Main drivers of plant diversity patterns of rubber plantations in the Greater Mekong Sub-region

The Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) is one the global biodiversity hotspots. However, the diversity has been seriously threatened due to environmental degradation and deforestation, especially by expansion of rubber plantations. Yet, little is known about the impact of rubber plantations on plant diversity. In this study, we analyzed plant diversity patterns of rubber plantations in the GMS based on a ground survey of a large number of samples. We found that diversity varied across countries due to varying agricultural intensities. Laos had the highest diversity, then followed China, Myanmar, Cambodia. Thailand and Vietnam were the lowest among them. Plant species richness of Laos was about 1.5 times that of Vietnam. We uncovered latitudinal and longitudinal gradients in plant diversity across these artificial forests of rubber plantations. These gradients could be explained by the traditional ecological theories. Furthermore, null deviation of observed community to the randomly assembled communities were larger than zero indicating deterministic process were more important for structuring the community. Meanwhile, the results also showed that higher dominance of some exotic species (such as Chromolaena odorata and Mimosa pudica) were associated with a loss of plant diversity within rubber plantations. In conclusion, not only environmental factors (such as elevation and latitude), but also exotic species were the main factors affecting diversity of these artificial stands. Much more effort should be made to balance agricultural production with conservation goals in this region, particularly to minimize the diversity loss in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Another Geopolitics? International Relations and the Boundaries of World Order

Geopolitics has become a key site for articulating the limits of existing theories of international relations and exploring possibilities for alternative political formations that respond to the challenges posed by massive ecological change and global patterns of violence and inequality. This essay addresses three recent books on geopolitics in the age of the Anthropocene: Simon Dalby's Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability (2020), Jairus Victor Grove's Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the World (2019), and Bruno Latour's Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climactic Regime (2018). The review outlines and compares how these authors pose contemporary geopolitics as a problem and offer political ecology as the ground for an alternative geopolitics. The essay considers these books in the context of critiques of world politics in international relations to shed light on both the contributions and the limits of political ecological theories of global politics. I argue that the books under review encounter problems and solutions posed in Kant's critical and political writings in relation to the concepts of epigenesis and teleology. These provoke questions about the ontological conceptions of order that enable claims to world political authority in the form of a global international system coextensive with the earth's surface.

Ecological geology

The textbook describes complex natural, geological, geographical, hydrogeological and lithological studies based on modern geological and ecological theories and forming the basis of environmental science. The theoretical views on the ecology of the geological environment are expanded. The tasks of ecological geology and geography, as well as ecological hydrogeology and ecological lithology are substantiated. Attention is paid to the history of geoecological research in the development of new territories. The influence of the tectonic formation of geological structures on the ecological situation of the Earth's lithosphere is studied. The ecological zoning of the lithosphere and hydrosphere is given. The ecological characteristics of sedimentary deposits, which are associated with minerals of important industrial and environmental importance, are given. The ecological properties of various types of mineral raw materials for their application in industry are considered. Meets the requirements of the federal state educational standards of higher education of the latest generation. It is intended for bachelors studying the discipline "Ecological Geology" and Earth sciences, and will also be of interest to environmental specialists in the design and operation of industrial facilities, structures and deposits of natural raw materials.

The Future Is Open and Shapable: Using Solar Speculative Fiction to Foster Learner Agency

Speculative fiction is a powerful medium to explore possible futures, inviting literacy researchers and educators to consider the value of futures thinking as a tool for eliciting learners’ hopeful narratives about equitable, sustainable futures for their communities. Yet, when asked to imagine the future, adults and youth alike often envision dystopian stories and fail to consider the interdependencies between technological innovations and the social, economic, and environmental contexts they shape. Moreover, current pedagogic strategies for thinking about the future encourage globalized perspectives rather than stories localized in learners’ lived contexts. Using design-based research methods and informed by ecological theories that assume learners exercise agency through their actions that bring together past, present, and future, our team developed conjectures about how futures thinking might support learners’ agency in relation to sustainability activism and environmental justice. Data analyzed to test our conjectures were 18 solar futures narratives written by adult and youth participants in a solar energy research program. Findings show promise for writing practices that foster sustainability and climate change learning.

Naturalism and the Metaphysics of Perception

This paper focuses on two debates: the Metaphysical debate over intentionalism and naïve realism, and the Psychological debate over constructivist and ecological theories. While these two debates are generally assumed to be orthogonal, it is difficult to specify the grounds for this assumption. The chapter considers the usual strategies for distinguishing between philosophical and scientific theories—such as appeals to modal strength, methodology, or explanatory features—and suggests that they do not apply in this case. It argues that both debates rely on inference to the best explanation to draw contingent conclusions about the constitutive nature of perceptual experience. The chapter also claims that the distinction between personal and subpersonal explanations will not separate the two debates unless we are already committed to the idea that the metaphysics of mind must be conducted at one particular level of explanation. It concludes that the two debates are engaged in the same general project concerning the nature of perception, and that the Psychological theories are no less metaphysical than the Metaphysical theories.

How political philosophies can help to discuss and differentiate theories in community ecology

This paper uses structural analogies to competing political philosophies of human society as a heuristic tool to differentiate between ecological theories and to bring out new aspects of apparently well-known classics of ecological scholarship. These two different areas of knowledge have in common that their objects are ‘societies’, i.e. units composed of individuals, and that contradictory and competing theories about these supra-individual units exist. The benefit of discussing ecological theories in terms of their analogies to political philosophies, in this case liberalism, democratism and conservatism, consists in the fact that political philosophies show clear differences and particularities as regards their approach to the concepts of individuality and intentional action. The method therefore helps to expose peculiarities of ecological theories that are usually considered canonical (e.g. Clements, Gleason), as well as hybrid forms (E. P. Odum), and to differentiate between two different types of theories about functional wholes. The basis of this method is the constitutional-theoretical premise that modern paradigms of socialization structure the ecological discourse.

Bringing the biophysical to the fore: Re-envisioning organizational adaptation in the era of planetary shifts

The nature and scope of changes in organizations’ external environments is without precedent due to planetary shifts, or major changes in earth’s biophysical systems. Our theories of organizational adaptation lack the capacity to explain what will be needed on behalf of business organizations, and their strategists and managers, to adjust to these shifts. In this essay, we review organizational adaptation theory and explain why it falls short of offering adequate explanations in an era of planetary shifts. We then draw on ecological theories of adaptation, with their focus on social-ecological systems and panarchy, to suggest ways to advance organizational adaptation theory for our times.

Controlling Schools: How School Resource Officers’ Roles Map Onto Schools’ Behavior Management Strategies

School resource officer (SRO) behavior varies across schools, but little is known about what shapes their behavior. Social ecological theories state that features of communities shapes individual behavior, including police officers. This may similarly apply to SROs. This study uses the 2015 to 2016 School Survey on Crime and Safety to test the extent to which three aspects of a school’s context related to behavior management (i.e., security measures, disciplinary environment, and restorative practices) shape SROs’ involvement in three roles: law enforcement, teacher, and mentor. Using a generalized structural equation model to examine the relationships between school context and SRO roles, consistent with ecological theories, we find that school context shapes SRO roles. Implications and future research are further discussed.