Exceptional responders in conservation

Conservation operates within complex systems with incomplete knowledge of the system and the interventions utilized. This frequently results in the inability to find generally applicable methods to alleviate threats to Earth's vanishing wildlife. One approach used in medicine and the social sciences has been to develop a deeper understanding of positive outliers. Where such outliers share similar characteristics, they may be considered exceptional responders. We devised a 4‐step framework for identifying exceptional responders in conservation: identification of the study system, identification of the response structure, identification of the threshold for exceptionalism, and identification of commonalities among outliers. Evaluation of exceptional responders provides additional information that is often ignored in randomized controlled trials and before–after control‐intervention experiments. Interrogating the contextual factors that contribute to an exceptional outcome allow exceptional responders to become valuable pieces of information leading to unexpected discoveries and novel hypotheses.     

Strategic pollution control and capital tax competition

In an analytical model of symmetric countries with mobile capital and local or transboundary pollution we investigate whether competition in emissions taxes (or emissions caps) and capital taxes leads to efficient outcomes when governments act strategically. When they have capital taxes and emissions caps at their disposal, they refrain from taxing capital and set their caps inefficiently lax [efficient] for transboundary [local] pollution. When they have the option to tax capital and emissions, capital is subsidized [untaxed] and emissions taxes are inefficiently low [efficient] for transboundary [local] pollution. In case of transboundary pollution emissions caps are Pareto-superior to emissions taxes. That holds regardless of whether the environmental policy is applied as stand-alone policy or combined with capital tax competition.     

Identifying important species that amplify or mitigate the interactive effects of human impacts on marine food webs

Some species may have a larger role than others in the transfer of complex effects of multiple human stressors, such as changes in biomass, through marine food webs. We devised a novel approach to identify such species. We constructed annual interaction-effect networks (IENs) of the simulated changes in biomass between species of the southeastern Australian marine system. Each annual IEN was composed of the species linked by either an additive (sum of the individual stressor response), synergistic (lower biomass compared with additive effects), or antagonistic (greater biomass compared with additive effects) response to the interaction effect of ocean warming, ocean acidification, and fisheries. Structurally, over the simulation period, the number of species and links in the synergistic IENs increased and the network structure became more stable. The stability of the antagonistic IENs decreased and became more vulnerable to the loss of species. In contrast, there was no change in the structural attributes of species linked by an additive response. Using indices common in food-web and network theory, we identified the species in each IEN for which a change in biomass from stressor effects would disproportionately affect the biomass of other species via direct and indirect local, intermediate, and global predator–prey feeding interactions. Knowing the species that transfer the most synergistic or antagonistic responses in a food-web may inform conservation under increasing multiple-stressor impacts.     

Fracking and indoor radon: Spurious correlation or cause for concern?

Unconventional gas development (fracking) is controversial in large part because of environmental and health concerns. We consider the concern that fracking leads to more carcinogenic radon gas in nearby buildings. Our empirical approach estimates treatment effects where treatment is continuous (number of wells) and varies in intensity (distance to the wells) and in duration of exposure (the time since wells were drilled). The approach allows any potential effect of fracking to vary non-linearly with the distance between the well and test site and, holding distance constant, the time between drilling and testing. Our main model gives a precisely estimated zero effect of wells on radon concentrations in nearby buildings. It also reveals that energy firms drilled wells in places with higher pre-existing radon levels, which, if ignored, makes it appear that wells within 2 km increase indoor radon but wells 3 km away do not. This explains the finding of a prior study showing a link between drilling and indoor radon.     

Do lower electricity storage costs reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

In the electricity sector, innovation in large-scale storage is anticipated to reduce costs and improve performance. The effect on greenhouse gas emissions of lower storage costs depends on the interactions between storage and the entire grid. The literature has disagreed on the role of storage in reducing emissions. In this paper we present a stylized model, which suggests that the effect of storage costs on emissions depends on the supply responsiveness of both fossil and renewable generators. Under common conditions in the United States, lower storage costs are more likely to reduce emissions when wind investment responds to equilibrium electricity prices and when solar investment does not. Simulations of a computational model of grid investment and operation confirm these intuitions. Moreover, because of its effect on coal and natural gas–fired supply responsiveness, introducing a carbon dioxide emissions price may increase the likelihood that lower storage costs reduce emissions.     

The time dimension and lithium resource constraints for electric vehicles

The availability of lithium resources for a transition to electric vehicles is a vital topic for transport technology strategy. Recent debate seems to have concluded that there is ‘sufficient’ lithium available, but for the purposes of a technological transition, time matters. It is not simply the quantity of resource that is relevant—the flow rate into society may be a much more difficult constraint and transient events have disrupted heavily concentrated material supply chains in the past. Furthermore, critical assumptions such as the presence of recycling systems may not be justified without policy support. Complacency is therefore not an appropriate stance for a robust evaluation of material risks in the case of lithium.     

Value Plurality among Conservation Professionals

Abstract: Debate on the values that underpin conservation science is rarely based on empirical analysis of the values conservation professionals actually hold. We used Q methodology to investigate the values held by international conservation professionals who attended the annual Student Conference in Conservation Science at the University of Cambridge (U.K.) in 2008 and 2009. The methodology offers a quantitative means of examining human subjectivity. It differs from standard opinion surveys in that individual respondents record the way they feel about statements relative to other statements, which forces them to focus their attention on the issues they believe are most important. The analysis extracts the diverse viewpoints of the respondents, and factor analysis is used to reduce the viewpoints to a smaller set of factors that reflect shared ways of thinking. The junior conservation professionals attending the conference did not share a unifying set of core values; rather, they held a complex series of ideas and a plurality of opinions about conservation and how it should be pursued. This diversity of values empirically challenges recent proposals for conservation professionals to unite behind a single philosophy. Attempts to forge an artificial consensus may be counterproductive to the overall goals conservation professionals are pursuing.     

模拟氮沉降对北亚热带落叶阔叶林土壤呼吸的影响

于2008年4月～2009年4月在龙王山北亚热带落叶阔叶林地进行模拟氮沉降试验,利用静态箱-气相色谱法测定土壤呼吸,研究氮沉降增加对森林土壤呼吸的影响.结果表明,氮沉降没改变土壤呼吸的季节性变化规律和日变化规律.与对照(CK)相比,低氮(TL)、中氮(TM)和高氮(TH)处理使森林土壤年平均呼吸速率分别降低了8.51%、9.74%和11.24%,使日平均呼吸速率分别降低了4.42%、11.09%和12.17%.森林土壤呼吸与土壤温度存在极显著的指数关系(p0.01),CK、TL、TM和TH的土壤呼吸温度敏感系数(Q10)分别为2.53、3.22、2.64和2.92,氮沉降提高了林地土壤呼吸的温度敏感系数.本研究表明,氮沉降显著降低了森林土壤呼吸,但提高了土壤呼吸的温度敏感性.     

The oil industry along the Atlantic coast of Cameroon: Assessing impacts and possible solutions

While the oil industry along the Atlantic coast of Cameroon has made important contributions to the national economy, this has been accompanied with adverse environmental impacts. There has been significant pollution from oil drilling, refinery waste, oil spillage, gas and flaring. After discussing these impacts, this paper argues that prevailing regulations are inadequate and need overhauling. It proposes that cleaner production requires:

(i)

specific laws to protect dwellers in the neighbourhood of oil refineries, filling stations, service stations and pipelines;     

Individual-based modelling of fishermen search behaviour with neural networks and reinforcement learning

A model to mimic the search behaviour of fishermen is built with two neural networks to cope with two separate decision-making processes in fishing activities. One neural network deals with decisions to stay or move to new fishing grounds and the other is constructed for the purpose of finding prey within the fishing areas. Some similarities with the behaviour of real fishermen are found: concentrated local search once a prey has been located to increase the probability of remaining near a prey patch and the straightforward movement to other fishing grounds. The artificial fisherman prefers areas near the port when conditions in different fishing grounds are similar or when there is high uncertainty in its world. In the latter case a reluctance to navigate to other areas is observed. The artificial fisherman selects areas with higher concentration of prey, even if they are far from the port of departure, unless a high uncertainty is related to the fishing ground. Connected areas are preferred and followed in orderly fashion if a higher catch is expected. The observed behaviour of the artificial fisherman in uncertain scenarios can be described as a risk-averse attitude. The approach seems appropriate for an individual-based modelling of fishery systems, focusing on the learning and adaptive characteristics of fishermen and on interactions that take place at a fine scale.