Coupled ecological and social dynamics in a forested landscape: the deviation of individual decisions from the social optimum

We present a Markov chain model for land-use dynamics in a forested landscape. This model emphasizes the importance of coupling socioeconomic and ecological processes underlying landscape change. We assume that a forest is composed of many land parcels, each of which is in one of a finite list of land-use states. The land-use state of each land parcel changes stochastically. The transition probability is determined by two processes: the forest succession and the decision of landowners. The landowner tends to choose the land-use state which has a high expected discounted utility, i.e., the sum of the current and the future utilities of the land parcel. Landowners take the likelihood of future landscape changes into account when making decisions. We focus on a three-state model in which forested, agricultural, and abandoned states are considered. The land-use composition at equilibrium was analyzed and compared with the social optimum that maximizes the net benefit of all landowners in a society. We show that when landowners make a myopic choice focused on short-term benefits, their individual decisions tend to push the entire landscape toward an agricultural state even if the forested state represents the highest utility. This land-use composition at equilibrium is very different from the social optimum. A long-term management perspective and an enhanced rate of forest recovery can eliminate the discrepancy.     

Energy–Landscape Integrated Analysis: A proposal for measuring complexity in internal agroecosystem processes (Barcelona Metropolitan Region, 1860–2000)

Farm systems are facing a global challenge amidst a socio-metabolic transition that places them in a dilemma between increasing land-use intensity to meet the growing demand of food, feed, fibres and fuels, while avoiding a biodiversity loss at the same time. To solve this dilemma a deeper research on how species richness is kept in different land-use patterns is required, according to the quantity and quality of the ecological disturbance that farmers carry out across the landscape. We propose an Energy–Landscape Integrated Analysis model that assesses both the complexity of internal energy loops, and the information held in the whole network of socio-metabolic energy fluxes, so as to correlate this energy-information interplay with the functional landscape structure. The results show that the landscape heterogeneity of Mediterranean land-use mosaics, created by traditional organic mixed-farming, have tended to vanish as a result of a simultaneous reduction in the complexity of the interlinking pattern of energy flows and the quantity of information carried by them. The model could help us to reveal how and why different agroecosystem managements lead to key turning points in the relationship of the energy profile with landscape ecological functioning. No doubt, these results will be very useful for designing more sustainable farm systems worldwide in the future.     

Does conservation on farmland contribute to halting the biodiversity decline?

Biodiversity continues to decline, despite the implementation of international conservation conventions and measures. To counteract biodiversity loss, it is pivotal to know how conservation actions affect biodiversity trends. Focussing on European farmland species, we review what is known about the impact of conservation initiatives on biodiversity. We argue that the effects of conservation are a function of conservation-induced ecological contrast, agricultural land-use intensity and landscape context. We find that, to date, only a few studies have linked local conservation effects to national biodiversity trends. It is therefore unknown how the extensive European agri-environmental budget for conservation on farmland contributes to the policy objectives to halt biodiversity decline. Based on this review, we identify new research directions addressing this important knowledge gap.     

Forest structure and biomass in post-agricultural forests: Lessons learned with new spatial tools

Questions: With calls for afforestation to sequester carbon due to climate change, agricultural land will be converted to forests in the near future. Little is known about how the ecosystem services of reforested landscapes with an agricultural land-use history will differ from reference forests. Our objectives were to (i) test the hypothesis that forests with a history of agricultural land use can provide the same carbon storage and biomass ecosystem services as adjacent reference forests, given some recovery time; (ii) explore whether there is a lag in the recovery of forest community composition due to prior agricultural land use; and (iii) demonstrate how remote-sensing methods can improve our understanding of land-use legacies at large spatial scales. Location: Finger Lakes National Forest, NY, USA. Methods: Using historic air photos, landscape-scale lidar, and field surveys, we compared differences in biomass storage, forest structure, and vegetation communities between reference forests and post-agricultural forests at different stages of regeneration in the Finger Lakes National Forest, New York, USA. We also used lidar to create a spatial model of biomass across the landscape to analyze the spatial distribution of biomass across our study area. Results: We found biomass and forest structure in post-agricultural forests generally recovered to levels typical of reference forests within 50 years of abandonment. Conversely, we found the composition of woody and herbaceous communities still varied between reference and post-agricultural forests after 50 years of abandonment. Conclusions: Collectively our results indicate afforestation efforts can be effective for carbon sequestration at early stages of forest succession. Our spatial model of biomass indicated that biomass levels can be low in forests with extensive edge. Further research is needed to understand how contemporary landscape structure interacts with legacy effects of agriculture to affect biomass and other ecosystem services.     

Service accessibility of ecological nodes: An exploratory way to enhance network connectivity in a study case of Wu'an,China

With a background of globalization and urbanization, the population agglomeration puts tremendous pressure on the ecosystem inside and around the city. Compared with ordinary cities, ecological protection for resource-based cities is more urgent. The construction of green infrastructure can alleviate the environmental constraints of urban development to a certain extent., and it contains a vital landscape element, ecological node, which is of great significance. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to discuss ecological nodes based on different threshold selections of shape and distance to changes landscape network connectivity. Regarding the service accessibility of the green infrastructure network, a new cognition is to break the traditional land-use map and patches, while providing a new reference to enhance network connectivity by ecological nodes depicted as circles as the core, 400 m as the optimal threshold as transmission distance for ecosystem service evaluation and optimization. This new optimization method of ecological nodes strengthens the connectivity of green infrastructure networks through small changes within ecological nodes, reduces the ecological resistance of key positions of green infrastructure networks through land-use change of ecological nodes, in order to improve the ecosystem service connectivity for Wu'an or other resource-based cities.     

Exploring the Ecological History of a Tropical Agroforestry Landscape Using Fossil Pollen and Charcoal Analysis from Four Sites in Western Ghats,India

Contrary to expectations, some human-modified landscapes are considered to sustain both human activities and biodiversity over the long-term. Agroforestry systems are among these landscapes where crops are planted under native shade trees. In this context, ancient agroforestry systems can provide insight into how farmers managed the landscape over time. Such insight can help to quantify the extent to which tropical forests (especially habitat-specialist trees) are responding to local and landscape-level management. Here, we extracted fossil pollen (indicator of past vegetation changes) and macroscopic charcoal (indicator of biomass burning) from four forest hollows’ sedimentary sequences in an ancient agroforestry system in Western Ghats, India. We used a mixed-modelling approach and a principal components analysis (PCA) to determine past trajectories of forest change and species composition dynamics for the last 900 years. In addition, we reconstructed the long-term forest canopy dynamics and examined the persistence of habitat-specialist trees over time. Our results show that the four sites diverged to a surprising degree in both taxa composition and dynamics. However, despite these differences, forest has persisted over 900 years under agricultural activities within agroforestry systems. This long-term analysis highlights the importance of different land-use legacies as a framework to increase the effectiveness of management across tropical agricultural lands.     

城市生态基础设施管理研究进展

城市生态基础设施作为城市生态系统的重要组成部分,在维持自然生态过程稳定、促进社会经济发展、保障人居环境质量方面发挥着重要的作用。在快速城市化进程中,对城市生态基础设施进行科学的管理显得尤为重要。在重新明确城市生态基础设施管理概念和内涵的基础上,归纳提炼了4项管理原则,并对现有管理类型进行了梳理。对生态基础设施管理涉及的3个关键问题的常见解决方法进行了总结、分类,并对每类方法的优劣进行了分析讨论。针对此领域的工作做了展望。对于现有城市生态基础设施管理问题与方法的整合研究既有利于明确今后研究重点,也为城市生态基础设施管理提供了科学依据和案例参考。     

Future land use effects on the connectivity of protected area networks in southeastern Spain

Land-use change is a major driver of the global biodiversity crisis, mainly via the fragmentation and loss of natural habitat. Although land-use changes will accelerate to meet humankind's growing demand for agricultural products, conservation planning rarely considers future land uses and how they may affect the connectivity of ecological networks. Here, we integrate land-use models with landscape fragmentation and connectivity analyses, to assess the effects of past and future land-use changes on the connectivity of protected area networks for a highly dynamic region in southeast Spain. Our results show a continued geographical polarisation of land use, with agricultural intensification and urban development in the coastal areas, and the abandonment of traditional land use in the mountains (e.g., 1100 km² of natural vegetation are projected to be lost in coastal areas whereas 32 km² of natural vegetation would recover in interior areas from 1991 to 2015). As a result, coastal protected areas will experience increasing isolation. The connectivity analyses reveal that the two protected area networks in place in the study area, the European “Natura 2000” and the Andalusian “RENPA” networks, include many landscape connectors. However, we identify two areas that currently lack protection but contain several important patches for maintaining the region's habitat connectivity: the northwestern and the southwestern slopes of the Sierra Cabrera and Bédar protected area. Our results highlight the importance of considering future land-use trajectories in conservation planning to maintain connectivity at the regional scale, and to improve the resilience of conservation networks.     

农作物景观生态研究:概念框架与研究方向

针对当前农业系统中农作物景观变化迅速、人地关系趋于复杂、粮食安全保障需求迫切,提出景观生态学和农业科学交叉产生的农作物景观生态研究这一新兴研究方向。通过构建农作物景观生态研究的概念框架,辨明农业生产中复杂的景观等级结构,为农业可持续发展提供理论依据。综述从农业景观到农作物景观的研究变化,指出农作物景观具有高动态性、尺度性和格局复杂特征。针对由种植者、消费者、耕地及其周边自然环境组成的农业景观,需要遵循相应的生态和农业经济发展规律,研究农作物种植格局变化、农作物的社会-生态效应和农作物种植可持续性的景观生态途径。重点开展以下四个研究方面的内容,农作物景观时空动态及其形成机理、农作物种植的多功能评价与权衡、景观农艺管理措施及情景模拟、可持续的农作物景观生态评价。从而构建"格局-过程-服务-管理-可持续性"的农作物景观生态研究范式,为农业可持续发展提供综合的空间分析与管理途径,为实现农业农村现代化与城乡人类福祉提升提供科学支撑。     

“三生空间”视角下三峡库区土地利用转型的生态系统服务价值效应

明晰社会经济快速转型背景下的“三生空间”演变过程及其生态系统服务效应,对国土空间优化和区域可持续发展具有重要意义。以1980、2000、2018年土地利用遥感监测数据为基础,基于“三生空间”视角,采用地学信息图谱刻画了三峡库区土地利用转型过程,并通过生态系统服务贡献值测度了土地利用转型的生态环境效应。结果表明: 1980—2018年,三峡库区工业生产空间和生活空间面积不断增加,而农业生产空间和生态空间面积逐渐减少;从图谱转移视角分析,1980—2000年间,土地利用格局相对稳定,以未发生转移的图谱单元占主导,而2000—2018年土地利用转型复杂,以农业生产空间与林地、草地生态空间相互转化占主导,城镇化、工业化进程加快是导致农业生产空间、生态空间面积萎缩的主要原因;三峡库区生态系统服务价值在时间上呈先缓慢降低后迅速增加的趋势,在空间上呈“东部高-西部低”的分布特征;生态保护修复工程促进了生态系统服务价值正效应,但经济社会快速发展挤占了大量的农业生产空间、生态空间,加之农田复耕等行为在一定程度上导致了生态系统服务价值负效应。     

Designing a sustainable land use scenario based on a combination of ecological assessments and economic optimization

Land use change and the corresponding effects on ecosystems and their services has gained much interest in the recent past, particularly in areas with a significant reservoir of biodiversity, the so-called biodiversity hot spots. In order to assess the impact of possible future land use decisions in a watershed in Yunnan, Southwest China, we applied a method of combining ecological and socio-economic indicators to highlight key aspects concerning the current status of our research area. Data on species diversity, landscape matrix and erosion risk as well as agricultural and socio-economic activities were gathered and analyzed. We were able to locate the areas were conservation measures, erosion control and improved agricultural practices would have the strongest impacts. This information was used to develop a storyline for a “Go Green” scenario. Expert groups and interdisciplinary panels were used to critically review, enhance and expand this storyline in the area of conflict between nature conservation, rural livelihood and economic development.Based on the set of planning prerequisites, a village-household linear programming model was developed and solved with the General Algebraic Modelling System (GAMS) to identify factors driving landscape and land use changes for three different farming systems in the Naban River Watershed National Nature Reserve, mainly to contribute to the CLUE_Naban model by providing representative farm types and to analyze the decision making of land use (until 2025). In addition, this model is designed to provide policy makers with potential strategic intervention options for land use planning through the utilization of shadow prices.This process enabled us to reconcile the demands for nature conservation and economic wellbeing on a basis of an iterative and participatory working process that incorporates ecological and economic datasets, but also takes the sustainability of rural livelihood into account.     

基于生态-经济比较优势视角的建设用地空间优化配置研究——以扬州市为例

随着生态空间日益萎缩,生态环境不断恶化,经济发展与生态保护矛盾日趋加剧。为了协调经济发展空间与生态保护空间的矛盾问题,促进生态、经济协调持续发展,综合运用景观生态学方法与经济学原理,从"生态-经济"比较优势视角对建设用地指标进行空间优化配置。运用景观安全格局方法构建区域综合生态安全格局,据此计算空间单元的生态重要性指数,采用最小累积阻力模型对区域建设用地开发经济适宜性进行评价,计算空间单元的建设用地开发经济适宜性指数;其次运用生态重要性指数与经济适宜性指数计算建设用地开发比较优势度,以比较优势约束性满足程度为目标函数构建建设用地空间优化配置模型,并用蒙特卡洛(Monte Carol)法对之求解。以江苏省扬州市为例作了实证研究。结果显示,未来扬州市建设用地向南部经济发达地区集中,北部地区主要承担生态保护功能;建设用地配置结果呈现出经济发展与生态保护的错位格局,有助于扬州市生态保护与经济发展。从"生态-经济"比较优势视角提出了建设用地空间优化配置方法,为土地利用规划及生态保护规划编制提供了科学依据。     

The restoration of biodiversity: where has research been and where does it need to go?

The practice of ecological restoration is a primary option for increasing levels of biodiversity by modifying human-altered ecosystems. The scientific discipline of restoration ecology provides conceptual guidance and tests of restoration strategies, with the ultimate goal of predictive landscape restoration. I construct a conceptual model for restoration of biodiversity, based on site-level (e.g., biotic and abiotic) conditions, landscape (e.g, interpatch connectivity and patch geometry), and historical factors (e.g., species arrival order and land-use legacies). I then ask how well restoration ecology has addressed the various components of this model. During the past decade, restoration research has focused largely on how the restoration of site-level factors promotes species diversity-primarily of plants. Relatively little attention has been paid to how landscape or historical factors interplay with restoration, how restoration influences functional and genetic components of biodiversity, or how a suite of less-studied taxa might be restored. I suggest that the high level of variation seen in restoration outcomes might be explained, at least in part, by the contingencies placed on site-level restoration by landscape and historical factors and then present a number of avenues for future research to address these often ignored linkages in the biodiversity restoration model. Such work will require carefully conducted restoration experiments set across multiple sites and many years. It is my hope that by considering how space and time influence restoration, we might move restoration ecology in a direction of stronger prediction, conducted across landscapes, thus providing feasible restoration strategies that work at scales over which biodiversity conservation occurs.     

景观格局优化研究进展

随着景观格局、功能和过程研究的深入,格局优化作为景观生态学新的研究领域被提出,但其理论和方法的研究仍然是景观生态学研究的一个难点问题.本文通过分析国内外的学者的研究工作和发表论文,对景观格局优化重要问题进行了总结.景观格局优化是对景观格局、功能和过程综合理解的基础上,通过建立优化目标和标准,对各种景观类型在空间和数量上进行优化设计,使其产生最大景观生态效益（生态、经济和社会效益）和实现生态安全.研究的主要内容包括：景观格局优化的理论和方法研究,优化标准的研究和景观管理的研究.通过案例分析可以发现,多种研究手段的结合、定量化研究和景观格局优化评价标准将是格局优化实现的研究方向.     

基于微粒群-马尔科夫复合模型的生态空间预测模拟——以长株潭城市群为例

生态空间具有重要的生态功能,对生态空间进行科学预测模拟可为保护国土空间生态安全提供决策依据。利用Arc GIS及MATLAB软件,在生态空间风险评价的基础上构建了微粒群-马尔科夫复合模型,并以长株潭城市群为研究区,基于2013年土地利用现状数据,对2020年的生态空间进行了预测模拟,最后在此基础上提出了生态空间重构的基本思路。结果表明:1)微粒群-马尔科夫复合模型(PSO-Markov)构建的基本步骤为:第一步:粒子的选择与设计,以2000 m×2000 m的正方形单元作为基本粒子。第二步:粒子的初始化设定,根据生态空间风险由低到高的原则进行选择。第三步:适应度函数的建立,用生态空间的风险值来确定生态空间的空间格局。第四步:空间位置的更新,根据自身的历史最优值及粒子群的全局最优值进行速度和位置更新。2)微粒群-马尔科夫复合模型(PSO-Markov)是一种土地利用格局预测的新途径,生态空间的数量规模可以通过改进后的马尔科夫模型进行预测,生态空间的格局可以通过微粒群模型进行预测。3)微粒群-马尔科夫复合模型具有4个特点:第一、数量预测较为合理。第二、搜索范围大、较好地考虑到局部对全局的影响。第三、受问题维数变化影响小,在求解多目标问题时具有明显优势。第四、收敛时间短、运算速度快、易于实现。4)2020年,长株潭城市群的生态空间总体数量减少,其中林地和未利用地面积变化最明显,空间变化主要集中分布在西南部地区。生态空间总面积减小的主要原因是建设用地的扩张。因此,要控制城市群的人口密度,优化城市群生产—生活—生态的数量结构及空间布局,尤其要合理规划与利用城市建设用地,充分发挥水体与未利用地的生态价值,重点保护好生态源地、廊道及关键结点,构建结构合理、功能齐全的生态网络系统,提高系统的生态服务价值功能,要在规划的指导下合理调整城市群的城乡局部空间结构,保护生态环境,提高生境质量和景观多样性。这是今后一段时期面临的主要任务。     

Modelling of landscape changes derived from the dynamics of socio-ecological systems: A case of study in a semiarid Mediterranean landscape

Europe's cultural landscape has undergone notable changes in the last few decades. In particular, conserving the cultural rural landscape of the Mediterranean basin constitutes a difficult task due to the fact that, on one hand, rural abandonment, and on the other, agricultural intensification, are generating a new type of landscape which is apparently less appealing than the traditional one. Indeed, this landscape depends upon the maintenance of traditional agricultural uses and their associated activities, both of which depend on local environmental conditions and on socio-economic conditioning factors. The latter are increasingly being seen as the causes of the changes. Modifications in the social structure and processes affect and alter the rural environment, so that ecological and socio-economic information must be integrated for use as a basis for land use planning and management.In the present paper we have applied numerical analyses which associate territorial structure with economic and socio-cultural structure, predicting new types of landscape by means of experimental scenarios of socio-economic changes. The configuration of the traditional rural landscape studied and its spatial heterogeneity depend upon the proportion of the agriculture, pasture and woodland components of the traditional systems. Formalization of this landscape–socio-economy dependence enables us to consider scenarios of socio-economic change and to deduce variations in the landscape. We simulated changes related to the promotion or abandonment of agriculture. The model developed can be considered as an effective agri-environmental indicator, as it provides most of the characteristics required for analysis and environmental appraisal at landscape level.     

Integrating habitat diversity into species conservation in the Mediterranean mosaic landscape

Biodiversity conservation requires strategies that encompass a variety of land uses and habitat diversity. In this study, we used sites of high ecological interest identified on the basis of the distribution of priority plant and vertebrate species to assess the implications of habitat diversity for conservation management in the Mediterranean mosaic landscape. 40% of the priority species occur in open habitats that depend on continued human presence and low-intensity land-use activities. Furthermore, 70% of the sites have more than one species habitat and 15% of sites contain more than four different species habitats. By explicitly integrating localized habitat variation, conservation planning can address the multiple conservation issues at stake in regions of high landscape diversity to provide clear and effective management objectives.     

Lepidoptera research in Puerto Rico: Reconnecting with historical legacies to guide future priorities

The Caribbean archipelago of Puerto Rico supports a diverse flora and fauna and is located in a region characterized by complex socio-economic and environmental change. The diversity of entomofauna across Puerto Rico has received considerable attention in wide-scale research over the last century, with particular emphasis on the order Lepidoptera as the subject of substantial taxonomic and ecological surveys. However, much of this work is incomplete, outdated, or has been obscured in gray literature. Thus, our primary objectives were to contextualize the role of past research in the current understanding of Puerto Rican Lepidoptera and to outline an agenda for future research. Specifically, we provide an overview of taxonomic, ecological, agricultural, and conservation Lepidoptera research in Puerto Rico and highlight key studies and historical datasets. We found that, despite a strong taxonomic legacy, native moth taxonomy remains poorly understood, except for a few major pests. Further, much of the recent Lepidoptera research has focused on short-term evaluations of agricultural pests, necessitated by immediate economic needs. The current ecological status of Lepidoptera on the islands is unknown. Therefore, prioritizing ecological research could provide timely insight for understanding changing Lepidoptera diversity and distribution and for conserving this biologically and economically significant group. Greater emphasis on long-term monitoring and digitization of museum collections would be particularly useful for quantifying past and forecasting future impacts of global change. Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.     

Arthropod Diversity and Community Structure in Relation to Land Use in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Declining biodiversity in agro-ecosystems, caused by intensification of production or expansion of monocultures, is associated with the emergence of agricultural pests. Understanding how land-use and management control crop-associated biodiversity is, therefore, one of the key steps towards the prediction and maintenance of natural pest-control. Here we report on relationships between land-use variables and arthropod community attributes (for example, species diversity, abundance and guild structure) across a diversification gradient in a rice-dominated landscape in the Mekong delta, Vietnam. We show that rice habitats contained the most diverse arthropod communities, compared with other uncultivated and cultivated land-use types. In addition, arthropod species density and Simpson’s diversity in flower, vegetable and fruit habitats was positively related to rice cover in the local landscape. However, across the landscape as a whole, reduction in heterogeneity and the amount of uncultivated cover was associated, generally, with a loss of diversity. Furthermore, arthropod species density in tillering and flowering stages of rice was positively related to crop and vegetation richness, respectively, in the local landscape. Differential effects on feeding guilds were also observed in rice-associated communities with the proportional abundance of predators increasing and the proportional abundance of detritivores decreasing with increased landscape rice cover. Thus, we identify a range of rather complex, sometimes contradictory patterns concerning the impact of rice cover and landscape heterogeneity on arthropod community attributes. Importantly, we conclude that that land-use change associated with expansion of monoculture rice need not automatically impact diversity and functioning of the arthropod community.