Search

Questions: The effects of agriculture on forest biodiversity and ecosystem properties can persist decades or centuries after abandonment. Many Pacific island nations are experiencing declines in traditional agriculture. Seed dispersal and seedling recruitment are critical to forest regeneration, and this is particularly relevant for Polynesia where native seed disperser diversity is low and species have been extirpated to crisis levels. In this study we asked: are secondary lowland tropical forests converging to mature forest, and are there seedling recruitment and survival differences between forest types? Location: The Polynesian island of Tutuila, American Samoa, where traditional agriculture has been on the decline since the 1940s and secondary forests comprise 70% of all forest area. Methods: We surveyed 34 vegetation plots (containing 2,232 adult trees and 6,579 tree seedlings) across mature forest and >50 years old secondary lowland rain forest. We quantitatively compared forest diversity, structure and the 3-year seedling regeneration dynamics of the tree community. Results: Although species richness and stem densities were similar between mature and secondary forest, most diversity and structure parameters remained distinguishable between the two forest types. Basal area remained significantly higher in mature forest; the diagnostic tree species of mature and secondary forest differed; and community composition (as indicated by NMDS) remained significantly different. However, seedling survivorship did not differ between forest types and seedling recruitment patterns indicated that there remained a suite of effective seed dispersers on Tutuila. Conclusions: We conclude that (a) community differences between mature and secondary lowland rainforest were driven by the abundance of diagnostic species rather than exclusion of species from a forest type, and (b) there was no evidence of biophysical or ecological barriers to forest recovery of lowland secondary rain forest, or its convergence towards mature lowland rain forest. Nevertheless, more than 50 years after agricultural abandonment, secondary forest remains distinct from mature forest, highlighting that land use legacies are long-term drivers of forest composition and successional trajectory in post-agricultural landscapes of Polynesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the churches have focused much of their attention on the individual's encounter with evil, it is urgent and essential that this focus be expanded to consider communal systemic evil. Rediscovering this emphasis in ancient sources – biblical and Indigenous – we begin to see that engagement with systemic evils like racism and colonialism is a central aspect of Christian discipleship. There is a preliminary and important anticipation and realization of this rediscovery in The Arusha Call to Discipleship document of the World Council of Churches. In an age that is beset by the deadly intersection of multiple forms of systemic evil, it is urgent that discipleship confront the principalities and powers that corrupt and destroy life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that the number of independent parameters required to describe an Albert algebra up to isomorphism is at most seven. In other words, the essential dimension of the split group of type $F_4$ over a field of characteristic not 2 or 3 satisfies $\operatorname {ed} (F_4)\leq 7$. This is achieved by reducing the structural group from the full 52-dimensional automorphism group to a subgroup of dimension 10, and exhibiting an eighteen-dimensional generically free linear representation that remains generically free once projectivized. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors discuss the unity plenary at the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) on November 5, 2013. They cite the need for their desire and hope for unity to be a part of a bigger vision which invites all people and all of creation to work for justice and peace for the God of life. They also shares the militant presence of the Living Word of God in creation and history. The revelation of the unity and reality of faith in a new way is also outlined.