scholarly journals The war of corals: patterns, drivers, and implications of changing coral competitive performances across reef environments

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Kayal ◽  
Mehdi Adjeroud

AbstractAmidst global environmental changes, predicting species responses to future environments is a critical challenge for preserving biodiversity and associated human benefits. We explored the original idea that coral competitive performances, the ability of corals to preempt ecological space on the reef through territorial warfare, serve as indicators of species’ ecological niches and environmental windows, and therefore, responses to future environments. Our surveys indicated that coral performances varied with taxonomic-identity, size, and position along environmental gradients, highlighting complex interplays between life-history, warfare-strategy, and niche segregation. Our results forewarn that growing alterations of coastal environments may trigger shifts in coral dominance, with decline of major reef-building taxa like acroporids, and underscore the importance of restraining human impacts for coastal resilience. Our empirical approach untangles the complexity of species’ battle-like interactions and can help identify winners and losers in various communities caught in the interplay between ecological niches, environmental windows, and global changes.

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1887-1894 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Dukes ◽  
Nona R. Chiariello ◽  
Scott R. Loarie ◽  
Christopher B. Field

Author(s):  
Claude-Hélène Mayer

Wildlife crime has huge consequences regarding global environmental changes to animals, plants and the entire ecosystem. Combatting wildlife crime effectively requires a deep understanding of human–wildlife interactions and an analysis of the influencing factors. Conservation and green criminology are important in reducing wildlife crime, protecting wildlife and the ecosystem and informing policy-makers about best practices and strategies. However, the past years have shown that wildlife crime is not easy to combat and it is argued in this article that there are underlying existential “givens” and culture-specific aspects that need to be investigated to understand why wildlife crime is still on the rise. This theoretical article explores (eco-)existential perspectives, Greening’s four givens and selected African philosophical concepts, aiming to understand the complexities behind the prevalence of wildlife crime within global and African contexts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-122
Author(s):  
João Vitor Gobis Verges ◽  
Nivea Massaretto Verges

ResumoAs Alterações Ambientais Globais têm se colocado como pauta de inúmeras políticas e condicionantes culturais, econômicas e sociais em diferentes países no Mundo, sendo refletidas nas perspectivas educacionais. Dessa forma, procura-se, com este trabalho, apontar um cenário de concepção e de prática sobre as alterações ambientais globais no escopo do ensino de Geografia na educação profissional e tecnológica. Nesse sentido, o objetivo da pesquisa se assentou em desvelar os seguintes aspectos: 1) mecanismos metodológicos para as aulas desenvolvidas; 2) eixos analíticos sobre as Alterações Ambientais Globais; 3) instrumentos utilizados; 4) referenciais teóricos; 6) papel do livro didático; 7) enfoques formativos dos docentes. Para isto, foi aplicado um questionário a docentes de uma instituição da rede federal de educação profissional e tecnológica no Brasil, denominada Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia. O questionário foi empregado para 11 docentes, apresentando interrogações sobre os itens acima enumerados. Obteve-se como resultado que há o predomínio de aulas expositivas e seminários, as análises sobre o tema ocorrem, majoritariamente, pelas mudanças climáticas e desmatamento, as aulas se baseiam em maior parte nos documentários e gráficos, há a prevalência de referenciais teóricos brasileiros, ocorre a constatação ampla de que os livros didáticos são deficitários e mais de 35% dos professores consideram que suas formações não possuem enfoque para o trabalho com as Alterações Ambientais Globais. Palavras-chave: Prática Docente. Meio Ambiente. Didática. AbstractGlobal Environmental Changes have been placed on the agenda of numerous policies, cultural, economic and social conditions in different countries in the world, being reflected in educational perspectives. Thus, this work seeks to point out a scenario of conception and practice on global environmental changes in the scope of teaching Geography in professional and technological education. In this sense, the objective of the research was based on unveiling the following aspects: 1) methodological mechanisms for the developed classes; 2) analytical axes on Global Environmental Changes; 3) instruments used; 4) theoretical references; 6) the textbook role; 7) teachers training approaches. For this, a questionnaire was applied to teachers of an institution of the federal network of professional and technological education in Brazil, called Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology. The questionnaire was answered by 11 teachers, asking questions about the items listed above. It was obtained as a result that there is a predominance of expository classes and seminars, the analyzes on the subject are mainly due to climate change and deforestation, the classes are mostly based on documentaries and graphics, there is a prevalence of Brazilian theoretical references, it occurs the widespread finding that textbooks are deficient and more than 35% of teachers consider that their training does not have a focus on working with Global Environmental Changes. Keywords: Teacher Practice. Environment. Didactic.


Check List ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 940 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Fernandes Rodrigues Alves ◽  
Samara De Paiva Barros-Alves ◽  
Valter José Cobo ◽  
Daniel José Marcondes Lima ◽  
Adilson Fransozo

Biodiversity can be useful as an ecosystem indicator for conservation and monitoring, through continuous assessment of its main properties including stability, primary productivity, exploitation tolerance and even global environmental changes. The main purpose of this study was to provide a checklist of the crabs associated with subtidal rocky bottoms at the Vitoria Archipelago, southeastern Brazilian coast. Monthly collections were carried out from February 2004 through January 2006 on three islands at the Vitória Archipelago (23°44’S-45°01’W). The crabs were hand-caught by SCUBA divers during the daytime, in rock subtidal. A total of 3084 individuals were caught, belonging to 42 species, 28 genera, and 12 families, highlighting Mithraculus forceps (1528) and Stenorhynchus seticornis (407) representing more than 60% of the sample. On the other hand, Dromia erythropus, Moreiradromia antilensis, Ebalia stimpsoni, Garthiope spinipes and Tumidotheres maculatus had only one individual sampled.


Micromachines ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongsheng Luo ◽  
Jinglun Zhao ◽  
Chunpeng He ◽  
Zuhong Lu ◽  
Xiaolin Lu

Methodologies for coral polyps culture and real-time monitoring are important in investigating the effects of the global environmental changes on coral reefs and marine biology. However, the traditional cultivation method is limited in its ability to provide a rapid and dynamic microenvironment to effectively exchange the chemical substances and simulate the natural environment change. Here, an integrated microdevice with continuous perfusion and temperature-control in the microenvironment was fabricated for dynamic individual coral polyps culture. For a realistic mimicry of the marine ecological environment, we constructed the micro-well based microfluidics platform that created a fluid flow environment with a low shear rate and high substance transfer, and developed a sensitive temperature control system for the long-term culture of individual coral polyps. This miniaturized platform was applied to study the individual coral polyps in response to the temperature change for evaluating the coral death caused by El Nino. The experimental results demonstrated that the microfluidics platform could provide the necessary growth environment for coral polyps as expected so that in turn the biological activity of individual coral polyps can quickly be recovered. The separation between the algae and host polyp cells were observed in the high culture temperature range and the coral polyp metabolism was negatively affected. We believe that our culture platform for individual coral polyps can provide a reliable analytical approach for model and mechanism investigations of coral bleaching and reef conservation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 261-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Frumkin ◽  
Andy Haines

Multiple global environmental changes (GECs) now under way, including climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater depletion, tropical deforestation, overexploitation of fisheries, ocean acidification, and soil degradation, have substantial, but still imperfectly understood, implications for human health. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) make a major contribution to the global burden of disease. Many of the driving forces responsible for GEC also influence NCD risk through a range of mechanisms. This article provides an overview of pathways linking GEC and NCDs, focusing on five pathways: ( a) energy, air pollution, and climate change; ( b) urbanization; ( c) food, nutrition, and agriculture; ( d) the deposition of persistent chemicals in the environment; and ( e) biodiversity loss.


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