Macroalgae Decrease Growth and Alter Microbial Community Structure of the Reef-Building Coral, Porites astreoides

This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the Public Library of Science and can be found at: http://www.plosone.org/home.action.With the continued and unprecedented decline of coral reefs worldwide, evaluating the factors that contribute to coral demise is of critical importance. As coral cover declines, macroalgae are becoming more common on tropical reefs. Interactions between these macroalgae and corals may alter the coral microbiome, which is thought to play an important role in colony health and survival. Together, such changes in benthic macroalgae and in the coral microbiome may result in a feedback mechanism that contributes to additional coral cover loss. To determine if macroalgae alter the coral microbiome, we conducted a field-based experiment in which the coral Porites astreoides was placed in competition with five species of macroalgae. Macroalgal contact increased variance in the coral-associated microbial community, and two algal species significantly altered microbial community composition. All macroalgae caused the disappearance of a γ-proteobacterium previously hypothesized to be an important mutualist of P. astreoides. Macroalgal contact also triggered: 1) increases or 2) decreases in microbial taxa already present in corals, 3) establishment of new taxa to the coral microbiome, and 4) vectoring and growth of microbial taxa from the macroalgae to the coral. Furthermore, macroalgal competition decreased coral growth rates by an average of 36.8%. Overall, this study found that competition between corals and certain species of macroalgae leads to an altered coral microbiome, providing a potential mechanism by which macroalgae-coral interactions reduce coral health and lead to coral loss on impacted reefs

Social Value of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas in England and Wales.

The U.K. government is committed to establishing a coherent network of marine protected areas by 2012 and the recentMarine and Coastal Access Act, 2009 will designate marine conservation zones and provide wider access rights to the coast. To fulfill these goals, this article argues the need for a clearer, shared understanding of the social value of protected areas in creating new designations and managing existing ones. Although marine and coastal environments attract many people and are vitally important in terms of realized and potential social value, the majority of the public in the United Kingdom lacks understanding and awareness regarding them. Combined with this, the social value of marine and coastal protected areas (MCPAs) have been largely ignored relative to conservation and economics, with the latter invariably taking precedence in environmental policymaking. Social value reflects the complex, individual responses that people experience in a given place. Many reasons determine why one area is valued above another, and this research investigates the social value of MCPAs from a practitioner’s perspective through a series of interviews. Understanding why we “socially” value MCPAs will ultimately equip managers with an informed understanding of these spaces, influence management decisions, and, potentially, policymaking. This article defines social value in the context of MCPAs in England and Wales from a practitioner perspective, explores key concepts, and suggests possible improvements in decision-making

The political process of constructing a sustainable London Olympics sports development legacy

This study attempts to develop a research agenda for understanding the process of constructing a sustainable Olympic sports development legacy. The research uses a social constructivist perspective to examine the link between the 2012 London Olympic Games and sustainable sports development. The first part of the paper provides justification for the study of sport policy processes using a constructivist lens. This is followed by a section which critically unpacks sustainable sports development drawing on Mosse’s (1998) ideas of process-oriented research and Searle’s conceptualisation of the construction of social reality. Searle’s (1995) concepts of the assignment of function, collective intentionality, collective rules, and human capacity to cope with the environment are considered in relation to the events and discourses emerging from the legacy vision(s) associated with the 2012 London Olympic Games. The paper concludes by proposing a framework for engaging in process oriented research and highlights key elements, research questions, and methodological issues. The proposed constructivist approach can be used to inform policy, practice, and research on sustainable Olympic sports development legacy

Assessing sustainability in housing LED urban regeneration : insights from a housing association in Northern England

How far do current assessment methods allow the thorough evaluation of sustainable urban regeneration? Would it be useful, to approach the evaluation of the environmental and social impacts of housing regeneration schemes, by making both hidden pitfalls and potentials explicit, and budgeting costs and benefits in the stakeholders’ perspective? The paper aims at answering these questions, by focusing on a case study located in the Manchester area, the City West Housing Trust, a nonprofit housing association. Drawing from extensive fieldwork and including several interviews with key experts from this housing association, the paper first attempts to monetize the environmental and social value of two extant projects – a high-rise housing estate and an environmentally-led program. It then discusses whether and how a stakeholder-oriented approach would allow more engagement of both current and potential funders in the projects at hand. Findings from both the literature and the empirical data that was gathered show how in current housing regeneration processes, room for significant improvements in terms of assessment methods still exist. Findings additionally show that the environmental and social spillovers are largely disregarded because of a gap in the evaluation tools. This may also hinder the potential contributions of further funders in the achievements of higher impacts in terms of sustainability

Enacting Resilience: A Performative Account of Governing for Urban Resilience

Resilience is an increasingly important urban policy discourse that has been taken up at a rapid pace. Yet there is an apparent gap between the advocacy of social-ecological resilience in scientific literature and its take-up in policy discourse on the one hand, and the demonstrated capacity to govern for resilience in practice on the other. This paper explores this gap by developing a performative account of how social-ecological resilience is dealt with in practice through case study analysis of how protection of biodiversity was negotiated in response to Melbourne’s recent metropolitan planning initiative. It is suggested that a performative account expands the possible opportunities for governing for social-ecological resilience beyond the concept’s use as a metaphor, measurement, cognitive frame or programmatic statement of adaptive management/co-management and has the potential to emerge through what has been called the everyday ‘mangle of practice’ in response to social-ecological feedback inherent to policy processes

Sticks and carrots for reducing property-level risks from floods: an EU-US comparative perspective

In discussing legal and policy frameworks for flood risk management, the attention is often put on increasing resilience in public spaces. In terms of private properties, discussions are geared toward enhancing the adaptive capacity of future developments. This paper focuses on the instruments associated with resilience of existing privately owned residential buildings mainly from the perspective of post-flood policies and compensation regimes. The paper scrutinizes the relevant legal and policy landscapes in the United States, the European Union and two Member States – the UK and the Netherlands. The goal is to provide mutual lessons learned between the EU, its Member States, and the US and to set forth generally applicable recommendations for improving post-flood policies for existing buildings

Are litter, plastic and microplastic quantities increasing in the ocean?

Whilst both plastic production and inputs at sea have increased since the 1950s, several modelling studies predict a further increase in the coming years in these respective quantities. We compiled scientific literature on trends in marine litter, consisting largely of plastic and microplastics in the ocean, understanding that monitoring programs or assessments for these aspects are varied, frequently focusing on limited components of the marine environment in different locations, and covering a wide spectrum of marine litter types, with limited standardization. Here we discuss how trends in the amounts of litter in the marine environment can be compared with the information provided by models. Increasing amounts of plastic are found in some regions, especially in remote areas, but many repeated surveys and monitoring efforts have failed to demonstrate any consistent real temporal trend. An observed steady state situation of plastic quantities in many marine compartments and the fate and transport of plastic in the marine environment remain areas for much needed further research.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The changing regulatory environment for speculative housebuilding and the construction of core competencies for brownfleld development

Speculative housebuilding in the United Kingdom faces an ever tighter regulatory environment owing to the increasing impact of the sustainable development agenda. For example, 60% of all new homes in England are now expected to be constructed on previously developed land or provided through the conversion of existing buildings. As speculative housebuilders are responsible for about 80% of all new dwellings built in the United Kingdom, the achievement of this important government target is critically dependent on the ability and willingness of the private sector to respond to public policy. By exploring the main components of the residential development process, the author investigates how far speculative housebuilding will need to change to ensure the successful implementation of the government's brownfield housing target. He suggests that those speculative housebuilders that are enthusiastically building up core competencies in brownfield housing are likely to emerge as the market leaders of the future whereas those companies that continue to rely on past practices and technologies will face an uncertain future as greenfield development opportunities begin to reduce

A preliminary fishery quality index for Portuguese streams

There is a need to quantify the multivariate quality of a recreational fishery at the site scale to better communicate the relative quality among sites to the public and anglers. Borrowing on the general approach of multimetric indices of biotic integrity (IBIs), we developed fishery quality indices (FQIs) from species quality indices (SQIs) based on measures of fish abundance and size structure for northern and central Portuguese streams. Our FQIs showed regional patterns indicating a range in fishery quality. Higher coldwater FQI scores were mostly found in the northwestern (Minho and Lima), northeastern Douro, and northern Tagus basins. Higher warmwater FQI scores occurred in the eastern Tagus basin. The species that contributed the most to warmwater FQI scores were largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides, pumpkinseed Lepomis gibbosus, the cyprinid Luciobarbus bocagei, chubs Squalius carolitertii and S. pyrenaicus, and nases Pseudochondrostoma duriense and P. polylepis. The chubs, nases, and brown trout Salmo trutta contributed the most to coldwater FQI scores. As expected, our indices were correlated with river size and with disturbance at the catchment, segment, and site scales. Regression models for separate coldwater and warmwater FQIs were stronger than those for the individual SQIs and for an all-site FQI. The correlation was positive between the coldwater FQI and a coldwater IBI but negative between the warmwater FQI and warmwater IBIs. The proposed FQIs offer a quantitative approach for assessing relative fishery quality among sites and for making regional assessments given an appropriate study design. The component SQIs and SQI metrics of the FQIs can be disassociated to determine the population and species characteristics most affected by various environmental variables