From vineyards to feedlots: a fund-flow scanning of sociometabolic transition in the Vallès County (Catalonia) 1860-1956-1999

We analyse the changes to agricultural metabolism in four municipalities of Vallès County (Catalonia, Iberia) by accounting for their agroecosystemfunds and flows during the socioecological transition from organic to industrial farming between the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The choice of three different stages in this transition allows us to observe the transformation of its funds and flows over time, the links established between them and the effect on their energy profiles.We emphasize the relevance of the integration and consistency of agroecosystem funds for energy efficiency in agriculture and their role as underlying historical drivers of this socioecological transition. While readjustment to market conditions and availability and affordability of external inputs are considered the main drivers of the transition, we also highlight the role of societal energy and nutritional transitions. An analysis of advanced organic agriculture c. 1860 reveals the great effort required to reproduce soil fertility and livestock from the internal recirculation of biomass. Meanwhile, a balance between land produce and livestock densities enabled the integration of funds, with a positive impact on energy performance. The adoption of fossil fuels and synthetic fertilizers c. 1956 reduced somewhat the pressure exerted on the land by overcoming the former dependence on local biomass flows to reproduce the agroecosystem. Yet external inputs diminished sustainability. Partial dependence on external markets existed congruently with internal crop diversity and the predominance of organic over industrial farm management. A shift towards animal production and consumption led to a new specialization process c. 1999 that resulted in crop homogenization and agroecological landscape disintegration. The energy returns of this linear feed-food livestock bioconversion declined compared to earlier mixed farming. Huge energy flows driven by a globalized economy ran through this agroecosystem, provoking deep impacts at both a local and external scale

A Net Energy Analysis of the Global Agriculture, Aquaculture, Fishing and Forestry System

The global agriculture, aquaculture, fishing and forestry (AAFF) energy system is subject to three unsustainable trends: (1) the approaching biophysical limits of AAFF; (2) the role of AAFF as a driver of environmental degradation; and (3) the long-term declining energy efficiency of AAFF due to growing dependence on fossil fuels. In response, we conduct a net energy analysis for the period 1971–2017 and review existing studies to investigate the global AAFF energy system and its vulnerability to the three unsustainable trends from an energetic perspective. We estimate the global AAFF system represents 27.9% of societies energy supply in 2017, with food energy representing 20.8% of societies total energy supply. We find that the net energy-return-on-investment (net EROI) of global AAFF increased from 2.87:1 in 1971 to 4.05:1 in 2017. We suggest that rising net EROI values are being fuelled in part by ‘depleting natures accumulated energy stocks’. We also find that the net energy balance of AAFF increased by 130% in this period, with at the same time a decrease in both the proportion of rural residents and also the proportion of the total population working in AAFF—which decreased from 19.8 to 10.3%. However, this comes at the cost of growing fossil fuel dependency which increased from 43.6 to 62.2%. Given the increasing probability of near-term fossil fuel scarcity, the growing impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, and the approaching biophysical limits of global AAFF, ‘Odum’s hoax’ is likely soon to be revealed

ADMIRA project: teaching particle physics at high school with Timepix detectors

This paper presents the case for how students can be helped to increase their scientific vocation by experimental work and the introduction of particle physics into pre-university studies. These two ideas are the two main lines of work of the ADMIRA initiative, which has been created by individuals belonging to different and complementary educational and research institutions. The initiative consists of a network of schools that share Minipix devices, a readout system for the Timepix detector designed at CERN in the framework of the Medipix2 Collaboration. The schools receive logistical and technical support from the local University (the University of Barcelona) and from CERN. The centres involved and the objectives, as well as the characteristics of the project are presented. The technical and didactic materials available are also shown. Finally, some initiative data has been analysed to show its rapid growth, and some students’ research is presented showing the diversity of tasks that can be done with such detectors

Processes of legitimization in contemporary art: the young British artists phenomenon

The Young British Artists (YBAs) was a generation that incorporated elements from media, advertising and cultural industry into the art world in the late 20th century. Based on a case study of the group and the distinctive phases of its meteoric trajectory, we analyze the circumstances and agents involved in the processes of legitimization in contemporary art. As an instrumental tool, we use the model presented by Alan Bowness in his 1989 publication, which outlines the process that allows artists to access certain social recognition. This outline provides us with a model of reference upon which to reconstruct the pattern of the YBAs trajectory with the intention of determining the sociocultural circumstances surrounding the media phenomenon. These results also correct and modify certain aspects of Bowness’ model to adapt it to the current socioeconomic context that sustains the processes of legitimization of art today

Assessing the energy trap of industrial agriculture in North America and Europe: 82 balances from 1830 to 2012

Early energy analyses of agriculture revealed that behind higher labor and land productivity of industrial farming, there was a decrease in energy returns on energy (EROI) invested, in comparison to more traditional organic agricultural systems. Studies on recent trends show that efficiency gains in production and use of inputs have again somewhat improved energy returns. However, most of these agricultural energy studies have focused only on external inputs at the crop level, concealing the important role of internal biomass flows that livestock and forestry recirculate within agroecosystems. Here, we synthesize the results of 82 farm systems in North America and Europe from 1830 to 2012 that for the first time show the changing energy profiles of agroecosystems, including livestock and forestry, with a multi-EROI approach that accounts for the energy returns on external inputs, on internal biomass reuses, and on all inputs invested. With this historical circular bioeconomic approach, we found a general trend towards much lower external returns, little or no increases in internal returns, and almost no improvement in total returns. This “energy trap” was driven by shifts towards a growing dependence of crop production on fossil-fueled external inputs, much more intensive livestock production based on feed grains, less forestry, and a structural disintegration of agroecosystem components by increasingly linear industrial farm managements. We conclude that overcoming the energy trap requires nature-based solutions to reduce current dependence on fossil-fueled external industrial inputs and increase the circularity and complexity of agroecosystems to provide healthier diets with less animal products.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This research was supported by the international Partnership Grant SSHRC-895-2011-1020 on “Sustainable farm systems: long-term socioecological metabolism in western agriculture” funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, together with other matching contributions such as the Spanish project PID2021-123129NB-C4 and the European Research Council (ERC-2017-StG 757995 HEFT)

Are recent changes in the terrestrial small mammal communities related to land use change? A test using pellet analyses

© 2015, The Ecological Society of Japan. Human-induced landscape changes are expected to have strong effects on the composition and structure of terrestrial small mammal communities (Orders Rodentia and Soricomorpha). However, testing such expectations is difficult due to low detectability of these animals. We used analyses of barn owl (Tyto alba) pellets sampled in the same roosting places during 1977–1991 and again in 2011–2014 to (a) document small mammal community changes and (b) relate them to changes in land use. Forest and synanthropic small mammals increased by a 7 % between both periods, whereas open-land species decreased by 13 %. Man-made loss (crops and meadows) and expansion (forest and urban) of relevant habitat types were closely related to these changes. Localities with land use changes opposite to the general trend showed also an opposite trend in small mammal community change. Land use heterogeneity increased and dominance decreased between both sampling periods, and this pattern was paralleled by an increasing trend in diversity and a decreasing trend in dominance in small mammal communities. Decreasing trends of some generalist northern species with restricted ranges may have been due to climate change. Diet monitoring of barn owls are thus valuable tools for both documenting and analyzing fine-grained small mammal responses to global change.Peer Reviewe