Is there a win for conservation, livelihoods and governance? : the implications of Broussonetia papyrifera as an ecological resource substitute: a field study in Uganda

Wood extraction and invasive species are commonly perceived as harmful for ecosystem services and detrimental for conservation efforts. However, they can also be beneficial for forests as well as for local communities. Interactions among economic, institutional and ecological factors may in some cases turn these impacts on their head. Here, I present a case study of a location where this may be the case. Villages often depend on nearby forests for natural resources, as is the case around Mabira Central Forest Reserve in Eastern Uganda, where such needs are intensified by the lack of other income-generating opportunities. The demand for forest products such as charcoal and firewood is high due to population pressure and the cost of other energy sources. The park is managed by the Ugandan National Forestry Authority (NFA) and faces pressures from within the reserve and from external actors. It is also beset by a lack of functioning governance structures. This demand for wood products is to a high degree met by Broussonetia papyrifera, an invasive exotic tree introduced in the 70s. As a fast-growing species, it supports multiple uses that may spare slower-growing native species from being harvested. It has also shown positive effects on soil fertility. This study compares previous biodiversity data from these sites with current forest measurements and data gathered through social science methods including semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews and focus group discussions in two communities adjacent to the forest reserve. Results show that although still controversial for conservation efforts, Broussonetia papyrifera can support the regeneration of indigenous species and as such increase species richness and at least maintains biodiversity. The results also show that Broussonetia papyrifera has a crucial role for local livelihoods as it supplies various provisioning services such as fodder for livestock, fuelwood for energy, medicinal use, raw material for timber and poles and regulating services such as a soil fertilizer and stabilizer. It also has medicinal uses that are not explored yet. In a country like Uganda where there is a lack of strong institutions, implementing forest protection policies, Broussonetia papyrifera acts as a resource substitute with the potential to help avoid further degradation deeper in the reserve and to support local livelihoods

Effects of rising temperature on pelagic biogeochemistry in mesocosm systems: a comparative analysis of the AQUASHIFT Kiel experiments

A comparative analysis of data, obtained during four indoor-mesocosm experiments with natural spring plankton communities from the Baltic Sea, was conducted to investigate whether biogeochemical cycling is affected by an increase in water temperature of up to 6 °C above present-day conditions. In all experiments, warming stimulated in particular heterotrophic bacterial processes and had an accelerating effect on the temporal development of phytoplankton blooms. This was also mirrored in the build-up and partitioning of organic matter between particulate and dissolved phases. Thus, warming increased both the magnitude and rate of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) build-up, whereas the accumulation of particulate organic carbon (POC) and phosphorus (POP) decreased with rising temperature. In concert, the observed temperature-mediated changes in biogeochemical components suggest strong shifts in the functioning of marine pelagic food webs and the ocean’s biological carbon pump, hence providing potential feedback mechanisms to Earth’s climate system

Chemical Dispersant Enhances Microbial Exopolymer (EPS) Production and Formation of Marine Oil/Dispersant Snow in Surface Waters of the Subarctic Northeast Atlantic

This manuscript contains work conducted during a Ph.D. study undertaken as part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Oil and Gas. It is sponsored by Heriot-Watt University via their James Watt Scholarship Scheme to LS and whose support is gratefully acknowledged. Partial support was also provided through a Royal Society Research Grant (RG140180) and a Society for Applied Microbiology grant to TG. DP received funding from the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) and their support is gratefully acknowledged.A notable feature of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was the unprecedented formation of marine oil snow (MOS) that was observed in large quantities floating on the sea surface and that subsequently sedimented to the seafloor. Whilst the physical and chemical processes involved in MOS formation remain unclear, some studies have shown that extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) play a role in this process. Here, we report that during exposure of subarctic northeast Atlantic seawater to a chemical dispersant, whether in the presence/absence of crude oil, the dispersant stimulates the production of significant quantities of EPS that we posit serves as a key building block in the formation of MOS. This response is likely conferred via de-novo synthesis of EPS by natural communities of bacteria. We also describe the formation of marine dispersant snow (MDS) as a product of adding chemical dispersants to seawater. Differential staining confirmed that MDS, like MOS, is composed of glycoprotein, though MDS is more protein rich. Using barcoded-amplicon Illumina MiSeq sequencing, we analyzed, for the first time, the bacterial communities associated with MDS and report that their diversity is not significantly dissimilar to those associated with MOS aggregates. Our findings emphasize the need to conduct further work on the effects of dispersants when applied to oil spills at sea, particularly at different sites, and to determine how the product of this (i.e. MOS and MDS) affects the biodegradation of the oil.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Der Wortschatz der kanarischen Inseln im Wandel

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Varietät des Spanischen der Kanaren, genauer genommen, mit dem Wortschatz Teneriffas im Vergleich zwischen heute und der Herausgabe der Atlanten von Manuel Alvar López im Jahr 1975. Um die Veränderungen des Wortschatzes auf Teneriffa zu untersuchen, habe ich, ausgehend vom Fragebogen zu Alvars Atlanten (1975), eine Befragung zum aktiven Wortschatz von Bewohnerinnen und Bewohner verschiedener Altersstufen Teneriffas durchgeführt. Verschiedenste Sprachen und Varietäten haben auf die kanarische Varietät Einfluss genommen und ihr eine Vielfalt an Charakteristika und Lexemen gegeben. Die Globalisierung und der starke Einfluss der spanischen Standardvarietät und des Englischen seit der Mitte des letzten Jahrhunderts und das damit verbundene Aussterben von Sprachen sind der Hintergrund für die Frage, ob und wie sich das kanarische Spanisch seit 1975 verändert hat, und ob auch die kanarische Varietät im Begriff ist, ersetzt zu werden. Aus den erhobenen Daten und dem chronologischen Vergleich zu Alvars geographischen Ergebnissen (1975) habe ich folgende Tendenzen in Bezug auf den Wandel der kanarischen Varietät festgestellt: Je jünger die befragte Altersklasse, desto geringer die Varianz an verschiedenen Lexemen. Demnach hat sich entweder die kanarische Varietät insgesamt dem Standardspanischen angenähert, oder die lokalen Varietäten sind unter dem Dach einer einheitlichen Varietät konvergiert. Dabei nimmt die Varianz der Lexeme, die innerhalb Teneriffas stark variieren, schneller ab als Lexeme, die eine geringe Varianz aufweisen. Diese Entwicklung wurde anhand des Beispiels der Hauptinsel Teneriffas untersucht und es ist davon auszugehen, dass eine ähnliche Entwicklung auch auf den anderen Inseln bereits stattfindet oder stattfinden wird.This work deals with the variety of Spanish in the Canary Islands, more precisely with the vocabulary of Tenerife, comparing the vocabulary of today with the vocabulary the residents used in Manuel Alvar López’ Atlas lingüístico y etnográfico de las Islas Canarias I, II, III in 1975. To study the change in the vocabulary on Tenerife, I conducted a survey on the active vocabulary of residents of different ages in Tenerife, based on Alvar’s (1975) questionnaire. Different languages have influenced the Canarian variety, resulting in a rich variety with different characteristics. Globalization and the strong influence of English have led to extinction of languages and varieties worldwide. Against this background, I asked the question of whether and how the Canarian variety of Spanish has changed in the past 45 years, and whether this variety is about to disappear. From the data and the comparison to Alvar's results (1975), I have been able to determine the following trends: The younger the age group, the less the variance in lexemes. This means that either the Canarian variety was (partly) replaced by standard Spanish, or local Canarian varieties have converged under the umbrella of a uniform Canarian variety. The variance of lexemes that vary widely decreases faster than lexemes with low variance. The development of the Canarian variety was examined using the example of Tenerife and it can be assumed that a development similar to that described here is already taking place or will take place on the other islands

Dynamics in bacterial cell surface properties assessed by fluorescent stains and confocal laser scanning microscopy

We investigated the dynamics of hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties of the bacterioplankton cell surface in different life stages, as they may play a crucial role in the uptake of nutrients and in regulating the grazing pressure of potential predators. Bacterial strains were grown in artificial seawater under controlled nutrient conditions and the dynamics of surface properties were assessed by staining living bacteria concurrently with a hydrophobic, a polar and a nucleic acid stain. Mean fluorescence intensity of the individual stain for each single cell was determined using a confocal laser scanning microscope and advanced image analysis. No proportional changes of the hydrophobic or hydrophilic properties with cell size were detectable, indicating their independence of cell size. While hydrophobic properties remained fairly constant and exhibited species-specificity, the polarity of the surface was more dependent on the life stage of free-living cells. Bacterial cells assembling in aggregates, however, exhibited a small but distinct elevated hydrophobicity compared to free-living cells. Based on their hydrophobicity, 2 distinctly different groups of bacteria could be distinguished. One group of bacterial strains exhibited a continuous increase in the ratio of hydrophilicity to hydrophobicity, whereas the less hydrophobic group exhibited 2 peaks in the ratio hydrophilicity to hydrophobicity. This ratio was significantly lower for the less hydrophobic group, indicating that less hydrophobic bacteria are also less hydrophilic. Increased growth rates were found with higher cell surface hydrophobicity. This might be interpreted as an expression of 2 different life strategies in bacterioplankton. Increased hydrophobicity and concomitant increase of polar moieties facilitate nutrient assimilation and seem to be advantageous for bacteria adapted to high nutrient environments maximizing growth at higher grazing losses. In contrast, bacteria with lower hydrophobicity exhibit a lower assimilation efficiency with reduced grazing pressure

Essais sur les principes de transferts dans un cadre welfariste-parétien avec séparabilité forte

From the linkage between interpersonally comparable well-being and equity based on the separateness of persons, the Ph. D. dissertation introduces a theoretical framework in which ethical preferences are represented by additively separable social welfare functions. The thesis has two goals ; by exhibiting distributive judgments necessarily embodied by the functions that fulfil income transfer principles, the first aim is to provide comparison cirteria between these functions and those that fulfill utility transfer principles (prioritarian functions). The second aim is to expose a plurality of distributive judgments and of degrees of adhesion they can rise. For such purposes, interpersonal comparability of utility as well as that of ethical values (transformed utilities) are needed. This two-level comparability is granted when inter-household utility ratios are supposed to be comparable. In this framework, the social welfare functions satisfying the Pigou-Dalton principle of income transfer are not necessarily prioritarian. Moreover, the functions potentially support two meanings of adhesion for inequality aversion. First, if a function is willing to endorse a inequality-reducing transfer entailing a greater loss in the transferred benefit to be socially desirable, then it is more inequality averse. This definition is characterized by proportional transfer principles well-adapted to ratio-scale comparability of utility. Second, the degree of adhesion for inequality aversion is presented as a downside inequality aversion. Informational hypothesis rule out parts of the exposition of the plurality of degrees, they put limits to distributive judgments too. By going beyond that, the Ph. D. dissertation studies the interplay between any number of income and utility transfer principles all defined recursively. Finally, four distributive judgments are characterized by the fulfilment and/or non-fulfilment of a set of transfer principles. The willingness to neglect the welfare evolution of a given proportion of population to take into account that of a minority represents the degree of adhesion for one of those judgments.A partir de l’articulation entre le bien-être comparable inter-personnellement et l’équité basée sur la séparation des personnes, la thèse présente un cadre théorique dans lequel les préférences éthiques sont représentées par des fonctions de bien-être social additivement séparables. Nous avons deux objectifs ; en décelant les jugements distributifs nécessairement sous-tendus par les fonctions qui respectent des principes de transferts de revenus, le premier objectif est d’offrir des critères de comparaison entre ces fonctions et celles qui respectent les principes de transferts d’utilité (fonctions prioritaristes). Le second objectif est d’exposer la pluralité des jugements distributifs et des degrés d’adhésion qu’ils peuvent susciter. A ces fins, il faut postuler la comparabilité de l’utilité et des valeurs éthiques (utilités transformées). Cette comparabilité à deux niveaux est postulée lorsque les ratios d’utilité entre ménages aux besoins différents sont supposés comparables. Dans ce cadre, les fonctions de bien-être social qui respectent le principe de transferts de revenus de Pigou-Dalton ne sont pas forcément prioritaristes. De plus, les fonctions défendent potentiellement deux définitions du degré d’adhésion à l’aversion aux inégalités. Premièrement, une fonction qui tolère une perte d’utilité totale plus grande afin de réduire les inégalités est dite plus averse aux inégalités. Cette définition est caractérisée par les principes de transferts proportionnels qui s’adaptent bien à la comparabilité en ratios d’utilité. Deuxièmement, le degré d’adhésion est présenté par l’aversion plus forte aux inégalités entre les moins bien lotis. Les hypothèses informationnelles entravent l’exposé des degrés d’adhésion selon la seconde définition, elles limitent aussi les jugements distributifs. En passant outre, nous étudions les interactions entre un nombre quelconque de principes de transferts d’utilité et de revenus définis de manière récursive. Enfin, quatre jugements distributifs sont caractérisés par le respect et/ou le non-respect d’un ensemble de principes de transferts. La disposition à négliger l’évolution de bien-être d’une fraction donnée de la population au profit de l’évolution de bien-être d’une minorité d’individus représente le degré d’adhésion à l’un de ces jugements