Ethical Foundations for the Lethal Management of Double-crested Cormorants (Phalocrocorax auritus) in the Eastern United States: an Argument Analysis

Lethal management of Double-crested Cormorants (Phalocrocorax auritus) has been implemented in many areas of the United States. In this paper, the philosophical method of argument analysis is used to assess ethical premises underlying the proposition that Double-crested Cormorant populations should be culled to reduce pressures on wild fisheries in the Great Lakes region of the eastern USA. This influential argument has been used to justify the destruction of more than half a million Double-crested Cormorants and hundreds of thousands of their nests and eggs. Three versions of the argument are formulated and assessed. It is shown that each of the arguments presupposes some form of anthropocentrism, an ethical stance considered by many in the scholarly community to be philosophically untenable and ethically inappropriate. It is suggested, consequently, that the arguments analyzed do not constitute an ethically sound basis for lethal management of Double-crested Cormorants in the Great Lakes region of the eastern USA

The Ethics of Eliminating Harmful Species: The Case of the Tsetse Fly

Wildlife species harmful to humans are often targets of control and elimination programs. A contemporary example is the tsetse fly, a vector of sleeping sickness and African animal trypanosomosis. Tsetse flies have recently been targeted by a pan-African eradication campaign. If it is successful, the campaign could push the entire tsetse family to extinction. With the emergence of effective and efficient elimination technologies, ethical assessment of proposed elimination campaigns is urgently needed. We examine the ethics of tsetse fly elimination by considering arguments predicated on both the instrumental and the intrinsic values of the species at local and global scales. We conclude that, although global eradication of tsetse flies is not ethically justified, localized elimination campaigns targeting isolated populations are ethically defensible. We urge assessments of this kind be conducted regularly and in context, so that all relevant factors underlying decisions on species elimination are routinely laid bare for evaluation

Vale Três Forquilhas no Sul do Brasil - evidência do soerguimento do planalto vulcânico

In Brazil drainage patterns and slopes were studied in the Valley of Três Forquilhas near Terra de Areia on the seaward edge of the volcanic plateau of northeastern Rio Grande do Sul. We studied this area to explain why the escarpment of the plateau is closest to the sea here and to establish the erosional history of this small part of the escarpment. Here two small rivers, Três Forquilhas and Maquiné, follow the Torres Syncline to the Atlantic Ocean. These rivers probably started to significantly erode the syncline and the volcanic plateau starting in the Middle to Late Miocene in response to far field Andean tectonics and epirogenic uplift across most of South America. Subsequent erosion probably occurred in pulses rather than at an uniform rate in both watersheds much as short bursts of intense heavy rainfall “pulse” local erosion of the escarpment every few years today. Study of the offshore sequence stratigraphy of the Tertiary fill of the adjacent Pelotas Basin helped us establish this local erosional history (seven unconformity bound sequences, thickness variations between these unconformities, and large scale slumping). Study of an onshore subsurface cross section also identified two paleovalleys in Mesozoic rocks beneath the present valleys of Três Forquilhas and Maquiné Rivers. There is a strong structural control on drainage at all scales. Consideration of slope process contributed significantly to our understanding of drainage evolution and the origin of the escarpment of the volcanic plateau.Os padrões de drenagem e a encosta foram estudados no vale do rio Três Forquilhas que é situado próximo da localidade de Terra de Areia, entre o mar e a borda nordeste do planalto vulcânico, no Rio Grande do Sul. Esta área foi estudada para explicar por que a escarpa do planalto vulcânico é mais próxima ao mar nesta sua por- ção nordeste e estabelecer a história erosional desta porção da escarpa. Aqui dois rios relativamente curtos, os rios Três Forquilhas e Maquiné, seguem a Sinclinal de Torres em direção ao Atlântico. Esses rios, provavelmente, iniciaram a erodir significativamente a sinclinal e a borda do planalto a partir do Mioceno Médio a Superior, em resposta à tectônica Andina de soerguimento tectônico de colisão ao longo da maior parte da América do Sul. A erosão subsequente, provavelmente, ocorreu em pulsos e não em uma fase uniforme em ambos os divisores de águas, muito como as chuvas torrenciais atualmente, que a cada dois ou três anos “impulsionaram” a erosão local da escarpa. O estudo da sequência estratigráfica no Terciário quando da sedimentação da Bacia de Pelotas adjacente à área de estudo, nos ajudou a estabelecer esta história erosiva local (sete discordâncias entre as sucessões de depósitos, variações de espessura entre estas discordâncias e a grande escala de espessuras). O estudo de uma seção transversal do continente em direção ao litoral identificou dois paleovales em rochas do Mesozoico abaixo do nível de base dos atuais rios Três Forquilhas e Maquiné. Há um controle estrutural forte da drenagem em todas as escalas. Essas considerações sobre os processos que se desenvolvem sobre a vertente contribuem, significativamente, para a compreensão sobre a evolução da drenagem e a origem da escarpa do planalto vulcânico

The Elephant (Head) in the Room: A Critical Look at Trophy Hunting

Trophy hunting has occupied a prominent position in recent scholarly literature and popular media. In the scientific conservation literature, researchers are generally supportive of or sympathetic to its usage as a source of monetary support for conservation. Although authors at times acknowledge that trophy hunting faces strong opposition from many members of the public, often for unspecified reasons associated with ethics, neither the nature nor the implications of these ethical concerns have been substantively addressed. We identify the central act of wildlife “trophy” taking as a potential source of ethical discomfort and public opposition. We highlight that trophy hunting entails a hunter paying a fee to kill an animal and claim its body or body parts as a trophy of conquest. Situating this practice in a Western cultural narrative of chauvinism, colonialism, and anthropocentrism, we argue trophy hunting is morally inappropriate. We suggest alternative strategies for conservation and community development should be explored and decisively ruled out as viable sources of support before the conservation community endorses trophy hunting. If wildlife conservation is broadly and inescapably dependent on the institution of trophy hunting, conservationists should accept the practice only with a due appreciation of tragedy, and proper remorse

A census of cool core galaxy clusters in IllustrisTNG

The thermodynamic structure of hot gas in galaxy clusters is sensitive to astrophysical processes and typically difficult to model with galaxy formation simulations. We explore the fraction of cool-core (CC) clusters in a large sample of $370$ clusters from IllustrisTNG, examining six common CC definitions. IllustrisTNG produces continuous CC criteria distributions, the extremes of which are classified as CC and non-cool-core (NCC), and the criteria are increasingly correlated for more massive clusters. At $z=0$, the CC fractions for $2$ criteria are in reasonable agreement with the observed fractions but the other $4$ CC fractions are lower than observed. This result is partly driven by systematic differences between the simulated and observed gas fraction profiles. The simulated CC fractions with redshift show tentative agreement with the observed fractions, but linear fits demonstrate that the simulated evolution is steeper than observed. The conversion of CCs to NCCs appears to begin later and act more rapidly in the simulations. Examining the fraction of CCs and NCCs defined as relaxed we find no evidence that CCs are more relaxed, suggesting that mergers are not solely responsible for disrupting CCs. A comparison of the median thermodynamic profiles defined by different CC criteria shows that the extent to which they evolve in the cluster core is dependent on the CC criteria. We conclude that the thermodynamic structure of galaxy clusters in IllustrisTNG shares many similarities with observations, but achieving better agreement most likely requires modifications of the underlying galaxy formation model.Comment: 24 pages, 17 figures, MNRAS published version. The IllustrisTNG project website can be found at http://www.tng-project.org

Sustainable Management of Soil in Oil Palm Plantings: Proceedings of a Workshop held in Medan, Indonesia, 7–8 November 2013

Oil palm is a globally important source of vegetable oil, being used in a wide variety of foods and other products. For many tropical countries it is an economically important crop, fulfilling local demand for vegetable oil and generating large export incomes. It is grown by plantation companies and smallholder families; often in a nucleus or plasma system where the smallholders supply oil palm fruit to a centralised mill. As demand for vegetable oil increases, due to growing and increasingly wealthy populations, the industry is expanding rapidly onto new land and there is an increasing need for ecological intensification of production. To ensure continuous production into the future and to safeguard the condi¬tion of the broader environment it is crucial that the condition of the soil in oil palm plantations be maintained or improved. In our rapidly changing environ¬ment, new management approaches will be needed to optimise production and sustainability. Such advances will rely heavily on science- and system-based understanding of oil palm agroecosystems. This workshop brought together 41 scientists from 10 countries to discuss and advance sustainability of soil management in oil palm production systems. The workshop and subsequent proceedings covered a broad range of topics: soil types and properties; water and nutrient cycling; effects of organic resi¬dues; biogeochemical processes; biological processes; monitoring, modelling and assessment, and; synthesis and discussion. The papers produced during the workshop will be useful to scientists and managers throughout the tropics. I hope that the information and approaches discussed in this volume will be used widely, stimulating better understanding and care of vital soil resources

An analysis of the evolving comoving number density of galaxies in hydrodynamical simulations

The cumulative comoving number-density of galaxies as a function of stellar mass or central velocity dispersion is commonly used to link galaxy populations across different epochs. By assuming that galaxies preserve their number-density in time, one can infer the evolution of their properties, such as masses, sizes, and morphologies. However, this assumption does not hold in the presence of galaxy mergers or when rank ordering is broken owing to variable stellar growth rates. We present an analysis of the evolving comoving number density of galaxy populations found in the Illustris cosmological hydrodynamical simulation focused on the redshift range $0\leq z \leq 3$. Our primary results are as follows: 1) The inferred average stellar mass evolution obtained via a constant comoving number density assumption is systematically biased compared to the merger tree results at the factor of $\sim$2(4) level when tracking galaxies from redshift $z=0$ out to redshift $z=2(3)$; 2) The median number density evolution for galaxy populations tracked forward in time is shallower than for galaxy populations tracked backward in time; 3) A similar evolution in the median number density of tracked galaxy populations is found regardless of whether number density is assigned via stellar mass, stellar velocity dispersion, or dark matter halo mass; 4) Explicit tracking reveals a large diversity in galaxies' assembly histories that cannot be captured by constant number-density analyses; 5) The significant scatter in galaxy linking methods is only marginally reduced by considering a number of additional physical and observable galaxy properties as realized in our simulation. We provide fits for the forward and backward median evolution in stellar mass and number density and discuss implications of our analysis for interpreting multi-epoch galaxy property observations.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, submitted to MNRAS, comments welcom

Habitat Quality Influences Migratory Strategy of Female White Tailed Deer

Partial migration is a life history strategy that is common for ungulate species living in seasonal environments.  One factor that influences the decision to migrate by ungulates is access to high quality habitat.  We evaluated the influence of access to winter habitat of high quality on the probability of an individual migrating, seasonal habitat use between and within migratory and resident classes of deer, and the effects of this decision on the survival of female white-tailed deer.  We radio-collared 67 female white-tailed deer (Odocoileu virginianus) in 2012 and 2013. The odds of being a migrant increased as home range size increased and decreased as proportion of cropland within home range in winter increased.  The habitat with the highest relative probability of use in winter for residents was pasture (1.00, SD = 0.01) and for migrants was riparian (0.73, SD = 0.39). In summer both groups had the highest relative probability of using pasture (resident = 0.96, SD = 0.15; migrant = 0.99, SD = 0.08).  We integrated the migration probability and survival models to estimate annual and seasonal survival rates of migrants and residents. We found no difference between the annual and seasonal rates of survival for the different migration strategies.  Our results indicate that access to habitat of high quality may be a strong influence on a female white-tailed deer’s decision to migrate.  We suggest the presence of partial migration in a population may be a response to competition for high quality habitat

Sorption behaviour of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in tropical soils

The sorption behaviour of three perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), namely perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), was determined on 28 tropical soils. Tropical soils are often highly weathered, richer in sesquioxides than temperate soils and may contain variable charge minerals. There are little data on sorption of PFASs in tropical soils. The highest Kd values were found for PFOS with mean values ranging from 0 to 31.6 L/kg. The Kd values for PFOA and PFHxS ranged from 0 to 4.9 L/kg and from 0 to 5.6 L/kg, respectively. While these values are in the range of literature sorption data, the average Kd values for PFOS and PFOA from the literature were 3.7 times and 3.6 times higher, respectively, than those measured in this study. Stepwise regression analysis did explain some of the variance, but with different explanatory variables for the different PFASs. The main soil properties explaining sorption for PFOS and PFOA were oxalate-extractable Al and pH, and for PFHxS was pH

Influence of a Cyclonic Eddy on Microheterotroph Biomass and Carbon Export in the Lee of Hawaii

[1] A multi‐platform sampling strategy was used to investigate carbon cycling in a cold‐core eddy that formed in the lee of Hawaii during September 2000. Microheterotroph biomass and 234Th‐derived carbon export rates within the eddy were 2 to 3 times higher than those observed for adjacent waters. If this eddy is representative of other cyclonic eddies that are frequently formed in the lee of Hawaii, then eddy activity may significantly enhance the areal efficiency of the biological pump and facilitate the transfer of organic carbon to organisms inhabiting the mesopelagic and abyssal‐benthic zones of this subtropical ecosystem