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Assessing human well- being constructs with environmental and equity aspects: A review of the landscape

1. Decades of theory and scholarship on the concept of human well- being have informed a proliferation of approaches to assess well- being and support public policy aimed at sustainability and improving quality of life. 2. Human well- being is multidimensional, and well- being emerges when the dimensions and interrelationships interact as a system. In this paper, we illuminate two crucial components of well- being that are often excluded from policy because of their relative difficulty to measure and manage: equity and interrelationships between humans and the environment. 3.

Do trade-offs govern plant species’ responses to different global change treatments?

Plants are subject to trade-offs among growth strategies such that adaptations for optimal growth in one condition can preclude optimal growth in another. Thus, we predicted that a plant species that responds positively to one global change treatment would be less likely than average to respond positively to another treatment, particularly for pairs of treatments that favor distinct traits. We examined plant species’ abundances in 39 global change experiments manipulating two or more of the following: CO2, nitrogen, phosphorus, water, temperature, or disturbance.

Continuity and change in the contemporary Pacific food system

The Pacific food system has become progressively more integrated into global food regimes. This integration has had impacts on availability and consumption of food, population health, and vulnerability to external drivers. We describe major elements of the contemporary food system to provide a foundation for analysis of food system transitions and public health outcomes. Although crop production has doubled in the last fifty years, it has not kept pace with population growth. This deficit is increasingly filled by imported foods, particularly staples, meat and sugar.

Historical food consumption declines and the role of alternative foods

The adoption of sustainable alternative foods could potentially reduce the environmental burden of human food production if it can reduce demand for products with higher environmental impact. However, there is little empirical evidence for how frequent food consumption declines are when alternative foods are introduced, limiting our knowledge of the potential for such introductions to drive food system transformations.

Shifting stoichiometry: Long-term trends in stream-dissolved organic matter reveal altered C:N ratios due to history of atmospheric acid deposition

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and nitrogen (DON) are important energy and nutrient sources for aquatic ecosystems. In many northern temperate, freshwater systems DOC has increased in the past 50 years. Less is known about how changes in DOC may vary across latitudes, and whether changes in DON track those of DOC. Here, we present long-term DOC and DON data from 74 streams distributed across seven sites in biomes ranging from the tropics to northern boreal forests with varying histories of atmospheric acid deposition.

State of Alaska's salmon and people: introduction to a special feature

Indigenous peoples and salmon stewardship: a critical relationship

Indigenous Peoples and salmon in the lands now called Alaska have been closely entwined for at least 12,000 years. Salmon continue to be central to the ways of life of Alaska Natives, contributing to physical, social, economic, cultural, spiritual, psychological, and emotional well-being. Salmon have also become important to Alaskan settlers.

Conservation needs to integrate knowledge across scales

Attributes of climate resilience in fisheries: From theory to practice

In a changing climate, there is an imperative to build coupled social-ecological systems—including fisheries—that can withstand or adapt to climate stressors. Although resilience theory identifies system attributes that supposedly confer resilience, these attributes have rarely been clearly defined, mechanistically explained, nor tested and applied to inform fisheries governance.

Harnessing the NEON data revolution to advance open environmental science with a diverse and data-capable community

It is a critical time to reflect on the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) science to date as well as envision what research can be done right now with NEON (and other) data and what training is needed to enable a diverse user community. NEON became fully operational in May 2019 and has pivoted from planning and construction to operation and maintenance. In this overview, the history of and foundational thinking around NEON are discussed.