Ecological and Economic Services Provided by Birds on Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Farms

Abstract: Coffee farms can support significant biodiversity, yet intensification of farming practices is degrading agricultural habitats and compromising ecosystem services such as biological pest control. The coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) is the world's primary coffee pest. Researchers have demonstrated that birds reduce insect abundance on coffee farms but have not documented avian control of the berry borer or quantified avian benefits to crop yield or farm income. We conducted a bird‐exclosure experiment on coffee farms in the Blue Mountains, Jamaica, to measure avian pest control of berry borers, identify potential predator species, associate predator abundance and borer reductions with vegetation complexity, and quantify resulting increases in coffee yield. Coffee plants excluded from foraging birds had significantly higher borer infestation, more borer broods, and greater berry damage than control plants. We identified 17 potential predator species (73% were wintering Neotropical migrants), and 3 primary species composed 67% of migrant detections. Average relative bird abundance and diversity and relative resident predator abundance increased with greater shade‐tree cover. Although migrant predators overall did not respond to vegetation complexity variables, the 3 primary species increased with proximity to noncoffee habitat patches. Lower infestation on control plants was correlated with higher total bird abundance, but not with predator abundance or vegetation complexity. Infestation of fruit was 1–14% lower on control plants, resulting in a greater quantity of saleable fruits that had a market value of US$44–$105/ha in 2005/2006. Landscape heterogeneity in this region may allow mobile predators to provide pest control broadly, despite localized farming intensities. These results provide the first evidence that birds control coffee berry borers and thus increase coffee yield and farm income, a potentially important conservation incentive for producers.     

Production,respiration and net ecosystem metabolism in U.S. estuaries

Primary production, respiration, and net ecosystem metabolism (NEM) are useful indicators of ecosystem level trophic conditions within estuaries. In this study, dissolved oxygen data collected every half hour between January 1996 to December 1998 by the National Estuarine Research Reserve System Wide Monitoring Program were used to calculate primary production, respiration, and net ecosystem metabolism. Data from two sites at each of 14 Reserves were analyzed. On average, three quarters of the data available could be used to calculate metabolic rates. Data from two of the Reserves were used to evaluate the assumption of homogeneity of water masses moving past the oxygen sensor. Temperature was the single most important factor controlling metabolic rates at individual sites, although salinity was also important at about half the sites. On an annual basis, respiration exceeded gross primary production demonstrating that all but 4 of the 28 sites were heterotrophic.     

潮滩生态特征及开发利用模式——以江苏大丰潮滩研究为例

根据自然地理、海洋动力、生物等特征!本文研究受大河作用的大丰潮滩地貌、沉积过程,讨论老黄河和长江对该潮滩发育的影响和潮滩生物群落空间分布及演变规律。本文评价了大丰潮滩开发利用现状,分析了它们的经济效益和环境效益,提出把目前受到强烈改造、过度利用的模式改变为顺应潮滩自然演变、有步骤合理开发利用潮滩的模式。     

长白山西坡风灾干扰区的恢复和保护

长白山西坡发生的灾害性风灾干扰,一方面给长白山自然保护区的森林资源造成巨大损失,同时也提出了如何加强保护和加速恢复的新课题。文中分析了风灾干扰区的更新格局和过程以及干扰后处理的有关问题,提出了从立地和景观水平促进更新恢复的保护措施     

我国水产养殖业对环境的影响及对策

综述了我国水产养殖业的自身污染、对水环境和生态系统的影响及其对景观环境质量的影响等，提出应在健全的法律法规指导下，建立完善的水产养殖环境管理系统，加强营养与饲料学研究，提高水产养殖饲料质量和投饵水平，同时强化环境工程技术在集约化水产养殖中的应用，以减少污染排放，使水产养殖走可持续发展的道路。     

微藻对水网藻在水体修复中的胁迫作用研究

通过单独与混合培养实验,结果显示在适宜营养水平下,水网藻对氮、磷有较强的富集吸收能力;而来自微藻生长竞争的压力会促使水网藻对营养物的生态幅变窄,满足其最佳生长所需要的PO43-P从0.085mg/L降低为0.024mg/L;并且其富集磷的能力也大为降低。在利用水网藻进行富营养化水体修复或净化水质时,这种生物之间的抑制现象必须引起重视。     

土地荒漠化的成因、危害及防治对策

土地荒漠化是指在干旱、半干旱和某些半湿润、湿润地区,由于气候变化和人类活动等各种因素所造成的土地退化,它使土地生物和经济生产潜力减少,甚至基本丧失.我国是全球荒漠化面积较大、分布较广、危害较严重的国家之一.近年来由于采取了一系列有效的治理措施,荒漠化和沙化整体扩展的趋势已得到初步遏制,但形势依然严峻.     

INTEGRATING HUMANS IN ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT USING MULTI‐CRITERIA DECISION MAKING1

ABSTRACT: The Ecosystem Management (EM) process belongs to the category of Multi‐Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problems. It requires appropriate decision support systems (DSS) where “all interested people” would be involved in the decision making process. Environmental values critical to EM, such as the biological diversity, health, productivity and sustainability, have to be studied, and play an important role in modeling the ecosystem functions; human values and preferences also influence decision making. Public participation in decision and policy making is one of the elements that differentiate EM from the traditional methods of management. Here, a methodology is presented on how to quantify human preferences in EM decision making. The case study of the National Park of River Nestos Delta and Lakes Vistonida and Ismarida in Greece, presented as an application of this methodology, shows that the direct involvement of the public, the quantification of its preferences and the decision maker's attitude provide a strong tool to the EM decision making process. Public preferences have been given certain weights and three MCDM methods, namely, the Expected Utility Method, Compromise Programming and the Analytic Hierarchy Process, have been used to select alternative management solutions that lead to the best configuration of the ecosystem and are also socially acceptable.     

SOUND POLICY OR SMOKE AND MIRRORS: DOES ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT MAKE SENSE?1

ABSTRACT: Protection of ecosystems as entities on the landscape has attracted a wide range of support. Ecosystem-based public policies are claimed to be more effective, efficient, and scientifically sound than other approaches to environmental and natural resource policy. The ecosystem concept was never intended to serve as a public policy guide or to determine landscape units for land management purposes. This paper critically examines the use of the ecosystem concept in public policy and land use management and analyzes the proposed rule to manage the National Forest System according to ecosystem management principles. The concept is found to be unsuitable as a basis for guiding environmental and natural resource public policies in general while the proposed rule to manage the national forests according to ecosystem management principles is shown to be incoherent.