Dynamics of local governance in natural resource conservation in the Okavango Delta,Botswana

There has been a shift in natural resource management worldwide. This paper describes how modern institutions and policies influence management and shape access to and utilization of resources by rural communities in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. It is rooted in the framework of adaptive co‐governance within social‐ecological systems, and employs a critical literature review to analyse access to and use of natural resources in rural Botswana. Prior to the establishment of community‐based natural resource management (CBNRM) in Botswana in 1989, resource governance was dominated by strong traditional institutions that were responsible for natural resource management and decision‐making. Contemporary natural resource governance is characterized by a bureaucratic system that invariably undermines the role of traditional institutions in natural resource governance. Findings indicate that policies and regulatory instruments deny rural communities adequate access to and utilization of resources available within their immediate environment. In spite of an orientation towards an anthropocentric approach to natural resource management (as in the case of CBNRM), the current governance system continues to undermine the inclusion of local resource users as legitimate stakeholders in the decision‐making process.     

延吉市产业结构调整与知识产业发展

延吉市土地面积小 ,水土资源紧张 ,人口与环境压力较大 ,但智力资源丰富。延吉市已经形成以二、三产业为主导的产业体系 ,但产业内部存在结构性问题。文章认为产业结构调整与发展知识产业相结合是实现城市可持续发展的重要途径 ,进而探讨了延吉市产业结构调整思路 ,提出知识产业发展方向。     

Incorporating evolutionary processes into population viability models

We examined how ecological and evolutionary (eco‐evo) processes in population dynamics could be better integrated into population viability analysis (PVA). Complementary advances in computation and population genomics can be combined into an eco‐evo PVA to offer powerful new approaches to understand the influence of evolutionary processes on population persistence. We developed the mechanistic basis of an eco‐evo PVA using individual‐based models with individual‐level genotype tracking and dynamic genotype–phenotype mapping to model emergent population‐level effects, such as local adaptation and genetic rescue. We then outline how genomics can allow or improve parameter estimation for PVA models by providing genotypic information at large numbers of loci for neutral and functional genome regions. As climate change and other threatening processes increase in rate and scale, eco‐evo PVAs will become essential research tools to evaluate the effects of adaptive potential, evolutionary rescue, and locally adapted traits on persistence.     

Extrinsic and intrinsic determinants of winter foraging and breeding phenology in a temperate seabird

In temperate regions, winter presents animals with a number of challenges including depressed food abundance, increased daily energy requirements, higher frequency of extreme weather events and shortened day length. Overcoming these constraints is critical for overwintering survival and scheduling of future breeding of long-lived species and is likely to be state dependent, associated with intrinsic abilities such as food acquisition rates. We examined the relationship between environmental and intrinsic factors on overwintering foraging and subsequent breeding phenology of the European shag Phalacrocorax aristotelis, a diurnal marine predator. We tested a range of hypotheses relating to overwintering foraging time and location. We found that individuals greatly increased their foraging time in winter to a peak of more than 90% of available daylight at the winter solstice. The seasonal patterns of foraging time appear to be driven by a combination of light levels and weather conditions and may be linked to the availability of the shag's principal prey, the lesser sandeel Ammodytes marinus. There was no evidence that shags dispersed south in winter to increase potential foraging time. Foraging time decreased after the winter solstice and, crucially, was correlated with subsequent breeding phenology, such that individuals that spent less time foraging in February bred earlier. The relationship was much stronger in females than males, in line with their more direct control of timing of breeding. Our results demonstrate that pre-breeding intrinsic foraging ability is critical in determining breeding phenology.     

On the Estimation of Dispersal Kernels from Individual Mark-Recapture Data

We present a new method for estimating a distribution of dispersal displacements (a dispersal kernel) from mark-recapture data. One conventional method of calculating the dispersal kernel assumes that the distribution of displacements are Gaussian (e.g. resulting from a diffusion process) and that individuals remain within sampled areas. The first assumption prohibits an analysis of dispersal data that do not exhibit the Gaussian distribution (a common situation); the second assumption leads to underestimation of dispersal distance because individuals that disperse outside of sampling areas are never recaptured. Our method eliminates these two assumptions. In addition, the method can also accommodate mortality during a sampling period. This new method uses integrodifference equations to express the probability of spatial mark-recapture data; associated dispersal, survival, and recapture parameters are then estimated using a maximum likelihood method. We examined the accuracy of the estimators by applying the method to simulated data sets. Our method suggests designs for future mark-recapture experiments. Received: January 2004 / Revised: July 2005     

Taste-rejection by predators and the evolution of unpalatability in prey

Aposematic species advertise their unpalatability to potential predators using conspicuous warning colouration. The initial evolution of aposematism is thought to occur by warningly coloured mutants emerging in an already unpalatable cryptic species. However, possessing defence chemicals is often costly, and it is difficult to understand what the selective benefits might be for a mutation causing its bearer to be defended in a population of otherwise palatable cryptic prey. One solution to this problem is that chemically defended individuals are tasted and rejected by predators, and are, therefore, more likely to survive predatory attacks than undefended individuals. Using naïve domestic chicks Gallus gallus domesticus as predators and cryptic green chick crumbs as prey, we asked whether the accuracy with which birds discriminated between palatable and unpalatable prey was affected by the palatability of the unpalatable prey (moderately or highly defended), or their frequency in the population (10 or 25%). Birds could discriminate between green prey on the basis of their defences, and showed better discrimination between palatable and unpalatable prey when defended crumbs were highly unpalatable, compared to when they were moderately unpalatable. Although there was no detectable effect of the frequency of unpalatable prey in the population on predator taste-rejection behaviour in our main analysis, frequency did appear to affect the strategies that birds used in their foraging decisions when prey were only moderately unpalatable. How birds used taste to reject prey also suggests that birds may be able to monitor and regulate their chemical intake according to the frequency and defence levels of the unpalatable prey. Taken together, these results show that avian predators can generate selection for unpalatability in cryptic prey by sampling and taste-rejecting prey, but that a relatively large chemical difference between palatable and unpalatable prey may be necessary before unpalatable prey can enjoy a selective advantage. The exact nature of this evolutionary dynamic will depend on other environmental factors, such as defence costs and prey availability, but it provides a mechanism by which defences can evolve in a cryptic population.     

Do echolocation calls of wild colony-living Bechstein's bats (Myotis bechsteinii) provide individual-specific signatures?

Social animals often use vocal communication signals that contain individual signatures. As bats emit echolocation calls several times per second to orient in space, these might seem ideal candidates for conveying the caller's individual identity as a free by-product. From a proximate perspective, however, coding of caller identity is hampered by the simple acoustic structure of echolocation signals, by their task-specific design and by propagation loss. We investigated the occurrence of individual signatures in echolocation calls in individually marked, free-living Bechstein's bats (Myotis bechsteinii) in a situation with defined social context in the field. The bats belonged to two different colonies, for both of which genetic data on relatedness structure was available. While our data clearly demonstrate situation specificity of call structure, the evidence for individual-specific signatures was relatively weak. We could not identify a robust and simple parameter that would convey the caller's identity despite the situation-specific call variability. Discriminant function analysis assigned calls to call sequences with good performance, but worsened drastically when tested with other sequences from the same bats. Therefore, we caution against concluding from a satisfactory discrimination performance with identical training and test sequences that individual bats can reliably be told apart by echolocation calls. At least the information contained in a single call sequence seems not to be sufficient for that purpose. Starting frequencies did give the best discrimination between individuals, and it was also this parameter that was correlated with genetic relatedness in one of our two study colonies. Echolocation calls could serve as an additional source of information for individual recognition in Bechstein's bats societies, while it is unlikely that a large number of individuals could be reliably identified in different situations based on echolocation alone.     

Kinship, familiarity and social status modulate social learning about “micropredators” (biting flies) in deer mice

Animals can learn to recognize and respond to dangerous, threatening factors through either individual or social learning, whereby an individual learns and acquires the defensive behaviors and avoidance responses of another. Here we show that kinship, familiarity, and relative dominance of the interacting individuals affect social learning of defensive responses to micropredators in deer mice, Peromyscus maniculatus. Brief exposure of individual male deer mice to biting flies (stable fly, Stomoxys calcitrans) induced a decrease in pain sensitivity, or analgesia, and active self-burying avoidance responses. The defensive analgesic responses and their fear/anxiety/stress associated correlates facilitate the display of behavioral avoidance responses. Preparatory analgesia and avoidance responses were evident 1–3 days later when the mice were exposed to biting flies that were altered to be incapable of biting but were not displayed to similar-sized non-biting house flies. These anticipatory avoidance and analgesic responses to biting flies were also acquired through social learning—without direct individual aversive experience with biting flies. Fly-naive mice (observers) that witnessed other mice (demonstrators) being attacked by biting flies but themselves were not bitten did not display any avoidance responses. However, when exposed 1–3 days later to altered flies with biting mouth parts removed, the observers displayed socially acquired analgesic and self-burying avoidance responses. Observers whose demonstrators were either kin (siblings) and, or members of a familiar pair (kin or non-kin) displayed enhanced social learning of defensive responses. Also, within the familiar pairs, social status affected learning with subordinate observers displaying better social learning than dominant observers. These findings indicate that kinship, familiarity and social status modulate social learning of defensive responses to, and the recognition of, dangerous and threatening stimuli, likely including that of predators.Communicated by G. Wilkinson     

钙基脱硫剂孔隙网络动态生成特性

钙基脱硫剂孔隙结构特性直接影响到脱硫效果及脱硫剂的利用率,对其空间网络特性的描述将有助于分析SO2的扩散及反应特性. 在石灰石分解动力学和烧结机理的基础上,结合固体分解的成核机理,运用Monte-Carlo 方法,建立了脱硫剂孔隙网络的动态生成模型,对钙基脱硫剂分解形成的孔隙结构进行了动态模拟,并对生成孔结构的分形特性进行研究.结果表明,运用动态生成模型,可以给出石灰石分解形成的CaO内部孔隙的微观空间结构,且模拟生成的孔隙网络的分形维数与实验测定值基本吻合.     

木薯乙醇-汽油混合燃料生命周期排放多目标优化研究

建立了木薯乙醇-汽油混合燃料生命周期排放单目标和多目标优化模型.以生命周期CO,NO_x,PM,HC,SO_x,CO₂排放为优化目标,对木薯乙醇-汽油混合燃料生命周期排放进行了单目标及多目标优化,并进行了灵敏度分析.结果表明:多目标优化后木薯乙醇-汽油混合燃料的混合比例为63%.与原始值相比,多目标优化后生命周期CO排放略有升高,NO_x升高15%,PM升高19%;生命周期HC、SO_x和CO₂分别降低8%、50%和21%.