Can environmental constraints determine random patterns of plant species co-occurrence?

Plant community ecologists use the null model approach to infer assembly processes from observed patterns of species co-occurrence. In about a third of published studies, the null hypothesis of random assembly cannot be rejected. When this occurs, plant ecologists interpret that the observed random pattern is not environmentally constrained - but probably generated by stochastic processes. The null model approach (using the C-score and the discrepancy index) was used to test for random assembly under two simulation algorithms. Logistic regression, distance-based redundancy analysis, and constrained ordination were used to test for environmental determinism (species segregation along environmental gradients or turnover and species aggregation). This article introduces an environmentally determined community of alpine hydrophytes that presents itself as randomly assembled. The pathway through which the random pattern arises in this community is suggested to be as follows: Two simultaneous environmental processes, one leading to species aggregation and the other leading to species segregation, concurrently generate the observed pattern, which results to be neither aggregated nor segregated - but random. A simulation study supports this suggestion. Although apparently simple, the null model approach seems to assume that a single ecological factor prevails or that if several factors decisively influence the community, then they all exert their influence in the same direction, generating either aggregation or segregation. As these assumptions are unlikely to hold in most cases and assembly processes cannot be inferred from random patterns, we would like to propose plant ecologists to investigate specifically the ecological processes responsible for observed random patterns, instead of trying to infer processes from patterns

Multiple environmental states affecting penaeid shrimp production in Peru

A modification of the Schaefer surplus-production model was used to account for environmental induced variations of shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) catch in northern Peru. Based on time series of catch, effort, river discharge and sea surface temperature, fluctuations in catch of shrimps are explained and discussed with respect to multiple level of carrying capacity and hence different maximum sustainable yields.

Uma educação ambiental como estética da existência e epistemologia dos nexos: a experiência socioeducativa do Projeto Florescer

Partindo da constatação da emergência de uma crise ambiental planetária e das várias concepções de Educação Ambiental que têm emergido como tentativas de dialogar com tal crise, a presente tese consiste na postulação e aprofundamento de quatro enunciados expressões de problemáticas teórico-práticas,delineadas na experiência pessoal e profissional interdisciplinar da autora -, aqui apresentados na forma de indagações paradigmáticas, epistemológicas, teórico-filosóficas e político-pedagógicas. O objetivo da presente pesquisa é contribuir com o campo dos processos de educação ambiental comprometidos com os modos de singularização emancipatórios, através de proposições reflexivas que possam evidenciar outras bases epistemológicas, filosóficas e conceituais à Educação. O Enunciado I, tendo como referências, sobretudo, a lógica rizomática, de Deleuze e Guattari, a ecologia dos saberes e as epistemologias do Sul, de Santos, e o conceito de complexidade, de Morin, postula a necessidade de emergência de uma Epistemologia dos Nexos, como conjunto de epistemologias, que nos possibilite restaurar a capacidade perceptiva de leitura do mundo em sua inteligibilidade e sensibilidade relacional, complexa, de conexões com nexos, a partir da problematização de uma herança epistemológica hegemônica que, contra a diversidade epistemológica do mundo, foi tecida com os fios da trama colonialista e ocidental cristã. O Enunciado II postula uma Educação Ambiental comprometida com a diversidade de modos e formas de conhecer, de se envolver e dialogar com a realidade e a vida, para além da racionalidade moderna e o conhecimento científico, tendo como referências, sobretudo, Freire, Santos, Maturana e Leloup. O Enunciado III pretende trazer à reflexão, sobretudo com Guattari, Rolnik e Godoy, a importância dos processos subjetivos como matérias-primas e instâncias de modelização na consolidação dos modelos econômicos, que historicamente tem se mantido invisibilizados dentro dos ideários políticos e educacionais, a serviço de uma ideologia dominante. Para tanto trabalha os conceitos de subjetivação, singularização, micropolítica e perspectivas minoritárias. Finalmente, o Enunciado IV, tomando algumas noções da filosofia a saber, o daimon grego, trazido por Boff, como dimensão interior humana; o compromisso quântico em Zohar, que postula um novo modelo relacional; a noção de afetos na Ética de Espinosa, como encontros que possibilitam a expansão ou diminuição de uma potência de agir; a noção de afirmação da vida, em Nietzsche, enquanto alegria e abundância, como uma estética da existência; e a noção de cuidado de si, de Foucault, como uma prática de autonomia do ser postula a proposição de uma Ética Ambiental, como Estética, comprometida com um fazer artístico de ser humano e de seus modos de existência. Tais enunciados, sistematizados através de uma metodologia qualitativa e cartográfica, serão colocados em diálogo, na forma de um Estudo de Caso, com um projeto social que trabalha com jovens, denominado Projeto Florescer: Arte-educação, Cidadania e Ecologia para Jovens, evidenciando ao campo dos processos de educação ambiental uma diversidade de modos educativos - poéticos, políticos, éticos, estéticos e místicos, capazes de tocar o mundo e o ser humano naquilo que eles têm de mais inédito, inusitado e especial

Proposed Environmental Quality Standards for Phenol in Water

This is the Proposed Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) for Phenol in Water prepared for the National Rivers Authority, and published by the Environment Agency in 1995. The report reviews the properties and uses of phenol, its fate, behaviour and reported concentrations in the environment and critically assesses the available data on its toxicity and bioaccumulation. The information is used to derive EQSs for the protection of fresh and saltwater life and for the abstraction of water to potable supply. Phenol is widely used as a chemical intermediate and the main sources for phenol in the environment are of anthropogenic origin. Phenol may also be formed during natural decomposition of organic material. The persistence of phenol in the aquatic environment is low with biodegradation being the main degradation process (half-lives of hours to days). Phenol is moderately toxic to aquatic organisms and its potential to bioaccumulate in aquatic organisms is low.

Proposed Environmental Quality Standards for Nonylphenol in Water

This is the Proposed Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) for Nonylphenol in Water produced by the Environment Agency in 1997. The report reviews the properties and uses of Nonylphenol, its fate, behaviour and reported concentrations in the environment, and critically assesses available data on its toxicity and bioaccumulation. The information is used to derive EQSs for the protection of fresh and saltwater life as well as for water abstracted to potable supply.Nonylphenol (NP) is used extensively in the production of other substances such as non-ionic ethoxylate surfactants. It is through the incomplete anaerobic biodegradation of these surfactants that most nonylphenol reaches the aquatic environment in effluents, e.g. from sewage treatment works and certain manufacturing operations. It was explicitly stated by the Environment Agency that the EQS was to be derived for NP and not Nonylphenol ethoxylates. However, since NP is unlikely to be present in the aquatic environment in the absence of other nonylphenol ethoxylate (NPE) degradation by-products, the toxicity, fate and behaviour of some of these (i.e. nonylphenol mono- and diethoxylates (NP1EO and NP2EO), mono- and di-nonylphenoxy carboxylic acids (NP1EC and NP2EC) have also been considered in this report. In the aquatic environment and during sewage treatment, NPEs are rapidly degraded to NP under aerobic conditions. NP may then be either fully mineralised or may be adsorbed to sediments. Since NP cannot be biodegraded under anaerobic conditions it can accumulate in sediments to high concentrations.

River Gowy and Thornton Brook improvements. Environmental Action Plan March 2000

This is the River Gowy and Thornton Brook improvements: Environmental Action Plan report produced by the Environment Agency in 2000. This Environmental Action Plan relates to the proposals by the Environment Agency to improve the flood defences of land adjacent to the River Gowy, about 3 km east of Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. The purpose of the Environmental Action Plan (EAP) is to provide details of how the issues addressed in the Environmental Statement (ES) will be carried through to the completion of the project. The EAP represents a commitment to the environmental recommendations formulated during the environmental assessment process and should be closely adhered to during the design, construction and post project monitoring o f the works. For any matters that cannot be finalised until during construction the constraints will be detailed in the plan so they are implemented in the contracts.

International legal instruments relevant to fisheries and fishing communities : a handbook. Theme IV. Environmental pollution

This handbook provides detailed information for a wide range of legal instruments relevant to fisheries and fishworkers. It covers 114 legal instruments, categorized into the following seven themes: Theme I. Human Rights, Food Security, Women and Development. Theme II. Environment and Sustainable Development. Theme III. Oceans and Fisheries Management. Theme IV. Environmental Pollution Theme V. Fishing Vessels and Safety at Sea Theme VI. Labour Theme VII. Trade The handbook also includes the working of the instruments (decision-making bodies, monitoring and implementation agencies, periodicity of meetings, rules for participation in meetings of the decision-making bodies and implementation agencies for States and non-governmental organizations), regional instrument and agencies. Apart from being a ready reckoner to the instruments, it highlights the important sections of relevance to fisheries or small-scale fisheries and fishworkers. The companion CD-ROM provides the full texts of the instruments in a searchable database. The handbook will be useful for fishworker and non-governmental organizations, and also for researchers and others interested in fisheries issues.