scholarly journals Trees and their seed networks: The social dynamics of urban fruit trees and implications for genetic diversity

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e0243017
Author(s):  
Aurore Rimlinger ◽  
Marie-Louise Avana ◽  
Abdon Awono ◽  
Armel Chakocha ◽  
Alexis Gakwavu ◽  
...  

Trees are a traditional component of urban spaces where they provide ecosystem services critical to urban wellbeing. In the Tropics, urban trees’ seed origins have rarely been characterized. Yet, understanding the social dynamics linked to tree planting is critical given their influence on the distribution of associated genetic diversity. This study examines elements of these dynamics (seed exchange networks) in an emblematic indigenous fruit tree species from Central Africa, the African plum tree (Dacryodes edulis, Burseraceae), within the urban context of Yaoundé. We further evaluate the consequences of these social dynamics on the distribution of the genetic diversity of the species in the city. Urban trees were planted predominantly using seeds sourced from outside the city, resulting in a level of genetic diversity as high in Yaoundé as in a whole region of production of the species. Debating the different drivers that foster the genetic diversity in planted urban trees, the study argues that cities and urban dwellers can unconsciously act as effective guardians of indigenous tree genetic diversity.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurore Rimlinger ◽  
Marie-Louise Avana ◽  
Abdon Awono ◽  
Armel Chakocha ◽  
Alexis Gakwavu ◽  
...  

AbstractTrees are a traditional component of urban spaces where they provide ecosystem services critical to urban wellbeing. In the Tropics, urban trees’ seed origins have rarely been characterized. Yet, understanding the social dynamics linked to tree planting is critical given their influence on the distribution of associated genetic diversity. This study examines elements of these dynamics (seed exchange networks) in an emblematic indigenous fruit tree species from Central Africa, the African plum tree (Dacryodes edulis, Burseraceae), within the urban context of Yaoundé. We further evaluate the consequences of these social dynamics on the distribution of the genetic diversity of the species in the city. Urban trees were planted predominantly using seeds sourced from outside the city, resulting in a level of genetic diversity as high in Yaoundé as in a whole region of production of the species. Debating the different drivers that foster the genetic diversity in planted urban trees, the study argued that cities and urban dwellers can unconsciously act as effective guardians of indigenous tree genetic diversity.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ciro José Jardim de Figueiredo ◽  
Caroline Maria de Miranda Mota

The aim of this paper is to map the most favorable locations for the occurrence of robberies in the Brazilian city through the multicriteria method Dominance-Based Rough Set Approach. Considering the city divisions with alternatives and evaluating by several spatial criteria, a decision-maker is building a preference model with based previous knowledge. Next, decision rules induced from preference information are introduced to the spatial environment to get the results. The decision rules can be seen as conditional part (represented by criteria) and decision part (assignment to decision classes). The rules classify all the alternatives according to security level. Moreover, the rules help to understand the social dynamics of the city and to assist in the proposition of strategies against violence.


Al-Albab ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Saidin Ernas

The social dynamics in post-conflict Ambon, Maluku, 1999-2004, indicated that even though people were segregated in the ​​Islamic-Christian areas, gradually social integration began to occur naturally. The process of integration that occurred also gave birth to new values ​​and inclusive views that give hope to future peace building. Using the theory of social integration of dynamic adaptation of the Parsonian structural-functional classic paradigm and combined with a qualitative research model, this study successfully formulated several important findings. First, social integration occurred in the city of Ambon could run naturally through economic interactions, consensus on political balance and inclusive religious spirit. In addition, the presence of public spaces such as offices, schools, malls and coffee shops served as a natural integration medium that is increasingly important in the dynamics of the society. Second, the new social integration has created an increasingly important meaning that leads to a model of active harmony characterized by a process of the increasingly active social interaction between different religions, as well as strengthening pluralism and multiculturalism insight due to campaign by educational institutions and civil society groups. Third, this study also reminds us that although there has been a process of the increasingly positive social integration in Ambon city, people still need to be aware of the growth of radical religious ideologies at a certain level, and also of strengthening identity politics in the long run that will potentially give birth to primordial and ethnocentric attitudes that are harmful to the development of peace.


2021 ◽  
pp. 353-358
Author(s):  
Antonio García García ◽  
Juan Francisco Ojeda Rivera ◽  
Francisco José Torres Gutiérrez

Luz Marina García Herrera, professor at the University of La Laguna, colleague, teacher and friend, passed away in June 2020. A reference in Spanish Urban Geography, her contribution to the debate on the shaping of the city and the social dynamics inherent to it has opened up timely and necessary lines of work. She anchors her background in the interpretation of urban social processes under capitalism, focusing on key issues such as marginal developments, gentrification mechanisms or different facets of urban segregation. In addition she also approaches other issues in which we have been able to share time and space with her. Among them the constant and changing conditioning between physical and social environments in the city and consequences, or the reading of public spaces, their use and appropriation keys, as an indicator of cohesion as well as an instrument for the transformation of specific realities. All of this, and even more his commitment and his profound humanity, which we are proud to have learned from, motivate these lines.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-98
Author(s):  
Chee Huang Seah ◽  
Shawn Eng Kiong Teo

Within the past three years, the Singapore government has completed three integrated community hubs around the island. In tandem with the state's decentralization plan of 1991, such large-scale communal architecture plays a significant role in rejuvenating the heartlands and fostering a sense of place as towns mature. These nodal developments leverage on its urban context and programmatic offerings in a bid to generate a sustainable hub ecology for the city. Integrating various national and community stakeholders within a single development might seem like a literal trope for a whole-of-government approach to co-locate, co-share and collaborate. Through Our Tampines Hub, we examine the complexities of Singapore's first integrated hub. While validating the post-occupancy performance of the development, we also re flect and analyse specific design strategies and processes that aid in the social production of this mega community space. Through the theoretical underpinnings of largescale communal architecture as social condensers, this paper seeks to investigate the role and productive potential of this emerging shared urban model of integrated communal architecture in Singapore. It examines not only economic value in the land and space optimization harnessed, but also the new designs produced in the governance framework, closed-loop environmental outcomes and social impetus.


Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802110519
Author(s):  
Robert Musil ◽  
Florian Brand ◽  
Hannes Huemer ◽  
Maximilian Wonaschütz

This article intends to contribute to the debate on the quantification of gentrification, which is constrained by two main obstacles: firstly, the operationalisation of displacement of socially weak households, which appears as an elusive phenomenon. Secondly, the consideration of the specific urban context, in particular the regulation of the housing market. Based on a case study for Vienna, this paper introduces a new empirical approach, which does not focus on households, but on the tenement conversion of the historic housing stock. Here, the transformation as legal conversion and demolition of historic tenement houses (German: Zinshäuser) serve as an alternative indicator for the operationalisation and quantification of displacement processes. The empirical analysis of Zinshaus transformations observed for 2007-2019 for the first time provides an estimation of gentrification dynamics in Vienna. Results point to a pronounced cyclicality in transformation dynamics. Hence, spatial cluster and hotspot analyses reveal a strong concentration of Zinshaus transformations and a clear shift from central bourgeois to peripheral working-class neighbourhoods. Further, a multilinear regression model confirms the impact of Zinshaus transformations on the social dynamics in these neighbourhoods. However, data do not indicate a social shift triggered by upper-class households, but by new migrant groups and well-educated middle-class households. Beyond the case of Vienna, this analysis underlines the relevance of quantitative gentrification approaches based on housing-market segments and their conversion. It proposes applying the Zinshaus as an indicator to make the variety of the urban context visible.


Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (7) ◽  
pp. 1469-1484
Author(s):  
Sara Fuller

Cities are important sites for interrogating the social, scalar and spatial dynamics that underpin climate responsibility. To date, however, there is limited theoretical and empirical understanding about how discourses, practices and politics of climate responsibility might be enacted in the urban context. This gap is particularly significant in the Asia Pacific – a region characterised by high rates of economic growth and rapid urbanisation alongside extreme poverty and exposure to the effects of climate change. This article explores the politics of urban climate responsibility in two cities – Hong Kong and Singapore. Based on empirical research with NGOs, it considers if and how cities have a responsibility to act on climate change, how such responsibility may be configured within the city, and the role of international and regional dynamics in creating and maintaining climate responsibility. The article reframes the contested and contingent geographies of urban climate responsibility through the dimensions of attribution, production and spatialisation before drawing out implications for climate justice and resilience in the Asia Pacific region.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 263-286
Author(s):  
Jessica Parish

In 21st century Toronto, the labour of caring for urban trees is entangled with both gentrification processes and the social reproduction of settler colonial space. This paper contributes to the study of environmental gentrification through a study of the social reproduction of settler colonial relations to land in the Parkdale–High Park area of Toronto. Specifically, I take up the hyper-visibility of some forms of social reproduction, in order to shed light on how the mundane, quotidian ‘non-work’ of living in/with/for capitalism becomes a site of privilege and a luxury pursuit for more affluent residents. The paper highlights the processes and practices whereby settler colonial urban subjects seek out ‘nature’ as a temporary outside where they can escape from widely accepted downsides of capitalist urbanism, including a diverse array of social and physical ills, from stress, to obesity, to ecological degradation. The paper asks: whose social reproduction does the presence of urban trees serve? In the context of 21st century financialized gentrification, cities are increasingly normalized as spaces of wealth and luxury. It is therefore crucial to pay attention to the raced, gendered, and colonial micro-politics through which urban ecologies are transformed in the service of an anti-democratic vision of the city as a space of leisure and luxury.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-132
Author(s):  
Saghar Sadeghian

This article is about the struggles of a persecuted confessional minority in Qajar Iran. It shows that the massacre of the Bahāʾis in Isfahan in 1903 was representative of the ongoing power struggles in the city. Previous scholarship that has briefly explored these events has relied primarily on a handful of British diplomatic sources. Drawing on unexplored documents in British and Iranian archives, this article provides crucial details about the social dynamics on the ground and stresses the role of key actors involved in this episode in Iranian history. In the process, the article puts together the socio-economic contexts of the events in Isfahan, explains why the Bahāʾis sought foreign protection, and analyzes the attitudes of powerful local actors such as Zell al-Soltān and Āqā Najafi.


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