Reduced risk for positive soil-feedback on seedling regeneration by invasive trees on a very nutrient-poor soil in Seychelles

Invasive plants sometimes alter habitat conditions so as to promote further invasion, either by the same or by other non-native species. Such positive feedbacks often occur because the non-native species increases soil fertility, thereby favouring recruitment of non-native seedlings. This has been demonstrated in nitrogen-poor habitats invaded by nitrogen-fixing species, but it is unclear whether similar processes operate in habitats limited by phosphorus and other nutrients. I compared the growth of seedlings of Cinnamomum verum, an abundant invasive tree on phosphorus-poor soils in the Seychelles, in soils taken from beneath different tree species. I expected that soil phosphorus availability would be higher beneath stands of C. verum than beneath stands of either the native Northea hornei or the non-native nitrogen-fixing species, Falcataria moluccana. I therefore predicted that C. verum seedlings would grow faster in soil taken from beneath C. verum trees than in soil taken from beneath either of the other two species. To test this hypothesis, I performed a bioassay experiment with seedlings of C. verum grown in soils from stands of C. verum, F. moluccana and N. hornei. Different nutrient treatments (control, plus phosphorus (P), plus nitrogen (N), plus N and P, and plus complete fertilizer) were applied to investigate how nutrient availabilities modulate the effects of the trees. In the control treatment without added nutrients, there was a weak tendency for seedlings to perform better in the soils from beneath invasive than native trees. However, seedling growth in soils from beneath invasive species was markedly higher following the addition of phosphorus in the case of the F. moluccana soil, and complete fertilizer in the case of the C. verum soil. These results indicate that on very nutrient-poor soils, a low supply of nutrients other than N may reduce the risk of a soil-feedback by invasive trees on seedling regeneratio

Urban Agriculture: Passing Fad or New Prospects for Agriculture and Cities?

While urban agriculture might be considered a passing fad, we argue that it is a vehicle to deal with many urgent topics of societal transformation towards a sustainable future. We discuss the potential of urban agriculture to change agriculture and urban life

Time and Cloth, Dress 1.0

Time and Cloth is a collaboration between artist and draper in the creation of singular elemental statements in women’s apparel. The work is reflexive; one creates the textile and one creates the garment, responding to one another\u27s process to generate original designs. Combining objectives to experiment with discarded materials and to create zero (material) waste instills natural constraints and inspires work within the confines of each fabric’s unique surface design and dimension to arrive at an aesthetically pleasing and wearable garment through couture techniques. The outcome of this collaboration is an unspoken conversation between surface design and wearable form

Problemorientierte inter- und transdisziplinäre und transformative Nachhaltigkeitsforschung: Welche Schnittstellen ergeben sich für die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften?

Die Umwelt- und Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften haben in den letzten Jahrzehnten ein Forschungsverständnis entwickelt, welches als «problemorientierte inter- und transdisziplinäre Forschung zu komplexen gesellschaftlichen Herausforderungen» bezeichnet werden kann; zunehmend wird auch von Transformationsforschung oder transformativer Forschung gesprochen. Dieser Beitrag stellt diese Forschungsverständnisse der Nachhaltigkeitsforschung vor und lädt dazu ein, Schnittstellen mit den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften (SSH) auszuloten.Cite as: Kueffer, Christoph (2023): Problemorientierte inter- und transdisziplinäre und transformative Nachhal-tigkeitsforschung: Welche Schnittstellen ergeben sich für die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften?, in: Schweizerische Akademie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften: Wege zu einem nachhaltigen Konsum | Vers une consommation durable, (Swiss Academies Communications, 18, 5), S. 118-125. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.817718

L’importance de la collaboration entre conservationnistes des différentes îles océaniques pour l’enseignement et la recherche sur la biodiversité

I argue in this essay that conservationists on islands should engage more regularly in systematic cross-island learning and capitalise on the research opportunity provided by replicated islands around the world that are faced with similar nature conservation problems. In a rapidly changing anthropogenic world in particular learning across multiple sites is important to ensure that conservationists are not blind to unexpected future changes and novel ecological patterns and processes. There are increasingly opportunities for conservationists from different islands to interact but knowledge exchange remains often informal or piecemeal. One reason why cross-island learning is relatively rare may be the difficulty to generalise knowledge about real-world systems that are often highly idiosyncratic. It is thus often not clear how the insights gained in one place can be applied in another. However, medical doctors for instance are also faced with the challenge of building up a body of knowledge that is transferable from one patient to the next despite the uniqueness of each patient. Like doctors conservationists need to better learn how to form a shared pool of knowledge and expertise that is context-sensitive but still transferable between management cases. To indicate the range of conservation issues on islands that await a more systematic cross-island learning approach I discuss four examples: (i) predicting plant invasion risks, (ii) impacts of alien rats on native flora and fauna, (iii) mutualistic plant-animal interactions, and (iv) habitat restoration. I end the article by emphasising that successful cross-island research and learning depends on long-term continuous collaborations. Unique island biodiversity is rapidly disappearing. Island conservationists are confronted with the taunting task of devising and implementing new conservation strategies that address at once and in a very short time span many different interacting and rapidly changing threat factors, which affect thousands of threatened island species. To save much island biodiversity from extinction a global and concerted learning and action effort is urgently neededDans cet essai, je plaide pour que les conservationnistes de la biodiversité dans les îles s’engagent plus régulièrement dans un processus d’enseignement inter-îles et tirent profit des opportunités de recherches apportées par des îles confrontées à des problèmes similaires de conservation. En particulier, dans un monde évoluant rapidement, les enseignements à partir de nombreux sites sont importants pour s’assurer que les conservationnistes prennent bien en compte des changements imprévus et l’évolution vers de nouveaux écosystèmes. Les occasions d’interactions entre conservationnistes de différentes îles sont croissantes, mais les échanges de connaissances restent souvent informels et faibles. Une des raisons tient peut-être dans les difficultés de généralisation des connaissances à propos de systèmes qui sont souvent très particuliers. Il n’est de ce fait pas facile d’extrapoler des résultats obtenus sur un site à un autre site. Cependant, les médecins par exemple sont aussi confrontés à ce problème de construction d’un corpus de connaissances pouvant être transférable d’un patient au suivant malgré l’unicité de chaque patient. Comme les médecins, les conservationnistes doivent apprendre comment partager un ensemble de connaissances et d’expertises relatives à des cas particuliers mais tout de même transférables entre les modes de gestion. Quatre exemples de sujets illustrant les enjeux de conservation et nécessitant une approche systématique inter-îles sont présentés: (1) la prévision des risques d’invasions par les plantes, (2) les impacts des rats introduits sur la flore et la faune indigènes, (3) les interactions mutualistes entre plantes et animaux, (4) la restauration des habitats. Je termine l’article en insistant sur le fait que le succès de la recherche et de l’enseignement inter-îles dépend de collaborations continues sur le long terme. Une biodiversité insulaire unique est en train de disparaître rapidement. Les conservationnistes insulaires sont confrontés à la tâche difficile d’inventer et de mettre en oeuvre de manière simultanée et sur une période très courte de nouvelles stratégies concernant de nombreuses menaces en interaction et évolution rapide, qui affectent des milliers d’espèces insulaires menacées. Pour sauver cette biodiversité insulaire de l’extinction, un effort global d’échanges de connaissances et d’actions entreprises doit être réalisé de manière urgent

Will climate change increase the risk of plant invasions into mountains?

Mountain ecosystems have been less adversely affected by invasions of non-native plants than most other ecosystems, partially because most invasive plants in the lowlands are limited by climate and cannot grow under harsher high-elevation conditions. However, with ongoing climate change, invasive species may rapidly move upwards and threaten mid-, and then high-elevation mountain ecosystems. We evaluated this threat by modeling the current and future habitat suitability for 48 invasive plant species in Switzerland and New South Wales, Australia. Both regions had contrasting climate interactions with elevation, resulting in possible different responses of species distributions to climate change. Using a species distribution modeling approach that combines data from two spatial scales, we built high-resolution species distribution models (≤ 250 m) that account for the global climatic niche of species and also finer variables depicting local climate and disturbances. We found that different environmental drivers limit the elevation range of invasive species in each of the two regions, leading to region-specific species responses to climate change. The optimal suitability for plant invaders is predicted to markedly shift from the lowland to the montane or subalpine zone in Switzerland, whereas the upward shift is far less pronounced in New South Wales where montane and subalpine elevations are already suitable. The results suggest that species most likely to invade high elevations in Switzerland will be cold-tolerant, whereas species with an affinity to moist soils are most likely to invade higher elevations in Australia. Other plant traits were only marginally associated with elevation limits. These results demonstrate that a more systematic consideration of future distributions of invasive species is required in conservation plans of not yet invaded mountainous ecosystems

Wissensaustausch zwischen Forschung und Praxis erfolgreich gestalten

Um die gesellschaftliche Transformation zu gestalten, wird der Austausch von Wissen zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis immer wichtiger. Dieser Artikel benennt Prinzipien, Kompetenzen und Rahmenbedingungen für erfolgreichen Wissensaustausch