Uncovering Ecosystem Service Bundles through Social Preferences

Ecosystem service assessments have increasingly been used to support environmental management policies, mainly based on biophysical and economic indicators. However, few studies have coped with the social-cultural dimension of ecosystem services, despite being considered a research priority. We examined how ecosystem service bundles and trade-offs emerge from diverging social preferences toward ecosystem services delivered by various types of ecosystems in Spain. We conducted 3,379 direct face-to-face questionnaires in eight different case study sites from 2007 to 2011. Overall, 90.5% of the sampled population recognized the ecosystem’s capacity to deliver services. Formal studies, environmental behavior, and gender variables influenced the probability of people recognizing the ecosystem’s capacity to provide services. The ecosystem services most frequently perceived by people were regulating services; of those, air purification held the greatest importance. However, statistical analysis showed that socio-cultural factors and the conservation management strategy of ecosystems (i.e., National Park, Natural Park, or a non-protected area) have an effect on social preferences toward ecosystem services. Ecosystem service trade-offs and bundles were identified by analyzing social preferences through multivariate analysis (redundancy analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis). We found a clear trade-off among provisioning services (and recreational hunting) versus regulating services and almost all cultural services. We identified three ecosystem service bundles associated with the conservation management strategy and the rural-urban gradient. We conclude that socio-cultural preferences toward ecosystem services can serve as a tool to identify relevant services for people, the factors underlying these social preferences, and emerging ecosystem service bundles and trade-offs

Superconductivity-induced Resonance Raman Scattering in Multi-layer High-Tc Superconductors

Resonant Raman scattering below Tc has been discovered in several Bi-, Hg-, Tl-based high-Tc superconductors with three or four CuO2-layers. For Bi2Si2Ca2Cu3O10+d, we found an unexpected crossover of the pair-breaking peak in the A1g-spectrum from a broad bump at hw = 6kBTc for Eexc = 2.54eV to a sharp peak at hw = 8kBTc for Eexc = 2.18eV, together with a strong enhancement of the Ca-phonons. Under resonant conditions, the relative positions of the pair breaking peaks in A1g, B1g, and B2g channels are 2Delta(A1g) = 2Delta(B1g) > 2Delta(B2g). This relation implies that the A1g Raman channel is free from the Coulomb screening effect, just as predicted theoretically for a d-wave multi-layer superconductor but have never been observed experimentally thus far. The observed resonance effect is the evidence that the electronic state in the inner CuO2-planes is different from that of the outer CuO2-planes.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures. submitted to Phys.Rev.

Childhoodnature and the anthropocene: an epoch of “cenes”

Section Four troubles childhoodnature and the Anthropocene, a scientific and popular term used to described the present human-nature conditions on planet Earth. This section does this through eight contributions which broadly speak to four “cenes,” namely: children in the Anthropocene – child-cene; woman in the Anthropocene – gyno-cene; cities as sites of the Anthropocene, city-cene; and relations with the more than human – kin-cene. The lines though between/within/through these identified cenes are porous and enmeshed as the nonliving, the human, and nonhuman transition between two epochs – the Anthropocene and the Postanthropocene

Childhoodnature and the Anthropocene: an epoch of cenes

Section Four troubles childhoodnature and the Anthropocene, a scientific and popular term used to described the present human-nature conditions on planet Earth. This section does this through eight contributions which broadly speak to four “cenes,” namely: children in the Anthropocene – child-cene; woman in the Anthropocene – gyno-cene; cities as sites of the Anthropocene, city-cene; and relations with the more than human – kin-cene. The lines though between/within/through these identified cenes are porous and enmeshed as the nonliving, the human, and nonhuman transition between two epochs – the Anthropocene and the Postanthropocene