scholarly journals Dynamic Role and Importance of Multi-Kingdom Communities in Mediterranean Wood-Pastures

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 10179
Author(s):  
Eleni Topalidou ◽  
Alexandra D. Solomou ◽  
Susana S. Santos ◽  
Evdokia Krystallidou ◽  
Styliani Kakara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Vascular Plant ◽  
Soil Protection ◽  
Ecosystem Structure ◽  
Ecological Research ◽  
Sustainable Rural Development ◽  
Conservation Policies ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Ecosystem Structure And Functioning

Wood-pastures are among the most valuable types of farmland for ecosystem services, including biodiversity, landscape, soil protection, water management and cultural values. This paper reviews the scientific literature regarding the dynamic role and importance of plant, fungal and ruminant communities in Mediterranean wood-pastures and assesses the favorable and unfavorable aspects of their occurrence through grazing management. The grasslands of the Mediterranean region play an important role both in forage material production and the conservation of biodiversity in plant communities and at the landscape level. These two management purposes are not conflicting but complementary when the management is based upon the knowledge of the effect of grazing on the ecology of these ecosystems. Conclusively, vascular plant, fungal and ruminant communities have a strong influence on ecosystem structure and functioning and they play a key role in many ecological services. Hence, integrated studies which combine multi-level ecological research are essential in order to identify regional and/or national needs in terms of biodiversity, genetic resources, sustainable rural development and conservation policies.

scholarly journals Fire’s Effects on Grassland Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 12016
Author(s):  
Hui Yan ◽  
Guixiang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Research Progress ◽  
Ecosystem Structure ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Conservation Policies ◽  
Grassland Ecosystems ◽  
Biodiversity Change ◽  
Ecosystem Level ◽  
Ecosystem Structure And Functioning

Ecosystem succession and biodiversity change associated with grassland fires are crucial for the patterns and dynamics of ecosystem functioning and services. The reactions to fire by different grassland types vary diversely, and are determined by certain species assemblages and environments. However, there are still uncertainties concerning the role of fire in affecting grassland ecosystems and how the effects are sustained. By conducting a bibliometric analysis of related articles indexed in the Web of Science between 1984 and 2020, we firstly described the general trend of these articles over the recent decades (1984–2020). The major research progress in the effects of fire on grassland ecosystems was then systematically summarized based on three levels (individual level, community level, and ecosystem level) with eight topics. We concluded that strong persistence or resistance of adapted individuals facilitated community conversion to a novel environment, which temporally and spatially interacted with ecological factors. The novel habitats could maintain more frequent fires and change an ecosystem structure and functioning. Nonetheless, the transformation of ecosystem states will present more uncertainties on prospective succession trajectories, global carbon storage, and subsequent biodiversity conservation. This review is important to flourish biodiversity, as well as aid conservation policies and strategy making.

FIELDS OF DREAMS, FIELDS OF SCHEMES: PONZI FINANCE AND MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING IN SOUTH AFRICA

Africa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlev Krige
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
New Members ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
Liberal Capitalism ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Pyramid Schemes ◽  
Social Logics

ABSTRACTThe structural conditions associated with increased inequality amidst rapid change brought about by growing financialization and efforts to get the ‘unbanked’ sections of society into the formal financial system have created the conditions under which illegal pyramid and ponzi schemes, fake investment schemes, and legal multi-level marketing companies have been able to flourish. In contemporary Johannesburg and Soweto the originators of money multiplication schemes and the agents who ‘work’ to recruit new members position themselves in this context as financial entrepreneurs and brokers who embody a range of seemingly contradictory discourses, drawing on discourses of ‘empowerment’, ‘self-help’, ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘religiously sanctioned wealth and prosperity’ in the course of their risk taking in the field of finance. Based on a series of case studies of female agents of ‘push-push’ schemes, the article shows how many of these discourses reflect some of the conditions of contemporary capitalism: citizens are expected to be active investors, active entrepreneurs and hard workers who are able to work from home and without a boss. Moreover, the schemes use sophisticated technologies, marketing strategies and other practices which simulate formality, legality and sincerity – echoing religious practices and discourses. At the same time a set of cultural values and social logics that are not necessarily produced by neo-liberal capitalism and financialization, but are certainly activated by them, makes it hard for citizens to recognize or admit the forms of deception involved, unless deception is seen to be central to the operation of the modern state or the present ‘get-rich-quick’ culture. Risk taking, and pursuit of social mobility, originate in dual economy legacies, with their unfulfilled expectations, wealth disparities and frustrated class aspiration. Participants in pyramid schemes have ideologies combining ‘progress’ with ‘imminent doom’, entrepreneurship with greed: contradictory attitudes reflective of financialization in the broader world.

scholarly journals Stymulowanie przez nauczycieli aktywności samokształceniowej uczniów klas 1–3 szkoły podstawowej – raport z badań

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-276
Author(s):  
Jolanta Flanz
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Learning Activities ◽  
Independent Learning ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Primary School Students ◽  
School Students ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Grade 3

The necessity of developing students’ competences concerning independent learning is easily noticeable in both Polish and international educational documents as well as in scientific literature. This article contains an attempted answer to a question in what way teachers stimulate independent learning activities of primary school students (grade 1 to grade 3). This was the aim of the research conducted with the help of selected group of teachers from Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. The research checked for instance how the teachers encourage the students to independent learning, how they are formulating their homework tasks, and whether they apply the multi-level learning approach. The results of this study are presented in this report.

scholarly journals The MARAS dataset, vegetation and soil characteristics of dryland rangelands across Patagonia

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Oliva ◽  
Eder dos Santos ◽  
Osiris Sofía ◽  
Fernando Umaña ◽  
Virginia Massara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Analysis ◽  
Soil Surface ◽  
Surface Characteristics ◽  
Spatial Pattern Analysis ◽  
Ecosystem Structure ◽  
Species List ◽  
Plant Soil ◽  
Rangeland Monitoring ◽  
Ecosystem Structure And Functioning ◽  
Line Intercept

Abstract We present the MARAS (Environmental Monitoring of Arid and Semiarid Regions) dataset, which stores vegetation and soil data of 426 rangeland monitoring plots installed throughout Patagonia, a 624.500 km2 area of southern Argentina and Chile. Data for each monitoring plot includes basic climatic and landscape features, photographs, 500 point intercepts for vegetation cover, plant species list and biodiversity indexes, 50-m line-intercept transect for vegetation spatial pattern analysis, land function indexes drawn from 11 measures of soil surface characteristics and laboratory soil analysis (pH, conductivity, organic matter, N and texture). Monitoring plots were installed between 2007 and 2019, and are being reassessed at 5-year intervals (247 have been surveyed twice). The MARAS dataset provides a baseline from which to evaluate the impacts of climate change and changes in land use intensity in Patagonian ecosystems, which collectively constitute one of the world´s largest rangeland areas. This dataset will be of interest to scientists exploring key ecological questions such as biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships, plant-soil interactions and climatic controls on ecosystem structure and functioning.

scholarly journals Balanced harvesting is the bioeconomic equilibrium of a size-structured Beverton-Holt model

2016 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Plank
Keyword(s):  
Single Species ◽  
Size Spectrum ◽  
Ecosystem Structure ◽  
Fishing Mortality ◽  
Biomass Transfer ◽  
Body Sizes ◽  
Relative Production ◽  
Ecosystem Structure And Functioning ◽  
Classical Size ◽  
Spectrum Model

Balanced harvesting (BH) was introduced as an alternative strategy to size-at-entry fishing with the aim of maintaining ecosystem structure and functioning. BH has been criticized on a number of grounds, including that it would require an infeasible level of micromanagement and enforcement. Recent results from a size-spectrum model show that the distribution of fishing mortality across body sizes that emerges from the behaviour of a large number of fishing agents corresponds to BH in a single species. Size-spectrum models differ from classical size-structured models used in fisheries as they are based on a bookkeeping of biomass transfer from prey to predator rather than a von Bertalanffy growth model. Here we investigate a classical Beverton-Holt model coupled with the Gordon-Schaefer harvesting model extended to allow for differential fishing pressure at different body sizes. This models an open-access fishery in which individual fishing agents act to maximize their own economic return. We show that the equilibrium of the harvesting model produces an aggregate fishing mortality that is closely matched to the production at different body sizes, in other words BH of a single species. These results have significant implications because they show that the robustness of BH does not depend on arguments about the relative production levels of small versus large fish.

scholarly journals A feeding guild indicator to assess environmental change impacts on marine ecosystem structure and functioning

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (9) ◽  
pp. 1769-1781 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray S. A. Thompson ◽  
Hugo Pontalier ◽  
Michael A. Spence ◽  
John K. Pinnegar ◽  
Simon P. R. Greenstreet ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Ecosystem Structure ◽  
Feeding Guild ◽  
Ecosystem Structure And Functioning

Fire history in China during the Holocene and its response to the changes in environmental and anthropogenic factors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Xu ◽  
Fang Li ◽  
Zhongda Lin ◽  
Xiang Song
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Anthropogenic Factors ◽  
Ecosystem Structure ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Historical Changes ◽  
Proxy Records ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Ecosystem Structure And Functioning

<p>Fire is an intrinsic feature of terrestrial ecosystem, and a key Earth system process that strongly affects ecosystem structure and functioning , carbon and nutrient cycles, climate, air quality and society. Although local and regional paleo-fires in China have been investigated based on one or several fire-proxy records, so far China’s fire history at the country level and its driving forces remain unknown. The present study, for the first time, reconstructs China’s fire history based on charcoal and black carbon records at 107 sites through the Holocene (12 ka BP to the present in this study), and investigates fire historical changes and dominant drivers. Results show that fire activity over China gradually decline from the Early Holocene (12 ka BP) to the Middle Holocene (7.3 ka BP), followed by a sharp rise till the present age. The historical changes are mainly regulated by moisture change through the whole Holocene, and also affected by population growth and agriculture expansion over the past 2 ka.</p>

Impact of Tourism on Sustainable Development of Rural Areas: International Experience

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 965
Author(s):  
Aleksey Grigorievich GERMANOVICH ◽  
O. N. VASILIEVA ◽  
Marina Evgenievna ORDYNSKAYA ◽  
Liliya Mansurovna ALLANINA ◽  
Anna Evgenievna GOROKHOVA
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Rural Tourism ◽  
Case Method ◽  
Territorial Development ◽  
Sustainable Rural Development ◽  
Synergy Effects ◽  
Stimulation Of

Elimination of disproportions in the economic development of the country's regions and their transition to sustainable development is one of the priorities of Russian economic policy. This can be achieved by active search for the most effective directions of territorial development, actions aimed to form a positive image, and stimulation of profitable sectors of the economy. Tourism is one of the most effective directions for sustainable development of a territory. The article analyzes the scientific literature related to the problem of the connection between sustainable development of rural territories and rural tourism. The main rural tourism factors contributing to sustainable rural development and synergy effects from rural tourism have been identified based on an expert survey. Cases demonstrating the synergy effects of rural tourism are presented using the case method.

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