围栏封育和自由放牧下植物群落特征和土壤特征对比研究

　　本文选取内蒙古锡林郭勒盟放牧退化羊草草地为研究对象，基于对连续7年的围栏样地和自由放牧样地的植物群落特征以及土壤理化性状特征的动态对比分析，揭示围栏封育措施对放牧退化草地恢复过程中植被-土壤系统的影响。研究结果表明： 　　(1) 围栏封育措施使退化羊草草地的物种多样性和群落均匀度较自由放牧区略有提高，群落生态优势度略有降低，但差异均未达到统计显著水平(P>0.05)。 　　(2) 围栏封育措施改变了退化草地的优势物种组成。随着封育时间的延长，草地群落优势种逐渐为典型草原代表性物种羊草和大针茅所替代，反映出典型草原特征；而自由放牧样地，其优势种主要以典型草原中度退化和重度退化时期的优势种或主要伴生种糙隐子草为主，并呈现优势度逐渐增强的趋势。表现出退化草原特征，且退化程度加剧。 　　(3) 围栏封育措施改变了退化草地功能群的结构。从生活型功能群看：尽管多年生草本在群落中的主体地位没有变化，但随着围栏封育时间的延长，灌木的优势度逐年升高，成为群落中处于次优势地位的功能群，一、二年生草本的优势度逐年降低。在自由放牧样地，一、二年生草本的优势度表现出逐年升高的趋势，成为群落中处于次优势地位的功能群，灌木的优势度表现出逐年降低。 　　从生态类型功能群的优势度看，尽管旱生植物一直是围栏样地和自由放牧样地群落的优势功能群。但自由放牧样地旱生植物的优势度显著高于围栏样地，且围栏样地内旱生植物的优势度呈现逐年降低趋势，中旱生植物显著增多。围栏措施促进了群落环境向中旱生环境转化。 　　(4) 围栏封育措施显著提高了群落植被的平均高度、地上生物量和凋落物量。但研究区域围封2年后，地上生物量达到了最高水平，以后随着时间的延续地上生物量逐渐降低。 　　(5) 围栏封育措施使退化草地的土壤理化性状（土壤容重、土壤有机碳、全氮）及其植物生存的土壤微环境（土壤温湿度）均得到不同程度地改善。土壤有机碳、土壤全氮含量以及土壤含水量有所提高，土表温度降低，日较差减小。 　　(6) 围栏封育对退化草地的结构和功能的恢复存在不同步性。其中群落生物量受围封措施影响最为明显，围栏2年已达顶峰。其次是群落的优势种，4年的围封已使典型草原的优势种羊草和大针茅成为群落的优势种。反应最为缓慢的是群落的多样性指标，7年的围封措施并没有使群落的多样性指标与自由放牧区形成显著的差异。同时土壤环境的改变也存在不同步性，其中土壤物理性状和微环境的改善要明显于化学性状的变化。因此，在制定围栏措施时，应考虑恢复目的，采用不同的恢复时间，从而提高草地的可持续利用能力，降低恢复成本。

Ocklawaha River restoration : the fate of the Rodman Reservoir

The Rodman Reservoir, an impoundment on the Ocklawaha River in north central Florida, is a last remnant of the Cross-Florida Barge Canal (CFBC). The canal, conceived in the 1820's, was designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to shorten shipping lanes between the Fulf ports and the Atlantic coast. Opposition to CFBC by Florida's young environmental movement led to a half in construction of the CFBC in 1971, but decommissioning of the already-constructed Rodman dam and the reservoir behind it has been mired in controversy every since.

Terra Preta : bioenergy, soil restoration, urban agriculture, art algorithm

The 2010 LAGI competition was held on three underutilized sites in the United Arab Emirates. By choosing Staten Island, New York in 2012 the competition organises have again brought into question new roles for public open space in the contemporary city. In the case of the UEA sites, the competition produced many entries which aimed to create a sculpture and by doing so, they attracted people to the selected empty spaces in an arid climate. In a way these proposals were the incubators and the new characters of these empty spaces. The competition was thus successful at advancing understandings of the expanded role of public open spaces in EAU and elsewhere. LAGI 2012 differs significantly to the UAE program because Fresh Kills Park has already been planned as a public open space for New Yorkers - with or without these clean energy sculptures. Furthermore, Fresh Kills Park is already an (gas) energy generating site in its own right. We believe Fresh Kills Park, as a site, presents a problem which somewhat transcends the aims of the competition brief. Advancing a sustainable urban design proposition for the site therefore requires a fundamental reconsideration of the established paradigms public open space. Hence our strategy is to not only create an energy generating, site specific art work, but to create synergy between the public and the site engagement while at the same time complement the idiosyncrasies of the pre-existing engineered landscape. Current PhD research about energy generation in public open spaces informs this work.

Restoration of native folding of single-stranded DNA sequences through reverse mutations: an indication of a new epigenetic mechanism

We used in vivo (biological), in silico (computational structure prediction), and in vitro (model sequence folding) analyses of single-stranded DNA sequences to show that nucleic acid folding conservation is the selective principle behind a high-frequency single-nucleotide reversion observed in a three-nucleotide mutated motif of the Maize streak virus replication associated protein (Rep) gene. In silico and in vitro studies showed that the three-nucleotide mutation adversely affected Rep nucleic acid folding, and that the single-nucleotide reversion [C(601)A] restored wild-type-like folding. In vivo support came from infecting maize with mutant viruses: those with Rep genes containing nucleotide changes predicted to restore a wild-type-like fold [A(601)/G(601)] preferentially accumulated over those predicted to fold differently [C(601)/T(601)], which frequently reverted to A(601) and displaced the original population. We propose that the selection of native nucleic acid folding is an epigenetic effect, which might have broad implications in the evolution of plants and their viruses.

A wide area monitoring system based load restoration method

Restoring a large-scale power system has always been a complicated and important issue. A lot of research work has been done on different aspects of the whole power system restoration procedure. However, more time will be required to complete the power system restoration process in an actual situation if accurate and real-time system data cannot be obtained. With the development of the wide area monitoring system (WAMS), power system operators are capable of accessing to more accurate data in the restoration stage after a major outage. The ultimate goal of the system restoration is to restore as much load as possible while in the shortest period of time after a blackout, and the restorable load can be estimated by employing WAMS. Moreover, discrete restorable loads are employed considering the limited number of circuit-breaker operations and the practical topology of distribution systems. In this work, a restorable load estimation method is proposed employing WAMS data after the network frame has been reenergized, and WAMS is also employed to monitor the system parameters in case the newly recovered system becomes unstable again. The proposed method has been validated with the New England 39-Bus system and an actual power system in Guangzhou, China.

Re-strengthening 20th century architectural heritage : A case study of Brisbane City Hall restoration

Restoring old buildings to conform the current building policies and standards is a great challenge to engineers and architects. The restoration of the Brisbane City Hall, a heritage building listed by the State of Queensland in Australia, developed an innovative approach to upgrade the building using the method called ‘concrete overlay’ following the guidelines of both the International Council on Monuments and Sites and the Burra Charter of Australia. Concrete overlay is a new method of structural strengthening by drilling new reinforcement and placing new concrete on top of the existing structure, akin to a bone transplant or bone grafting in the case of a human being. This method is popularly used for newer bridges which have suffered load stresses. However, this method had never been used on any heritage buildings which were built on different conditions and standards. The compatibility of this method is currently being monitored. Most of the modern historic buildings are rapidly deteriorating and require immediate interventions in order to be saved. As most of these heritage buildings are on the stage of advanced deterioration, significant attempts are being made and several innovations are being applied to upgrade these structures to conform with the current building requirements. To date, the knowledge and literature in regarding ‘concrete cancer’ in relation to rehabilitating these reinforced concrete heritage structures is significantly lacking. It is hoped that the method of concrete overlay and the case study of Brisbane City Hall restoration will contribute to the development of restoration techniques and policies for Modern Heritage Buildings.

Cost-effective biodiversity restoration with uncertain growth in forest habitat quality

This paper develops a dynamic model for cost-effective selection of sites for restoring biodiversity when habitat quality develops over time and is uncertain. A safety-first decision criterion is used for ensuring a minimum level of habitats, and this is formulated in a chance-constrained programming framework. The theoretical results show; (i) inclusion of quality growth reduces overall cost for achieving a future biodiversity target from relatively early establishment of habitats, but (ii) consideration of uncertainty in growth increases total cost and delays establishment, and (iii) cost-effective trading of habitat requires exchange rate between sites that varies over time. An empirical application to the red listed umbrella species - white-backed woodpecker - shows that the total cost of achieving habitat targets specified in the Swedish recovery plan is doubled if the target is to be achieved with high reliability, and that equilibrating price on a habitat trading market differs considerably between different quality growth combinations. © 2013 Elsevier GmbH.

Sectionalizing strategies for minimizing outage durations of critical loads in parallel power system restoration with bi-level programming

Fast restoration of critical loads and non-black-start generators can significantly reduce the economic losses caused by power system blackouts. In a parallel power system restoration scenario, the sectionalization of restoration subsystems plays a very important role in determining the pickup of critical loads before synchronization. Most existing research mainly focuses on the startup of non-black-start generators. The restoration of critical loads, especially the loads with cold load characteristics, has not yet been addressed in optimizing the subsystem divisions. As a result, sectionalized restoration subsystems cannot achieve the best coordination between the pickup of loads and the ramping of generators. In order to generate sectionalizing strategies considering the pickup of critical loads in parallel power system restoration scenarios, an optimization model considering power system constraints, the characteristics of the cold load pickup and the features of generator startup is proposed in this paper. A bi-level programming approach is employed to solve the proposed sectionalizing model. In the upper level the optimal sectionalizing problem for the restoration subsystems is addressed, while in the lower level the objective is to minimize the outage durations of critical loads. The proposed sectionalizing model has been validated by the New-England 39-bus system and the IEEE 118-bus system. Further comparisons with some existing methods are carried out as well.

Variation in exotic and native seed arrival and recruitment of bird dispersed species in subtropical forest restoration and regrowth

Invasive bird-dispersed plants often share the same suite of dispersers as co-occurring native species, resulting in a complex management issue. Integrated management strategies could incorporate manipulation of dispersal or establishment processes. To improve our understanding of these processes, we quantified seed rain, recruit and seed bank density, and species richness for bird-dispersed invasive and native species in three early successional subtropical habitats in eastern Australia: tree regrowth, shrub regrowth and native restoration plantings. We investigated the effects of environmental factors (leaf area index (LAI), distance to edge, herbaceous ground cover and distance to nearest neighbour) on seed rain, seed bank and recruit abundance. Propagule availability was not always a good predictor of recruitment. For instance, although native tree seed rain density was similar, and species richness was higher, in native plantings, compared with tree regrowth, recruit density and species richness were lower. Native plantings also received lower densities of invasive tree seed rain than did tree regrowth habitats, but supported a similar density of invasive tree recruits. Invasive shrub seed rain was recorded in highest densities in shrub regrowth sites, but recruit density was similar between habitats. We discuss the role of microsite characteristics in influencing post-dispersal processes and recruit composition, and suggest ways of manipulating these processes as part of an integrated management strategy for bird-dispersed weeds in natural areas.