青藏高原“黑土滩”常见毒草对甘肃马先蒿的化感作用

以青藏高原"黑土滩"典型毒草黄花棘豆(Oxytropis ochrocephala)、瑞香狼毒(Stellera chamaejasme)、黄帚橐吾(Ligularia virgaurea)、密花香薷(Elsholtzia densa)和南山蒿(Artemisia nanschanica)为供体材料,在实验室条件下测试了它们的根、茎、叶水浸提液对甘肃马先蒿(Pedicularis kansuensis)的化感作用,以期寻找对甘肃马先蒿种子萌发和幼苗生长具有生态化感抑制作用的植物种类及部位。结果表明,随着5种毒草各器官水浸提液浓度的升高,其对甘肃马先蒿化感作用增强;且同一植物在测试浓度相同的条件下,表现为叶、根的水浸提液对甘肃马先蒿种子和幼苗的抑制作用强于茎的浸提液。从5种毒草化感作用的综合表现看,黄花棘豆的叶和根、南山蒿的叶在浸提液浓度为25 g/L时对甘肃马先蒿幼苗生长的抑制作用显著大于其他毒草;当作用浓度升至100 g/L时,对甘肃马先蒿种子萌发和幼苗生长都表现出致死作用。因此,对黄花棘豆叶、根和南山蒿叶等植物器官的化感作用应作进一步的研究,将有望开发出针对甘肃马先蒿的专用生物源控制剂。     

Linking landscape-level change to habitat quality: an evaluation of restoration actions on the freshwater habitat of spring-run Chinook salmon

1. Conservation planning is often hampered by the lack of causal quantitative links between landscape characteristics, restoration actions and habitat conditions that impact the status of imperilled species. Here we present a first step toward linking actions on the landscape to the population status of endangered stream‐type Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). 2. We developed relationships between land use, landscape characteristics and freshwater habitat of spring Chinook salmon in the Wenatchee River basin. Available data allowed us to find relationships that described water temperatures at several life stages (prespawning, egg incubation and summer rearing) and substratum characteristics, including fine sediments, cobble and embeddedness. Predictors included altitude, gradient, mean annual precipitation, total and riparian forest cover, road density, impervious surface and alluvium. We used a model averaging approach to account for parameter and model selection uncertainty. Key predictors were total forest cover and impervious surface area for prespawning and summer rearing temperatures; precipitation and stream gradients were important predictors of the percent of fine sediments in stream substrata. 3. We estimated habitat conditions using these relationships in three alternative landscape scenarios: historical, no restoration and one that included a set of restoration actions from local conservation planning. We found that prespawning and summer temperatures were estimated to be slightly higher historically relative to current conditions in dry sparsely forested areas, but lower in some important Chinook salmon spawning and rearing areas and lower in those locations under the restoration scenario. Fine sediments were lower in the historical scenario and were reduced as a consequence of restoration actions in two areas currently unoccupied by Chinook salmon that contain reaches with some potential for high quality spawning and rearing. Cobble and embeddedness in general were predicted to be higher historically and changed little as a result of restoration actions relative to current conditions. 4. This modelling framework converts suites of restoration actions into changes in habitat condition, thereby enabling restoration planners to evaluate alternative combinations of proposed actions. It also provides inputs to models linking habitat conditions to population status. This approach represents a first step in estimating impacts of restoration strategies, and can provide key information for conservation managers and planners.     

Comparative demography of Burrowing Owls in agricultural and urban landscapes in southeastern Washington

ABSTRACT.   Anecdotal evidence suggests that Burrowing Owls have declined in the state of Washington. We examined the status of these owls in agricultural and urban habitats to better understand the underlying causes of these declines. Nest density was higher in the area dominated by agriculture (0.67 nests/km²) than in the urban area (0.28 nests/km²), and re-use of nest burrows was more common in the agricultural area. We found no difference in mean clutch size between the two areas, but nesting success was higher in the agricultural area. The mean number of fledglings per nesting attempt was higher in the agricultural area (2.02 vs. 1.47), but we found no difference between the two areas in the mean number of fledglings per successful nest (3.2 vs. 3.1). Both natal recruitment (4% vs. 8%) and annual return rate of adults (30% vs. 39%) were lower in the agricultural area than in the urban area, suggesting that the owl population in the agricultural area may not be stable and may be a "sink" population. Due to high burrow fidelity from year to year, and the tendency of some owls in Washington to overwinter, we recommend that legal protection of nest burrows be extended to the nonbreeding season.     

Green Energy or Organic Food?: A Life‐Cycle Assessment Comparing Two Uses of Set‐Aside Land

Bioenergy has a large worldwide potential in future climate change abatement, although its application may become limited by demands for land for other functions. The aim of this study was to make an environmental assessment of the use of energy crops in the Netherlands in a context that incorporates scarcity of land.
A base case system was defined, consisting of conventional winter wheat production, set-aside land (1 hectare, together), and the production of coal-based electricity. Using life-cycle assessment, we compared this system with (1) a green energy system in which willow is cultivated on the set-aside land to replace the coal-based electricity and (2) an organic agriculture system in which the full hectare produces wheat under the Dutch EKO organic agriculture standard. In this way, the functional unit and the amount of land used is the same in each system. The final system comparison was based on normalized scores per environmental theme.
The green energy system scored the best with respect to acidification, climate change, and energy carrier depletion. The organic food system scored best on terrestrial eco-toxicity and slightly better on the mutually related themes of seawater and seawater sediment eco-toxicity. The base case system performed slightly better with regard to eutrophication.
Preferences, from an environmental point of view, for one of the systems should be determined by environmental policy priorities and the severity of local environmental problems. The case studied here shows that when climate change, energy carrier depletion, and acidification are the main drivers behind environmental policy, one should focus not on the extensification of agriculture, but rather dedicate more land to energy crops. Extensification of agriculture would be the preferred system when toxicity from pesticides is considered the main problem.     

The underpinnings of land-use history: three centuries of global gridded land-use transitions, wood-harvest activity, and resulting secondary lands

To accurately assess the impacts of human land use on the Earth system, information is needed on the current and historical patterns of land‐use activities. Previous global studies have focused on developing reconstructions of the spatial patterns of agriculture. Here, we provide the first global gridded estimates of the underlying land conversions (land‐use transitions), wood harvesting, and resulting secondary lands annually, for the period 1700–2000. Using data‐based historical cases, our results suggest that 42–68% of the land surface was impacted by land‐use activities (crop, pasture, wood harvest) during this period, some multiple times. Secondary land area increased 10–44 × 10⁶ km²; about half of this was forested. Wood harvest and shifting cultivation generated 70–90% of the secondary land by 2000; permanent abandonment and relocation of agricultural land accounted for the rest. This study provides important new estimates of globally gridded land‐use activities for studies attempting to assess the consequences of anthropogenic changes to the Earth's surface over time.     

Fluxes of N2O and CH4 from soils of savannas and seasonally-dry ecosystems

Aim Savannas and seasonally‐dry ecosystems cover a significant part of the world's land surface. If undisturbed, these ecosystems might be expected to show a net uptake of methane (CH₄) and a limited emission of nitrous oxide (N₂O). Land management has the potential to change dramatically the characteristics and gas exchange of ecosystems. The present work investigates the contribution of warm climate seasonally‐dry ecosystems to the atmospheric concentration of nitrous oxide and methane, and analyses the impact of land‐use change on N₂O and CH₄ fluxes from the ecosystems in question. Location Flux data reviewed here were collected from the literature; they come from savannas and seasonally‐dry ecosystems in warm climatic regions, including South America, India, Australasia and Mediterranean areas. Methods Data on gas fluxes were collected from the literature. Two factors were considered as determinants of the variation in gas fluxes: land management and season. Land management was grouped into: (1) control, (2) ‘burned only’ and (3) managed ecosystems. The season was categorized as dry or wet. In order to avoid the possibility that the influence of soil properties on gas fluxes might confound any differences caused by land management, sites were grouped in homogeneous clusters on the basis of soil properties, using multivariate analyses. Inter‐ and intra‐cluster analysis of gas fluxes were performed, taking into account the effects of season, land management and main vegetation types. Results Soils were often acid and nutrient‐poor, with low water retention. N₂O emissions were generally very low (median flux 0.32 mg N₂O m^?2 day^?1), and no significant differences were observed between woodland savannas and managed savannas. The highest fluxes (up to 12.9 mg N₂O m^?2 day^?1) were those on relatively fertile soils with high air‐filled porosity and water retention. The effect of season on N₂O production was evident only when sites were separated in homogeneous groups on the basis of soil properties. CH₄ fluxes varied over a wide range (?22.9 to 3.15 mg CH₄ m^?2 day^?1, where the negative sign denotes removal of gas from the atmosphere), with an annual average daily flux of ?0.48 ± 0.96 (SD) mg CH₄ m^?2 day^?1 in undisturbed (control) sites. Land‐use change dramatically reduced this CH₄ sink. Managed sites were weak sinks of CH₄ in the dry season and became sources of CH₄ in the wet season. This was particularly evident for pastures. Burning alone did not reduce soil net CH₄ oxidation, but decreased N₂O production. Main conclusions Despite the low potential for N₂O production, both in natural and managed conditions, tropical seasonally‐dry ecosystems represent a significant source of N₂O (4.4 Tg N₂O year^?1) on a global scale, as a consequence of the large area they occupy. The same environments represent a potential CH₄ sink of 5.17 Tg CH₄ year^?1. However, assuming that c. 30% of the tropical land is converted to different uses, the sink would be reduced to 3.2 Tg CH₄ year^?1. The limited information on fluxes from Mediterranean ecosystems does not allow a meaningful scaling up.     

Microsatellite diversity of the agriculturally important alpine grass Poa alpina in relation to land use and natural environment

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The Alpine Meadow Grass Poa alpina is common in subalpine and alpine natural sites and agriculturally used land, where it is an important fodder grass. Natural factors and human land use are supposed to have been shaping its genetic diversity for hundreds of years. The species comprises sexually and vegetatively reproducing plants. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of agricultural land use, environmental factors and the mode of reproduction on the distribution of its microsatellite diversity within and among populations and to analyse whether its genetic diversity is correlated with plant species diversity in grassland parcels. METHODS: Genetic diversity of P. alpina was assessed with five microsatellite markers for 569 plants originating from 20 natural sites and from 54 grassland parcels of different cultural tradition, land use and altitude in the Swiss Alps. Due to polyploidy and frequent aneuploidy of the species, data analyses were based on the presence of microsatellite bands. KEY RESULTS: A low but significant differentiation was found in microsatellite bands among natural sites and agriculturally used parcels, while their microsatellite band diversity within populations did not differ. An increased differentiation was found in microsatellite bands with increasing geographic distance among parcels, and a differentiation among grazed and mown parcels, and among sexually and vegetatively reproducing populations. Band richness of sampled plants per village was higher for villages where parcels represented more different land-use types. Within populations, microsatellite band diversity was higher in grazed than in mown parcels. CONCLUSIONS: The diversity of human land use in the Alps was associated with genetic diversity of P. alpina. Therefore, the ongoing socio-economically motivated land-use changes, which reduce the number of different land-use types, will affect the genetic diversity of P. alpina negatively.     

Assessment of Land Use Impacts on the Natural Environment. Part 1: An Analytical Framework for Pure Land Occupation and Land Use Change (8 pp)

- Part 1: An analytical framework for pure land occupation and land use change Part 2: Generic characterization factors for local species diversity in Central Europe - Preamble. This series of two papers is based on a PhD thesis (Koellner 2003) and develops a method on how to assess land use impacts on biodiversity in the framework of LCA. Part 1 further expands the analytical framework of the thesis for pure land occupation and land use change. Part 2 rests on a much richer database compared to the thesis in order to quantify generic characterization factors for local species' richness. - Abstract Goal, Scope and Background. In the framework of LCA, land use is broadly accepted as an impact category. However, the methodology for the assessment of damages on the natural environment was and still is the subject of discussion. The main objective of this paper is to contribute to that discussion by providing a consistent methodological framework for the assessment of land occupation and transformation. Methods We clarify the context of LCA relevant land use decisions. Based on that, we develop a formal model with damage functions and generic characterization factors for quantifying damages on ecosystems from land occupation and land transformation. The characterization factor for land occupation and land use change is labeled Ecosystem Damage Potential (EDP). We analytically address the substitutability of area and time occupied in order to produce a constant output. Results Based on the proposed method, it is possible to calculate the damages from complex series of land transformation, land occupation, and land restoration. A main feature of the method is that land transformation is assessed based on a factual or virtual, restoration time. This means that the damage of land transformation is largest for land use types which are difficult to restore and need extremely long to develop (e.g. thousand of years and more for primary forest and peatbog). In addition, we could show that area and time of occupation are not substitutable. The more severe the damage potential of a specific land use type is, the better it is to minimize the area and maximize the duration of occupation. Discussion An approach for the assessment of pure land occupation and land use change was developed in this paper, which is not geographically referenced. Developing geographically-referenced land use inventories and impact assessment methods can increase their accuracy. The information cost to provide geographically referenced data on land use for practical LCA applications, however, would increase enormously. Conclusions An impact assessment method for land use with generic characterization factors improves the basis for decision-making in industry and other organizations. It can best be applied to marginal land use decisions; that is, to decisions in which the consequences are so small that the quality or quantity of environmental parameters of a region is not noticeably altered. Recommendations and Perspective . One main problem to address is the development of reliable generic characterization factors, which express the ecosystem damage potential of specific land use types. The characterization factors should be developed on an empirical basis, which allow decision makers to get access to knowledge from environmental sciences in a very condensed form. In order to support decisions on distinct land use projects, methods should be developed, which allow accomplishing a generic assessment with site-dependent assessments.     

生态足迹改进方法及其在区域可持续发展研究中的应用

生态足迹法是一种度量可持续发展程度的有效方法。本文选用传统生态足迹法及其改进方法——"实际土地需求法",结合遥感(RS)和地理信息系统(GIS)技术对岷江上游地区1982—2000年的可持续发展状况进行了时间动态分析。结果表明:研究区的人均消费生态足迹在研究时间段内呈缓慢上升趋势;实际土地需求法计算结果小于生态足迹法。1982—1998年,研究区每年向外输出大量木材,木材足迹与消费足迹计算结果相似。虽然生态承载力大于实际土地需求,但其呈明显下降趋势,表明研究区的资源利用方式并不合理,生态环境一直朝着不可持续的方向发展。1998年开始实施的"天然林保护工程"的生态作用对研究区生态承载力的作用尚未显现,应进行进一步的跟踪研究。     

辽中地区矿业城市土地利用变化

辽中地区矿业城市是我国重要的能源生产和重工业基地,研究其土地利用变化有利于改善环境质量,提高土地利用效率。分析了1985—2000年鞍山、抚顺、本溪土地利用变化指数、土地利用变化程度综合指数、土地利用结构信息熵、土地利用景观指数及其驱动力。结果表明:辽中地区矿业城市土地利用变化整体上呈现耕地、建设用地增加,林地、草地减少的趋势;不同矿业城市变化率最大的土地类型均不相同,鞍山为建设用地,增加5.45%;抚顺为水域,增加3.19%;本溪为草地,减少7.29%。土地利用程度变化综合指数均为正值,且鞍山>本溪>抚顺;土地利用结构信息熵均呈增长趋势,2000年鞍山为0.603,抚顺为0.406,本溪为0.407;景观破碎化程度加大,破碎度为鞍山>本溪>抚顺,景观多样性指数较高,景观结构复杂,景观多样性和均匀性均为鞍山>抚顺>本溪;自然条件的差异是土地利用变化差异的基础,人类社会经济活动和政策法规是土地利用变化的主要驱动力。