Ecological Monitoring for Assessing the State of the Nearshore and Open Waters of the Great Lakes

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement stipulates that the Governments of Canada and the United States are responsible for restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem. Due to varying mandates and areas of expertise, monitoring to assess progress towards this objective is conducted by a multitude of Canadian and U.S. federal and provincial/state agencies, in cooperation with academia and regional authorities. This paper highlights selected long-term monitoring programs and discusses a number of documented ecological changes that indicate the present state of the open and nearshore waters of the Great Lakes.     

Simultaneous extraction of bromide, chloride, fluoride and sulfate from soils, waste- and building materials

The simultaneous extraction of bromide, chloride, fluoride and sulfate was studied in soils, waste- and building materials. Acid, neutral and alkaline extractants were used; 0.01 mol l(-1) H(3)PO(4), milliQ-water and 0.01 mol l(-1) NaOH, respectively. The extracts were analysed by ion chromatography and ion selective electrode. Extracted concentrations were compared with the amount obtained by an alkaline smelt, as an approximation of the total extractable content. The results indicate that there is a significant difference in extraction behaviour between waste- and building materials and soils. Bromide and chloride were in general completely extracted from the former solid materials, but less than 10% and 50%, respectively, from soils. Fluoride is strongly bound in all investigated samples; less than 10% of the total content was extracted with any of the three extractants. The fraction of extracted sulfate varied between 4 and 87% of the total content, and was in general larger in waste- and building materials than in soils. Differences in extracted concentration between the 3 extractants occurred mainly for fluoride and sulfate. Extracted bromide was similar with all three extractants and extracted chloride showed differences for the various soil samples only. Increasing the NaOH concentration up to 1 mol l(-1) resulted mainly in an increase of extracted amount of fluoride and for soils also in extracted amounts of bromide and sulfate. Although, the results show that the composition of the solid material strongly influences the final pH of the extract and the extracted amount of investigated anions, application of Milli-Q water as an extractant might be a very fruitful option within the development of the Dutch Building Materials Decree.     

The evolution of leks through female choice: differential clustering and space utilization in six sympatric manakins

Summary The degree to which lekking and non-lekking male manakins select display sites in order to maximise proximity to females was examined by contrasting movements of females with male dispersion. Data on female visiting patterns, male courtship disruption, and mating skew were also collected over three successive breeding seasons. For the five lek-breeding species, female home-ranges were 3–7 times larger than those of adult males. Female movements were concentrated around leks, fruiting places and stream bathing sites. None of the females monitored by radio-tracking expanded her normal range in order to visit males on leks. On the contrary, feeding bouts of females frequently preceded a visit to potential mates at neighboring leks. Despite small sample sizes, significant correlations were found between female home-range size and male clustering (distances between neighboring leks and distances between neighboring males), as predicted by the female choice model and the hotspot model. Adult and immature male home-range sizes were not significantly correlated with male dispersion or female ranges. On the other hand, males and females of the only non-lekking species exhibited similar use of space and home-range size. Male settlement at sites with high levels of female traffic showed that the hotspot model is adequate to explain differences in male dispersion among sympatric lekking species. Comparisons with other studies suggest that apparent female choice could be overidden by past and present male-male interactions or female mate-comparison tactics. In fact, both the hotspot model and the attractiveness hypothesis appear to shape male dispersion on leks: males appear to settle under hotspot conditions with despotic rules generated through bias in female choice or male-male interference. It is proposed that the evolution of leks is ecologically motivated by the spatio-temporal distribution of trophic resources, initially leading to a dispersed male-advertisement polygyny. Following this, a foraging ecology that promotes high mobility by females and the magnetic effect of mating skew in particular males may have favored clustering on exploded leks. Later, the development of male-male interference and the increasing female home-range size could have led to the evolution of classical leks.     

Qualitative Stakeholder Analysis for the Development of Sustainable Monitoring Systems for Farm Animal Welfare

Continued concern for animal welfare may be alleviated when welfare would be monitored on farms. Monitoring can be characterized as an information system where various stakeholders periodically exchange relevant information. Stakeholders include producers, consumers, retailers, the government, scientists, and others. Valuating animal welfare in the animal-product market chain is regarded as a key challenge to further improve the welfare of farm animals and information on the welfare of animals must, therefore, be assessed objectively, for instance, through monitoring. Interviews with Dutch stakeholder representatives were conducted to identify their perceptions about the monitoring of animal welfare. Stakeholder perceptions were characterized in relation to the specific perspectives of each stakeholder. While producers tend to perceive welfare from a production point of view, consumers will use visual images derived from traditional farming and from the animals natural environments. Scientists perceptions of animal welfare are affected by the need to measure welfare with quantifiable parameters. Retailers and governments (policy makers) have views of welfare that are derived from their relationships with producers, consumers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and scientists. All interviewed stakeholder representatives stated that animal welfare is important. They varied in the extent to which they weighted economic considerations relative to concern for the animals welfare. Many stakeholders emphasized the importance of communication in making a monitoring system work. Overall, the perspectives for the development of a sustainable monitoring system that substantially improves farm animal welfare were assessed as being poor in the short term. However, a reliable system could be initiated under certain conditions, such as integrated chains and with influential and motivated stakeholders. A scheme is described with attention points for the development of sustainable monitoring systems for farm animal welfare in the long term.     

Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea and Hesperioidea) of Roxborough State Park, Colorado, USA: Baseline Inventory, Community Attributes, and Monitoring Plan

/ Roxborough State Park in Colorado's Front Range was established in 1975 following a history of cattle and sheep ranching by private ownership. Survey work conducted from 1979 to 1995 resulted in the documentation of 93 species of butterflies. A variety of factors are responsible for the composition of the butterfly community: (1) overgrazing and its effect on the presence or absence of specific butterfly host plants; (2) habitat differences resulting from topographical and geological features; and (3) ecological and historical biogeography. This study provides data on community sampling adequacy, along with estimates of effort needed to monitor trends in abundance by using a community self-similarity curve and power analysis. An annual monitoring plan is proposed to assess trends in community composition. The plan includes collection of presence/absence and abundance data for select butterflies based on natural history information.KEY WORDS: Butterfly communities; Grazing; Inventory; Monitoring; Natural history     

Integrated Assessment of Swiss GHG Mitigation Policies After 2012

The residential sector presents a great potential for greenhouse gases (GHG) mitigation. We perform an integrated assessment of different mitigation policies for Switzerland focusing on the residential sector. We analyze the case of pure incentive taxes and technical regulations. For our analysis, we have coupled a general equilibrium model with a Swiss residential energy model. We find that a progressive GHG tax of more than 200 USD2000/tCO₂ eq is necessary to reach a target of 50% reduction of GHG emissions in 2050. Finally, we also find that efficiency-based technical regulations provide limited additional abatement incentives.     

Predicting constant decay rates of coarse woody debris—A meta-analysis approach with a mixed model

The aim of the study is the estimation of decay rates for coarse woody debris in large forest regions. These rates, together with estimations of the amount of deadwood, can be used to calculate the release of carbon from that pool into the atmosphere. The model can be used for predictions of decomposition rate constants in a wide range of forest areas (e.g. in process based ecological models, reporting of GHG-emissions), as only easily available predictor variables were used in the regression.Based on an intensive literature research a meta-analysis on influencing factors controlling the constant decay rate of coarse woody debris was set up. The included studies differed significantly in the survey methods as well as in the geographical origin. 39 studies were collected, 30 appeared in North America and nine in Europe. Based on these studies 291 observations of the remaining fraction of coarse woody debris were collected.To quantify the effects that influence the decomposition rates a nonlinear mixed effects model was constructed. Only physiologically interpretable variables were included. With this approach it was possible to determine influencing effects from mean temperature in July, annual rainfall (as quadratic term), diameter of woody material and grouping into hardwoods or conifers and mass- or density loss were significant variables. The mixed effects model also allowed an estimation of the species-specific effects on the decomposition process. These random effects are given for 42 tree species. The degrees of freedom were used efficiently. The model explains 79.6% of the variance and is superior to a comparable multiple regression model.