The Fernbank interglacial site near Ithaca, New York, USA

The Fernbank interglacial site, on the west side of Cayuga Lake, New York, has been recently subjected to more detailed study. To a lengthened mollusc list are added ostracodes, insects, fish, pollen, and plant macrofossils. Of these, plants are well preserved and diverse, whereas other groups are poorly preserved and incomplete. Nevertheless, all support the interglacial assignment (Sangamon), which is further supported by minimum age radiocarbon dates (> 50,000 ¹⁴C yr BP) and a TL date of 81 ± 11 ka. In the plant record near the top of the sequence, abundant tree charcoal indicates forest fires. Like the Toronto interglacial record, the plants show a declining July mean temperature from 24 to 18°C (according to transfer functions) through the sequence, from mixed deciduous forest to boreal forest.     

Karstification at Beşkonak dam site and reservoir area,southern Turkey

Bekonak dam and hydroelectric power plant are planned to be constructed on the Köprüçay river, 40 km east of the Antalya city. In the dam site and reservoir area, Köprüçay Conglomerates of Miocene age and the Bekonak Formation (sandstone-claystone) alternating with each other crop out vertically. Köprüçay conglomerates, with the components of limestone fragments and carbonate texture, are karstic and permeable, whereas the Bekonak Formation is impermeable. At the northern edge of the reservoir area, the Olukköprü karst springs discharge at a minimum of 30 m³/s. These springs discharge mainly through vertical and subvertical joint systems. Intensive superficial karstification developed along the joint systems and the terrane reveals columns of rocks, called fairy chimneys. Olukköprü springs represent the discharge point for a large and continuous system of underground solution cavities. In the Köprüçay basin, there are numerous karstic features within the conglomerates. Within the reservoir area, Kuruköprü cave, with a length of 530 m, is an example of these caves developed within the conglomerates. In some parts of the reservoir area, where the groundwater level is lower than the surface-river elevation, a highly developed karstification zone is present within the fluctuation range of groundwater between depths of 40 and 50 m. The above-mentioned Kuruköprü cave is an active cave developed in the dam site and its vicinity. The solution conduits developed along the system of mostly vertical fractures and joints are interconnected, thus giving rise to a three-dimensional conduit network. On the other hand, a majority of these conduits have clay and calcite filling materials. Karstification in the dam site varies with depth exponentially. Data suggest that karstification has a vertical extention as deep as –220 m.     

Acacia exchanges: Wattles, thorn trees, and the study of plant movements

Plants are frequently moved around the world, creating new regional landscapes and environmental imaginaries. Building on previous work in environmental history and geography, we develop a three-part approach to analyzing plant movements and apply it to trees from the Acacia genus (sens. lat.) exchanged between Australia and the rest of the world. First, we investigate the agents, circuits, and frequencies of acacia movements, including transoceanic transfers, regional diffusion, and ecological dispersal. Second, we trace bundles of knowledge or technology that accompany the acacias, highlighting how they help shape regional biogeographies. Finally, we analyze how different societies, with distinct economies, politics, and environmental sensibilities, receive introduced plants. This approach allows us to see transferred plants as active agents in region-forming processes, and to avoid normative tropes like ‘miracle plants’ or ‘alien invasives’. The highlighted species include Acacia colei, Acacia melanoxylon, Acacia mearnsii, Acacia farnesiana, Acacia nilotica, Acacia mangium, and their close relatives.     

Palaeolimnology of Lake Zeribar, Iran, and its climatic implications

Lake Zeribar sediments covering the time period of the last 25,000 years were examined for the contents of seeds, fruits, Characeae, diatoms, and molluscs. Reconstructions of the variations in the lake water level, salinity, and trophy suggest a sequence of climatic changes. Three pronounced stages of low and varying lake-water level occurred ca. 17,700–15,400, 12,600–12,000, and 10,000–6000 cal yr BP. Some water-level changes were correlated with variations in salinity. The most pronounced increase of salinity occurred 17,700–15,700 and 12,600–12,000 cal yr BP, and less distinct ones occurred about 6400–5900 and 2500 cal yr BP. Diatom assemblages indicated a strong increase of lake trophy ca. 20,200 cal yr BP. Between 6000 and 5000 cal yr BP diatoms characteristic of eutrophy increased in core 63J, and at about 3200 cal yr BP a distinct increase in mesotrophic forms occurred in core 70B. The changes in the occurrence of various organisms indicate increased temperatures about 21,000 cal yr BP, between 15,400 and 12,600, about 12,000, and about 11,700 cal yr BP. The reduced occurrence or disappearance of some of them suggest temperature decreases about 17,700–15,400 and 12,600–12,000 cal yr BP.     

Earliest Cucurbita from the Great Lakes, Northern USA

Directly dated Cucurbita from archaeological sites near Lake Huron expand the range and human usage of adventive, cultivated wild gourds or squash into the Great Lakes region, USA, by 4000 ¹⁴C yr BP. The data also show that domesticated C. pepo squash was cultivated there by 3000 ¹⁴C yr BP. Although milder Hypsithermal climate may have been a contributing factor, squash and gourds expanded northward during the mid-Holocene mainly by human agency and may be the first human-introduced adventive plant in temperate North America. Even after 3000 ¹⁴C yr BP, when domesticated squash generally replaced wild varieties at northern sites, squash stands were probably informally managed rather than intensively cultivated.     

世界濒危旅游景点及其保护对策

繁忙的工作告一段落后,很多人都希望出门旅行。然而,当他们兴致勃勃地抵达一些旅游景点时却失望地发现,那里早已不再是摄影师镜头下的人间仙境。文章从近期公布的世界十大濒危旅游景点出发,指出随着全球变暖、游客数量过度、环境污染和过度采伐等情况越来越严重,已有越来越多的旅游胜地遭受波及,并成了濒危景点,有不少还是世界自然或文化遗产,其损失无法用金钱来衡量。文章最后着重阐述了治理和保护对策,并认为一个地方成为世界自然或文化遗产更多地意味着承担责任和兑现承诺,远不仅是享受旅游收益,可以随意开发那么简单。     

临沂城市湿地公园植物区域功能性选择与配置初探

阐述了临沂湿地公园植物的功能性选择及配置的原则和具体方法。介绍了临沂湿地基本情况和湿地公园规划,对临沂的适生湿地植物品种加以分析,并对湿地公园不同功能区的植物选择与合理配置进行了一些粗浅的研究。     

Modeling biodiversity benefits and external costs from a keystone predator reintroduction policy

In this paper, an economic model was constructed to determine the optimal wolf population and distribution across the Northern Rocky Mountains. Both ecological and economic concepts were incorporated in an implicitly spatial social welfare maximization problem. This interdisciplinary model relies on multiple data sources, including current wolf population and distribution information, opportunity cost to local landowners, and contingent valuation studies to determine willingness-to-pay for wolves. Economic models tend to externalize ecological concerns and ecological models often omit the complex human dimensions of conservation policy. Accordingly, this model can serve as a guide for integrating best practices from both fields. The model presented here is sufficiently general to apply to wolves in other ecosystems and to other highly interacting species such as beavers and bison. The Northern Rocky Mountain wolf was used as an example of how this economic model works, but this model can be applied far more broadly.     

Plant diversity as a good indicator of vegetation stability in a typical plateau wetland

Biotic indicators have been widely used to monitor wetland health. However, few studies have explicitly evaluated if plant diversity could serve as a useful community-level indicator of wetland stability, especially when wetlands are confronted with anthropogenic perturbations. Based on three-year record of wetland plant species abundance in Napahai plateau wetland, Shangri-la under the influence of varying anthropogenic perturbation types, our study tests the impact of such perturbations on plant richness and the relationship between ecosystem temporal stability and plant richness, and further assesses the effectiveness of using plant diversity indicator to probe ecosystem temporal stability of Napahai plateau wetland and the potential mechanisms. The results showed that anthropogenic perturbations could have contributed significantly to realistic variation in plant diversity, and further demonstrated that ecosystem temporal stability was positively related to realistic variation in plant diversity. In particular, communities with high levels of diversity might have better capacity to dampen perturbation impacts than communities with low levels of diversity, and statistical averaging could have played an important role in causing greater stability in more diverse communities. Also, asynchrony might have a stabilizing effect on community stability, and diversity could have stabilized communities through both species asynchrony and population stability propagation. Therefore, our results suggest that plant diversity could be used as a useful indicator of the stability conditions of plateau wetland ecosystems confronted with anthropogenic perturbations, and the preservation of plant communities at sufficient abundance and diversity is necessary for maintaining healthy plateau wetlands and for sustaining their essential ecosystem functions and services.     

Plant species diversity along an altitudinal gradient of Bhabha Valley in western Himalaya

The present study highlights the rich species diversity of higher plants in the Bhabha Valley of western Himalaya in India. The analysis of species diversity revealed that a total of 313 species of higher plants inhabit the valley with a characteristic of moist alpine shrub vegetation. The herbaceous life forms dominate and increase with increasing altitude. The major representations are from the families Asteraceae, Rosaceae, Lamiaceae and Poaceae, suggesting thereby the alpine meadow nature of the study area. The effect of altitude on species diversity displays a hump-shaped curve which may be attributed to increase in habitat diversity at the median ranges and relatively less habitat diversity at higher altitudes. The anthropogenic pressure at lower altitudes results in low plant diversity towards the bottom of the valley with most of the species being exotic in nature. Though the plant diversity is less at higher altitudinal ranges, the uniqueness is relatively high with high species replacement rates. More than 90 % of variability in the species diversity could be explained using appropriate quantitative and statistical analysis along the altitudinal gradient. The valley harbours 18 threatened and 41 endemic species, most of which occur at higher altitudinal gradients due to habitat specificity.