Large-scale diversity and biogeography of benthic copepods in European waters

A large-scale database concerning benthic copepods from the Arctic, Baltic Sea, North Sea, British Isles, Adriatic Sea and Crete was compiled to assess species richness, biodiversity, communities, ecological range size and biogeographical patterns. The Adriatic showed the highest evenness and the most species-rich communities. Assemblages from the North Sea, British Isles, Baltic and Crete had a lower evenness. The British Isles were characterised by impoverished communities. The ecological specificity of copepod species showed two diverging trends: higher specificity of species in more diverse assemblages was observed in the Adriatic, North Sea and Baltic. A uniformly high species specificity disregarding sample diversity was found on Crete and in the British Isles. Benthic copepod communities showed distinct patterns that clearly fit the predefined geographical regions. Communities were distinguishable and β-diversity was found to be high around Europe, indicating a high species turnover on the scale of this investigation. The British Isles and the North Sea were found to be faunistic links to the Baltic and the Arctic.     

Catalyzing sustainable fisheries management through behavior change interventions

Small-scale fisheries are an important livelihood and primary protein source for coastal communities in many of the poorest regions in the world, yet many are overfished and thus require effective and scalable management solutions. Positive ecological and socioeconomic responses to management typically lag behind immediate costs borne by fishers from fishing pressure reductions necessary for fisheries recovery. These short-term costs challenge the long-term success of these interventions. However, social marketing may increase perceptions of management benefits before ecological and socioeconomic benefits are fully realized, driving new social norms and ultimately long-term sustainable behavior change. By conducting underwater visual surveys to quantify ecological conditions and by conducting household surveys with community members to quantify their perceptions of management support and socioeconomic conditions, we assessed the impact of a standardized small-scale fisheries management intervention that was implemented across 41 sites in Brazil, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The intervention combines TURF reserves (community-based territorial use rights for fishing coupled with no-take marine reserves) with locally tailored social-marketing behavior change campaigns. Leveraging data across 22 indicators and 4 survey types, along with data from 3 control sites, we found that ecological and socioeconomic impacts varied and that communities supported the intervention and were already changing their fishing practices. These results suggest that communities were developing new social norms and fishing more sustainably before long-term ecological and socioeconomic benefits of fisheries management materialized.     

Air Pollution Damage to the Forests of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California

Numerous oxidant-injured ponderosa pine and other tree species have been detected in the lower elevation forests of the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range of California in the Sequoia National Forest, Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks, and on state and private lands. Affected pines were observed in a broad band following the many ridges that rise above the Central Valley floor to the 1900-2600 m elevation. Slight symptoms of ozone chlorotic mottle on ponderosa pine appeared from about 1000 m altitude, increased in severity as elevation increased and then diminished in severity above 2600 m. An apparent east to west gradient of disease was discovered; severity lessened as distance from the Central Valley increased. Atmospheric monitoring in three forested sites suggests that ozone occurs in doses sufficient to elicit symptoms of this widespread disease.     

Evidence for Ph Insensitivity in Some Insects Inhabiting Peat Pools in the Loch Fleet Catchment

The impact of liming on the insects associated with peat pools was studied in the Loch Fleet catchment in 1991 and 1992. Fifty-six taxa were identified from 121 timed samples. Despite the raised pH associated with liming in 1986, the population densities of Odonata, Hemiptera and Coleoptera appeared to be unaffected when compared with those of untreated peat pools in the same area. the study demonstrated the existence of two main types of community, that of the steep-sided edges of pools, dominated by odonate nymphs and large species of beetles, and that of the shallower pools, dominated by Hydroporus species (Col., Dytiscidae).     

Registrars,Accreditation, and ISO 14001

The International Standardization Organization (ISO) will be publishing the first international environmental management system standard: ISO 14001. The ultimate impact of this standard is subject to heated debate throughout the industrial and environmental communities. This article focuses on one aspect of the standard: the process of certification/registration. ISO 14001 is a voluntary initiative. Companies will need to decide for themselves whether or not to pursue certification. As indicated in Section 1 of ISO 14001, ?This International Standard is applicable to any organization that wishes to

• a) implement, maintain and improve an environmental management system;
• b) assure itself of its conformance with its stated environmental policy;
• c) demonstrate such conformance to others;
• d) seek certification/registration of its environmental management system by an external organization;
• e) make a self determination and declaration of conformance with the standard.”?

As the introduction to ISO 14001 makes clear, ?the specification contains only those requirements that may be objectively audited for certification/registration and/or self declaration purposes.”? Any additional ?guidance…will be contained in other international standards.”? To avoid confusion, these other international standards tend to be called ?guidelines”?. Of particular interest to those associated with the certification and registration of systems to ISO 14001 are the three guidelines for environmental auditing. Officially these are referred to as:

• ISO 14010 - Guidelines for Environmental Auditing - General Principles,
• ISO 14011 - Guidelines for Environmental Auditing - Audit Procedures - Auditing of Environmental Management Systems, and
• ISO 14012 - Guidelines for Environmental Auditing - Qualification Criteria for Environmental Auditors.

     

Adequacy of Wildlife Habitat Relation Models for Estimating Spatial Distributions of Terrestrial Vertebrates

In the U.S. National Biological Service's gap analysis, potential distributions of terrestrial vertebrate species are based on the synthesis of wildlife habitat relation data and then modeled using a vegetation cover map derived from Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery. Using long-term species lists from eight National Parks in Utah, we evaluated the adequacy of the wildlife habitat relations data generated by gap analysis in predicting species distributions at landscape scales. Omission and commission error rates were estimated for major taxonomic groups and for each national park. Depending on the taxonomic group, omission error ranged from 0 to 25%, whereas commission error ranged from 4 to 33%. Error rates were highest in amphibians and reptiles and lowest for birds and mammals. In general, the error rate declined as the size of the park increased. The Utah wildlife habitat relation models performed well when used to predict the presence or absence of terrestrial vertebrates in eight national parks in Utah and should provide valuable information for making conservation decisions. They also provide a measure of support for the use of these models within the gap analysis framework. Although it is likely that accuracy of wildlife habitat relation models will vary from state to state, and even considerably within a state, the modeling process seems robust enough to provide a reasonably high level of accuracy for use in conservation planning at the ecoregion level.     

Influence of two growing seasons of experimental ozone fumigation on photosynthetic characteristics of white oak seedlings

White oak (Quercus alba L.) seedlings were exposed to charcoal-filtered air or to above-ambient ozone concentrations for 19-20 weeks during each of two growing seasons in continuously stirred tank reactors in greenhouses. Ozone treatments were 0.15 ppm (300 microg m(-3)) for 8 h day(-1), 3 days week(-1) in 1988, and continuous 15% above ambient in 1989. The seedlings were grown in forest soil watered twice weekly with simulated rain of pH 5.2. Responses of net photosynthesis to photosynthetically active radiation and intercellular CO(2) concentration were measured three times each year. There were no significant differences in light-saturated net photosynthesis or stomatal conductance, dark respiration, quantum or carboxylation efficiencies, and light or CO(2) compensation points on any date between control and ozone-exposed seedlings.