Fine-scale monitoring and mapping of biodiversity and ecosystem services reveals multiple synergies and few tradeoffs in urban green space management.

Urban watersheds can play a critical role in supporting biodiversity and ecosystem services in a rapidly changing world. However, managing for multiple environmental and social objectives in urban landscapes is challenging, especially if the optimization of one ecosystem service conflicts with another. Urban ecology research has frequently been limited to a few indicators - typically either biodiversity or ecosystem service indices - making tradeoffs and synergies difficult to assess. Through a recently established watershed-scale monitoring network in Central Texas, we address this gap by evaluating biodiversity (flora and fauna), habitat quality, and ecosystem service indices of urban green spaces across the watershed. Our results reveal substantial heterogeneity in biodiversity and ecosystem service levels and multiple synergies (stacked benefits or "win-wins"). For example, we found that carbon sequestration positively correlated with tree species richness and the proportion of native trees in a green space, indicating that biodiversity goals for increased tree diversity can also provide carbon sequestration benefits. We also documented correlations between green spaces with greater riparian forest cover and lower particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations and cooler temperatures. In addition, we found that bee and wasp species richness was positively correlated with carbon sequestration and human visitation rates, meaning that urban green spaces can optimize carbon sequestration goals without losing pollinator habitat or access opportunities for city residents. Overall, our results indicate that many aspects of habitat quality, biodiversity, and ecosystem services can be simultaneously supported in urban green spaces. We conclude that urban design and management can optimize nature-based solutions and strategies to have distinct positive impacts on both people and nature.

A Process-Oriented Model of Decision-Making toward Landscape-Scale Prescribed Fire Implementation in the Southern Great Plains, USA.

In this investigation, we developed a model of the psychological drivers of landowners' decisions to implement prescribed fire on their properties. The Southern Great Plains in the USA evolved with fire and prescribed fire is an important management tool aimed at maintaining and enhancing ecological and economic resilience in the region. The conceptualized model is reflective of a decision-making paradigm that considers decision making to be a process inclusive of a variety of factors and their inter-relationships to arrive at judgments on whether or not to utilize prescribed fire. The approach considered a spectrum of inputs, obstacles, and their associations to capture the complexity of decision making that is often lost when modeling single factors in dynamic social-ecological settings. Further, we considered the decision to use prescribed fire as a multifactor process that incorporates not only individual barriers to fire implementation but inter-barrier associations and other inputs (e.g., sociodemographic variables). Path analysis revealed five statistically significant relationships within the hypothesized model. For prescribed fire decision making, women tended to be more analytical whereas men were more inclined to rely on heuristics. Additionally, those who indicated owning their property for non-consumptive recreation-related reasons were also more inclined to rely upon heuristics. Texans reported more experience with prescribed fire as did respondents who indicated owning property for livestock product. Alternately, those owning their property for an investment and non-consumptive recreation opportunities reported less experience with prescribed fire. Last, ownership for crop and livestock production was positively associated with past wildfire experience. Findings have implications for three issue areas: (1) the provision of an evolved conceptualization through which prescribed fire implementation decisions can be examined, (2) enhancing the approach of prescribed fire outreach to a changing landowner population, and (3) improving the content and delivery of prescribed fire education efforts.

Drying and storage effects on poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogel mechanical properties and bioactivity.

Hydrogels based on poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) are increasingly used in biomedical applications because of their ability to control cell-material interactions by tuning hydrogel physical and biological properties. Evaluation of stability after drying and storage are critical in creating an off-the-shelf biomaterial that functions in vivo according to original specifications. However, there has not been a study that systematically investigates the effects of different drying conditions on hydrogel compositional variables. In the first part of this study, PEG-diacrylate hydrogels underwent common processing procedures (vacuum-drying, lyophilizing, hydrating then vacuum-drying), and the effect of this processing on the mechanical properties and swelling ratios was measured. Significant changes in compressive modulus, tensile modulus, and swelling ratio only occurred for select processed hydrogels. No consistent trends were observed after processing for any of the formulations tested. The effect of storage conditions on cell adhesion and spreading on collagen- and streptococcal collagen-like protein (Scl2-2)-PEG-diacrylamide hydrogels was then evaluated to characterize bioactivity retention after storage. Dry storage conditions preserved bioactivity after 6 weeks of storage; whereas, storage in PBS significantly reduced bioactivity. This loss of bioactivity was attributed to ester hydrolysis of the protein linker, acrylate-PEG-N-hydroxysuccinimide. These studies demonstrate that these processing methods and dry storage conditions may be used to prepare bioactive PEG hydrogel scaffolds with recoverable functionality after storage.

A question of fit: reflections on boundaries, organizations and social-ecological systems.

Although there is acknowledgment that the complexity of social-ecological systems governance demands representation from diverse perspectives, there is little agreement in the literature on how to cross both fiat (human-demarcated) and bona fide (physical) boundaries to address such complexities. As a cohort of interdisciplinary scholars, we navigate the boundary between science and practice to address the question of fit regarding the role of organizations in transcending boundaries. We found there is a need to rectify discrepancies between theories about boundaries and theories about organizations. To this end, we propose a conceptual framework to analyze transboundary organizations, an umbrella term to group the literature on boundary organizations, intermediaries and bridging organizations; we introduce this term to illustrate they are not mutually exclusive and to facilitate interdisciplinary research. We first examine social-ecological systems (SES), a framework intended to improve understandings of boundaries and governance. We then continue to unpack the complexity of boundaries and organizations, specifically through important transboundary concepts such as scale and organizational learning. This helps frame our examination of the literature on: 1) boundary organizations; 2) bridging organizations (third-party entities); and 3) intermediaries (distinguished by their position between other actors). Our review identifies a number of discrepancies that pertain to the types of boundaries discussed and the roles assigned to organizations governing SES. Important characteristics have emerged from our review of transboundary organizations including legitimacy, saliency, urgency, and credibility. In developing a conceptual framework, we argue that transboundary organizations: 1) expand upon the boundary spectrum, 2) incorporate transboundary concepts, and 3) hybridize characteristics of boundary, bridging, and intermediary organizations. We conclude with a number of considerations for transboundary organizations and recommendations for further research.

Collaboration and nested environmental governance: Scale dependency, scale framing, and cross-scale interactions in collaborative conservation.

The problem of fit between social institutions and ecological systems is an enduring challenge in natural resource management and conservation. Developments in the science of conservation biology encourage the management of landscapes at increasingly larger scales. In contrast, sociological approaches to conservation emphasize the importance of ownership, collaboration and stewardship at scales relevant to the individual or local community. Despite the proliferation of initiatives seeking to work with local communities to undertake conservation across large landscapes, there is an inherent tension between these scales of operation. Consequently, questions about the changing nature of effective conservation across scales abound. Through an analysis of three nested cases working in a semiautonomous fashion in the Northern Rocky Mountains in North America, this paper makes an empirical contribution to the literature on nested governance, collaboration and communication across scales. Despite different scales of operation, constituencies and scale frames, we demonstrate a surprising similarity in organizational structure and an implicit dependency between these initiatives. This paper examines the different capacities and capabilities of collaborative conservation from the local to regional to supra regional. We draw on the underexplored concept of 'scale-dependent comparative advantage' (Cash and Moser, 2000), to gain insight into what activities take place at which scale and what those activities contribute to nested governance and collaborative conservation. The comparison of these semiautonomous cases provides fruitful territory to draw lessons for understanding the roles and relationships of organizations operating at different scales in more connected networks of nested governance.

Antioxidants and cognitive training interact to affect oxidative stress and memory in APP/PSEN1 mice.

The present study investigated the relationships among oxidative stress, beta-amyloid and cognitive abilities in the APP/PSEN1 double-transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. In two experiments, long-term dietary supplements were given to aged APP/PSEN1 mice containing vitamin C alone (1 g/kg diet; Experiment 1) or in combination with a high (750 IU/kg diet, Experiments 1 and 2) or lower (400 IU/kg diet, Experiment 2) dose of vitamin E. Oxidative stress, measured by F(4)-neuroprostanes or malondialdehyde, was elevated in cortex of control-fed APP/PSEN1 mice and reduced to wild-type levels by vitamin supplementation. High-dose vitamin E with C was less effective at reducing oxidative stress than vitamin C alone or the low vitamin E+C diet combination. The high-dose combination also impaired water maze performance in mice of both genotypes. In Experiment 2, the lower vitamin E+C treatment attenuated spatial memory deficits in APP/PSEN1 mice and improved performance in wild-type mice in the water maze. Amyloid deposition was not reduced by antioxidant supplementation in either experiment.

Feared stimuli are expected in specific situations: the use of situationalism and fear expectancy in a self-report measurement of fears.

The Wildland Fear Expectancy Scale was developed to measure apprehension about visiting forested areas. The scale was administered to 1,337 middle-school and high-school students in the southeastern United States. Use of an expectancy approach and reference to a specific situation (day trip to a forest) produced results that diverged from studies that used generic fear surveys, although direct comparisons are not possible. The catastrophic event items were ranked lowest in contrast to general fear surveys, in which they are often at the top of rankings.

Bullet identification with radiography.

The authors provide a simple radiographic method for estimating bullet weight and caliber of both deformed and undeformed bullets that enables accurate determination of caliber for the gamut of bullet shapes, with known degrees of confidence. The weight-determination procedure is based on the correlation between bullet cross-sectional area, as derived from three orthogonal radiographs, and bullet weight, as determined from a data base of the properties of 48 bullets removed from humans. Different equations were developed for bullets weighing 5.8 g or less, or more than 5.8 g. For relatively undeformed bullets an additional method calculated caliber directly from the diameter of the bullet body on radiographs. Both methods enabled correct prediction of the weight and caliber of the bullets; if one method could not be used, results of the other were reliable. Testimony based on these results has been accepted in a local police case and may meet requirements for testimony in U.S. court cases involving gunshots.