A test of metabolic and consumptive responses to local and global perturbations: enhanced resources stimulate herbivores to counter expansion of weedy species

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloe McSkimming ◽  
Bayden D. Russell ◽  
Jason E. Tanner ◽  
Sean D. Connell

The capacity of natural systems to resist environmental change underpins ecosystem stability, e.g. the persistence of kelp-dominated states which are sometimes displaced by subordinates or weedy species (i.e. algal turfs). Perturbation by resource enhancement at global (e.g. CO2 emissions) through local scales (e.g. nutrient pollution) increases the probability of turf domination, yet these same resources stimulate an increase in per capita consumption of turfs by herbivores. We test whether such resource perturbation can stimulate herbivores to absorb the additional productivity of turfs that cause kelp displacement. We tested the hypotheses that (1) elevated nitrogen (N) and carbon dioxide (CO2) not only stimulate an increase in consumptive rates, but also stimulate an increase in underlying metabolic rates of gastropod herbivores, so that (2) enhanced primary productivity is countered by herbivory. We reveal that elevated nitrogen and CO2 stimulated an elevation in rates of consumption in proportion to an increase in metabolic rate of grazers. Subsequently, grazers consumed proportionately greater cover of turfs to counter turf expansion. Resource enrichment, therefore, can stimulate metabolic and consumptive activity of herbivores to absorb the additional productivity of opportunistic species. Hence, the competitive potential of subordinates to displace community dominants may be checked by the very resources that otherwise drive instability.

Author(s):  
J. Misfeld ◽  
J. Timm

AbstractOn the basis of numerous research results and data on the development of nicotine and condensate contents of German cigarettes, of their respective shares in the market, the smoked length of cigarettes, and of the pro capita consumption of cigarettes in the Federal Republic of Germany, an estimate has been prepared on the yearly pro capita consumption of smoke condensate and nicotine in the Federal Republic covering the years 1961-1970. The values for 1961 amount to 40.2 g of smoke condensate (crude) and to 2.04 g of nicotine. The values for 1970 are found to be only 29.4 g and 1.63 g respectively. That means that the consumption of smoke condensate and nicotine in the Federal Republic has decreased during the last ten years. The share of smokers having remained almost the same, the consumption of smoke condensate and nicotine per smoker is, as well, found to have decreased by about 27 % and 20 % respectively during the years between 1961 and 1970 despite an increased cigarette consumption.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 472-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiefeng Kang ◽  
Jianyi Lin ◽  
Shenghui Cui ◽  
Xiangyang Li

Providing a comprehensive insight, water footprint (WF) is widely used to analyze and address water-use issues. In this study, a hybrid of bottom-up and top-down methods is applied to calculate, from production and consumption perspectives, the WF for Xiamen city from 2001 to 2012. Results show that the average production WF of Xiamen was 881.75 Mm3/year and remained relatively stable during the study period, while the consumption WF of Xiamen increased from 979.56 Mm3/year to 1,664.97 Mm3/year over the study period. Xiamen thus became a net importer of virtual water since 2001. Livestock was the largest contributor to the total WF from both production and consumption perspectives; it was followed by crops, industry, household use, and commerce. The efficiency of the production WF has increased in Xiamen, and its per capita consumption WF was relatively low. The city faces continuing growth in its consumption WF, so more attention should be paid to improving local irrigation, reducing food waste, and importing water-intensive agricultural products.


The present study, dealing with the inequality in consumption of the rural households across the different regions, is based upon the primary data of the Punjab state. The analysis showed that Malwa excelled other two regions in the per capita consumption. The highest average propensity to consume was observed for Doaba, and it was the lowest for Malwa. All the rural households except large farm of all the three regions and medium farm households of Malwa and Majha were in deficit. Considering all households together, the inequality of household consumption expenditure was relatively high in all three regions, with the same being highest in Majha, followed by Malwa and Doaba. The concentration of consumption expenditure among the land-owning households was greater than the landless households.


2012 ◽  
Vol 102 (4) ◽  
pp. 1206-1240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivi Alatas ◽  
Abhijit Banerjee ◽  
Rema Hanna ◽  
Benjamin A Olken ◽  
Julia Tobias

This paper reports an experiment in 640 Indonesian villages on three approaches to target the poor: proxy means tests (PMT), where assets are used to predict consumption; community targeting, where villagers rank everyone from richest to poorest; and a hybrid. Defining poverty based on PPP$2 per capita consumption, community targeting and the hybrid perform somewhat worse in identifying the poor than PMT, though not by enough to significantly affect poverty outcomes for a typical program. Elite capture does not explain these results. Instead, communities appear to apply a different concept of poverty. Consistent with this finding, community targeting results in higher satisfaction. (JEL C93, I32, I38, O12, O15, O18, R23)


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Cesar R. Sobrino

In this study, we use the co-movements approach to examine the role of permanent (common trend) and temporary (common cycle) shocks on per capita output, per capita consumption, and per capita investment in Peru, a small open commodity-based economy. Using quarterly data from 1993: Q1 to 2019: Q1, the effects of the temporary shocks are short-lived, and, on average, are a minor source of the variations of macro time series, over 10 quarters. This evidence suggests that the main source of per capita output and per capita consumption variations is the common trend shock which must be related to the 1990s reforms. Moreover, per capita output and per capita consumption are less responsive to unfavorable (favorable) common cycle shocks than per capita investment is. This outcome indicates that per capita investment has a much more volatile cycle than per capita private output and per capita consumption which is consistent with a previous empirical work.


Ekonomika ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andriy Stavytskyy ◽  
Vincent Giedraitis ◽  
Darius Sakalauskas ◽  
Maik Huettinger

This paper investigates the historical trends in economic development through the impact of economic depressions and emissions of greenhouse gasses, namely carbon dioxide (CO2). The analysis includes four countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. The focus, therefore, will be on the impact of two economic crises and their effect on global warming. Temperature changes in the longer period are very often regarded as a result of human activity, which can be measured by the increase of GDP (per capita). The findings indicate that GDP (per capita) parameters cannot be considered as correct measures of human pollution activity. The results show that the long-run temperature can be evaluated with the help of annual average temperatures of the previous four years. The proposed model does not only provide quite satisfactory forecasts, but is very stable with coefficients variables that can make a model more reliable for practice.


2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler T. Yu ◽  
Miranda M. Zhang

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 37.8pt 0pt 0.5in; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;CG Times&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This paper discusses the per-capita consumption of imports aspect of international trade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>A research hypothesis is tested to investigate if there is a significant difference among G-7 countries in per-capita consumption of imports and the implication of the testing results for the U.S. - Japan bilateral trade deficit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The results of the ANOVA and the Kruskal-Wallis test yield insignificant variation in per-capita consumption of imported goods/services among the G-7 countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The study recapitulates the reason(s) for the U.S. trade deficit with Japan and essentially states that factors other than trade barriers and restrictions cause the U.S. trade deficit with Japan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>While this result may initially seem counterintuitive and inconsistent with popular wisdom, it may actually help uncover the true causes for the sustained trade deficit with Japan.</span></span></p>


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 7373-7389 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Stohl

Abstract. Most atmospheric scientists agree that greenhouse gas emissions have already caused significant changes to the global climate system and that these changes will accelerate in the near future. At the same time, atmospheric scientists who – like other scientists – rely on international collaboration and information exchange travel a lot and, thereby, cause substantial emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). In this paper, the CO2 emissions of the employees working at an atmospheric research institute (the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, NILU) caused by all types of business travel (conference visits, workshops, field campaigns, instrument maintainance, etc.) were calculated for the years 2005–2007. It is estimated that more than 90% of the emissions were caused by air travel, 3% by ground travel and 5% by hotel usage. The travel-related annual emissions were between 1.9 and 2.4 t CO2 per employee or between 3.9 and 5.5 t CO2 per scientist. For comparison, the total annual per capita CO2 emissions are 4.5 t worldwide, 1.2 t for India, 3.8 t for China, 5.9 t for Sweden and 19.1 t for Norway. The travel-related CO2 emissions of a NILU scientist, occurring in 24 days of a year on average, exceed the global average annual per capita emission. Norway's per-capita CO2 emissions are among the highest in the world, mostly because of the emissions from the oil industry. If the emissions per NILU scientist derived in this paper are taken as representative for the average Norwegian researcher, travel by Norwegian scientists would nevertheless account for a substantial 0.2% of Norway's total CO2 emissions. Since most of the travel-related emissions are due to air travel, water vapor emissions, ozone production and contrail formation further increase the relative importance of NILU's travel in terms of radiative forcing.


Author(s):  
W. J. Rorabaugh

‘Legacies’ explains that the most important legacy of prohibition in the United States concerned a dramatic change in drinking habits. The raunchy all-male saloon disappeared for good and per capita consumption of alcohol was reduced for a very long time. Consumption in the 1930s was one-third lower than before prohibition because people had little money to spend on drinks during the Great Depression and because a generation that had come of age during prohibition never imbibed much alcohol. Other legacies include industry-sponsored scientific research on alcohol and alcoholism; the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, which placed responsibility for drinking upon the individual drinker; and the 1980s designated driver scheme proposed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving.


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