, and presence of ignition triggers) and how these can interact to cause devastating wildfire. Therefore it is critical that policies and institutions that promote IWM initiatives build on the strong underlying community knowledge and local networks to enhance their effectiveness.     

Continuous biosolids application affects grain elemental concentrations in a dryland-wheat agroecosystem

Continuous land application of biosolids in a beneficial-use program changes trace-element availability to plants over time. Consequently, what regression model, if any, could best predict wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grain concentrations in a biosolids-amended dryland agroecosystem? We calculated paraboloid, linear, quadratic, and exponential-rise-to-a maximum equations for grain Ba, Cd, Cu, Mn, Mo, Ni, P, and Zn concentration versus number of biosolids applications and/or soil NH₄HCO₃-dithethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (AB-DTPA) extract concentrations for two sites that had each received six applications of Littleton/Englewood, CO, USA Wastewater Treatment Facility biosolids. The paraboloid-regression models were superior (higher R² values, lower S.E. of the estimate) to other models. Soils classified the same as the Weld soil (used in this study) at the family level (fine, smectitic, mesic Aridic Argiustolls) encompass 25 soil series in 10 US states with an aerial extent of 2.3 × 10⁶ ha. The paraboloid-regression model approach probably would be applicable to these similarly classified soils.     

山区生物多样性及其原因与功能

全球1/5人口的安全和福利、近一半人口的供水直接或者间接地依赖于山地生态系统的功能完整性,而植物覆盖度的好坏是影响其功能完整性的关键因素.全球山地的绿色"外衣"是由栖息于不同小生境中的一些特有的植物、动物和微生物组成.由于一座山在一个很小的海拔带内就存在着一系列气候不同的生物带,因此,山区是生物多样性的热点和优先保护的地区.由于植物根系的多样性,在斜坡上的植物起着固定土壤和防止土壤侵蚀的作用.土地利用及大气变化,如CO2增多以及气候变暖等均影响着山区的生物多样性.可持续的流域价值依赖于长期的土壤完整性,而土壤的完整性又依靠丰富的植物覆盖.毫无疑问,产流量和生物多样性体现了山区土地是否可持续利用.考虑到低地居民对山区的依赖性,除娱乐价值外他们应该更多地关注山区的其它方面.     

Mollusc communities in Bulgarian fens: predictive power of the environment,vegetation, and spatial structure in an isolated habitat

Mollusc communities of previously unexplored Bulgarian fens were studied in order to determine and generalise the patterns of species richness and composition along the mineral richness gradient. The aim was also to compare predictive values of the environment, vegetation and spatial structure. Altogether, 44 mollusc species were recorded at 40 treeless fen sites. Species richness varied from 0 to 18 species per site, and it was positively associated with the mineral gradient and negatively with altitude. However, the best predictor was obtained using plant species composition. All explanatory variables had higher effect on land snails than on the entire mollusc assemblage (including aquatic species). Species richness and abundance were significantly and positively correlated with the species composition turnover; the communities were highly nested, with poor sites having subsets of the fauna found in the richest. The main direction of mollusc species turnover was highly associated with that observed for vegetation, and the main gradient of plant species composition was able to explain nearly 20% of total variation in mollusc data. We found that spatial structure explained by far the highest proportion of independent variation, which reflected the high level of geographical isolation of Bulgarian fens and regional differences independent of any environmental variation. Our results demonstrate (1) the general role of mineral richness gradient for structuring mollusc communities in fens, (2) the pivotal indicator role of plant species composition in predicting species composition of mollusc communities, despite being trophically independent and (3) the effect of isolation and origins of the habitat on species composition: most species have wide geographical distributions within the habitat type, and geographical patterns within Bulgaria may have a stochastic element.     

哈尔滨市生物多样性保护工作研究

生物多样性是维持生态平衡、促进人与自然和谐发展的重要成分,保护生物多样性,对于人类经济和未来的发展都是极其有利的。文章是在总结哈尔滨市生物多样性保护工作的现状成效,分析存在的问题挑战,提出一些保护措施,意在提高人们生物多样性保护意识,切实改善生态环境。     

生物多样性的干扰、生活史及优化管理

在许多生态系统中,日益增长的人类活动已经加剧了干扰的频度和强度.结果,在地球上,短命物种(包括许多外来的物种)在丰富度上可能会有巨大的提高;同时长寿命的物种又可能消失.这个结论可以通过对理论和经验研究中大量演替循环的观察得到.这篇文章主要讨论现有生态管理政策和保护中两个受到忽视的问题①生活史的限制因素;②未来全球变暖趋势.同时也强调了这两个因素在平衡干扰的频度和强度以优化生物多样性保持和生态系统管理方面的重要性.     

Water regime-nitrogen fertilizer incorporation interaction: Field study on methane and nitrous oxide emissions from a rice agroecosystem in Harbin, China

Water regime and nitrogen (N) fertilizer are two important factors impacting greenhouse gases (GHG) emission from paddy field, whereas their effects have not been well studied in cold region. In this study, we conducted a two-year field experiment to study the impacts of water regime and N fertilizer on rice yields and GHG emissions in Harbin, China, a cold region located in high latitudes. Our results showed that intermittent irrigation significantly decreased methane (CH₄) emission compared with continuous flooding, however, the decrement was far lower than the global average level. The N₂O emissions were very small when flooded but peaked at the beginning of the disappearance of floodwater. The N fertilizer treatments increased CH₄ emissions at low level (75kgN/ha). But both CH₄ and N₂O emissions were uninfluenced at the levels of 150kgN/ha and 225kgN/ha. Rice yields increased under intermittent irrigation and were highest at the level of 150kgN/ha. From our results, we recommended that the intermittent irrigation and 150kgN/ha as the ideal water regime-nitrogen fertilizer incorporation for this area to achieve low GHG emissions without impacting rice yields.     

城市生物多样性保护与生态系统服务供给

生物多样性和生态系统服务是人类生存和社会经济可持续发展的物质基础,城市化过程中,由于人类过度密集地聚集于一个区域,集约的社会经济活动不断侵占生态空间,对其他生物产生驱逐效应,造成生态恶化,生物多样性丧失进而导致生态系统提供的人类福祉下降,这使得在城市内部如何合理配置生态资产,保护生物多样性和提供充足生态系统服务成为城市发展过程中必须面对的一个挑战。建议城市周边进行生态系统的自然化再造与保护,对城市已有生态系统近自然化改造,城区绿地多样化生态景观建造,逐渐推进生态资源资产化过程。     

Ant patchiness: a spatially quantitative test in coffee agroecosystems

Arboreal ants form patchy spatial patterns in tropical agroforest canopies. Such patchy distributions more likely occur in disturbed habitats associated with lower ant diversity and resource availability than in forests. Yet, few studies have quantitatively examined these patchy patterns to statistically test if ants are non-randomly distributed or at what scale. Coffee agroecosystems form a gradient of management intensification along which vegetative complexity and ant diversity decline. Using field studies and a spatially explicit randomization model, I investigated ant patchiness in coffee agroecosystems in Chiapas, Mexico varying in management intensity to examine if: (1) coffee intensification affects occurrence of numerically dominant ants, (2) numerical dominants form statistically distinguishable single-species patches in coffee plants, (3) shade trees play a role in patch location, and (4) patch formation or size varies with management intensity. Coffee intensification correlated with lower occurrence frequency of numerically dominant species generally and of one of four taxa examined. All dominant ant species formed patches but only Azteca instabilis was patchy around shade trees. Ant patchiness did vary somewhat with spatial scale and with strata (within the coffee layer vs around shade trees). Patchiness, however, did not vary with management intensity. These results provide quantitative evidence that numerically dominant ants are patchy within the coffee layer at different scales and that shade tree location, but not coffee management intensity, may play a role in the formation of patchy distributions.     

Effect of dung deposition on small-scale patch structure and seasonal vegetation dynamics in mountain pastures

Cattle activity greatly influences plant species composition and biomass production of grassland ecosystems. Dung deposition by cattle together with grazing and trampling can be considered as one of the important factors driving vegetation dynamics in pastures. The objective of this study was to investigate at 10-cm and 1-month resolution the plant community dynamics induced by dung deposition in two plant communities (a mesotrophic and an oligotrophic grassland) in a pasture of the Swiss Jura Mountains. Vegetation was sampled four or three times during the vegetation period in contiguous 10 cm × 10 cm quadrats from the centre of the dung pat to a distance of 60 cm. A lower grazing intensity near the dung pat was recorded for all observation periods. In the mesotrophic grassland the canopy was higher near the dung pat already one week after dung deposition. Vegetation around dung pats was submitted to two opposite fertilizing and grazing gradients, which induced changes in vegetation texture and structure at fine scale and short term. We observed a positive rank correlation between species turnover and distance to the dung for both communities, suggesting a seasonal stabilizing effect of dung on the plant composition of their direct surroundings (0–10 cm) likely due to cattle avoidance. Since dung pats are dropped every year in different locations, they create in the pasture a shifting mosaic of nutrient availability and grazing intensity inducing at seasonal scale micro-successions in plant communities.     

贫营养条件下EPS、SMP和微生物多样性的研究

为了考察活性污泥在营养缺乏的条件下,胞外聚合物（EPS）、溶解性微生物产物（SMP）和微生物种群结构自身的变化情况,为优化MBR系统运行、延缓膜污染等提供理论依据,对天津大学游泳馆MBR中的污泥混合液进行贫营养实验,测定了污泥混合液中EPS和SMP的含量,通过聚合酶链式反应-变性梯度凝胶电泳（PCR-DGGE）技术和克隆测序技术对微生物多样性进行分析,根据序列数据进行同源性分析并构建系统进化树.实验初期,EPS和SMP的浓度由15.04 mg/g和0 mg/g分别上升到17.99 mg/g和3.29 mg/g.随着实验的进行,EPS有很大的降低,最终只有2.40 mg/g;SMP则一直在3.5 mg/g左右变化.实验表明,EPS和SMP对外界环境变化具有一定的缓冲作用,并且在营养缺乏的条件下微生物能够以降解EPS和SMP来维持自身生命活动.由于对EPS和SMP的利用,污泥的Shannon多样性指数由最初的0.81上升到最高时的1.09,随后开始降低,并最终稳定在0.95.克隆测序的结果表明,污泥中微生物的种类比较丰富,并且优势菌种大部分为未经培养菌种.部分菌种能够通过产生蛋白质和多糖水解酶来实现对EPS和SMP的降解,主要属于拟杆菌(Bacteroidetes)、黄杆菌(Flavobacterium）、腐螺旋菌(Saprospiraceae)和厚壁门菌(Firmicutes)等.     

Effects of road age on the structure of roadside vegetation in south-eastern Australia

In many agricultural landscapes, roadside (or road verge) environments provide important refuge for threatened native species and ecosystems, and are often selected as benchmark sites to guide restoration activities. However few studies have investigated potential temporal variability in roadside vegetation conditions. In this paper we used archived cadastral maps to determine road age and examine potential variability in roadside vegetation structures in a typical rural landscape in south-eastern Australia. We found significant differences in the density of mature trees for road segments in different road-age categories. The oldest roads (<1870s) were characterized by having the greatest density of large hollow-bearing Eucalyptus trees, but few native conifer trees or shrubs. Roads surveyed when broad-scale clearing commenced (1870–1879), and not the oldest roads, were found to be more intact in terms of the density of large pre-settlement trees, range of tree stem-size classes and overall shrub diversity. By contrast, the youngest roads (post-1900s) had the greatest number of native conifer trees, but few shrubs or large Eucalyptus trees. As a result, roads of different ages had different densities of hollow-bearing trees, which is discussed in terms of past land-use legacies. These results have important implications for selecting roadsides as benchmark sites for restoration activities, and highlight the critical importance of roadsides to conserving native biota in agricultural landscapes.     

Towards a climate change adaptation strategy for coffee communities and ecosystems in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, Mexico

The mountain chain of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas in southern Mexico is globally significant for its biodiversity and is one of the most important coffee production areas of Mexico. It provides water for several municipalities and its biosphere reserves are important tourist attractions. Much of the forest cover outside the core protected areas is in fact coffee grown under traditional forest shade. Unless this (agro)forest cover can be sustained, the biodiversity of the Sierra Madre and the environmental services it provides are at risk. We analyzed the threats to livelihoods and environment from climate change through crop suitability modeling based on downscaled climate scenarios for the period 2040 to 2069 (referred to as 2050s) and developed adaptation options through an expert workshop. Significant areas of forest and occasionally coffee are destroyed every year by wildfires, and this problem is bound to increase in a hotter and drier future climate. Widespread landslides and inundations, including on coffee farms, have recently been caused by hurricanes whose intensity is predicted to increase. A hotter climate with more irregular rainfall will be less favorable to the production of quality coffee and lower profitability may compel farmers to abandon shade coffee and expand other land uses of less biodiversity value, probably at the expense of forest. A comprehensive strategy to sustain the biodiversity, ecosystem services and livelihoods of the Sierra Madre in the face of climate change should include the promotion of biodiversity friendly coffee growing and processing practices including complex shade which can offer some hurricane protection and product diversification; payments for forest conservation and restoration from existing government programs complemented by private initiatives; diversification of income sources to mitigate risks associated with unstable environmental conditions and coffee markets; integrated fire management; development of markets that reward sustainable land use practices and forest conservation; crop insurance programs that are accessible to smallholders; and the strengthening of local capacity for adaptive resource management.     

Mercury in sediments and vegetation in a moderately contaminated salt marsh (Tagus Estuary, Portugal)

Depth variations of total mercury (Hg) and methylmercury (MeHg) concentrations were studied in cores from non-colonized sediments, sediments colonized by Halimione portulacoides, Sarcocornia fruticosa and Spartina maritima and belowground biomass, in a moderately contaminated salt marsh (Tagus Estuary, Portugal). Concentrations in belowground biomass exceeded up to 3 (Hg) and 15 (MeHg) times the levels in sediments, and up to 198 (Hg) and 308 (MeHg) times those found in aboveground parts. Methylmercury in colonized sediments reached 3% of the total Hg, 50 times above the maximum values found in non-colonized sediments. The absence of correlations between total Hg concentrations in sediments and the corresponding MeHg levels suggested that methylation was only dependent on the environmental and microbiological factors. The analysis of belowground biomass at high-depth resolution (2 cm) provided evidence that Hg and MeHg were actively absorbed from sediments, with higher enrichment factors at layers where higher microbial activity was probably occurring. The results obtained in this study indicated that the biotransformation of Hg to the toxic MeHg could increase the toxicity of plant-colonized sediments.     

基于遥感技术的青海省玛多县生物多样性监测与评估

高效快速评价县域生物多样性空间分布格局对制定和实施生物多样性保护措施具有重要意义.以青海省玛多县为例,结合InVEST模型和遥感、GIS技术,以景观结构、物种多样性、生态系统质量三方面的6个指标构建生物多样性遥感监测和评估指标体系,实现县域生物多样性快速监测和评估,并为玛多县生物多样性保护与可持续利用提供理论支撑和决策依据.结果表明:玛多县生物多样性指数整体呈东南高、西北低的变化趋势,高值区域主要分布在南部沼泽草甸和高覆盖草地区,低值区域主要分布在西北山地、稀疏草地区.2000年、2010年和2015年玛多县生物多样性指数值域范围分别为0.113 8~0.805 8、0.141 6~0.807 3和0.154 6~0.793 9,值域最低值呈上升趋势、最高值有所下降.2000-2015年玛多县生物多样性降低区域占其陆域总面积的59.85%,增加区域占40.15%;明显增加区域主要分布在冬春牧场,明显降低区域主要分布在冬春牧场与夏秋牧场交界处及玛查理镇城区.实例分析表明,基于遥感技术构建的生物多样性评估指标体系能够监测玛多县生物多样性现状及其时空变异特征,相对于传统生物多样性调查方法,基于遥感技术的生物多样性评估具有时效性强、操作便捷高效等优势,可应用于县域生物多样性遥感监测与评估.