Explaining landholders' decisions about riparian zone management: the role of behavioural, normative, and control beliefs

Water quality is a key concern in the current global environment, with the need to promote practices that help to protect water quality, such as riparian zone management, being paramount. The present study used the theory of planned behaviour as a framework for understanding how beliefs influence decisions about riparian zone management. Respondents completed a survey that assessed their behavioural, normative, and control beliefs in relation to intentions to manage riparian zones on their property. The results of the study showed that, overall, landholders with strong intentions to manage their riparian zones differed significantly in terms of their beliefs compared to landholders who had weak intentions to manage their riparian zones. Strong intentions to manage riparian zones were associated with a favourable cost-benefit analysis, greater perceptions of normative support for the practice and lower perceptions of the extent to which barriers would impede management of riparian zones. It was also evident that willingness to comply with the recommendations of salient referents, beliefs about the benefits of riparian zone management and perceptions of the extent to which barriers would impede riparian zone management were most important for determining intentions to manage riparian zones. Implications for policy and extension practice are discussed.     

Assessment of plastic lumber production in Brazil as a substitute for natural wood

Environment, Development and Sustainability - This review aimed to analyze plastic lumber manufacturing in Brazil, a country with a large amount of natural wood, and devise strategies to boost...     

Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and the Architecture of Entitlements

The objective of this paper is to outline a conceptual model of vulnerability to climate change as the first step in appraising and understanding the social and economic processes which facilitate and constrain adaptation. Vulnerability as defined here pertains to individuals and social groups. It is the state of individuals, of groups, of communities defined in terms of their ability to cope with and adapt to any external stress placed on their livelihoods and well-being. This proposed approach puts the social and economic well-being of society at the centre of the analysis, thereby reversing the central focus of approaches to climate impact assessment based on impacts on and the adaptability of natural resources or ecosystems and which only subsequently address consequences for human well-being. The vulnerability or security of any group is determined by the availability of resources and, crucially, by the entitlement of individuals and groups to call on these resources. This perspective extends the concept of entitlements developed within neo-classical and institutional economics. Within this conceptual framework, vulnerability can be seen as a socially-constructed phenomenon influenced by institutional and economic dynamics. The study develops proxy indicators of vulnerability related to the structure of economic relations and the entitlements which govern them, and shows how these can be applied to a District in coastal lowland Vietnam. This paper outlines the lessons of such an approach to social vulnerability for the assessment of climate change at the global scale. We argue that the socio-economic and biophysical processes that determine vulnerability are manifest at the local, national, regional and global level but that the state of vulnerability itself is associated with a specific population. Aggregation from one level to another is therefore not appropriate and global-scale analysis is meaningful only in so far as it deals with the vulnerability of the global community itself.     

Rapid detection of aneuploidy in uncultured chorionic villus cells using fluorescence in situ hybridization

Rapid detection of aneuploidy using chromosome-specific repetitive DNA probes and the potential diagnostic accuracy of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) on interphase cells of chorionic villus samples (CVS) are presented. Analyses demonstrated the ability to correctly identify aneuploidy using FISH in uncultured CVS. Our preliminary investigation suggests that this technique offers a significant clinical potential to circumvent problems of culture, time, and cost in cytogenetic analysis.     

Mating strategies and mating success of fallow (Dama dama) bucks in a non-lekking population

The rutting behaviour of bucks in an enclosed population was investigated between 1988 and 1990. A substantial proportion of the matings were observed. After preliminary observations in the 1987 rut we categorised bucks into one of four rutting strategies based mainly on their degree of territoriality. We investigate the effects of age, dominance and mating strategy on mating success. Territories were aggregated in an area of oak woods and mating success was highly skewed. Bucks of between 5 and 7 years old achieved the majority (over 90%) of observed matings. Mating success was highly correlated with dominance but only weakly related to fighting success. The possession of a territory was crucial to achieving high reproductive success, with a 38-fold difference between the most and least successful strategies. Bucks pursuing the different strategies also differed in the time they commenced groaning, timing of matings, mating interference and the locations where they achieved their matings. Although high-ranking males devoted considerable effort to obtaining and defending a territory only 36% of each buck's matings were achieved on his territory and males tended to abandon these sites when the tendency of females to visit them decreased.     

Can the ratio of aromatic skeletons explain cross-species responses within evolutionarily conserved Ostariophysan alarm cues?: testing the purine-ratio hypothesis

Summary. While the response to damage-released chemical alarm cues within the superorder Ostariophysi appears to be highly conserved across species, it is generally observed that the intensity of response to heterospecific alarm cues decreases with increasing phylogenetic distance. Recent studies have demonstrated that purine-N-oxides function as chemical alarm cues within Ostariophyian fishes and that the nitrogen-oxide functional group is conserved as the chief molecular trigger. According to the purine-ratio hypothesis, these cross-species differences may be due to the relative proportion of different carrier compounds associated with the nitrogen-oxide molecular trigger. To test this hypothesis, we exposed glowlight tetras (Hemigrammus erythrozonus, Characidae, Ostariophysi) to one of five synthetic stimuli (hypoxanthine-3-N-oxide (H3NO), pyridine-N-oxide (PNO) or mixed stimuli of 75 % H3NO-25 % PNO, 50 % H3NO-50 % PNO, or 25 % H3NO-75 % PNO), natural conspecific chemical alarm cue or a distilled water control. We quantified changes in shoal cohesion and vertical area use as species typical indicators of an antipredator response. As predicted, response intensity decreased as the ratio of hypoxanthine-3-N-oxide to pyridine-N-oxide decreased and the strongest response was to natural alarm cue. These results suggest that species-specific carrier compounds may account for the well-documented cross-species differences in the response to heterospecific alarm cues within phylogenetically related taxa.     

A gas chromatography-quartz crystal microbalance for speciation of sulfur compounds in landfill gas

A new method, based on separation with gas chromatography and detection with a quartz crystal microbalance, was used for the quantification of ethane-1-thiol, propane-1-thiol, ethyl methyl sulfide, propane-2-thiol, butane-2-thiol and butane-1-thiol. The analytical error, the analysis time and the general analytical performance are identical for gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and gas chromatography-quartz crystal microbalance (GC-QCM). However, the GC-QCM method constitutes a low cost alternative to GC-MS for monitoring individual sulfur compounds in landfill gas. It is an easily assembled apparatus made with an injection device, a furnace, a column, a crystal cell and a quartz crystal.     

Operational value of anthropometric surveillance in famine early warning and relief: wollo region, ethiopia, 1987-88

In this article I examine the operational implications of the findings reported in 'Entitlements, Coping Mechanisms and Indicators of Access to Food: Wollo Region, Ethiopia, 1987–88' (Kelly, 1992). The usefulness of anthropometric and other indicators for early warning and relief planning in Wollo is assessed by comparing the findings of Save the Children Fund's nutritional surveillance programme with those of the Early Warning and Planning Service of the Ethiopian government's Relief and Rehabilitation Commission. Case studies are used to illustrate the value of anthropometric and other indicators for targeting relief food and monitoring its effects. The costs of monitoring various indicators are then considered, and the cost of the Save the Children Fund programme is compared with that of other programmes. It is argued that in Wollo, anthropometric surveillance is a cost-effective means of improving early warning, planning, targeting and monitoring.     

Ectomycorrhizal colonization of loblolly pine seedlings during three growing seasons in response to ozone, acidic precipitation, and soil Mg status

A three-year study was initiated in 1987 to evaluate the impact of O3, acidic precipitation, and soil Mg on ectomycorrhizal colonization of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) seedlings. Thirty-six open-top chambers equipped with a rainfall exclusion/addition system were utilized to administer three levels of O3 (subambient, ambient, or twice ambient) and two precipitation acidity levels (pH 3.8 or 5.2) to seedlings growing in 24-liter plastic pots containing soil having either 35 or 15 mg kg(-1) of exchangeable Mg. Seedlings exposed to the twice ambient O3 treatment exhibited smaller percentages of total ectomycorrhizal short roots at the end of each year of the study, but trends were statistically significant in 1989 only. Changes in number of specific ectomycorrhizal morphotypes in response to O3 were not consistent from year to year. Acidic precipitation treatments had no effect on number or percent of mycorrhizal short roots, and responses of two morphotypes to soil Mg treatments were probably due to differences in the soil environment rather than a result of changes in aboveground processes. Temporal shifts in morphotype frequencies were observed for seedlings in all treatments and indicate that mycorrhizal succession occurred during the study period.