scholarly journals Cold War spy satellite images reveal long-term declines of a philopatric keystone species in response to cropland expansion

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1927) ◽  
pp. 20192897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catalina Munteanu ◽  
Johannes Kamp ◽  
Mihai Daniel Nita ◽  
Nadja Klein ◽  
Benjamin M. Kraemer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Satellite Images ◽  
Keystone Species ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Agricultural Expansion ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Agricultural Conversion ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Species Declines

Agricultural expansion drives biodiversity loss globally, but impact assessments are biased towards recent time periods. This can lead to a gross underestimation of species declines in response to habitat loss, especially when species declines are gradual and occur over long time periods. Using Cold War spy satellite images (Corona), we show that a grassland keystone species, the bobak marmot ( Marmota bobak ), continues to respond to agricultural expansion that happened more than 50 years ago. Although burrow densities of the bobak marmot today are highest in croplands, densities declined most strongly in areas that were persistently used as croplands since the 1960s. This response to historical agricultural conversion spans roughly eight marmot generations and suggests the longest recorded response of a mammal species to agricultural expansion. We also found evidence for remarkable philopatry: nearly half of all burrows retained their exact location since the 1960s, and this was most pronounced in grasslands. Our results stress the need for farsighted decisions, because contemporary land management will affect biodiversity decades into the future. Finally, our work pioneers the use of Corona historical Cold War spy satellite imagery for ecology. This vastly underused global remote sensing resource provides a unique opportunity to expand the time horizon of broad-scale ecological studies.

scholarly journals Agricultural expansion in African savannas – effects on diversity and composition of trees and mammals

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hemant Tripathi ◽  
Emily Woollen ◽  
Mariana Carvalho ◽  
Catherine Parr ◽  
Casey Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Species Richness ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Agricultural Expansion ◽  
Miombo Woodlands ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Β Diversity ◽  
Impact On Biodiversity

Abstract Land use change (LUC) is the leading cause of biodiversity loss worldwide. However, the global understanding of LUC's impact on biodiversity is mainly based on comparisons of land use endpoints (habitat vs non-habitat) in forest ecosystems. Hence, it may not generalise to savannas, which are ecologically distinct from forests, as they are inherently patchy, and disturbance adapted. Endpoint comparisons also cannot inform the management of intermediate mosaic landscapes. We aim to address these gaps by investigating species- and community-level responses of mammals and trees along a gradient of small scale agricultural expansion in the miombo woodlands of northern Mozambique. Thus, the case study represents the most common pathway of LUC and biodiversity change in the world's largest savanna. Tree abundance, mammal occupancy, and tree- and mammal-species richness showed a non-linear relationship with agricultural expansion (characterised by the Land Division Index, LDI). These occurrence and diversity metrics increased at intermediate LDI (0.3 to 0.7), started decreasing beyond LDI > 0.7, and underwent high levels of decline at extreme levels of agricultural expansion (LDI > 0.9). Despite similarities in species richness responses, the two taxonomic groups showed contrasting β-diversity patterns in response to increasing LDI: increased dissimilarity among tree communities (heterogenisation) and high similarity among mammals (homogenisation). Our analysis along a gradient of landscape-scale land use intensification allows a novel understanding of the impacts of different levels of land conversion, which can help guide land use and restoration policy. Biodiversity loss in this miombo landscape was lower than would be inferred from existing global syntheses of biodiversity-land use relations for Africa or the tropics, probably because such syntheses take a fully converted landscape as the endpoint. As, currently, most African savanna landscapes are a mosaic of savanna habitats and small scale agriculture, biodiversity loss is probably lower than in current global estimates, albeit with a trend towards further conversion. However, at extreme levels of land use change (LDI > 0.9 or < 15% habitat cover) miombo biodiversity appears to be more sensitive to LUC than inferred from the meta-analyses. To mitigate the worst effects of land use on biodiversity, our results suggest that miombo landscapes should retain > 25% habitat cover and avoid LDI > 0.75 – after which species richness of both groups begin to decline. Our findings indicate that tree diversity may be easier to restore from natural restoration than mammal diversity, which became spatially homogeneous.

scholarly journals Agricultural expansion in African savannas: effects on diversity and composition of trees and mammals

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hemant G. Tripathi ◽  
Emily S. Woollen ◽  
Mariana Carvalho ◽  
Catherine L. Parr ◽  
Casey M. Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Species Richness ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Agricultural Expansion ◽  
Miombo Woodlands ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Β Diversity ◽  
Impact On Biodiversity

AbstractLand use change (LUC) is the leading cause of biodiversity loss worldwide. However, the global understanding of LUC's impact on biodiversity is mainly based on comparisons of land use endpoints (habitat vs non-habitat) in forest ecosystems. Hence, it may not generalise to savannas, which are ecologically distinct from forests, as they are inherently patchy, and disturbance adapted. Endpoint comparisons also cannot inform the management of intermediate mosaic landscapes. We aim to address these gaps by investigating species- and community-level responses of mammals and trees along a gradient of small scale agricultural expansion in the miombo woodlands of northern Mozambique. Thus, the case study represents the most common pathway of LUC and biodiversity change in the world's largest savanna. Tree abundance, mammal occupancy, and tree- and mammal-species richness showed a non-linear relationship with agricultural expansion (characterised by the Land Division Index, LDI). These occurrence and diversity metrics increased at intermediate LDI (0.3 to 0.7), started decreasing beyond LDI > 0.7, and underwent high levels of decline at extreme levels of agricultural expansion (LDI > 0.9). Despite similarities in species richness responses, the two taxonomic groups showed contrasting β-diversity patterns in response to increasing LDI: increased dissimilarity among tree communities (heterogenisation) and high similarity among mammals (homogenisation). Our analysis along a gradient of landscape-scale land use intensification allows a novel understanding of the impacts of different levels of land conversion, which can help guide land use and restoration policy. Biodiversity loss in this miombo landscape was lower than would be inferred from existing global syntheses of biodiversity-land use relations for Africa or the tropics, probably because such syntheses take a fully converted landscape as the endpoint. As, currently, most African savanna landscapes are a mosaic of savanna habitats and small scale agriculture, biodiversity loss is probably lower than in current global estimates, albeit with a trend towards further conversion. However, at extreme levels of land use change (LDI > 0.9 or < 15% habitat cover) miombo biodiversity appears to be more sensitive to LUC than inferred from the meta-analyses. To mitigate the worst effects of land use on biodiversity, our results suggest that miombo landscapes should retain > 25% habitat cover and avoid LDI > 0.75—after which species richness of both groups begin to decline. Our findings indicate that tree diversity may be easier to restore from natural restoration than mammal diversity, which became spatially homogeneous.

Mind Bending, Mental Seduction and Menticide: Brainwashing in British Spy Dramas of the 1960s

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Burton
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Thought Control ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Scientific Background ◽  
Mind Control ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Cultural Fantasy

Brainwashing assumed the proportions of a cultural fantasy during the Cold War period. The article examines the various political, scientific and cultural contexts of brainwashing, and proceeds to a consideration of the place of mind control in British spy dramas made for cinema and television in the 1960s and 1970s. Particular attention is given to the films The Mind Benders (1963) and The Ipcress File (1965), and to the television dramas Man in a Suitcase (1967–8), The Prisoner (1967–8) and Callan (1967–81), which gave expression to the anxieties surrounding thought-control. Attention is given to the scientific background to the representations of brainwashing, and the significance of spy scandals, treasons and treacheries as a distinct context to the appearance of brainwashing on British screens.

Nasser's Gamble

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Original Material ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Arab Spring

This book draws on declassified documents from six countries and original material in Arabic, German, Hebrew, and Russian to present a new understanding of Egypt's disastrous five-year intervention in Yemen, which Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser later referred to as “my Vietnam.” The book argues that Nasser's attempt to export the Egyptian revolution to Yemen played a decisive role in destabilizing Egypt's relations with the Cold War powers, tarnishing its image in the Arab world, ruining its economy, and driving its rulers to instigate the fatal series of missteps that led to war with Israel in 1967. Viewing the Six Day War as an unintended consequence of the Saudi–Egyptian struggle over Yemen, the book demonstrates that the most important Cold War conflict in the Middle East was not the clash between Israel and its neighbors. It was the inter-Arab struggle between monarchies and republics over power and legitimacy. Egypt's defeat in the “Arab Cold War” set the stage for the rise of Saudi Arabia and political Islam. Bold and provocative, this book brings to life a critical phase in the modern history of the Middle East. Its compelling analysis of Egypt's fall from power in the 1960s offers new insights into the decline of Arab nationalism, exposing the deep historical roots of the Arab Spring of 2011.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Critical Systems Thinking ◽  
Critical Systems ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Future Visions

The book proposes that the Cold War period saw a key debate about the future as singular or plural. Forms of Cold War science depicted the future as a closed sphere defined by delimited probabilities, but were challenged by alternative notions of the future as a potentially open realm with limits set only by human creativity. The Cold War was a struggle for temporality between the two different future visions of the two blocs, each armed with its set of predictive technologies, but these were rivaled, from the 1960s on, by future visions emerging from decolonization and the emergence of a set of alternative world futures. Futures research has reflected and enacted this debate. In so doing, it offers a window to the post-war history of the social sciences and of contemporary political ideologies of liberalism and neoliberalism, Marxism and revisionist Marxism, critical-systems thinking, ecologism, and postcolonialism.

Study of Ancient Land Boundaries at Tauric Chersonesos Using Satellite Images

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edgar A. Terekhin ◽  
Tatiana N. Smekalova
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Information Systems ◽  
Geographic Information Systems ◽  
Satellite Images ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Made In

Abstract The near chora (agricultural land) of Tauric Chersonesos was investigated using multiyear remote sensing data and field surveys. The boundaries of the land plots were studied with GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technology and an analysis of satellite images. Reliable reconstruction of the borders has been done for 231 plots (from a total of about 380), which is approximately 53% of the Chersonesean chora. During the last 50 years, most of the ancient land plots have been destroyed by modern buildings, roads, or forests. However, in the 1960s, a significant part of the chora was still preserved. Changes in preservation with time were studied with the aid of satellite images that were made in 1966 and 2015. During that period, it was found that the number of plots with almost-complete preservation decreased from 47 to 0. Those land plots whose preservation was better than 50% dropped from 104 to 4. A temporal map shows this decline in preservation. It was found that the areas of land plots could be determined accurately with satellite images; compared to field surveys, this accuracy was about 99%.

Global Britain's strategic problem East of Suez

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
William D. James
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Political Incentives ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Permanent Presence

Abstract Why did Britain withdraw from its military bases in the Arabian Peninsula and Southeast Asia midway through the Cold War? Existing accounts tend to focus on Britain's weak economic position, as well as the domestic political incentives of retrenchment for the ruling Labour Party. This article offers an alternative explanation: the strategic rationale for retaining a permanent presence East of Suez dissolved during the 1960s, as policymakers realised that these military bases were consuming more security than they could generate. These findings have resonance for British officials charting a return East of Suez today under the banner of ‘Global Britain’.

scholarly journals Standing deadwood for keystone bird species in the eastern boreal forest: Managing for snag dynamics

2009 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Drapeau ◽  
Antoine Nappi ◽  
Louis Imbeau ◽  
Michel Saint-Germain
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Keystone Species ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Forest Harvesting ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Forestry Practices ◽  
Tree Retention ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
Managed Landscapes

Extensive even-aged management of the boreal forest and its consequences on the loss of late-seral stages (>100 years) is raising concerns about the future of organisms associated with standing deadwood. The considerable reduction of deadwood not only at the stand but at the landscape level is considered to be one of the principal causes of biodiversity loss in managed forest ecosystems worldwide. Ecosystem-oriented management approaches propose a fundamental change in forestry practices whereby live and dead tree retention becomes an important consideration in forest harvesting. We use woodpecker assemblages and their association with standing deadwood for both nesting and foraging to emphasize the importance of the entire range of snag degradation stages for maintenance of key ecological processes in habitat remnants of managed landscapes. We argue that bridging foraging and nesting knowledge of woodpecker’s snag requirements can refine conservation objectives for deadwood retention in the boreal forest. Key words: deadwood, woodpeckers, hole-nesting community, late-seral forests, keystone species, foraging and nesting tree requirements, food webs, nest webs, snag management

Tropical Russian Bears: Jews and Soviet Animation During The Cold War

Images ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-90
Author(s):  
Maya Balakirsky Katz
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
Mickey Mouse ◽  
Social Mapping ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

After Stalin consolidated the major animation studios and closed down smaller regional studios to create a single Moscow-based drawn and puppet animation studio in 1934–36, the animation studio Soyuzmultfilm became the largest animation studio in Eastern Europe. In the 1960s, Soviet Jewish animators focused on the theme of social geography and developed individual characters in relationship to social mapping. This essay analyses the enigmatic Cheburashka, the Soviet Mickey Mouse, whose popularity as a Communist ideal led to his starring role as Soyuzmultfilm’s most enduring logo. It is particularly concerned with the development of the ethnically-unidentifiable Cheburashka against the history of the Moscow Zoo and its inter-species exhibitions.

Sweden, Europe, and the Cold War: A Reappraisal

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryo Makko
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Third World ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Democratic Socialism ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

Traditionally, Sweden has been portrayed as an active bridge-builder in international politics in the 1960s and 1970s. The country advocated a “third way” toward democratic socialism and greater “justice” in international affairs, but these foreign policy prescriptions were never applied to European affairs. This article examines Sweden's relations with Europe by contrasting European integration with the Cold War. Negotiations on Swedish membership in the European Communities and Swedish policy at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe were influenced by a general Berührungsangst toward Europe, which persisted during the years of détente. Because Swedish decision-makers believed that heavy involvement in European affairs would constrict Sweden's freedom of action, Swedish leaders' moral proclamations were applied exclusively to distant Third World countries rather than the egregious abuses of human rights in the Soviet bloc.

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