Advances in Understanding and Managing Catastrophic Ecosystem Shifts in Mediterranean Ecosystems

Elsen, Erik van den; Stringer, Lindsay C.; Ita, Cecilia De; Hessel, Rudi; Kéfi, Sonia; Schneider, F.; Bautista, Susana; Mayor, Ángeles G.; Baudena, Mara; Rietkerk, Max; Valdecantos, Alejandro; Vallejo, V. Ramón; Geeson, Nichola; Brandt, Christian; Fleskens, Luuk; Hemerik, Lia; Panagos, Panos; Valente, Sandra; Keizer, Jan Jacob; Schwilch, Gudrun; Riva, Matteo Jucker; Sietz, Diana; Christoforou, Michalakis; Hadjimitsis, Diofantos; Papoutsa, Christiana; Quaranta, Giovanni; Salvia, Rosanna; Tsanis, Ioannis K.; Daliakopoulos, Ioannis Ν.; Claringbould, Heleen; Ruiter, Peter C. de

doi:10.3389/fevo.2020.561101

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 100 publications

(141 reference statements)

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“…This is consistent with the emerging quasistationarity perspective in ecology (Coulson, 2020), potentially applicable to socio-ecological systems. In fact, we observe abrupt shifts in a wide variety of ecosystems (van den Elsen et al, 2020). However, and perhaps more interesting, is that natural and social catastrophes are often closely linked (Nel and Righarts, 2008), with natural disasters triggering social ones, including wars (Lee, 2018) and revolutions (Manning et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Evaluating Social Policy Scenarios for Tourism Development of Barú Island (Colombia) Using Structural Qualitative Modeling

Ramos‐Jiliberto

Herrera

2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Social policies are commonly defined from scattered knowledge. It is hard to find examples of social policy design based on a systemic perspective, and even harder with formal modeling support. To advance in filling this gap, we studied the case of the tourism development on Barú Island. In this place, tourism is a critical economic activity based on local ecosystem services, but it is being developed without planning and outside of a sustainability focus. We build a qualitative model of the social structure of tourism development that is taking place in the locality. Model building was based on experiences and opinions of local stakeholders, gathered through participatory procedures. Using our model, we projected the future states of the system, assuming several hypothetical public policy scenarios. More specifically, we evaluated the system responses to: (a) a multivariate business–as–usual (BAU) scenario, and (b) two multivariate aprioristic scenarios, pointed to improve expected outcomes. These scenarios were based on the opinions of both stakeholders and experts. We also tested: (c) simple (univariate) aposterioristic scenarios, built from the structural analysis of the system using the sensitivity matrix. Finally, we included: (d) a trivial (and unattainable) scenario, in which every model variable was increased or decreased at convenience. The outcomes of our scenario analysis were evaluated using four different weight sets applied to the projected states of system variables, representing different strategic priorities: social-economic, environmental, mixed, and plain. Our results show that the projected outcomes differ among the tested scenarios and the strategic priority to be adopted. However, in all cases the BAU scenario was markedly the worst. For every strategic priority, some simple aposterioristic scenarios performed slightly better, as compared to the more complex aprioristic ones, and even better than the trivial scenario. This result was more noticeable under the plain strategy. We conclude that aposterioristic scenarios derived from the sensitivity matrix of the qualitative model, particularly decreasing migration risk and increasing governance strength, are the best candidates for tourism policy-making in Barú among the evaluated alternatives. These results should be put in its context and adapted before they can be transferred to other study-cases. Our findings suggest that social policy-making can benefit from structural qualitative modeling. In particular, this approach may give analytical support to the selection of intervention measures from a structural perspective, based on defined strategic priorities. For this purpose, however, the model itself and the outcomes obtained from its analysis should be updated steadily.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Evaluating Social Policy Scenarios for Tourism Development of Barú Island (Colombia) Using Structural Qualitative Modeling

Ramos‐Jiliberto

Herrera

2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…In recent decades, large-scale plant and species identification looked to aerial multispectral sensors because of their ability to provide high-resolution spectral and spatial data ( Lewis & Brown, 2001 ; Paz-Kagan et al, 2019 ; Robinson et al, 2016 ). Due to human impacts and climate change, cultivated plants and native vegetation are stressed by various specific factors such as the increase in temperature, extended droughts, salinity, overgrazing and fires ( Van den Elsen et al, 2020 ). This leads to negative effects on food production, the environmental equilibrium and biodiversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting and distinguishing between apicultural plants using UAV multispectral imaging

Papachristoforou

Prodromou

Hadjimitsis

et al. 2023

PeerJ

Self Cite

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Detecting and distinguishing apicultural plants are important elements of the evaluation and quantification of potential honey production worldwide. Today, remote sensing can provide accurate plant distribution maps using rapid and efficient techniques. In the present study, a five-band multispectral unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was used in an established beekeeping area on Lemnos Island, Greece, for the collection of high-resolution images from three areas where Thymus capitatus and Sarcopoterium spinosum are present. Orthophotos of UAV bands for each area were used in combination with vegetation indices in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, to classify the area occupied by the two plant species. From the five classifiers (Random Forest, RF; Gradient Tree Boost, GTB; Classification and Regression Trees, CART; Mahalanobis Minimum Distance, MMD; Support Vector Machine, SVM) in GEE, the RF gave the highest overall accuracy with a Kappa coefficient reaching 93.6%, 98.3%, 94.7%, and coefficient of 0.90, 0.97, 0.92 respectively for each case study. The training method used in the present study detected and distinguish the two plants with great accuracy and results were confirmed using 70% of the total score to train the GEE and 30% to assess the method’s accuracy. Based on this study, identification and mapping of Thymus capitatus areas is possible and could help in the promotion and protection of this valuable species which, on many Greek Islands, is the sole foraging plant of honeybees.

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“…Such patterns are important both because of their direct effect on ecosystem function, and because they provide an early warning sign of catastrophic desertification (Elsen et al. 2020 ; Kéfi et al. 2014 ; Rietkerk et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-range seed dispersal enables almost stationary patterns in a model for dryland vegetation

Eigentler

Sherratt

2022

J. Math. Biol.

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Spatiotemporal patterns of vegetation are a ubiquitous feature of semi-arid ecosystems. On sloped terrain, vegetation patterns occur as stripes perpendicular to the contours. Field studies report contrasting long-term dynamics between different observation sites; some observe slow uphill migration of vegetation bands while some report stationary patterns. In this paper, we show that long-range seed dispersal provides a mechanism that enables the occurrence of both migrating and stationary patterns. We utilise a nonlocal PDE model in which seed dispersal is accounted for by a convolution term. The model represents vegetation patterns as periodic travelling waves and numerical continuation shows that both migrating and almost stationary patterns are stable if seed dispersal distances are sufficiently large. We use a perturbation theory approach to obtain analytical confirmation of the existence of almost stationary patterned solutions and provide a biological interpretation of the phenomenon.

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Advances in Understanding and Managing Catastrophic Ecosystem Shifts in Mediterranean Ecosystems

Cited by 9 publications

References 100 publications

Evaluating Social Policy Scenarios for Tourism Development of Barú Island (Colombia) Using Structural Qualitative Modeling

Evaluating Social Policy Scenarios for Tourism Development of Barú Island (Colombia) Using Structural Qualitative Modeling

Detecting and distinguishing between apicultural plants using UAV multispectral imaging

Long-range seed dispersal enables almost stationary patterns in a model for dryland vegetation

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