Sustainability and comanagement of subsistence hunting in an indigenous reserve in Guyana

Although hunting is a key component of subsistence strategies of many Amazonians, it is also one of the greatest threats to wildlife. Because indigenous reserves comprise over 20% of Amazonia, effective conservation often requires that conservation professionals work closely with indigenous groups to manage resource use. We used hunter‐generated harvesting data in spatially explicit biodemographic models to assess the sustainability of subsistence hunting of indigenous Waiwai in Guyana. We collected data through a hunter self‐monitoring program, systematic follows of hunters, and semistructured interviews. We used these data to predict future densities of 2 indicator species, spider monkeys (Ateles paniscus) and bearded sakis (Chiropotes sagulatus), under different scenarios of human population expansion and changing hunting technology. We used encounter rates from transect surveys and hunter catch‐per‐unit effort (CPUE) to validate model predictions. Paca (Cuniculus paca) (198 /year), Currosaw (Crax alector) (168), and spider monkey (117) were the most frequently harvested species. Predicted densities of spider monkeys were statistically indistinguishable from empirically derived transect data (Kolmogorov–Smirnov D = 0.67, p = 0.759) and CPUE (D = 0.32, p = 1.000), demonstrating the robustness of model predictions. Ateles paniscus and C. sagulatus were predicted to be extirpated from <13% of the Waiwai reserve in 20 years, even under the most intensive hunting scenarios. Our results suggest Waiwai hunting is currently sustainable, primarily due to their low population density and use of bow and arrow. Continual monitoring is necessary, however, particularly if human population increases are accompanied by a switch to shotgun‐only hunting. We suggest that hunter self‐monitoring and biodemographic modeling can be used effectively in a comanagement approach in which indigenous parabiologists continuously provide hunting data that is then used to update model parameters and validate model predictions.     

Network analysis of a stakeholder community combatting illegal wildlife trade

The illegal wildlife trade has emerged as a growing and urgent environmental issue. Stakeholders involved in the efforts to curb wildlife trafficking include nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academia, and state government and enforcement bodies. The extent to which these stakeholders work and communicate among each other is fundamental to effectively combatting illicit trade. Using the United Kingdom as a case study, we used a social network analysis and semistructured interviews of stakeholders to assess communication relationships in the counter wildlife trafficking community. The NGOs consistently occupied 4 of the 5 most central positions in the generated networks, whereas academic institutions routinely occupied 4 of the 5 most peripheral positions. However, NGOs were the least diverse in their communication practices compared with the other stakeholder groups. Stakeholders identified personal relationships as the most important aspect of functioning communication. Participant insights also showed that stakeholder-specific variables (e.g., ethical and confidentiality concerns), competition, and fundraising can have a confounding effect on intercommunication. Evaluating communication networks and intrastakeholder communication trends is essential to creating cohesive, productive, and efficient responses to the challenges of combatting illegal wildlife trade. Article impact statement: Communication among those combatting illegal wildlife trade is confounded by stakeholder variables (ethics, confidentiality), competition, and fundraising.     

Off-grid: community energy and the pursuit of self-sufficiency in British Columbia's remote and First Nations communities

Remote or off-grid communities in Canada primarily rely on diesel generators for the provision of their electricity. Often surrounded by potential renewable resources, they are characterised as the low-hanging fruit of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies. While much is said about the promises of community energy projects, as well as technologies and policy mechanisms for addressing the needs of these communities, little attention has been paid to what communities, themselves, might want for their energy projects and what the implications of those desires might be for both technology development and community energy policies. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the on-going energy pursuits of a number of remote First Nations communities in British Columbia. It identifies a desire for community self-sufficiency as a primary motivation for engaging with energy projects on the part of the communities and discusses the various meanings and implications of self-sufficiency in the context of community energy projects. These meanings and implications primarily include the two dimensions of material self-sufficiency and political self-determination, the latter of which suggests a view of community energy projects as processes of decolonisation among First Nation communities in British Columbia. It then suggests that the pursuit of this goal is somewhat incongruent with the approach that government and industry have taken in addressing community energy, especially the way in which remote communities are viewed as the low-hanging fruit of various sustainability projects.     

The data not collected on community forestry

Conservation and development practitioners increasingly promote community forestry as a way to conserve ecosystem services, consolidate resource rights, and reduce poverty. However, outcomes of community forestry have been mixed; many initiatives failed to achieve intended objectives. There is a rich literature on institutional arrangements of community forestry, but there has been little effort to examine the role of socioeconomic, market, and biophysical factors in shaping both land‐cover change dynamics and individual and collective livelihood outcomes. We systematically reviewed the peer‐reviewed literature on community forestry to examine and quantify existing knowledge gaps in the community‐forestry literature relative to these factors. In examining 697 cases of community forest management (CFM), extracted from 267 peer‐reviewed publications, we found 3 key trends that limit understanding of community forestry. First, we found substantial data gaps linking population dynamics, market forces, and biophysical characteristics to both environmental and livelihood outcomes. Second, most studies focused on environmental outcomes, and the majority of studies that assessed socioeconomic outcomes relied on qualitative data, making comparisons across cases difficult. Finally, there was a heavy bias toward studies on South Asian forests, indicating that the literature on community forestry may not be representative of decentralization policies and CFM globally.     

The role of digital data entry in participatory environmental monitoring

Many argue that monitoring conducted exclusively by scientists is insufficient to address ongoing environmental challenges. One solution entails the use of mobile digital devices in participatory monitoring (PM) programs. But how digital data entry affects programs with varying levels of stakeholder participation, from nonscientists collecting field data to nonscientists administering every step of a monitoring program, remains unclear. We reviewed the successes, in terms of management interventions and sustainability, of 107 monitoring programs described in the literature (hereafter programs) and compared these with case studies from our PM experiences in Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, Ghana, Greenland, and Vietnam (hereafter cases). Our literature review showed that participatory programs were less likely to use digital devices, and 2 of our 3 more participatory cases were also slow to adopt digital data entry. Programs that were participatory and used digital devices were more likely to report management actions, which was consistent with cases in Ethiopia, Greenland, and Australia. Programs engaging volunteers were more frequently reported as ongoing, but those involving digital data entry were less often sustained when data collectors were volunteers. For the Vietnamese and Canadian cases, sustainability was undermined by a mismatch in stakeholder objectives. In the Ghanaian case, complex field protocols diminished monitoring sustainability. Innovative technologies attract interest, but the foundation of effective participatory adaptive monitoring depends more on collaboratively defined questions, objectives, conceptual models, and monitoring approaches. When this foundation is built through effective partnerships, digital data entry can enable the collection of more data of higher quality. Without this foundation, or when implemented ineffectively or unnecessarily, digital data entry can be an additional expense that distracts from core monitoring objectives and undermines project sustainability. The appropriate role of digital data entry in PM likely depends more on the context in which it is used and less on the technology itself.     

昌黎生态监控区夏季浮游植物群落年际变化特征分析

为研究昌黎生态监控区夏季浮游植物群落结构特征及其与环境因子关系,采用2005~2013年夏季(8月)昌黎生态监控区海域浮游植物及环境因子的监测资料,基于Arc GIS 10.0和Canoco软件平台,运用典范对应分析方法,对浮游植物群落结构进行分析.结果表明,近9 a共鉴定出浮游植物3门23科39属105种,其中,硅藻门16科32属90种,占浮游植物总数的85.7%;甲藻门共6科6属14种,占总种类数的13.3%;金藻门1种.各年的优势种存在很大差异,按照优势度Y值的大小包括辐射圆筛藻(Coscinodiscus radiatus)、柔弱角毛藻(Coscinodiscus debilis)、笔尖根管藻(Rhizosolenia styliformis)、柏氏角管藻(Cerataulina bergoni)、威氏圆筛藻(Coscinodiscus wailesii)、海链藻(Thalassiosira sp.)、三角角藻(Ceratium tripos)、洛氏角毛藻(Coscinodiscus wailesii)、中肋骨条藻(Ceratium tripos)等.夏季细胞丰度年际变化较大,呈现逐渐降低的趋势.浮游植物的多样性指数H'值介于0.015~3.889,均匀度指数J值介于0.009~1,年际变化幅度较小;各站位间物种分布不均匀,优势种较少且优势度较大.对浮游植物群落与环境因子进行典范对应分析(CCA),结果表明影响夏季浮游植物群落结构变化的环境因子包括水温、营养盐(磷酸盐、硝酸氮、氨氮)、盐度等,且是各个环境因子相互作用的结果.     

流态对生物添加强化硝化效果的影响

在15℃、相同氮负荷和添加强度条件下运行SBR和CSTR以对比分析两种典型流态(推流式和完全混合式)对硝化菌添加强化硝化效果的影响.结果表明,添加期间,SBR中氨氧化速率(AUR)和亚硝酸盐氧化速率(NUR)分别为添加前的2.34和2.39倍,停止添加后又分别降为添加前的2.01和1.78倍;添加期间CSTR中AUR和NUR分别为添加前的2.63和2.44倍,停止添加后又分别降为添加前的1.48和1.31倍.荧光原位杂交结果显示,添加期间,SBR中氨氧化菌(AOB)和亚硝酸盐氧化菌(NOB)的个数百分比分别为添加前的2.67和2.71倍,添加停止后,又分别降至原来的2.14和1.95倍;CSTR中AOB和NOB分别为添加前的2.91和1.77倍,但在添加停止后CSTR中AOB和NOB分别降至添加前的1.25和1.50倍.因此,硝化菌添加期间,两种流态的添加效果接近,但是在添加停止后,由于流态对硝化菌中K-决策者(Nitrosospira、Nitrospira)和r-决策者(Nitrosomonas europaea、Nitrobacter)的选择作用,添加的硝化菌在完全混合式条件下比推流式条件下更容易被系统淘汰.     

宁波三江口水域原核生物群落结构分析

首次应用16S rRNA基因-Illumina Miseq高通量测序技术对甬江流域宁波三江口区域的表层水体原核生物群落进行了分析,共获得215 504条高质量序列.多样性指数分析表明,该流域的水体原核生物群落具有较高的遗传多样性和丰富度.菌群分类分析发现,β-变形菌纲(β-Proteobacterium)、放线菌门(Actinobacteria)和拟杆菌门(Bacteroidetes)是主要的优势菌群,其相对丰度占总群落的78.88%.对比不同站位的原核生物群落,发现水文环境可能是影响三江口水域原核生物群落组成和结构的重要因素之一.与以往报道对比分析表明,甬江流域分布有多种污水和粪便污染指示菌,其中余姚江污染指示菌的丰度最高,说明其受污染的风险可能较高.病原菌BLASTN分析表明,在种和亚种水平上,分别检出76和18种潜在病原菌,占序列总量的2.19%和0.40%.本研究为系统认识甬江流域原核生物群落结构及生态功能提供了重要基础数据.     

模拟气候升温对湿地土壤微生物群落及磷素形态的影响

通过构建微宇宙湿地柱模拟气候升温的方法,采用高通量测序和核磁共振技术,分别研究了湿地土壤微生物群落和磷素形态对暖化作用的响应特征.结果表明,暖化作用导致了Firmicutes、Clostridia、Clostridiales、Clostridiaceae和Clostridium的相对丰度分别显著下降65%~98%、69%~87%、67%~87%、73%~97%和74%~93%,这表明暖化作用对不同分类水平上的物种Firmicutes到Clostridium具有显著的抑制效应.通过主坐标分析和聚类分析,不同湿地柱采样点的暖化组与对照组样本表现出显著的分离特征,揭示了暖化作用能够诱导微生物群落组成发生显著性变化.磷酸单酯和正磷酸盐是各湿地柱土壤主导的磷素形态,同时暖化作用导致了XX湿地柱采样点的磷酸单酯和正磷酸盐相对丰度分别显著升高275%和下降20%,JH湿地柱采样点的磷酸单酯和多聚磷酸盐相对丰度分别显著升高85%和下降49%,这表明不同磷素形态对暖化作用的响应具有土壤异质性特征.通过典型对应分析,揭示了暖化条件下微生物群落组成的显著变化对磷素形态具有显著的影响效应.     

Shifts in microbial community structure and diversity in a MBR combined with worm reactors treating synthetic wastewater

The chemical oxygen demand (COD) and NH₃-N removal, membrane fouling, sludge characteristics and microbial community structure in a membrane bioreactor (MBR) coupled with worm reactors (SSBWR) were evaluated for 210 days. The obtained results were compared to those from a conventional MBR (C-MBR) operated in parallel. The results indicated that the combined MBR (S-MBR) achieved higher COD and NH₃-N removal efficiency, slower increase in membrane fouling, better sludge settleability and higher activities of the related enzymes in the activated sludge. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis was used to analyze the microbial community structures in the C-MBR and the S-MBR. The microbial community structure in the S-MBR was more diverse than that in the C-MBR. Additionally, the slow-growing microbes such as Saprospiraceae, Actinomyces, Frankia, Clostridium, Comamonas, Pseudomonas, Dechloromonas and Flavobacterium were enriched in the S-MBR, further accounting for the sludge reduction, membrane fouling alleviation and wastewater treatment.