Charismatic life: spectacular biodiversity and biophilic life writing

ABSTRACT

The essay uses the term “charismatic life” to describe representations of nature that emphasize vitality and vibrancy. Beginning with how life is reified when nature becomes spectacle, the essay discusses how a fetishism of life was part of the early structuring logic of biodiversity science in a way that undermined crafting other ethical and political responses to loss. When biodiversity emerged as a popular science concept in the 1980s, it was described as a scientific replacement for the sentimental attachment to charismatic megafauna that previously structured conservation priorities. But this essay argues, in a historicized reading of conservation biologist E.O. Wilson’s popular science memoir Biophilia [Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press] alongside the seminal edited collection Biodiversity [Wilson, E. O. (Ed.). (1988). Biodiversity. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences], that Wilson’s sentimental biopolitics renders the world as if a collection of living souvenirs – tokens by which to remember forms of life that will have been lost.     

Pesticide Environmental Accounting: a method for assessing the external costs of individual pesticide applications

The Pesticide Environmental Accounting (PEA) tool provides a monetary estimate of environmental and health impacts per hectare-application for any pesticide. The model combines the Environmental Impact Quotient method and a methodology for absolute estimates of external pesticide costs in UK, USA and Germany. For many countries resources are not available for intensive assessments of external pesticide costs. The model converts external costs of a pesticide in the UK, USA and Germany to Mediterranean countries. Economic and policy applications include estimating impacts of pesticide reduction policies or benefits from technologies replacing pesticides, such as sterile insect technique. The system integrates disparate data and approaches into a single logical method. The assumptions in the system provide transparency and consistency but at the cost of some specificity and precision, a reasonable trade-off for a method that provides both comparative estimates of pesticide impacts and area-based assessments of absolute impacts.     

Vegetation succession and lichen diversity on dry coastal calciumpoor dunes and the impact of management experiments

The negative impact of grass and moss encroachment on the botanical diversity of West European coastal dunes attracted increasing attention in the 1990s. This paper focuses on moss encroachment during primary succession in the xeroseries. Until the mid-1970s, vegetation types rich in species of the lichen generaCladonia andCladina were found on the fixed,Corynephorus canescens-dominated, so-called grey dunes all over the island of Terschelling, The Netherlands. In addition, species ofHypogymnia, Parmelia andUsnea, which usually grow on trees, occurred here terrestrially on moss carpets or bare sand. These vegetation types are still present on the Noordsvaarder, a nature reserve in the western part of the island. They occur on parts of seven dune ridges parallel to the coast and form a chronosequence in which age increases with distance from the sea. Our study found the highest lichen diversity on the second and third dune ridges in a stage of primary succession that can be assigned to theViolo-Corynephoretum. The changes from lichen-rich to moss-dominated stadia were significantly related to soil development and acidification in connection with the ageing of the dune soil. The superficial cutting of sods in moss-encroached vegetation appeared to be unsuccessful as a management technique for restoring the biodiversity of cryptogams. Our findings suggest that the best option for maintaining lichen vegetation in theViolo-Corynephoretum is the blow-in of sand with a subneutral or neutral pH from reactivated and natural blowouts or from foredunes, with increasing lime content respectively. Nomenclature: Van der Meijden (1990) for higher plants; Touw & Rubers (1989) for mosses; Purvis et al. (1992) for lichens. A set of lichen specimens has been deposited at the herbarium of Dr. A. Aptroot (C.B.S. Baarn) — herbarium code ABL (Taxon 44: 258).     

A Richer,Greener and Smaller Alpine World: Review and Projection of Warming-Induced Plant Cover Change in the Swedish Scandes

Alpine plant life is proliferating, biodiversity is on the rise and the mountain world appears more productive and inviting than ever. Upper range margin rise of trees and low-altitude (boreal) plant species, expansion of alpine grasslands and dwarf-shrub heaths are the modal biotic adjustments during the past few decades, after a century of substantial climate warming in the Swedish Scandes. This course of biotic landscape evolution has reached historical dimensions and broken a multi-millennial trend of plant cover retrogression, alpine tundra expansion, floristic and faunal impoverishment, all imposed by progressive and deterministic neoglacial climate cooling. Continued modest warming over the present century will likely be beneficial to alpine biodiversity, geoecological stability, resilience, sustainable reindeer husbandry and aesthetic landscape qualities. These aspects are highlighted by an integrative review of results from long-term monitoring of subalpine/alpine vegetation in the Swedish Scandes. This forms the basis for some tentative projections of landscape transformations in a potentially warmer future. Notably, these results and projections are not necessarily valid in other regions and differ in some respects from model predictions. Continued monitoring is mandatory as a basis for generation of more realistic vegetation and ecosystem models.     

大英县生物多样性保护规划布局研究

生物多样性保护是全球关注的热点话题。为更好地指导城市生物多样性保护规划,在这里以大英县为例,结合大英县生物多样性现状、经济发展状况及地理气候条件,依据生物多样性保护相关法律法规,对其生物（植物）多样性保护规划的布局作一探讨。     

Assessing and Prioritizing Ecological Communities for Monitoring in a Regional Habitat Conservation Plan

In nature reserves and habitat conservation areas, monitoring is required to determine if reserves are meeting their goals for preserving species, ecological communities, and ecosystems. Increasingly, reserves are established to protect multiple species and communities, each with their own conservation goals and objectives. As resources are always inadequate to monitor all components, criteria must be applied to prioritize both species and communities for monitoring and management. While methods for prioritizing species based on endangerment or risk have been established, approaches to prioritizing ecological communities for monitoring are not well developed, despite a long-standing emphasis on communities as target elements in reserve design. We established guidelines based on four criteria derived from basic principles of conservation and landscape ecology--extent, representativeness, fragmentation, and endangerment--to prioritize communities in the San Diego Multiple Species Conservation Plan (MSCP). The MSCP was one of the first multiple-species habitat conservation areas established in California, USA, and it has a complex spatial configuration because of the patterns of surrounding land use, which are largely urbanized. In this case study, high priority communities for monitoring include coastal sage scrub (high endangerment, underrepresented within the reserve relative to the region, and moderately fragmented), freshwater wetlands, and coastal habitats (both have high fragmentation, moderate endangerment and representativeness, and low areal extent). This framework may be useful to other conservation planners and land managers for prioritizing the most significant and at-risk communities for monitoring.     

Sustainability Assessment of Future Scenarios: Methodology and Application to Mountain Areas of Europe

BioScene (scenarios for reconciling biodiversity conservation with declining agriculture use in mountain areas in Europe) was a three-year project (2002–2005) funded by the European Union’s Fifth Framework Programme, and aimed to investigate the implications of agricultural restructuring and decline for biodiversity conservation in the mountain areas of Europe. The research took a case study approach to the analysis of the biodiversity processes and outcomes of different scenarios of agri-environmental change in six countries (France, Greece, Norway, Slovakia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) covering the major biogeographical regions of Europe. The project was coordinated by Imperial College London, and each study area had a multidisciplinary team including ecologists and social and economic experts, which sought a comprehensive understanding of the drivers for change and their implications for sustainability. A key component was the sustainability assessment (SA) of the alternative scenarios. This article discusses the development and application of the SA methodology developed for BioScene. While the methodology was objectives-led, it was also strongly grounded in baseline ecological and socio-economic data. This article also describes the engagement of stakeholder panels in each study area and the use of causal chain analysis for understanding the likely implications for land use and biodiversity of strategic drivers of change under alternative scenarios for agriculture and rural policy and for biodiversity management. Finally, this article draws conclusions for the application of SA more widely, its use with scenarios, and the benefits of stakeholder engagement in the SA process.     

Semi-natural habitats in the European boreal region: Caught in the socio-ecological extinction vortex?

We propose to consider semi-natural habitats—hotspots for biodiversity—being caught in a socio-ecological extinction vortex, similar to the phenomenon described for species threatened with extinction. These habitats are essentially socioecological systems, in which socioeconomic drivers are interlinked with ecological processes. We identify four highly interlinked and mutually reinforcing socio-economic processes, pertaining to the importance of semi-natural habitats for (i) agricultural production, (ii) policy, research and development; (iii) vocational education in the fields of agricultural sciences and (iv) public’s experiences with semi-natural habitats. Evidence from six countries in the boreal region demonstrates that recent slowing down or even reversal of two processes are insufficient to stop the extinction vortex phenomenon. We suggest research directions to ascertain the phenomenon, monitor its development and develop proactive actions to weaken the vortex. It is highly plausible that interventions directed at most, if not all, of the key vortex processes are needed to reverse the overall deteriorating trends of a socio-ecological system.     

高校校园绿化与城市生物多样性保护

阐述了高校校园绿化的重要作用，及其对城市生物多样性保护的重要意义；着重探讨了高校校园绿化与城市生物多样性保护的关系；并对现有高校校园绿化提出了广泛利用一切生物资源，丰富其生物多样性，突出高校绿化特色，加强园林树木的养护和管理，大力开发高校绿化教育功能等积极的生物多样性保护建议。     

花垣河软体动物多样性调查和水质评价

对湘西花垣河软体动物的种类以及多样性进行了调查,并用生物多样性指数对花垣河水质进行了评价.8个断面除S1、S3、S8断面的软体动物丰富度指数(DMA)与Shannon-Wiener多样性指数(H')分别介于0.2643～2.4937和0.6765-2.4123外,S2、S4、S5、S7、S8五个断面的软体动物丰富度和多样性指数均为零.研究结果表明,花垣河软体动物资源贫乏,其多样性指数表明,花垣河水体受到严重污染.