Using Future Benefits to Set Conservation Priorities for Wetlands

In an era of rising sea levels, costal land managers including land trust representatives, municipal planners, and others contributing to decisions about whether to develop or protect coastal parcels do not have viable means of evaluating future values on wetlands that will be created when sea levels rise. This project develops and tests a software modeling approach to help address this issue, in combination with a novel, expert-opinion driven benefit-cost framework. The beta test used three parcels in Scarborough, Maine: Hampton Circle, Maine Audubon, and Pine Point. It used a group of experts to 1) allocate initial values to these parcels for a range of ecosystem services, using Wetland Benefit Units, and 2) create depth-benefit curves that estimate how those values would change with increasing water depth at each site. Experts estimated that the Hampton Circle site had the highest initial values across all services. But once sea level rise and topographic diversity was accounted for via use of the software (Marsh Adaptation Strategy Tool), what initially appeared to be the most valuable site became the least valuable. The analysis demonstrates the importance of being able to examine interactions among a diversity of ecosystem service values, local topography, and possible sea level rise, and demonstrates the utility of a new software tool and benefit-cost framework to support coastal land management decisions before and during upland conversion to wetland

RGGI Allowances: How to Use the Revenues?

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, pronounced Reggie ) is the first regional mandatory program to address global warming pollution, from power plants in the United States. In December 2005, after two years of planning, the governors of seven states (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Delaware)* signed a 20-page Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) adopting a plan for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2). A year later, the states released a draft model rule outlining regulations for participating state governments to use in RGGI\u27s adoption and implementation at the state level. RGGI will take effect in 2009, and mandate that total emissions in the RGGI states may not increase from 2009 to 2014, and then must fall by 2.5% per year through 2018

The Effects of Climate Change on Economic Activity in Maine: Coastal York County Case Study

Climate change can have significant ramifications for Maine’s economy. If short-term projections for the next century are accurate, at minimum sea level rise will become increasingly noticeable in association with more severe and destructive coastal storms. Charles Colgan and Samuel Merrill evaluate risk estimates by presenting a case study of the projected consequences of sea level rise and coastal storm damage on the economy of the state’s most vulnerable area, York County’s coastal communities

The usefulness of GPS telemetry to study wolf circadian and social activity

This study describes circadian and social movement patterns of 9 wolves and illustrates capabilities and limitations of Global Positioning System (GPS) telemetry for analysis of animal activity patterns. Wolves were studied at the Camp Ripley National Guard Training Site in Little Falls, Minnesota, and were captured via helicopter net-gunning. All study wolves showed nocturnal movement patterns regardless of time of year. One wolf\u27s movement pattern switched to diurnal when he conducted an extraterritorial foray from his natal territory. All data sets with GPS intervals \u3c1 hour (n=4) showed crepuscular movement peaks. We identified patterns of den visitation and attendance, estimated minimum distances traveled and minimum rates of movement, and observed that GPS location intervals may affect perceived rates of wolf travel. Global Positioning System telemetry was useful in determining when pack members were traveling together or apart and how long a breeding female wolf spent near her pups (e.g., 0-month-old pups were left unattended by their mother for as long as 17 days)

Planners and Climate Change Action: An Approach for Communities

The authors discuss the role of planners in helping local communities prepare for the near-term effects of climate change, especially the impact of rising sea levels and increased storm severity

Smart Growth, State Policy and Public Process in Maine: The Dunstan Crossing Experience

Sprawling development in Maine’s growth areas continues in spite of the state’s emphasis on comprehensive planning over the past 20 years. In this article, the authors present some lessons to be learned from Scarborough’s Dunstan Crossing project, a planned development which would have incorporated many of the goals of the national “smart growth” movement. The project was approved by the elected town council (one of whom is co-author Sylvia Most), and it was in compliance with Scarborough’s town comprehensive plan. Nonetheless, the project for now has effectively been blocked after a lengthy period, described here, that saw a citizen referendum, lawsuits, mediation, and many kinds of public participation. Based on the Dunstan Crossing experience, the authors make recommendations regarding the state’s Growth Management Act, about more effective regional planning, and more generally about how to structure public participation in potentially contentious projects

Climate Adaptation Finance Mechanisms: New Frontiers For Familiar Tools

Demands for mechanisms to pay for adaptation to climate risks have multiplied rapidly as concern has shifted from greenhouse gas mitigation alone to also coping with the now-inevitable impacts. A number of viable approaches to how to pay for those adjustments to roads, drainage systems, lifeline utilities and other basic infrastructure are emerging, though untested at the scale required across the nation, which already has a trillion-dollar deferred maintenance and replacement problem. There are growing efforts to find new ways to harness private financial resources via new market arrangements to meet needs that clearly outstrip public resources alone, as well as to utilize and combine public resources more effectively. To date, mechanisms are often seen through a specific lens of scale, time, and method, for example national versus local and public versus market-based means. The purpose here is to integrate a number of those perspectives and also to highlight the following in particular. Current experience with seemingly more pedestrian needs like stormwater management funding is in fact a learning step towards new approaches for broader adaptation needs, using re-purposed but existing fiscal tools. The resources raised from new large-scale market approaches for using catastrophe- and resiliency-bond-derived funds will have their use embodied and operationalized in many separate local and state projects. The invention and packaging of innovative projects—the pre-development phase—will be pivotal to better using fiscal resources of many types. Those efforts can be greatly aided or hindered by larger national and especially state government policy, regulatory and capital market arrangements. Understanding the path to integration of effort across these scales deserves much more attention. Examples are given of how federal, state and local roles are each dimensions of that frontier, how existing tools can apply in new ways and how smart project creation plays a role

Novel Interconnections in Lipid Metabolism Revealed by Overexpression of Sphingomyelin Synthase-1

This study investigates the consequences of elevating sphingomyelin synthase 1 (SMS1) activity, which generates the main mammalian sphingolipid, sphingomyelin. HepG2 cells stably transfected with SMS1 (HepG2-SMS1) exhibit elevated enzyme activity in vitro and increased sphingomyelin content (mainly C22:0- and C24:0-sphingomyelin) but lower hexosylceramide (Hex-Cer) levels. HepG2-SMS1 cells have fewer triacylglycerols than controls but similar diacylglycerol acyltransferase activity, triacylglycerol secretion, and mitochondrial function. Treatment with 1 mm palmitate increases de novo ceramide synthesis in both cell lines to a similar degree, causing accumulation of C16:0-ceramide (and some C18:0-, C20:0-, and C22:0-ceramides) as well as C16:0- and C18:0-Hex-Cers. In these experiments, the palmitic acid is delivered as a complex with delipidated BSA (2:1, mol/mol) and does not induce significant lipotoxicity. Based on precursor labeling, the flux through SM synthase also increases, which is exacerbated in HepG2-SMS1 cells. In contrast, palmitate-induced lipid droplet formation is significantly reduced in HepG2-SMS1 cells. [14C]Choline and [3H]palmitate tracking shows that SMS1 overexpression apparently affects the partitioning of palmitate-enriched diacylglycerol between the phosphatidylcholine and triacylglycerol pathways, to the benefit of the former. Furthermore, triacylglycerols from HepG2-SMS1 cells are enriched in polyunsaturated fatty acids, which is indicative of active remodeling. Together, these results delineate novel metabolic interactions between glycerolipids and sphingolipids

Moving in the anthropocene: global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements

Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral changes of individual animals and to the exclusion of species with long-range movements from areas with higher human impact. Global loss of vagility alters a key ecological trait of animals that affects not only population persistence but also ecosystem processes such as predator-prey interactions, nutrient cycling, and disease transmission