Evaluating the success of functional restoration after reintroduction of a lost avian pollinator

Conservation translocation is a common method for species recovery, for which one increasingly frequent objective is restoring lost ecological functions to promote ecosystem recovery. However, few conservation translocation programs explicitly state or monitor function as an objective, limiting the ability to test assumptions, learn from past efforts, and improve management. We evaluated whether translocations of hihi (Notiomystis cincta), a threatened New Zealand passerine, achieved their implicit objective of restoring lost pollination function. Through a pollinator-exclusion experiment, we quantified, with log response ratios (lnR), the effects of birds on fruit set and seed quality in hangehange (Geniostoma ligustrifolium), a native flowering shrub. We isolated the contributions of hihi by making comparisons across sites with and without hihi. Birds improved fruit set more at sites without hihi (lnR = 1.27) than sites with hihi (lnR = 0.50), suggesting other avian pollinators compensated for and even exceeded hihi contributions to fruit set. Although birds improved seed germination only at hihi sites (lnR = 0.22–0.41), plants at sites without hihi had germination rates similar to hihi sites because they produced 26% more filled seeds, regardless of pollination condition. Therefore, although our results showed hihi improved seed quality, they also highlighted the complexity of ecological functions. When an important species is lost, ecosystems may be able to achieve similar function through different means. Our results underscore the importance of stating and monitoring the ecological benefits of conservation translocations when functional restoration is a motivation to ensure these programs are achieving their objectives.     

基于AHP-PSO的滇池流域生态补偿标准评估

通过AHP（层次分析法）在决策目标、影响指标及评估方案3层要素之间,选取湖泊环境、社会因素及经济因素3个维度的25个基层指标,建立了湖泊生态补偿标准评估指标体系。采用MATLAB软件编写了2个程序,分别用于求解初始评分矩阵、计算评估方案权重和辅助PSO（粒子群优化算法）修正指标体系中不满足一致性要求的初始评分矩阵、优化层次分析结果。经计算,生态系统服务价值理论与污染治理费用法的权重分别为38.16%、61.84%。选用生态系统服务价值理论与污染治理费用法两种评估方案,并结合市场价值法、成果参照法、影子工程法、Vollenweider模型及完全混合模型,通过实证研究检验评估标准的合理性。计算得出滇池流域的生态补偿标准总额为32.630 2亿元/a,流域内单位面积的生态补偿标准为5 207元/（a·hm²）。     

生物可降解地膜覆盖对关中地区小麦-玉米农田温室气体排放的影响

为探究生物可降解地膜覆盖对冬小麦-夏玉米轮作农田生态系统温室气体排放的影响,布设了普通地膜覆盖（PM）、生物可降解地膜覆盖（BPM）和无覆盖（CK）这3个处理,采用静态暗箱-气相色谱仪法监测了2018～2019年土壤CO₂、 CH₄和N₂O的排放通量,并用水分利用效率（WUE）、温室气体排放强度（GHGI）和净生态系统经济预算（NEEB）指标评估覆膜对作物产量、农田环境和经济效益的影响.结果表明,与CK相比,PM和BPM增加了玉米季土壤CO₂的排放,PM处理下CO₂排放总量高于BPM处理（P>0.05）.PM和BPM处理均能够显著减少土壤对CH₄的吸收,CH₄的年吸收量较CK处理分别减少了42.0%和24.2%（P<0.05）.与CK相比,PM和BPM增加了小麦季N₂O排放总量（P>0.05）,而显著降低了夏玉米季N₂O排放（P<0.05）.覆膜能够提高作物产量和水分...     

一个基于专家知识的生态系统服务价值化方法

Costanza等提出的生态服务价值化评估方法在中国直接运用存在一些缺陷:低估或者忽略了某些生态系统服务价值。因此,笔者在其生态系统服务价值评估体系的基础上分别在2002年和2006年对中国700位具有生态学背景的专业人员进行问卷调查,得出了新的生态系统服务评估单价体系。通过对比发现,调查获得的基于专家知识的生态系统服务单价体系与基于物质量估算的生态系统服务价值之间具有较好的可比性。该基于专家知识的生态系统服务评估体系可以用于已知土地利用面积的生态系统服务价值估算,能在较短时间内获得较为精确的结果。     

三峡库区(重庆段)生态系统健康评价

生态系统的健康和相对稳定是人类赖以生存与发展的必要条件. 分析了三峡库区(重庆段)生态系统的健康状况,使用3S技术获取基础地理数据,构建基于压力-状态-响应模式的三级指标体系模型,并以AHP法结合专家咨询法选取人口密度、地质灾害易发度等10项指标,进行综合得分计算并分级. 结果表明:①在生态环境调查的基础上,应用GIS空间分析方法进行生态系统健康评价具有可操作性和结果的可靠性;②三峡库区(重庆段)生态系统健康质量表现出2～4级生态系统占主体(82.6%)的特点,生态质量一般,人类社会经济活动对生态系统的健康状况造成较大影响;③生态系统健康质量水平分布表现出明显的区域差异,从行政范围来看,彭水县、巫山县较好,巫溪县、武隆县等次之,云阳市、万州区等则较差. 结合系统聚类分析方法分析三峡库区(重庆段)生态系统健康状况空间分异的成因;并从宏观尺度上提出了对该地区人为活动的不良生态后果予以积极预防和有效调控的综合对策.      

Connectivity or demography: Defining sources and sinks in coral reef fish metapopulations

The identity of an individual patch as a source or a sink within a metapopulation is a function of its ability to produce individuals and to disperse them to other patches. In marine systems patch identity is very often defined by dispersal ability alone—upstream patches are sources—while issues of variable habitat quality (which affects local production) are ignored. This can have important ramifications for the science of marine reserve siting. This study develops a spatially explicit source–sink metapopulation model for reef fish and uses it to evaluate the relative importance of connectivity versus demography and how this depends upon the level of local larval retention and the strength of density-dependent recruitment. Elasticity analyses indicated that patch contribution (source or sink) was more sensitive to demographic parameters (particularly survival) than connectivity and this effect was conserved even under strong levels of density-dependence and was generally strengthened as local retention increased. Variability in the relationship between parameter elasticity and local retention was shown to be dependent upon the magnitude of connectivity for an individual patch relative to a critical connectivity value. The proportion of larvae lost due to transport processes was an important parameter which directly affected the magnitude of this critical connectivity value. Patches with connectivity values less than the critical value contributed to the metapopulation largely via production (i.e., local demographics most important). As local retention increased, so did the importance of demographic parameters in these patches. Patches with connectivity values greater than the critical value contributed largely via dispersal of larvae and thus the importance of local demographics decreased as local retention increased.     

NEATS: A Network Economics Approach to Trophic Systems

The main principle of the economic approach to a trophic system we propose here lies in assuming that there is a transfer of food along a path between a prey and a predator if, for the predator, the benefits are greater than costs of predation on this path. Conversely, if the costs exceed the benefits, there are no flows. This trade-off, considered all along the food chains of an ecosystem, together with ecological processes (assimilation, somatic maintenance) results in a model coupling mass balance equations (biological constraints) and complementarity principles (Walras’ law). Here is the core of the Network Economics Approach to Trophic Systems (NEATS).     

An agent-based model for simulating trading of multi-species fisheries quota

Individual transferable quotas (ITQs) are increasingly seen as a way to make fisheries more profitable and halt over-capitalisation. ITQs allocate to users of a resource a share of a total allowable catch (TAC) which they are free to use, lease, or sell. We outline an approach to modelling the effect of an ITQ system in a multi-species, multi-sector fishery and apply it to the Coral Reef Fin Fish Fishery (CRFFF) in Queensland, Australia. An ITQ model, based on the assumption that operators seek to maximize profits, simulates the use of tradeable quota units by operators in the fishery, taking account of the initial quota allocation to operators, seasonal fish prices and individual operator variable costs, their fishing efficiency and experience, and constraints on vessel movements. Rationalization of the fishery is predicted to occur under an ITQ system for the CRFFF, which will lead to reductions in effort, increases in profits, and changes over time in quota prices. The ecological consequences of transferable quota in the multi-species fishery are seen in the catch and discard levels of the less profitable species, even though a TAC was set. This had flow-on effects on biomass. For example, simulations showed that the TAC for the primary target species, coral trout, was used more fully than that for a less valuable target species, red throat emperor, and that this was achieved through increased discarding of red throat emperor. Catches of both coral trout and red throat emperor that were derived from the model were higher than those recently observed in the fishery. The effort predicted by the model, however, closely approximated the actual effort observed in the fishery following implementation of ITQ management.     

Multiple sources of predictive uncertainty in modeled estimates of net ecosystem CO2 exchange

Net ecosystem CO₂ exchange (NEE) is typically measured directly by eddy covariance towers or is estimated by ecosystem process models, yet comparisons between the data obtained by these two methods can show poor correspondence. There are three potential explanations for this discrepancy. First, estimates of NEE as measured by the eddy-covariance technique are laden with uncertainty and can potentially provide a poor baseline for models to be tested against. Second, there could be fundamental problems in model structure that prevent an accurate simulation of NEE. Third, ecosystem process models are dependent on ecophysiological parameter sets derived from field measurements in which a single parameter for a given species can vary considerably. The latter problem suggests that with such broad variation among multiple inputs, any ecosystem modeling scheme must account for the possibility that many combinations of apparently feasible parameter values might not allow the model to emulate the observed NEE dynamics of a terrestrial ecosystem, as well as the possibility that there may be many parameter sets within a particular model structure that can successfully reproduce the observed data. We examined the extent to which these three issues influence estimates of NEE in a widely used ecosystem process model, Biome-BGC, by adapting the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) methodology. This procedure involved 400,000 model runs, each with randomly generated parameter values from a uniform distribution based on published parameter ranges, resulting in estimates of NEE that were compared to daily NEE data from young and mature Ponderosa pine stands at Metolius, Oregon. Of the 400,000 simulations run with different parameter sets for each age class (800,000 total), over 99% of the simulations underestimated the magnitude of net ecosystem CO₂ exchange, with only 4.07% and 0.045% of all simulations providing satisfactory simulations of the field data for the young and mature stands, even when uncertainties in eddy-covariance measurements are accounted for. Results indicate fundamental shortcomings in the ability of this model to produce realistic carbon flux data over the course of forest development, and we suspect that much of the mismatch derives from an inability to realistically model ecosystem respiration. However, difficulties in estimating historic climate data are also a cause for model-data mismatch, particularly in a highly ecotonal region such as central Oregon. This latter difficulty may be less prevalent in other ecosystems, but it nonetheless highlights a challenge in trying to develop a dynamic representation of the terrestrial biosphere.     

基于能值-生命力指数的城市生态系统健康集对分析

综合考虑城市的生命体特征及物质能量代谢层面因素,依托城市生命力指数框架,结合能值指标,构建城市能值-生命力指数,以全面反映城市生态系统健康状况.引入集对分析这种不确定理论与方法,比较城市生态系统相对健康状况.采用基于集对分析的城市能值-生命力指数综合评价模型及信息熵权重,比较北京、上海、武汉、广州等16个城市的生态系统相对健康状况,结果表明,厦门、青岛、杭州、上海、北京健康水平相对较高,而乌鲁木齐、成都、哈尔滨健康水平相对较低,其他城市则为中等水平.