THE DISTRIBUTION AND POPULATION REGULATION OF THE WOOD MOUSE APODEMUS-SYLVATICUS ON FIELD BOUNDARIES OF PASTORAL FARMLAND

1. The population characteristics and distribution of wood mice Apodemus sylvaticus (L.) were investigated along field margins of farmland dominated by grass production. 2. Turnover, sex ratio, breeding season, spatial density dependence and density dependence in reproductive activity indicated that the population ecology of A. sylvaticus is consistent in different habitats in the same geographical region. 3. Spatial variation in the abundance of A.sylvaticus was related negatively to percentage of land under pasture and distance from woodland and positively related to variables associated with food supply and cover. 4. Variation in numbers of overwintered mice at the start of the breeding season was related more closely to breeding opportunity than to environmental factors. This was particularly so in males. 5. The association of overwintered male and female A. sylvaticus remained evident in the later half of the breeding season. Young males and females of the year, however, were distributed more with respect to physical and biological features than towards adults or reproductive opportunity. 6. A. sylvaticus is an important species of field margins, even where these are poorly developed and agriculture is pastoral rather than arable. Further studies of this species in a wider range of agricultural systems are desirable.

The Emotional Paradoxes of Adverse Possession

Property lawyers are generally viewed as a serious lot, not prone to feverish bursts of excitement as we seek comfort and solace in established legal rules and precepts. In the same way, property law disputes tend to have a fairly low profile and fail to capture the public imagination in the same way as, for example, those involving criminal or human rights law. Such apparent indifference might seem a little strange, given the centrality of property in everyday human life and the significance which legal systems and individuals attach to property rights. However, there is one issue which always inflames passions amongst lawyers and non-lawyers alike: the acquisition of land through the doctrine of adverse possession, often described as ‘squatter’s rights’. No property-related topic is likely to light up a radio show phone-in switchboard quite like squatting

Farmer perception of suitable conditions for slurry application compared with decision support system recommendations

The application of slurry nutrients to land can be associated with unintended losses to the environment depending on soil and weather conditions. Correct timing of slurry application, however, can increase plant nutrient uptake and reduce losses. A decision support system (DSS), which predicts optimum conditions for slurry spreading based on the Hybrid Soil Moisture Deficit (HSMD) model, was investigated for use as a policy tool. The DSS recommendations were compared to farmer perception of suitable conditions for slurry spreading for three soil drainage classes (well, moderate and poorly drained) to better understand on farm slurry management practices and to identify potential conflict with farmer opinion. Six farmers participated in a survey over two and a half years, during which they completed a daily diary, and their responses were compared to Soil Moisture Deficit (SMD) calculations and weather data recorded by on farm meteorological stations. The perception of land drainage quality differed between farmers and was related to their local knowledge and experience. It was found that the allocation of grass fields to HSMD drainage classes using a visual assessment method aligned farmer perception of drainage at the national scale. Farmer opinion corresponded to the theoretical understanding that slurry should not be applied when the soil is wetter than field capacity, i.e. when drainage can occur. While weather and soil conditions (especially trafficability) were the principal reasons given by farmers not to spread slurry, farm management practices (grazing and silage) and current Nitrates Directive policies (closed winter period for spreading) combined with limited storage capacities were obstacles to utilisation of slurry nutrients. Despite the slightly more restrictive advice of the DSS regarding the number of suitable spreading opportunities, the system has potential to address an information deficit that would help farmers to reduce nutrient losses and optimise plant nutrient uptake by improved slurry management. The DSS advice was in general agreement with the farmers and, therefore, they should not be resistant to adopting the tool for day to day management.

Predicting critical source areas of sediment in headwater catchments

Mitigation of diffuse nutrient and sediment delivery to streams requires successful identification andmanagement of critical source areas within catchments. Approaches to predicting high risk areas forsediment loss have typically relied on structural drivers of connectivity and risk, with little considera-tion given to process driven water quality responses. To assess the applicability of structural metrics topredict critical source areas, geochemical tracing of land use sources was conducted in three headwateragricultural catchments in Co. Down and Co. Louth, Ireland, within a Monte Carlo framework. Outputswere applied to the inverse optimisation of a connectivity model, based on LiDAR DEM data, to assess theefficacy of land use risk weightings to predict sediment source contributions over the 18 month studyperiod in the Louth Upper, Louth Lower and Down catchments. Results of the study indicated sedimentproportions over the study period varied from 6 to 10%, 84 to 87%, 4%, and 2 to 3% for the Down Catch-ment, 79 to 85%, 9 to 17%, 1 to 3% and 2 to 3% in the Louth Upper and 2 to 3%, 79 to 85%, 10 to 17%and 2 to 3% in the Louth Lower for arable, channel bank, grassland, and woodland sources, respectively.Optimised land use risk weightings for each sampling period showed that at the larger catchment scale,no variation in median land use weightings were required to predict land use contributions. However,for the two smaller study catchments, variation in median risk weightings was considerable, which mayindicate the importance of functional connectivity processes at this spatial scale. In all instances, arableland consistently generated the highest risk of sediment loss across all catchments and sampling times.This study documents some of the first data on sediment provenance in Ireland and indicates the needfor cautious consideration of land use as a tool to predict critical source areas at the headwater scale

Autoecological Approaches to Resolve Subjective Taxonomic Divisions within Arcellacea

Arcellacea (testate lobose amoebae) are important lacustrine environmental indicators that have been used in paleoclimatic reconstructions, assessing the effectiveness of mine tailings pond reclamation projects and for studying the effects of land use change in rural, industrial and urban settings. Recognition of ecophenotypically significant infra-specific ‘strains’ within arcellacean assemblages has the potential to enhance the utility of the group in characterizing contemporary and paleoenvironments. We present a novel approach which employs statistical tools to investigate the environmental and taxonomic significance of proposed strains. We test this approach on two identified strains: Difflugia protaeiformis Lamarck strain ‘acuminata’ (DPA), characterized by fine grained agglutination, and Difflugia protaeiformis Lamarck strain ‘claviformis’ (DPC), characterized by coarse grained agglutination. Redundancy analysis indicated that both organisms are associated with similar environmental variables. No relationship was observed between substrate particle size and abundance of DPC, indicating that DPC has a size preference for xenosomes during test construction. Thus DPC should not be designated as a distinct strain but rather form a species complex with DPA. This study elucidates the need to justify the designation of strains based on their autecology in addition to morphological stability.

Assessing the distribution of social-ecological resilience and risk: Ireland as a case study of the uneven impact of famine

Explanations for the causes of famine and food insecurity often reside at a high level of aggregation or abstraction. Popular models within famine studies have often emphasised the role of prime movers such as population stress, or the political-economic structure of access channels, as key determinants of food security. Explanation typically resides at the macro level, obscuring the presence of substantial within-country differences in the manner in which such stressors operate. This study offers an alternative approach to analyse the uneven nature of food security, drawing on the Great Irish famine of 1845–1852. Ireland is often viewed as a classical case of Malthusian stress, whereby population outstripped food supply under a pre-famine demographic regime of expanded fertility. Many have also pointed to Ireland's integration with capitalist markets through its colonial relationship with the British state, and country-wide system of landlordism, as key determinants of local agricultural activity. Such models are misguided, ignoring both substantial complexities in regional demography, and the continuity of non-capitalistic, communal modes of land management long into the nineteenth century. Drawing on resilience ecology and complexity theory, this paper subjects a set of aggregate data on pre-famine Ireland to an optimisation clustering procedure, in order to discern the potential presence of distinctive social–ecological regimes. Based on measures of demography, social structure, geography, and land tenure, this typology reveals substantial internal variation in regional social–ecological structure, and vastly differing levels of distress during the peak famine months. This exercise calls into question the validity of accounts which emphasise uniformity of structure, by revealing a variety of regional regimes, which profoundly mediated local conditions of food security. Future research should therefore consider the potential presence of internal variations in resilience and risk exposure, rather than seeking to characterise cases based on singular macro-dynamics and stressors alone.

Comparison of methods used to calculate typical threshold values for potentially toxic elements in soil

The environmental quality of land can be assessed by calculating relevant threshold values, which differentiate between concentrations of elements resulting from geogenic and diffuse anthropogenic sources and concentrations generated by point sources of elements. A simple process allowing the calculation of these typical threshold values (TTVs) was applied across a region of highly complex geology (Northern Ireland) to six elements of interest; arsenic, chromium, copper, lead, nickel and vanadium. Three methods for identifying domains (areas where a readily identifiable factor can be shown to control the concentration of an element) were used: k-means cluster analysis, boxplots and empirical cumulative distribution functions (ECDF). The ECDF method was most efficient at determining areas of both elevated and reduced concentrations and was used to identify domains in this investigation. Two statistical methods for calculating normal background concentrations (NBCs) and upper limits of geochemical baseline variation (ULBLs), currently used in conjunction with legislative regimes in the UK and Finland respectively, were applied within each domain. The NBC methodology was constructed to run within a specific legislative framework, and its use on this soil geochemical data set was influenced by the presence of skewed distributions and outliers. In contrast, the ULBL methodology was found to calculate more appropriate TTVs that were generally more conservative than the NBCs. TTVs indicate what a "typical" concentration of an element would be within a defined geographical area and should be considered alongside the risk that each of the elements pose in these areas to determine potential risk to receptors.

Functional role of microarthropods in soil aggregation

Soil aggregation has received a lot of attention in the last years; however, the focus was mostly on soil microorganismsor larger soil fauna, especially earthworms. The impact of the large group of microarthropods, e.g. Collembola and Acari, is nearly unknown and hence underrepresented in the literature. Here we propose and discuss potential direct and indirect mechanisms of how microarthropods could influence this process with the focus on collembolans, which are in general a relatively well studied taxon.Indirect mechanisms are likely to have larger impacts on soil aggregation than direct effects. The variety of indirect mechanisms based on the provision of organic material like faecal pellets, molts and necromass as food source for microorganisms is high and given available evidence we propose that these mechanismsare the most influential. We highlight the need for overcoming the challenges of culturing and handling of these animals in order to be able to design small scale experiments and field studies which would enable us to understand the role of the different
functional groups, their interaction with other soil faunaand the impact of land use practices on soil aggregation.

Regional integration of biogas – developing an intersectoral research action plan for Northern Ireland

Bioenergy is a key component of the European Union long term energy strategy across all sectors, with a target contribution of up to 14% of the energy mix by 2020. It is estimated that there is the potential for 1TWh of primary energy from biogas per million persons in Europe, derived from agricultural by-products and waste. With an agricultural sector that accounts for 75% of land area and a large number of advanced engineering firms, Northern Ireland is a region with considerable potential for an integrated biogas industry. Northern Ireland is also heavily reliant on imported fossil fuels. Despite this, the industry is underdeveloped and there is a need for a collaborative approach from research, business and policy-makers across all sectors to optimise Northern Ireland���s abundant natural resources. ‘Developing Opportunities in Bio-Energy’ (i.e. Do Bioenergy) is a recently completed project that involved both academic and specialist industrial partners. The aim was to develop a biogas research action plan for 2020 to define priorities for intersectoral regional development, co-operation and knowledge transfer in the field of production and use of biogas. Consultations were held with regional stakeholders and working groups were established to compile supporting data, decide key objectives and implementation activities. Within the context of this study it was found that biogas from feedstocks including grass, agricultural slurry, household and industrial waste have the potential to contribute from 2.5% to 11% of Northern Ireland���s total energy consumption. The economics of on-farm production were assessed, along with potential markets and alternative uses for biogas in sectors such as transport, heat and electricity. Arising from this baseline data, a Do Bioenergy was developed. The plan sets out a strategic research agenda, and details priorities and targets for 2020. The challenge for Northern Ireland is how best to utilise the biogas – as electricity, heat or vehicle fuel and in what proportions. The research areas identified were: development of small scale solutions for biogas production and use; solutions for improved nutrient management; knowledge supporting and developing the integration of biogas into the rural economy; and future crops and bio-based products. The human resources and costs for the implementation were estimated as 80 person-years and £25 million respectively. It is also clear that the development of a robust bio-gas sector requires some reform of the regulatory regime, including a planning policy framework and a need to address social acceptance issues. The Action Plan was developed from a regional perspective but the results may be applicable to other regions in Europe and elsewhere. This paper presents the methodology, results and analysis, and discussion and key findings of the Do Bioenergy report for Northern Ireland.

Land wars in India: Contestations, social forces and evolving neoliberal urban transformation

Land wars in India: Contestations, social forces and evolving neoliberal urban transformation
The recent incidents of ‘land wars’ in India have highlighted the contradictions and challenges of the neoliberal urban transformation through a range of issues across governance, equity and empowerment in the development agenda. Simply put, a strong top down approach and corporate-political nexus have determined the modality of land acquisition, compensation and ultimately the nature of its consumption leaving out majority urban poor from its benefits. The paper focuses on the concept of neoliberalism as a modality of urban governance and emergence of the grassroots activism as a countermagnate to neoliberalist hegemony by examining the inequity and marginalization that embody these ‘land wars’ in India and the forms of resistance from the grassroots - their capacity, relationship and modus operandi. Emerging lessons suggest the potential for advancing governance from the bottoms up leading to more equitable distribution of resources. It is however argued that there is a need for a stronger conception of the ‘grassroots’ in both epistemological and empirical context. In particular, the preconditions for the ‘grassroots organisations’ to foster and play a more effective role requires a more inclusive notion of ‘institutionality and plurality’ within the current political economic context. The empirical focus of the paper is ‘land wars’ observed in Kolkata, West Bengal, however references to other examples across the country have also been made.

Dublin 1916: theatre of revolt

In his essay, Anti-Object, Kengo Kuma proposes that architecture cannot and should not be understood as object alone but instead always as series of networks and connections, relationships within space and through form. Some of these relationships are tangible, others are invisible. Stan Allen and James Corner have also called for an architecture that is more performative and operative – ‘less concerned with what buildings look like and more concerned with what they do’ – as means of effecting a more intimate and promiscuous relationship between infrastructure, urbanism and buildings. According to Allen this expanding filed offers a reclamation of some of the areas ceded by architecture following disciplinary specialization:

‘Territory, communication and speed are properly infrastructural problems and architecture as a discipline has developed specific technical means to deal with these variables. Mapping, projection, calculation, notation and visualization are among architecture’s traditional tools for operating at the very large scale’.

The motorway may not look like it – partly because we are no longer accustomed to think about it as such – but it is a site for and of architecture, a territory where architecture can be critical and active. If the limits of the discipline have narrowed, then one of the functions of a school of architecture must be an attempt occupy those areas of the built environment where architecture is no longer, or has yet to reach. If this is a project about reclamation of a landscape, it is also a challenge to some of the boundaries that surround architecture and often confine it, as Kuma suggests, to the appreciation of isolated objects.

M:NI 2014-15
We tend to think of the motorway as a thing or an object, something that has a singular function. Historically this is how it has been seen, with engineers designing bridges and embankments and suchlike with zeal … These objects like the M3 Urban Motorway, Belfast’s own Westway, are beautiful of course, but they have caused considerable damage to the city they were inflicted upon.

Actually, it’s the fact that we have seen the motorway as a solid object that has caused this problem. The motorway actually is a fluid and dynamic thing, and it should be seen as such: in fact it’s not an organ at all but actually tissue – something that connects rather than is. Once we start to see the motorway as tissue, it opens up new propositions about what the motorway is, is used for and does. This new dynamic and connective view unlocks the stasis of the motorway as edifice, and allows adaptation to happen: adaptation to old contexts that were ignored by the planners, and adaptation to new contexts that have arisen because of or in spite of our best efforts.

Motorways as tissue are more than just infrastructures: they are landscapes. These landscapes can be seen as surfaces on which flows take place, not only of cars, buses and lorries, but also of the globalized goods carried and the lifestyles and mobilities enabled. Here the infinite speed of urban change of thought transcends the declared speed limit [70 mph] of the motorway, in that a consignment of bananas can cause soil erosion in Equador, or the delivery of a new iphone can unlock connections and ideas the world over.

So what is this new landscape to be like? It may be a parallax-shifting, cognitive looking glass; a drone scape of energy transformation; a collective farm, or maybe part of a hospital. But what’s for sure, is that it is never fixed nor static: it pulses like a heartbeat through that most bland of landscapes, the countryside. It transmits forces like a Caribbean hurricane creating surf on an Atlantic Storm Beach: alien forces that mutate and re-form these places screaming into new, unclear and unintended futures.

And this future is clear: the future is urban. In this small rural country, motorways as tissue have made the whole of it: countryside, mountain, sea and town, into one singular, homogenous and hyper-connected, generic city.

Goodbye, place. Hello, surface!

Climate drives temporal replacement and nested‐resultant richness patterns of Scottish coastal vegetation

Beta diversity quantifies spatial and/or temporal variation in species composition. It is comprised of two distinct components, species replacement and nestedness, which derive from opposing ecological processes. Using Scotland as a case study and a β-diversity partitioning framework, we investigate temporal replacement and nestedness patterns of coastal grassland species over a 34-yr time period. We aim to 1) understand the influence of two potentially pivotal processes (climate and land-use changes) on landscape-scale (5 × 5 km) temporal replacement and nestedness patterns, and 2) investigate whether patterns from one β-diversity component can mask observable patterns in the other.

We summarised key aspects of climate driven macro-ecological variation as measures of variance, long-term trends, between-year similarity and extremes, for three important climatic predictors (minimum temperature, water-balance and growing degree-days). Shifts in landscape-scale heterogeneity, a proxy of land-use change, was summarised as a spatial multiple-site dissimilarity measure. Together, these climatic and spatial predictors were used in a multi-model inference framework to gauge the relative contribution of each on temporal replacement and nestedness patterns.

Temporal β-diversity patterns were reasonably well explained by climate change but weakly explained by changes in landscape-scale heterogeneity. Climate was shown to have a greater influence on temporal nestedness than replacement patterns over our study period, linking nestedness patterns, as a result of imbalanced gains and losses, to climatic warming and extremes respectively. Important climatic predictors (i.e. growing degree-days) of temporal β-diversity were also identified, and contrasting patterns between the two β-diversity components revealed.

Results suggest climate influences plant species recruitment and establishment processes of Scotland's coastal grasslands, and while species extinctions take time, they are likely to be facilitated by climatic perturbations. Our findings also highlight the importance of distinguishing between different components of β-diversity, disentangling contrasting patterns than can mask one another.