Sustained timber harvesting conflicts with the long-term viability of boreal caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) populations. The spatial arrangement of harvest blocks in the landscape could mitigate the impact of logging on caribou populations. For the forest industry, however, these measures represent constraints that reduce the annual allowable cut (AAC).
Objective
Estimate the long-term impacts of spatial constraints to harvesting, applied alone or in combination, on AAC and boreal caribou populations.
Methods
We divided a 30,000 km2 region into 20 harvest block sizes varying from 50 to 1000 km2, and modeled the implementation of spatially explicit harvest schedule plans in combination with wildfire and caribou population dynamics. We then evaluated the probability of persistence of boreal caribou populations.
Results
The probability of maintaining an AAC target declined with increasing target AAC, increasing size of operating area, and increasing adjacency constraints. In contrast, the probability of maintaining caribou populations declined with increasing AAC, decreasing size of operating areas, and decreasing adjacency constraints. An increase in operating area size from 50 to 300 km2 produced a considerable gain in AAC for all adjacency constraints.
Conclusions
Because adjacency constraints led only to a small increase in the probability of maintaining caribou populations, we recommend adopting less constraining landscape management actions, such as a 70-year period between two consecutive harvests in the same ~300-km2 operating area.
Dispersal has important fitness consequences for individuals, populations, and species. Despite growing theoretical insights into the evolution of dispersal, its behavioral underpinnings remain empirically understudied, limiting our understanding of the extent and impact of responses to landscape-level heterogeneity of environments, and increasing the risk of inferring species-level responses from biased population sampling.
Objectives
We asked if predictable ecological variation among naturally fragmented arid waterbodies is correlated with disparate dispersal responses of populations of the desert goby Chlamydogobius eremius, which naturally inhabits two habitat “types” (permanent springs, ephemeral rivers), and different levels of hydrological connectivity (high and low) that potentially convey different costs and benefits of dispersal.
Methods
To test for possible behavioral divergence between such populations, we experimentally compared the movement behaviors (correlates of emigration and exploration) of wild-caught fish. We used two biologically relevant spatial scales to test movement relevant to different stages of the dispersal process.
Results
Behavior differed at both spatial scales, suggesting that alternative dispersal strategies enable desert gobies to exploit diverse habitat patches. However, while emigration was best predicted by the connectivity (flood risk) of fish habitats, exploration was linked to their habitat type (spring versus river).
Conclusions
Our findings demonstrate that despite a complex picture of ecological variation, key landscape factors have an overarching effect on among-population variation in dispersal traits. Implications include the maintenance of within-species variation, potentially divergent evolutionary trajectories of naturally or anthropogenically isolated populations, and the direction of future experimental studies on the ecology and evolution of dispersal behavior.
Simultaneous responses of American (Concord), European (Pinot Noir), and American-European hybrid (Traminette) cultivars to seasonal and diurnal variation in field environmental conditions were assessed to propose suitable cultivars for potential use for selection and breeding in grapevines in dry areas. ‘Pinot Noir’ had higher gas exchange parameters, higher water potential, and chlorophyll fluorescence, while ‘Concord’ had the lowest values in all three seasons and experienced moderate stress by the end of each season. The dry conditions in 2005 caused water potential to decline sharply compared to values recorded in 2004 and 2006. ‘Pinot Noir’ and ‘Traminette’ exhibited a mild stress, while ‘Concord’ exhibited a moderate stress in 2006. Photosynthetic rate decreased slightly during the summer with a slight recovery at the beginning of September, and did not differ across the seasons among cultivars. Stomatal conductance followed the same pattern. However, in both 2004 and 2005, stomatal conductance dropped sharply late in the season because of frequently occurring high temperatures that were greater than 32 °C. Maximum morning values of Fv/Fm were within the optimal range. The study suggests the presence of marginal photoinhibition during mid-summer in Concord cultivars, because no full recovery of photochemical efficiency early in the evening was observed. The European cultivar (Pinot Noir) and the American-European hybrid (Traminette) are more adapted to field conditions in Kansas than Concord cultivars. However, high cold-mortality of Pinot Noir due to high sensitivity to cold winter temperature makes the hybrid cultivars the most suitable cultivar for Midwest regions with relatively cold winters. 相似文献
Global challenges like sustainable development, climate change, malnutrition and gender inequality can be tackled from an agricultural perspective. Micronutrient deficiency is a major problem for the health and food security of the population. In Colombia, iron deficiencies affect 32% of the children under the age of five; and 43% of the Colombian population have zinc and vitamin A deficiencies. We designed and implemented a research-for-development programme that links agriculture and nutrition through a two-stage project. In the first stage, we selected three new yellow potato cultivars with better nutritional contents, higher yield and better resistance to late blight than the traditional yellow cultivars. We characterized the Colombian germplasm, Solanum tuberosum Group Phureja, for its nutritional attributes. During this stage, studies of the social and nutritional status of the communities were also conducted. In the second stage, we focused on scaling up new potato cultivars to reach potato producers and consumers by promoting the production and marketing of good quality seed potatoes, by establishing four Rural Entrepreneurs Nuclei. The programme promotes gender equity, good dietary habits, the consumption of more nutritious potatoes and empowers local leadership to strengthen governance. Field work was conducted in southern and central regions of Colombia by employing social strategies such as the Family Farming Community Schools. In 50% of the cultivated area, we are replacing the originally used traditional yellow potatoes by the new, more nutritious, potatoes to reach 6 million consumers. A good quality seed system for small-scale potato growers has been implemented. These achievements have been reached through a comprehensive approach in a period of two years. 相似文献
Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) native starch was treated with pyroconversion and enzymatic hydrolysis to produce a pyrodextrin and an enzyme-resistant maltodextrin. Some nutritional characteristics were quantified for both compounds. Pyroconversion was done using a 160:1 (p/v) starch:HCl ratio, 90 °C temperature and 3 h reaction time. The resulting pyrodextrin contained 46.21% indigestible starch and 78.86% dietary fiber. Thermostable α-amylase (0.01%) was used to hydrolyze the pyrodextrin at 95 °C for 5 min. The resulting resistant maltodextrin contained 24.45% dextrose equivalents, 56.06% indigestible starch and 86.62% dietary fiber. Compared to the cassava native starch, the pyrodextrin exhibited 56% solubility at room temperature and the resistant maltodextrin 100%. The glycemic index value for the resistant maltodextrin was 59% in healthy persons. Its high indigestible starch and dietary fiber contents, as well as its complete solubility, make the resistant maltodextrin a promising ingredient for raising dietary fiber content in a wide range of foods, especially in drinks, dairy products, creams and soups. 相似文献
Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] yield and seed fatty acids, protein, and oil content are important traits for which an improved understanding of significant genomic regions would be useful. To accomplish this, a soybean population consisting of 203 F5 derived recombinant inbred lines (RILs) was developed and genotyped with 11,633 polymorphic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Each RIL was grown in a single plot at Knoxville, TN in 2010; followed by replicated, multi-location field trials in 2013 and 2014. The data from 2010, 2013, and 2014 were analyzed together in order to detect quantitative trait loci (QTL) for these traits, and 30 total QTLs were detected. Five QTLs are candidates for confirmed status and one QTL is a candidate for positional confirmation. Many of the genes with mutations in close proximity to the fatty acid QTLs are involved in biological processes for fatty acids and/or lipids and could be considered possible candidate genes. Similarly, genes with mutations in genomic regions near yield, protein, and oil QTLs were plentiful and may contribute to the variation observed in these traits. Except for yield and stearic acid, each trait displayed pleiotropic effects with other traits in this study. Notable are the pleiotropic effects for oleic and linolenic acid on chromosomes 9, 13, and 19. Overall, the findings from this research contribute new information to the genetic understanding of soybean yield and seed fatty acids, protein and oil content. This understanding will be useful in making trait improvements. 相似文献
With underrepresentation of habitats in publicly protected areas, attention has focused on the function of alternative land conservation mechanisms. Private conservation easements (CEs) have proliferated in the United States, yet assessing landscape-level function is confounded by varying extent, resolution, and temporal scale.
Objectives
We developed and tested an assessment tool to evaluate interacting spatial, social, and environmental attributes of easements relative to the degree of human modification (HM). We hypothesized that on both private and public conservation properties HM would be lower than on non-conserved parcels, and that for fine-scale features (most CEs), the level of HM would be driven by the variables used to create the coarser scale HM measure.
Methods
Variation in HM between private, public, and non-conserved was tested via pairwise parcel sampling. Composition was evaluated using multiple geographic bounds and edge characteristics. We assessed both environmental and social predictors using multinomial logistic regression.
Results
Privately conserved lands did not differ significantly from non-conserved lands. Publicly conserved lands had lower HM than both privately conserved and non-conserved lands. Edge contrast was similar between private and matched non-conserved patches. The level of HM was not driven by distance to roads, or by elevation in this mixed-use setting.
Conclusions
Variation in tests for differences, land characteristics, and HM variables confirmed the significantly lower HM of publicly protected lands, and opens the question as to naturalness of easements in some contexts. CEs in this location may be representative of the mixed rural-forested landscape instead of more natural land cover.
Landscape Ecology - Forest landscapes at the boreal–temperate ecotone have been extensively altered. Reducing the gap between current and presettlement forest conditions through... 相似文献