论城市河道整治与景观生态设计

针对城市河道整治中存在的一些问题,阐述了城市河道整治的原则,提出城市河道整治要考虑景观生态,设计中要遵循安全性、自然性、生态性、观赏性、亲水性、文化性等原则。在此基础上,重点介绍了河道形态景观、堤岸景观和河道附属景观的设计内容。     

Least-inference methods for constructing networks of trophic flows

The construction of material and energy budgets within ecosystems has long been accomplished via manual calculation. Recently, optimization techniques have been adapted to automate the procedure, but these methods require assumptions that may not square with biological reality. Two algorithms are developed to construct ecosystem budgets under minimal inference. Although the methods do not recapitulate the model used to generate the input data, analysis reveals that the results do not differ statistically from networks that were constructed manually.     

惠州市土壤重金属污染景观空间格局特征研究

采集了惠州市104个表层土壤样品,测试了Cu、Zn、Ni、Cr、Pb、Cd、As和Hg等8种重金属的含量.以景观生态学理论为指导,用地统计学与地理信息系统(GIS)技术研究8种重金属的单因子指数和综合污染指数的统计学及其空间格局特征.结果表明,8种土壤重金属的单因子指数和综合污染指数的算术平均值均0.6.惠州市东部及东北部重金属污染指数较低,南部重金属污染指数相对较高.8种重金属的斑块面积比例差异较大;Cu、Zn、Ni、Pb和Cd的景观形状指数从Class 1到Class 5基本呈递减趋势;Zn、Cr、Pb、Cd、As和Hg及土壤重金属综合污染指数的各类型的连通性指数均超过90.综合污染指数的各个景观指数反映出惠州市土壤重金属总体表现出高破碎化、景观的连通性较差等特点,但是单因子指数景观基本上是以低浓度为基底,高浓度斑块面积比例很小,形状较规则.     

A trait-based approach for downscaling complexity in plankton ecosystem models

Although predator–prey cycles can be easily predicted with mathematical models it is only since recently that oscillations observed in a chemostat predator–prey (rotifer–algal) experiment offer an interesting workbench for testing model soundness. These new observations have highlighted the limitations of the conventional modelling approach in correctly reproducing some unexpected characteristics of the cycles. Simulations are improved when changes in algal community structure, resulting from natural selection operating on an assemblage of algal clones differing in competitive ability and defence against rotifer predation, is considered in multi-prey models. This approach, however, leads to extra complexity in terms of state variables and parameters. We show here that multi-prey models with one predator can be effectively approximated with a simpler (only a few differential equations) model derived in the context of adaptive dynamics and obtained with a moment-based approximation. The moment-based approximation has been already discussed in the literature but mostly in a theoretical context, therefore we focus on the strength of this approach in downscaling model complexity by relating it to the chemostat predator–prey experiment. Being based on mechanistic concepts, our modelling framework can be applied to any community of competing species for which a trade-off between competitive ability and resistance to predators can be appropriately defined. We suggest that this approach can be of great benefit for reducing complexity in biogeochemical modelling studies at the basin or global ocean scale.     

The influence of environmental spatial structure on the life-history traits and diversity of species in a metacommunity

Several models have been proposed to understand how so many species can coexist in ecosystems. Despite evidence showing that natural habitats are often patchy and fragmented, these models rarely take into account environmental spatial structure. In this study we investigated the influence of spatial structure in habitat and disturbance regime upon species’ traits and species’ coexistence in a metacommunity. We used a population-based model to simulate competing species in spatially explicit landscapes. The species traits we focused on were dispersal ability, competitiveness, reproductive investment and survival rate. Communities were characterized by their species richness and by the four life-history traits averaged over all the surviving species. Our results show that spatial structure and disturbance have a strong influence on the equilibrium life-history traits within a metacommunity. In the absence of disturbance, spatially structured landscapes favour species investing more in reproduction, but less in dispersal and survival. However, this influence is strongly dependent on the disturbance rate, pointing to an important interaction between spatial structure and disturbance. This interaction also plays a role in species coexistence. While spatial structure tends to reduce diversity in the absence of disturbance, the tendency is reversed when disturbance occurs. In conclusion, the spatial structure of communities is an important determinant of their diversity and characteristic traits. These traits are likely to influence important ecological properties such as resistance to invasion or response to climate change, which in turn will determine the fate of ecosystems facing the current global ecological crisis.     

How might we model an ecosystem?

Predicting ecosystem effects is of crucial importance in a world at threat from natural and human-mediated change. Here we propose an ecologically defensible representation of an ecosystem that facilitates predictive modelling. The representation has its roots in the early trophic and energetic theory of ecosystem dynamics and more recent functional ecology and network theory. Using the arable ecosystem of the UK as an example, we show that the representation allows simplification from the many interacting plant and invertebrate species, typically present in arable fields, to a more tractable number of trophic-functional types. Our compound hypothesis is that “trophic-functional types of plants and invertebrates can be used to explain the structure, diversity and dynamics of arable ecosystems”. The trophic-functional types act as containers for individuals, within an individual-based model, sharing similar trophic behaviour and traits of biomass transformation. Biomass, or energy, flows between the types and this allows the key ecological properties of individual abundance and body mass, at each trophic height, to be followed through simulations. Our preliminary simulation results suggest that the model shows great promise. The simulation output for simple ecosystems, populated with realistic parameter values, is consistent with current laboratory observations and provides exciting indications that it could reproduce field scale phenomena. The model also produces output that links the individual, population and community scales, and may be analysed and tested using community, network (food web) and population dynamic theory. We show that we can include management effects, as perturbations to parameter values, for modelling the effects of change and indicating management responses to change. This model will require robust analysis, testing and validation, and we discuss how we will achieve this in the future.     

A population comparison of the strength and persistence of innate colour preference and learning speed in the bumblebee <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bombus terrestris</Emphasis>

Studies of innate colour preference and learning ability have focused on differences at the species level, rather than variation among populations of a single species. Initial strength and persistence of colour preferences are likely to affect colour choices of naïve flower visitors. We therefore study the influence of both the strength and persistence of innate colour preference (for blue) on an operant learning task (associating food reward with yellow flowers) in two populations of the bumblebee Bombus terrestris. We found that both strength and persistence of blue preference differed significantly between populations: B. terrestris dalmatinus had a weaker and less persistent blue preference than B. terrestris audax. These differences in preference also influenced learning performance. Considering only landing behaviours, one-trial learning occurred in the majority (73%) of bees, and was achieved sooner in B. terrestris dalmatinus because of its weaker blue preference. However, compared to landing behaviours the relative frequency of approach flights to rewarding and unrewarding flower types changed more slowly with task experience in both populations. When considering both approaches and landings, the rate of learning, following the first rewarded learning trial, was faster in B. terrestris audax than B. terrestris dalmatinus. However, the net effects of population differences in blue preference and learning dynamics result in similar final levels of task performance. Our results provide new evidence of behavioural differences among isolated populations within a single species, and raise intriguing questions about the ecological significance and adaptive nature of colour preference.     

Basic features,conjunctive searches,and the confusion effect in predator–prey interactions

The confusion effect describes the observed decrease in the likelihood that a predator will successfully catch any prey when attacking larger groups of moving prey. We introduce readers to the work of cognitive psychologists interested in human visual attention who have been studying their own version of the confusion effect for many years, developing methods and concepts that may be of fundamental utility to behavioral ecologists. In psychology, ‘basic features’ are characteristics unique to a target object in the visual field that no distracter objects share. Images containing targets with basic features are often less likely to induce the confusion effect in human subjects. Target objects with conjunctions of features, on the other hand, have no individual characteristics unique from distracters, but unique characteristics in combination. Such targets more often induce the confusion effect in humans. We propose the ‘basic feature’ (vs. conjunctions of features) as a new organizing concept for studies on the occurrence of the confusion effect in nature, potentially allowing predictions about which types of prey groups are likely to induce the confusion effect in predators.     

静园环境景观规划设计的理念与实践

以人本园林、生态园林、科技园林、艺术园林、文化园林为规划设计的基本原则,采用就地势之高低、造山环水抱之形;专类园与原生态园相辅以丰富景观与植物多样性;引入科普知识和文化内涵以求景、情、意的完美;实现自然美与建筑美的有机结合而营造出最佳人居环境．图5,参8．