Spatial Environmental Variation PDF Download

Author: Melissa Kay McCormick
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Danthonia
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Author: Anna Louise Warwick Sears
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Environmental heterogeneity is ubiquitous in natural systems and in part determines the distributions of plant species both on landscape and local spatial scales. Broadly distributed plant species can respond to environmental heterogeneity via genetic differentiation between populations occurring in distinct patches of environments that are large relative to the spatial scale of dispersal (coarse grained). Fine grained heterogeneity in nutrient, light and water availability occurs on spatial scales that are relevant to seed and pollen dispersal (0.5 to 10m) and is an important determinant of the success of lineages within a population. Dispersing progeny exposed to fine grained heterogeneity can respond via phenotypic plasticity, which enables a single genotype to produce alternative phenotypes in response to its environment. Serpentine soils in Northern California impose harsh and variable abiotic stress on non-adapted plants and have been partially invaded by the invasive annual plant Erodium cicutarium. My dissertation research utilized greenhouse and field experiments to address the following questions in populations of E. cicutarium growing on and off serpentine soils: 1) What is the effect of spatial variation in environmental factors on lifetime fitness on serpentine and non-serpentine soils?, 2) What are the fitness consequences of genetic variation in the expression of phenotypic plasticity in response to continuous multivariate edaphic gradients?, and 3) Do differences in the pattern of spatial edaphic variation within patches of serpentine and non-serpentine soils generate differential selection on the expression of plasticity between soil types? Overall, I demonstrated substantial genetic variation in the expression of phenotypic plasticity by E. cicutarium in response to continuous environmental variation. The fitness consequences of this plasticity were often specific to the trait and environment considered, however the strength of selection on plasticity was significantly stronger on serpentine soils. This differential selection on plasticity was associated with greater small scale edaphic heterogeneity in patches of serpentine soils relative to non-serpentine soils. Additionally, differences in the level of small scale environmental heterogeneity on serpentine and non-serpentine soils generated differential selection on seed dispersal distance in E. cicutarium between soil types.

Author: John P. Tiefenbacher
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 1839624590
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Spatial Variability in Environmental Science - Patterns, Processes, and Analyses includes eight studies that examine the issue of spatial variability in four areas of the environmental sciences – atmospheric science, geological science, biological science, and landscape science. The topics range from monitoring of wind, the urban heat island, and atmospheric pollution, to coastal geomorphology, landscape planning and forest ecology, the problem of introduced species to regional ecologies, and a technique to improve the identification of human constructions in semi-natural landscapes. A small volume can only offer a small glimpse at the activities of scientists and insights into environmental science, but the array of papers herein offers a unique view of the current scholarship.

Author: Wayne Gray
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351148672
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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There has been a recent explosion of research incorporating a spatial dimension in environmental and natural resource economics, where the spatial aspects of human behaviour or the natural environment make a crucial difference in the analysis and policy response to the problem. Much of this research has been driven by the growing availability of spatially explicit social science data and the development of tools and methodological advances to use these data. Collected in this volume are 24 key articles considering the reasons for spatial variation in policies, due to either efficiency or equity considerations, and the consequences of that spatial variation for both environmental and economic outcomes. These articles demonstrate that the failure to address spatial issues in the analysis can create two problems: (1) the analysis provides a poor basis for predicting actual behaviour that is specifically based upon spatial considerations, and (2) the analysis fails to provide a basis for designing spatially targeted policies that could lead to more efficient outcomes.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309072786
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Since the dawn of medical science, people have recognized connections between a change in the weather and the appearance of epidemic disease. With today's technology, some hope that it will be possible to build models for predicting the emergence and spread of many infectious diseases based on climate and weather forecasts. However, separating the effects of climate from other effects presents a tremendous scientific challenge. Can we use climate and weather forecasts to predict infectious disease outbreaks? Can the field of public health advance from "surveillance and response" to "prediction and prevention?" And perhaps the most important question of all: Can we predict how global warming will affect the emergence and transmission of infectious disease agents around the world? Under the Weather evaluates our current understanding of the linkages among climate, ecosystems, and infectious disease; it then goes a step further and outlines the research needed to improve our understanding of these linkages. The book also examines the potential for using climate forecasts and ecological observations to help predict infectious disease outbreaks, identifies the necessary components for an epidemic early warning system, and reviews lessons learned from the use of climate forecasts in other realms of human activity.

Author: Graeme S. Cumming
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400703074
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Spatial Resilience is a new and exciting area of interdisciplinary research. It focuses on the influence of spatial variation – including such things as spatial location, context, connectivity, and dispersal – on the resilience of complex systems, and on the roles that resilience and self-organization play in generating spatial variation. Prof. Cumming provides a readable introduction and a first comprehensive synthesis covering the core concepts and applications of spatial resilience to the study of social-ecological systems. The book follows a trajectory from concepts through models, methods, and case study analysis before revisiting the central problems in the further conceptual development of the field. In the process, the author ranges from the movements of lions in northern Zimbabwe to the urban jungles of Europe, and from the collapse of past societies to the social impacts of modern conflict. The many case studies and examples discussed in the book show how the concept of spatial resilience can generate valuable insights into the spatial dynamics of social-ecological systems and contribute to solving some of the most pressing problems of our time. Although it has been written primarily for students, this book will provide fascinating reading for interdisciplinary scientists at all career stages as well as for the interested public. "Graeme Cumming, central in the development of resilience thinking and theory, has produced a wonderful book on spatial resilience, the first ever on this topic. The book will become a shining star, a classic in the explosion of new ideas and approaches to studying and understanding social-ecological systems." Carl Folke, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden

Author: Taylor & Francis Group
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138620643
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description
There has been a recent explosion of research incorporating a spatial dimension in environmental and natural resource economics, where the spatial aspects of human behaviour or the natural environment make a crucial difference in the analysis and policy response to the problem. Much of this research has been driven by the growing availability of spatially explicit social science data and the development of tools and methodological advances to use these data. Collected in this volume are 24 key articles considering the reasons for spatial variation in policies, due to either efficiency or equity considerations, and the consequences of that spatial variation for both environmental and economic outcomes. These articles demonstrate that the failure to address spatial issues in the analysis can create two problems: (1) the analysis provides a poor basis for predicting actual behaviour that is specifically based upon spatial considerations, and (2) the analysis fails to provide a basis for designing spatially targeted policies that could lead to more efficient outcomes.

Author: Louis Donelle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 75

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Spatial environmental heterogeneity is widely accepted and cited as a mechanism underlying the structure of ecological communities. Most empirical evidence related to the effects of environmental heterogeneity comes from assessing how local environments vary in relation to one another and how this variation affects community (and metacommunity) structure. However, similar levels of environmental variation are often structured differently in space, likely affecting species distributions and the ways in which they coexist. Yet, the spatial structure of environmental variation received very little attention. In this study, we set out for the first time a model to understand the effects of the spatial structure of the environment on metacommunity dynamics and its effects on species co-existence at local and regional levels. We built a metacommunity model in a spatially explicit landscape with spatially structured environmental conditions and a continuum of specialist to generalist species that competed for space. Dispersal mortality was set as a function of species' environmental tolerances and the environmental variation experienced during dispersal. The spatial structure of the environment was found to increase local and regional coexistence, while also selecting for more specialist species. In landscapes with strong spatial structure, patches with similar environmental values were clustered together, thus facilitating the successful colonization of suitable patches by specialist species. Conversely, weakly structured landscapes selected for generalist species. As such, increased environmental spatialization fostered niche partitioning, facilitating coexistence and, as a result, increasing local and regional diversity.

Author: John A. Wiens
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444337939
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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In North America, concepts of Historical Range of Variability are being employed in land-management planning for properties of private organizations and multiple government agencies. The National Park Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and The Nature Conservancy all include elements of historical ecology in their planning processes. Similar approaches are part of land management and conservation in Europe and Australia. Each of these user groups must struggle with the added complication of rapid climate change, rapid land-use change, and technical issues in order to employ historical ecology effectively. Historical Environmental Variation in Conservation and Natural Resource Management explores the utility of historical ecology in a management and conservation context and the development of concepts related to understanding future ranges of variability. It provides guidance and insights to all those entrusted with managing and conserving natural resources: land-use planners, ecologists, fire scientists, natural resource policy makers, conservation biologists, refuge and preserve managers, and field practitioners. The book will be particularly timely as science-based management is once again emphasized in United States federal land management and as an understanding of the potential effects of climate change becomes more widespread among resource managers. Additional resources for this book can be found at: www.wiley.com/go/wiens/historicalenvironmentalvariation.