The alpine vegetation ecology and remote sensing of Teresa Island, British Columbia

The alpine zone, encompassing a considerable portion of the land surface of British Columbia, is one of our major natural resources providing extensive areas for recreation, mineral resources, and needed habitat for many wildlife species including caribou, grizzly bear, mountain goat and mountain sheep. Such an extensive and important natural resource warrants careful research to provide a solid base for proper management and planning decisions. The aims of this study are: 1) To define and describe the vegetation units of an alpine area in northwestern British Columbia; 2) To relate these units to the major environmental factors acting in the alpine zone; 3) To further refine a currently used hierarchical classification suitable for the multi-scale cartographic representation of alpine and forest vegetation; 4) To show the value of remotely sensed data for multi-scale vegetation mapping; and 5) To produce multi-scale maps of the alpine study area, suitable for the requirements of today's land planners and managers. The alpine zone of Teresa Island, within Atlin Provincial Park, was chosen as the study area for its accessibility and representativeness. One hundred fifty-one sites, selected on the basis of species homogeneity, uniform appearance and uniform ecological conditions, were sampled during the summers of 1974, 1975 and 1976. On the basis of dominant species, physiognomic similarity and similar environmental conditions, sixteen community types are described: 1) Umbilicaria blockfield; 2) Cetraria nivalis - Vaccinium uliginosum fell field; 3) Cetraria nivalis - Carex microchaeta fell field; 4) Carex microchaeta meadow; 5) Festuca altaica -Potentilla diversifolia rich meadow; 6) Festuca altaica - Cladina dry meadow; 7) Betula glandulosa - Cetraria cucullata shrubfield; 8) Cassiope tetragona - Cladina mitis heath; 9) Cassiope stelleriana - Phyllodoce empetriformis snowbed; 10) Sibbaldia procumbens - Polytrichum piliferum snowbed; 11) Anthelia juratzkana - Luzula arcuata snowbed; 12) Carex pyrenaica -Luetkea pectinata - Juncus drummondii snowbed; 13) Salix pianifolia -Empetrum nigrum - Sphagnum runoff; 14) Calamagrostis canadensis - PIagiomnium rostratum runoff; 15) Aulacomnium palustre - Salix polaris - Claytonia sarmentosa - Carex microchaeta runoff; and 16) Ranunculus - Carex podocarpa -Saxifraga nelsoniana - moss runoff. Observations and the results of four transects indicate that the local distribution of these communities is primarily controlled by topography, snow duration and moisture. Four habitat types are recognized as a result of major combinations of these factors. These are: 1) Fell fields and blockfields, which occur on the most exposed areas of the mountain where snow is blown off during the winter, and the vegetation is exposed to severe winds and temperatures and xeric conditions year-round; 2) Snowbeds, which protect vegetation from extreme winter temperatures but, at the same time, restrict species occurrence by reducing the length of the growing season; 3) Runoff sites, which include spring-lines, stream edges, pond margins, bog-like areas and other water-saturated sites; and 4) Meadows and shrub-fields which encompass the mesic areas of the mountain where drainage is good and snow cover moderate. The sixteen community types are distributed within the four habitat types and reflect the environmental variation within each. The communities, all of which appear to be in equilibrium with their environment, are compared with other alpine communities described from British Columbia, southern Yukon and southeastern Alaska. Remote sensing is. a valuable tool for the cartographic representation of plant communities. An ecologically based hierarchical classification and legend system, designed to be used with remote sensing data, was expanded to incorporate the alpine communities of Teresa Island. Using satellite imagery, black-and-white, color, and color-infrared photographs, the alpine zone of Teresa Island was mapped at four scales: 1:180,000; 1:80,000; 1:29,000; and large-scale (greater than 1:20,000). The hierarchical ecological classification system was shown to be effective at all scales, and to incorporate all features visible on the image. The hierarchical nature of the system allows maps to be as general or as detailed as information and scale allow without changing the logic of the classification. Color-infrared transparencies are superior to conventional black-and-white and color photos for distinguishing vegetation types. The range of magenta tones associated with foliage is greater than the normally dark shades of green, therefore, changes in the vegetation are more easily detected. Conifers can readily be distinguished from hardwoods. Infrared film is capable of detecting isolated patches of vegetation that tend to blend into the background in black-and-white and color films. Small-scale satellite imagery is valuable for generalized mapping of large areas, and is able to detect the biogeoclimatic zones occurring in northwestern British Columbia. It is concluded that the description, classification and mapping of alpine vegetation in British Columbia is feasible and should be carried out as a prerequisite for any land management program so that we may obtain the maximum and lasting benefit of our alpine resources.Science, Faculty ofBotany, Department ofGraduat

Russia\u27s Missing Link? Social Capital, Entrepreneurialism, and Economic Performance in Post-Communist Russia

This paper argues that there is a spurious correlation between social capital and economic development in the regions of post-communist Russia. This argument rejects Robert Putnam\u27s collectivist hypothesis that social capital is the ubiquitous cause of economic growth. Rather, the data presented in this paper indicates that individualistic behavior in the form of entrepreneurialism, has been the prerequisite for growth in post-communist Russia. While social capital may slow or accelerate economic growth, it will not cause it. Without entrepreneurialism, social capital cannot be harnessed for economic development. In essence, social capital does not create wealth, entrepreneurs do

Incorporating geodiversity into conservation decisions/Incorporación de la geodiversidad en las decisiones de conservación

In a rapidly changing climate, conservation practitioners could better use geodiversity in a broad range of conservation decisions. We explored selected avenues through which this integration might improve decision making and organized them within the adaptive management cycle of assessment, planning, implementation, and monitoring. Geodiversity is seldom referenced in predominant environmental law and policy. With most natural resource agencies mandated to conserve certain categories of species, agency personnel are challenged to find ways to practically implement new directives aimed at coping with climate change while retaining their species-centered mandate. Ecoregions and ecological classifications provide clear mechanisms to consider geodiversity in plans or decisions, the inclusion of which will help foster the resilience of conservation to climate change. Methods for biodiversity assessment, such as gap analysis, climate change vulnerability analysis, and ecological process modeling, can readily accommodate inclusion of a geophysical component. We adapted others' approaches for characterizing landscapes along a continuum of climate change vulnerability for the biota they support from resistant, to resilient, to susceptible, and to sensitive and then summarized options for integrating geodiversity into planning in each landscape type. In landscapes that are relatively resistant to climate change, options exist to fully represent geodiversity while ensuring that dynamic ecological processes can change over time. In more susceptible landscapes, strategies aiming to maintain or restore ecosystem resilience and connectivity are paramount. Implementing actions on the ground requires understanding of geophysical constraints on species and an increasingly nimble approach to establishing management and restoration goals. Because decisions that are implemented today will be revisited and amended into the future, increasingly sophisticated forms of monitoring and adaptation will be required to ensure that conservation efforts fully consider the value of geodiversity for supporting biodiversity in the face of a changing climate.\ud \ud Incorporacion de la Geodiversidad en las Decisiones de Conservacion En un clima que cambia rapidamente, quienes practican la conservacion podrian usar la geodiversidad de mejor manera en una gama amplia de deciones de conservacion. Exploramos vias selectas por medio de las cuales esta integracion puede mejorar la toma de decisiones y las organizamos dentro del ciclo de manejo adaptativo de evaluacion, planeacion, implementacion y monitoreo. En pocas ocasiones se menciona a la geodiversidad en las leyes y la politica ambiental predominantes. Como la mayoria de las agencias de recursos naturales bajo mandato de conservar ciertas categorias de especies, el personal de las agencias se ve enfrentado a encontrar formas de implementar de manera practica nuevas directivas con miras a salir adelante frente al cambio climatico mientras se retienen los mandatos centrados en especies. Las ecoregiones y las clasificaciones ecologicas proporcionan mecanismos claros para considerar a la geodiversidad en los planes o decisiones. Esta inclusion ayudara a fomentar la resiliencia de la conservacion ante el cambio climatico. Los metodos para la evaluacion de la biodiversidad, como el analisis de intervalo, el analisis de vulnerabilidad ante el cambio climatico, y el modelado de procesos ecologicos, pueden adaptarse pronto a la inclusion del componente geofisico. Adaptamos las estrategias de otros para caracterizar paisajes de resistente, a resiliente, a susceptible, y hasta sensible, a lo largo de un continuo de vulnerabilidad ante el cambio climatico de la biota que presentan y despues resumimos las opciones para integrar a la geodiversidad en la planeacion en cada tipo de paisaje. En los paisajes que son relativamente resistentes al cambio climatico, existen opciones para representar completamente a la geodiversidad mientras se asegura que los procesos ecologicos dinamicos pueden cambiar a lo largo del tiempo

Cross-Cultural Consistency and Relativity in the Enjoyment of Thinking Versus Doing

Which is more enjoyable: trying to think enjoyable thoughts or doing everyday solitary activities? Wilson et al. (2014) found that American participants much preferred solitary everyday activities, such as reading or watching TV, to thinking for pleasure. To see whether this preference generalized outside of the United States, we replicated the study with 2,557 participants from 12 sites in 11 countries. The results were consistent in every country: Participants randomly assigned to do something reported significantly greater enjoyment than did participants randomly assigned to think for pleasure. Although we found systematic differences by country in how much participants enjoyed thinking for pleasure, we used a series of nested structural equation models to show that these differences were fully accounted for by country-level variation in 5 individual differences, 4 of which were positively correlated with thinking for pleasure (need for cognition, openness to experience, meditation experience, and initial positive affect) and 1 of which was negatively correlated (reported phone usage)