Sustaining the Gains Made in Ecological Restoration: Case Study Collingwood Harbour, Ontario

As part of the commitments made by the governments of Canada and the United States in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, Remedial Action Plans (RAPs) are being developed and implemented at Great Lakes Areas of Concern. The Areas of Concern are specific places around the Great Lakes basin ecosystem where environmental quality is degraded to the point that certain beneficial uses (the ability of fish, wildlife and humans to thrive) are impaired. According to the United States and Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1987, the federal governments, in cooperation with state and provincial governments, are to ensure the public is consulted throughout the development and implementation of the RAPs. While not explicit in the Agreement, it is logical to posit that given the effort and investment in environmental improvements, community capacity to sustain the recovery of beneficial uses beyond the life of the RAP should be a product of the RAP. This report examines a case study to test the hypothesis that public ownership of the RAP process can result in the development of community capacity to sustain environmental recovery. The question is, were the principles of the RAP, 10 years after delisting, taken into account to ensure sustainability of growth along the waterfront and within the Town? To arrive at the answer it is important to explore the approach used in the Collingwood Harbour RAP process, and concepts and principles of sustainable cities and towns. This paper provides evidence that such principles are being applied in Collingwood and were nurtured during the development and implementation of the RAP.     

To vote or not to vote: abstaining from voting in union representation elections

We conducted two studies addressing abstaining from voting in union representation elections. In Study 1 of a faculty representation election, we showed that compared to voters abstainers possessed less extreme work and union attitudes, believed less in the ability of their vote to affect the election outcomes, and were less involved in the election (e.g., less interested, felt less responsibility to vote). To assess the practical utility of these findings, Study 2 used vignettes in a 2 (traditional bread‐and‐butter issues) × 2 (emerging issues related to fairness) × 2 (voting instrumentality) × 2 (responsibility to vote) experimental manipulation. Results showed that the likelihood of abstaining is reduced when efforts to emphasize the responsibility to vote are presented together with information on both traditional and emerging issues. The two studies show why people abstain from voting in union representation elections, and suggest how abstaining might be reduced. Conceptual implications, practical interventions and research directions raised by the two studies are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Variation in litter size: a test of hypotheses in Richardson's ground squirrels

We studied litter size variation in a population of Richardson's ground squirrels (Spermophilus richardsonii) in Alberta, Canada, from 1987 to 2004. Litter size at first emergence of juveniles from the natal burrow ranged from 1 to 14; the most common litter sizes, collectively accounting for 41.0% of 999 litters, were 6 and 7. The number of offspring surviving to adulthood (attained on emergence from hibernation as yearlings) increased with increasing litter size, a result that was not predicted by Lack's "optimal litter size" hypothesis, Mountford's "cliff-edge" effect, or the "bad-years" effect. Contrary to the negative effects predicted by the "cost of reproduction" hypothesis, litter size had no significant influence on survival of mothers to the subsequent year or on the size of the subsequent litter. Rather, our results best fit the predictions of the "individual optimization" hypothesis, which suggests that litter size is determined by the body condition and environmental circumstances of each mother. Supporting this hypothesis, survival of individual offspring was not significantly associated with litter size. Additionally, year-to-year changes in maternal body mass at mating were positively associated with concurrent changes in litter size (r = 0.56), suggesting that litter size depends on the body condition of the mother. Because the mean number of recruits to adulthood increased as litter size increased (r2 = 0.96) and litter size increased with maternal condition, offspring productivity was greater for mothers in better body condition.     

Effects of crop diversification and low pesticide inputs on bird populations on arable land

This 6-year experimental study measured the response of bird populations and abundance to combinations of mixed cropping and low pesticide regimes associated with a commercial crop rotation. The results show a rapid and sustained population increase among a wide range of bird species, in contrast to local regional trends for the same species. Seventy percent of the increase occurred within the first 3 years of the experiment, with species of high conservation concern, and those monitored as environmental indicators on lowland farmland in the UK, increasing on average, by 30% and 20% respectively (reaching respective peaks of 44% and 33% after 4 years). For some individual species, the increase was higher still, i.e., 300% (1–4 pairs) for grey partridge (Perdix perdix) and 46% (13–19 pairs) for skylarks (Alauda arvensis) in peak years. The results demonstrate that bird species typical of lowland arable farmland in the UK are responsive to suitable farm-scale changes in habitat and food provision (roughly, manipulation within less than 1-km²). They show that the carrying capacity of modern, commercially viable, arable farmland can be increased significantly for birds, in this case, mainly by using crops mosaics to create habitats alongside the appropriate use of herbicides on non-cropped habitats.     

Spatial predictions of phylogenetic diversity in conservation decision making

Considering genetic relatedness among species has long been argued as an important step toward measuring biological diversity more accurately, rather than relying solely on species richness. Some researchers have correlated measures of phylogenetic diversity and species richness across a series of sites and suggest that values of phylogenetic diversity do not differ enough from those of species richness to justify their inclusion in conservation planning. We compared predictions of species richness and 10 measures of phylogenetic diversity by creating distribution models for 168 individual species of a species-rich plant family, the Cape Proteaceae. When we used average amounts of land set aside for conservation to compare areas selected on the basis of species richness with areas selected on the basis of phylogenetic diversity, correlations between species richness and different measures of phylogenetic diversity varied considerably. Correlations between species richness and measures that were based on the length of phylogenetic tree branches and tree shape were weaker than those that were based on tree shape alone. Elevation explained up to 31% of the segregation of species rich versus phylogenetically rich areas. Given these results, the increased availability of molecular data, and the known ecological effect of phylogenetically rich communities, consideration of phylogenetic diversity in conservation decision making may be feasible and informative.