Ecological degradation and agricultural intensification in the Andean highlands

Andean cultural ecologists have made two claims in recent years: ecological decomposition is absent due to effective indigenous management of communal resources, and agricultural intensification is inversely related to altitude. Drawing on material from the Jukumani Indians of Northern Potosi, Bolivia, these assertions are challenged. First, there is little evidence to prove or disprove ecological degradation. Second, the location of agricultural intensification, as the Jukumani data suggests, is influenced by altitude as well as by the presence of market.Fieldwork in Bolivia was carried out between January 1979 and May 1981. This essay was originally presented at a conference entitled, How Communities Resolve Common Property Problems, sponsored by the Harvard Institute for International Development and the Center for Population Studies of Harvard University in the spring semester of 1983.     

Weed species and weed communities

Summary With weeds as with many plant species the main or first level factor determining the area of distribution is a (complex) climatic one. As they have an artificially enlarged area of distribution, they have a huge border area (in an ecological sense), where the climate is not optimal for them, and where they have a narrow ecological and sociological amplitude and are especially sensitive to some measures of modern intensified agriculture. In their northern border areas species of southern origin are restricted to calcarcous substrates and to agrestal and finally ruderal communities, while in their optimal climate they are indifferent to that soil factor and able to compete with other species even in natural vegetation types. Species presumably of origin in atlantic areas are restricted with increasing continentality to very poor and acid soils, as they cannot compete with other species on better sites any more, because of their physiological properties. Thus weed distribution demonstrates the complicated reaction of plant species to the complexes of soil-climatic factors and to the competition of other species. As far as weeds are concerned, species may be only relatively calciphilous, but genuinely calcifuge species, the control being climatic in the former case and physiological in the second.The measures of modern agriculture bring about a gradual extinction of sensitive species from the limit of their range towards their centre of distribution, where they can find refuge habitats in the natural vegetation. The sensitivity of such species (also against herbicides) seems to increase towards their limits. Resistant species occur with increasing densities after the removal of their competitors. In addition, they are able to enlarge their area and to invade sites, where they had not been able to compete before, or sites where they could not previously bear the environmental conditions together with the competition of the rich weed flora.As the complex climatic gradients responsible for the ranges of weed species show smooth transitions, the alteration of species composition in weed communities is also a gradual one. This is one of the problems of weed phytosociology briefly discussed.Nomenclature follows Ehrendorfer (1973), Phytosociological units according to Westhoff & Den Held (1969).Contribution to the Symposium on Plant Species and Plant communities, held at Nijmegen, 11–12 November 1976, on the occasion of the 60th birthday of Professor Victor Westhoff.Field studies were partly supported by a grant of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.     

Primitivity and convergence to stability

An exact expression for the index of primitivity g of a Leslie matrix is obtained, which applies also to time-varying matrices which share an incidence matrix. Elapsed time (not time intervals) to primitivity is shown to depend only weakly on the discretization scheme used. A lower bound for speed of convergence to the stable (fixed or time-dependent as appropriate) state is given which depends sensitively on g.     

经济开发区生态规划与建设研究

生态规划和建设是协调经济发展和生态环境关系,创造和谐的人工化环境的调控对策。木文研究了沈阳开发区生态规划和建设的理论、方法,着重探讨了开发区经济、环境协调发展的途径:1)选择理想的协调发展优化方案,2)控制发展热电生产,发展集中供热和低能耗高技术产业,3)节约水资源,提高水循环利用率,4)在生态学原理指导下进行生态管理。     

Glutamate Dehydrogenase Reaction as a Source of Glutamic Acid in Synaptosomes

The role of the glutamate dehydrogenase reaction as a pathway of glutamate synthesis was studied by incubating synaptosomes with 5 mM 15NH4Cl and then utilizing gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to measure isotopic enrichment in glutamate and aspartate. The rate of formation of [15N]glutamate and [15N]aspartate from 5 mM 15NH4Cl was approximately 0.2 nmol/min/mg of protein, a value much less than flux through glutaminase (4.8 nmol/min/mg of protein) but greater than flux through glutamine synthetase (0.045 nmol/min/mg of protein). Addition of 1 mM 2-oxoglutarate to the medium did not affect the rate of [15N]glutamate formation. O2 consumption and lactate formation were increased in the presence of 5 mM NH3, whereas the intrasynaptosomal concentrations of glutamate and aspartate were unaffected. Treatment of synaptosomes with veratridine stimulated reductive amination of 2-oxoglutarate during the early time points. The production of ([15N]glutamate + [15N]aspartate) was enhanced about twofold in the presence of 5 mM beta-(+/-)-2-aminobicyclo [2.2.1]heptane-2-carboxylic acid, a known effector of glutamate dehydrogenase. Supplementation of the incubation medium with a mixture of unlabelled amino acids at concentrations similar to those present in the extracellular fluid of the brain had little effect on the intrasynaptosomal [glutamate] and [aspartate]. However, the enrichment in these amino acids was consistently greater in the presence of supplementary amino acids, which appeared to stimulate modestly the reductive amination of 2-oxoglutarate. It is concluded: (a) compared with the phosphate-dependent glutaminase reaction, reductive amination is a relatively minor pathway of synaptosomal glutamate synthesis in both the basal state and during depolarization; (b) NH3 toxicity, at least in synaptosomes, is not referable to energy failure caused by a depletion of 2-oxoglutarate in the glutamate dehydrogenase reaction; and (c) transamination is not a major mechanism of glutamate nitrogen production in nerve endings.     

大棚黄瓜霜霉病气候生态防治方法研究再报——高温控制与病情和产量关系及其防治指标

本文采用田间温度控制试验资料,用数理统计的方法分析高温控制范围、控制时间和控制频率与大棚黄瓜霜霉病的发生期、流行期、发生程度以及产量的关系,并建立了统计相关模式,确定了高温控制生态防治方法的技术指标。最高温度、高温控制时间和控制频率这3个主要指标与病情和黄瓜产量的关系非常密切,最高气温每升高1℃,发病期和流行期将推迟3—5天,病叶率降低13—15％,黄瓜产量可增长10％左右。在一定范围内,控制时间越长,频率越高,则发病期和流行期越晚,病情越轻,产量越高。研究证明,高温控制方法是一个有效的生态防治方法,具有明确的气候生态学依据。     

仔鳗生态失调死亡率与肠道微生态系重调整的研究

本文报告,在1989年4月至1991年3月,为考察长江仔鳗资源的开发利用,对仔鳗生态失调死亡率及其防治方法做了一些研究。结果表明,仔鳗溯河性生态失调死亡率为49.8％(可信限为46.3～53.3％);寒冷性生态失调死亡率为48.59％(可信限为43.5～53.5％)。在实验中,应用肝浆(含B族维生素),在早期喂给仔鳗治疗有效(u=2.17>1.96,p<0.05);含抗生素食物喂给无显著性效果。应用由鳗鲡成鱼和黑斑泥鳅体内分离的肠微球菌、贝内克菌和非O-I群弧菌,喂给仔鳗进行肠道微生态系重调整(readjutment of intestinal microecosystem),对提高仔鳗生理功能适应性和降低生态失调死亡率有满意效果(u=2.84>2.58,p<0.01)。     

Crucial factors determining the spatio-temporal distribution patterns of threeAthalia sawflies feeding on common cruciferous plants

Three Athalia sawflies, A. japonica, A. rosae and A. infumata, feeding on cruciferous plants, coexist in Japan. However, it is not known what ecological strategies they use and what environmental factors are crucial to such strategies. I attempted to explain these questions by examining the relationship between the spatio-temporal distribution patterns of three Athalia sawflies and their habitats in three districts (Lowland, Intermediate and Mountain). The three sawflies have different spatio-temporal distribution patterns, though they usually used common cruciferous plants. A. japonica was abundant in spring and autumn but disappeared during summer in all the districts. In the Lowland, populations of A. rosae and A. infumata, like that of A. japonica, crashed in summer. However A. rosae occurred mainly in summer in the Intermediate and Mountain. Although A. infumata occurred in the same seasons as A. rosae in all districts, population levels of A. infumata were always lower than those of A. rosae. The crucial factors controlling their population patterns were the availability of host plants and temperature. Population crashes of A. rosae and A. infumata were due to food depletion, and those of A. japonica were due to heat stress. On the other hand, their population patterns may be interpreted as phenological synchronization with their original host plants, though they all existed on common cruciferous plants. The three sawflies may have evolved different strategies to escape from unfavorable habitat conditions. Such strategies are speculated to be summer diapause in A. japonica, long distance migration in A. rosae, and local dispersal in A. infumata.     

The performance and distribution of species along soil salinity gradients of mangrove swamps in southeastern Nigeria

Based on periodic soil salinity measurements direct gradient analysis procedures were used to relate the performance and distribution of mangrove swamp species to salinity gradients. Variations in soil salinity were due to distance from the coast, tidal incursions and freshwater inputs. All overstorey species showed statistically significant negative correlations with salinity while most groundlayer species were positively correlated with the same factor. Based on ecological group classification, no species was found to occur on the highest values of soil salinity. There were overlapping range of occurrences and ecological optima for most species along the gradients.     

Molecules,fossils, and the origin of tetrapods

Summary Since the discovery of the coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, more than 50 years ago, paleontologists and comparative morphologists have debated whether coelacanths or lungfishes, two groups of lobe-finned fishes, are the closest living relatives of land vertebrates (Tetrapoda). Previously, Meyer and Wilson (1990) determined partial DNA sequences from two conservative mitochondrial genes and found support for a close relationship of lungfishes to tetrapods. We present additional DNA sequences from the 12S rRNA mitochondria gene for three species of the two lineages of lungfishes that were not represented in the first study: Protopterus annectens and Protopterus aethiopicus from Africa and Neoceratodus forsteri (kindly provided by B. Hedges and L. Maxson) from Australia. This extended data set tends to group the two lepidosirenid lungfish lineages (Lepidosiren and Protopterus) with Neoceratodus as their sister group. All lungfishes seem to be more closely related to tetrapods than the coelacanth is. This result appears to rule out the possibility that the coelacanth lineage gave rise to land vertebrates. The common ancestor of lungfishes and tetrapods might have possessed multiple morphological traits that are shared by lungfishes and tetrapods [Meyer and Wilson (1990) listed 14 such traits]. Those traits that seem to link Latimeria and tetrapods are arguably due to convergent evolution or reversals and not to common descent. In this way, the molecular tree facilitates an evolutionary interpretation of the morphological differences among the living forms. We recommended that the extinct groups of lobe-finned fishes be placed onto the molecular tree that has lungfishes and not the coelacanth more closely related to tetrapods. The placement of fossils would help to further interpret the sequence of morphological events and innovations associated with the origin of tetrapods but appears to be problematic because the quality of fossils is not always high enough, and differences among paleontologists in the interpretation of the fossils have stood in the way of a consensus opinion for the branching order among lobefinned fishes. Marshall and Schultze (1992) criticized the morphological analysis presented by Meyer and Wilson (1990) and suggest that 13 of the 14 morphological traits that support the sister group relationship of lungfishes and tetrapods are not shared derived characters. Here we present further alternative viewpoints to the ones of Marshall and Schultze (1992) from the paleontological literature. We argue that all available information (paleontological, neontological, and molecular data) and rigorous cladistic methodology should be used when relating fossils and extant taxa in a phylogenetic framework. Offprint requests to: Axel Meyer