Para o mundo atual é necessária a mudança de paradigmas e entre as mudanças mais prementes encontra-se a necessidade de garantir a sustentabilidade dos empreendimentos humanos. Assim, a gestão empresarial tende a mudar e, para adequarse a essa nova forma de gestão, o conceito de Ecologia Industrial e o uso de softwares de controle podem ser de grande valia. O presente trabalho teve como objetivo desenvolver metodologia do uso desses softwares na aplicação do conceito de Ecologia Industrial em empresas da área de eletroeletrônicos, preferencialmente ligadas à área de microeletrônica, para definir indicadores de sustentabilidade adequados ao sistema e indicar possíveis melhorias de processo pela formação de ecossistemas industriais. O setor eletroeletrônico foi avaliado preliminarmente e apresentou, devido ao alto valor agregado de seus produtos, várias oportunidades de redução de custos, de melhoria ambiental e social na cadeia produtiva devido à reutilização de co-produtos gerados internamente ou por outras empresas, sugerindo um esforço para aumentar a formação de ecossistemas industriais neste setor. Como a formação de ecossistemas industriais é muito dependente da troca, é relevante o fato dos estudos de caso mostrarem a importância das distâncias e, deste modo, entre os prováveis impactos significativos, a emissão de carbono precisa ser fortemente considerada. Para a área de insumos para a microeletrônica, avaliada preliminarmente no programa QITS (Quartz Industrial Trade System), a possibilidade do uso de lascas de silício e de bagaço de cana é dificultada pelas distâncias entre os produtos e respectiva emissão de carbono decorrente do translado. Outros insumos são normalmente adquiridos e descartados em ciclos ainda mais abertos. Na área de microeletrônica, ciclos de reuso de água com galvânicas existem, mas não de outros produtos, como soluções aquosas ácidas ou alcalinas, que poderiam ser recicladas em metalúrgicas, onde o grau de pureza exigido é menor. Na área de circuito impresso e de montagem em superfície vários co-produtos já são reciclados, porém, uma troca entre produtores, não envolvendo recicladoras, proporcionaria um ganho econômico maior. Soluções aquosas similares às utilizadas em microeletrônica também poderiam ser utilizadas, porém, novamente as distâncias são as principais variáveis a dificultar tal processo. A reciclagem de equipamentos completos esbarra em várias dificuldades, entre elas os aspectos legais. Para as micros e pequenas empresas o desenvolvimento de banco de dados permite a implantação da Ecologia Industrial sem altos custos associados. Estes bancos de dados também favorecem a obtenção de indicadores requisitados por outros atores ambientais, tal como bolsa de valores. / Nowadays, paradigm changes are needed and one of the most urgent changes required is to assure sustainability on human entrepreneurships. Therefore, entrepreneurship management will be modified and Industrial Ecology concept allied to software applications can be very useful. The aim of this work was development of suitable methodology for Industrial Ecology concept implementation using software. Brazilian industries on the electronic sector were evaluated in order to define sustainability indicators and also to propose processes improvement using industrial ecosystems. Preliminary evaluations of the electronic sector shows, due to the high value of the products, several possibilities for cost reduction and environmental and social improvement as well. The opportunities can be implemented with non-product exchanges inside the plants or among different plants, i.e. by industrial ecosystem formation. However, as industrial ecosystems require intense exchange among participants distance between plants is a high constraint and can associates a significant environemental impact, mainly due to carbon emission. Reactants production for Microeletronics was formerly evaluated on QITS (Quartz Industrial Trade System) program. The program suggested the use of sugarcane biomass and quartz for silicon production. However, due to the high distances between these two products, carbon emission inhibits the ecosystem. Moreover, other products are also acquired and discarded in open circles. Microelectronics can reuse water in partnership with the galvanic industries but not other products, such as acid and basic aqueous solution, mainly on metallurgic processes. Print circuit board and surface mounting technology several non-products are already recycled, nonetheless the best economical practice would be a direct change, i. e., no recyclers involved. Aqueous solutions are hardly recycled due to distance between sites. Equipment recycling is a huge problem due to the legal concerns on disassembly For micro and small industries simple software, such as database, allows Industrial Ecology implementation with very low cost. These databases also favor obtaining sustainability indicators required for several stakeholders, such as stockers.

O presente trabalho analisa o processo de transformação da paisagem litorânea paulista a partir da segunda metade do século XX, utilizando como estudo de caso o município de Bertioga. Este se configura como um município florestal, que ainda em 2008 tem preservada a integridade das dinâmicas ecológicas de seus ecossistemas costeiros, que sobreviveram ao intenso processo de expansão urbana por que passaram muitos municípios vizinhos. Dificuldades históricas de acesso, e a entrada em vigor a partir de meados da década de 1980 de um conjunto de instrumentos jurídicos que impuseram severas restrições à supressão de vegetação nativa de Mata Atlântica, permitiram que em Bertioga fossem observados padrões de ocupação urbanos diferenciados dos observados em grande parte da Baixada Santista, onde a malha urbana substituiu completamente a vegetação primitiva das planícies litorâneas. A urbanização com fins turísticos, o loteamento e a residência de veraneio, são entendidos como os principais vetores de desestruturação das dinâmicas ecológicas presentes na paisagem natural do litoral paulista. Neste cenário o ecossistema de restinga se encontra em posição de especial vulnerabilidade, pois possui formações específicas que somente se desenvolvem nos terrenos firmes de orla marítima, preferidos para a ocupação turística. / The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the ways in which São Paulos shore landscape has changed throughout the years since the fifties, through a case-study: the city of Bertioga. Bertioga is defined by landscape architecture researchers as a forest municipality, which, in the year of 2008, still has most of its coastal ecosystems ecologic dynamics preserved, in spite of the rapid process of urban growth that most of the nearby cities went through. The factors responsible for this strinking difference in Bertiogas development from other cities in the same area where the urban tissue has completely replaced the original vegetation are mainly the access to the city, traditionally difficult, and the implementation, since the Eighties, of a number of effective laws that have imposed severe restrictions concerning the destruction of Mata Atlânticas (brazilian coastal rainforest) native vegetation. The urban occupation with tourist purposes, the criteria for the division of land into plots and the increasing construction of vacation homes are seen as the main reasons for dismantling the structures of the ecologic dynamics existent in the natural landscape of São Paulos shoreline. Under these circumstances, the restinga ecosystem is specially vulnerable, due to certain formations that occur solely on firm ground along the shoreline the tourists favourite spots.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-06-16T19:17:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 welingtondaveigasilva.pdf: 5470630 bytes, checksum: b0cd58fa025d05859ac944cc8bd7dc6a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-07-13T14:26:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 welingtondaveigasilva.pdf: 5470630 bytes, checksum: b0cd58fa025d05859ac944cc8bd7dc6a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-13T14:26:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 welingtondaveigasilva.pdf: 5470630 bytes, checksum: b0cd58fa025d05859ac944cc8bd7dc6a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-21 / A presença de ambientes de e-Learning na academia e nas empresas é uma realidade e há uma forte tendência de crescimento de seu uso devido a vantagens como flexibilidade e custo. Juntam-se a isso características como aprendizado informal, por meio de dispositivos móveis e ao longo da vida e a crescente disponibilidade de recursos educacionais na web e em dispositivos móveis com alto nível de qualidade. Para acompanhar essa evolução, as organizações responsáveis pelos ambientes de e-Learning investem para desenvolver recursos e serviços educacionais, muitas vezes equivalentes em mais de uma plataforma, dificultando a inovação e o compartilhamento dos mesmos. Neste cenário, é quase inviável que uma única organização consiga incorporar todas as inovações do domínio educacional. Essa dissertação apresenta o BROAD-ECOS, uma abordagem sob a perspectiva de Ecossistemas de e-Learning que identifica indivíduos, comunidades, organizações e recursos de software nesse ambiente e define uma arquitetura para transformar ambientes de e-Learning existentes em plataformas que permitam a integração de serviços educacionais externos e favoreçam o desenvolvimento, compartilhamento e reúso de serviços educacionais compatíveis em um contexto inter-organizacional. Para tal, esses serviços possuem controle do nível de integração e suporte a um modelo comum que permite a interoperabilidade entre diferentes fornecedores, além de serem baseados em padrões abertos, bibliotecas comuns e documentação acessível. A avaliação da proposta foi feita em duas etapas. Primeiro, os elementos do ecossistema identificados foram validados por meio de um questionário aplicado a profissionais com experiência em e-Learning, tanto da academia quanto da área de treinamento empresarial. Depois foram realizados cenários de uso para avaliar os artefatos desenvolvidos quanto aos objetivos propostos, o que se justifica pela necessidade de demonstrar a viabilidade técnica dos conceitos e das tecnologias envolvidas em um contexto real de utilização. Os resultados obtidos apresentam indícios da viabilidade da proposta. / The use of Virtual Learning Environments in academic and corporative training is a real fact and there is a strong trend of growing because of advantages such as flexibility and cost. Besides that features as informal learning through mobile devices and lifelong learning, and the increasing availability of high quality educational resources on the web and on mobile devices must be considered. To keep up with this evolution, the organizations responsible for e-learning environments invest to develop educational resources and services, frequently equivalent in more than one platform, hindering innovation and sharing. In this scenario, it is almost impossible that a single organization incorporates all the innovations in the educational domain. This dissertation presents, in the perspective of Software Ecosystem, the BROAD-ECOS approach, identifying individuals, communities, organizations and software resources that comprise them, and defining an infrastructure to turn the existing Virtual Learning Environments into platforms that allow the integration of external educational services, promoting the development, sharing and reuse of compatible educational services in an inter-organizational context. These services have control of the integration level and support for a common model, which enables interoperability among different providers, and are based on open standards, common libraries and accessible documentation. The evaluation of the proposal was done in two steps. The first one validated the ecosystem elements by means of a questionnaire, applied to professionals with experience in e-Learning, both from academia and business training area. Then, scenarios were performed to evaluate the artifacts considering the proposed goals, justified by the need to demonstrate the technical feasibility of concepts and technologies involved in a real context of use. The results showed the feasibility of the proposal.

Submitted by isabela.moljf@hotmail.com (isabela.moljf@hotmail.com) on 2017-08-21T15:13:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 gabriellerabeloquadra.pdf: 2085169 bytes, checksum: 5108ddde0dcf7f981be518facd560aa1 (MD5) / Rejected by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br), reason: on 2017-08-24T11:31:31Z (GMT) / Submitted by isabela.moljf@hotmail.com (isabela.moljf@hotmail.com) on 2017-08-24T13:21:00Z No. of bitstreams: 0 / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-08-30T12:29:16Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-30T12:29:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2017-02-24 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / - / Aquatic ecosystems provide many services to humanity, despite this; water pollution is one of the most serious environmental problems worldwide. Reservoirs, including ones used for water supply, receive from tributaries, or directly, several effluents from human activities that contain a pool of pollutants. Reservoir sediments work as sink or source for pollutants depending on environmental conditions. Therefore, pollutants present in these aquatic compartments can return to the water column or transfer through the food chain, where they can be toxic to biota and even to humans. Contaminants in the environment can cause mutagenic effects that can accumulate in DNA and harm a whole population. Then, genotoxicity tests, such as Allium cepa assay, may be used to evaluate the extent of environmental pollution, since synergistic effects might occur and physicochemical analysis just provide the presence of pollutants. Studies focusing on the presence of chemical compounds in reservoirs sediments and their toxicity are crucial. In this context, the study aimed to investigate contamination in sediments by metals in Brazilian reservoirs, as well as potential ecological risk and potential to cause cytogenotoxicity in A. cepa. Copper, chromium, cadmium, lead, zinc and iron were measured in sediment samples from six Brazilian reservoirs. Besides that, the surface layer of sediment was submitted to a resuspension simulation to the water column, and sediment solution was submitted to Allium cepa assay and metals analysis. Our findings showed that these reservoirs seem to be influenced by agricultural, industrial and domestical effluents because of the presence of copper, cadmium, and zinc above threshold effect levels in some samples and a potential ecological risk was observed. More than that decrease mitotic index and increase chromosomal aberrations in all treatments (except Furnas reservoir) showed cytogenotoxic effects. The presence of metals and other possibly inorganic and organic pollutants may be answerable for cytogenotoxic effects observed. In this sense, just chemical analyses were not enough to evaluate the extent of environmental pollution in sediments and its impact. We need to use more tools combined with chemical analysis to provide a better understand of pollution in aquatic ecosystems. It is important to implement law and regulations that are more efficient, intensive monitoring, sewage treatment and reforestation of riparian zones to protect these systems, including preventing public health problems.

Ph.D. / Wetlands play an integral role in the hydrological cycle and biodiversity. Despite this, wetlands have been neglected in terms of research and monitoring in South Africa. This lack of research has become even more insufficient when it comes to endorheic wetlands. Endorheic wetlands in South Africa are known as pans. Pans are isolated depressions that for through wind erosion are generally shallow and lack an integrated drainage. Water gain is depended on rainfall and surface runoff and water loss is largely due to evaporation. Pans can be either ephemeral in nature or can remain inundated for long periods of time. There are close to 5000 pans in the study area of the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. An estimated 40% of these pans are perennial in nature. The little information on the ecology of pans is all focussed on those systems that are ephemeral. The lack of knowledge is, however, not restricted to the ecology of perennial pans but also the management tools available for these ecosystems. Whereas a variety of methods are available to determine the quantity and quality of water needed to sustain riverine systems (and wetlands connected to rivers), there are no such methods for pans. Especially important is the lack in standardised methods to assess the ecological integrity of perennial pans. This is important as perennial pan ecosystems are increasingly under threat from an increase in coal mining and agricultural activities in Mpumalanga. Coal mining activities have increased in the study area due to both an increase in energy demands and the ease of mining coal deposits in the study area. The lack in standardised methods could be as a direct result of the lack in knowledge of the ecology of the perennial pans. The aim of this study was thus to develop standardised methods for assessing the ecological integrity of perennial pans in Mpumalanga by studying the ecology of the pans. The study thus uses a fundamental approach to reach certain applied goals. To achieve the aim, a total of nine pans were included in the study of which seven were surveyed seasonally for two years and two were sampled on a single occasion. Five of these pans were located in the Mpumalanga Lake District (MLD) and were in a relatively pristine condition. The other four pans were impacted either by agricultural activities, mining activities or both. During these surveys, various components of the ecosystem were studied. These components included the spatial and temporal variations in the abiotic components like the physico-chemical characteristics, habitat quality and quantity, and the sediment characteristics. It also included the spatial and temporal variations in the vegetation communities surrounding the pans and the aquatic invertebrate communities within the pans. The aquatic invertebrate communities were assessed based on a taxonomic approach (diversity) and functional approach (biological traits).

Dans un contexte de changement global qui continue de menacer les espèces et l’intégrité des écosystèmes à travers le monde, l’étude de la stabilité des écosystèmes n’a jamais été aussi importante. Jusqu’à aujourd’hui, la plupart des études sur la stabilité des écosystèmes se sont centrées sur des écosystèmes simples et des perturbations individuelles, en focalisant généralement sur le comportement de propriétés écosystémiques particulières, comme les indices de productivité et de diversité. Cependant, les écosystèmes sont soumis simultanément à de multiples perturbations. De plus, à grande échelle spatiale, différents écosystèmes se succèdent, chacun répondant différemment à une perturbation donnée. L’étude de la stabilité des écosystèmes doit donc progresser vers des approches plus intégratives qui seront informatives à des échelles pertinentes pour la gestion des écosystèmes. Cette thèse est un pas en avant dans cette direction. Ici, j’ai utilisé plusieurs approches pour évaluer la façon dont de multiples facteurs de changement global, tels que les changements climatiques graduels et extrêmes et les changements d’usage du sol, affectent la stabilité des écosystèmes à grande échelle spatiale, du point de vue d’un seul niveau trophique à un point de vue multitrophique.Je commence par souligner l’importance de considérer les interactions entre les changements climatiques graduels et extrêmes, en conjonction avec les changements de l’usage du sol, pour la gestion de paysages hétérogènes, comme les Alpes européennes. En utilisant un modèle de végétation dynamique et spatialement explicite, je montre qu’une augmentation de la fréquence et de l’intensité de la sécheresse pourrait drastiquement changer les tendances d’embroussaillement des habitats ouverts alpins et subalpins qui sont généralement prévues par les projections ne prenant pas en compte ces évènements extrêmes dans le futur. J’ai ensuite étudié si la sécheresse et le réchauffement climatique progressif amenaient les communautés végétales à souffrir des transitions différentes, en utilisant une approche innovatrice dans laquelle les états des communautés sont décrits d’une façon multidimensionnelle. Je montre que bien que les effets de la sécheresse sur la structure des forêts et des pâturages ne devraient pas trop affecter les trajectoires à long terme causées seulement par le réchauffement climatique graduel, ils devraient rendre les communautés forestières plus instables que les prairies dans le futur. Cependant, l’analyse des réponses de la végétation reste limitée à un seul niveau trophique. Vu que les réseaux trophiques représentent les flux d’énergie dans un écosystème, l’étude de leur stabilité aux perturbations devrait fournir des informations plus précises sur la stabilité globale de l’écosystème. Donc, j’ai aussi étudié la stabilité des réseaux trophiques dans les aires protégées européennes face à des scénarios futurs d’usage du sol et de climat. Mes résultats montrent que ces réseaux trophiques peuvent être très sensibles aux changements climatiques, même s’ils ne sont soumis à aucun changement d’usage du sol. Notamment, je montre que la prise en compte des phénomènes de dispersion des espèces aura un impact important sur la robustesse des réseaux, et je souligne l’importance de leur prise en compte pour la gestion des écosystèmes.Dans ma thèse, je démontre que les concepts de stabilité de l’écosystème peuvent et doivent être appliqués à des échelles pertinentes pour la gestion des écosystèmes, tout en adoptant la nature multidimensionnelle des écosystèmes. / As global change threatens ecosystems worldwide with biodiversity loss, studying ecosystem stability has never been so important. Most ecosystem stability studies have heretofore focused on single ecosystems and disturbances, usually following the behaviour of particular ecosystem properties, such as productivity and diversity indices. However, ecosystems are subjected to multiple disturbances simultaneously and at large spatial scales different ecosystems co-occur, each responding specifically to any given disturbance. Hence, the study of ecosystem stability needs to move towards approaches that can be informative at broad scales that are relevant for ecosystem management. This thesis is a step forward in this direction. Here, I used several approaches to assess how multiple global change drivers, such as climate change, extreme whether events, and land-use changes, affect ecosystem stability at landscape and larger spatial scales, and from single to multi-trophic level perspectives.I begin by highlighting the importance of considering the interactions between gradual and extreme climate changes, in conjunction with land-use changes, for the management of highly diverse landscapes, such as the European Alps. Using a spatially explicit dynamic vegetation model, I show that increasing drought frequency and intensity will likely change the trends of treeline movement expected under future gradual climate warming scenarios. I then investigated whether drought and gradual climate warming caused plant communities to shift in different ways, using n-dimensional hypervolumes to describe community states in multidimensional space. Drought effects on forest and grassland structure did not greatly change the long-term trajectories caused by gradual climate warming alone, but showed that forest communities became more unstable than grasslands in the future. However, focusing on vegetation dynamics remains limited to a single trophic level. Because trophic networks represent energy flows in an ecosystem, studying their stability to disturbances should provide more accurate information on overall ecosystem stability. Hence, I also investigated trophic network stability in European protected areas to future scenarios of land-use and climate changes. My results show that these trophic networks may be highly sensitive to climate changes, even if no land-use changes occur. Importantly, I show that considering different dispersal limitations will greatly impact network robustness, and stress the importance of accounting for these processes in ecosystem management.In my thesis, I demonstrate that ecosystem stability concepts can and should be applied at scales that are relevant for management, while embracing the multidimensional nature of ecosystems.

In the marine realm, there has been considerable habitat degradation caused by multiple human disturbances that often act synergistically, strongly affecting fish and invertebrate populations and, consequently, one of the major stakeholders of these resources, fishers. However, the mechanisms underlying how marine habitats support fisheries remain understudied. In this dissertation I examined the importance of fish habitat at global, regional and local scales in two distinct systems (mangrove habitats in the tropics and rockfish habitats in inshore waters of Vancouver Island) combining a suite of different approaches. First, I explored the mangrove-fishery linkage relationship by conducting a global meta-analysis. I found strong evidence supporting the importance of mangrove area to enhance fisheries. This relationship, however, varied across countries, likely based on regional geomorphological settings and fishery management policies. Subsequently, I determined the use of mangrove and adjacent habitats by fish in a tropical lagoon system in the continental Caribbean (Colombia), systems often overlooked in the Caribbean when analyzing mangroves as fish habitat. I collected fish with gillnets at different distances from mangroves and at different sites within the same lagoon system. While fish used mangroves, fish abundance was not higher in these habitats compared to adjacent ones, as predicted. However, diversity tended to be higher in mangroves. Nevertheless, the major driver affecting abundance, diversity and biomass was salinity. That is, diversity and abundance decreased as salinity increased. Next, I used a Local Ecological Knowledge approach to explore the mangrove-fishery linkage relationship because fishers are seldom incorporated into such relationships. By conducting semi-structured interviews I found that fishers fish close to their village and to mangroves, that in addition to fishing they use mangroves for firewood and as construction material. Fishers also agreed that mangroves are important for their fishing activity, as these habitats are critical for fish and crustaceans caught in the system. Finally, I examined the importance of derived benthic parameters for rockfish abundance and distribution at large spatial scales (100s km) in inshore waters of Vancouver Island. I established that higher complexity better explains presence and higher abundance of rockfish. Furthermore, the results provided valuable information for fishery and spatial management and habitat conservation to help recover rockfish populations. All together, these findings highlight the urgency to preserve coastal marine habitats for both juvenile and adult marine organisms to sustain small-scale fisheries as a food source and for traditional purposes. While conserving habitats is a key component of a broader and more complex ecosystem approach that includes overfishing and other anthropogenic pressures, in the absence of a holistic approach the chances of success are minimal. / Graduate / 2019-04-18

Although the “genome as a blueprint” metaphor has been pervasive in biology, recent advances in molecular biology have revealed a complex network of regulatory machinery that dynamically regulated molecular processes in response to environmental conditions. However, these patterns, as well as the evolutionary processes that underlie them, remain understudied in natural conditions. In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill released an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, making landfall on salt marsh habitat dominated by the foundation species Spartina alterniflora. Despite the severe impacts to phenotype and fitness, S. alterniflora proved remarkably resilient in the face of the crude oil stress. Despite the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the event represented a unique opportunity to explore the molecular mechanisms of oil tolerance in this highly resilient species. To understand how organisms regulate gene expression in natural settings and to identify best practices in genome-wide expression studies, we first surveyed a ten-year span of transcriptome-wide gene expression studies. We then confirmed the hypothesis that crude oil exposure would induce differential gene expression in affected populations, and whole-transcriptome microarray identified 3,622 genes that responded exclusively to oil stress. To confirm the function of candidate genes involved in resilience to oil stress, we used a highly-differentially expressed subset of these genes to construct gene interaction networks and identify target genes. We obtained T-DNA insertion genotypes of the emerging model grass species Brachypodium distachyon that were disrupted in these target genes for functional confirmation, but were unable to detect significant modulation of oil response through these heterologous knockouts. Finally, we isolated the phenotypic effects of crude oil exposure through greenhouse trials and found evidence that crude oil may have acted as a selective pressure, rather than an inducer of plasticity. Together, these studies identify novel patterns of gene expression in response to a severe but unpredictable stressor that has widespread impacts on a foundational salt marsh grass species. In addition, this dissertation represents a pathway to understanding functional genomics in non-model systems without extensive genomic resources.

In tundra, phosphorus (P) is an important macronutrient for plants and microorganisms. A major fraction of P exists as organic compounds in the topsoil which can be mineralized to bioavailable inorganic P. Since mineralization is positively related to temperature, climate warming is likely to increase P bioavailability but the extend of these changes may also depend on vegetation cover and soil properties. I assessed organic and inorganic P concentrations across an elevation and vegetation gradient in northern Sweden using one dimensional (1D) solution 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. I hypothesized that concentration of labile soil P will decrease with increasing elevation (decreasing temperature) and that soils with meadow vegetation will contain higher concentrations of labile P than heath soils. Concentration of labile P in the form of Resin-P and polyphosphates decreased with elevation whereas less labile orthophosphate monoesters increased. Across vegetation types, polyphosphates were more abundant in heath and meadow contained higher concentrations of monoesters. The inverse response of Resin-P and monoesters to elevation may be best explained by lowered organic P mineralization in colder climate. High concentrations of polyphosphates at the lowest elevation may indicate an increased presence of fungal communities associated with mountain birch forest. Heath seemed to be more dominated by fungal communities than meadow and higher concentration of monoesters in meadow indicated a higher soil sorption capacity. In a broader view, the results may suggest that a warmer climate increases mineralization of organic P in form of orthophosphate monoesters to more labile P forms. This effect might be enhanced by an upward movement of the tree line and might be more pronounced in heath than meadow soils due to a higher fungal activity.

Chatham Islands are part of a small archipelago, Tl’chés, off the City of Victoria, southeastern Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada), in the Salish Sea, territory of the Songhees First Nation. Chatham and adjacent islands comprise nationally endangered Garry oak ecosystems, supporting a wide diversity of habitats for plant and wildlife communities. Chatham Islands are childhood home of Songhees elder Joan Morris [Sellemah], raised by grandparents and great-grandparents. Tl’chés has been uninhabited and untended for over 50 years now, entering in a process of rapid environmental change and degradation after Songhees residents left to live in the main Songhees Reserve in late 1950s. Sellemah longs to see the traditional gardens and orchards she remembers at Tl’chés restored, as well as her people’s relationship with their environment, for healthier and more sustainable ways of life. This thesis honours Sellemah’s vision by exploring best approaches for intervention in heavily degraded cultural landscapes in order to promote ecological and cultural integrity and long-term sustainability for people and ecosystems in Tl’chés, combining conventional ecological approaches with traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom (TEKW), cultural and participatory investigations, in the context of ethnoecological restoration. Ultimately, this research aims to provide assistance in the restoration of ecological and cultural features in Chatham Islands and within the Songhees First Nation, revitalizing traditional ecological knowledge on the landscape and reversing trends of biodiversity and cultural losses. / Graduate