About bridges and bonds: community responses to the 2000 floods in Mabalane district, Mozambique

Massive floods hit Mozambique in 2000.1 Many of the affected regions benefited from external aid. This paper investigates how the floods impacted on two communities in the interior of the Limpopo Valley, which did not receive significant assistance during the event and in the immediate aftermath. Drawing on the livelihood approach, it focuses on the role of two types of local resources: knowledge and social capital. The paper shows that the scale of the 2000 floods surpassed the response capacity of these resources and looks at how wealth and gender influenced access by households to the local support mechanisms that enhance survival and recovery. It appears that the floods mainly affected wealthier households, as these more frequently lost houses and cattle. The paper points to the importance of ploughs and cattle for local support mechanisms, which, in turn, most likely reduced the capacities of communities to recover from the disaster.     

Diversity–stability relationships revisited: scaling rules for biological communities near equilibrium

The debate on diversity–stability relationships has a long history of theoretical interest and plays a central role in development of modern ecology. But such debate has recently re-opened under critical scrutiny both in theoretical and empirical studies. In this paper we use allometric (or energetic) scaling and statistical physics approaches to this problem. On the basis of local Damuth symmetry, a Markov model of transfer of energy between different species, and the fluctuation–dissipation theorem, scaling rules of species number and population variability of biological communities near equilibrium are derived. These scaling rules indicate that the diversity–stability relationship may be an energetic and thermodynamic consequence of ecological systems near equilibrium, not a simple statistical consequence as derived by other recent theoretical work.     

Four Decades of Plant Community Change in the Alpine Tundra of Southwest Yukon,Canada

Repeat measurements from long-term plots provide precise data for studying plant community change. In 2010, we visited a remote location in Yukon, Canada, where a detailed survey of alpine tundra communities was conducted in 1968. Plant community composition was resurveyed on the same four slopes using the same methods as the original study. Species richness and diversity increased significantly over the 42 years and non-metric multidimensional scaling indicated that community composition had also changed significantly. However, the direction and magnitude of change varied with aspect. Dominant species were not replaced or eliminated but, instead, declined in relative importance. Fine-scale changes in vegetation were evident from repeat photography and dendro-ecological analysis of erect shrubs, supporting the community-level analysis. The period of study corresponds to a mean annual temperature increase of 2°C, suggesting that climate warming has influenced these changes.     

山地可持续人居环境初探

传统的山地人居环境是建立在传统的农业社会经济、文化基础之上的对自然环境的被动式生态适应，缺少居安安全性、便捷性、舒适性等生活基本保证。现代山地人居环境将以现代生态学为指导，突破山地特殊生态特性对人类的制约，实现人与山地自然和谐共生，满足社区居民物质和精神双重层次的需求，从而真正成为可持续发展的人居环境。     

沈阳市生态小区生活垃圾资源化示范模式

通过对沈阳市生活小区生活垃圾处理现状进行分析,对比分析了国内外生活垃圾再生资源利用情况,并在生态小区开展生活垃圾资源化管理,进而探讨其可行性模式。     

Effect of copper tolerant Elsholtzia splendens on bacterial community associated with Commelina communis on a copper mine spoil

Facilitation, or positive plant–plant interaction, has received increasing concern from ecologists over the last two decades. Facilitation may occur through direct mitigation of severe environments or indirect mediation by a third participant from the same or different trophic levels. The copper(Cu) tolerant species Elsholtzia splendens facilitates the establishment and growth of co-occurring Commelina communis through indirect enrichment of microbial activity. However, whether and how E. splendens impacts the microbial community that is associated with C. communis is less known. We characterized the soil bacterial community in the rhizosphere of C. communis in the absence and presence of E.splendens using PCR-DGGE(polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis) and sequencing. The result showed that the richness of the bacterial community increased, but diversity and evenness remained similar, in the presence of E. splendens.Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria and Proteobacteria were the most dominant bacteria. The relative abundance of dominant and minor bacterial groups showed distinctly different responses to E. splendens. Principal component analysis and redundancy analysis indicated that variation of the bacterial community was determined by multiple factors and might be driven by the tested soil parameters collectively, or alternatively changed through plant root exudates or other microorganisms. Our results enhance the understanding of how the bacterial community associated with a beneficiary plant responds to a benefactor plant and suggests that the changes of bacterial community composition may have far-reaching influence on plant–soil feedback and the aboveground plant community in the long run.     

中国人力资本、人力资本结构与产业结构升级

人力资本及其结构作为推动产业结构转型和升级的重要因素,长期以来没能得到学术界的重视.中国改革开放以来人力资本及其结构水平迅速提升,但各地区间的人力资本及结构水平差异颇大,这可能也是导致中国各地区间经济增长和产业结构水平存在很大差异的原因.中国独特的社会经济环境,为本文直接研究人力资本在产业结构升级中的作用提供了极为理想的样本.文章在增长回归框架下,以中国各省份1978-2008年动态面板数据为基础,从国家和区域层面考察了人力资本及其结构对产业结构升级的影响.结果发现:人力资本对我国及东部地区的产业结构升级有显著促进作用;人力资本分布结构不利于产业结构升级且效应显著;人力资本内部结构与产业结构的显著性相关得到东部地区数据的支持,而在我国及中西部地区的效应不够明显,这主要是由我国投入导向的增长模式和劳动力质量水平不高所决定的.结论表明,人力资本水平提升及结构优化将会加速我国产业结构转型与升级,形成未来我国持续、稳定发展的强大动力.     

Plan C： China＇s Development under the Scarcity of Natural Capital

The critical issue of China＇s modernization is whether it can free itself from the traditional modernization plan based on the relatively abundant natural capital, and innovatively create a developmental model of a large country under the scarcity of natural capital. This is why China is so keen on circular economy and economical use of resources. Focused on this issue, this paper summarizes the theoretical elements of the development under the scarcity of natural capital, points out that Plan C is the strategic choice for China＇s future development, emphasizes that China needs to enhance the new industrialization, new urbanization and new modernization based on the restriction of natural capital, and discusses the technological and mechanistic support required to realize the development under the scarcity of natural capital.     

Homophily and Agency: Creating Effective Sustainable Development Networks

Community networks are self-organized groupings that form for many different reasons. Some networks, connected mainly through bonding ties, are based on personal interests and relationships; others, based mainly on bridging ties, centre around broader interests. These networks form to create collective agency for engaging with social, environmental, and other issues through the concentration of social capital. The multi-scaled and evolutionary nature of sustainable development issues requires that community groups dedicated to engaging with such issues be particularly diverse, resilient, and flexible. As such, they must build a large number of bridging ties leading to external resources and limit the potential for bonding ties to impose constraining norms upon the group. Over time, however, volunteer groups tend towards a state of homophily, the tendency of groups to form from similar actors and then become more similar with time. This tendency leads to a decrease in the number of the bridging ties that help to provide group agency. Homophily must be actively recognized within community sustainable development groups if they are to remain effective over the long term. This paper suggests methods to prevent and control group homophily drawn from experience in forming small, time-limited sustainable development networks. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue     

基于产业化发展的农业人才“回流”问题研究

农业产业化发展需要人才支持,但长期城乡二元经济体制、偏向城市的工业优先发展战略等,造成农业农村人才大量流失,出现人才"空心化"、产业化人才匮乏等问题。随着农业生产链条的不断延伸及分工与合作的逐步深化,满足产业化需求的人才结构也逐步细化,许多关键领域的人才缺口较大,如:推动产业化扩张和规模化发展的规划管理人才,提升产业科技水平和产业链延伸交融程度的农业技术人才,促进产业链顺利延伸和产业集群发展的综合服务人才等。当农业农村现有人才存量无法满足产业化发展需求时,在地方政府指导下,合理引导掌握一技之长的农民工、农村籍大学生以及非农籍社会人才回流农业,是确保农业产业化持续、快速、健康发展的重要措施。相应的,实现人才顺利回流农业,需通过日益延伸的农业产业链内部市场的利益联结机制,鼓励并引导产业化紧缺人才组成专业型或互补型人力资本团队并积极参与产业化过程。