Search results for "Unity"
showing 10 items of 3852 documents
Voices heard and lessons learnt : Exploring multiple knowledges and local participation in a community-based integrated early childhood development p…
2019
Abstract Following calls for diverse and contextual perspectives of the rich lives of young children, their families and communities from/in the Global South, this paper presents critical reflections emerging from a three-year (2016-2019) communitybased Integrated Approach to Early Childhood Development (ECD) project implemented in the rural Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. It explores the critical relationship established between a range of stakeholders involved in this project as reflected on by two community activists working together in the area of early childhood in the province for thirty years. This article highlights the importance of situating any community development initiati…
Effect of cobalt and silver nanoparticles and ions on Lumbricus rubellus health and on microbial community of earthworm faeces and soil
2016
The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of silver and cobalt, supplied both as ions and nanoparticles (Ag+, Co2+, AgNPs, CoNPs) through contaminated food to earthworms (Lumbricus rubellus), on their health as well as on microbial community of both soil and earthworm faeces. Earthworms and microbes were exposed to the contaminants in laboratory microcosms with artificial soil. Contaminants were supplied once a week for 5 weeks by spiking them on horse manure. The accumulation of CoNPs and Co2+ in earthworm tissues was two and three times greater than AgNPs and Ag+, respectively. Except for AgNPs, contaminants significantly affected microbial community structure of earthworm faece…
The orophilous communities of the Pino-Juniperetea class in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean area
2001
Orophilous plant communities of the Pino-Juniperetea class, occurring in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean area, are examined. This vegetation is characterized by the dominance of trees and shrubs, mostly represented by conifers belonging to the genera Juniperus, Abies and Pinus. These communities are nowadays relegated to the supra- and oromediterranean belt, and show a fragmentary distribution, which is an evident proof of their relict connotation. The comparison among these communities, based on original and literature data, has highlighted a remarkable floristic and structural homogeneity, together with a series of geographical vicariances. From the phytosociological point of view, …
A Holistic Vision of Smart Cities: An Opportunity for a Big Change
2016
The depletion of energy resources on the one hand, and the population growth on the other, forced the society at all levels (local, national and international) to turn its attention to the identification of new forms of protection of the environment and the waste reduction for a new eco-sustainable way of living. The process of massive urbanization already in place, exacerbated by the movement of large masses of people in search of a more human form of life, is putting severely under test the livability within our cities, bringing out the inefficiency of existing management and organization models. Daisaku Ikeda said: “Certainly, the density of urban populations means that problems are conc…
Fuzzy Quantification of Common and Rare Species in Ecological Communities (FuzzyQ)
2020
Abstract1. Most species in ecological communities are rare whereas only a few are common. This distributional paradox has intrigued ecologists for decades but the interpretation of species abundance distributions remains elusive.2. We present Fuzzy Quantification of Common and Rare Species in Ecological Communities (FuzzyQ) as an R package. FuzzyQ shifts the focus from the prevailing species-categorization approach to develop a quantitative framework that seeks to place each species along a rare-commonness gradient. Given a community surveyed over a number of sites, quadrats, or any other convenient sampling unit, FuzzyQ uses a fuzzy clustering algorithm that estimates a probability for eac…
Resources, recruitment limitation and invader species identity determine pattern of spontaneous invasion in experimental grasslands
2009
Summary 1 A number of experimental studies have supported the hypothesis that diversity increases invasion resistance, but several mechanisms were proposed to explain this relationship. We studied spontaneous invasion in experimental grasslands varying in species richness (1–16 (60)) and plant functional group richness and identity (1–4; grasses, legumes, tall herbs small herbs) during the first 3 years after establishment on large-area plots of 20 × 20 m size. 2 Invader species number, biomass and density decreased with increasing community species richness. The identity of successful invaders changed through time as the relative importance of external invaders (= species not belonging to …
Soil decomposer animal community in heavy-metal contaminated coniferous forest with and without liming
2002
Abstract Responses of decomposer animals to heavy-metal contamination were studied near a Cu–Ni smelter in Finland. Samples were taken 0.5, 2 and 8 km from the smelter. In addition, plots fertilised with lime were sampled. Decomposer community in coniferous forest soil appeared to be quite resistant to heavy-metals. Only in the vicinity (0.5 km) of the smelter, were numbers of soil animals clearly decreased and their community structure strongly altered as compared to the control site (8 km). At the 2-km site, the community structure was only slightly changed. Most of the collembolan species were still found at the 0.5-km site. High metal sorption capacity of the humus, and heterogeneous di…
Nested assemblages resulting from host size variation: the case of endoparasite communities in fish hosts
2001
Nested species subsets are a common pattern in many types of communities found in insular or fragmented habitats. Nestedness occurs in some communities of ectoparasites of fish, as does the exact opposite departure from random assembly, anti-nestedness. Here, we looked for nested and anti-nested patterns in the species composition of communities of internal parasites of 23 fish populations from two localities in Finland. We also compared various community parameters of nested and anti-nested assemblages of parasites, and determined whether nestedness may result simply from a size-related accumulation of parasite species by feeding fish hosts. Nested parasite communities were characterised b…
Long-Term Effects of Climate Warming on Forest Soil Collembola
2005
Long-term changes in the collembolan community structure were studied in a Scots pine forest in northern Latvia over a period of 11 successive years (1992–2002). Soil Collembola were yearly sampled from three pine forest stands of different age – young (30 to 40 years old), middle-aged (50 to 70 years old) and old (150 to 200 years old). During the study period a statistically significant increase in sums of positive temperatures (>+4°C) was recorded and a gradual decrease in species richness of Collembola was observed in all forest stands. The study showed that sums of positive air temperatures produce statistically significant effects on collembolan populations. Community responses were s…
We need to appreciate common synanthropic plants before they become rare: Case study in Latgale (Latvia)
2020
Local ecological knowledge holds great potential in contributing to sustainable resource management and conservation activities. For this reason, the authors choose to analyse an ethnobotanical dataset from the Baltic Sea region by exploring the relationship between plants and humans on the basis of three main categories: habitat characteristics, distribution in the wild and plant sensitivity to human impact beyond physical distance. The study provides empirical evidence of widespread usage of so-called common species which are widely distributed in the territory and benefit from human activity. When considering the data via the intensity of use, based on detailed use-reports (DUR), the mai…