National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis

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1571-1580 of 6311
  1. Publication

    A distribution analysis of the central Maya lowlands ecoinformation network: its rises, falls, and changes

    We report a study of central Maya lowland dynastic information networks, i.e., six cities’ external elite ceramic influences, and how they reflect the decision-making practices of Maya elites over 3000 years. Forest cover, i.e., Moraceae family pollen, was added to the network analysis to provide ecological boundary conditions, thus ecologically moderated information networks. Principal components analysis revealed three dominant patterns. First, the networking of interior cities into powerful polities in the Late Preclassic and Classic periods (400 BCE-800 CE).

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  2. Publication

    Fisheries management impacts on target species status

    Fisheries management systems around the world are highly diverse in their design, operation, and effectiveness at meeting objectives. A variety of management institutions, strategies, and tactics are used across disparate regions, fishing fleets, and taxonomic groups. At a global level, it is unclear which particular management attributes have greatest influence on the status of fished populations, and also unclear which external factors affect the overall success of fisheries management systems.

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  3. Publication

    Temperature and rainfall interaction to control carbon cycling in tropical forests

    Tropical forests dominate global terrestrial carbon (C) exchange, and recent droughts in the Amazon Basin have contributed to short-term declines in terrestrial carbon dioxide uptake and storage. However, the effects of longer-term climate variability on tropical forest carbon dynamics are still not well understood.

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  4. Publication

    A novel framework to account for ecological drivers in the control and elimination of environmentally transmitted disease: a modelling study

    Popular fears about human infectious disease often focus on pathogens spread by person-to-person contact. By contrast, we show that 70–80% of human pathogens are environmentally transmitted (ie, people are infected through contact with free-living stages or environmental reservoirs including soil, water, vectors, food, or non- human hosts in the environment). In fact, environmentally transmitted diseases represent about 40% of today's global burden of human infectious disease (or 150 million disability adjusted life-years).

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  5. Publication

    Aligning marine species range data to better serve science and conservation

    Species distribution data provide the foundation for a wide range of ecological research studies and conservation management decisions. Two major efforts to provide marine species distributions at a global scale are the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which provides expert-generated range maps that outline the complete extent of a species' distribution; and AquaMaps, which provides model-generated species distribution maps that predict areas occupied by the species.

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  6. Publication

    Linking ecosystem processes to communities of practice through commercially fished species in the Gulf of Alaska

    Marine ecosystems are complex, and there is increasing recognition that environmental, ecological, and human systems are linked inextricably in coastal regions. The purpose of this article was to integrate environmental, ecological and human dimensions information important for fisheries management into a common analytical framework. We then used the framework to examine the linkages between these traditionally separate subject areas. We focused on synthesis of linkages between the Gulf of Alaska marine ecosystem and human communities of practice, defined as different fisheries sectors.

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  7. Publication

    Logging degrades nursery habitat for an iconic coral reef fish

    The loss of nursery habitats is widely believed to contribute disproportionally to declines in abundance and productivity of fish populations. However, it has been difficult to establish links between the processes threatening nurseries and changes in population demography. Here we show that juvenile bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum), an iconic coral reef species that is globally threatened, depend on a highly specific micro-habitat that is vulnerable to sedimentation from logging operations. We conducted surveys on fringing reefs in Solomon Islands.

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  8. Publication

    Navigating the seascape of ocean management: waypoints on the voyage toward sustainable use

    Some societies have sustainably managed their local marine resources for centuries using traditional methods, but we are only beginning to learn how to do it at larger scales, including globally. A broad, deep and constantly growing body of ocean knowledge has developed, adding many new concepts, perspectives, management models and analytical tools into the knowledge base in a relatively short period.

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  9. Publication

    Financing the sustainable management of Rwanda's protected areas

    Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park is a biodiversity hotspot with the most endemic species in the ecoregion as well as the highest number of threatened species internationally. In addition to great biological diversity, Nyungwe National Park supplies significant ecosystem services to the Rwandan population including water provisioning and tourism services. Tourism in the Park has strong potential for improving the sustainable management of the Park for continued provision of natural habitat and critical ecosystem services.

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  10. Publication

    Offshore aquaculture: I know it when I see it

    Offshore aquaculture is increasingly viewed as a mechanism to meet growing protein demand for seafood, while minimizing adverse consequences on the environment and other uses in the oceans. However, despite growing interest in offshore aquaculture, there appears to be no consensus as to what measures commonly define an offshore site or how effects of offshore aquaculture—relative to more nearshore practices—are assessed.

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