Integrated Ecosystem Assessment: Lake Ontario Water Management

Background

Ecosystem management requires organizing, synthesizing, and projecting information at a large scale while simultaneously addressing public interests, dynamic ecological properties, and a continuum of physicochemical conditions. We compared the impacts of seven water level management plans for Lake Ontario on a set of environmental attributes of public relevance.

Methodology and Findings

Our assessment method was developed with a set of established impact assessment tools (checklists, classifications, matrices, simulations, representative taxa, and performance relations) and the concept of archetypal geomorphic shoreline classes. We considered each environmental attribute and shoreline class in its typical and essential form and predicted how water level change would interact with defining properties. The analysis indicated that about half the shoreline of Lake Ontario is potentially sensitive to water level change with a small portion being highly sensitive. The current water management plan may be best for maintaining the environmental resources. In contrast, a natural water regime plan designed for greatest environmental benefits most often had adverse impacts, impacted most shoreline classes, and the largest portion of the lake coast. Plans that balanced multiple objectives and avoided hydrologic extremes were found to be similar relative to the environment, low on adverse impacts, and had many minor impacts across many shoreline classes.

Significance

The Lake Ontario ecosystem assessment provided information that can inform decisions about water management and the environment. No approach and set of methods will perfectly and unarguably accomplish integrated ecosystem assessment. For managing water levels in Lake Ontario, we found that there are no uniformly good and bad options for environmental conservation. The scientific challenge was selecting a set of tools and practices to present broad, relevant, unbiased, and accessible information to guide decision-making on a set of management options.     

Collective Management of Water Resources in Coastal Bangladesh: Formal and Substantive Approaches

We examine the processes of collective management of water resources for agriculture within the wider context of environmental change in a coastal region of Bangladesh. We argue that while the formal propositions of rational-actor theories (such as the Institutional Analysis and Design Framework) help to identify the potential constraints to collective action (e.g., the free rider problem), these propositions need to be seen in the substantive social context of any given case. Findings show that the pattern of collective water management is crucially dependent on the individual economic incentives for participation as well as the social structures and norms that influence the behaviour of different classes of actor, including those with conflicting economic incentives. By examining the substantive processes of negotiation and decision-making around specific problems of water management, we are able to identify the contingent set of factors that shape the responses of different actors, enabling or constraining desirable collective outcomes.     

Lawful Sinners: Reproductive Governance and Moral Agency Around Abortion in Mexico

The Catholic Hierarchy unequivocally bans abortion, defining it as a mortal sin. In Mexico City, where the Catholic Church wields considerable political and popular power, abortion was recently decriminalized in a historic vote. Of the roughly 170,000 abortions that have been carried out in Mexico City's new public sector abortion program to date, more than 60% were among self-reported Catholic women. Drawing on eighteen months of fieldwork, including interviews with 34 Catholic patients, this article examines how Catholic women in Mexico City grapple with abortion decisions that contravene Church teachings in the context of recent abortion reform. Catholic women consistently leveraged the local cultural, economic, and legal context to morally justify their abortion decisions against church condemnation. I argue that Catholic women seeking abortion resist religious injunctions on their reproductive behavior by articulating and asserting their own moral agency grounded in the contextual dimensions of their lives. My analysis informs conversations in medical anthropology on moral decision-making around reproduction and on local dynamics of resistance to reproductive governance. Moreover, my findings speak to the deficiencies of a feminist vision focused narrowly on fertility limitation, versus an expanded framework of reproductive justice that considers as well the need for conditions of income equality and structural supports to facilitate reproduction and parenting among women who desire to keep their pregnancies.     

药用植物淫羊藿资源可持续利用现状与展望

药用植物淫羊藿主要分布于我国,在中药、功能性食品和园林观赏等领域具有重要用途.目前淫羊藿药材主要依靠野外采摘,过度的采挖已经对淫羊藿野生资源造成严重威胁和破坏,必须采取有效策略,推进淫羊藿资源的保育和可持续利用.人工栽培、野生抚育与人工半抚育是保护淫羊藿野生资源的重要途径.此外还可采用植物代酣工程、细胞工程、组织培养与微生物发酵工程技术生产淫羊藿有效成分黄酮类化合物,减少野生药材的采挖与消耗.全面调查不同种淫羊藿中药理活性成分的种类和含量以及提高有效成分的提取收率对于野生药材保护也具有一定的作用.对于一些珍稀濒危的淫羊藿种质资源,还应采取必要的行政监管手段加以保护.     

Global Processes and Local Identity among Mayan Coffee Growers in Chiapas, Mexico

This case study of the organic farmers' cooperative Indigenas de la Sierra Madre de Motozintla (ISMAM) explores the construction of identity as a dialogic process in which external elements are appropriated to permit resistance and creative adaptation to global processes. Building on indigenous Mam respect for nature, ISMAM forges a corporate image that responds to symbolic demands of the alternative marketplace and a self-image reaffirming traditional values in a modern context.     

Drinking Water Quality in a Mexico City University Community: Perception and Preferences

EcoHealth - A transversal study was conducted at the University City campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City, with the goal of estimating the university...     

Water and Values: Ecological Research as the Basis for Water Management and Nature Management

Over the past 50 years ecology has developed into a mature branch of the natural sciences, comprising firm concepts (e.g. for rivers River Continuum Concept and Flood Pulse Concept) and extensive empirical surveys (sophisticated lab and field experiments, simulation models, GIS). Estuaries and rivers are continuously threatened ecosystems, considering the massive expansion of man’s economic activities. I focus on rivers and estuaries in the Netherlands (W. Europe), where recent public interest has mainly been determined by two flooding disasters (mega-disaster in 1953; near-disaster in 1995). The measures taken to enhance the safety of the human population were adequate: building of large closure dams, and storm surge barriers in the estuaries, and heightening of levees along the rivers. Eventually these measures were detrimental for what was left of the dynamic river ecosystems from the past. This paper focuses on two ecosystem studies. (1) An ecosystem study in Grevelingen lagoon, a large embanked estuary that changed into a brackish water lagoon. Predictive ecological models (e.g. for the wax and wane of Eelgrass, Zostera marina) were inadequate because of the exceptional characteristics of the lagoon: the ecosystem appeared to be instable, and not resilient. (2) An ecosystem study at Afferdensche and Deestsche Waarden, a floodplain area along the river Waal, strongly affected by toxicants deposited before 1980. We studied the functioning and eco-toxicology of floodplain food webs, deteriorated by pollutants. Fine-tuned spatial components were introduced in ecological risk assessment models of several trophic levels (e.g. a top predator, the Little Owl, Athena noctua). Safety for the human population, living below sea level, and below the level of the main rivers, must be improved, but overhasty technocratic measures deteriorating the remaining semi-natural, highly appreciated landscapes, should be avoided. Stakeholder interests must be adapted to sustainable ecological river management, and not the other way round, as has been done for the past ten centuries.     

Ecosystem Characteristics and Management Considerations for Coastal Wetlands in Mexico

Ecological parameters characterizing physico-chemical and biological conditions were collected from a total of 29 representative wetlands that occur between the near-shore terrestrial ecosystems and the outer edge of the tidal zone along the coasts of Mexico. This total includes about 40% of the total extent of coastal wetlands in Mexico. It is possible to recognize four distinct groups of wetlands based largely on the salinity gradients: oligohaline (0–10 ppt), estuarine (10–30 ppt), euhaline (30–40 ppt), and hyperhaline (>40 ppt). Estuarine wetlands are the most abundant and widespread group. Oligohaline wetlands are more common in the south and the hyperhaline wetlands are more common along the north coasts of Mexico. Euhaline systems are in specialized localities scattered along both coasts. Human activities and development pressures continue to threaten the coastal wetlands in Mexico. This paper presents the first survey of ecological characteristics of the coastal wetlands in Mexico. These data highlight the range of variability that exists, demonstrates problems such as eutrophication, and provides a basis for future more detailed biomonitoring, management and conservation programs for these highly vulnerable and economically important ecosystems in Mexico.     

Vegetated Field Margins in Mexico: Their History, Structure and Function, and Management

We explore the history, structure and function, and management of vegetated field margins, particularly hedgerows, in Mexico since the pre-Hispanic period. We then focus on the current agricultural landscape in El Bajío, central Mexico, describing in detail the abundance, composition, and management of existing hedgerows. These vegetated field margins can be traced to the pre-Hispanic period, especially in central Mexico, where Indians planted hedgerows, living fences, and terraces, mainly to prevent erosion. After the Spanish Conquest, some of these structures disappeared, but in many cases, new plant species were incorporated into the remaining field boundaries. Today, vegetated field boundaries are adjacent to crop fields and, in some places, they form networks similar to those seen in Europe. Farmers actively manage hedgerows for a variety of useful products and in so doing provide habitat and dispersal routes for native plants and animals.     

Allelopathic Interactions and Allelochemicals: New Possibilities for Sustainable Weed Management

Weeds are known to cause enormous losses due to their interference in agroecosystems. Because of environmental and human health concerns, worldwide efforts are being made to reduce the heavy reliance on synthetic herbicides that are used to control weeds. In this regard the phenomenon of allelopathy, which is expressed through the release of chemicals by a plant, has been suggested to be one of the possible alternatives for achieving sustainable weed management. The use of allelopathy for controlling weeds could be either through directly utilizing natural allelopathic interactions, particularly of crop plants, or by using allelochemicals as natural herbicides. In the former case, a number of crop plants with allelopathic potential can be used as cover, smother, and green manure crops for managing weeds by making desired manipulations in the cultural practices and cropping patterns. These can be suitably rotated or intercropped with main crops to manage the target weeds (including parasitic ones) selectively. Even the crop mulch/residues can also give desirable benefits. Not only the terrestrial weeds, even allelopathy can be suitably manipulated for the management of aquatic weeds. The allelochemicals present in the higher plants as well as in the microbes can be directly used for weed management on the pattern of herbicides. Their bioefficacy can be enhanced by structural changes or the synthesis of chemical analogues based on them. Further, in order to enhance the potential of allelopathic crops, several improvements can be made with the use of biotechnology or genomics and proteomics. In this context either the production of allelochemicals can be enhanced or the transgenics with foreign genes encoding for a particular weed-suppressing allelochemical could be produced. In the former, both conventional breeding and molecular genetical techniques are useful. However, with conventional breeding being slow and difficult, more emphasis is laid on the use of modern techniques such as molecular markers and the selection aided by them. Although the progress in this regard is slow, nevertheless some promising results are coming and more are expected in future. This review attempts to discuss all these aspects of allelopathy for the sustainable management of weeds. Referee: Dr. Amrjits S. Basra, Central Plains Crop Technology, 5912 North Meridian Avenue, Wichita, KS 67204     

Oxidative Processes in Soybean and Pea Seeds: Effect of Light, Temperature, and Water Content

Oxidative processes are probable determinants of longevity of seeds in storage. Measurements of actual oxygen uptake rates were made for soybean and pea seeds as a comparison of short and long lived seeds when light, temperature, and moisture contents were varied. In both peas and soybeans, the oxygen uptake was depressed at low temperatures (<16°C) and low water contents (<0.25 gram H₂O per gram dry weight). Apparent activation energies under these conditions are very high, while apparent activation energies of seeds at higher water contents and at temperatures greater than 22°C are much less. Light enhances the level of oxygen uptake in pea, but reduces the level of oxygen uptake in soybean. The complexities of the interactions of oxygen uptake with environmental conditions in soybean compared to pea suggest that oxidative processes occur in soybean at low water contents, but are essentially absent in pea. It is suggested that the additional oxidative processes in soybean with moisture contents between 0.10 and 0.24 gram per gram may contribute to the poorer longevity of soybean seed compared to pea seed.     

Effects of Consumer Interactions on Benthic Resources and Ecosystem Processes in a Neotropical Stream

The effect of consumers on their resources has been demonstrated in many systems but is often confounded by trophic interactions with other consumers. Consumers may also have behavioral and life history adaptations to each other and to co-occurring predators that may additionally modulate their particular roles in ecosystems. We experimentally excluded large consumers from tile periphyton, leaves and natural benthic substrata using submerged electrified frames in three stream reaches with overlapping consumer assemblages in Trinidad, West Indies. Concurrently, we assessed visits to (non-electrified) control frames by the three most common large consumers–primarily insectivorous killifish (Rivulus hartii), omnivorous guppies (Poecilia reticulata) and omnivorous crabs (Eudaniela garmani). Consumers caused the greatest decrease in final chlorophyll a biomass and accrual rates the most in the downstream reach containing all three focal consumers in the presence of fish predators. Consumers also caused the greatest increase in leaf decay rates in the upstream reach containing only killifish and crabs. In the downstream reach where guppies co-occur with predators, we found significantly lower benthic invertebrate biomass in control relative to exclosure treatments than the midstream reach where guppies occur in the absence of predators. These data suggest that differences in guppy foraging, potentially driven by differences in their life history phenotype, may affect ecosystem structure and processes as much as their presence or absence and that interactions among consumers may further mediate their effects in these stream ecosystems.