Climate-Smart Design for Ecosystem Management: A Test Application for Coral Reefs

Environmental Management - The interactive and cumulative impacts of climate change on natural resources such as coral reefs present numerous challenges for conservation planning and management....     

Dwelling in the biosphere: exploring an embodied human–environment connection in resilience thinking

Resilience has emerged as a prominent paradigm for interpreting and shaping human–environment connections in the context of global environmental change. Resilience emphasizes dynamic spatial and temporal change in social–ecological systems where humans are inextricably interwoven with the environment. While influential, resilience thinking has been critiqued for an under-theorized framing of socio-cultural dynamics. In this paper, we examine how the resilience concepts of planetary boundaries and reconnecting to the biosphere frame human–environment connection in terms of mental representations and biophysical realities. We argue that focusing solely on mental reconnection limits further integration between the social and the ecological, thus countering a foundational commitment in resilience thinking to social–ecological interconnectedness. To address this susceptibility we use Tim Ingold’s ‘dwelling perspective’ to outline an embodied form of human–environment (re)connection. Through dwelling, connections are not solely produced in the mind, but through the ongoing interactivity of mind, body and environment through time. Using this perspective, we position the biosphere as an assemblage that is constantly in the making through the active cohabitation of humans and nonhumans. To illustrate insights that may emerge from this perspective we bring an embodied connection to earth stewardship, given its growing popularity for forging local to global sustainability transformations.     

Who counts,what counts: representation and accountability in water governance in the Upper Comoé sub‐basin,Burkina Faso

This article examines the unfolding of integrated water resource management (IWRM) reforms in southwest Burkina Faso, where water resources are subject to conflicting claims by a diversity of users. We first describe the establishment a local water user committee, showing how choices regarding composition and operations grant varying levels of recognition to different stakeholders. We then discuss the implications for key dimensions of decentralized governance, namely representation and accountability. In particular we focus on: (a) how the interplay of political agendas and policy disconnects shapes the committee's viability and credibility and (b) how tensions between techno‐scientific and local knowledge affect participation and transparency. We argue that in contexts defined by contentious politics and neo‐patrimonial practices, representativeness is better ensured by the direct inclusion of user groups rather than elected officials. Though limited discretionary power, information access, and technical capabilities of committee members inhibit accountability, rural producers uphold their claims through social mobilization and reliance on local knowledge. Recognizing the opportunities offered by the country's recent democratic turn, we formulate recommendations aimed at addressing structural drivers and enabling citizen agency in decentralized water governance. At the same time, further research is needed on local people's understandings of representation and accountability, to ensure that they are involved in institutional design and practices in ways that affirm what they value and what they know.     

Measuring climate for work group innovation: development and validation of the team climate inventory

This paper reports the development and psychometric validation of a multi-dimensional measure of facet-specific climate for innovation within groups at work: the Team Climate Inventory (TCI). Brief reviews of the organizational climate and work group innovation literatures are presented initially, and the need for measures of facet-specific climate at the level of the proximal work group asserted. The four-factor theory of facet-specific climate for innovation, which was derived from these reviews, is described, and the procedures used to operationalize this model into the original version measure described. Data attesting to underlying factor structure, internal homogeneity, predictive validity and factor replicability across groups of the summarized measure are presented. An initial sample of 155 individuals from 27 hospital management teams provided data for the exploratory factor analysis of this measure. Responses from 121 further groups in four occupations (35 primary health care teams, 42 social services teams, 20 psychiatric teams and 24 oil company teams; total N=971) were used to apply confirmatory factor analysis techniques. This five-factor, 38-item summarized version demonstrates robust psychometric properties, with acceptable levels of reliability and validity. Potential applications of this measure are described and the implication of these findings for the measurement of proximal work group climate are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An experimental investigation of the bioacoustics of cowbird song

Summary Female cowbirds (Molothrus ater ater), maintained in isolation from males during the breeding season, respond to the playback of male song with copulatory postures. They respond to some songs more than to others. Cowbird song potency can thus be operationally defined by the proportion of copulatory postures a song elicits across multiple playbacks. The purpose of the present study was to explore whether song potency changes with distance in the field. No field recordings elicited high levels of responding by the females. When songs of known high potency are systematically degraded, the results indicate that female cowbirds are sensitive to small changes in signal to noise ratio and to atmospheric attenuation. The data suggest that cowbird song potency degrades very rapidly with transmission distance in the field.     

Integrated manufacturing,empowerment, and company performance

There is controversy over whether integrated manufacturing (IM), comprising advanced manufacturing technology, just‐in‐time inventory control and total quality management, empowers or deskills shop floor work. Moreover, both IM and empowerment are promoted on the assumption that they enhance competitiveness. We examine these issues in a study of 80 manufacturing companies. The extent of use of IM was positively associated with empowerment (i.e., job enrichment and employee skill enhancement), but, with the minor exception of AMT, bore little relationship with subsequent company performance. In contrast, the extent of empowerment within companies predicted the subsequent level of company performance controlling for prior performance, with the effect on productivity mediating that on profit. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Satellite tagging of blue sharks (Prionace glauca) and other pelagic sharks off eastern Australia: depth behaviour, temperature experience and movements

Satellite telemetry was used to study the movements and behaviour of ten blue sharks and one individual each of shortfin mako, thresher and bigeye thresher off eastern Australia. The tracks showed latitudinal movements of up to 1,900 km, but none of the sharks travelled away from the eastern Australian region. Tracking periods did not exceed 177 days. All species showed oscillatory dive behaviour between the surface layers to as deep as 560–1,000 m. Blue sharks spent 35–58% of their time in <50 m depths and 10–16% of their time in >300 m. Of these four species, the bigeye thresher spent the least time in the surface layers and the most time at >300 m depth. All four species showed clear diel behaviour generally occupying shallower depths at night than during the day. Blue sharks were mainly in 17.5–20.0°C water, while the thresher sharks showed a more bimodal temperature distribution.     

Compartmentalization of metals within the diverse colloidal matrices comprising activated sludge microbial flocs

Activated sludge floc from a wastewater treatment system was characterized, with regard to principal structural, chemical, and microbiological components and properties, in relation to contaminant-colloid associations and settling. Multiscale analytical microscopies, in conjunction with multimethod sample preparations, were used correlatively to characterize diverse colloidal matrices within microbial floc. Transmission electron microscopy, in conjunction with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), revealed specific associations of contaminant heavy metals with individual bacterial cells and with extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). Floc structure was mapped from the level of gross morphology down to the nano-scale, and flocs were described with respect to settling properties, size, shape, density, porosity, bound water content, and EPS chemical composition; gross surface properties were also measured for correlation with principal floc features. Compartmentalization results based on 171 EDS analyses and representative high-resolution images showed that nano-scale agglomerations of (i) silver (100%) and (ii) zinc (91%) were confined almost entirely to EPS matrices while (iii) Pb (100%) was confined to intracellular granules and (iv) aluminum was partitioned between EPS matrices (41%) and intracellular matrices (59%). The results suggest that engineered changes in microbial physiology and/or in macromolecular EPS composition may influence metal removal efficiencies.