Theories of the deep: combining salience and network analyses to produce mental model visualizations of a coastal British Columbia food web

Arriving at shared mental models among multiple stakeholder groups can be crucial for successful management of contested social-ecological systems (SES). Academia can help by first eliciting stakeholders’ initial, often tacit, beliefs about a SES, and representing them in useful ways. We demonstrate a new recombination of techniques for this purpose, focusing specifically on tacit beliefs about food webs. Our approach combines freelisting and sorting techniques, salience analysis, and ultimately network analysis, to produce accessible visualizations of aggregate mental models that can then be used to facilitate discussion or generate further hypotheses about cognitive drivers of conflict. The case study we draw upon to demonstrate this technique is Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. There, an immanent upsurge in the sea otter (Enhydra lutris) population, which competes with humans for shellfish, has produced tension among government managers, and both First Nations and non-First Nations residents. Our approach helps explain this tension by visually highlighting which trophic relationships appear most cognitively salient among the lay public. We also include speculative representations of models held by managers, and pairs of contrasting demographic subgroups, to further demonstrate potential uses of the method

Relational Values Resonate Broadly and Differently Than Intrinsic or Instrumental Values, or the New Ecological Paradigm

Value orientations used to explain or justify conservation have been rooted in arguments about how much and in what context to emphasize the intrinsic versus instrumental value of nature. Equally prominent are characterizations of beliefs known as the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP), often used to help explain pro-environmental behaviour. A recent alternative to these positions has been identified as ‘relational value’—broadly, values linking people and ecosystems via tangible and intangible relationships to nature as well as the principles, virtues and notions of a good life that may accompany these. This paper examines whether relational values are distinct from other value orientation and have potential to alleviate the intrinsic-instrumental debate. To test this possibility, we sought to operationalize the construct—relational values—by developing six relational statements. We ask: 1) Do the individual statements used to characterize relational values demonstrate internal coherence as either a single or multi-dimensional construct? 2) Do relational value statements (including those strongly stated) resonate with diverse populations? 3) Do people respond to relational value statements in a consistently different way than NEP scale statements? Data for this work is drawn from an online panel of residents of northeastern US (n = 400), as well as a sample of Costa Rican farmers (n = 253) and tourists in Costa Rica (n = 260). Results indicate relational values are distinct as a construct when compared to the NEP

Lived experiences of ‘peak water’ in the high mountains of Nepal and Peru

Peak water describes the hydrological response of glacier-fed rivers to climate change, indicating that warming first drives increasing discharge until a glacier mass loss threshold is surpassed and discharge falls below values observed prior to contemporary climate warming. Although the physical principles of peak water are well understood and accepted, there remains little empirical work evaluating how hydrological dynamics associated with peak water are experienced by residents of high mountain communities at the frontlines of glacial change. In response, this study—drawing on 160 household interviews, 34 key informant interviews, and 4 focus groups—uses a contextual vulnerability approach to characterize lived experiences of peak water in communities of the upper Manaslu region of the Nepal Himalaya and the Cordillera Huayhuash region of the Peruvian Andes. It problematizes characteristics of vulnerability postulated in the glacio-hydrological modelling literature by revealing unanticipated experiences of peak water dynamics on both the rising and falling limb of the peak water profile. The study complements existing glacio-hydrology literature, demonstrates the importance of social theoretical perspectives in the evaluation of human vulnerability to peak water, and provides insights that can help appropriately target scarce adaptation resources

Ethical considerations in on-ground applications of the ecosystem services concept

The ecosystem services (ES) concept is one of the main avenues for conveying society's dependence on natural ecosystems. On-ground applications of the concept are now widespread and diverse and include its use as a communication tool, for policy guidance and priority setting, and for designing economic instruments for conservation. Each application raises ethical considerations beyond traditional controversies related to the monetary valuation of nature. We review ethical considerations across major on-ground applications and group them into the following categories: anthropocentric framing, economic metaphor, monetary valuation, commodification, sociocultural impact, changes in motivations, and equity implications. Different applications of the ES concept raise different suites of ethical issues, and we propose methods to address the issues most relevant to each application. We conclude that the ES concept should be considered as only one among various alternative approaches to valuing nature and that reliance on economic metaphors can exclude other motivations for protecting ecosystems

Hedgehog pathway dysregulation contributes to the pathogenesis of human gastrointestinal stromal tumors via GLI-mediated activation of KIT expression.

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) arise within the interstitial cell of Cajal (ICC) lineage due to activating KIT/PDGFRA mutations. Both ICC and GIST possess primary cilia (PC), which coordinate PDGFRA and Hedgehog signaling, regulators of gastrointestinal mesenchymal development. Therefore, we hypothesized that Hedgehog signaling may be altered in human GIST and controls KIT expression. Quantitative RT-PCR, microarrays, and next generation sequencing were used to describe Hedgehog/PC-related genes in purified human ICC and GIST. Genetic and pharmacologic approaches were employed to investigate the effects of GLI manipulation on KIT expression and GIST cell viability. We report that Hedgehog pathway and PC components are expressed in ICC and GIST and subject to dysregulation during GIST oncogenesis, irrespective of KIT/PDGFRA mutation status. Using genomic profiling, 10.2% of 186 GIST studied had potentially deleterious genomic alterations in 5 Hedgehog-related genes analyzed, including in the PTCH1 tumor suppressor (1.6%). Expression of the predominantly repressive GLI isoform, GLI3, was inversely correlated with KIT mRNA levels in GIST cells and non-KIT/non-PDGFRA mutant GIST. Overexpression of the 83-kDa repressive form of GLI3 or small interfering RNA-mediated knockdown of the activating isoforms GLI1/2 reduced KIT mRNA. Treatment with GLI1/2 inhibitors, including arsenic trioxide, significantly increased GLI3 binding to the KIT promoter, decreased KIT expression, and reduced viability in imatinib-sensitive and imatinib-resistant GIST cells. These data offer new evidence that genes necessary for Hedgehog signaling and PC function in ICC are dysregulated in GIST. Hedgehog signaling activates KIT expression irrespective of mutation status, offering a novel approach to treat imatinib-resistant GIST

A social-ecological approach to conservation planning: embedding social considerations

Many conservation plans remain unimplemented, in part because of insufficient consideration of the social processes that influence conservation decisions. Complementing social considerations with an integrated understanding of the ecology of a region can result in a more complete conservation approach. We suggest that linking conservation planning to a social-ecological systems (SES) framework can lead to a more thorough understanding of human-environment interactions and more effective integration of social considerations. By characterizing SES as a set of subsystems, and their interactions with each other and with external factors, the SES framework can improve our understanding of the linkages between social and ecological influences on the environment. Using this framework can help to identify socially and ecologically focused conservation actions that will benefit ecosystems and human communities, and assist in the development of more consistent evidence for evaluating conservation actions by comparing conservation case studies

Protecting biodiversity in British Columbia: Recommendations for developing species at risk legislation

British Columbia has the greatest biological diversity of any province or territory in Canada. Yet increasing numbers of species in British Columbia are threatened with extinction. The current patchwork of provincial laws and regulations has not effectively prevented species declines. Recently, the Provincial Government has committed to enacting an endangered species law. Drawing upon our scientific and legal expertise, we offer recommendations for key features of endangered species legislation that build upon strengths and avoid weaknesses observed elsewhere. We recommend striking an independent Oversight Committee to provide recommendations about listing species, organize Recovery Teams, and monitor the efficacy of actions taken. Recovery Teams would evaluate and prioritize potential actions for individual species or groups of species that face common threats or live in a common area, based on best available evidence (including natural and social science and Indigenous Knowledge). Our recommendations focus on implementing an adaptive approach, with ongoing and transparent monitoring and reporting, to reduce delays between determining when a species is at risk and taking effective actions to save it. We urge lawmakers to include this strong evidentiary basis for species recovery as they tackle the scientific and socioeconomic challenges of building an effective species at risk Act

Enhanced annealing of mismatched oligonucleotides using a novel melting curve assay allows efficient in vitro discrimination and restriction of a single nucleotide polymorphism

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many SNP discrimination strategies employ natural restriction endonucleases to discriminate between allelic states. However, SNPs are often not associated with a restriction site and therefore, a number of attempts have been made to generate sequence-adaptable restriction endonucleases. In this study, a simple, sequence-adaptable SNP discrimination mechanism between a 'wild-type' and 'mutant' template is demonstrated. This model differs from other artificial restriction endonuclease models as <it>cis- </it>rather than <it>trans-</it>orientated regions of single stranded DNA were generated and cleaved, and therefore, overcomes potential issues of either inefficient or non-specific binding when only a single variant is targeted.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A series of mismatch 'bubbles' that spanned 0-5-bp surrounding a point mutation was generated and analysed for sensitivity to S1 nuclease. In this model, generation of oligonucleotide-mediated ssDNA mismatch 'bubbles' in the presence of S1 nuclease resulted in the selective degradation of the mutant template while maintaining wild-type template integrity. Increasing the size of the mismatch increased the rate of mutant sequence degradation, until a threshold above which discrimination was lost and the wild-type sequence was degraded. This level of fine discrimination was possible due to the development of a novel high-resolution melting curve assay to empirically determine changes in Tm (~5.0°C per base-pair mismatch) and to optimise annealing conditions (~18.38°C below Tm) of the mismatched oligonucleotide sets.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The <it>in vitro </it>'cleavage bubble' model presented is sequence-adaptable as determined by the binding oligonucleotide, and hence, has the potential to be tailored to discriminate between any two or more SNPs. Furthermore, the demonstrated fluorometric assay has broad application potential, offering a rapid, sensitive and high-throughput means to determine Tm and annealing rates as an alternative to conventional hybridisation detection strategies.</p