Reduction of Urban Runoff Through Economic Incentives: Boulder,Colorado1

ABSTRACT: The problems of increased surface runoff which follow in step with urbanization can be conceptualized in terms of environmental economics. The private transformation of land from a permeable to an impermeable surface imposes the externality of increased surface runoff upon society as a whole and especially on those downstream. The city of Boulder, Colorado, has enacted an ordinance which attempts to internalize some of these external costs and at the same time decrease surface runoff from the urban environment.     

How flies respond to honey bee pheromone: the role of the foraging gene on reproductive response to queen mandibular pheromone

In this study we test one central prediction from sociogenomic theory—that social and non-social taxa share common genetic toolkits that regulate reproduction in response to environmental cues. We exposed Drosophila females of rover (for ^R) and sitter (for ^s) genotypes to an ovary-suppressing pheromone derived from the honeybee Apis mellifera. Surprisingly, queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) affected several measures of fitness in flies, and in a manner comparable to the pheromone’s normal effect on bee workers. QMP-treated sitter flies had smaller ovaries that contained fewer eggs than did untreated controls. QMP-treated rover flies, by contrast, showed a more variable pattern that only sometimes resulted in ovary inhibition, while a third strain of fly that contains a sitter mutant allele in a rover background (for ^s2) showed no ovarian response to QMP. Taken together, our results suggest that distinctly non-social insects have some capacity to respond to social cues, but that this response varies with fly genotype. In general, the interspecific response is consistent with a conserved gene set affecting reproductive physiology. The differential response among strains in particular suggests that for is itself important for modulating the fly’s pheromonal response.     

Addressing the dynamics of agri-food systems: an emerging agenda for social science research

The ‘modernist’ project that has come to dominate food and agricultural policy has failed to provide sustainable outcomes for many poor people in developing countries. Conventional agricultural science is not able to explain let alone address these concerns because it is based on a static equilibrium-centred view that provides little insight into the dynamic character of agri-food systems. This paper analyses how prevailing narratives of technological change and economic growth have come to dominate key food and agriculture policy debates. It seeks to counter these orthodox notions by emphasising that agri-food systems are embedded in complex ecological, economic and social processes, and showing how their interactions are dynamic and vulnerable to short-term shocks and long-term stresses like climate change. The paper makes the case for a deeper understanding of diverse ‘rural worlds’ and their potential pathways to sustainability through agriculture. Moreover, it argues for a normative focus on poverty reduction and concern for the distributional consequences of dynamic changes in agri-food systems, rather than aggregates and averages. Finally, it sets out an interdisciplinary research agenda on agri-food systems that focuses on dynamic system interactions in complex, risk-prone environments and explores how pathways can become more resilient and robust in an era of growing risk and uncertainty.     

Rapid assessment of insect pollination services to inform decision-making

Pollinator declines have prompted efforts to assess how land-use change affects insect pollinators and pollination services in agricultural landscapes. Yet many tools to measure insect pollination services require substantial landscape-scale data and technical expertise. In expert workshops, 3 straightforward methods (desk-based method, field survey, and empirical manipulation with exclusion experiments) for rapid insect pollination assessment at site scale were developed to provide an adaptable framework that is accessible to nonspecialist with limited resources. These methods were designed for TESSA (Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site-Based Assessment) and allow comparative assessment of pollination services at a site of conservation interest and in its most plausible alternative state (e.g., converted to agricultural land). We applied the methods at a nature reserve in the United Kingdom to estimate the value of insect pollination services provided by the reserve. The economic value of pollination services provided by the reserve ranged from US$6163 to US$11,546/year. The conversion of the reserve to arable land would provide no insect pollination services and a net annual benefit from insect-pollinated crop production of approximately $1542/year (US$24∙ha^–1∙year^–1). The methods had wide applicability and were readily adapted to different insect-pollinated crops: rape (Brassica napus) and beans (Vicia faba) crops. All methods were rapidly employed under a low budget. The relatively less robust methods that required fewer resources yielded higher estimates of annual insect pollination benefit.     

Removal of PFOS, PFOA and other perfluoroalkyl acids at water reclamation plants in South East Queensland Australia

This paper examines the fate of perfluorinated sulfonates (PFSAs) and carboxylic acids (PFCAs) in two water reclamation plants in Australia. Both facilities take treated water directly from WWTPs and treat it further to produce high quality recycled water. The first plant utilizes adsorption and filtration methods alongside ozonation, whilst the second uses membrane processes and advanced oxidation to produce purified recycled water. At both facilities perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS), perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) were the most frequently detected PFCs. Concentrations of PFOS and PFOA in influent (WWTP effluent) ranged up to 3.7 and 16 ng L⁻¹ respectively, and were reduced to 0.7 and 12 ng L⁻¹ in the finished water of the ozonation plant. Throughout this facility, concentrations of most of the detected perfluoroalkyl compounds (PFCs) remained relatively unchanged with each successive treatment step. PFOS was an exception to this, with some removal following coagulation and dissolved air flotation/sand filtration (DAFF). At the second plant, influent concentrations of PFOS and PFOA ranged up to 39 and 29 ng L⁻¹. All PFCs present were removed from the finished water by reverse osmosis (RO) to concentrations below detection and reporting limits (0.4-1.5 ng L⁻¹). At both plants the observed concentrations were in the low parts per trillion range, well below provisional health based drinking water guidelines suggested for PFOS and PFOA.     

Applying assessments of adaptive capacity to inform natural-resource management in a changing climate

Adaptive capacity (AC)—the ability of a species to cope with or accommodate climate change—is a critical determinant of species vulnerability. Using information on species’ AC in conservation planning is key to ensuring successful outcomes. We identified connections between a list of species’ attributes (e.g., traits, population metrics, and behaviors) that were recently proposed for assessing species’ AC and management actions that may enhance AC for species at risk of extinction. Management actions were identified based on evidence from the literature, a review of actions used in other climate adaptation guidance, and our collective experience in diverse fields of global-change ecology and climate adaptation. Selected management actions support the general AC pathways of persist in place or shift in space, in response to contemporary climate change. Some actions, such as genetic manipulations, can be used to directly alter the ability of species to cope with climate change, whereas other actions can indirectly enhance AC by addressing ecological or anthropogenic constraints on the expression of a species’ innate abilities to adapt. Ours is the first synthesis of potential management actions directly linked to AC. Focusing on AC attributes helps improve understanding of how and why aspects of climate are affecting organisms, as well as the mechanisms by which management interventions affect a species’ AC and climate change vulnerability. Adaptive-capacity-informed climate adaptation is needed to build connections among the causes of vulnerability, AC, and proposed management actions that can facilitate AC and reduce vulnerability in support of evolving conservation paradigms.