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The role of soil biodiversity in regulating multiple ecosystem functions is poorly understood, limiting our ability to predict how soil biodiversity loss might affect human wellbeing and ecosystem sustainability. Here, combining a global observational study with an experimental microcosm study, we provide evidence that soil biodiversity (bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates) is significantly and positively associated with multiple ecosystem functions. These functions include nutrient cycling, decomposition, plant production, and reduced potential for pathogenicity and belowground biological warfare. Our findings also reveal the context dependency of such relationships and the importance of the connectedness, biodiversity and nature of the globally distributed dominant phylotypes within the soil network in maintaining multiple functions. Moreover, our results suggest that the positive association between plant diversity and multifunctionality across biomes is indirectly driven by soil biodiversity. Together, our results provide insights into the importance of soil biodiversity for maintaining soil functionality locally and across biomes, as well as providing strong support for the inclusion of soil biodiversity in conservation and management programmes. Combining field data from 83 sites on five continents, together with microcosm experiments, the authors show that nutrient cycling, decomposition, plant production and other ecosystem functions are positively associated with a higher diversity of a wide range of soil organisms. ; Marie Sklodowska-Curie ; We thank N. Fierer, M. Gebert, J. Henley, V. Ochoa, F. T. Maestre and B. Gozalo for their help with laboratory analyses; O. Sala, C. Siebe, C. Currier, M. A. Bowker, V. Parry, H. Lambers, P. Vitousek, V. M. Pena-Ramirez, L. Riedel, J. Larson, K. Waechter, W. Williams, S. Williams, B. Sulman, D. Buckner and B. Anacker for their help with soil sampling in Colorado, Hawaii, Iceland, New Mexico, Arizona, Mexico and Australia; the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks for allowing us to conduct these samplings; C. Cano-Diaz for her advice about R analyses; S. K. Travers for her help with mapping. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 702057. M.D.-B. is supported by the Spanish Government under a Ramon y Cajal contract RYC2018-025483-I. This research is supported by the Australian Research Council projects (DP170104634; DP190103714). S.A. and F.D.A. are funded by FONDECYT 1170995, IAI-CRN 3005, PFB-23 (from CONICYT) and P05-002 (from Millennium Scientific Initiative). N.A.C. acknowledges support from Churchill College, University of Cambridge; and M.A.W. from the Wilderness State Park, Michigan for access to sample soil and conduct ecosystem survey. B.K.S. acknowledges a research award from the Humboldt Foundation. J.-Z.H. acknowledges support from the Australia Research Council (project DP170103628); and A.G. from the Spanish Ministry (project CGL2017-88124-R). F.B. thanks the Spanish Ministry and FEDER funds for the CICYT project AGL2017-85755-R, the CSIC project 201740I008 and funds from 'Fundacion Seneca' from Murcia Province (19896/GERM/15). P.T. thanks K. Little for her help with laboratory analyses. S.C.R. was supported by the US Geological Survey Ecosystems Mission Area. Any use of trade, firm or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government. S.N. was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (grant Y801-B16). ; Public domain authored by a U.S. government employee

Direct quantification of terrestrial biosphere responses to global change is crucial for projections of future climate change in Earth system models. Here, we synthesized ecosystem carbon-cycling data from 1,119 experiments performed over the past four decades concerning changes in temperature, precipitation, CO2 and nitrogen across major terrestrial vegetation types of the world. Most experiments manipulated single rather than multiple global change drivers in temperate ecosystems of the USA, Europe and China. The magnitudes of warming and elevated CO2 treatments were consistent with the ranges of future projections, whereas those of precipitation changes and nitrogen inputs often exceeded the projected ranges. Increases in global change drivers consistently accelerated, but decreased precipitation slowed down carbon-cycle processes. Nonlinear (including synergistic and antagonistic) effects among global change drivers were rare. Belowground carbon allocation responded negatively to increased precipitation and nitrogen addition and positively to decreased precipitation and elevated CO2. The sensitivities of carbon variables to multiple global change drivers depended on the background climate and ecosystem condition, suggesting that Earth system models should be evaluated using site-specific conditions for best uses of this large dataset. Together, this synthesis underscores an urgent need to explore the interactions among multiple global change drivers in under-represented regions such as semi-arid ecosystems, forests in the tropics and subtropics, and Arctic tundra when forecasting future terrestrial carbon-climate feedback. ; National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaNational Natural Science Foundation of China [31430015, 31830012]; US NSFNational Science Foundation (NSF) [DEB-0955771]; ClimMani COST actionEuropean Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) [ES1308] ; We thank J. Wang (Hebei University), S. Yang (Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences), L. Zhou (East China Normal University), C. Qiao (Xinyang Normal University) and H. Li (Henan University) for their help in meta-analyses and interaction analyses, and H. Li, Y. Liu (Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Y. He (Peking University) for their help in plotting figures. This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 31430015 and 31830012). This study emerged from the INTERFACE Workshop in Beijing, China (https://www.bio.purdue.edu/INTERFACE/) supported by the US NSF DEB-0955771. We also acknowledge support from the ClimMani COST action (ES1308). ; Public domain authored by a U.S. government employee

Urban political ecology (UPE) focuses on unsettling traditional understandings of 'cities' as ontological entities separate from 'nature' and on how the production of settlements is metabolically linked with flows of capital and more-than-human ecological processes. The contribution of this paper is to recalibrate UPE to new urban forms and processes of extended urbanization. This exploration goes against the reduction of what goes on outside of cities to processes that emanate unidirectionally from cities. Acknowledging UPE's rich intellectual history and aiming to enrich rather than split the field, this paper identifies four emerging discourses that go beyond UPE's original formulation.

This paper tends to posit that youth education is a prerequisite for peace building and sustainable development in Nigeria. A glance looks at the term 'youth education' is often misunderstood, conceived differently from different scholars. And the practices showcased that youth education is of no use in peace building. This is based on the assumption that violent usually starts from youth. It is in this regard that the researcher adopts analytic and expository method in carrying out this work. So that the readers should understand what youth education / education is all about. The researcher concludes that youth education should lay emphasis on the criteria of an educated man not only on the certificate. The researcher also makes some suggestion that youth should involve in political matter, and that government should emphasis on political elites – not on certificate award.

The 5-year EU project project Securing the Conservation of biodiversity across Administrative Levels and spatial, temporal, and Ecological Scales (SCALES) has come to an end in July 2014 resulting in a first of its kind description of challenges that arise in protecting biodiversity across different scales. A wide range of practical methods and recommendations to improve conservation at regional, national and supranational scales are included in a book published as a synthesis of project outcome. The book "Scaling in Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation" was published in open access via Pensoft Publisher's Advanced Books platform. Results are also presented in an easy to use interactive SCALETOOL, specifically developed for the needs of policy and decision-makers. The tool also provides access to a range of biodiversity data and driver maps compiled or created in the project.

Forests are alive, filled with rich, biologically complex life forms and the interrelationships of multiple species and materials. Vulnerable to a host of changing conditions in this global era, forests are in peril as never before. New markets in carbon and environmental services attract speculators. In the name of conservation, such speculators attempt to undermine local land control in these desirable areas. Moral Ecology of a Forest provides an ethnographic account of conservation politics, particularly the conflict between Western conservation and Mayan ontological ecology. The difficult interactions of the Maya of central Quintana Roo, Mexico, for example, or the Mayan communities of the Sain Ka'an Biosphere, demonstrate the clashing interests with Western biodiversity conservation initiatives. The conflicts within the forest of Quintana Roo represent the outcome of nature in this global era, where the forces of land grabbing, conservation promotion and organizations, and capitalism vie for control of forests and land. Forests pose living questions. In addition to the ever-thrilling biology of interdependent species, forests raise questions in the sphere of political economy, and thus raise cultural and moral questions. The economic aspects focus on the power dynamics and ideological perspectives over who controls, uses, exploits, or preserves those life forms and landscapes. The cultural and moral issues focus on the symbolic meanings, forms of knowledge, and obligations that people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and classes have constructed in relation to their lands. The Maya Forest of Quintana Roo is a historically disputed place in which these three questions come together.

Over the past quarter of a century, research on the connection between empire and environment has flourished worldwide. Most writings, though, have focused on the history of European empire-building or American westward expansion; few have anything signif

Over the past quarter of a century, research on the connection between empire and environment has flourished worldwide. Most writings, though, have focused on the history of European empire-building or American westward expansion; few have anything signif

The Indian state has conserved tigers by establishing reserves that are governed as a form of fortress conservation. Residence and local uses in these tiger reserves are often criminalized. It is in this context that we critique recent neoliberal attempts to estimate the economic value of ecosystem services from tiger reserves. Proponents of valuation argue that it will not only provide a justification for the reserves, but also recognize the importance of ecosystem services for human well-being. We use a political ecology approach to argue that economic valuation is never a benign tool, but is situated in wider institutional contexts that favor certain actors over others. In India, protected areas are being valued even as people living within them are being evicted and their use of the forest restricted. We draw from fieldwork in the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Hills of Karnataka and conversations with Soligas. We ask how nature is made legible and who benefits from such legibility? We suggest that economic valuation can hide complex human-nature relationships and undermine different ways of knowing and 'valuing' landscapes.Key Words: tiger reserves, Karnataka, economic valuation

This is a study of nature protection in an era of markets, and more broadly, a study of the historically and contextually constrained ways that people try to resolve perennial tensions between economic growth and ecological protection in modern, capitalist political-economies. The substantive focus of the study is somewhat peculiar: it is a comparative and historical analysis of the development of market-oriented ecological offsetting schemes in both the United States and in Germany. These are exchange-based systems of creating, restoring, buying, and selling units of nature used by land developers who are required to ``offset'' ecological harm caused by their building projects. In essence, ecological offsetting is a market-oriented regulatory means of ``improving'' and protecting nature in one location in order to help ``make up'' for harm to nature someplace else nearby.If ecological offsetting itself is esoteric, however, its features allow for a careful examination of contemporary efforts to transcend basic conflicts between economic development and ecological sustainability. Empirically, the case offers an opportunity to study how nature protection develops and evolves at a time when strengthening environmental regulation is politically fraught, when market-oriented policy is ascendent, and when regulatory expansions are frequently opposed by business interests and their political allies. Methodologically, it turns out that ecological offsetting itself developed in almost perfect historical parallel in the United States and in Germany and yet did so quasi-independently, that is, without substantial evidence of direct diffusion across the cases. This means that these two country cases provide an unusual opportunity to pinpoint the social-historical and political-ecological dynamics that drove the emergence of market-oriented forms of environmental protection in both countries, and that may be linked to the development of comparable institutions in a wide variety of other political and organizational contexts. At a lower-level of analysis, this comparative design also makes it possible to identify the ways that nationally distinctive contexts shaped the development of case-specific institutional features--for example, the ways that broad-based conceptions of ``nature'' in Germany lead to the development of exchanges in highly fungible units of ecology, whereas in the U.S. a focus on ``wild'' and ``sacred'' forms of nature led to exchanges in less highly fungible and more ``ecological'' units. Finally, the comparison of the two national cases also offers leverage for understanding how bureaucrats and policymakers can weave market-like exchanges directly into the administrative and regulatory fabric of modern states. In this way, an analysis of the parallel development of market-oriented ecological offsetting offers insights into how and why bureaucrats inside the state can drive ahead institutional and policy changes and how new regulatory institutions emerge and change in general, particularly in an era of markets, and particularly insomuch as these institutions relate to nature protection and ecological sustainability.Concretely, I find that ecological offsetting schemes in the United States and in Germany emerged and developed out of parallel political pushes for administrative liberalization and public austerity, on the one hand, and that they also developed out of concomitant pushes for expanded--not reduced--levels of environmental protection, on the other. These regulatory expansions were not driven by protests and highly visible activism, but by mundane and persistent actions in courts, bureaucracies, and through the dynamics of local-level politics--processes that were themselves filtered through nationally and even sub-nationally distinctive cultural-organizational contexts and pathways that produced nationally-particular institutional features in each country. I expand on these dynamics in great detail in six substantive chapters, guided by what I call the Power, Institutions, Contention, and Context (PICC) approach. After an introduction, I begin in chapter 2 by showing how regulatory institutions in general--institutions intended to shape and control human economic and ecological action--can be differentiated in terms of the ways they crystalize distinctive combinations of authoritative and economic dimensions of social power. (I define social power simply as the ability to get an actor to do something that she might not otherwise do; authoritative power amounts to direct and legitimate commands; economic power amounts to indirect incentives or creating ``situations'' that make some actions more appealing than others, absent direct commands.) This, in turn, implies that the emergence and development of different ``kinds'' of regulation--including market-oriented nature protection--is a matter of explaining how and why different crystallizations of economic and authoritative social power emerge when and where they do, which is itself, I argue, a politically contested and historically-specific process. With this in mind, in chapter 3, I examine how markets in nature work as regulatory institutions--abstractly, how they wield authoritative and economic dimensions of social power--and carefully detail the empirical features of actually existing ecological offsetting institutions in the United States and Germany. In chapter 4 and onwards, I shift decidedly from a focus on power and institutions per se to an analysis of the patterns of contention and the contexts that drove the emergence of the institutions described in chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 4 itself focuses on the macro-historical dynamics that favored the emergence of market-oriented ecological offsetting in both the United States and in Germany. Pushes for public austerity, liberalization, and de-bureaucratization were key in both places; so were nationally distinctive patterns of pro-environmental political advocacy and mobilization. With this macro-historical context in mind, in chapters 5 and 6 I shift to an examination of meso-level features that shaped and constrained marketization and institutional change in each country: in chapter 5 I show how nationally distinctive understandings of nature itself shaped political contention and the development of markets in nature in each place; in chapter 6 I show how nationally particular legal traditions and organizational architectures of the state similarly channeled and influenced institutional development and change. In the last analytical segment, in chapter 7, I shift at last to a micro-level of analysis to show how activist bureaucrats--ecological ``bureactivists'' as I call them--drove ahead institutional change ``on the ground'' in both countries. I conclude the study in chapter 8 by reviewing the central empirical findings of the previous chapters; briefly reflecting on the merits of a power-based approach to understanding institutional emergence, change, and marketization; and also pointing to the implications of the study for understanding contemporary efforts to grapple with ever-present tensions between promoting economic growth, on the one hand, and protecting nature, on the other.

Halbtrockenrasen gelten als regionale Zentren der Biodiversität und sind durch die Fauna-Flora-Habitat-Richtlinie der Europäischen Union geschützt. Trotz eines starken Flächenverlusts findet sich in der Südsteiermark noch eine relativ hohe Dichte dieses Habitats. Die Wanzenzönosen von elf Halbtrockenrasen und einer artenreiche Fettwiese wurden mit einem Bodensauger beprobt. Insgesamt wurden 2581 Individuen aus 105 Arten registriert. Drei Arten (Tinicephalus hortulanus, Omphalonotus quadriguttatus, Scolopostethus lethierryi) wurden das erste Mal in der Steiermark nachgewiesen. Die Unterschiede in Inzidenz und Abundanz zwischen den Flächen waren hoch und lagen zwischen 10 und 40 Arten und 34 und 1042 Individuen. Auf jeder Fläche wurde mindestens eine Rote Liste-Art gefunden; die acht real gefährdeten Arten waren auf fünf Halbtrockenrasen beschränkt. Inter- und Extrapolation der Artenzahlen wies auf unentdeckte Arten in allen Flächen hin. Auch die Proben einer einzelnen Fläche zeigten deutliche Unterschiede; was bedeutet, dass die Platzierung des Saugers einen deutlichen Einfluss auf die Ergebnisse hatte und/oder die Probenmenge zu gering war. Unterschiede zwischen den Zönosen wurden primär von den Arten- und Individuenzahlen beeinflusst, während andere Parameter nicht deutlich erschienen. Die Analyse nach ökologischer Information (ökologische Typen, ökologische Gilden, Habitatansprüche) zeigte Ähnliches. Individuenzahlen waren in Weiden (n = 3) höher als in Mähwiesen (n = 8). Deutliche Unterschiede zwischen den Bewirtschaftungsmethoden hinsichtlich ökologischer Information waren nicht ersichtlich, obwohl Grasbewohner und in gewissem Ausmaß auch Saumarten in Weiden seltener waren. Hingegen waren mesophile Offenlandarten in Weiden häufiger als in Mähwiesen. Folglich erschienen die Unterschiede zwischen gemähten und beweideten Halbtrockenrasen mehr von quantitativer als qualitativer Natur. 32 Arten wurden als Charakterarten steirischer Halbtrockenrasen identifiziert. ; Mesobromions are known to be regional centers of biodiversity and are protected by the Habitats Directive of the European Union. Despite a severe decline in area size, a relatively high density of this habitat can still be found in South Styria. Heteroptera communities of eleven Mesobromions and one species-rich mesic meadow were sampled with a suction sampler. Altogether, 2581 bugs from 105 species were detected. Three species (Tinicephalus hortulanus, Omphalonotus quadriguttatus, Scolopostethus lethierryi) were recorded for the first time in Styria. Differences in incidence and abundance between the sites were high, ranging from 10 to 40 species and 34 to 1042 individuals. At least one of the 22 recorded red list species was found in each site. However, the eight actually endangered species were restricted to five Mesobromions. Intra- and extrapolation of species numbers predicted undetected species for all sites. Outcomes of suction sampling clearly deviated within the sitesthus, the placement of the device played a crucial role and/or the sample size was too small. Mesobromion sites revealed a high heterogeneity with respect to dominance structure, abundance and incidence. Differences between the coenoses were mainly influenced by species and individual numbers, while other parameters seemed to be absent. Exploring ecological traits (ecological types, ecological guilds, habitat requirements) revealed similar effects. True bug densities were higher in pastures (n = 3) than in hayfields (n = 8). Distinct differences between the management types according to ecological traits seemed to be absent, although grass dwellers and partly also edge species were less frequent in pastures. Mesophilous open-land species were more frequent in pastures than in hayfields. Consequently, differences between mown and grazed Mesobromions seemed to be more influenced by quantitative than by qualitative traits. 32 species were identified as character species of Styrian Mesobromions. ; Autor: Rachel Korn ; Abweichender Titel laut Übersetzung der Verfasserin/des Verfassers ; Zsfassung in dt. und engl. Sprache ; Graz, Univ., Masterarb., 2015 ; (VLID)864714

Balancing the Commons in Switzerland outlines continuity and change in the management of common-pool resources such as pastures and forests in Switzerland.The book focuses on the differences and similarities between local institutions (rules and regulations) and forms of commoners' organisations (corporations of citizens and corporations) which have managed common property for several centuries and have shaped the cultural landscapes of Switzerland. At the core of the book are five case studies from the German, French and Italian speaking regions of Switzerland. Beginning in the Late Middle Ages and focusing on the transformative periods in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it traces the internal and external political, economic and societal changes and examines what impact these changes had on commoners. It goes beyond the work of Robert Netting and Elinor Ostrom, who discussed Swiss commons as a unique case of robustness, by analysing how local commoners reacted to, but also shaped, changes by adapting and transforming common property institutions. Thus, the volume highlights how institutional changes in the management of the commons at the local level are embedded in the public policies of the respective cantons, and the state, which generates a high heterogeneity and an actual laboratory situation. It shows the power relations and very different routes that local collective organisations and their members have followed in order to cope with the loss of value of the commons and the increased workload for maintaining common property management. Providing insightful case studies of commons management, this volume delivers theoretical contributions and lessons to be learned for the commons worldwide.This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the commons, natural resource management and agricultural development.

Over the past four decades the world has seen a 'green awakening'. Green parties have been elected to parliaments and councils all over the world. A common set of environmental priorities have been promoted by green internationalisation and these parties are playing an increasing role at all levels of political decision-making. Will this awakening continue or will the greens be corrupted by power? What impact has their politics had? Will green thinking be able to compete with other ideologies in coping with the problems of the 21st century? Green Parties, Green Future analyses over a hundred of these parties' experience from all over the world. It reveals the story of the expansion and development of the movement, from local environmental groups to national and global decision-makers.

Abstract Contemporary market-based (i.e. neoliberal) 'green economy' approaches to environmental degradation emphasise exchanges whereby quantified units of environmental harm are traded or 'offset' for compensating units of environmental health. Also encouraged is a view that economic growth can be 'greened' through 'decoupling' economic value from material ecological realities. Such approaches tend to frame biophysical natures in terms of aggregates, such as an 'aggregate natural capital rule' and 'net zero carbon.' Naturesbeyond-the-human are thereby understood and enacted as calculable, exchangeable, substitutable and commensurable between different spatial and temporal sites, making up an 'aggregate' or 'net' value overall. This article uses a comparative cross-cultural engagement to problematize ontological assumptions regarding the nature of nature underscoring the rationality of these aggregating and offsetting 'solutions.' Drawing on literatures from environmental anthropology and environmental ethics, combined with ethnographic material from long-term field research in north-west Namibia, the article considers elements of alternative cultural ontologies and the ways these may give rise to a different array of practices with value for conceiving and generating 'sustainability.' It adheres to a critical political ecology perspective in understanding the ways that power structures the ontologies that become both privileged and occluded in neoliberal strategies for green economy governance. In doing so, the article argues that sensitivity to the ontological politics through which spaces and entities are defined and known and which thereby shape environmental conflicts, may be key to recognising with more depth the sometimes significantly different 'natures' being struggled over in such conflicts. Key words: ontology; green economy; offsetting; decoupling; sustainability; value; natures-beyond-thehuman; neoliberalism; political ecology

The fourth Factor X publication from the German Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt, UBA), Sustainable Development and Resource Productivity: The Nexus Approaches explores the interdependencies of sustainable development paths and associated resource requirements, describing and analysing the necessities for a more resource efficient world.The use of and competition for increasingly scarce resources are growing worldwide with current production and consumption patterns of industrialised economies soon to reach the point where the ecosphere will be overtaxed far beyond its limits. Against this background, this volume examines the important initiatives to monitor resource use at the international, EU and national level. The current trends and challenges related to sustainable resource use are discussed, including international challenges for a resource efficient world, megatrends, justice and equitable access to resources. In the second part of the book, contributions examine implementation strategies. They assess the concept known as circular economy and discuss the theory of growth and the role of the financial and education systems. The final section places special emphasis on practical examples. Overall, the book presents concrete ways and examples of achieving more sustainability in practice. Discussing solutions for a more sustainable use of natural resources, this book is essential reading for scholars and students of natural resources and sustainable development and decision-makers and experts from the fields of policy development, industry and civil society.