The Economic Contributions of Agricultural Tourism in Michigan

Family farms have long generated income from agricultural tourism including U‐picks, wagon rides, corn mazes and petting zoos, but contemporary agricultural tourism reflects much greater sophistication in terms of product variety, services, activities, and marketing. In Michigan, farm operators have moved beyond classic products and activities and the traditional consumer base. New sources of revenue derive from classes on beer, cider, mead and wine making, yarn spinning, perfume/soap‐making, farm markets, fishing, educational classes, school tours and hospitality including weddings and on‐farm restaurants. This case study of Michigan agricultural tourism reports results from a systematic survey of 154 agritourism operations conducted throughout the state during summer and fall of 2013 with a focus on the economic benefits of the fast‐changing sector. This study summarizes tax revenues, sales and employment trends for the farm operations participating in the survey but also quantitatively assesses the contribution of agricultural tourism to Michigan's economy through an extrapolation of the sample to estimate state‐wide totals. Results from OLS multivariate regression analysis intended to identify relationships between employment, advertising and scale to gross sales per day are also reported. These analyses show the importance of agricultural tourism to rural and peri‐urban places in Michigan and throughout the nation, while raising concerns about a growing division between large and small operators and what this growing gap may mean for the future of the sector.     

Elevated biomass of mesozooplankton and enhanced fecal pellet flux in cyclonic and mode-water eddies in the Sargasso Sea

Accumulating evidence points to the importance of mesoscale eddies in supplying nutrients to surface waters in oligotrophic gyres. However, the nature of the biological response and its evolution over time has yet to be elucidated. Changes in mesozooplankton community composition due to eddy perturbation also could affect biogeochemical cycling. Over the course of two summers we sampled seven eddies in the Sargasso Sea. We focused on and followed a post-phytoplankton bloom cyclonic eddy (C1) in 2004 and a blooming mode-water anticyclonic eddy (A4) in 2005. We collected zooplankton in all eddies using a Multiple Opening and Closing Net Environmental Sampling System (MOCNESS) and quantified biomass (>0.15 mm, in five size fractions) from 0 to 700 m over nine discrete depth intervals. Zooplankton biomass (>0.5 mm) in the upper 150 m was similarly enhanced at night for the periphery of C1 and the center of A4 at 0.514 g m⁻² and 0.533 g m⁻², respectively, compared to outside (0.183 g m⁻² outside C1 and 0.197 g m⁻² outside A4). Despite minimal chlorophyll a enhancement and dominance by picoplankton in C1, zooplankton biomass increased most for the largest size class (>5 mm). Gut fluorescence for euphausiids and large copepods was also elevated on the C1 periphery. In A4, peak biomass occurred at eddy center coincident with peak primary production, but was highly variable (changing by >3-fold) over time, perhaps resulting from the dense, but patchy distribution of diatom chains in this region. Shifts in zooplankton community composition and abundance were reflected in enhancement of fecal pellet production and active transport by diel vertical migration in eddies. Inside C1 the flux of zooplankton fecal pellets at 150 m in June 2004 was 1.5-fold higher than outside the eddy, accounting for 9% of total particulate organic carbon (POC) flux. The flux of fecal pellets (mostly from copepods) increased through the summer in eddy A4, matching concurrent increases in zooplankton <2 mm in length, and accounting for up to 12% of total POC flux. Active carbon transport by vertically migrating zooplankton was 37% higher on the periphery of C1 and 74% higher at the center of A4 compared to the summer mean at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) station. Despite contrasting responses by the phytoplankton community to cyclonic and mode-water eddies, mesozooplankton biomass was similarly enhanced, possibly due to differential physical and biological aggregation mechanisms, and resulted in important zooplankton-mediated changes in mesoscale biogeochemistry.     

Guiding ecological principles for marine spatial planning

The declining health of marine ecosystems around the world is evidence that current piecemeal governance is inadequate to successfully support healthy coastal and ocean ecosystems and sustain human uses of the ocean. One proposed solution to this problem is ecosystem-based marine spatial planning (MSP), which is a process that informs the spatial distribution of activities in the ocean so that existing and emerging uses can be maintained, use conflicts reduced, and ecosystem health and services protected and sustained for future generations. Because a key goal of ecosystem-based MSP is to maintain the delivery of ecosystem services that humans want and need, it must be based on ecological principles that articulate the scientifically recognized attributes of healthy, functioning ecosystems. These principles should be incorporated into a decision-making framework with clearly defined targets for these ecological attributes. This paper identifies ecological principles for MSP based on a synthesis of previously suggested and/or operationalized principles, along with recommendations generated by a group of twenty ecologists and marine scientists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives on MSP. The proposed four main ecological principles to guide MSP—maintaining or restoring: native species diversity, habitat diversity and heterogeneity, key species, and connectivity—and two additional guidelines, the need to account for context and uncertainty, must be explicitly taken into account in the planning process. When applied in concert with social, economic, and governance principles, these ecological principles can inform the designation and siting of ocean uses and the management of activities in the ocean to maintain or restore healthy ecosystems, allow delivery of marine ecosystem services, and ensure sustainable economic and social benefits.     

Sensitivity of crop yields and land resource potential to climatic change in Ontario,Canada

Increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ and other greenhouse gases are expected to contribute to a global warming. This paper examines the potential implications of a climatic change corresponding to a doubling of atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ on crop production opportunities throughout Ontario, a major food producing region in Canada. The climate is projected to become warmer and drier, but the extent of these shifts are expected to vary from region to region within Ontario. The effect of this altered climate on crop yields and the area of land capable of supporting specific crops varies according to region, soil quality and crop type. Most notable are the enhanced opportunities for grains and oilseeds in the northern regions, and the diminished production prospects for most crops in the most southerly parts of Ontario.     

Shape analysis of Pacific seamounts

Shape statistics have been compiled from 85 profiles of well-surveyed Pacific seamounts in the height range 140–3800 m. A flat-topped cone was fit to each seamount's cross-sectional profile maintaining the slopes of the sides as closely as possible. On each profile a basal widthd_b, a summit widthd_t, and a maximum heighth, were measured. The height-to-basal-radius ratio isξ_h is estimated by the ratio2hd_b and flatnessf by the ratiod_td_b. Slope angleφ = arctan(ε) is estimated fromε =2h(d_b − d_t). Summit height and basal radius are found to be highly correlated (r = 0.93). The 85-point sample mean of the height-to-basal-radius ratio isξ_h = 0.21 ± 0.08 implying that a seamount's summit height is typically one fifth its basal radius. Despite the high correlation, individual points show some scatter, and there may be groupings into different morphological types. For example, all but one of the seamounts with summit heights above 1000 m have values ofξ_h that are larger than the sample mean. The 85-point sample mean of flatness isf = 0.31 ± 0.18. Data points show a large scatter with values off varying between 0 (a pointy cone) and 0.69 (a flat-topped cone). A histogram representation of flatness, however, indicates that certain values off may be more common than others: the histogram shows a bimodal distribution with maxima occurring at values off in the ranges 0.10–0.20 and 0.35–0.50. Moreover, there is some evidence that the mean flatness decreases with summit height so that the preferred shape of a large-sized seamount may be a pointy cone. Slope angle has an 85-point sample mean ofφ = 18 ± 6°; individual values ofφ vary between 5° and 36°. In addition to having a lower than average mean flatness seamounts with heights above 2600 m also have a lower than average mean slope angle (15°). To determine which variables account for most of the observed variation in the seamount shapes, a multivariate principal component analysis was performed on the data using five shape variables (summit height, basal radius, summit radius, flatness, and slope). The analysis indicates that most of the variation is described by two variables: flatness and summit height.     

Soil moisture variability and scale-dependency of nonlinear parameterizations in coupled land–atmosphere models

Many of the relationships used in coupled land–atmosphere models to describe interactions between the land surface and the atmosphere have been empirically parameterized and thus are inherently dependent on the observational scale for which they were derived and tested. However, they are often applied at scales quite different than the ones they were intended for due to practical necessity. In this paper, a study is presented on the scale-dependency of parameterizations which are nonlinear functions of variables exhibiting considerable spatial variability across a wide range of scales. For illustration purposes, we focus on parameterizations which are explicit nonlinear functions of soil moisture. We use data from the 1997 Southern Great Plains Hydrology Experiment (SGP97) to quantify the spatial variability of soil moisture as a function of scale. By assuming that a parameterization keeps its general form the same over a range of scales, we quantify how the values of its parameters should change with scale in order to preserve the spatially averaged predicted fluxes at any scale of interest. The findings of this study illustrate that if modifications are not made to nonlinear parameterizations to account for the mismatch of scales between optimization and application, then significant systematic biases may result in model-predicted water and energy fluxes.