Conserving nature out of fear or knowledge? Using threatening versus connecting messages to generate support for environmental causes

Threatening and connecting messages are two types of appeals commonly used to encourage conservation behaviors, yet little research has examined their psychological impacts and behavioral outcomes. This paper describes two studies contrasting these approaches with a neutral comparison and testing their effects on state levels of negative affect, caring, and openness, psychological states which we expected in turn would encourage conservation behavior. Participants viewed visually identical nature videos with no text, connecting text or negative text. They then reported on their state experiences, and were asked to engage in conservation behaviors, including supporting conservation organizations. Findings showed that connecting messages increased caring and openness, and decreased negative affect, and by doing so elicited more conservation behaviors. On the other hand, threatening messages showed no beneficial effects above a neutral comparison without an appeal. Our findings, which we contextualize in motivational theory, can be used to inform the use of messages to promote conservation.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2015.04.00

Nature and Community Cohesion

Individuals may be losing touch with nature as their contact with it decreases worldwide. While the consequences for people’s personal well-being outcomes are becoming well documented, there is almost no research examining the social correlates of contact with nature. This paper used a large nationally representative sample to link objective (% greenspace) and subjective measurements of contact with nature, community cohesion, and local crime incidence. The perceived quality, views, and amount of time spent in nature were linked to more community cohesion, and in turn the perception of cohesive communities enhances individual well-being outcomes and contributions back to society through higher workplace productivity and environmentally responsible behaviors. Findings also indicated that local nature was linked to lower crime both directly and indirectly through its effects on community cohesion.This research was funded in part by the ESRC (project number RES-064-27-0019).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biv15

Public preferences for multiple dimensions of bird biodiversity at the coast: insights for the cultural ecosystem services framework

This work was funded by the NERC Research project Coastal Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (CBESS) project Grant NE/J015644/1 with support from the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Sustainability (BESS) programme. BESS is a six-year programme (2011–2017) funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) as part of the UK's Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) programme.Biodiversity is valuable to society, including through its contribution to cultural benefits: “the non-material benefits people obtain from biodiversity and ecosystem services through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences”. Biodiversity encompasses numerous measures, but the distinct values of these measures have been little studied. We conducted a discrete choice experiment to elicit respondents’ (n = 3,000) willingness to pay for increases in four measures of bird diversity in UK coastal ecosystems: number of bird species (species richness), number of individual birds (abundance), probability of seeing rare or unusual bird species, and probability of seeing large flocks of birds (wildlife spectacles). Respondents had a positive willingness to pay (through one-time voluntary donations) for increases in all four measures (mean £3 to £5 per household). However, using latent class analysis we found considerable heterogeneity of preferences, identifying four classes of respondents with strikingly different levels of marginal willingness to pay for the four measures. Income, age, environmental activity, visits to environmental settings, and gender were important determinants of class membership. While focusing on birds, our results demonstrate the importance of a multi-dimensional conceptualisation of biodiversity in broader ecosystem management, rather than focussing on a single aspect such as species richness or abundance. Our findings also highlight the implications of heterogeneous public preferences for biodiversity for conservationists, planners, shoreline managers and developers. These need to be considered in the development of new frameworks for ecosystem services, and when planning and funding conservation actions so that the cultural benefits will accrue across a range of social groups.PostprintPeer reviewe

The potential contribution of terrestrial nature-based solutions to a national ‘net zero’ climate target

1. Many national governments have incorporated nature-based solutions (NbS) in their plans to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions. However, uncertainties persist regarding both feasibility and consequences of major NbS deployment. Using the United Kingdom as a national-level case study, we examined the potential contribution of three terrestrial NbS: peatland restoration, saltmarsh creation and woodland creation. 2. While there is substantial political and societal interest in these three NbS, they also have strong potential for competition with other land uses, which will be a critical barrier to substantial deployment. We conducted a national mapping exercise to assess the potential area available for woodland creation. We then assessed the combined climate change mitigation potential to 2100 for the three NbS options under a range of ambition levels. 3. In line with the most ambitious targets examined, 2 Mha of land is potentially available for new woodland. However, climate change mitigation benefits of woodland are strongly dependent on management choices. By 2100, scenarios with a greater proportion of broadleaved woodlands outsequester non-native conifer plantations, which are limited by regular timber harvesting. 4. Peatland restoration offers the greatest mitigation per unit area, whilst the contribution from saltmarsh creation is limited by the small areas involved. Overall, the contribution of these NbS to the United Kingdom’s net zero emissions target is relatively modest. Even with the most ambitious targets considered here, by 2100, the total cumulative mitigation from the three NbS is equivalent to only 3 years' worth of UK emissions at current levels. 5. Policy implications. Major deployment of nature-based solutions (NbS) is possible in the United Kingdom but reaching ‘net zero’ primarily requires substantial and sustained reductions in fossil fuel use. However, facilitating these NbS at the national scale could offer many additional benefits for people and biodiversity. This demands that policy-makers commit to a UK-wide strategic approach that prioritises the ‘nature’ aspect of NbS. In the push to reach ‘net zero’, climate change mitigation should not be used to justify land management practices that threaten biodiversity ambitions

Introducing a new breed of wine yeast: interspecific hybridisation between a commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeast and Saccharomyces mikatae

Interspecific hybrids are commonplace in agriculture and horticulture; bread wheat and grapefruit are but two examples. The benefits derived from interspecific hybridisation include the potential of generating advantageous transgressive phenotypes. This paper describes the generation of a new breed of wine yeast by interspecific hybridisation between a commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeast strain and Saccharomyces mikatae, a species hitherto not associated with industrial fermentation environs. While commercially available wine yeast strains provide consistent and reliable fermentations, wines produced using single inocula are thought to lack the sensory complexity and rounded palate structure obtained from spontaneous fermentations. In contrast, interspecific yeast hybrids have the potential to deliver increased complexity to wine sensory properties and alternative wine styles through the formation of novel, and wider ranging, yeast volatile fermentation metabolite profiles, whilst maintaining the robustness of the wine yeast parent. Screening of newly generated hybrids from a cross between a S. cerevisiae wine yeast and S. mikatae (closely-related but ecologically distant members of the Saccharomyces sensu stricto clade), has identified progeny with robust fermentation properties and winemaking potential. Chemical analysis showed that, relative to the S. cerevisiae wine yeast parent, hybrids produced wines with different concentrations of volatile metabolites that are known to contribute to wine flavour and aroma, including flavour compounds associated with non-Saccharomyces species. The new S. cerevisiae x S. mikatae hybrids have the potential to produce complex wines akin to products of spontaneous fermentation while giving winemakers the safeguard of an inoculated ferment.Jennifer R. Bellon, Frank Schmid, Dimitra L. Capone, Barbara L. Dunn, Paul J. Chamber

Male reproductive health and environmental xenoestrogens

EHP is a publication of the U.S. government. Publication of EHP lies in the public domain and is therefore without copyright. Research articles from EHP may be used freely; however, articles from the News section of EHP may contain photographs or figures copyrighted by other commercial organizations and individuals that may not be used without obtaining prior approval from both the EHP editors and the holder of the copyright. Use of any materials published in EHP should be acknowledged (for example, "Reproduced with permission from Environmental Health Perspectives") and a reference provided for the article from which the material was reproduced.Male reproductive health has deteriorated in many countries during the last few decades. In the 1990s, declining semen quality has been reported from Belgium, Denmark, France, and Great Britain. The incidence of testicular cancer has increased during the same time incidences of hypospadias and cryptorchidism also appear to be increasing. Similar reproductive problems occur in many wildlife species. There are marked geographic differences in the prevalence of male reproductive disorders. While the reasons for these differences are currently unknown, both clinical and laboratory research suggest that the adverse changes may be inter-related and have a common origin in fetal life or childhood. Exposure of the male fetus to supranormal levels of estrogens, such as diethlylstilbestrol, can result in the above-mentioned reproductive defects. The growing number of reports demonstrating that common environmental contaminants and natural factors possess estrogenic activity presents the working hypothesis that the adverse trends in male reproductive health may be, at least in part, associated with exposure to estrogenic or other hormonally active (e.g., antiandrogenic) environmental chemicals during fetal and childhood development. An extensive research program is needed to understand the extent of the problem, its underlying etiology, and the development of a strategy for prevention and intervention.Supported by EU Contract BMH4-CT96-0314

Solution scanning as a key policy tool: Identifying management interventions to help maintain and enhance regulating ecosystem services

The major task of policy makers and practitioners when confronted with a resource management problem is to decide on the potential solution(s) to adopt from a range of available options. However, this process is unlikely to be successful and cost effective without access to an independently verified and comprehensive available list of options. There is currently burgeoning interest in ecosystem services and quantitative assessments of their importance and value. Recognition of the value of ecosystem services to human well-being represents an increasingly important argument for protecting and restoring the natural environment, alongside the moral and ethical justifications for conservation. As well as understanding the benefits of ecosystem services, it is also important to synthesize the practical interventions that are capable of maintaining and/or enhancing these services. Apart from pest regulation, pollination, and global climate regulation, this type of exercise has attracted relatively little attention. Through a systematic consultation exercise, we identify a candidate list of 296 possible interventions across the main regulating services of air quality regulation, climate regulation, water flow regulation, erosion regulation, water purification and waste treatment, disease regulation, pest regulation, pollination and natural hazard regulation. The range of interventions differs greatly between habitats and services depending upon the ease of manipulation and the level of research intensity. Some interventions have the potential to deliver benefits across a range of regulating services, especially those that reduce soil loss and maintain forest cover. Synthesis and applications: Solution scanning is important for questioning existing knowledge and identifying the range of options available to researchers and practitioners, as well as serving as the necessary basis for assessing cost effectiveness and guiding implementation strategies. We recommend that it become a routine part of decision making in all environmental policy areas. © 2014 by the author(s).The research was partly funded by RELU (RES 240-25-006), Arcadia, NERC (Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Sustainability Directorate, NE/F01614X/1, NE/K001191/1 and NE/J500665/1), SAPES (Multifunctional Agriculture: Harnessing Biodiversity for Sustaining Agricultural Production and Ecosystem Services), and FORMAS (the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning)

Anthropogenically-mediated density dependence in a declining farmland bird

Land management intrinsically influences the distribution of animals and can consequently alter the potential for density-dependent processes to act within populations. For declining species, high densities of breeding territories are typically considered to represent productive populations. However, as density-dependent effects of food limitation or predator pressure may occur (especially when species are dependent upon separate nesting and foraging habitats), high territory density may limit per-capita productivity. Here, we use a declining but widespread European farmland bird, the yellowhammer Emberiza citrinella L., as a model system to test whether higher territory densities result in lower fledging success, parental provisioning rates or nestling growth rates compared to lower densities. Organic landscapes held higher territory densities, but nests on organic farms fledged fewer nestlings, translating to a 5 times higher rate of population shrinkage on organic farms compared to conventional. In addition, when parental provisioning behaviour was not restricted by predation risk (i.e. at times of low corvid activity), nestling provisioning rates were higher at lower territory densities, resulting in a much greater increase in nestling mass in low density areas, suggesting that food limitation occurred at high densities. These findings in turn suggest an ecological trap, whereby preferred nesting habitat does not provide sufficient food for rearing nestlings at high population density, creating a population sink. Habitat management for farmland birds should focus not simply on creating a high nesting density, but also on ensuring heterogeneous habitats to provide food resources in close proximity to nesting birds, even if this occurs through potentially restricting overall nest density but increasing population-level breeding success

Whispering to the Deaf: Communication by a Frog without External Vocal Sac or Tympanum in Noisy Environments

Atelopus franciscus is a diurnal bufonid frog that lives in South-American tropical rain forests. As in many other frogs, males produce calls to defend their territories and attract females. However, this species is a so-called “earless” frog lacking an external tympanum and is thus anatomically deaf. Moreover, A. franciscus has no external vocal sac and lives in a sound constraining environment along river banks where it competes with other calling frogs. Despite these constraints, male A. franciscus reply acoustically to the calls of conspecifics in the field. To resolve this apparent paradox, we studied the vocal apparatus and middle-ear, analysed signal content of the calls, examined sound and signal content propagation in its natural habitat, and performed playback experiments. We show that A. franciscus males can produce only low intensity calls that propagate a short distance (<8 m) as a result of the lack of an external vocal sac. The species-specific coding of the signal is based on the pulse duration, providing a simple coding that is efficient as it allows discrimination from calls of sympatric frogs. Moreover, the signal is redundant and consequently adapted to noisy environments. As such a coding system can be efficient only at short-range, territory holders established themselves at short distances from each other. Finally, we show that the middle-ear of A. franciscus does not present any particular adaptations to compensate for the lack of an external tympanum, suggesting the existence of extra-tympanic pathways for sound propagation

So Small, So Loud: Extremely High Sound Pressure Level from a Pygmy Aquatic Insect (Corixidae, Micronectinae)

To communicate at long range, animals have to produce intense but intelligible signals. This task might be difficult to achieve due to mechanical constraints, in particular relating to body size. Whilst the acoustic behaviour of large marine and terrestrial animals has been thoroughly studied, very little is known about the sound produced by small arthropods living in freshwater habitats. Here we analyse for the first time the calling song produced by the male of a small insect, the water boatman Micronecta scholtzi. The song is made of three distinct parts differing in their temporal and amplitude parameters, but not in their frequency content. Sound is produced at 78.9 (63.6–82.2) SPL rms re 2.10−5 Pa with a peak at 99.2 (85.7–104.6) SPL re 2.10−5 Pa estimated at a distance of one metre. This energy output is significant considering the small size of the insect. When scaled to body length and compared to 227 other acoustic species, the acoustic energy produced by M. scholtzi appears as an extreme value, outperforming marine and terrestrial mammal vocalisations. Such an extreme display may be interpreted as an exaggerated secondary sexual trait resulting from a runaway sexual selection without predation pressure