Does landscape-scale conservation management enhance the provision of ecosystem services?

Biodiversity conservation approaches are increasingly being implemented at the landscape-scale to support the maintenance of metapopulations and metacommunities. However, the impact of such interventions on the provision of ecosystem services is less well defined. Here we examine the potential impacts of landscape-scale conservation initiatives on ecosystem services, through analysis of five case study areas in England and Wales. The provision of multiple ecosystem services was projected according to current management plans and compared with a baseline scenario. Multicriteria analysis indicated that in most cases landscape-scale approaches lead to an overall increase in service provision. Consistent increases were projected in carbon storage, recreation and aesthetic value, as well as biodiversity value. However, most study areas provided evidence of trade-offs, particularly between provisioning services and other types of service. Results differed markedly between study areas, highlighting the importance of local context. These results suggest that landscape-scale conservation approaches are likely to be effective in increasing ecosystem service provision, but also indicate that associated costs can be significant, particularly in lowland areas

Improving safety for older public transport users (OPTU) - a feasibility study

On the whole, the UK public transport system is generally considered to provide a safe means of mobility. However, each year, around 6,000 people are reported by the UK police to be injured whilst using buses with more than 400 persons killed or seriously injured. Approximately 50% of those injured or killed are aged over 65 years (Department for Transport 2008). However it is thought that there are many more injured older bus-users who are not included in the national statistics and whom may now avoid travelling on public transport because of previous injuries and experiences. Whilst free travel (particularly on buses) has allowed senior citizens the freedom to travel for pleasure and social inclusion, injuries or near-falls that may occur during the journey can impact on future decisions to travel leading in some cases to anxiety/fear of sustaining further injury, loss of personal mobility and ultimately social isolation. This Feasibility Study was funded within the Medical Research Council (MRC) Lifelong Health and Wellbeing programme in order to examine the general safety (but not security) of older public transport users. It explores injury type and causation and proposes design interventions for injury prevention with an overall objective of exploring how public transport use could possibly be made safer for older transport-users. A mixed methods design was used to collect and collate data from a number of sources. These included published research literature, national accident datasets, bus-operator records, service user consultations and other stakeholder consultations with groups representing the 60+ year’s age group. The ultimate aim was to develop a pilot injury surveillance database that could in principle be used to determine vehicle design requirements, transport operator procedures and transport-user behaviors that could prevent injuries from occurring...(continues)

Injuries to older users of public transport in the UK

Барнс Джо; Лоутон Клэр; Моррис Эндрю; Маршал Рус; Саммерскилл Стив; Кендрик Дениз; Логан Пип; Драмонд Аврил; Файлдс Брайан; Конрой Саймон; Белла Джули. Травмы для пожилых пользователей общественного транспорта в ВеликобританииThe increasing age of the United Kingdom (UK) population coupled with enhanced life expectancy impacts on transport-user demographics and will affect transport planning in the years ahead. Whist passenger car use is the ultimate means of personal independence, at some point the physiological and psychological impact of agerelated conditions will inevitably shift people out of their vehicles and onto public transport systems. Overall, public transport is seen to be vital for social inclusion (Lucas et al 2008, Rowntree Foundation) and it is considered a safe means of mobility. However, it is important that the public and in particular, the elderly perceive it to be so. Injuries (across a spectrum of severities) do occur during public transport use from time to time. In fact, over 5,000 people are injured on UK buses each year alone with over 300 bus-users killed/seriously injured (Department for Transport, 2012). This study was designed to examine the nature of injuries and their causes to older bus-users with the aim being to establish where design countermeasures may be indicated. The study uses linked (accident and injury) data involving a sample of older bus-users. Most incidents in the linked dataset were non-collisions (62 per cent) resulting in 1,381 recorded injuries in those aged 60+ years, of which 46 per cent were 'slight' and 54 per cent 'serious'

Patients’ perceptions and experiences of living with a surgical wound healing by secondary intention : a qualitative study

Background: Most surgical wounds heal by primary intention, that is to say, the edges of the wound are brought together with sutures, staples, adhesive glue or clips. However, some wounds may be left open to heal (if there is a risk of infection, or if there has been significant tissue loss), and are known as ‘surgical wounds healing by secondary intention’. They are estimated to comprise approximately 28% of all surgical wounds and are frequently complex to manage. However, they are under researched and little is known of their impact on patients’ lives. Objectives: To explore patients’ views and experiences of living with a surgical wound healing by secondary intention. Design: A qualitative, descriptive approach. Settings: Participants were recruited from acute and community nursing services in two locations in the North of England characterised by high levels of deprivation and diverse populations. Participants: Participants were aged 18 years or older and had at least one surgical wound healing by secondary intention, which was slow to heal. Purposeful sampling was used to include patients of different gender, age, wound duration and type of surgery (general, vascular and orthopaedic). Twenty people were interviewed between January and July 2012. 2 Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted, guided by use of a topic guide developed with input from patient advisors. Data were thematically analysed using steps integral to the ‘Framework’ approach to analysis, including familiarisation with data; development of a coding scheme; coding, charting and cross comparison of data; interpretation of identified themes. Findings: Alarm, shock and disbelief were frequently expressed initial reactions, particularly to “unexpected” surgical wounds healing by secondary intention. Wound associated factors almost universally had a profound negative impact on daily life, physical and psychosocial functioning, and wellbeing. Feelings of frustration, powerlessness and guilt were common and debilitating. Patients’ hopes for healing were often unrealistic, posing challenges for the clinicians caring for them. Participants expressed dissatisfaction with a perceived lack of continuity and consistency of care in relation to wound management. Conclusions: Surgical wounds healing by secondary intention can have a devastating effect on patients, both physical and psychosocial. Repercussions for patients’ family members can also be extremely detrimental, including financial pressures. Health care professionals involved in the care of patients with these wounds face multiple, complex challenges, compounded by the limited evidence base regarding cost-effectiveness of different treatment regimens for these types of wounds

Sustainable Electronics Based on Crop Plant Extracts and Graphene: A “Bioadvantaged” Approach

In today’s fast-paced and well-connected world, consumer electronics are evolving rapidly. As a result, the amount of discarded electronic devices is becoming a major health and environmental concern. The rapid expansion of flexible electronics has the potential to transform consumer electronic devices from rigid phones and tablets to robust wearable devices. This means increased use of plastics in consumer electronics and the potential to generate more persistent plastic waste for the environment. Hence, today, the need for flexible biodegradable electronics is at the forefront of minimizing the mounting pile of global electronic waste. A “bioadvantaged” approach to develop a biodegradable, flexible, and application-adaptable electronic components based on crop components and graphene is reported. More specifically, by combining zein, a corn-derived protein, and aleuritic acid, a major monomer of tomato cuticles and sheellac, along with graphene, biocomposite conductors having low electrical resistance (≈10 Ω sq−1) with exceptional mechanical and fatigue resilience are fabricated. Further, a number of high-performance electronic applications, such as THz electromagnetic shielding, flexible GHz antenna construction, and flexible solar cell electrode, are demonstrated. Excellent performance results are measured from each application comparable to conventional nondegrading counterparts, thus paving the way for the concept of “plant-e-tronics” towards sustainability

A Tale of Four Stories: Soil Ecology, Theory, Evolution and the Publication System

International audienceBACKGROUND: Soil ecology has produced a huge corpus of results on relations between soil organisms, ecosystem processes controlled by these organisms and links between belowground and aboveground processes. However, some soil scientists think that soil ecology is short of modelling and evolutionary approaches and has developed too independently from general ecology. We have tested quantitatively these hypotheses through a bibliographic study (about 23000 articles) comparing soil ecology journals, generalist ecology journals, evolutionary ecology journals and theoretical ecology journals. FINDINGS: We have shown that soil ecology is not well represented in generalist ecology journals and that soil ecologists poorly use modelling and evolutionary approaches. Moreover, the articles published by a typical soil ecology journal (Soil Biology and Biochemistry) are cited by and cite low percentages of articles published in generalist ecology journals, evolutionary ecology journals and theoretical ecology journals. CONCLUSION: This confirms our hypotheses and suggests that soil ecology would benefit from an effort towards modelling and evolutionary approaches. This effort should promote the building of a general conceptual framework for soil ecology and bridges between soil ecology and general ecology. We give some historical reasons for the parsimonious use of modelling and evolutionary approaches by soil ecologists. We finally suggest that a publication system that classifies journals according to their Impact Factors and their level of generality is probably inadequate to integrate "particularity" (empirical observations) and "generality" (general theories), which is the goal of all natural sciences. Such a system might also be particularly detrimental to the development of a science such as ecology that is intrinsically multidisciplinary

The Effects of Aphid Traits on Parasitoid Host Use and Specialist Advantage

Specialization is a central concept in ecology and one of the fundamental properties of parasitoids. Highly specialized parasitoids tend to be more efficient in host-use compared to generalized parasitoids, presumably owing to the trade-off between host range and hostuse efficiency. However, it remains unknown how parasitoid host specificity and host-use depends on host traits related to susceptibility to parasitoid attack. To address this question, we used data from a 13-year survey of interactions among 142 aphid and 75 parasitoid species in nine European countries. We found that only aphid traits related to local resource characteristics seem to influence the trade-off between host-range and efficiency: more specialized parasitoids had an apparent advantage (higher abundance on shared hosts) on aphids with sparse colonies, ant-attendance and without concealment, and this was more evident when host relatedness was included in calculation of parasitoid specificity. More traits influenced average assemblage specialization, which was highest in aphids that are monophagous, monoecious, large, highly mobile (easily drop from a plant), without myrmecophily, habitat specialists, inhabit non-agricultural habitats and have sparse colonies. Differences in aphid wax production did not influence parasitoid host specificity and host-use. Our study is the first step in identifying host traits important for aphid parasitoid host specificity and host-use and improves our understanding of bottom-up effects of aphid traits on aphid-parasitoid food web structure