Search

The advancement of science, as well as scientific careers, depends upon good and clear scientific writing. Science is the most democratic of human endeavours because, in principle, anyone can replicate a scientific discovery. In order for this to continue, writing must be clear enough to be understood well enough to allow replication, either in principle or in fact. In this paper I will present data on the publication process in Evolutionary Ecology, use it to illustrate some of the problems in scientific papers, make some general remarks about writing scientific papers, summarise two new paper categories in the journal which will fill gaps that appear to be expanding in the literature, and summarise new journal policies to help mitigate existing problems. Most of the suggestions about writing would apply to any scientific journal.

Describes problems with monoculture tree plantations and explores industry claims about environmentally sound practices. The pulp plantation boom is likely to encourage a dangerous complacency in industrialized societies--an ignorance of the true costs of paper production. (PVD)

As data and computing power have surged in recent decades, statistical modeling has become an important tool for understanding ecological patterns and processes. Statistical modeling in ecology faces two major challenges. First, ecological data may not conform to traditional methods, and second, professional ecologists often do not receive extensive statistical training. In response to these challenges, the journal Ecology has published many innovative statistical ecology papers that introduced novel modeling methods and provided accessible guides to statistical best practices. In this paper, we reflect on Ecology's history and its role in the emergence of the subdiscipline of statistical ecology, which we define as the study of ecological systems using mathematical equations, probability, and empirical data. We showcase 36 influential statistical ecology papers that have been published in Ecology over the last century and, in so doing, comment on the evolution of the field. As data and computing power continue to increase, we anticipate continued growth in statistical ecology to tackle complex analyses and an expanding role for Ecology to publish innovative and influential papers, advancing the discipline and guiding practicing ecologists., (© 2024 The Authors. Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America.)

Anthropogenic vectors (transfer mechanisms) can facilitate the introduction and spread of aquatic disease in marine farming regions. Preventing or interrupting pathogen transfers associated with movements of these vectors is key to ensuring productivity and profitability of aquaculture operations. However, practical methods to identify and manage vector risks are lacking. We developed a risk analysis framework to identify disease risks and management gaps associated with anthropogenic vector movements in New Zealand's main aquaculture sectors - Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), green-lipped mussels (Perna canaliculus), and Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas). Vectors within each sector were identified and assigned categorical risk scores for (i) movement characteristics (size, frequency, likelihood of return to sea), (ii) biological association with pathogens (entrainment potential, contribution to previous aquaculture disease outbreaks) and (iii) available best practice biosecurity methods and tools, to inform unmitigated and mitigated risk rankings. Thirty-one vectors were identified to operate within the national network and association with livestock was found to be a primary driver of vector risk rankings. Movements of live growing stock and culture substrates (e.g., mussel ropes) in shellfish farming had high-risk vector profiles that are logistically challenging to address, while vessel vectors were identified as the salmon farming sector's priority. The framework and rankings can be used to inform both research and management priorities in aquaculture and other primary production systems, including risk validation, vector roles in disease epidemiology, compliance with permit conditions, policy development, and treatment options., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

The journal Ecologies experienced continuous growth throughout the year 2022 [...]

Science instructors are increasingly incorporating teaching techniques that help students develop core competencies such as critical-thinking and communication skills. These core competencies are pillars of career readiness that prepare undergraduate students to successfully transition to continuing education or the workplace, whatever the field. Course-based undergraduate research experiences that culminate in written research papers can be effective at developing critical-thinking and communication skills but are challenging to implement as class size (and student-to-instructor ratio) grows. We developed a hierarchical mentoring program in which graduate student mentors guided groups of four to five undergraduate students through the scientific process in an upper-level ecology course. Program effectiveness was evaluated by grading final research papers (including previous year papers, before the program was implemented) and surveys (comparing to a course that did not implement the program). Results indicated that primary benefits of hierarchical mentoring were improvements in perceived and demonstrated ability in data analysis and interpretation, leading to a median increase in paper score of ~10% on a 100-point scale. Future directions indicated by our study were a need to incorporate more approaches (e.g., low-stakes writing exercises) and resources into a revised program to improve outcomes for students whose primary language is not English.

Set in the Capitalocene, this conceptual paper examines 'sustainability' in ecological education through a posthuman lens. I demonstrate how the Deleuzoguattarian concept of the refrain helps reconfigure the function of 'sustainability' as an affective force of unstable-stabilizing when facing increasingly violent climate crisis events. Currently, ecological education and 'sustainability' are presented as solutions to these effects. How 'sustainable' something is, is increasingly used as a standard to expound its virtues - especially in the marketing of products, consumables, and energy. However, aligning with eco-feminist new material critiques, I propose that sustainability has sedimented into a regime of inertia, functioning to perpetuate practices known to be harmful to the environment as an order-word of stoppage. This paper offers new perspectives to problems presented in the language of environmental education, in order to suggest radical reimaginings for practice in the development of pedagogy capable of harnessing the chaos of climate crisis.

Badiou's ontological work draws attention to multiplicities--the oneness of ontology, which he explains can only become ontologically differentiated into events or sites through political, artistic or amorous practices that philosophies can think and invent from. He also draws attention to the fusion of events and sites, and he explains that events (such as producing special issues of journals located in particular sites) are reflexive. He also tells us, however, that the reflexive structure of an artistic or scientific event (such as producing a special issue of a journal) is not always immediately evident. In writing this response article I work with this concept--and probe how the production of events (such as a special issue of a journal produced in a specific site) may be reflexive. This is the purpose of the article. This response article therefore probes some of the political, structural and intellectual processes that come to shape scholarship in different sites, and here I draw on the insights into social imaginaries provided by Charles Taylor to develop a perspective on the scholarship that is reflected in this journal. Through this, I seek to open the notion of multiplicities, oneness and the particularities of our social imaginaries as themes for thinking about educational scholarship events produced within and across geo-physical, socio-ecological and socio-economic spaces in different parts of the world. (Contains 5 notes.)

Refurbishing the old nest in order to prepare it for a new breeding season cycle has already been observed in few species of paper wasps. When future foundresses emerge from hibernacula they have choose between building a new nest or reusing an old one. In present paper I described a case of multiple use and further expansion an old nest by Polistes dominula (Christ, 1791) in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Mazovia Region, Central Poland.

This work examines the poetry collection Junín (1930) by the Peruvian author Enrique Bustamante y Ballivián (1883–1937). While a part of the Latin American avant-garde expresses a fascination with the rise of new machines in the metropolis, this article demonstrates that Bustamante y Ballivián responds to this trend by representing machinery of a different kind – extractivist machinery – in a different type of space: the Andes. The author also engages with the indigenista avant-garde poetic proposals of his Peruvian contemporaries. Unlike them, the poet does not aim to give voice to the indigenous subject, nor does he idealize or solely link it to nature. Instead, he portrays it as 'coupled' to the mineral extraction machinery. Additionally, the poet depicts this machinery as invasive, contaminating and destructive to the landscape and its inhabitants. This work argues that Junín emerges as the first poetic representation of the ecological impacts caused by large-scale mining exploitation in the Andes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmentally friendly and energy saving treatment of black liquor (BL), a massively produced waste in Kraft papermaking process, still remains a big challenge. Here, by adopting a NiCaOCa12Al14O33 bifunctional catalyst derived from hydrotalcite-like materials, we demonstrate the feasibility of producing high-purity H2 (∼96%) with 0.9 mol H2 mol−1 C yield via the sorption enhanced steam reforming (SESR) of BL. The SESRBL performance in terms of H2 production maintained stable for 5 cycles, but declined from the 6th cycle. XRD, Raman spectroscopy, elemental analysis and energy dispersive techniques were employed to rationalize the deactivation of the catalyst. It was revealed that gradual sintering and agglomeration of Ni and CaO and associated coking played important roles in catalyst deactivation and performance degradation of SESRBL, while deposition of Na and K from the BL might also be responsible for the declined performance. On the other hand, it was demonstrated that the SESRBL process could effectively reduce the emission of sulfur species by storing it as CaSO3. Our results highlight a promising alternative for BL treatment and H2 production, thereby being beneficial for pollution control and environment governance in the context of mitigation of climate change.

The paper of Huang, Keisler and Linkov (HKL) (Huang et al., 2011) has motivated us to this note about the relation between ranking procedures and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) tools. The key concept in the HKL-paper is in our eyes the 'trade-off'. A 'trade-off' seems necessary, when conflicting indicator values are present. HKL stress that the general application of MCDA is hampered by different terminology. We do not claim to have a solution for that problem. Nevertheless, we think that the discussion is worthwhile and this note presents some of our ideas, which basically imply the need of a broadening of the definition of MCDA., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Many Dutch ecosystems, whether terrestrial, aquatic or sediment-based, are diffusely polluted by mixtures of contaminants, whose concentrations often exceed regulatory Safe Values or other generic quality criteria. This situation has unclear consequences, especially when local authorities are confronted with such pollution. Water managers are frequently in doubt whether their water systems satisfy the criteria for 'Good Ecological Status' as defined in the EU's Water Framework Directive. In case of soils, soil users may wonder whether the soil is 'fit for use'. In case of nature conservation, the problem is that protected species might suffer from toxic stress. Official regulations in these cases call for appropriate action, but it is unclear whether the diffuse exposure causes adverse effects, and what the action should be. This paper proposes and discusses a site-oriented approach in the risk assessment of diffusely contaminated sites that can be used in addition to the compound-oriented policies from which the abovementioned generic quality criteria were derived. The site-oriented approach can be of help in reducing site-specific risks of diffuse contamination. Reflecting on the results of a large Dutch research effort in systems-oriented ecotoxicological effects, the conclusion is drawn that exposure and effects of diffuse pollution are site-specific in kind and magnitude, determined by the local combination of source-pathway-receptor issues, and often not clearly detectable (though often present). To assist in risk management, higher-tier methods can address various aspects, like addressing local mixture composition, bioavailability, and sensitivity of local species groups. Higher-tier risk assessment methods have as yet been developed mainly for cases of serious contamination, like for pesticide management and Risk-Based Land Management. For diffuse pollution, site-specific information can also be used to obtain site-specific exposure and impact information, while practical and ecology-based approaches can be introduced to obtain an integrated overview of the meaning of site contamination and to derive options for managing and reducing the local risks. These issues are discussed against the background of current major policy shifts, in The Netherlands and elsewhere, from a pollutant-oriented assessment to an additional ecological and site-oriented assessment. The latter is most clearly represented in the Good Ecological Status aim of the EU-Water Framework Directive. The paper assesses, integrates and discusses the results of the Dutch research effort in this policy context.

The great mass extinctions of the fossil record were a major creative force that provided entirely new kinds of opportunities for the subsequent explosive evolution and diversification of surviving clades. Today, the synergistic effects of human impacts are laying the groundwork for a comparably great Anthropocene mass extinction in the oceans with unknown ecological and evolutionary consequences. Synergistic effects of habitat destruction, overfishing, introduced species, warming, acidification, toxins, and massive runoff of nutrients are transforming once complex ecosystems like coral reefs and kelp forests into monotonous level bottoms, transforming clear and productive coastal seas into anoxic dead zones, and transforming complex food webs topped by big animals into simplified, microbially dominated ecosystems with boom and bust cycles of toxic dinoflagellate blooms, jellyfish, and disease. Rates of change are increasingly fast and nonlinear with sudden phase shifts to novel alternative community states. We can only guess at the kinds of organisms that will benefit from this mayhem that is radically altering the selective seascape far beyond the consequences of fishing or warming alone. The prospects are especially bleak for animals and plants compared with metabolically flexible microbes and algae. Halting and ultimately reversing these trends will require rapid and fundamental changes in fisheries, agricultural practice, and the emissions of greenhouse gases on a global scale.

To improve the compilation quality of references, work in well with articles search and periodicals evaluation, and promote international academic exchange, the Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology shall adjust its principles of reference recording in scientific papers based on the GB/T7714 -2005. From 2008, the references in scientific papers to be submitted are requested to record by the Citation-Sequence. In this paper, some examples were presented, and the issues needed to be paid more attention to by the authors were put forward.

Since education aims to offer applicable knowledge, studying knowledge--behavior relationship is of key importance in promoting environmental education. But there is scarcity of studies addressing the relationship between knowledge and real behavior choices. We examined the connection between environmental knowledge and behavior (self-reported and measured in an operative way) among 10-12-year-old students, with special focus on the potential mediating role of attitudes. The main research question was whether knowledge (measured with an achievement test) correlates with actual environmental behavior, and how mental accessibility of environmentalism is related to the relationship between knowledge and actual behavior (i.e. choosing a material for completing a manual task). The study with 325 persons revealed that although the positive connection between knowledge and self-reported behavior was fully mediated by environmental attitudes, knowledge was just slightly related to actual behavior, even when the topic of environmentalism appeared before the behavior choice. However, behavior was related to school, suggesting that school-level socialization (beyond the knowledge transfer) is highly influential in forming environmental behavior. The difficulties of studying actual behavior and implications of our findings for practitioners from the field of environmental education are discussed.

This is a trilogy of papers about land and people and the ecology they create together. Leah lives on the coast in South Wales. Lisen lives on the island of Gotland in Sweden. Gail lives in Yorkshire in the north of England. What connects us and our writings is the land, its history, its place in industry and what we do and don’t see. The cuts in the land reflect the cuts in our minds, unnegotiated edits in our stories, and disconnects in political discourses. This trilogy of papers documents some of these cuts and joins. We speak about the land we walk on and the stories told about it. We point to scars in the landscape and ask how they connect with those in the lungs and on the wrist. The landscape of the present holds clues about its past and its future. And the timescapes in the writings evoke a necessity to connect time and place, human and non-human colonising and liberatory methods and live with a maddening, flickering lenticularity (Pillow, 2019).