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Tallgrass prairie restoration is an important conservation activity in rural areas. However, little is known about prairie restoration in urban environments. The overall objective of this study was to characterize and better understand urban prairie restoration. This was carried out through an examination of 29 restoration sites within Winnipeg, Manitoba. The results indicated that actively restored urban prairies were successful and high in diversity. Multiple attributes of the restorations were examined as indicators of success including vegetation, the propagule bank and insects. However, not all attributes delivered equivocal results. This suggests that multiple measures should be used to assess a restoration site. Anthropogenic and biophysical variables were found to influence vegetation of the restorations equally, highlighting the importance of incorporating a human component in urban ecological research. These urban restorations were seen to surpass larger rural restorations in quality; thus, efforts should be made to increase their prevalence.

La compréhension des facteurs susceptibles d'influencer la survie des larves dans la colonne d'eau est d'une importance capitale pour prévoir les fluctuations des abondances de poissons en un site donné. L'objectif de cette thèse est donc de décrire la composition et la diversité des assemblages de larves de poissons en fin de phase pélagique dans les baies et le lagon de Nouvelle-Calédonie, et de mettre en relation leur structure spatiale et temporelle avec divers facteurs abiotiques et biotiques de l'environnement. Les abondances et la diversité de larves sont apparues maximales pendant la saison chaude, entre septembre et février. La durée d'ensoleillement par jour suivie par les conditions de vent à l'échelle du site, et la température de surface de l'eau suivie par la concentration en chlorophylle à l'échelle de la station ont le mieux expliqué les variations d'abondance des larves de différentes familles. La hiérarchie de ces différents facteurs est apparue similaire dans des sites contrastés, suggérant que ces variables constituent de bons facteurs prédictifs pour de futurs modèles spatialisés de la structure des assemblages. Des similitudes de structure entre les assemblages d'adultes résidant dans les herbiers et les assemblages de larves collectés à proximité suggèrent que les communautés d'adultes peuvent également jouer un rôle. Comme l'alimentation constitue un processus essentiel de la survie des larves, le régime alimentaire de différents taxons a été analysé. Les densités et proportions relatives des catégories de proies zooplanctoniques préférées par les larves sont apparues plus élevées dans les baies que dans les zones lagonaires, mais aucune relation significative entre la distribution des larves et celle de leurs proies n'a pu être détectée au sein de ces baies. Pourtant, la structure des assemblages de larves et la densité de zooplancton ont varié de manière concomitante le long d'un gradient côte-large. Ce résultat suggère que la détection des relations liant la structure des assemblages de larves et celle de leurs proies dépend de l'échelle d'étude considérée. L'ensemble des résultats obtenus met en évidence l'importance des baies pour les abondances, la diversité et le succès de l'alimentation des larves de poissons en fin de phase pélagique dans le lagon de Nouvelle-Calédonie.

Tallgrass prairie restoration is an important conservation activity in rural areas. However, little is known about prairie restoration in urban environments. The overall objective of this study was to characterize and better understand urban prairie restoration. This was carried out through an examination of 29 restoration sites within Winnipeg, Manitoba. The results indicated that actively restored urban prairies were successful and high in diversity. Multiple attributes of the restorations were examined as indicators of success including vegetation, the propagule bank and insects. However, not all attributes delivered equivocal results. This suggests that multiple measures should be used to assess a restoration site. Anthropogenic and biophysical variables were found to influence vegetation of the restorations equally, highlighting the importance of incorporating a human component in urban ecological research. These urban restorations were seen to surpass larger rural restorations in quality; thus, efforts should be made to increase their prevalence.

Att realisera en film är ett unikt och kreativt projekt där olika aktörer med olika yrkesroller samarbetar. Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva hur en manusförfattare använder sitt kontaktnätverk inom den svenska filmbranschen för att realisera en film. Studien redogör för vilka upplevda värden, i form av förmåner, som aktörer samskapar med manusförfattaren och hur det föranleder andra aktörer att vilja delta i filmprojektet. Studien har genomförts genom intervjuer med etablerade aktörer inom filmbranschen. Erhållen data analyseras utifrån tjänsteekosystemets ansats, enligt vilken en aktörs resurs, i form av kompetens, måste göras tillgänglig, anpassas och integreras med andra aktörers resurser för att samskapa värden. Resultatet av studien visar att manusförfattaren har tillgång till andra aktörer via sitt kontaktnätverk samt anpassar sitt manus och sociala beteende efter olika aktörernas upplevda värden. Filmskaparna som studerats upplever värden i ett kreativt och kommersiellt manus, men även i andra filmskapares erfarenheter. / The making of a film is a unique and creative project where various individual actors with different professions co-operate. The aim of this study is to describe how a screenwriter uses his or her relations in the Swedish film industry in order to create a film. The study aims to describe which benefits, defined as perceived values, different actors co-create with the screenwriter which stimulate other individual actors’ desire to participate in the film project. The study has been conducted through interviews with established actors in the film industry. Acquired data is analysed with regards to the theory of service ecosystems, according to which an actor’s resource, defined as competence, has to be made available and adjusted to the resources of various other actors in order to co-create value. The result of this study shows that the screenwriter aquires availability to other actors through networks of actors and adjusts the script and social behaviour to the other actors’ perceived values. The studied filmmakers perceive values in a creative and commercial script as well as in the merits of other filmmakers.

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Baltic archipelago areas have high nature values despite being polluted from various antrophogenic activities within the Baltic Sea catchment area and from long-range transport of airborne substances. The discovery of environmental problems in the Baltic Sea in the 1960s led to countermeasures that gradually gave results in reducing the toxic pollution, e.g. from PCBs. Today, much of the environmental management is focused on reducing the effects of eutrophication. There is a demand from society on science to develop strategies that can direct remedial actions so that the cost-effectiveness is maximised. This work focuses on how mass-balance models can be used to understand how coastal ecosystems are controlled by abiotic processes and to predict the response to changes in loading of different substances. Advection, sedimentation and burial are examples of general transport processes that are regulated by morphometrical characteristics, e.g. size, form, effective fetch and topographical openness. This is why different coastal areas have different sensitivity to loading of pollutants. A comparison of six phosphorus and chlorophyll models of different complexity showed that the model performance was not improved with more state variables of total phosphorus (TP) than two water and two sediment compartments. Modelling chlorophyll as a separate state variable did not improve the results for individual values compared to a simple regression against total phosphorus in surface water. Field investigations of the phosphorus content in accumulation sediments along the coast of Svealand showed a distribution pattern that probably is related to differences in the redox status. The average content of mobile phosphorus was much higher than previously found in offshore Baltic sediments indicating that sediments may play an important role for the phosphorus turnover in Baltic archipelago areas. A one-year field study to measure the levels of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) in water, sediments and fish during different seasons was carried out in Kallrigafjärden Bay. The collected data set was used to test a mass-balance model for PCCD/F-turnover. It was possible to reproduce the concentrations of different PCDD/F-congeners with high accuracy using a general model approach, including one water compartment and two sediment compartments, indicating that the applied model has the necessary qualifications for successful predictions of PCDD/F-turnover in Baltic coastal areas. / Felaktigt tryckt som Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 736

Chronic anthropogenic disturbance has left many marine systems at risk of degrading into undesirable states. In many cases, ecosystem shifts are triggered by catastrophic disturbance events that are beyond the control of local management, such as coral bleaching or cyclones. Recognition of this risk has instigated what has been referred to as a new paradigm for marine stewardship; managing areas with the explicit goal of maintaining ecosystem resilience. Despite this, there has been little synthetic influence of resilience theory on marine conservation planning. This thesis focuses on how to make good decisions regarding the selection of marine protected areas (MPAs), in the face of catastrophic disturbance events and for the conservation of highly dynamic marine systems. Large-scale catastrophic events, although rare, lie generally beyond the control of local management and can prevent marine reserves from achieving biodiversity outcomes. In Chapter 2, I formulate a new conservation planning problem that aims to minimize the probability of missing marine conservation targets as result of catastrophic events. To illustrate this approach, I address the problem of minimizing the impact of large scale coral bleaching events on a reserve system for the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. By explicitly considering the threat of catastrophic bleaching as part of the reserve design problem, it was possible to substantially improve the likely persistence of coral reefs within reserve networks, for a negligible increase in reserve cost. The results also demonstrate that simply aiming to protect the reefs at lowest risk of catastrophic bleaching does not necessarily lead to the best conservation outcomes. It is thought that recovery of marine habitats from uncontrollable disturbance may be faster in marine reserves than in unprotected habitats. But which marine habitats should be protected, those areas at greatest risk or those at least risk? In Chapter 3, I define this problem mathematically for two alternate conservation objectives and determine under which conditions each of the different protection strategies are optimal. With regard to the risk of uncontrollable disturbance, the optimal protection strategy depends on both the conservation objective and the expected rate of habitat recovery inside and outside protected areas. I illustrate this decision making with an example of cyclone disturbance of coral reefs on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. An adequate consideration of risk can indicate surprising routes to conservation success. The resilience of coral reef systems is closely linked to the presence of grazing herbivores. Although herbivore populations are generally protected through permanent static reserves, the benefits of protection are dynamic in both time and space. Periodically moving protection between reefs allows access to the greatest potential benefits of reservation and can help address social reluctance to permanently close areas. Using analytic methods to solve a theoretical case study, I demonstrate that periodically rotating protection around a reef system can lead to greater average reef resilience than under static protection, but only if the overall level of reservation is high enough or the rotation does not include all reefs in the system. The past ten years have seen increasing enthusiasm for MPAs as a tool for pelagic conservation. However, numerous criticisms have been levelled against the use of place-based management in such a dynamic environment. Evidence, tools and information to address these criticisms and establish the feasibility and relevance of pelagic MPAs are dispersed across the conservation, oceanography and fisheries management literature. In Chapter 5, I review this information and present a synthetic framework for systematic planning of pelagic MPAs. Although many of the lessons learned so far about MPA design in coastal systems can be transferred to pelagic systems, there are some fundamental differences and new challenges involved in the conservation of patchy and highly dynamic resources. These challenges are very much at the leading edge of new conservation science and are likely to stimulate solutions with impact far beyond the design of pelagic MPAs.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2000. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (M.S.); Submitted to Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (US); 19 Dec 2004. / Published through the Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information. "IS-T 2488" Tugba Kalem. US Department of Energy 12/19/2004. Report is also available in paper and microfiche from NTIS.