Renaturing cities: from utopias to contested realities and futures

Renaturing urban environments is a transformative pathway for urban sustainability that can be leveraged for collaborative research and planning to reverse long trends of ecosystem degradation. People-nature connections need to be reinforced to enable the successful uptake and upscale of urban renaturing practices. Improving people's understanding, perception, and emotions towards nature is therefore key. In this paper, we discuss how human knowledge and values of nature can be enabled through urban renaturing. Besides, we discuss the required transitions in urban planning processes to support urban renaturing practices

Ontogenetic changes in leaf traits of tropical rainforest trees differing in juvenile light requirement

Relationships between leaf traits and the gap dependence for regeneration, and ontogenetic changes therein, were investigated in juvenile and adult tropical rainforest tree species. The juveniles of the 17 species included in the study were grown in high light, similar to the exposed crowns of the adult trees. The traits were structural, biomechanical, chemical and photosynthetic. With increasing species gap dependence, leaf mass per area (LMA) decreased only slightly in juveniles and remained constant in adults, whereas punch strength together with tissue density decreased, and photosynthetic capacity and chlorophyll increased. Contrary to what has been mostly found in evergreen tropical rainforest, the trade-off between investment in longevity and in productivity was evident at an essentially constant LMA. Of the traits pertaining to the chloroplast level, photosynthetic capacity per unit chlorophyll increased with gap dependence, but the chlorophyll a/b ratio showed no relationship. Adults had a twofold higher LMA, but leaf strength was on average only about 50% larger. Leaf tissue density, and chlorophyll and leaf N per area were also higher, whereas chlorophyll and leaf N per unit dry mass were lower. Ranking of the species, relationships between traits and with the gap dependence of the species were similar for juveniles and adults. However, the magnitudes of most ontogenetic changes were not clearly related to a species’ gap dependence. The adaptive value of the leaf traits for juveniles and adults is discussed

Basic and applied research for sound rain forest management in Guyana

Five years of research have increased our understanding of the effects of disturbances on some forest processes and given directions for forest management in Guyana. At present most logging concentrates on Chlorocardium rodiei (greenheart) and current practices are damaging, but they may have little effect on the overall water balance and nutrient cycle if some simple rules are adhered to. The basic research results do not lead to a fully documented sustainable forest management system, as translation to practical management is not always simple. In general it would appear that applied research may give fast results in an often quick and dirty approach. Basic research, if directed at the right forest processes, may provide answers when the quick and dirty approach does not fulfil its objectives. As such they are complementary. In tropical forest management we cannot wait until basic research provides all answers leading to proper forest management, and a combination of the two would probably provide most answers in the long term

Banksia species (Proteaceae) from severely phosphorus-impoverished soils exhibit extremem efficiency in the use and re-mobilization of phosphorus

Banksia species (Proteaceae) occur on some of the most phosphorus (P)-impoverished soils in the world. We hypothesized that Banksia spp. maximize P-use efficiency through high photosynthetic P-use efficiency, long leaf lifespan (P residence time), effective P re-mobilization from senescing leaves, and maximizing seed P concentration. Field and glasshouse experiments were conducted to quantify P-use efficiency in nine Banksia species. Leaf P concentrations for all species were extremely low (0.14–0.32 mg P g−1 DM) compared with leaf P in other species reported and low relative to other plant nutrients in Banksia spp.; however, moderately high rates of photosynthesis (13.8–21.7 µmol CO2 m−2 s−1), were measured. Some of the Banksia spp. had greater P proficiency (i.e. final P concentration in senesced leaves after re-mobilization; range: 27–196 µg P g−1 DM) than values reported for any other species in the literature. Seeds exhibited significantly higher P concentrations (6.6–12.2 mg P g−1 DM) than leaves, and species that sprout after fire (‘re-sprouters’) had significantly greater seed mass and P content than species that are killed by fire and regenerate from seed (‘seeders’). Seeds contained only small amounts of polyphosphate (between 1.3 and 6 µg g−1 DM), and this was not correlated with P concentration or fire response. Based on the evidence in the present study, we conclude that Banksia species are highly efficient in their use of P, explaining, in part, their success on P-impoverished soils, with little variation between species.Matthew D. Denton, Erik J. Veneklaas, Florian M. Freimoser and Hans Lamber