Amazonian historical ecologies

Historical ecology may be defined as the undertaking of a diachronic analysis of living ecological systems, with the view to accounting more fully for their structural and functional properties. Historical ecology, more an approach or a research strategy than a paradigm, addresses a central question: 'How does environmental change relate to the historical development of human societies?' An integral part of the new ecological anthropology, historical ecology seeks to dereify the concepts of nature and culture, and to rethink critically the complexity of the biological world, particularly the problematic distinction between the wild and the domesticated, which has hitherto inspired natural science research on the diversity of biological life. This paper examines the ways in which historical ecology has been used to research nomadic bands subsisting with few or no domesticates in lowland South America. I argue that current knowledge of the Amazon biome, which is far more sophisticated than it was in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, when Steward edited the Handbook of South American Indians , allows us to rethink human occupation of, and adaptation to, the Amazon; to redefine the forces that have shaped the material dimensions of social life, and to recognize that Amazonian hunter-gatherers have played an active part in the making of the natural environment that they have occupied for millennia. I also argue that 'trekking', far from representing a necessary intermediary stage in the regression from horticulture to foraging, constitutes, in some cases, a sui generis solution to deep contradictory forces of a political, religious, and social character. Such internal processes may have long predated the Conquest and the disruptions it caused. I conclude that reliance on resources created in the past may be a characteristic shared by various trekking and foraging groups of the Upper Amazon.     

IPAT及其扩展模型的应用研究进展

IPAT及其扩展模型能够定量描述人文驱动力与环境压力之间的关系,有助于理解人类和自然系统的动态耦合,是诊断因社会经济发展而产生的环境问题的有效工具.本文简要介绍了IPAT模型由来及其扩展模型的发展状况,系统总结了模型国内外应用研究进展,并对研究中的热点问题进行探讨,提出IPAT及其扩展模型的发展趋势,旨在进一步深化IPAT相关模型在环境可持续发展中的应用,为社会管理决策提供依据.     

Future eating and country keeping: what role has environmental history in the management of biodiversity?

In order to understand and moderate the effects of the accelerating rate of global environmental change land managers and ecologists must not only think beyond their local environment but also put their problems into a historical context. It is intuitively obvious that historians should be natural allies of ecologists and land managers as they struggle to maintain biodiversity and landscape health. Indeed, ‘environmental history’ is an emerging field where the previously disparate intellectual traditions of ecology and history intersect to create a new and fundamentally interdisciplinary field of inquiry. Environmental history is rapidly becoming an important field displacing many older environmentally focused academic disciplines as well as capturing the public imagination. By drawing on Australian experience I explore the role of ‘environmental history’ in managing biodiversity. First I consider some of the similarities and differences of the ecological and historical approaches to the history of the environment. Then I review two central questions in Australian environment history: landscape‐scale changes in woody vegetation cover since European settlement and the extinction of the marsupials in both historical and pre‐historical time. These case studies demonstrate that environmental historians can reach conflicting interpretations despite using essentially the same data. The popular success of some environmental histories hinges on the fact that they narrate a compelling story concerning human relationships and human value judgements about landscape change. Ecologists must learn to harness the power of environmental history narratives to bolster land management practices designed to conserve biological heritage. They can do this by using various currently popular environmental histories as a point of departure for future research, for instance by testing the veracity of competing interpretations of landscape‐scale change in woody vegetation cover. They also need to learn how to write parables that communicate their research findings to land managers and the general public. However, no matter how sociologically or psychologically satisfying a particular environmental historical narrative might be, it must be willing to be superseded with new stories that incorporate the latest research discoveries and that reflects changing social values of nature. It is contrary to a rational and publicly acceptable approach to land management to read a particular story as revealing the absolute truth.     

Renewal ecology: conservation for the Anthropocene

The global scale and rapidity of environmental change is challenging ecologists to reimagine their theoretical principles and management practices. Increasingly, historical ecological conditions are inadequate targets for restoration ecology, geographically circumscribed nature reserves are incapable of protecting all biodiversity, and the precautionary principle applied to management interventions no longer ensures avoidance of ecological harm. In addition, human responses to global environmental changes, such as migration, building of protective infrastructures, and land use change, are having their own negative environmental impacts. We use examples from wildlands, urban, and degraded environments, as well as marine and freshwater ecosystems, to show that human adaptation responses to rapid ecological change can be explicitly designed to benefit biodiversity. This approach, which we call “renewal ecology,” is based on acceptance that environmental change will have transformative effects on coupled human and natural systems and recognizes the need to harmonize biodiversity with human infrastructure, for the benefit of both.     

Chemical signaling processes in the marine environment

Understanding the mechanisms by which environmental chemical signals, chemical defenses, and other chemical agents mediate various life-history processes can lead to important insights about the forces driving the ecology and evolution of marine systems. For chemical signals released into the environment, establishing the principles that mediate chemical production and transport is critical for interpreting biological responses to these stimuli within appropriate natural, historical contexts. Recent technological advancements provide outstanding opportunities for new discoveries, thus allowing quantification of interactions between hydrodynamic, chemical, and biological factors at numerous spatial and temporal scales. Past work on chemically mediated processes involving organisms and their environment have emphasized habitat colonization by larvae and trophic relationships. Future research priorities should include these topics as well as courtship and mating, fertilization, competition, symbiosis, and microbial chemical ecology. There are now vast new opportunities for determining how organisms respond to chemical signals and employ chemical defenses under environmentally realistic conditions. Integrating these findings within a larger ecological and evolutionary framework should lead to improved understanding of natural physicochemical phenomena that constrain biological responses at the individual, population, and community levels of organization.     

中国园林生态学发展综述

运用文献计量等方法对已有科研成果进行统计分析,结果表明:中国近50年园林生态学科领域科研发展经过了起步探索(1962-1981)、缓慢发展(1982-2001)、快速发展(2002-2011)3个时期,园林生态学作为生态学一个新的分支学科,于20世纪90年代末初见端倪,作为一门新兴独立的应用生态学分支学科于21世纪初已基本形成.中国园林生态学领域的研究包括园林生态系统中生物与环境相互作用关系问题、人与环境相互作用关系问题以及园林生态系统与其他生态系统之间相互作用关系问题.当代园林生态研究主要有生态效益研究、生物与环境研究、人的需求与行为研究、生态规划与生态管理研究4个方面,目前园林生态学研究主要侧重生物与环境研究和生态效益研究,两方面的研究成果占总体研究成果的76.3％.不同研究方面也有各自的侧重点,如生物与环境研究侧重对植物的研究,生态效益研究侧重净化环境、水土保持和防灾减灾,生态规划与生态管理研究则侧重生态规划与设计.对四个研究方面的论文主题词检索和高频主题关键词的分布进行统计,结果显示,研究的热点有多样性、群落、水土保持、防灾避险、净化环境、生态规划与设计等.对CNKI中4个研究方面成果中获基金资助项目论文进行统计(不排重),总体成果中基金项目论文所占比重为10.8％,国家和地方基金是园林生态学科研基金资助的主要来源,基金论文比例之和达到85.4％,且国家和地方基金资助论文较多的是“生态与环境研究”和“生态效益研究”,合计占基金论文79.1％.SCI-E中收录的文献基金论文率为47.1％,是CNKI数据库收录的文献基金论文率的4.3倍,且国际基金是基金论文的主要资助来源之一,说明中国园林生态学领域部分科研成果得到国际学界关注.基于CNKI相关主题词统计,“园林生态学”的研究成果只有“景观生态学”的1％,“城市生态学”的8.3％,“园林生态学”学科系统理论研究在相关生态学科研究中所占比重很低,其理论和方法研究还较薄弱.今后在进一步完善学科理论体系、持续开展生态效益和园林植物研究的同时,为更好地研究和解决人-自然复合生态系统问题,提供更多的科学理论支撑,还需拓展交叉生态心理学或环境心理学等其他相关理论,更多地关注人与环境互相作用关系以及生态规划与生态管理等方面的研究,既使环境更好地满足人的行为需求,也使人认识到改变一些行为能更好地保护环境.     

Landscape issues in plant ecology

In the last decade, we have seen the emergence and consolidation of a conceptual framework that recognizes the landscape as an ecological unit of interest. Plant ecologists have long emphasized landscape-scale issues, but there has been no recent attempt to define how landscape concepts are now integrated in vegetation studies. To help define common research paradigms in both landscape and plant ecology, we discuss issues related to three main landscape concepts in vegetation researches, reviewing theoretical influences and emphasizing recent developments. We first focus on environmental relationships, documenting how vegetation patterns emerge from the influence of local abiotic conditions. The landscape is the physical environment. Disturbances are then considered, with a particular attention to human-driven processes that often overrule natural dynamics. The landscape is a dynamic space. As environmental and historical processes generate heterogeneous patterns, we finally move on to stress current evidence relating spatial structure and vegetation dynamics. This relates to the concept of a landscape as a patch-corridor-matrix mosaic. Future challenges involve: 1) the capacity to evaluate the relative importance of multiple controlling processes at broad spatial scale; 2) better assessment of the real importance of the spatial configuration of landscape elements for plant species and finally; 3) the integration of natural and cultural processes and the recognition of their interdependence in relation to vegetation management issues in human landscapes.     

Relative effects of time for speciation and tropical niche conservatism on the latitudinal diversity gradient of phyllostomid bats

Determinants of contemporary patterns of diversity, particularly those spanning extensive latitudinal gradients, are some of the most intensely debated issues in ecology. Recently, focus has shifted from a contemporary environmental perspective to a historical one in an attempt to better understand the construction of latitudinal gradients. Although the vast majority of research on historical mechanisms has focused on tropical niche conservatism (TNC), other historical scenarios could produce similar latitudinal gradients. Herein, I formalize predictions to distinguish between two such historical processes--namely time for speciation (TFS) and TNC--and test relative support based on diversity gradients of New World bats. TFS and TNC are distinctly spatial and environmental mechanisms, respectively. Nonetheless, because of the way that environmental characteristics vary spatially, these two mechanisms are hard to distinguish. Evidence provided herein suggests that TNC has had a more important effect than TFS in determining diversity gradients of New World bats. Indeed, relative effects of different historical mechanisms, as well as relative effects of historical and contemporary environmental determinants, are probably context-dependent. Future research should move away from attempting to identify the mechanism with primacy and instead attempt to understand the particular contexts in which different mechanisms have greater influence on diversity gradients.     

Milk,Manure, and Muscle Power. Livestock and the Transformation of Preindustrial Agriculture in Central Europe

The process of industrial modernization was characterized by fundamental changes in the interaction of socioeconomic systems with their natural environment. This paper reflects on this transformation process from an ecologically informed perspective, focusing on the interrelation of local populations, their specific mode of production, and the (agro-) ecosystem. Four Austrian villages in different agro-ecological zones serve as case studies for a comparative analysis of different types of farming systems and changes in these systems over time from the early nineteenth century to the present. The paper presents empirical results and aims at contributing to the discussion of relevant topics in human ecology and environmental history. Focusing on the changing significance of livestock in agricultural production systems, it addresses issues including the relation of population density to intensity of land use; soil fertility and nutrient management; the sustainability of preindustrial agriculture; and the gradual opening of locally closed cycles during industrialization and its effect on the landscape.     

Links between ecology and ecophilosophy,ethics and the requirements of environmental management

Abstract This paper concerns the ways that our philosophical attitudes to the environment can influence the appropriateness of methodologies for solving environmental problems. Sometimes a public perception is expressed that science takes scant regard of the concerns of the people affected. Is it possible for scientists and managers to respond to such concerns and still fulfil the logical and methodological rigour that their discipline demands? I believe we have to address fundamental issues of definitions and meaning before useful debate can occur among parties interested in environmental decision-making. Delving into the ideas behind our everyday practices of environmental management should promote re-evaluation of our beliefs, attitudes and concerns about nature. I examine environmental science from both ethical and managerial perspectives. I explore how our assumptions and attitudes might influence ecology, in particular issues raised by environmental impacts and conservation. The major points argued here are:

• 1 Any legal requirements of environmental investigations must be met, but perhaps we should act more in line with the spirit of legislation.
• 2 The managerial imperatives of environmental investigations need to be examined closely because of widely perceived problems with the use of science in impact assessment. We must change either our methods of assessment or the regulations and administration of environmental impact assessment (EIA).
• 3 Science is not paramount in the processes of environmental decision-making. We need to be aware of how psychosocial factors affect the ultimately political decisions about environmental problems.
• 4 Philosophy and ethics offer a range of perspectives that may benefit ecology. Scientists need to be aware of these just as they should be of their own leanings about how we treat nature.
• 5 Scientists need to translate social concerns or demands about the environment into properly defined scientific questions, and then study them as a matter of urgency.
• 6 Ecology needs to guide ecophilosophers and environmental ethicists as to how nature works, why we expect variability in ecosystems, what is naturalness, and other issues where a scientific understanding of nature has progressed beyond the point where these observers of ecology have so far taken inspiration.

     

Two-Component Signal Transduction Systems, Environmental Signals, and Virulence

The relevance toward virulence of a variety of two-component signal transduction systems is reviewed for 16 pathogenic bacteria, together with the wide array of environmental signals or conditions that have been implicated in their regulation. A series of issues is raised, concerning the need to understand the environmental cues that determine their regulation in the infected host and in the environment outside the laboratory, which shall contribute toward the bridging of bacterial pathogenesis and microbial ecology.     

Restoration of ailing wetlands

It is widely held that humankind's destructive tendencies when exploiting natural resources leads to irreparable harm to the environment. Yet, this thinking runs counter to evidence that many ecological systems damaged by severe natural environmental disturbances (e.g., hurricanes) can restore themselves via processes of natural recovery. The emerging field of restoration ecology is capitalizing on the natural restorative tendencies of ecological systems to build a science of repairing the harm inflicted by humans on natural environment. Evidence for this, for example, comes from a new meta-analysis of 124 studies that synthesizes recovery of impacted wetlands worldwide. While it may take up to two human generations to see full recovery, there is promise, given human will, to restore many damaged wetlands worldwide.     

Environmental stress maintains trioecy in nematode worms

Sex is determined by chromosomes in mammals but it can be influenced by the environment in many worms, crustaceans, and vertebrates. Despite this, there is little understanding of the relationship between ecology and the evolution of sexual systems. The nematode Auanema freiburgensis has a unique sex determination system in which individuals carrying one X chromosome develop into males while XX individuals develop into females in stress-free environments and self-fertile hermaphrodites in stressful environments. Theory predicts that trioecious populations with coexisting males, females, and hermaphrodites should be unstable intermediates in evolutionary transitions between mating systems. In this article, we study a mathematical model of reproductive evolution based on the unique life history and sex determination of A. freiburgensis. We develop the model in two scenarios, one where the relative production of hermaphrodites and females is entirely dependent on the environment and one based on empirical measurements of a population that displays incomplete, “leaky” environmental dependence. In the first scenario environmental conditions can push the population along an evolutionary continuum and result in the stable maintenance of multiple reproductive systems. The second “leaky” scenario results in the maintenance of three sexes for all environmental conditions. Theoretical investigations of reproductive system transitions have focused on the evolutionary costs and benefits of sex. Here, we show that the flexible sex determination system of A. freiburgensis may contribute to population-level resilience in the microscopic nematode's patchy, ephemeral natural habitat. Our results demonstrate that life history, ecology, and environment may play defining roles in the evolution of sexual systems.     

Engineering issues of microbial ecology in space agriculture]

Closure of the materials recycle loop for water-foods-oxygen is the primary purpose of space agriculture on Mars and Moon. A microbial ecological system takes a part of agriculture to process our metabolic excreta and inedible biomass and convert them to nutrients and soil substrate for cultivating plants. If we extend the purpose of space agriculture to the creation and control of a healthy and pleasant living environment, we should realize that our human body should not be sterilized but exposed to the appropriate microbial environment. We are proposing a use of hyper-thermophilic aerobic composting microbial ecology in space agriculture. Japan has a broad historical and cultural background on this subject. There had been agriculture that drove a closed loop of materials between consuming cities and farming villages in vicinity. Recent environmental problems regarding garbage collection and processing in towns have motivated home electronics companies to innovate "garbage composting" machines with bacterial technology. Based on those matured technology, together with new insights on microbiology and microbial ecology, we have been developing a conceptual design of space agriculture on Moon and Mars. There are several issues to be answered in order to prove effectiveness of the use of microbial systems in space. 1) Can the recycled nutrients, processed by the hyper-thermal aerobic composting microbial ecology, be formed in the physical and chemical state or configuration, with which plants can uptake those nutrients? A possibility of removing any major components of fertilizer from its recycle loop is another item to be evaluated. 2) What are the merits of forming soil microbial ecology around the root system of plants? This might be the most crucial question. Recent researches exhibit various mutually beneficial relationships among soil microbiota and plants, and symbiotic ecology in composting bacteria. It is essential to understand those features, and define how to conduct preventive maintenance for keeping cultivating soil healthy and productive. 3) Does microbial ecology contribute to building sustainable and expandable human habitation by utilizing the on site extraterrestrial resources? We are assessing technical feasibility of converting regolith to farming soil and structural materials for space agriculture. In the case of Mars habitation, carbon dioxide and a trace amount of nitrogen in atmosphere, and potassium and phosphor in minerals are the sources we consider. Excess oxygen can be accumulated by woods cultivation and their use for lumber. 4) Is the operation of space agriculture robust and safe, if it adopts hyper-thermophilic aerobic microbial ecology? Any ecological system is complex and non-linear, and shows latency and memory effects in its response. It is highly important to understand those features to design and operate space agriculture without falling into the fatal failure. Assessment should be made on the microbial safety and preparation of the preventive measures to eliminate negative elements that would either retard agricultural production or harm the healthy environment. It is worth to mention that such space agriculture would be an effective engineering testbed to solve the global problem on energy and environment. Mars and Moon exploration itself is a good advocate of healthy curiosity expressed by the sustainable civilization of our humankind. We propose to work together towards Mars and Moon with microbial ecology to assure pleasant habitation there.     

区域生态学的特点、学科定位及其与相邻学科的关系

区域生态学作为生态学的一门重要分支学科,起源于20世纪70年代的区域综合科学考察和环境污染调查,旨在研究区域生态环境问题形成背景和驱动因子,探讨区域生态环境问题解决的思路和方法。基于前人研究成果和文献综述,系统分析了区域生态学研究的特点,剖析了区域生态学的性质和学科定位。在此基础上进一步比较了区域生态学与景观生态学、生态系统生态学、区域自然地理学和宏观生态学的共性与差异。认为:(1)区域生态学研究对象是具有特定生态环境属性的区域生态综合体,既具有特定要素主导下的空间均质性,也具有多种要素耦合作用下的空间异质性特征,是一门问题导向的应用性基础学科;(2)区域生态学研究需要具有多元综合、问题导向和系统集成的思维,从多层次、多视角探讨区域生态环境问题的解决方案;(3)区域生态学属于宏观生态学研究的范畴,处于分子生态学、个体生态学、种群生态学、群落生态学、生态系统生态学、景观生态学、区域生态学和全球生态学这个生态学学科体系的较高层次。     

Ecological and conservation insights from reconstructive studies of temperate old-growth forests

Reconstructive studies that use paleoecological, dendroecological, historical and other approaches in order to interpret long-term ecosystem dynamics are increasingly generating valuable insights for ecologists, conservationists and foresters who are interested in the ecology, protection and management of old-growth forests. In most cases, the historical context provided by these studies reveals a long-term pattern of change that challenges assumptions about the pristine condition of these systems. Ironically, it is the history of environmental fluctuations, natural disturbance processes, and subtle, often indirect, human impacts that is revealed by reconstructive work that may shape the characteristic structure, composition and ecosystem processes of old-growth forests, and that will certainly provide the greatest challenge to their future conservation and management.     

Human Biology and Ecology: Variation in Nature and the Nature of Variation

Human biology seeks to understand human variation and the biological, environmental, social, and historical influences on that variation. Views of the nature of both variation and environment have changed during the past 100 years. Typological approaches to nature and human diversity shifted to an evolutionary perspective during the first half of the 20th century. In the second half, widespread human biological variation was documented and interpreted in terms of adaptation to the environment. Environmental physiology and reproductive ecology continue to document environmental influences on human biological functioning, but with (1) an expanded concept of environment that acknowledges more fully the interactions among its physical, biotic, and social aspects and (2) an expanded theoretical basis, drawing on evolutionary ecology and life history theory, acknowledging tradeoffs and changing constraints and opportunities over the lifetime. Human biology gains from greater interaction with other fields, such as political ecology, but also contributes to them. [Keywords: biological anthropology, human ecology, adaptation, environmental physiology, reproductive ecology]     

Anthropogenic influences on primate antipredator behavior and implications for research and conservation

Predation risk affects prey species' behavior, even in the absence of a direct threat, but human-induced environmental change may disturb ecologically significant predator–prey interactions. Here, we propose various ways in which knowledge of antipredator tactics, behavioral risk effects, and primate–predator interactions could assist in identifying human-caused disruption to natural systems. Using behavior to evaluate primate responses to the ongoing environmental change should be a potentially effective way to make species conservation more predictive by identifying issues before a more dramatic population declines. A key challenge here is that studies of predation on primates often use data collected via direct observations of habituated animals and human presence can deter carnivores and influence subjects' perception of risk. Hence, we also review various indirect data collection methods to evaluate their effectiveness in identifying where environmental change threatens wild species, while also minimizing observer bias.     

景感评价方法研究

通过与生态系统服务和可持续发展的有效结合,在景感生态学的内涵与外延得到扩展的同时,景感营造与评价的概念也进一步明确。景感评价是基于一定的目的和相应的评价标准,针对特定的景感(现状或营造过程)进行评价与预测,可为认识与理解景感、营造与改善景感,以及基于景感的生态规划与建设提供科学依据。景感评价除了遵从广义景感生态学的原理与目标外,其主要理论基础来自生态系统服务理论、可持续发展理论、复合生态系统理论以及生态文明理论。景感评价应遵循景感的协调性、可持续性与评价的系统性、针对性等主要原则。具体的景感评价方法可分为基于特定评价目标的单因子评价与考虑多要素的综合性评价;前者一般限于针对某个评价目标或者考虑某个限制因子时使用,后者则主要包括层次分析法、数据包络法和重要性-绩效分析法。不同的评价方法有其优缺点和适用范围,景感评价应根据不同情景和目的来灵活使用不同方法,还需充分考虑人的感知或愿景与自然环境要素的统一,以及景感营造与生态系统服务及可持续发展意识的统一。景感评价的研究与应用处于初始阶段,在发展过程中存在一些困难和问题,未来应重视若干内容的研究。随着学科的交叉与融合、技术的进步与发展以及相关学...