Cam Bullen was awarded the James Robert Thompson Fellowship and the R.E. McKechnie Graduate Scholarship. Congrats, Cam!
Cameron Bullen and Aspen Ono join CHANS Lab
Cam will be doing a MSc, cosupervised by Ed Gregr. Aspen will be doing a MA, co-supervised by David Boyd. Welcome, Cam and Aspen!
Ashli Akins is 1 of 3 finalists for the SSHRC Talent Award
Winners will be announced in Ottawa October 3. Congrats for making it this far, Ashli!
Gregr et al., “Why less complexity produces better forecasts”
Gregr, E.J., D.M. Palacios, A. Thompson and K.M.A. Chan (2018). “Why less complexity produces better forecasts: An independent data evaluation of kelp habitat models.” Ecography 0(ja). Doi: 10.1111/ecog.03470
Abstract: Understanding how species are distributed in the environment is increasingly important for natural resource management, particularly for keystone and habitat forming species, and those of conservation concern. Habitat suitability models are fundamental to developing this understanding; however their use in management continues to be limited due to often-vague model objectives and inadequate evaluation methods. Along the Northeast Pacific coast, canopy kelps (Macrocystis pyrifera and Nereocystis luetkeana) provide biogenic habitat and considerable primary production to nearshore ecosystems. We investigated the distribution of these species by examining a series of increasingly complex habitat suitability models ranging from process-based models based on species’ ecology to complex Generalised Additive Models applied to purpose-collected survey data. Seeking limits on model complexity, we explored the relationship between model complexity and forecast skill, measured using both cross-validation and independent data evaluation. Our analysis confirmed the importance of predictors used in models of coastal kelp distributions developed elsewhere (i.e., depth, bottom type, bottom slope, and exposure); it also identified additional important factors including salinity, and interactions between exposure and salinity, and slope and tidal energy. Comparative results showed that cross-validation can lead to over-fitting, while independent data evaluation clearly identified the appropriate model complexity for generating habitat forecasts. Our results also illustrate that, depending on the evaluation data, predictions from simpler models can out-perform those from more complex models. Collectively, the insights from evaluating multiple models with multiple data sets contribute to the holistic assessment of model forecast skill. The continued development of methods and metrics for evaluating model forecasts with independent data, and the explicit consideration of model objectives and assumptions, promise to increase the utility of model forecasts to decision makers.
Šunde et al., “Valuation as destruction?”
Šunde, C., J. Sinner, M. Tadaki, J. Stephenson, B. Glavovic, S. Awatere, A. Giorgetti, N. Lewis, A. Young, K. Chan. (2018). “Valuation as destruction? The social effects of valuation processes in contested marine spaces.” Marine Policy 97(Nov): 170-178. Doi: 10.1016/j.marpol.2018.05.024
Abstract: Valuation encompasses far more than the practice of estimating the financial value of environmental services and changes. It extends to almost any socio-political process in which local actors seek to shape the development of their places and environments by describing what matters about these places. This paper draws on diverse engagements with participants involved in high-profile marine development decisions in New Zealand to examine value-articulating institutions (VAIs), i.e., the formal and informal ways that values of affected parties are elicited, received and evaluated by decision-makers. Our study shows that formal VAIs can be alienating for many participants, demanding huge investments of time and personal sacrifices, demoralising members of communities when their local knowledge and expertise is delegitimised. Such processes can leave communities shaken, conflict-riven and unhappy, and undermine the legitimacy of democratic institutions. All VAIs are imperfect – using informal along with formal VAIs can provide alternative spaces for people to present and describe their values. The paper describes in situ experiences that provide an informal alternative to more formal VAIs.
Emily Anderson defends her PhD
Emily defended her PhD entitled, ““Market” Participation for Development and Environmental Sustainability: Costa Rican Dairy Markets and Payments for Ecosystem Services”, co-supervised by Hisham Zerriffi and Kai. Congratulations, Emily!
Adrian Semmelink defends his MSc
Adrian defended his MSc thesis entitled, “Gaps between farmer and government officials views of best management practices: cracks or canyons?”, co-supervised by Terre Satterfield and Kai. Congrats, Adrian!
Frei et al., Bright spots in agricultural landscapes: Identifying areas exceeding expectations for multifunctionality and biodiversity
Frei, B., Renard, D., Mitchell, M.G.E., Seufert, V., Chaplin-Kramer, R., Rhemtulla, J.M., Bennett, E.M. In Press. Bright spots in agricultural landscapes: Identifying areas exceeding expectations for multi functionality and biodiversity. Journal of Applied Ecology. Doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.13191
Abstract
1. Agriculture’s influence on humanity is a dichotomy of promise and peril. Research on the food-environment dilemma has highlighted the environmental consequences of food production, yet the identification of management solutions is an on-going challenge.
2. We suggest “bright spots” as a promising tool to identify levers of change by finding areas that exceed expectations for goals, such as agricultural landscape multifunctionality and biodiversity.
3. We identified bright, dark, and average spots within a complex agricultural landscape and explored the associated socio-economic patterns. We found that areas exceeding expectations for biodiversity and landscape multifunctionality were neither spatially congruent nor in conflict. It was more common for areas to underperform (dark spots) for both biodiversity and multifunctionality than over perform for both (bright spots).
4. While dark spots for multifunctionality were alike in their ecosystem service composition, bright spots were bright in multiple, diverse ways. The socio-economic attributes that characterize bright and darks spots included both farm characteristics as well as farming practices, suggesting that both have potential to be levers of change.
5. Synthesis and applications. Our results suggest that while biodiversity and landscape multifunctionality show similar spatial patterns due to underlying biophysical drivers, managing for biodiversity or landscape multifunctionality alone will not implicitly achieve the other in this system. Bright spots (areas exceeding expectations) in multifunctionality were associated with many different combinations of ecosystem services, but dark spots were uniquely agricultural intensive areas devoted to maximizing crop production at the expense of all other services. From a management perspective, specific farm characteristics and farming practices may impact the potential for multifunctionality: increased mechanization, increased agricultural inputs, and larger farm size and capital were associated with dark spots, while smaller farms with potentially greater space for innovation were associated with bright spots.
Frishkoff et al., Do correlated responses to multiple environmental changes exacerbate or mitigate species loss?
Frishkoff, L.O., A. Echeverri, K.M.A. Chan and D.S. Karp “Do correlated responses to multiple environmental changes exacerbate or mitigate species loss?” Oikos 127(12): 1724-1734. Doi: 10.1111/oik.05288
Abstract:
Biological communities face multiple global changes simultaneously, and predicting how they will respond remains a key challenge. Co‐tolerance theory offers a framework for understanding how species‐level responses to multiple stressors affect community properties. Co‐tolerance theory predicts that positive correlations in species responses (i.e. species that are susceptible to one stressor are more likely to be highly susceptible to a second) lessen total species loss, essentially because species cannot be eliminated from a community twice. However, it is unclear whether several of the tenets of co‐tolerance theory describe real‐world communities, and what consequences result from such deviations. Here, we use an empirical dataset of bird community response to land‐use change over a climate gradient to examine co‐tolerance theory’s tenet that environmental changes only harm species (not benefit them). We show that this tenet is not met, and then use simulations to examine how predictions of total species richness and community intactness vary when multiple environmental changes both harm and benefit particular species in the community. Finally, we conduct a sensitivity analysis, examining how the average species response to environmental change, as well as the variance among species, can further alter predictions. Overall, we find that predictions of co‐tolerance theory can break down when communities contain species that benefit from some environmental changes. As a result, the presence of multiple environmental changes can either compound or mitigate species loss when species’ responses are positively correlated, preventing a one‐size‐fits‐all statement regarding the effects of correlated responses. This finding highlights the need to carefully consider the underlying mechanisms of community change when making policy assessments regarding the consequences of correlations of species responses to environmental impacts. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Echeverri et al., Approaching human-animal relationships from multiple angles: A synthetic perspective
Echeverri, A., D.S. Karp, R. Naidoo, J. Zhao and K.M.A. Chan (2018). “Approaching human-animal relationships from multiple angles: A synthetic perspective.” Biological Conservation 224: 50-62. Doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2018.05.015