Spatio-temporal change of ecosystem services as a key to understand natural resource utilization in Southern Chile

Regional Environmental Change - The understanding of how ecosystem services are distributed across the landscape and their change over time provides key information to manage multi-functional...     

The free energy and information embodied in the amino acid chains of organisms

It is generally accepted as a useful and workable hypothesis that when an ecosystem receives an inflow of exergy (energy that can do work) it will utilize this flow of exergy to move as far away from thermodynamic equilibrium as possible after the exergy (energy) for maintenance has been covered. If more combinations of system components including organisms are offered, the combination of components and processes that will bring the system most away from thermodynamic equilibrium will win.The amino acid sequences of the proteins e.g. enzymes determine and control the life processes of the organisms and may be viewed as information sensu lato. The free energy of oxidation of the amino acids and the peptide bonds of the cell enzymes expresses therefore the exergy content, eco-exergy or work capacity that the information contributes to “moving further away from thermodynamic equilibrium”. In this paper eco-exergy is calculated and plotted versus the β-values (a measure of the information contained in the genome) for different organisms. The eco-exergy density was previously (see [J?rgensen et al., 1995] and [J?rgensen et al., 2005]) proposed to be calculated as the summation of the product of the β-values representing the information of the genome multiplied by the concentrations of the respective ecosystem components. This analysis shows a strong correlation between the β-values and free energy released when oxidizing the enzymes. The β-values can therefore be assumed to represent the free energy that the organisms have invested in genetic information.     

How Can We Make Progress with Decision Support Systems in Landscape and River Basin Management? Lessons Learned from a Comparative Analysis of Four Different Decision Support Systems

This article analyses the benefits and shortcomings of the recently developed decision support systems (DSS) FLUMAGIS, Elbe-DSS, CatchMODS, and MedAction. The analysis elaborates on the following aspects: (i) application area/decision problem, (ii) stakeholder interaction/users involved, (iii) structure of DSS/model structure, (iv) usage of the DSS, and finally (v) most important shortcomings. On the basis of this analysis, we formulate four criteria that we consider essential for the successful use of DSS in landscape and river basin management. The criteria relate to (i) system quality, (ii) user support and user training, (iii) perceived usefulness and (iv) user satisfaction. We can show that the availability of tools and technologies for DSS in landscape and river basin management is good to excellent. However, our investigations indicate that several problems have to be tackled. First of all, data availability and homogenisation, uncertainty analysis and uncertainty propagation and problems with model integration require further attention. Furthermore, the appropriate and methodological stakeholder interaction and the definition of ‘what end-users really need and want’ have been documented as general shortcomings of all four examples of DSS. Thus, we propose an iterative development process that enables social learning of the different groups involved in the development process, because it is easier to design a DSS for a group of stakeholders who actively participate in an iterative process. We also identify two important lines of further development in DSS: the use of interactive visualization tools and the methodology of optimization to inform scenario elaboration and evaluate trade-offs among environmental measures and management alternatives.     

Temperature and pressure tolerance of larvae of Crepidula fornicata suggest thermal limitation of bathymetric range

The extant deep-sea fauna is thought to result from recolonisation of this environment by shallow-water organisms following climate-driven mass extinctions. Planktonic larval tolerance to high pressure is considered an important preadaptation for successful deep-sea invasion. In this study, the pressure and temperature tolerance of a species without any known confamilial deep-sea relative were assessed for the first time. Early- and late-veliger larvae of the shallow-water species Crepidula fornicata were subjected to a temperature/hydrostatic pressure regime from 5 to 25 °C and from 0.1 to 40 MPa. Although early and late veliger survived pressures equivalent to 2,000 m water depth or greater at all temperatures, decreased larval activity indicated significant sublethal temperature and pressure effects. Reduced larval activity of early veliger at low temperatures suggests that the bathymetric range of this species may be thermally constrained. A mechanistic model is proposed to explain the emerging pattern of ontogenetic shifts in pressure tolerance of shallow-water benthic invertebrates.