生态系统的人口承载力理论初探

人口膨涨是当今人类面临的五大问题之一,也是我国目前所面临的最棘手的一个问题。近年来,人口学的发展很快,但是目前人口学研究的主要问题是人口统计、人口预测、人口控制和人口经济等方面,其中对于人口控制的目标,即定量研究理想人口数量的工作则刚开始。从生态学角度讨论人口承载力问题的更少。生态系统人口承载力的研究不仅可以给出一个生态系统(如全球生态系统或一个流域或一个地区)在保证系统结构和功能不受破坏条件下所能供养的最大人口数,而且可以给出该生态系统的人口控制目标,使人口控制的目标选择具有科学的基础。     

京郊密云县农业生态系统蛋白人口承载力模型分析

农业生态系统蛋白人口承载力不仅是农业生态学系统生产力研究的重要方面,而且是制定我国人口政策和食物战略的重要依据。中央曾指出:要把我国人民的膳物结构问题作为战略问题来考虑。分析我国的膳食特点可概括为“一够两缺”(即热量够,蛋白质和脂肪缺)温饱型营养水平。食物蛋白质的改善是我国膳食结     

京郊密云县农业生态系统蛋白质生产效率和人口承载力研究

蛋白质是人类最基本最重要的营养需求,研究蛋白质生产效率可为制定食物发展战略,建立合理的膳食结构提供参数与依据。食物蛋白质生产效率在国外研究较多,在国内报道还不多。作者从密云县整体系统水平对动植物蛋白生产力和蛋白质生产的能量、氮素效率进行了研究,并深入探讨了不同膳食结构的蛋白人口承载力。     

A Reexamination of Rendille Population Regulation

Rendille pastoralists of northern Kenya have long been cited as a noncontracepting population regulating population growth through cultural practices in response to environmental constraints. However, no actual demographic analysis of Rendille data has ever been undertaken. This article attempts such an analysis. The demographic mechanisms of possible population regulation are delineated and the possible rationale for such behavior explored. Analysis reveals that the Rendille cultural institution of sepaade, in which females of a specific cyclical age-set delay their age at marriage, significantly reduces fertility and population growth rates. However, this practice is not intended as a means of population-resource equilibrium. Furthermore, Rendille cognizance of and emphasis on the negative demographic concomitants of sepaade suggest that the tradition was adopted despite, rather than because of its dampening of population growth.     

Estimating Cetacean Carrying Capacity Based on Spacing Behaviour

Conservation of large ocean wildlife requires an understanding of how they use space. In Western Australia, the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) population is growing at a minimum rate of 10% per year. An important consideration for conservation based management in space-limited environments, such as coastal resting areas, is the potential expansion in area use by humpback whales if the carrying capacity of existing areas is exceeded. Here we determined the theoretical carrying capacity of a known humpback resting area based on the spacing behaviour of pods, where a resting area is defined as a sheltered embayment along the coast. Two separate approaches were taken to estimate this distance. The first used the median nearest neighbour distance between pods in relatively dense areas, giving a spacing distance of 2.16 km (±0.94). The second estimated the spacing distance as the radius at which 50% of the population included no other pods, and was calculated as 1.93 km (range: 1.62–2.50 km). Using these values, the maximum number of pods able to fit into the resting area was 698 and 872 pods, respectively. Given an average observed pod size of 1.7 whales, this equates to a carrying capacity estimate of between 1187 and 1482 whales at any given point in time. This study demonstrates that whale pods do maintain a distance from each other, which may determine the number of animals that can occupy aggregation areas where space is limited. This requirement for space has implications when considering boundaries for protected areas or competition for space with the fishing and resources sectors.     

A Comparative Analysis on Assessment of Land Carrying Capacity with Ecological Footprint Analysis and Index System Method

Land carrying capacity (LCC) explains whether the local land resources are effectively used to support economic activities and/or human population. LCC can be evaluated commonly with two approaches, namely ecological footprint analysis (EFA) and the index system method (ISM). EFA is helpful to investigate the effects of different land categories whereas ISM can be used to evaluate the contributions of social, environmental, and economic factors. Here we compared the two LCC-evaluation approaches with data collected from Xiamen City, a typical region where rapid economic growth and urbanization are found in China. The results show that LCC assessments with EFA and ISM not only complement each other but also are mutually supportive. Both assessments suggest that decreases in arable land and increasingly high energy consumption have major negative effects on LCC and threaten sustainable development for Xiamen City. It is important for the local policy makers, planners and designers to reduce ecological deficits by controlling fossil energy consumption, protecting arable land and forest land from converting into other land types, and slowing down the speed of urbanization, and to promote sustainability by controlling rural-to-urban immigration, increasing hazard-free treatment rate of household garbage, and raising energy consumption per unit industrial added value. Although EFA seems more appropriate for estimating LCC for a resource-output or self-sufficient region and ISM is more suitable for a resource-input region, both approaches should be employed when perform LCC assessment in any places around the world.     

Genetic Feedback and Human Population Regulation

Human population growth has been identified as a primary cause of ecologically destructive phenomena and, if left unchecked, will threaten the survivability of the human species. It has been demonstrated that genetic feedback is the mechanism by which species achieve ecological balance. The present analysis shows the applicability of this mechanism to human population regulation. In this model, the traits of behavior and culture are explained as following a four step process, similar to, and nested within genetic evolution. As species extinction is part and parcel of evolution, and environmental circumstances are changing rapidly, the population regulatory change that would take place on the genetic level of integration would be human extinction. However, the change on the cultural level, requiring a revision of the social contingency from “food production must be increased to feed a growing population” to “food production increases cause population increases,” would lead to human sustainability.     

Trends and Carrying Capacity of Sea Otters in Southeast Alaska

Sea otter populations in Southeast Alaska, USA, have increased dramatically from just over 400 translocated animals in the late 1960s to >8,000 by 2003. The recovery of sea otters to ecosystems from which they had been absent has affected coastal food webs, including commercially important fisheries, and thus information on expected growth and equilibrium abundances can help inform resource management. We compile available survey data for Southeast Alaska and fit a Bayesian state-space model to estimate past trends and current abundance. Our model improves upon previous analyses by partitioning and quantifying sources of estimation error, accounting for over-dispersion of aerial count data, and providing realistic measurements of uncertainty around point estimates of abundance at multiple spatial scales. We also provide estimates of carrying capacity (K) for Southeast Alaska, at regional and sub-regional scales, and analyze growth rates, current population status and expected future trends. At the regional scale, the population increased from 13,221 otters in 2003 to 25,584 otters in 2011. The average annual growth rate in southern Southeast Alaska (7.8%) was higher than northern Southeast Alaska (2.7%); however, growth varied at the sub-regional scale and there was a negative relationship between growth rates and the number of years sea otters were present in an area. Local populations vary in terms of current densities and expected future growth; the mean estimated density at K was 4.2 ± 1.58 sea otters/km² of habitat (i.e., the sub-tidal benthos between 0 m and 40 m depth) and current densities correspond on average to 50% of projected equilibrium values (range = 1–97%) with the earliest-colonized sub-regions tending to be closer to K. Assuming a similar range of equilibrium densities for currently un-occupied habitats, the projected value of K for all of Southeast Alaska is 74,650 sea otters. Future analyses can improve upon the precision of K estimates by employing more frequent surveys at index sites and incorporating environmental covariates into the process model to generate more accurate, location-specific estimates of equilibrium density. © 2019 The Authors. The Journal of Wildlife Management Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Effect of Sea Level Rise on Dabbling Duck Energetic Carrying Capacity

Waterfowl migrating and overwintering in the Atlantic Flyway depend on adequate availability of wetland plant communities to survive winter and fuel reproduction in the subsequent breeding season. Energetics models are the primary tool employed by conservation planners to estimate energetic carrying capacity based on energy supply and demand in different wetlands to assist with effective habitat conservation. Coastal impoundments have been used to provide a consistent, annual source of energy for migrating and wintering waterfowl. But few studies have attempted to comprehensively assess the relative value of managed coastal impoundments compared with unmanaged tidal salt marshes to wintering waterfowl in the Mid-Atlantic region with further consideration to the effect of sea level rise changing availability. We estimated biomass and energy of preferred foods for 5 dabbling duck species in 7 impoundments and 3 tidal salt marshes over winter by collecting soil core (n = 1,364), nekton (n = 426), and salt marsh snail (Melampus spp.; n = 87) samples in October, January, and April 2011–2013. Food-energy density was greater in freshwater impoundments for nearly all dabbling ducks (range = 183,344–562,089 kcal/ha), and typically greater in brackish impoundments (range = 169,665–357,160 kcal/ha) than most tidal salt marsh communities (range = 55,693–361,429 kcal/ha), whereas mudflat (range = 96,223–137,473 kcal/ha) and subtidal (range = 55,693–136,326 kcal/ha) communities typically contained the least energy. Extrapolating to the state level, we estimated 7.60 × 10⁹–1.14 × 10¹⁰ kcal available within a 16-km buffer from the Delaware Bayshore, depending on species. Combining estimates for daily energy expenditure and food energy, we estimated 2.86 × 10⁷–7.06 × 10⁷ duck energy days currently available to dabbling ducks over winter. We estimated that in the next century, dabbling duck carrying capacities are likely to decrease under all but the most conservative sea level rise scenarios because of the gradual replacement of land-cover types that provide high energy density (i.e., low marsh, high marsh communities) with those that provide low energy density (i.e., subtidal, mudflat communities). Coastal impoundments in Delaware, USA, will provide increasingly important habitat for wintering dabbling ducks in the coming decades provided they are properly maintained and retain their current energetic density because they will contain a growing proportion of the available duck energy days on the landscape. Our research will assist managers in meeting target population goals for dabbling ducks in Delaware and the Mid-Atlantic region by highlighting key differences in the function and value of various wetlands. © 2021 The Wildlife Society.     

Determination of Foraging Thresholds and Effects of Application on Energetic Carrying Capacity for Waterfowl

Energetic carrying capacity of habitats for wildlife is a fundamental concept used to better understand population ecology and prioritize conservation efforts. However, carrying capacity can be difficult to estimate accurately and simplified models often depend on many assumptions and few estimated parameters. We demonstrate the complex nature of parameterizing energetic carrying capacity models and use an experimental approach to describe a necessary parameter, a foraging threshold (i.e., density of food at which animals no longer can efficiently forage and acquire energy), for a guild of migratory birds. We created foraging patches with different fixed prey densities and monitored the numerical and behavioral responses of waterfowl (Anatidae) and depletion of foods during winter. Dabbling ducks (Anatini) fed extensively in plots and all initial densities of supplemented seed were rapidly reduced to 10 kg/ha and other natural seeds and tubers combined to 170 kg/ha, despite different starting densities. However, ducks did not abandon or stop foraging in wetlands when seed reduction ceased approximately two weeks into the winter-long experiment nor did they consistently distribute according to ideal-free predictions during this period. Dabbling duck use of experimental plots was not related to initial seed density, and residual seed and tuber densities varied among plant taxa and wetlands but not plots. Herein, we reached several conclusions: 1) foraging effort and numerical responses of dabbling ducks in winter were likely influenced by factors other than total food densities (e.g., predation risk, opportunity costs, forager condition), 2) foraging thresholds may vary among foraging locations, and 3) the numerical response of dabbling ducks may be an inconsistent predictor of habitat quality relative to seed and tuber density. We describe implications on habitat conservation objectives of using different foraging thresholds in energetic carrying capacity models and suggest scientists reevaluate assumptions of these models used to guide habitat conservation.     

海南龙血树种群生境及自然更新能力调查

对海南岛海南龙血树(Dracaena cambodiana Pierre ex Gagnep)生境、人为破坏情况和自然更新能力进行了调查与分析,探讨了其濒危原因。结果表明,海南龙血树属典型的岩石伴生型植物,主要分布在高温少雨地区,常生长在陡峭且裸露的花岗岩或石灰岩的石缝残积土中,或紧贴石壁生长于砂壤土中,其伴生树种以小乔木或灌木为主;由于无节制采挖和生境破坏,海南龙血树野生资源数量已十分有限。自然条件下海南龙血树的更新方式有种子更新、根蘖更新和桩蘖更新,但现有生境条件下无论何种更新方式均无法有效地实现种群的扩大和更新。可见,原生境破坏和无节制采挖是海南龙血树濒危的外因,"濒危生境"造成种子无法萌发或幼苗生长失败,导致种群无法实现自然更新是内因和主要原因。