Search results for "Environmental ethics"

Worlds apart, drawn together: Bears, penguins and biodiversity in climate change cartoons

2021

This study shows how cartoonists use iconic and stereotypical animals in their works to reflect society’s knowledge about the effects of climate change. Studying 1022 climate change cartoons including depictions of animals, we noticed that there is very little biodiversity depicted in cartoons. Cartoonists generally avoid using animals indigenous to their own countries; this point is especially true regarding the low presence of insects and other invertebrates. This text also encourages cartoonists to adhere to some recommendations to improve climate change communication. These guidelines are (1) using indigenous wildlife, (2) depicting invertebrate wildlife, (3) improving their knowledge …

The paramount power of selection: From Darwin to Kauffman

1995

For approximately two decades now, the Darwinian interpretation of evolution has now been challenged in many ways. Modern criticisms make it difficult, even for the staunchest Darwinians, not to take a distance from Darwin’s bold phrases on the “power” of natural selection. Let me remind you of some famous declarations of Darwin on the subject: “It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and i…

Pathways towards a sustainable future envisioned by early-career conservation researchers

2021

Scientists have warned decision-makers about the severe consequences of the global environmental crisis since the 1970s. Yet ecological degradation continues and little has been done to address climate change. We investigated early-career conservation researchers' (ECR) perspectives on, and prioritization of, actions furthering sustainability. We conducted a survey (n = 67) and an interactive workshop (n = 35) for ECR attendees of the 5th European Congress of Conservation Biology (2018). Building on these data and discussions, we identified ongoing and forthcoming advances in conservation science. These include increased transdisciplinarity, science communication, advocacy in conservati…

Corrigendum to “Soil fungal community composition does not alter along a latitudinal gradient through the maritime and sub-Antarctic” Fungal Ecology …

2012

From a Crisis Discipline Towards Prognostic Conservation Practise: An Argument for Setting Aside Degraded Habitats

2017

Managing the Historical Agricultural Landscape in the Sicilian Anthropocene Context. The Landscape of the Valley of the Temples as a Time Capsule

2021

The debate over whether we are entering the Anthropocene Epoch focuses on the unequal consumption of the Earth system’s resources at the expense of nature’s regenerative abilities. To find a new point of balance with nature, it is useful to look back in time to understand how the so-called “Great Acceleration”—the surge in the consumption of the planet’s resources—hastened the arrival of the Anthropocene. Some particular places—for various reasons—survived the Great Acceleration and, as time capsules, have preserved more or less intact some landscape features that have disappeared elsewhere. How can we enhance these living archives that have come down to us? Through the analysis of the case…

Preface: Emerging trends in aquatic ecology II

2017

You are now consulting the celebratory volume 750 of Hydrobiologia, the international journal of aquatic sciences. The journal has, since its first volume in March 1948, now exactly 67 years ago, covered a lot of ground and has seen a lot of change in the landscape of scientific publishing in general, and in that of aquatic biodiversity in particular. It has evolved from a fairly locally managed journal, to an international journal with ever increasing impact and ranking. With an ISI 2013 Impact Factor of 2.212, it now ranks 32 out of 103 journals in ‘‘Marine and Freshwater Biology’’. But in the ‘‘Marine Sciences and Fisheries’’ Category of Google Scholar, Hydrobiologia ranks proudly at a 9…

Embracing diverse worldviews to share planet Earth

2019

Leading societies toward a more sustainable, equitably shared, and environmentally just future requires elevating and strengthening conversations on the nonmaterial and perhaps unquantifiable values of nonhuman nature to humanity. Debates among conservationists relating to the appropriateness of valuing ecosystems in terms of their human utility have eclipsed the more important and impactful task of expressing conservation concerns in terms that are meaningful to diverse stakeholders. We considered the wide global diversity of perspectives on the biosocial complex-the relationships and interactions between all living species on Earth-and argue that humanity's best chance for effective conse…

Beyond cells – The virome in the human holobiont

2019

Viromics, or viral metagenomics, is a relatively new and burgeoning field of research that studies the complete collection of viruses forming part of the microbiota in any given niche. It has strong foundations rooted in over a century of discoveries in the field of virology and recent advances in molecular biology and sequencing technologies. Historically, most studies have deconstructed the concept of viruses into a simplified perception of viral agents as mere pathogens, which demerits the scope of large-scale viromic analyses. Viruses are, in fact, much more than regular parasites. They are by far the most dynamic and abundant entity and the greatest killers on the planet, as well as th…

Food, health and society: the town meets the countryside

2017

It is not long time that food culture has undertaken a process of renewal started when severe food safety problems did reveal through the “food scandals”: the so called mad cow disease (BSE, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) or the swine flu and bird flu, and other various contaminations occurred in the late 20th century. The first development in food culture, so long, was due to safety needs but was the beginning of a new consciousness about the importance of food and diet on human health. Quickly, the demand for quality food oriented itself towards qualitative – local, traditional, organic – food features. This was a great challenge and a new opportunity for agriculture: to supply valuabl…