An ecological framework for the development of a national MPA network

Isolated marine protected areas (MPAs) may not be enough to sustain viable populations of marine species, particularly the many small coastal MPAs which resulted due to social, economic and political constraints. Properly designed MPA networks can circumvent such limitations due to their potential synergistic positive effects, but this crucial step is frequently obstructed by lack of baseline ecological information. In this paper, we use systematic conservation planning on European Nature Information System coastal habitat information available for Portugal to demonstrate how an ecologically coherent nation-wide MPA network can be designed. We used the software Marxan to obtain near optimal solutions for each of three pre-determined conservation targets (10%, 30% and 50% protection) while maintaining the cost of including conservation units as low as possible. Marxan solutions were subsequently optimized with MinPatch by keeping each MPA above a minimum size that reflects the existing information on habitat use by some key marine fishes. Results show that 10% protection for all habitats would only require a relativelly small increase in the number (from 6 to 10) and area (from 479 km(2) to 509 km(2)) of already existing MPAs in mainland Portugal whereas substantial increases would be required to achieve the 50% target. This rather simple approach offers the added benefit of allowing design improvement as more relevant ecological information becomes available, including deeper habitat mapping across the whole continental shelf, allowing a coherent, adaptive and inclusive optimal MPA network to be designed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social and Cultural Contexts of Alcohol Use: Influences in a Social-Ecological Framework.

Alcohol use and misuse account for 3.3 million deaths every year, or 6 percent of all deaths worldwide. The harmful effects of alcohol misuse are far reaching and range from individual health risks, morbidity, and mortality to consequences for family, friends, and the larger society. This article reviews a few of the cultural and social influences on alcohol use and places individual alcohol use within the contexts and environments where people live and interact. It includes a discussion of macrolevel factors, such as advertising and marketing, immigration and discrimination factors, and how neighborhoods, families, and peers influence alcohol use. Specifically, the article describes how social and cultural contexts influence alcohol use/misuse and then explores future directions for alcohol research

Modelling and simulating change in reforesting mountain landscapes using a social-ecological framework

Natural reforestation of European mountain landscapes raises major environmental and societal issues. With local stakeholders in the Pyrenees National Park area (France), we studied agricultural landscape colonisation by ash (Fraxinus excelsior) to enlighten its impacts on biodiversity and other landscape functions of importance for the valley socio-economics. The study comprised an integrated assessment of land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) since the 1950s, and a scenario analysis of alternative future policy. We combined knowledge and methods from landscape ecology, land change and agricultural sciences, and a set of coordinated field studies to capture interactions and feedback in the local landscape/land-use system. Our results elicited the hierarchically-nested relationships between social and ecological processes. Agricultural change played a preeminent role in the spatial and temporal patterns of LUCC. Landscape colonisation by ash at the parcel level of organisation was merely controlled by grassland management, and in fact depended on the farmer's land management at the whole-farm level. LUCC patterns at the landscape level depended to a great extent on interactions between farm household behaviours and the spatial arrangement of landholdings within the landscape mosaic. Our results stressed the need to represent the local SES function at a fine scale to adequately capture scenarios of change in landscape functions. These findings orientated our modelling choices in the building an agent-based model for LUCC simulation (SMASH - Spatialized Multi-Agent System of landscape colonization by ASH). We discuss our method and results with reference to topical issues in interdisciplinary research into the sustainability of multifunctional landscapes

Decision Making Under Threat: An Ecological Framework

Humans, like other animals, have evolved a set of neural circuits whose primary function is survival. In the case of predation, these circuits include "reactive fear" circuits involved in fast escape decisions, and "cognitive fear" circuits that are involved in more complex processing associated with slow strategic escape. In the context of flight initiation distance (FID), using neuroimaging combined with computational modeling, we support this differentiation of fear circuits by showing that fast escape decisions are elicited by the periaqueductal gray and midcingulate cortex, regions involved in reactive flight. Conversely, slower escape decisions rely on the hippocampus, posterior cingulate cortex, and prefrontal cortex, a circuit implicated in behavioral flexibility. We further tested whether individual differences in trait anxiety would impact escape behavior and neural responses to slow and fast attacking predators. Behaviorally, we found that trait anxiety was not related to escape decisions for fast threats, but individuals with higher trait anxiety escaped earlier during slow threats. Functional MRI showed that when subjects faced slow threats, trait anxiety positively correlated with activity in the vHPC, mPFC, amygdala and insula. Further, the strength of the functional coupling between the vHPC and mPFC was correlated with the degree of trait anxiety. A similar pattern of separation in survival circuits is also found in a follow up study utilizing the concept of margin of safety (MOS) with multivariate pattern analysis of fMRI data. In addition, we also discussed how decision making under threat was influenced by social factors such as reputation. Overall, these results provide new insights into decision making under threat and a separation of fear into reactive and cognitive circuits.</p

Project THANKS: A Socio-Ecological Framework For An Intervention Involving HIV Positive African American Women With Comorbidities

HIV-positive individuals are living longer today as a result of continuing advances in treatment but are also facing an increased risk for chronic diseases such as diabetes, and hypertension. These conditions result in a larger burden of hospitalization, outpatient, and emergency room visits. Impoverished African American women may represent an especially high-risk group due to disparities in health care, racial discrimination, and limited resources. This article describes an intervention that is based on the conceptual framework of the socio-ecological model. Project THANKS uses a community-based participatory, and empowerment building approach to target the unique personal, social, and environmental needs of African American women faced with the dual diagnosis of HIV and one or more chronic diseases. The long-term goal of this project is to identify features in the social and cultural milieu of these women that if integrated into existing harm reduction services can reduce poor health outcomes among them

A Social Ecological Framework for addressing Social Issues

The School of Social Ecology at University of California, Irvine (UCI), teaches students to conduct research that is socially valid. This implies a problem-posing approach to global issues such as human trafficking. Applying a social ecological lens to such a multi-dimensional issue, allows us to systematically address the effective context of the problem. This framework assists in better targeting policies and programs that are not only aimed at the victims of trafficking, but also address the enabling environment (political, social, built) and demand side of trafficking. A social ecological framework for addressing social issues such as human trafficking was developed in the department of Planning, Policy, and Design at UCI which attempts to answer the three questions of the conference. This framework can contribute to a typology for researchers, policy makers, and practitioners to create socially valid solutions in order to eradicate human trafficking. To refine the framework, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers applied a case study from India coupled with a literature and program review which uncovered three targeted solutions to trafficking in India. [Includes PowerPoint presentation slides and bibliography.

Agriculture, Climate, and Capitalist World-Economy: Rethinking the Global Crisis

Our relationship with nature has been constantly changing throughout modern history. The ways in which we interact with extra-human natures in order to grow food and build empires has radically and successively transformed since the sixteenth century. With these transformations, the perception of our interactions with extra-human natures has changed as well. The modern perception of Humans versus Nature is challenged with a new ideological framework. This paper introduces the world-ecological framework, which recognizes the relationships of human and extra-human natures as deeply intertwined and dialectical histories. The world-ecological framework is contrasted with the modernist ontology in the debate of naming our current epochal era: Anthropocene versus the Capitalocene. Thinking through the global crisis using the world-ecological framework exposes the influence of capitalism on agriculture and climate. This paper uses the world-ecological framework to examine capitalist agriculture’s relationship to climate change as well as illustrate the limits and threats this relationship poses to the capitalist world-ecology

An Ecological Framework for Supervision in Teacher Education

Pre-service teachers are typically supervised by two differently situated mentors: university-based clinical supervisors and cooperating teachers. These two types of supervisors are positioned differently within the institution of teacher education. Using ecological systems theory combined with institution theory, this paper offers an analytical framework for ecologically investigating how teacher supervisors and cooperating teachers are positioned and the effects on their labor, identities, and practices and how ecological forces operating at multiple levels shape new teacher learning. Drawing from empirical research to provide examples of this framework in action, the paper examines challenges to the field and offers potential responses that teacher education programs and teacher supervisors can take to mitigate these challenges

A Social Ecological Framework for addressing Social Issues

The School of Social Ecology at University of California, Irvine (UCI), teaches students to conduct research that is socially valid. This implies a problem-posing approach to global issues such as human trafficking. Applying a social ecological lens to such a multi-dimensional issue, allows us to systematically address the effective context of the problem. This framework assists in better targeting policies and programs that are not only aimed at the victims of trafficking, but also address the enabling environment (political, social, built) and demand side of trafficking. A social ecological framework for addressing social issues such as human trafficking was developed in the department of Planning, Policy, and Design at UCI which attempts to answer the three questions of the conference. This framework can contribute to a typology for researchers, policy makers, and practitioners to create socially valid solutions in order to eradicate human trafficking. To refine the framework, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers applied a case study from India coupled with a literature and program review which uncovered three targeted solutions to trafficking in India. [Includes PowerPoint presentation slides and bibliography.