Diversity and Connectance in an Industrial Context

The ecological metaphor of industrial ecology is a proven conceptual tool, having spawned an entire field of interdisciplinary research that explores the intimate linkages between industry and its underlying natural systems. Besides its name and a number of borrowed concepts, however, industrial ecology has no formal relationship with the ecological sciences. This study explores the potential for further interdisciplinary collaboration by testing whether some of the same quantitative analysis techniques used in community ecology research can have meaning in an industrial context. Specifically, we applied the ecological concepts of connectance and diversity to an analysis of Burnside Industrial Park in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our results demonstrate that these ecological tools show promise for use in industrial ecology. We discuss the meaning of connectance and diversity concepts in an industrial context and suggest next steps for future studies. We hope that this research will help to lay the groundwork of an ecologically inspired tool kit for analyzing industrial ecosystems.     

The Industrial Ecology of Emerging Technologies

The modern world increasingly reflects human activities, to the point that many scientists are referring to this era as the Anthropocene, the Age of Humans. A major domain of human activity involves sociotechnical systems, which can be characterized as occurring in constellations of coevolving technological, cultural, institutional, economic, and psychological systems lasting over many decades. The current constellation, still in its early stages of development, brings together five powerful technology systems—nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics, information and communication technology, and cognitive science—that are even more complex than historical precedents because they enable not just far more powerful capabilities to design domains external to humans but also the potential to design individual humans themselves. Understanding the implications of this sociotechnical landscape for industrial ecology suggests profound theoretical challenges as well as important new areas of research.     

Success and Its Price: The Institutionalization and Political Relevance of Industrial Ecology

As industrial ecology (IE) solidifies conceptually and methodologically, and as it gains visibility and legitimacy in academia, industry, and government, it is important that the IE community periodically evaluate the status of its emerging institutional arrangements. At the same time, industrial ecologists should assess the political relations developing between the field and the larger world. We analyze four institutional criteria: professional legitimacy, viable clientele, entrepreneurial acumen, and occupational opportunities, as well as a more controversial fifth measure-political relevance. Drawing a comparison with the field of ecology, we argue that efforts to foster IE institutionally can, ironically, conflict with the objective of seeing IE become "the science and engineering of sustainability". The article concludes by reflecting on the importance of this kind of critical appraisal and on why many observers of the field remain hopeful.     

鼎湖山森林生态系统演替过程中的能量生态特征

以时空替代的方法,将灌草丛、针叶林、针阔叶混交林和季风常绿阔叶林等４个处于同一空间下的群落当作同一样落演替进程中的４个阶段,研究了鼎湖山南亚热带森林演替过程中的能量生态特征。结果表明,鼎湖山南亚热带森林群落演替过程中,其垂直层次、叶面积指数、冠层对太阳辐射能的截获量、叶生物量、总生物量、总初级生产力、总呼吸量、净初级生产力、枯树木现存量和年输入量、昆虫啃食量、群落的能量现存量等随演替的进程而增加,     

The Potential of Genomic Approaches to Rotifer Ecology

Rotifers are a key component of many freshwater ecosystems, but surveys of the composition of rotifer communities are limited by the labor-intensiveness of sample processing, particularly of non-planktonic taxa, and by the shortage of investigators qualified to identify a broad range of rotifer species. Additional problems are posed by species that must be identified from living specimens, and by members of cryptic species complexes. As DNA sequencing becomes easier and cheaper, it has become practical to obtain representative DNA sequences from identified rotifer species for use in genome-based surveys to determine which rotifers are present in a new sample, avoiding the difficulties of traditional surveys. Here we discuss two genome-based tools used in surveys of microbial communities: serial analysis of gene tags (SAGT) and microarray hybridization. SAGT is a method for inexpensively obtaining characteristic short DNA sequences from a sample that can both identify taxa for which the tag sequence is known and signal the presence of additional uncharacterized species. Microarray hybridization allows detection of DNA sequences in the sample that are identical or similar to sequences present on the microarray. We also report the construction and hybridization of a small microarray of rotifer sequences, demonstrating that this method can discriminate among bdelloid families, and is likely to make much finer discriminations if appropriate sequences are present on the microarray. These techniques are most powerful when combined with traditional systematics in collaborative efforts, which may be fostered through the data base of rotifer biology, WheelBase (http://jbpc.mbl.edu/wheelbase).     

工业生态系统多样性评述

工业多样性是工业生态学关注和研究的重点,也是工业生态化的重要决策支撑之一。但其含义复杂,指标多种多样。为了深入理解工业多样性的含义及其对工业生态系统的影响,本研究分析了工业生态系统与自然生态系统在结构和功能两方面的异同,梳理了工业多样性概念定义的发展过程,整理了现今应用较多的10个工业多样性指标,从工业种类数量和分布均匀程度、工业的可逐级细分性,以及工业间的经济联系和区域产业组合三方面将指标划分为三组,分别介绍其计算方法和含义,并比较了各指标的优缺点。在实际应用中,综合多个工业多样性指标的计算结果,可以较为全面的反映区域工业组成和结构,有助于理解工业多样性对工业生态系统过程的影响。     

Quantitative Industrial Ecology & Ecological Economics

This article presents a theoretical foundation for integrating three otherwise disparate areas of human thought and understanding: technology, ecology, and economics. The article presents the mathematical foundations for quantifying the biophysical (mass, energy, and informational) aspects of economic production systems and their interaction with natural systems. These mathematical relationships are required for the on-going ecological and economic design of technological production networks by enterprise management, thereby extending the scope and scale of quantitative engineering design from the domain of individual technologies to networks of technologies at enterprise, corporate, and industrial levels of technological organization.
The analytical framework extends the practical utility of ecology, as an applied natural science, from passive environmental monitoring and prediction to active institutional participation in an informational feedback control strategy pursuant to economically abating the ecological risks of industrial growth, development, and modernization at local, regional, and global levels of ecological organization. And it provides the applied natural-science underpinnings and the informational feedback control institutions required to support economics as an applied social science. In this context ecological risk-control pricing is presented as a supplement to conventional economic policies at local, regional, and national levels of economic organization.     

人类文明演化的生态观

自从地球上出现生命以后 ,生命就与环境构成了复杂庞大的生态系统。人类的出现使得生态系统日益复杂化 ,纯粹的天然系统逐渐被打上了人类活动的烙印 ,人类根据自身的需要 ,不断地改变原有的纯自然的生态平衡 ,创造出更适合人类生存、生活和生产的人工生态系统 ,达到新的平衡 ,不断建造了人类文明 ,因此 ,人类文明史实际上是一部人与自然环境、社会环境及心理环境竞争与共生、改造与适应的生态史。1　农业文明的兴衰在旧石器时代末 ,地球上人口总数不到 30 0万 ,到中石器时代也只有 1 0 0 0万 ,这一时期 ,人类还仅仅是自然生态系统食物网中的…     

Succession of cladocerans in a northern Italian ricefield

The seasonal succession of cladocerans was studied in an experimental ricefield (never treated with biocides) located on the Po River Plain (Province of Reggio Emilia) in 1982, the first year of rice cultivation, and in two later years, 1984 and 1986. A total of 26 species were identified; some of them were found in Northern Italy for the first time. The finding of Latonopsis australis Sars is discussed in detail. A trend of increasing specific diversity during the rice cultivation season was not recurrent every year. The most significant trends emerge when the three years are compared. The total number of species was 14 in 1982, 16 in 1984, and 20 in 1986. Diversity, too, increased strongly over the years: this trend was sustained chiefly by the increase in richness of Chydoridae species associated with the growth and decomposition of a large biomass of weeds and microalgae during the summer.     

Further Efforts to Clarify Industrial Ecology's Hidden Philosophy of Nature

As an emerging discipline, industrial ecology represents a promising interdisciplinary field that studies industrial systems and their fundamental linkage with nature. At the root of its scientific profile lies a refreshingly different perspective on nature as a model in comparison with other disciplines' orthodox understanding nature in terms of a "sack of resources" the "biophysical limit""something outside""surrounding" or just "environment". In contrast to these phrases, industrial ecology's perspective indicates an important change in the interpretation of nature, from the interest in intervening in or preserving nature toward an orientation by nature, from the comprehension of nature as an object toward understanding nature as a model, and from exploiting natural resources toward learning from nature as, in part, an ideal. This characteristic perspective of industrial ecology is typically stated with an appealing natural ecosystem metaphor and based on an analogy between industrial systems and natural ecosystems. On the basis of initial efforts to conceptualize industrial ecology's underlying assumptions concerning nature, a philosophically focused analysis of nature as a model is presented. Industrial ecology's implicit philosophy of nature is thus uncovered and clarified. Finally, a set of arguments drawing on the philosophy of science and on Kantian epistemology and philosophical anthropology is provided to gain greater conceptual clarity and to contribute to laying a solid foundation for industrial ecology's stimulating role in achieving sustainability at large.     

Colonization of an artificial stream by fishes and aquatic macro-invertebrates

We examined colonization by fishes and macro-invertebrates from permanent streams into an artificial freshwater stream simulating lotic temporary bodies of water that exist for only a limited period each year. After introducing water, invertebrates such as chironomid larvae in mud increased in numbers rapidly in the experimental stream, although they were rare in mud in the permanent streams. Eleven of 12 fish species present in the permanent streams colonized the experimental stream and preyed upon invertebrates, although fish composition differed significantly between the two streams. About 100 days after the initiation of the experiment, both species richness and diversity in the experimental stream reached almost the same level as that in the permanent streams. More diverse fishes colonized the complex section where habitat diversity was high compared to the simple section in the experimental stream. Our study strongly suggests that lotic temporary waters such as temporary streams around main rivers have unique ecological characteristics and serve as valuable foraging sites for fish.     

Analyzing the Environmental Benefits of Industrial Symbiosis

Studies of industrial symbiosis (IS) focus on the physical flows of materials and energy in local industrial systems. In an ideal IS, waste material and energy are shared or exchanged among the actors of the system, thereby reducing the consumption of virgin material and energy inputs, and likewise the generation of waste and emissions. In this study, the environmental impacts of an industrial ecosystem centered around a pulp and paper mill and operating as an IS are analyzed using life cycle assessment (LCA). The system is compared with two hypothetical reference systems in which the actors would operate in isolation. Moreover, the system is analyzed further in order to identify possibilities for additional links between the actors. The results show that of the total life cycle impacts of the system, upstream processes made the greatest overall contribution to the results. Comparison with stand‐alone production shows that in the case studied, the industrial symbiosis results in modest improvements, 5% to 20% in most impact categories, in the overall environmental impacts of the system. Most of the benefits occur upstream through heat and electricity production for the local town. All in all it is recommended that when the environmental impacts of industrial symbiosis are assessed, the impacts occurring upstream should also be studied, not only the impacts within the ecosystem.     

Assessment of the National Eco-Industrial Park Standard for Promoting Industrial Symbiosis in China

Eco-industrial park (EIP) projects have become more prevalent in China. In order to evaluate the performance of such innovative projects, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has set up a new national standard for EIPs, the first of its kind globally. This article examines the applicability and feasibility of the indicator system established in the standard. It first presents the details of this new standard. Then benefits and challenges in the standard's application are analyzed. The analysis shows that the new indicators are eco-efficiency-oriented and do not address the essence of the EIP. In the future, there will be a need to revise this set of indicators by considering the principles of eco-industrial development and local realities in order to ensure that the indicators are indeed used to promote sustainable development of industrial parks.     

陆地植物群落物种多样性研究进展

生物多样性是当前生态学研究的热点之一,物种多样性层次是最直接、最易观察和最适合研究生物多样性的层次。总结了与群落动态、生境因子、取样尺度及生态系统相关的陆地植物物种多样性研究。同时,根据目前的趋势提出了多样性动态研究的发展动向。     

The development of a benthic ecosystem

The development of a benthic ecosystem on a sandy bottom at 3 m depth in the saline Lake Grevelingen, The Netherlands, is described. The development started after the closure of the former Grevelingen estuary and was followed for 4 1/2 years. Ecosystem attributes studied were biomass, secondary production, production/biomass ratio, type of food chains, species diversity, pattern diversity, size of organisms, type of life-cycles, and r- and K-selection. The results are discussed in relation to E. P. Odum's (1969) theory of ecosystem development. Communication nr. 150 of the Delta Institute for Hydrobiological Research