LA-UR-09-02500A wide range of theories - resilience theory and the study of complex adaptive systems, for example - are advancing our understanding of anthropological systems. Recently, anthropologists have applied the panarchy framework to study socionatural systems. This framework allows researchers to assess growth, conservation, release, and reorganization in this nested-cycle model that operates simultaneously at multiple spatio-temporal scales. The long time-depth of the archaeological record is a critical factor in our ability to investigate human behavior within the panarchy's set of nested adaptive cycles.Archaeological investigation in the US Southwest has focused on processes of aggregation and culture change due to varying environmental and social conditions; the Pajarito Plateau, NM, has been the subject of archaeological research since the late 1800s. The Los Alamos National Laboratory portion of the Plateau has been thoroughly surveyed for cultural resources, but has received less attention by scholars than surrounding areas, including Bandelier National Monument. I use the panarchy framework to build a model of Puebloan settlement, land use, demography, and adaptation to assess the utility of the panarchy model for anthropological systems and fill a void in archaeologists' understanding of the Puebloan Southwest.I analyze patterns of residential and agricultural land use during the Rio Grande Coalition and Classic periods (A.D. 1150-1600) for the Pajarito Plateau. I conclude that there is no major change in the use of various landscape ranges between these periods. I reconstruct regional Puebloan momentary population and investigate recent evidence that supports a San Juan Basin source of the dramatic population increase during the Late Coalition. I also investigate aggregation into large plaza pueblos, the development of craft specialization, agricultural intensification, architectural change, and increased participation in the wider Rio Grande marketplace economy as responses of households, clans, villages, and the entire Pajarito population to the highly fluctuating climate of the local landscape. I address these results within the panarchy framework. Further, I argue that the Pajarito Plateau system continued after the population dispersed into the Rio Grande Valley below, to be closer to reliable sources of water and the growing Rio Grande economy.

Most of the main determinants of water quality either consist of, or are controlled by, particles. Previous water quality research has focused on particular particles in isolation or in binary combinations. In this project, we are taking a holistic approach to the characterization of the particle load in water, focusing on the collective properties of the particles rather than individual components. Because the characterization of particles is often time-consuming, applying an informatics-based approach could speed up the evaluation of water quality and the assessment of treatment effectiveness. Further, the breadth of potential changes that could be detected using this multiplex approach may far surpass the abilities of current approaches to monitor threats to water quality. Among the instruments capable of rapidly detecting and manipulating cells is imaging flow cytometry, which distinguishes cell shape and unique fluorescence properties associated with cell types. Sets of images and corresponding data from a 1.5-year time series of samples from the Columbia River were studied and the different particle properties analyzed. Principal Component Analysis (Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis) was applied in order to reduce the number of variables and identify patterns in particle characteristics when compared to environmental data collected from the observation station. The first three principal components were extracted and the dominant characteristics identified: the most prominent variables are particle size, particle color, and fluorescent qualities (transparency and phytoplankton pigments). Further work will relate these top principal components to specific environmental factors that determine water quality.

This thesis dwells on the issue of using personal computers in real-time control and data acquisition applications. A data acquisition and control system is designed to acquire temperature, humidity, air volume and solar radiation data and control the inside temperature, air volume and maximizes solar radiation inside an ecologically closed test structure. The focus is on an Intel 8088 or 80286 based personal computer. A personal computer is used for development of the software and the final real-time system runs on a PC as well. This eliminates the need of expensive cross compilers and in-circuit emulators. A control and data acquisition task is selected and a solution using an IBM compatible personal computer is demonstrated. Various advantages and disadvantages for selecting the personal computer and development software and environment are discussed. Solutions to various problems encountered are discussed.

While Western science education has always been ubiquitous in the Canadian educational system and society, many researchers have recognized the scientific and educational values of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). This study aims to contribute to the understanding of TEK and the integration of TEK into science curricula. The prevalence and representation of TEK in grades 7 and 8 official science curriculum documents used in Canada were examined. To describe TEK in the documents, both quantitative and qualitative content analyses were conducted. The results show the high variation of the prevalence and representations of TEK. Overall, Nunavut and Saskatchewan show the highest prevalence and representation of TEK in their curriculum documents, which could establish a benchmark for developing a national learning framework for integrating TEK.

This study combines moral panic with the figurational sociology of Norbert Elias to explore how climate change has developed as a social problem. The central argument is that,through combining the short-term focus of moral panic with the long-term focus of Elias, we can examine the interplay between planned and unplanned developments in both the perception and reality of climate change. The first part of the research consisted of discourse analysis of a variety of different texts from 1800 to the present. These were used to explore the long-term development of climatechange as emerging from an ecological civilizing process. The second stage of the research related these developments to moral panics, arguing that the emergence of climate change can only be understood by exploring the interplay between long-term processes and short-term campaigns. The third part of the research explored these historical developments at the individual level, examining the notion of individual ecological civilizing processes. 15 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with climate change ‘activists’ and ‘non-activists’, comparing how their biographical developments related to ecological civilizing processes and moral panics. The final part of the research compared climate change with five other empirical examples of moral panics, to explore the civilizing and decivilizing processes and civilizing offensives that occur before, during, and after the panics. The central aim was to demonstrate the complexity of moral panics, and to aid in the reformulation of the concepts of moral panic and decivilization. Through a synthesis of Elias and moral panic, as applied to the example of climate change, this study aimed to: critically assess the development of climate change; to reassess the concept of decivilization and the relation between civilizing processes and offensives; and to reformulate the concept of moral panic, including suggesting how moral panic research ought to be undertaken.

This study was conducted in the Afram Headwaters, Tain Tributaries Block II and Worobong South Forest Reserves. Satellite record of fire incidence for the country over 11 years (1997 to 2007) was modelled via binary logistic regression analysis, and correlations between fire incidence and the correlates of fire used to explain the observed trends. Fire incidence was found to be correlated with multiple variables which probably covary. Rainfall, vegetation type and geology showed the strongest correlations with fire incidence. Recurrent fire has impacted negatively on forest structure, ground cover biomass and species composition in two forest reserves, but more marked in the wetter Worobong South Forest Reserve than the drier Tain II Forest Reserve. Basal area has reduced from 40 m²ha^-1 in least-degraded to <1 m²ha^-1 in heavily-degraded stand in Worobong South Forest Reserve, along with tree density, whereas canopy openness has increased from 6% in least-degraded to 83% in heavily-degraded forest. In Tain II Forest Reserve, however, the heavily-degraded forest has lost close to 50% of its maximum value in terms of basal area, tree density and canopy cover, all in approximately 20 years. Early-burning, with maximum seedling height growth rates of 130 cm yr^-1 and 40 cm yr^-1 for Worobong South and Tain II Forest Reserves respectively, might help control the fires, and restore forest canopy in about 10 to 20 years if regularly maintained, but must be accompanied by green firebreaks. Complete protection from fire (during convalescence), on the other hand, would take between five and 15 years to restore forest canopy, but at huge resource cost. Implications for sustainable forest management are discussed.

Based upon multi-locale research with people building environmentally-friendly off-grid homes called Earthships, this ethnography explores the nature of such activity.  It critically considers this architecture in terms of building, concentrating on the processes by which the builders are able to dwell.  Drawing upon fieldwork in a radically empirical manner it furthers anthropological discussions of human-environment relations, exchange and technology, creativity, and the local and the global.  The theorisation weaves a phenomenological analysis of dwelling around a neo-Marxist critique of work and consumerism in Earthship communities in Scotland and New Mexico and in wider Western society.  Earthships, it is argued, present an attempt to revitalize the architecture of the West and to avoid the alienation so often exacerbated by it.  The thesis suggests that builders attempt to do this by engaging in practical-critical activity, fuelled by a belief in the value of being able to do it yourself and by a philosophy which places people within a dynamic world of interdependent elements.  Earthship dwelling, it is suggested, is a spatially- and temporally-aware social project which both generates and requires monism or an engagement of the whole person.  Earthship building is a radical, connective art, carried out by people brought together by their critique of wider society and a belief in their ability to forge a better future.  As the builders make manifest their designs, this thesis notes that a low-tech and underproductive approach is chosen as well as there being prominent use of natural systems as models.  Earthships present an experimental and open-ended way of dwelling within the limits of a shared world.  Acknowledging these limits, builders strive to reuse materials and exploit only renewable energies.

Doctor of Philosophy / Division of Biology / Anthony Joern / John Blair / Ecological communities are comprised both of species and their interactions. The importance of species interactions is embraced by ecological network analysis, a framework used to identify non-random patterns in species interactions, and the consequences of these patterns for maintaining species diversity. Here, I investigated environmental drivers of the structure of plant-pollinator and plant-herbivore networks. Specifically, I asked: (1) Do global-scale climate gradients shape mutualistic and antagonistic networks? (2) At a landscape scale (within a 3,487 ha research site), how do contrasting regimes of major grassland disturbances - fire frequency and grazing by bison (Bison bison) - shape plant-pollinator network structure? (3) How do fire and grazing affect plant-grasshopper network structure? And, (4) What is the role of plant species diversity in determining plant-herbivore network structure? At the global scale, variability in temperature was the key climatic factor regulating both antagonistic and mutualistic network structural properties. At the landscape scale, fire and grazing had major consequences for plant-pollinator and plant-herbivore communities. In particular, bison grazing increased network complexity and resistance to species loss for both plant-pollinator and plant-herbivore systems. Results from an experimental grassland restoration that manipulated plant diversity suggest that plant diversity directly affects plant-herbivore structure and increases network stability. Collectively, these results suggest that environmental gradients and plant species diversity regulate the network structure of ecological communities. Determining how the structure of ecological interactions change with environmental conditions and species diversity improves our ability to identify vulnerable communities, and to predict responses of biodiversity to global change.

The eastern fox squirrel, native to the eastern and midwestern United States, was recently documented in the Sonoran Desert in the vicinity of Yuma, Arizona, constituting the first state record for this species. We surveyed the people of Yuma to determine when and how the squirrels arrived. The squirrels were first observed in the 1960s, but may have been resident for a longer period. Since the 1960s, squirrels have spread throughout the city limits and extended south similar to 15 km into Somerton, Arizona. How the squirrels arrived is not clear, but must be the result of an introduction, as no nearby populations exist. The persistence of eastern fox squirrels in this unique habitat is due to synanthropic relationships.

In this article we summarize histories of nonlinear, complex interactions among societal, legal, and ecosystem dynamics in six North American water basins, as they respond to changing climate. These case studies were chosen to explore the conditions for emergence of adaptive governance in heavily regulated and developed social-ecological systems nested within a hierarchical governmental system. We summarize resilience assessments conducted in each system to provide a synthesis and reference by the other articles in this special feature. We also present a general framework used to evaluate the interactions between society and ecosystem regimes and the governance regimes chosen to mediate those interactions. The case studies show different ways that adaptive governance may be triggered, facilitated, or constrained by ecological and/or legal processes. The resilience assessments indicate that complex interactions among the governance and ecosystem components of these systems can produce different trajectories, which include patterns of (a) development and stabilization, (b) cycles of crisis and recovery, which includes lurches in adaptation and learning, and (3) periods of innovation, novelty, and transformation. Exploration of cross scale (Panarchy) interactions among levels and sectors of government and society illustrate that they may constrain development trajectories, but may also provide stability during crisis or innovation at smaller scales; create crises, but may also facilitate recovery; and constrain system transformation, but may also provide windows of opportunity in which transformation, and the resources to accomplish it, may occur. The framework is the starting point for our exploration of how law might play a role in enhancing the capacity of social-ecological systems to adapt to climate change.