The change of European landscapes: human-nature relationships, public attitudes towards rewilding, and the implications for landscape management in Switzerland

The rewilding of landscapes is one of the most important and intensively discussed landscape changes occurring in Switzerland, as the need for agricultural and forest land is decreasing. To ensure that decisions concerning future landscape management will be supported by the public, it is crucial to take public opinion into account. Hence the present study aims to assess the public attitudes towards nature and "rewilding" processes. In order to analyze these attitudes, we sent a standardized questionnaire to 4000 randomly selected households throughout Switzerland. A cluster analysis led to a typology with four different types of human-nature relationship ("nature lovers", "nature sympathizers", "nature-connected users" and "nature controllers") that each characterize a particular attitude towards nature. These human-nature relationship types differ in their attitudes towards rewilding as well, allowing a rough classification of the sample into wilderness opponents (51.1%) and wilderness proponents (49.9%). However both groups agree with regard to their opinion concerning the rules and regulations that should apply in future wilderness areas. The parallels of the human-nature relationship typology of this survey with other typologies, and the implications for further research are discussed. We can conclude that, due to the differences concerning the attitudes towards wilderness between the human-nature relationship types, between the rural and urban dwellers, and between the language regions, a uniform strategy for the designation and management of wilderness areas in Switzerland is not possible. We recommend that, when managing landscape change, all stakeholders are included in a participatory process and we advise a thorough assessment of the attitudes of the involved persons towards nature and rewilding at the start of such processes. Such an assessment would facilitate the identification of well-defined target groups allowing specific interventions and management actions customized to the needs and characteristics of each of these groups. In addition we see the commonalities between wilderness opponents and wilderness proponents concerning the rules in wilderness areas as an ideal starting point for a successful participatory process.     

Determining distribution coefficients for low cost adsorbents

As with other construction materials, coal fly ash contains trace metals that can leach into the natural environment. As part of a broader effort to encourage appropriate coal combustion product use in infrastructure applications (e.g., road construction, stabilization, and structural fill), this study evaluated traditional and low‐cost adsorbent alternatives for their capacity to attenuate trace metals. Batch sorption tests were used as a preliminary screen for a wide variety of low cost (e.g., steel byproducts, rubber dust, and compost) and innovative materials (e.g., kudzu, biofilm, and pond weed) as well as conventional materials (activated carbon, alumina, and zeolites). The removal rates were demonstrated in this study by observing the calculated distribution coefficient (K_d) which were determined using a program called MATLAB. Limestone and steel byproducts were found to be particularly effective with large K_d values of 15,740, 1,520, and 540 L kg^?1 for cadmium, chromium, and selenium and, for ladle refractory and mill scale, K_d values of 3,910, 670, and 1,760 L kg^?1 were observed. Among the three metals tested for this study, it was observed that most low cost and innovative materials removed cadmium quite efficiently; however, the removal of selenium and chromium depended on the substrate and prevailing pH. In general, these results suggest that alternative materials may have relevance in niche applications where leaching is a concern that can be addressed through enhanced attenuation capacity via blending or layering of adsorbents.     

Use of demand for and spatial flow of ecosystem services to identify priority areas

Policies and research increasingly focus on the protection of ecosystem services (ESs) through priority‐area conservation. Priority areas for ESs should be identified based on ES capacity and ES demand and account for the connections between areas of ES capacity and demand (flow) resulting in areas of unique demand–supply connections (flow zones). We tested ways to account for ES demand and flow zones to identify priority areas in the European Union. We mapped the capacity and demand of a global (carbon sequestration), a regional (flood regulation), and 3 local ESs (air quality, pollination, and urban leisure). We used Zonation software to identify priority areas for ESs based on 6 tests: with and without accounting for ES demand and 4 tests that accounted for the effect of ES flow zone. There was only 37.1% overlap between the 25% of priority areas that encompassed the most ESs with and without accounting for ES demand. The level of ESs maintained in the priority areas increased from 23.2% to 57.9% after accounting for ES demand, especially for ESs with a small flow zone. Accounting for flow zone had a small effect on the location of priority areas and level of ESs maintained but resulted in fewer flow zones without ES maintained relative to ignoring flow zones. Accounting for demand and flow zones enhanced representation and distribution of ESs with local to regional flow zones without large trade‐offs relative to the global ES. We found that ignoring ES demand led to the identification of priority areas in remote regions where benefits from ES capacity to society were small. Incorporating ESs in conservation planning should therefore always account for ES demand to identify an effective priority network for ESs.     

Proactive career behaviors and subjective career success: The moderating role of national culture

Although career proactivity has positive consequences for an individual's career success, studies mostly examine objective measures of success within single countries. This raises important questions about whether proactivity is equally beneficial for different aspects of subjective career success, and the extent to which these benefits extend across cultures. Drawing on Social Information Processing theory, we examined the relationship between proactive career behaviors and two aspects of subjective career success—financial success and work‐life balance—and the moderating role of national culture. We tested our hypotheses using multilevel analyses on a large‐scale sample of 11,892 employees from 22 countries covering nine of GLOBE's 10 cultural clusters. Although we found that proactive career behaviors were positively related to subjective financial success, this relationship was not significant for work‐life balance. Furthermore, career proactivity was relatively more important for subjective financial success in cultures with high in‐group collectivism, high power distance, and low uncertainty avoidance. For work‐life balance, career proactivity was relatively more important in cultures characterized by high in‐group collectivism and humane orientation. Our findings underline the need to treat subjective career success as a multidimensional construct and highlight the complex role of national culture in shaping the outcomes of career proactivity.     

Knowledge production and the science–policy relation in Dutch soil policy: results from a survey on perceived roles of organisations

In this paper, we present results from a survey on the perceived roles of organisations on the production and transfer of knowledge in Dutch soil policy. The results are interpreted by applying three theoretical perspectives to this relation: technical communities, epistemic communities and Mode 2 knowledge production. The main research results show that, since the perceived roles of organisations in some cases do not match the intended roles, or are inconsistent, communication of roles by organisations in the policy field is not effective. A second conclusion is that the respondents advocated an increase in interaction among policy levels and between knowledge production and policymaking. From the results, it seems that the Dutch soil policy field is on its way to a mode of socially robust knowledge production, where knowledge production, knowledge transfer and policymaking are integrated. In order to further this development, the paper provides recommendations on the further integration of science and policy concerning soil policy in the Netherlands.With respect to the methodology of survey research on the interaction between science and policy, the paper illustrates the importance of the professional identities of the respondents. The professional identities of the respondents are an important explanatory variable for the perceived roles of organisations.     

Consensus among females in their choice of males in the guppy Poecilia reticulata

We studied female guppies from two populations (Trinidad and Jemez Springs, New Mexico) to determine their mating preferences, the degree of consensus among females for particular male phenotypes, and the variation among females for the types of traits they prefer. We recorded the visual responses of 68 Trinidad and 10 Jemez females in paired male trials. The three sexually-selected male traits quantified were the area of orange color and iridescence on the body, and display behavior. Females from the Trinidad population agreed in their choice of males in three of the eight replicates, and this agreement was based on display rate rather than male color patterns. Females from the Jemez population showed no agreement in their preferences of males. Mating preferences of females varied both between populations and among females of a population. In both populations, female preferences were based primarily on courtship intensity and only secondarily on color pattern. However, females from both populations differed in the relative importance of orange color and iridescence. The fact that females differ in criteria for evaluating males has important implications for selection and maintenance of color polymorphisms and for the interactions among multiple secondary sexual traits of males in the guppy. Received: 5 December 1995/Accepted after revision: 7 June 1996     

Chlorinated hydrocarbons in sediments of the Elbe River and the Elbe Estuary

Eight sediment samples collected between Hamburg and Cuxhaven were analysed for organic micropollutants. Using three different methods the following compounds were determined: α-HCH, γ-HCH, HCB, PCB, DDT-family, pentachlorobenzene and octachlorostyrene.