New or rare frogs from the Coastal Ranges of Brazil: eleutherodactylus venancioi n.sp., E. hoehnei n.sp. Holoaden bradei n.sp. e H. lüderwaldti Mir. Rib., 1920

Field-work in the sierras near the sea-board of south-eastern Brazil continues to yield new or rare frogs. Four more of these forms are presented here. Two of them, both new, are put into the genus Eleutherodactylus, to which they belong by their general habitat, morphology, and also by the osteological characters. They differs from the known regional species of this genus only by the wider and shorter disks of some of the digits and the more lanceolate build. The other two species belong to the very little known genus Holoaden, established by MIRANDA RIBEIRO in 1920. One of them is his type-species, H. lüderwaldti, which continues to be very rare. The other, H. bradei, is new. It seems endemic to the Upper Itatiaia and is very plentiful there.

Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MUSIASEM): an outline of rationale and theory

This paper presents an outline of rationale and theory of the MuSIASEM scheme (Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism). First, three points of the rationale behind our MuSIASEM scheme are discussed: (i) endosomatic and exosomatic metabolism in relation to Georgescu-Roegen’s flow-fund scheme; (2) the bioeconomic analogy of hypercycle and dissipative parts in ecosystems; (3) the dramatic reallocation of human time and land use patterns in various sectors of modern economy. Next, a flow-fund representation of the MUSIASEM scheme on three levels (the whole national level, the paid work sectors level, and the agricultural sector level) is illustrated to look at the structure of the human economy in relation to two primary factors: (i) human time - a fund; and (ii) exosomatic energy - a flow. The three levels representation uses extensive and intensive variables simultaneously. Key conceptual tools of the MuSIASEM scheme - mosaic effects and impredicative loop analysis - are explained using the three level flow-fund representation. Finally, we claim that the MuSIASEM scheme can be seen as a multi-purpose grammar useful to deal with sustainability issues.

Using life strategies to explore the vulnerability of ecosystem services to invasion by alien plants

Invasive plants can have different effects of ecosystem functioning and on the provision of ecosystem services, from strongly deleterious impacts to positive effects. The nature and intensity of such effects will depend on the service and ecosystem being considered, but also on features of life strategies of invaders that influence their invasiveness as well as their influence of key processes of receiving ecosystems. To address the combined effect of these various factors we developed a robust and efficient methodological framework that allows to identify areas of possible conflict between ecosystem services and alien invasive plants, considering interactions between landscape invasibility and species invasiveness. Our framework combines the statistical robustness of multi-model inference, efficient techniques to map ecosystem services, and life strategies as a functional link between invasion, functional changes and potential provision of services by invaded ecosystems. The framework was applied to a test region in Portugal, for which we could successfully predict the current patterns of plant invasion, of ecosystem service provision, and finally of probable conflict (expressing concern for negative impacts, and value for positive impacts on services) between alien species richness (total and per plant life strategy) and the potential provision of selected services. Potential conflicts were identified for all combinations of plant strategy and ecosystem service, with an emphasis for those concerning conflicts with carbon sequestration, water regulation and wood production. Lower levels of conflict were obtained between invasive plant strategies and the habitat for biodiversity supporting service. The added value of the proposed framework in the context of landscape management and planning is discussed in perspective of anticipation of conflicts, mitigation of negative impacts, and potentiation of positive effects of plant invasions on ecosystems and their services.

Identificació de variables d'estat del sistema costaner sensibles a la càrrega de nutrients

Projecte de recerca elaborat a partir d’una estada a la Napier University, Gran Bretanya, des d’octubre del 2006 a febrer del 2007. Els ecosistemes marins costaners són sistemes complexos, tant pel que fa a l’estructura de les comunitats que hi viuen com per la seva dinàmica, amb processos que impliquen múltiples escales d’espai i de temps. Aquesta complexitat natural s’ha incrementat al llarg de les darreres dècades com a conseqüència directa del creixement urbà al litoral. L’augment de població a les zones costaneres ha comportat no només un augment generalitzat en l’aport de nutrients inorgànics al mar, sinó també una forta intervenció sobre la línia de costa –construcció de ports, dics- i canvis en el moviment de les masses d’aigua. En aquest context, la interacció entre els factors turbulència-nutrients a la zona costanera pot ser clau per a millorar la nostra comprensió sobre el funcionament dels sistemes planctònics i, en darrer terme, per a derivar-ne mesures de gestió. A diferència de treballs experimentals previs, que adrecen els efectes de la turbulència i/o els nutrients sobre grups específics de plàncton, per avaluar la resposta conjunta de la comunitat necessitem paràmetres integradors, que relacionin diversos processos i donin una idea general de l’estat i funcionament de l’ecosistema. Durant l’estada de recerca alguns dels algoritmes que es fan servir per la costa escocesa van reformular-se i recalcular-se amb dades de la Mediterrània (dades procedents de la badia de Blanes i de la costa de Barcelona). Els resultats mostren una capacitat de resposta molt ràpida del plàncton als increments de nutrients, una variabilitat anual marcada (quant a diversitat d’organismes planctònics) i apunten el fòsfor com a principal limitant del creixement dels organismes en aquesta zona de la Mediterrània.

The origins of C4 grasslands: integrating evolutionary and ecosystem science.

The evolution of grasses using C4 photosynthesis and their sudden rise to ecological dominance 3 to 8 million years ago is among the most dramatic examples of biome assembly in the geological record. A growing body of work suggests that the patterns and drivers of C4 grassland expansion were considerably more complex than originally assumed. Previous research has benefited substantially from dialog between geologists and ecologists, but current research must now integrate fully with phylogenetics. A synthesis of grass evolutionary biology with grassland ecosystem science will further our knowledge of the evolution of traits that promote dominance in grassland systems and will provide a new context in which to evaluate the relative importance of C4 photosynthesis in transforming ecosystems across large regions of Earth.

A first attempt of geographically-distributed Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM): mapping human time and energy throughput in metropolitan Barcelona

This study presents a first attempt to extend the “Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM)” approach to a spatial dimension using GIS techniques in the Metropolitan area of Barcelona. We use a combination of census and commercial databases along with a detailed land cover map to create a layer of Common Geographic Units that we populate with the local values of human time spent in different activities according to MuSIASEM hierarchical typology. In this way, we mapped the hours of available human time, in regards to the working hours spent in different locations, putting in evidence the gradients in spatial density between the residential location of workers (generating the work supply) and the places where the working hours are actually taking place. We found a strong three-modal pattern of clumps of areas with different combinations of values of time spent on household activities and on paid work. We also measured and mapped spatial segregation between these two activities and put forward the conjecture that this segregation increases with higher energy throughput, as the size of the functional units must be able to cope with the flow of exosomatic energy. Finally, we discuss the effectiveness of the approach by comparing our geographic representation of exosomatic throughput to the one issued from conventional methods.