Planning conservation corridors in mountain areas based on integrated conservation planning models: A case study for a giant panda in the Qionglai Mountains

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 2654-2662
Author(s):  
Ya-fengi Lu ◽  
Qin-wen Li ◽  
Yu-kuan Wang ◽  
Pei Xu
Author(s):  
Diego Pires Ferraz Trindade ◽  
Meelis Pärtel ◽  
Carlos Pérez Carmona ◽  
Tiina Randlane ◽  
Juri Nascimbene

AbstractMountains provide a timely opportunity to examine the potential effects of climate change on biodiversity. However, nature conservation in mountain areas have mostly focused on the observed part of biodiversity, not revealing the suitable but absent species—dark diversity. Dark diversity allows calculating the community completeness, indicating whether sites should be restored (low completeness) or conserved (high completeness). Functional traits can be added, showing what groups should be focused on. Here we assessed changes in taxonomic and functional observed and dark diversity of epiphytic lichens along elevational transects in Northern Italy spruce forests. Eight transects (900–1900 m) were selected, resulting in 48 plots and 240 trees, in which lichens were sampled using four quadrats per tree (10 × 50 cm). Dark diversity was estimated based on species co-occurrence (Beals index). We considered functional traits related to growth form, photobiont type and reproductive strategy. Linear and Dirichlet regressions were used to examine changes in taxonomic metrics and functional traits along gradient. Our results showed that all taxonomic metrics increased with elevation and functional traits of lichens differed between observed and dark diversity. At low elevations, due to low completeness and harsh conditions, both restoration and conservation activities are needed, focusing on crustose species. Towards high elevations, conservation is more important to prevent species pool losses, focusing on macrolichens, lichens with Trentepohlia and sexual reproduction. Finally, dark diversity and functional traits provide a novel tool to enhance nature conservation, indicating particular threatened groups, creating windows of opportunities to protect species from both local and regional extinctions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089202062110309
Author(s):  
María García-Feijoo ◽  
Leire Alcaniz ◽  
Almudena Eizaguirre

Business schools face social, economic, cultural, and technological changes that require constant rethinking not only of teaching and learning, but also of leadership and management. In contrast to traditional strategic planning models, this article proposes a new participatory approach for the university community, arriving at a common story and visualizing an exciting future for the school. Applying case study methodology, the paper describes a process of shared strategic reflection at a century-old European business school by following Otto Scharmer's Theory U. The process enabled achievement of shared definitions of vision, values, lines of progress, and strategic projects, and the study itself improved the participants’ perception of the process and its impact on a shared vision's generation. After process implementation, and as a general conclusion, Theory U contributed to promoting shared strategic reflection, with results that are very valuable in the highly uncertain, challenging environment in which business schools are immersed.


Erdkunde ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-162
Author(s):  
M. Belén Gómez-Martín ◽  
Xosé A. Armesto-López ◽  
Martí Cors-Iglesias

This paper seeks to contribute to existing literature by exploring the potential impacts of Peer-to-Peer (p2p) accommodation on a rural mountain area in the Pyrenees in Catalonia (Spain). The results indicate how widely p2p accommodation can penetrate areas of this kind. The findings suggest that this phenomenon has brought few benefits for local development and has created severe competition for conventional tourism accommodation, despite having a smaller economic impact in terms of job creation and tourist spending. In addition, the relative ease with which it avoids administrative and fiscal controls has negative repercussions for the tax revenues of local authorities. The growth in tourist rental properties is also having harmful effects on the study area in terms of its tourist load capacity, and the high pressure it puts on housing stock is causing shortages in residential housing and sharp price increases.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Banu Kaya özdemirel

Cross taxa congruence was investigated between butterfly taxa and ecological community for fine spatial scale (10 × 10 km² UTM grids) in north-eastern part of Turkey. The study area was evaluated within the scope of systematic conservation planning, and analyses were performed for sets of priority protected areas composed using complementarity-based site selection software Marxan. Cross taxa congruence was subsequently examined both in species richness and ecologic complementarity. Accordingly, it has been observed that the cross-taxon congruence between butterfly taxa and ecological community was relatively better than the results of previous studies. Another remarkable finding is that ecological community was a more robust surrogate than butterfly taxa. Although the results are valuable for conservation studies, they highlight the fact that a simple surrogate-based site selection would be inadequate to represent overall biodiversity.  The weakness of congruence patterns among surrogates would also lead to gaps in biodiversity conservation. These findings therefore draw attention to the necessities of incorporating surrogates of distinct ecology or some other surrogates like environmental parameters into conservation planning. Otherwise, there may be mistakes regarding species representation and the vast majority of species may be misrepresented in protected areas and protected area plans. At this point, it should be emphasized that understating cross taxa congruence and/or relationships is a key component for efficient biodiversity conservation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haijun Wang ◽  
Peihao Peng ◽  
Xiangdong Kong ◽  
Tingbin Zhang ◽  
Guihua Yi

This paper focuses on the suitability of urban expansion in mountain areas against the background of accelerated urban development. Urbanization is accompanied by conflict and intense transformations of various landscapes, and is accompanied by social, economic, and ecological impacts. Evaluating the suitability of urban expansion (UE) and determining an appropriate scale is vital to solving urban environmental issues and realizing sustainable urban development. In mountain areas, the natural and social environments are different from those in the plains; the former is characterized by fragile ecology and proneness to geological disasters. Therefore, when evaluating the expansion of a mountain city, more factors need to be considered. Moreover, we need to follow the principle of harmony between nature and society according to the characteristics of mountain cities. Thus, when we evaluate the expansion of a mountain city, the key procedure is to establish a scientific evaluation system and explore the relationship between each evaluation factor and the urban expansion process. Taking Leshan (LS), China—a typical mountain city in the upper Yangtze River which has undergone rapid growth—as a case study, the logic minimum cumulative resistance (LMCR) model was applied to evaluate the suitability of UE and to simulate its direction and scale. The results revealed that: An evaluation system of resistance factors (ESRFs) was established according to the principle of natural and social harmony; the logic resistance surface (LRS) scientifically integrated multiple resistance factors based on the ESRF and a logic regression analysis. LRS objectively and effectively reflected the contribution and impact of each resistance factor to urban expansion. We found that landscape, geological hazards and GDP have had a great impact on urban expansion in LS. The expansion space of the mountain city is limited; the area of suitable expansion is only 23.5%, while the area which is unsuitable for expansion is 39.3%. In addition, it was found that setting up ecological barriers is an effective way to control unreasonable urban expansion in mountain cities. There is an obvious scale (grid size) effect in the evaluation of urban expansion in mountain cities; an evaluation of the suitable scale yielded the result of 90 m × 90 m. On this scale, taking the central district as the center, the urban expansion process will extend to the neighboring towns of Mianzhu, Suji, Juzi and Mouzi. Urban expansion should be controlled in terms of scale, especially in mountain cities. The most suitable urban size of LS is 132 km2.This would allow for high connectivity of urban-rural areas with the occupation of relatively few green spaces.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 1253-1267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Cañedo‐Argüelles ◽  
Virgilio Hermoso ◽  
Tony Herrera‐Grao ◽  
José Barquín ◽  
Núria Bonada

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