1,721,066 research outputs found
Correction: All is not loss: Plant biodiversity in the anthropocene
No full text[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030535.]
Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000
No full textAim To map and characterize anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere before and during the Industrial Revolution, from 1700 to 2000. Location Global. Methods Anthropogenic biomes (anthromes) were mapped for 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2000 using a rule-based anthrome classification model applied to gridded global data for human population density and land use. Anthropogenic transformation of terrestrial biomes was then characterized by map comparisons at century intervals. Results In 1700, nearly half of the terrestrial biosphere was wild, without human settlements or substantial land use. Most of the remainder was in a seminatural state (45%) having only minor use for agriculture and settlements. By 2000, the opposite was true, with the majority of the biosphere in agricultural and settled anthromes, less than 20% seminatural and only a quarter left wild. Anthropogenic transformation of the biosphere during the Industrial Revolution resulted about equally from land-use expansion into wildlands and intensification of land use within seminatural anthromes. Transformation pathways differed strongly between biomes and regions, with some remaining mostly wild but with the majority almost completely transformed into rangelands, croplands and villages. In the process of transforming almost 39% of earth's total ice-free surface into agricultural land and settlements, an additional 37% of global land without such use has become embedded within agricultural and settled anthromes. Main conclusions Between 1700 and 2000, the terrestrial biosphere made the critical transition from mostly wild to mostly anthropogenic, passing the 50% mark early in the 20th century. At present, and ever more in the future, the form and process of terrestrial ecosystems in most biomes will be predominantly anthropogenic, the product of land use and other direct human interactions with ecosystems. Ecological research and conservation efforts in all but a few biomes would benefit from a primary focus on the novel remnant, recovering and managed ecosystems embedded within used lands
All is not loss: plant biodiversity in the anthropocene.
No full textAnthropogenic global changes in biodiversity are generally portrayed in terms of massive native species losses or invasions caused by recent human disturbance. Yet these biodiversity changes and others caused directly by human populations and their use of land tend to co-occur as long-term biodiversity change processes in the Anthropocene. Here we explore contemporary anthropogenic global patterns in vascular plant species richness at regional landscape scales by combining spatially explicit models and estimates for native species loss together with gains in exotics caused by species invasions and the introduction of agricultural domesticates and ornamental exotic plants. The patterns thus derived confirm that while native losses are likely significant across at least half of Earth's ice-free land, model predictions indicate that plant species richness has increased overall in most regional landscapes, mostly because species invasions tend to exceed native losses. While global observing systems and models that integrate anthropogenic species loss, introduction and invasion at regional landscape scales remain at an early stage of development, integrating predictions from existing models within a single assessment confirms their vast global extent and significance while revealing novel patterns and their potential drivers. Effective global stewardship of plant biodiversity in the Anthropocene will require integrated frameworks for observing, modeling and forecasting the different forms of anthropogenic biodiversity change processes at regional landscape scales, towards conserving biodiversity within the novel plant communities created and sustained by human systems
Linking avian diversity with farms in the Iowa Corn Belt using remote sensing, collaborative passive acoustic monitoring, and farmer-habitat relationships
No full textAddressing the decline of farmland birds throughout North America requires strategies that can inform and complement land use decisions made by farmers. Reconciliation of agricultural land use with wildlife conservation cannot be addressed without combining social and ecological knowledge, potentially through methods supported by recent theoretical and technological advancements. This dissertations addresses the methodological challenges of systematic avian biodiversity monitoring across an agricultural region by combining high-resolution remote sensing of farmland habitats with low-cost passive acoustic monitoring. Integrating ecological measures of species and habitat with social measures of habitat management creates further challenges if researchers, land managers, and policy makers are to make decisions based on these observations. Strategies to address these challenges are investigated through a social-theory-driven empirical approach examining how farmer identity verification processes influence farmland habitat management. Newforms of high-resolution habitat mapping integrated with new sensors capable of detecting avian diversity within intensive row-crop agricultural farmland show great promise for providing reliable, low-cost, and accurate ecological information. Linking these ecological measurements with farmer's social rationales describing where and how habitats are created within farmland could help to establish farmer-habitat- wildlife relationships in support of conservation efforts in farmlands. Multiple research challenges remain before these new technologies and social theories can be integrated to support multifunctional farm management strategies that support both conservation and production. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and microsatellite constellations have unique cost and methodological trade-offs for habitat mapping in farmland. Passive acoustic monitoring can complement remote sensing platforms by providing measures of avian diversity, but it is unclear how robust these acoustically derived measures are, and to what degree these can be linked with remotely sensed habitat measures. Additionally, great potential exists to collaborate with farmers and landowners in the acoustic data collection process, which can bring down costs and increase observational capacity while also bringing ecological information closer to decision makers. In the conclusion chapter, recommendations are presented for strategies that can enhance the scale, power, and integration of social and ecological measurements in support of biodiversity conservation across the Iowa Corn Belt
The Anthropocene condition: evolving through social–ecological transformations
No full textAnthropogenic planetary disruptions, from climate change to biodiversity loss, are unprecedented challenges for human societies. Some societies, social groups, cultural practices, technologies and institutions are already disintegrating or disappearing as a result. However, this coupling of socially produced environmental challenges with disruptive social changes—the Anthropocene condition—is not new. From food-producing hunter–gatherers, to farmers, to urban industrial food systems, the current planetary entanglement has its roots in millennia of evolving and accumulating sociocultural capabilities for shaping the cultured environments that our societies have always lived in (sociocultural niche construction). When these transformative capabilities to shape environments are coupled with sociocultural adaptations enabling societies to more effectively shape and live in transformed environments, the social–ecological scales and intensities of these transformations can accelerate through a positive feedback loop of ‘runaway sociocultural niche construction’. Efforts to achieve a better future for both people and planet will depend on guiding this runaway evolutionary process towards better outcomes by redirecting Earth's most disruptive force of nature: the power of human aspirations. To guide this unprecedented planetary force, cultural narratives that appeal to human aspirations for a better future will be more effective than narratives of environmental crisis and overstepping natural boundaries.The author is grateful for intellectual contributions and financial
support provided by the United Nations Development Programme’s
Human Development Report Office.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2022.025
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Geomorphometric characterization of natural and anthropogenic land cover in different landscapes context
No full textAppropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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