Projecting biodiversity benefits of conservation behavior-change programs

Biodiversity loss is driven by human behavior, but there is uncertainty about the effectiveness of behavior-change programs in delivering benefits to biodiversity. To demonstrate their value, the biodiversity benefits and cost-effectiveness of behavior changes that directly or indirectly affect biodiversity need to be quantified. We adapted a structured decision-making prioritization tool to determine the potential biodiversity benefits of behavior changes. As a case study, we examined two hypothetical behavior-change programs––wildlife gardening and cat containment––by asking experts to consider the behaviors associated with these programs that directly and indirectly affect biodiversity. We assessed benefits to southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus) and superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) by eliciting from experts estimates of the probability of each species persisting in the landscape given a range of behavior-change scenarios in which uptake of the behaviors varied. We then compared these estimates to a business-as-usual scenario to determine the relative biodiversity benefit and cost-effectiveness of each scenario. Experts projected that the behavior-change programs would benefit biodiversity and that benefits would rise with increasing uptake of the target behaviors. Biodiversity benefits were also predicted to accrue through indirect behaviors, although experts disagreed about the magnitude of additional benefit provided. Scenarios that combined the two behavior-change programs were estimated to provide the greatest benefits to species and be most cost-effective. Our method could be used in other contexts and potentially at different scales and advances the use of prioritization tools to guide conservation behavior-change programs.     

Rural household vulnerability to climate risk in Uganda

Regional Environmental Change - Vulnerability assessment is fundamental for informing adaptation to climate change policy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the vulnerability of rural...     

Modeling remediation time using natural attenuation at a dry‐cleaner site

Contaminants from dry‐cleaning sites, primarily tetrachloroethene (PCE), trichloroethene (TCE), cis‐dichloroethene (cis‐DCE), and vinyl chloride (VC), have become a major concern because of the limited funds and regulatory programs to address them. Thus, natural attenuation and its effectiveness for these sites needs to be evaluated as it might provide a less costly alternative to other remediation methods. In this research, data from a site in Texas were analyzed and modeled using the Biochlor analytical model to evaluate remediation times using natural attenuation. It was determined that while biodegradation and source decay were occurring at the site, the resulting attenuation rates were not adequate to achieve cleanup in a reasonable time frame without additional source remediation or control strategies. Cleanup times exceeded 100 years for all constituents at the site boundary and 800 years at the source for PCE, assuming cleanup levels of 0.005 mg/L for PCE and TCE and 0.07 mg/L and 0.002 mg/L for cis‐DCE and VC, respectively. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Monitoring household waste recycling centres performance using mean bin weight analyses

This paper describes a modelling approach used to investigate the significance of key factors (vehicle type, compaction type, site design, temporal effects) in influencing the variability in observed nett amenity bin weights produced by household waste recycling centres (HWRCs). This new method can help to quickly identify sites that are producing significantly lighter bins, enabling detailed back-end analyses to be efficiently targeted and best practice in HWRC operation identified. Tested on weigh ticket data from nine HWRCs across West Sussex, UK, the model suggests that compaction technique, vehicle type, month and site design explained 76% of the variability in the observed nett amenity weights. For each factor, a weighting coefficient was calculated to generate a predicted nett weight for each bin transaction and three sites were subsequently identified as having similar characteristics but returned significantly different mean nett bin weights. Waste and site audits were then conducted at the three sites to try and determine the possible sources of the remaining variability. Significant differences were identified in the proportions of contained waste (bagged), wood, and dry recyclables entering the amenity waste stream, particularly at one site where significantly less contaminated waste and dry recyclables were observed.     

Social media and disasters: a functional framework for social media use in disaster planning,response, and research

A comprehensive review of online, official, and scientific literature was carried out in 2012–13 to develop a framework of disaster social media. This framework can be used to facilitate the creation of disaster social media tools, the formulation of disaster social media implementation processes, and the scientific study of disaster social media effects. Disaster social media users in the framework include communities, government, individuals, organisations, and media outlets. Fifteen distinct disaster social media uses were identified, ranging from preparing and receiving disaster preparedness information and warnings and signalling and detecting disasters prior to an event to (re)connecting community members following a disaster. The framework illustrates that a variety of entities may utilise and produce disaster social media content. Consequently, disaster social media use can be conceptualised as occurring at a number of levels, even within the same disaster. Suggestions are provided on how the proposed framework can inform future disaster social media development and research.     

Effects of experimental protocol on global vegetation model accuracy: A comparison of simulated and observed vegetation patterns for Asia

Prognostic vegetation models have been widely used to study the interactions between environmental change and biological systems. This study examines the sensitivity of vegetation model simulations to: (i) the selection of input climatologies representing different time periods and their associated atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, (ii) the choice of observed vegetation data for evaluating the model results, and (iii) the methods used to compare simulated and observed vegetation. We use vegetation simulated for Asia by the equilibrium vegetation model BIOME4 as a typical example of vegetation model output. BIOME4 was run using 19 different climatologies and their associated atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. The Kappa statistic, Fuzzy Kappa statistic and a newly developed map-comparison method, the Nomad index, were used to quantify the agreement between the biomes simulated under each scenario and the observed vegetation from three different global land- and tree-cover data sets: the global Potential Natural Vegetation data set (PNV), the Global Land Cover Characteristics data set (GLCC), and the Global Land Cover Facility data set (GLCF). The results indicate that the 30-year mean climatology (and its associated atmospheric CO₂ concentration) for the time period immediately preceding the collection date of the observed vegetation data produce the most accurate vegetation simulations when compared with all three observed vegetation data sets. The study also indicates that the BIOME4-simulated vegetation for Asia more closely matches the PNV data than the other two observed vegetation data sets. Given the same observed data, the accuracy assessments of the BIOME4 simulations made using the Kappa, Fuzzy Kappa and Nomad index map-comparison methods agree well when the compared vegetation types consist of a large number of spatially continuous grid cells. The results of this analysis can assist model users in designing experimental protocols for simulating vegetation.     

Analysis of fatty acids and fatty alcohols reveals seasonal and sex-specific changes in the diets of seabirds

A key challenge in ecology is to find ways to obtain complete and accurate information about the diets of animals. To respond to this challenge in seabirds, traditional methods (usually stomach content analysis or observations of prey at nests) have been supplemented with indirect methods or molecular trophic markers. These techniques have the potential to extend the period of investigation outside the few short months of breeding and avoid biases. Here, we use an analysis of fatty acids (FAs) and fatty alcohols (FALs) from blood, adipose tissue and stomach oil to investigate how the diets of male and female common guillemots (Uria aalge), black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) and northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) differed through the sampling period (prelaying and breeding season) and by sex. Diets of both sexes of all three species generally varied across the season, but sex differences were apparent only in fulmars during prelaying. Our study shows that FA/FAL analysis can provide significant insights into diets of seabirds, in particular periods of the annual cycle which are not readily studied using traditional methods.     

Plant competition varies with community composition in an edaphically complex landscape

There is currently no consensus on how physical and biological factors affect competitive intensity. Tests of whether competitive intensity varies along axes of environmental change have commonly been conducted in systems with a single strong environmental gradient, such as productivity, a soil resource, or an environmental stress. Frequently, these same axes are associated with changes in species composition, yet few studies have asked whether shifts in the identity of competitors affect competitive intensity. We ask whether resources (nutrients, water), stressors (heavy metals, Ca:Mg ratio), productivity (aboveground biomass), or species identity (an ordination axis of plant community composition) were the best predictors of the intensity of competition in a heterogeneous grassland landscape that included multiple independent environmental gradients. The reproductive fitness of six annual plant species was measured in the presence and absence of competitors and used to calculate relative interaction intensity (RII). We found that RII was best predicted by community composition. Nutrient availability was also important, and a post hoc test showed that competitive intensity was best explained by the combined effects of community composition and nutrient availability. We argue that community composition may be the most effective metric for predicting competitive intensity in many ecosystems because it includes both the competitive effects of the local community and information about covarying environmental characteristics.     

Influence of fish size and sex on mercury/PCB concentration: importance for fish consumption advisories

Fish advisories for polychlorinated biphenyls (total-PCBs) and mercury are often given on a length-specific basis and fish sex is usually not considered. The relationship between concentration and length is well established for mercury, however its suitability for total-PCBs and the influence of sex over the large scale covered by most monitoring programs is not well known. Here we use what is perhaps the largest consistent sport fish contaminant dataset to evaluate the relationship between total-PCB/mercury and length and sex. We evaluated seven of the most commonly consumed fishes from the Canadian Great Lakes and two Ontario (Canada) inland lakes. For mercury, the relationship between concentration and length was significant (p<0.05) in most fish species and locations. For total-PCB, this relationship was also generally significant in Chinook salmon and lake trout, which are the species with the most advisories for this compound. In contrast, significant relationships were found less often for whitefish, northern pike, smallmouth bass, walleye, and especially yellow perch. However, mercury usually drives fish consumption advisories for these species. Overall, our results support the protocol of issuing contaminant advice on a length-specific basis in fish monitoring programs with reasonable confidence when at least a moderate number of samples over the natural size range of a species are included in the analysis. Sex differences were common for walleye (males>females, p<0.05) but not other species, suggesting that an equal number of male and female walleye should be used in deriving fish advisories for walleye.