Carbon Sequestration in Agroforestry Technologies as a Strategy for Climate Change Mitigation

Worldwide agroforestry has been recognized as a potential greenhouse gases mitigation strategy under Kyoto protocol. And this is due to its potential in carbon sequestration. There are several agroforestry technologies with different rate in carbon sequestration. In that respect carbon sequestration can depend on type of technology, climate, time since land use change and previous land use. Our knowledge in this topic from the tropical countries such as Tanzania is how ever very limited. To address this challenge this study was undertaken in Kilombero District where the local community are practicing various agroforestry technologies. The objective of this study was to understand the carbon sequestration in different trees species in agroforestry technologies and also to understand which agroforestry technology provide the greatest benefit in term of carbon sequestration. Ecological survey was conducted and a total of 90 plot engaged in different agroforestry technologies were randomly selected from three villages of different altitudinal range. Pivot table was used in analysis and allometric equation was used for computing biomass and carbon. The result shows that Mangifera indica contributed highest carbon over all the tree species encountered during ecological survey with 189.88 Mg C ha−1. Home garden, Mixed intercropping, Parkland and Boundary with 19 514.19 MgCha−1, 648.44MgCha−1,144.79 MgCha−1 and 139.29 Mg C ha−1 respectively were the agroforestry technology practiced in Kilombero. From the results Home garden contributed more to carbon sequestration and this study results can be used to inform practitioners and policy makers on the most effective agroforestry technologies for carbon sequestration since agroforestry technologies are expected to play important role as climate change mitigation strategy.

Influence of understorey diversity on wildlife at the coal mining reclamation area in South Kalimantan, Indonesia

Nugroho Y, Supandi, Suyanto, Matatula J, Wirabuana PYAP. 2021. Influence of understorey diversity on wildlife at the coal mining reclamation area in South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 22: 3736-3743. The existence of understorey at the coal mining reclamation area provides an important contribution to improve the environmental quality, especially the wildlife presence. Therefore, this study aims to determine the influence of understorey diversity on the wildlife at the coal mining reclamation area managed by the PT Borneo Indobara, South Kalimantan. This study used an ecological survey conducted in three reclamation areas classified based on the dominant species supporting the process, namely Paraserianthes falcataria (L-1), Anthocephalus cadamba (L-2), and a mixture of both species (L-3). The data were collected in two observation periods, namely August 2019 and August 2020. The results showed that at the first observation, ten families of understorey were observed from the survey and the highest diversity was recorded in L-2 (H'=1.71), followed by L-1 (H'=1.54), and L-3 (H'=1.27). Meanwhile, the wildlife in the first periods was only 6 species consisting of 3 birds, 2 reptiles, and 1 mammal. The number of species from every site was relatively equal at the first observation. In the second observation, the diversity of understorey considerably increased with approximately 22 families from the inventory. The highest understorey diversity in this observation was recorded in L-1 (H'=3.30), L-2 (H'=3.05), and L-3 (H'=3.04). Also, the higher understorey diversity was followed by the higher wildlife with 29 species, which consists of 26 birds, 2 reptiles, and 1 mammal. The highest appearance of bird species was in the L-1 with approximately 19 species, while the number of birds in L-2 and L-3 was relatively similar with approximately 15 species. Based on these results, the understorey diversity significantly contributes to improving the wildlife diversity at the coal mining reclamation area, primarily from the bird species.

Brokering science, blaming culture: The US–South Korea ecological survey in the Demilitarized Zone, 1963–8

This paper examines the planning, execution, and closure of the US–Korea Cooperative Ecological Survey project in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in the 1960s. In this period, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) initiated bilateral scientific cooperation between the NAS and similar organizations in developing countries along the line of the developmental turn of U.S. foreign assistance. Working closely with the NAS, U.S. conservationists used this scheme to introduce nature conservation practices and the discipline of ecosystem ecology to developing countries. In this context, by way of the NAS’s Pacific Science Board, two countries’ biologists initiated the preliminary cooperative project in the DMZ in 1966. Korean and U.S. scientists soon began to realize that their collaboration was marked by dissonance. The U.S. side attributed the cooperation failure to Korean culture while the Korean side criticized the unequal structure of their cooperation. Joining the global historiography of Cold War scientific collaboration, this paper pays particular attention to the intermediaries of the collaborative project and their rivalry. It argues that political struggles revolving around the position of go-betweens – as what I call knowledge brokers – on the recipient side provoked contestation between American and Korean scientists. The contention between the two sides played out in the collaboration coming to an end, albeit partially. Throughout this analysis, this study suggests paying more serious attention to the politics of scientific exchange among actors on the recipient side as an outset from which to analyze the heterogeneity of the Korean side without losing sight of their active role in the building process of American hegemony.

Inferring species interactions from ecological survey data: a mechanistic approach to predict quantitative food webs of seed-feeding by carabid beetles

Ecological networks are valuable for ecosystem analysis but their use is often limited by a lack of data because many types of ecological interaction, e.g. predation, are short-lived and difficult to observe or detect. There are different methods for inferring the presence of interactions, which we lack methods to predict interaction strengths and so use weighted network analysis.Here, we develop a trait-based approach suitable for creating quantitative networks, i.e. with varying interaction strengths. We developed the method for seed-feeding carabid ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) although the principles can be applied to other interactions.We used existing literature data from experimental seed-feeding trials to predict a per-individual interaction cost index based on carabid and seed size with frequency-dependent prey selection and assuming bottom up control. This was scaled up to the population level to create predicted inferred weighted networks using the abundance of carabids and seeds in samples from arable fields and energetic intake rates of carabids from the literature. From these weighted networks, we also calculated a novel measure of predation pressure.We applied it to existing ecological survey data from 255 arable fields with carabid data from pitfall traps and plant seeds from seed rain traps. Analysis of these inferred networks led to testable hypotheses about how networks and predation pressure varied amongst fields.Inferred networks are valuable because (i) they provide null models for the structuring of food webs to test against empirical species interaction data, e.g. DNA analysis of carabid gut regurgitates, and (ii) they allow weighted inferred networks to be constructed whenever we can estimate interactions between species and have ecological census data available. This would permit network analysis even at times and in places when interactions were not directly assessed.

Ecological Survey of Man-Biting Mosquitoes in Nnewi Metropolis South-East Nigeria

The survey on the ecology of man-biting mosquitoes in Nnewi was undertaken between April and June 2019. Larval stages of mosquitoes were sampled from gutters, used discarded tyres, plastic containers, water pots, clean ground water pools, plantain and banana plants axils and dirty ground water pools using ladle, sieves and bowels. Indoor biting and resting mosquitoes were collected using pyrethrum knockdown collection method (PKC) while outdoor biting mosquitoes were collected using human being volunteer as baits and collectors. Two hundred and two (202) mosquitoes comprising of four mosquito speciesnamely; Aedesaegypt36(17.8%), Culexquinquefasciatus 43 (21.3%), Culextrigripes 16 (7.9%) andAedesalbopictus 107 (53.0%) was the highest larva to be collected. A total of sixty-eight (68) mosquitoes collected as adult made up of two speciesCulexquinquefasciatus 64 (94.1%) and Anopheles gambiae 4 (5.9%) were collected indoors. Culexquinquefasciatus 64 (94.1%) constituted the highest percentage of indoor biting and resting mosquito species. One hundred and fifty-two (152) mosquitoes comprising of four species; Aedesaegypti 51(33.6%), Aedesalbopictus 96 (63.2%), Aedesleuteocephalus 2 (1.3%) and Culexquinquefasciatus 3 (2.0%) were collected as outdoor biting mosquitoes. Aedesaegyptiwas the commonest outdoor biting mosquitoes in the community. One hundred and forty-three (143) mosquitoes were collected with ovitrap, Aedesalbopictus (41.9%), Eretmapoditeschyrysogaster 2(1.4%) and Aedeaegypti81(56,6%) been the highest collected.

Description of a new Agraecina species from Tunisia (Araneae: Liocranidae), with a review of all species of the genus

While Liocranidae is a family encompassing 283 species distributed in 32 genera (World Spider Catalog 2019), the genus Agraecina Simon, 1932 currently counts only six described species: Agraecina canariensis Wunderlich, 1992 from the Canaries, A. cristriani (Georgescu, 1989) from Romania, A. hodna Bosmans, 1999 from Algeria, A. lineata (Simon, 1878) from Europe and Kazakhstan, A. rutilia (Simon, 1897) from Sierrra Leone, and A. scupiensis Deltshev, 2016 from Macedonia. During an ecological survey in the north of Tunisia, a new Agraecina species was discovered and is described here. Spiders were collected using pitfall traps in a salt marsh.