Understanding implications of consumer behavior for wildlife farming and sustainable wildlife trade

Unsustainable wildlife trade affects biodiversity and the livelihoods of communities dependent upon those resources. Wildlife farming has been proposed to promote sustainable trade, but characterizing markets and understanding consumer behavior remain neglected but essential steps in the design and evaluation of such operations. We used sea turtle trade in the Cayman Islands, where turtles have been farm raised for human consumption for almost 50 years, as a case study to explore consumer preferences toward wild‐sourced (illegal) and farmed (legal) products and potential conservation implications. Combining methods innovatively (including indirect questioning and choice experiments), we conducted a nationwide trade assessment through in‐person interviews from September to December 2014. Households were randomly selected using disproportionate stratified sampling, and responses were weighted based on district population size. We approached 597 individuals, of which 37 (6.2%) refused to participate. Although 30% of households had consumed turtle in the previous 12 months, the purchase and consumption of wild products was rare (e.g., 64–742 resident households consumed wild turtle meat [i.e., 0.3–3.5% of households] but represented a large threat to wild turtles in the area due to their reduced populations). Differences among groups of consumers were marked, as identified through choice experiments, and price and source of product played important roles in their decisions. Despite the long‐term practice of farming turtles, 13.5% of consumers showed a strong preference for wild products, which demonstrates the limitations of wildlife farming as a single tool for sustainable wildlife trade. By using a combination of indirect questioning, choice experiments, and sales data to investigate demand for wildlife products, we obtained insights about consumer behavior that can be used to develop conservation‐demand‐focused initiatives. Lack of data from long‐term social–ecological assessments hinders the evaluation of and learning from wildlife farming. This information is key to understanding under which conditions different interventions (e.g., bans, wildlife farming, social marketing) are likely to succeed.     

Energy use and transport correlation linking personal and travel related energy uses to the urban structure

This paper considers relationships between sustainability objectives, transport, spatial design of the built environment and rational use of energy. Conventional transport modelling, housing supply and energy assessment tools are drawn together to provide a common platform for appraisal of city-wide energy use by stationary and mobile sources. The paper outlines methodologies developed for the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The paper concludes by briefly reviewing the effect in terms of mobile and stationary energy consumption and travel behaviour of implementing sustainable policy measures in current and future years within the study area.     

A new direct thermal desorption-GC/MS method: Organic speciation of ambient particulate matter collected in Golden, BC

Particulate matter having an aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) is thought to be implicated in a number of medical conditions, including cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, heart attack, and aging. However, very little chemical speciation data is available for the organic fraction of ambient aerosols. A new direct thermal desorption-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (TD-GC/MS) method was developed for the analysis of the organic fraction of PM2.5. Samples were collected in Golden, British Columbia, over a 15-month period. n-Alkanes constituted 33–98% by mass of the organic compounds identified. PAHs accounted for 1–65% and biomarkers (hopanes and steranes) 1–8% of the organic mass. Annual mean concentrations were: n-alkanes (0.07–1.55 ng m⁻³), 16 PAHs (0.02–1.83 ng m⁻³), and biomarkers (0.02–0.18 ng m⁻³). Daily levels of these organics were 4.89–74.38 ng m⁻³, 0.27–100.24 ng m⁻³, 0.14–4.39 ng m⁻³, respectively. Ratios of organic carbon to elemental carbon (OC/EC) and trends over time were similar to those observed for PM2.5. There was no clear seasonal variation in the distribution of petroleum biomarkers, but elevated levels of other organic species were observed during the winter. Strong correlations between PAHs and EC, and between petroleum biomarkers and EC, suggest a common emission source – most likely motor vehicles and space heating.     

Temperature dependence of secondary organic aerosol

Temperature was found to have a dramatic effect on secondary organic aerosol formation from two ozonolysis systems, cyclohexene and α-pinene. Isothermal experiments were conducted for both systems where the lowest temperature, 278 K, formed approximately 2.5–3 times and 5–6 times the SOA formed at 300 K and 318 K, respectively. Changing the cyclohexene system temperature to a different isothermal experimental set point after completion of SOA formation did not lead to sufficient condensation/evaporation to reproduce the SOA formation at other temperature set points. When the system temperature was cycled between two set points at the end of an experiment, the α-pinene system showed reversibility between the initial temperature 318 K and 300 K. For temperature cycles between the initial temperature of 300 K–318 K, an irreversible loss of mass is observed after the first heating cycle with reversibility observed between subsequent temperature cycles. The SOA formed at 278 K was reversible over a 22 K range but was unable to evaporate sufficiently to match the SOA mass formed at 300 K. Hygroscopicity measurements, taken after the completion of SOA formation, indicate that hygroscopicity of the aerosol is also a function of temperature and that the aerosol does not continue to be oxidized after initial growth is complete. The differing hygroscopicity of the semi-volatile component of the aerosol is evident during system temperature changes after completion of the experiment.     

DROUGHT INDICATED IN CARBON-13/CARBON-12 RATIOS OF SOUTHWESTERN TREE RINGS1

ABSTRACT: Stomatal closure during periods of moisture deficiency should theoretically lead to elevated ¹³C/¹²C ratios as reduction of available CO₂ leads to diminished photosynthetic discrimination against ¹³C in favor of ¹²C. Stable-carbon isotope ratio chronologies developed from 5-yr tree-ring groups at 17 sites in six southwestern states were tested for a drought relationship by first fitting a spline curve to each chronology to remove the long-term trend and calculating indices as the ratio of actual to spline curve value. The time series of “Del Indices” so developed are significantly correlated with 5-yr mean Palmer Hydrological Drought Indices (post-1930 period) and reconstructed July Palmer Drought Severity Indices from respective areas. Overall, in the period since 1790, the driest pentads were 1900–04 and 1960–64, whereas the wettest were 1980–84 and 1915–19. Maps of drought represented for two pentads seem to be reasonable representations, although spatial correlations of Del Indices with PHDI were generally not significant. These Del Index drought reconstructions may provide a useful measure of past physiological response to drought (stomatal closure), although the present cost of analysis would prevent this from being a routine method.     

CALCULATION OF NONLINEAR CONFIDENCE AND PREDICTION INTERVALS FOR GROUND-WATER FLOW MODELS1

ABSTRACT: A method is derived to efficiently compute nonlinear confidence and prediction intervals on any function of parameters derived as output from a mathematical model of a physical system. The method is applied to the problem of obtaining confidence and prediction intervals for manually-calibrated ground-water flow models. To obtain confidence and prediction intervals resulting from uncertainties in parameters, the calibrated model and information on extreme ranges and ordering of the model parameters within one or more independent groups are required. If random errors in the dependent variable are present in addition to uncertainties in parameters, then calculation of prediction intervals also requires information on the extreme range of error expected. A simple Monte Carlo method is used to compute the quantiles necessary to establish probability levels for the confidence and prediction intervals. Application of the method to a hypothetical example showed that includsion of random errors in the dependent variable in addition to uncertainties in parameters can considerably widen the prediction intervals.     

THE EFFECTS OF A MOVING RAINSTORM ON DIRECT RUNOFF PROPERTIES1

ABSTRACT: The effects of a moving rainstorm on flood runoff characteristics were investigated. A flood hydrograph simulation model called “FH-Model” and a natural watershed were used. A hypothetical rainstorm of 50 years recurrence interval, 75 mm depth, and 4 hours duration was used to show the effects of velocity and direction of the moving rainstorm on the runoff characteristics. Compared with an equivalent stationary rainstorm (ESRS), the peak flow caused by a rainstorm moving in a downstream direction with a speed equal to channel velocity, V, was 27.5 percent higher and the peak flow caused by the same rainstorm moving in an upstream direction was 21.7 percent smaller. These percentages reduced to 10.5 percent and 8.6 percent for storms moving downstream and upstream, respectively, at three times the channel velocity, 3V. There were negligible differences in the time of peak, T_p between runoff caused by storms moving downstream and runoff produced by ESRS. However, T_p for a storm moving upstream at V velocity was 82 percent higher than that produced by ESRS, but was reduced to 27 percent higher when the storm velocity was 3V.