scholarly journals Dominant carnivore loss benefits native avian and invasive mammalian scavengers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew W Fielding ◽  
Calum X Cunningham ◽  
Jessie C Buettel ◽  
Dejan Stojanovic ◽  
Menna E Jones ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Native Forest ◽  
Large Carnivores ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Carnivore Conservation ◽  
Feral Cat ◽  
Energy Flows ◽  
The World ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
Trophic Shifts

Scavenging by large carnivores is integral for ecosystem functioning by limiting the build-up of carrion and facilitating widespread energy flows. However, top carnivores have declined across the world, triggering trophic shifts within ecosystems. In this study, we use a natural 'removal experiment' of disease-driven decline and island extirpation of native mammalian (marsupial) carnivores to investigate top-down control on utilisation of experimentally placed carcasses by two mesoscavengers - the invasive feral cat and native forest raven. Ravens were the main beneficiary of carnivore loss, scavenging for five times longer in the absence of native mammalian carnivores. Cats scavenged on almost half of all carcasses in the region without dominant native carnivores. This was eight times more than in areas where other carnivores were at high densities. In the absence of native mammalian carnivores, all carcasses persisted in the environment for 3 weeks. Our results reveal the efficiency of carrion consumption by mammalian scavengers. These services are not readily replaced by less-efficient facultative scavengers. This demonstrates the significance of global carnivore conservation and supports novel management approaches, such as rewilding in areas where the natural suite of carnivores is missing.

scholarly journals Actually existing smart citizens: expertise and (non)participation in the making of the smart city

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Shelton ◽  
Thomas Lodato
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The World ◽  
Number Of Individuals

In response to the mounting criticism of emerging ‘smart cities’ strategies around the world, a number of individuals and institutions have attempted to pivot from discussions of smart cities towards a focus on ‘smart citizens’. While the smart citizen is most often seen as a kind of foil for those more stereotypically top-down, neoliberal, and repressive visions of the smart city that have been widely critiqued within the literature, this paper argues for an attention to the ‘actually existing smart citizen’, which plays a much messier and more ambivalent role in practice. This paper proposes the dual figures of ‘the general citizen’ and ‘the absent citizen’ as a heuristic for thinking about how the lines of inclusion and exclusion are drawn for citizens, both discursively and materially, in the actual making of the smart city. These figures are meant to highlight how the universal and unspecified figure of ‘the citizen’ is discursively deployed to justify smart city policies, while at the same time, actual citizens remain largely excluded from such decision and policy-making processes. Using a case study of Atlanta, Georgia and its ongoing smart cities initiatives, we argue that while the participation of citizens is crucial to any truly democratic mode of urban governance, the emerging discourse around the promise of smart citizenship fails to capture the realities of how citizens are actually discussed and enrolled in the making of these policies.

scholarly journals Selective top-down control of epiphytic biomass by amphipods from Posidonia oceanica meadows: implications for ecosystem functioning

2020 ◽  
Vol 145 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Loïc N. Michel ◽  
Patrick Dauby ◽  
Alessandra Dupont ◽  
Sylvie Gobert
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Posidonia Oceanica ◽  
Seagrass Species ◽  
Coastal Zones ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Essential Components ◽  
Mutualistic Relationship ◽  
N Enrichment ◽  
Adequate Data ◽  
Endangered Ecosystems

Mediterranean Posidonia oceanica meadows shelter an important biomass and biodiversity of amphipod crustaceans that graze on epiphytes. However, their actual significance for ecosystem functional processes is hard to estimate, due to the lack of adequate data. Here, a field microcosm-based inclusion experiment was used to test if three of the dominant taxa of the amphipod community (Apherusa chiereghinii, Dexamine spiniventris and Gammarus spp.) could exert top-down control on seagrass leaf epiphytes. Influence of amphipod activity on nutrient availability for the host species was also investigated. All grazer taxa significantly reduced biomasses of erect macroalgae and erect sessile animals present on leaves. None of them consumed encrusting epiflora or epifauna. This selective top-down control could have important implications for the structure of the epiphytic community on leaves of P. oceanica, which is one of the most diverse and abundant of all seagrass species. Grazing activity of all taxa caused higher N content of seagrass leaves, likely through amphipod excretion and/or sloppy feeding. Since P. oceanica meadows often grow in oligotrophic zones where plant growth can be nutrient-limited, this N enrichment could enhance seagrass production. Overall, the ecological interaction between P. oceanica and amphipods could be seen as a facultative mutualistic relationship. Our results suggest that amphipod mesograzers are key-elements in some of the functional processes regulating these complex and yet endangered ecosystems, which are essential components of Mediterranean coastal zones.

scholarly journals Attentional mechanisms drive systematic exploration in young children

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel J. Blanco ◽  
Vladimir Sloutsky
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Information Gathering ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Attention Allocation ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Distributed Attention ◽  
Systematic Exploration ◽  
The World ◽  
Attentional Mechanisms

Exploration is critical for discovering how the world works. Exploration should be particularlyvaluable for young children, who have little knowledge about the world. Theories of decision- making describe systematic exploration as being primarily driven by top-down cognitive control, which is immature in young children. Recent research suggests that a type of systematic exploration predominates in young children’s choices, despite immature control, suggesting that it may be driven by different mechanisms. We hypothesize that young children’s tendency to distribute attention widely promotes elevated exploration, and that interrupting distributed attention allocation through bottom-up attentional capture would also disrupt systematic exploration. We test this hypothesis by manipulating saliency of the options in a simple choice task. Saliency disrupted systematic exploration, thus indicating that attentional mechanisms may drive children’s systematic exploratory behavior. We suggest that both may be part of a larger tendency toward broad information gathering in young children.

State Actor Dynamics in Brunei’s Healthcare Policies

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syazana Fauzi
Keyword(s):  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
World Health Organisation ◽  
The State ◽  
World Health ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The World ◽  
Prevention And Treatment ◽  
State Actor ◽  
State Actors

This study seeks to ascertain the state actor dynamics in Brunei’s healthcare policies from the perspectives of an Islamic system of governance, by first identifying the state actors, or institutions, involved in influencing, formulating and implementing Brunei’s healthcare policies. The ‘IGC Matrix’ is employed to establish the Islamic health ‘sets of expectations’ (SoEs), particularly in terms of prevention and treatment, and medical ethics, primarily derived from the Qur’ān and Prophet Muhammadﷺ’s Sunnah, in order to construct for this study a framework of reference. The SoEs are then compared against Brunei’s healthcare policies and activities to determine how much of the Islamic health SoEs are met. This study reveals that Brunei’s healthcare policies are largely motivated by non-Islamic inspirations, specifically by the World Health Organisation (WHO), but with numerous overlaps with Islamic demands. In other words, Brunei’s healthcare policies may be stemmed from a non-Islamic influence, but it does not necessarily mean that they are un-Islamic. And most, if not all, of Brunei’s healthcare policies demonstrate a top-down approach, where the state actors play a crucial role in shaping Brunei’s dynamical SoEs.

Trust, but verify.. Power relations and control practices in a smart working environment

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-50
Author(s):  
Silvia Doria
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Top Down ◽  
New Ways Of Working ◽  
The World ◽  
Relevant Role ◽  
Smart Working ◽  
Banking Institution ◽  
And Control

The world of working is changing and the technological transformations are playing a relevant role in this change. In particular, new technologies are making the physical boundaries of traditional offices increasingly permeable, allowing the diffusion of New Ways of Working (Demerouti et al., 2014; Koops and Helms, 2014), such as smart working. This paper, based on a qualitative research and discursive interviews, intends to reflect on the introduction and top-down management of smart working within a banking institution. At the same time, it aims to grasp the role attributed to and played by technology in its implementation. Starting from the two reconstructed stories, I shall show if and how the innovations introduced whereby technologies enable us to work remotely, are changing existing power relations and what control dynamics emerge from the field.

Shapes of Threats in the Global South

2020 ◽  
pp. 110-165
Author(s):  
Shalin Hai-Jew
Keyword(s):  
Public Awareness ◽  
National Level ◽  
Global South ◽  
Potential Response ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Social Image ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Images ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Image Representations

What do “threats” look like in the Global South in tagged social imagery, and what can these respective imagesets suggest about (1) formal outreaches to the broader publics by strategic messengers, (2) public awareness of such threats and their potential response role, and (3) the apparent (root) causes of these threats and possible risk mitigations? Are there visual differences in the senses of threat to the Global South as compared to the world? Finally, global and national-level frameworks about global threats were captured from international and national entities and used to recode the selected social images in a top-down way and to understand if there are gaps in social image representations about threats in the Global South and what these gaps may mean in public awareness of threats and preparedness.

Volunteering at Landsmót: gaining knowledge and experience.

2021 ◽  
pp. 99-112
Author(s):  
Kari Jæger ◽  
Guðrún Helgadóttir
Keyword(s):  
Volunteer Management ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
The Core ◽  
Icelandic Horse ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
International Volunteer ◽  
Core Activity

Abstract Landsmót (the National Championship of the Icelandic horse), the main equestrian event in Iceland, provides an opportunity to present Icelandic nature and culture in many ways, through horses, clothing, equipment and food. Landsmót is a biennial sports event which has become a meeting place for local and national participants (audience and volunteers) and also international audiences and volunteer tourists. It provides access to what is commonly termed 'the world of the Icelandic horse'. The findings in this chapter are based on interviews with volunteers and fieldwork at the Landsmót event at Hólar, Iceland, in 2016. There were two types of volunteers at the event: volunteer tourists who signed up due to their interest in the core activity; and members of local non-profit associations that took on tasks for the event as a fundraising activity. The findings suggest that these two groups require different volunteer management approaches and that a clearer strategy for managing international volunteer tourists is needed to meet their needs and expectations of the event community and to facilitate their co-creation of memorable experiences.

Lions do not change rivers: Complex African savannas preclude top-down forcing by large carnivores

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 125844
Author(s):  
Jessica Comley ◽  
Christoffel J. Joubert ◽  
Nokubonga Mgqatsa ◽  
Dan M. Parker
Keyword(s):  
Large Carnivores ◽  
Top Down

scholarly journals The world city network: Evaluating top-down versus bottom-up approaches

Cities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 287-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Lüthi ◽  
Alain Thierstein ◽  
Michael Hoyler
Keyword(s):  
World City ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
World City Network ◽  
The World ◽  
City Network

Urban Growth Management: Approaches, Experiences and Implications to China’s Urban Planning

2011 ◽  
Vol 243-249 ◽  
pp. 6725-6728
Author(s):  
Zhen Long Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Sprawl ◽  
Urban Growth ◽  
Growth Management ◽  
Land Resources ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
Urban Growth Management ◽  
Made In

Chinese cities expanded and developed at an astounding rate of growth during the past three decades. The consequence rise in exorbitant consumption of land resources and the impacts on the environment were recognized accordantly. Urban growth management, as one of the effective approaches to solve the problems caused by urban sprawl, has become a subject for broad discussion in the field of urban planning in the world. It is necessary to shape a union framework of growth management between national and local government. And it is recognized that these urban growth management decisions must be made in a more comprehensive and consistent intergovernmental manner. The purpose of this study is to contribute to current planning thought and practice by providing some insights into how urban growth management can be utilized to contribute to a more sustainable urban future in China.

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