Plant community data from a statewide survey of paired serpentine and non-serpentine soils in California, USA

Soils derived from ultramafic parent materials (hereafter serpentine) provide habitat for unique plant communities containing species with adaptations to the low nutrient levels, high magnesium: calcium ratios, and high metal content (Ni, Zn) that characterize serpentine. Plants on serpentine have long been studied in evolution and ecology, and plants adapted to serpentine contribute disproportionately to plant diversity in many parts of the world. In 2000-2003, serpentine plant communities were sampled at 107 locations representing the full range of occurrence of serpentine in California, USA, spanning large gradients in climate. In 2009-2010, plant communities were similarly sampled at 97 locations on nonserpentine soil, near to and paired with 97 of the serpentine sampling locations. (Some serpentine locations were revisited in 2009-2010 to assess the degree of change since 2000-2003, which was minimal.) At each serpentine or nonserpentine location, a north- and a south-facing 50 m x10 m plot were sampled. This design produced 97 “sites” each consisting of four “plots” (north-south exposure, serpentine-nonserpentine soil). All plots were initially visited >3 times over 2 years to record plant diversity and cover, and a subset were revisited in 2014 to examine community change after a drought. The original question guiding the study was how plant diversity is shaped by the spatially patchy nature of the serpentine habitat. Subsequently, we investigated how climate drives plant diversity at multiple scales (within locations, between locations on the same and different soil types, and across entire regions) and at different levels of organization (taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic).

Species losses, gains, and changes in persistent species are associated with distinct effects on ecosystem functioning in global grasslands

Global change drivers such as anthropogenic nutrient inputs simultaneously alter biodiversity, species composition, and ecosystem functions such as above ground biomass. These changes are interconnected by complex feedbacks among extinction, invasion, and shifting relative abundance. Here, we use a novel temporal application of the Price equation to separate species richness and biomass change through time and quantify the functional contributions of species that are lost, gained, and persist under ambient and experimental nutrient addition in 59 global grasslands. Under ambient conditions, compositional and biomass turnover was high, but species losses (i.e., local extinctions) were balanced by gains (i.e. colonization). Under fertilization, there was biomass loss associated with species loss. Few species were gained in fertilized conditions over time but those that were, and species that persisted, contributed to net biomass gains, outweighing biomass loss. These components of community change are associated with distinct effects on measures of ecosystem functioning.

Self-Organizing Special Districts: A Tool for Community Change and Development

Can self-organizing special districts created from the bottom up be a tool for community change and development? Focusing on community services districts in California, this study introduces the context in which communities opt out of a county service system to reshape their governing structure for better representation. The empirical part measures their effectiveness, using single-family home sale prices as an impact metric. Leveraging multi-level difference-in-difference hedonic regression methods, the analysis shows that district formation increases the prices annually up to 16 percent, compared to both the surrounding and distant county service areas, indicating their efficacy as a tool for community change and development.

When community change theory meets practice: Exploring some of the challenges to information sharing networks for community change

Networked community change (NCC) efforts focus on building and supporting networks of stakeholders in communities to address complex problems, with a particular focus on tie formation among stakeholders and organizer facilitation of an information-sharing network (Lawlor & Neal, 2016). NCC approaches include, for example, systemic action research (Burns, 2007), Collective Impact (Kania & Kramer, 2011), and network action research (Foth, 2006) and can be understood as community-level interventions supporting change (Bess, 2015). Previous research demonstrates the promising nature of NCC efforts under ideal circumstances for efficient information sharing in community change efforts. However, these efforts frequently operate in non-ideal conditions, needing to adapt to a variety of community challenges. This article extends the agent-based simulation model presented in Lawlor and Neal (2016) to reflect the challenges that arise when stakeholders implement these approaches to community change and identify how they can impact information-sharing networks. First, we review literature to establish common challenges that arise in these efforts. Second, we employ the Lawlor and Neal (2016) model to examine these challenges and report on the resulting structure of the information-sharing networks that emerge from implementing them in the simulation model. We conclude with implications of common networked community change challenges on network formation and future directions for addressing these real-world challenges as communities work on complex problems.

Health Policy and Community Change Concepts as Metaphors

Policy development, implementation, and maintenance are central to the “carrying-out” of healthcare within organizations and communities. Nurses play an important role in not only developing meaningful policies with constituents but in also providing explanations that “make sense” to all persons involved. This “sense making” may be facilitated by the use of metaphors. In this paper, the author explores Parse’s (2021) community change concepts as metaphors that may enhance policy development and understanding.

The social dynamics in establishing complex community climate change initiatives: the case of a community fridge in Scotland

Multiple factors are involved in community change processes, yet understanding how factors interact to shape these complex social processed is limited. This has important implications for both research and sustainability practice. This study examines key social dynamics in establishing complex community change initiatives using an in-depth action-oriented transdisciplinary approach with a case study of the development of a community fridge. Four critical social dynamics were identified: reinforcing interpretations, reinforcing interconnections, re-alignment of identities, and quality social relations involving multiple normative facets converging and diverging in different ways as the process unfolded. Initially, this led to a degenerative dynamic that heightened tensions between actors; however, re-alignment with wider social identities and expressions of the underlying normative dimensions involved in the initiative, a regenerative dynamic was created. This strengthened the conditions to support shared understanding, learning and enhanced relationships to enable different actors to work together to shape aspects of the initiative. Overall, the study highlights that future community-based change initiatives need to be guided by explicit approaches that work with social relationships, but where these relationships are conceptualised as dynamic normative spaces of interaction and exploration. This can inform understanding on how to develop beneficial reinforcing regenerative dynamics, where advances in one aspect of social relationships within initiatives can begin to reinforce others and ways that increase collective capacity as a whole. Developing this regenerative potential through social relationships within initiatives is thus critical for engaging with complex challenges across communities.

Harnessing the Power of Stories for Rural Sustainability: Reflections on Community-Based Research on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland

Stories have the power to shape understanding of community sustainability. Yet in places on the periphery of capitalist systems, such as rural and resource-based regions, this power can be used to impose top–down narratives on to local residents. Academic research often reinforces these processes by telling damage-centric narratives that portray communities as depleted and broken, which perpetuates power imbalances between academia and community members, while disempowering local voices. This article explores the potential of storytelling as a means for local actors to challenge top–down notions of rural sustainability, drawing on a community-based research initiative on the Great Northern Peninsula (GNP) of Newfoundland. Five of the authors are community change-makers and one is an academic researcher. We challenge deficiencies-based narratives told about rural Newfoundland and Labrador, in which the GNP is often characterised by a narrow set of socio-economic indicators that overlook the region’s many tangible and intangible assets. Grounded in a participatory asset mapping and storytelling process, a ‘deep story’ of regional sustainability based on community members’ voices contrasts narratives of decline with stories of hope, and shares community renewal initiatives told by the dynamic individuals leading them. This article contributes to regional development efforts on the GNP, scholarship on sustainability in rural and remote communities, and efforts to realise alternative forms of university-community engagement that centre community members’ voices and support self-determination.

Researching Adverse Childhood Experiences in a Domestic Violence service: The role of co-operative inquiry groups in practice development and change

The long-term impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are of increasing interest to researchers and practitioners. While attention is being paid to the effectiveness of screening for ACEs to improve health and social outcomes, how to implement such practices has become key. The Irish study upon which this article is based used an action research approach to implement ACEs routine enquiry within a domestic violence service, while also utilising co-operative inquiry groups for practitioners within the organisation (n=10) and those working in associated fields of infant mental health, child protection and welfare and community support (n=7). This article documents the process of enacting the co-operative inquiry groups and outlines learning points, challenges and lessons. Drawing on Finlay’s (2002a, 2002b) theories on the variants of reflexivity in research processes, six themes emerged on the research process: insider and outsider status; the structure and approach to the groupwork process; participation in the group process; addressing fears; practice concerns; and motivations to act. We conclude with suggestions for effective co-operative inquiry processes and highlight the factors related to groupwork that may contribute to improvements in practice, organisational and community change.

Sustainability of the Aging Network's COVID-19 Responses: Isolated Impact or Transformative Change?

The COVID-19 pandemic mobilized individuals, organizations, and communities. Area Agencies and Aging (AAAs) and Title VI Native American Programs, core organizations of the network of community-based organizations (CBOs) that serve older adults and their families, pivoted their service delivery methods to provide life-sustaining services. Their long-standing expertise in community needs assessment, pre-existing cross-sectoral partnerships, and an infusion of emergency federal funding, enabled this rapid response. Recently concluded studies using key-informant interviews and national surveys of AAAs and Title VI programs highlight these service adaptations, from expansion of home-delivered meal programs to new partnerships in telehealth. These organizations also reported expansion of services offered and people served, and the emergence or strengthening of partnerships with other CBOs, businesses, and governmental organizations such as public health entities. For example, 78% of the respondents to the recent survey of AAAs reported that they have a role in vaccination outreach, scheduling support, or delivery. The papers in this symposium will use these new studies to describe the nature, origins, and potential sustainability of new and expanded services and partnerships. The Collective Impact Model for community change (introduced in the Stanford Social Innovation Review) will provide a framework for the discussion. Built on the importance of cross-sector coordination, the five pillars of success for collective rather than isolated impact are: a common agenda, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, shared measurement, and a backbone organization. Each of these five pillars is relevant to the heightened community response during the pandemic, and to the likelihood of sustainability.