INVESTIGATING FRUIT AND VEGETABLE VARIETY IN A NATIONAL FOOD CO-OP: A BRIGHTER BITES EVALUATION

American children eat fewer fruits and vegetables (F&V) and less variety of F&V than recommended for health. Food cooperatives and other programs have become a popular way to increase F&V intake, but little is known about the variety of F&V distributed by these programs or its relationship with program attendance or child F&V intake. Brighter Bites is a national, school-based food co-op distributing rescued, donated, fresh F&V to families in low-income schools. We evaluated, for the first time, the variety of F&V Brighter Bites distributed to families in the 2018-2019 school year and the relationships between that variety and both child F&V intake and family program attendance. We categorized the F&V distributed in the 2018-2019 school year using the Brighter Bites internal variety matrix and described them in detail using frequencies and percentages. We generated a variety score for each family in a subpopulation (n=3,790) of survey respondents based on the specific F&V distributed the weeks they attended. A generalized ordinal estimation model was specified to evaluate the relationship between family variety score and parent-reported child F&V intake before and after participating in Brighter Bites. We generated a variety score for schools (n=90) based on the specific F&V distributed at each school across 16 weeks of programming, then specified a multilevel negative binomial model to assess the relationship between school variety score and family program attendance. Additional post hoc analyses were completed. Across six cities, Brighter Bites distributed 109 types of F&V in the 2018-2019 school year. Families most frequently received starchy and root vegetables (white potatoes and carrots) and citrus fruits (limes and oranges), but they received dark leafy green vegetables and berries infrequently. Our statistical models were not significant overall, but in post hoc analyses of school F&V variety score and family program attendance we found differences between cities which may have obscured a relationship in our original model. Researchers are still in the early stages of evaluating and understanding relationships between the variety of F&V programs distribute and desired program and behavioral outcomes. Counting only the variety of F&V distributed by a program is inadequate to describe its influences on individual behaviors. Additional, more sensitive measures and variables, informed by a behavioral theory such as Social Cognitive Theory, should be used in future analyses to model better the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and environmental factors which influence desired outcomes

Historical influences on the current provision of multiple ecosystem services: is there a legacy of past landcover?

Ecosystem service provision varies temporally in response to natural and human-induced factors, yet research in this field is dominated by analyses that ignore the time-lags and feedbacks that occur within socio-ecological systems. The implications of this have been unstudied, but are central to understanding how service delivery will alter due to future land-use/cover change. Urban areas are expanding faster than any other land-use, making cities ideal study systems for examining such legacy effects. We assess the extent to which present-day provision of a suite of eight ecosystem services, quantified using field-gathered data, is explained by current and historical (stretching back 150 years) landcover. Five services (above-ground carbon density, recreational use, bird species richness, bird density, and a metric of recreation experience quality (continuity with the past) were more strongly determined by past landcover. Time-lags ranged from 20 (bird species richness and density) to over 100 years (above-ground carbon density). Historical landcover, therefore, can have a strong influence on current service provision. By ignoring such time-lags, we risk drawing incorrect conclusions regarding how the distribution and quality of some ecosystem services may alter in response to land-use/cover change. Although such a finding adds to the complexity of predicting future scenarios, ecologists may find that they can link the biodiversity conservation agenda to the preservation of cultural heritage, and that certain courses of action provide win-win outcomes across multiple environmental and cultural goods

Unpacking ecosystem service bundles: towards predictive mapping of synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services

Multiple ecosystem services (ES) can respond similarly to social and ecological factors to form bundles. Identifying key social-ecological variables and understanding how they co-vary to produce these consistent sets of ES may ultimately allow the prediction and modelling of ES bundles, and thus, help us understand critical synergies and trade-offs across landscapes. Such an understanding is essential for informing better management of multi-functional landscapes and minimising costly trade-offs. However, the relative importance of different social and biophysical drivers of ES bundles in different types of social-ecological systems remains unclear. As such, a bottom-up understanding of the determinants of ES bundles is a critical research gap in ES and sustainability science. Here, we evaluate the current methods used in ES bundle science and synthesize these into four steps that capture the plurality of methods used to examine predictors of ES bundles. We then apply these four steps to a cross-study comparison (North and South French Alps) of relationships between social-ecological variables and ES bundles, as it is widely advocated that cross-study comparisons are necessary for achieving a general understanding of predictors of ES associations. We use the results of this case study to assess the strengths and limitations of current approaches for understanding distributions of ES bundles. We conclude that inconsistency of spatial scale remains the primary barrier for understanding and predicting ES bundles. We suggest a hypothesis-driven approach is required to predict relationships between ES, and we outline the research required for such an understanding to emerge

Unpacking the People–Biodiversity Paradox: A Conceptual Framework

Global phenomena, including urbanization, agricultural intensification, and biotic homogenization, have led to extensive ecosystem degradation, species extinctions, and, consequently, a reduction in biodiversity. However, although it is now widely asserted in the research, policy, and practice arenas that interacting with nature is fundamental to human health and well-being, there is a paucity of nuanced evidence characterizing how the living components of nature, biodiversity, play a role in this accepted truth. Understanding these human–biodiversity relationships is essential if the conservation agenda is to be aligned successfully with that of public health by policymakers and practitioners. Here, we show that an apparent “people–biodiversity paradox” is emerging from the literature, comprising a mismatch between (a) people’s biodiversity preferences and how these inclinations relate to personal subjective well-being and (b) the limited ability of individuals to accurately perceive the biodiversity surrounding them. In addition, we present a conceptual framework for understanding the complexity underpinning human–biodiversity interactions