The meaning of the National Environmental Policy Act within the U.S. Forest Service

We conducted a survey of 3321 Forest Service employees involved in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) followed by five focus groups to investigate agency views of the purpose of agency NEPA processes and their appropriate measures of success. Results suggest the lack of a unified critical task for Forest Service NEPA processes and that employees' functions relevant to NEPA influence their views of its meaning. Compared to other agency personnel, members of interdisciplinary teams who carry out most day-to-day NEPA-related tasks placed greater emphasis on minimizing negative environmental and social impacts, satisfying multiple stakeholders and avoiding litigation and appeals. Line officers, who typically serve as the decision makers following NEPA processes, placed greatest emphasis on efficient implementation and least emphasis on minimizing impacts. Advisory personnel placed greatest emphasis on effective disclosure of analyses and decision-making. We discuss the structural origins of these differences as well as their implications.     

Understanding the effects of different social data on selecting priority conservation areas

Conservation success is contingent on assessing social and environmental factors so that cost‐effective implementation of strategies and actions can be placed in a broad social–ecological context. Until now, the focus has been on how to include spatially explicit social data in conservation planning, whereas the value of different kinds of social data has received limited attention. In a regional systematic conservation planning case study in Australia, we examined the spatial concurrence of a range of spatially explicit social values and land‐use preferences collected using a public participation geographic information system and biological data. We used Zonation to integrate the social data with the biological data in a series of spatial‐prioritization scenarios to determine the effect of the different types of social data on spatial prioritization compared with biological data alone. The type of social data (i.e., conservation opportunities or constraints) significantly affected spatial prioritization outcomes. The integration of social values and land‐use preferences under different scenarios was highly variable and generated spatial prioritizations 1.2–51% different from those based on biological data alone. The inclusion of conservation‐compatible values and preferences added relatively few new areas to conservation priorities, whereas including noncompatible economic values and development preferences as costs significantly changed conservation priority areas (48.2% and 47.4%, respectively). Based on our results, a multifaceted conservation prioritization approach that combines spatially explicit social data with biological data can help conservation planners identify the type of social data to collect for more effective and feasible conservation actions.     

Cadmium accumulation and tolerance of two castor cultivars in relation to antioxidant systems

To investigate the effects of Cd on tolerance and antioxidant activities of castor, two different castor（Ricinus communis L.） cultivars（Zibo No. 5 and Zibo No. 8） were used for a hydroponic experiment（0, 1 and 2 mg/L Cd） and a pot experiment using Cd-contaminated soil（34 mg/kg） with the addition of ethylenedinitrilotetraacetic acid（EDTA）. The results indicated that there were significant differences between the two cultivars with respect to Cd uptake in shoots（113–248 mg/kg for Zibo No. 5 and 130–288 mg/kg Zibo No. 8）, biomass tolerance indexes（64.9%–74.6% for Zibo No. 5 and 80.1%–90.9% for Zibo No. 8） in the hydroponic experiment and survival rates（0% for Zibo No. 5 and 100% for Zibo No. 8）determined by the addition of EDTA in the pot experiment, suggesting that Zibo No. 8 has higher tolerance than Zibo No. 5. Moreover, the castor cultivars have low bioconcentration factors（4.80% for Zibo No. 5 and 5.43% for Zibo No. 8） and low translocation factors（〈1%）.Consequently, Zibo No. 8 can participate in Cd phytostabilization in highly Cd-polluted areas. The results indicated that glutathione（GSH） as a non-enzymatic antioxidant, and antioxidant enzymes including superoxide dismutase（SOD）, catalase（CAT） and guaiacol peroxidase（GPX）, were cultivar- and dose-dependent. The higher tolerance of Zibo No. 8compared with Zibo No. 5 can be attributed to the higher GSH levels in the root and higher GPX activity in the leaf.     

Metacommunity influences on community richness at multiple spatial scales: a microcosm experiment

Large-scale processes are known to be important for patterns of species richness, yet the ways in which local and larger scale processes interact is not clear. I used metacommunities consisting of five interconnected microbial aquatic communities to examine the manner in which processes at different scales affect local and metacommunity richness. Specifically, I manipulated the potential dispersal rate, whether dispersal was localized or global, and variation in initial community composition. A repeated-measures ANOVA showed that a low dispersal rate and intermediate distance dispersal enhanced local richness. Initial assembly variation had no effect on local richness, while a lack of dispersal or global dispersal reduced local richness. At the metacommunity scale, richness was enhanced throughout the time course of the experiment by initial compositional variation and was reduced by high or global dispersal. The effects of dispersal were contingent on the presence of initial compositional variation. The treatments also affected individual species occupancy patterns, with some benefiting from large-scale processes and others being adversely impacted. These results indicate that the effects of dispersal on species richness have a complex relationship with scale and are not solely divisible into "regional" vs. "local" scales. Finally, predictions of the manner in which dispersal rate structures communities appear dependent upon species compositional variation among communities.