時序邁入二十一世紀，隨著科技與技術的日新月異，市場環境與消費者需求更加瞬息萬變，企業如何在追求自我成長的同時，迅速回應外在環境的快速變化，不被淘汰，是現今企業面對的最大課題，亦是學術界與實務界向來熱衷討論的命題。James F. Moore最早提出「商業生態系統」的概念，建議以商業生態系統取代產業，打破過去產業的界線，認為若要成功回應環境與顧客需求，已不再只是依賴單一組織與單一產業，而需透過跨領域的協同合作來完成。 本研究以電子商務為主體結合商業生態系統概念，透過個案研究法分析個別企業參與商業生態系統所扮演的角色。最後，本研究提出以下結論：個別企業參與者在商業生態系統中的各生命週期發展階段可能經歷角色轉變；個別企業參與者在原生商業生態系統可逐步打造以自身為主體的商業生態次系統並對原生商業生態主系統產生影響。

This thesis considers the problem of how to design an industrial network to reduce cost, increase efficiency, and reduce environmental burdens. A recent approach is further developed that uses analogies with biological food webs to guide industry design. Studying ecological food webs shows that among the metrics in use, critical quantities of interest for industry design include the internal cycling of energy, the ratio of producers to consumers, and the ratio of efficiency to redundancy in the network. Metrics that are calculated using flow based information are also introduced for use in industry, a significant step forward for bio-inspired network design. A comprehensive data set of proposed, operational, and failed eco-industrial parks is compiled for use with structural food web analyses. A data set of biological food webs is also assembled to calculate sustainable benchmark values used as goals for the industrial designs. This research an essential difficulty in bio-inspired design approaches by quantitatively analyzing components of food web design by reconstructing found relationships from science and engineering 1st principles, specifically using thermodynamic 1st law efficiency. Results from this work have the potential to provide industry-wide cost savings, increase efficiency, and reduce environmental burdens through a reduction in raw material consumption and waste disposal. The results also support the view that financial competitiveness and sustainability need not be mutually exclusive: using food web network patterns embodying both economically and environmentally desirable properties, biologically redesigned industrial networks can ease both environmental and economic burdens.

Master of Science / Department of Biology / Walter K. Dodds / Human-induced stressors such as increased nitrogen (N) loadings, altered watershed land-use, and biodiversity losses are a few of the numerous threats to aquatic systems. Prairie streams experience natural disturbances, such as flooding and desiccation, which may alter responses to anthropogenic stressors. Denitrification, the dissimilatory reduction of NO3- to N gas (N2O or N2), is the only permanent form of N removal from terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems, and is important in mitigating N pollution to streams and downstream waters. Little is known about the relationships between denitrification and riparian prairie vegetation or large consumers. In the first chapter, I used outdoor mesocosms to determine the impact of a grazing minnow, Campostoma anomalum, on structural and functional responses of prairie streams to a simulated flood, focusing on denitrification. In terrestrial ecosystems, grazing can stimulate denitrification, but this has not been studied in streams. Ammonium (NH4+) enrichments, used to simulate fish excretion, alleviated N limitations on denitrification. Both fish and NH4+ affected algal biomass accrual, but only fish affected algal filament lengths and particulate organic matter. In a second experiment, I examined the impact of woody vegetation expansion, a primary threat to tallgrass prairie, on riparian and benthic denitrification. Expansion of woody vegetation in these grasslands is due primarily to altered fire regimes, which historically inhibited woody vegetation growth. To determine the effect of woody vegetation expansion on benthic and riparian denitrification, woody vegetation was removed from the riparian zone of a grazed and an ungrazed watershed. Both soil and benthic denitrification rates from this removal buffer were compared to rates in grassy or woody riparian zones. Riparian soil denitrification was highly seasonal, with greatest rates occurring during early spring, and rates being low throughout the remainder of the year. Benthic denitrification was also temporally variable but did not exhibit seasonal trends, suggesting benthic denitrification is driven by factors other than water temperature. Removal of woody vegetation stimulated soil and benthic denitrification rates over rates found in naturally vegetated riparian zones. Elevated N loadings will continue to affect aquatic ecosystems, and these effects may be exacerbated by biodiversity losses or changing riparian vegetation.

Associative relationships among mangrove species and macroinvertebrate species were analysed for ecosystems of Xuan Thuy National Park. Census of mangrove species with allometric measurements was conducted in selected plots, and census of macroinvertebrate species was conducted in quadrats inside of mangrove species census plots. Correlational analysis among allometrically estimated aboveground biomass of mangrove species and population of macroinvertebrate species was examined by clustering method. High level of similarity was resulted for specific macroinvertebrate species with specific mangrove species in annual and seasonal basis. Moreover, indicator macroinvertebrate species is proposed based on indicator value index method. / Các mối quan hệ giữa thực vật ngập mặn và động vật không xương sống cỡ lớn được phân tích trong các hệ sinh thái của Vườn quốc gia Xuân Thủy. Khảo sát về số lượng của các loài cây ngập mặn cùng với các phép đo tương quan sinh trưởng được tiến hành trong các ô tiêu chuẩn, và nghiên cứu về thành phần loài và mật độ động vật không xương sống cỡ lớn được thực hiện trong các ô tiêu chuẩn này. Phân tích tương quan giữa sinh khối ước tính trên mặt đất của các loài cây ngập mặn và các quần thể động vật không xương sống cỡ lớn đã được thực hiện bằng phương pháp nhóm. Giữa các loài động vật không xương sống cỡ lớn đặc trưng với các loài cây ngập mặn đặc trưng đã cho thấy mức độ tương đồng cao theo năm và theo mùa. Hơn thế nữa, các loài động vật không xương sống cỡ lớn chỉ thị được đề xuất dựa trên phương pháp chỉ số giá trị chỉ thị.

Biodiversity indicators for the conservation of mangrove ecosystems of Xuan Thuy National Park were composed, taking into account the environmental, biotic, and anthropological factors, based on suggested indicators provided by the Convention on Biological Diversity. Relevant environmental, biotic, and anthropological factors, identified by bibliographic and field surveys, were ordered by Pressures, State, Benefits, and Responses categories following the guidance of the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership. Furthermore, the linked relationships among the indicators were identified for effective monitoring of biodiversity in Xuan Thuy National Park. / Dựa trên các chỉ thị được gợi ý từ Công ước về Đa dạng sinh học, các chỉ thị đa dạng sinh học phục vụ công tác bảo tồn các hệ sinh thái rừng ngập mặn của Vườn Quốc gia Xuân Thủy đã được xây dựng, có tính đến các yếu tố môi trường, sinh học và con người. Các yếu tố môi trường, sinh học và con người có liên quan, được xác định bằng việc tổng hợp và đánh giá các tài liệu và các đợt điều tra ngoài thực địa, dưới trật tự các nhóm Áp lực, Tình trạng, Lợi ích và Đáp ứng theo hướng dẫn của Đối tác chỉ thị đa dạng sinh học. Hơn thế nữa, các mối quan hệ liên kết giữa các chỉ thị đã được xác định nhằm quan trắc hiệu quả đa dạng sinh học ở Vườn Quốc gia Xuân Thủy.

This bachelor thesis is based on a internship on IBM Sweden within Södertörn University’s bachelor program ’IT, Media and Design’ during the spring semester of 2016, majoring Media technology. The thesis is based on a practical work, which treats the company’s digital presence where I, as a student, stepped in and helped the marketing and communication department. I’ve done a survey of their Swedish digital channels, and business intelligence where I’ve collected details about the Nordic IBM companies digital channel structure and linking between accounts. Maintenance of the Swedish IBMs social media accounts have also been included such as development of an suggestion of an digital ecosystem for future work with the company's digital presence. The information in this thesis is classified as open.

Under global urbanization backgrounds with physical population migrations and relocations, corresponding consequences in society developments, cultural transformations, technology inventions and interactions between regions and countries, etc. are considered as having a huge impact on normal urban dwellers. For human beings always have intentions towards managements and benefits from natural surroundings, urban dweller demands under the modern challenges and their interactions are necessary to be concerned about. Urban ecosystem is considered as a highly developed civilization, but also with features of resources and energy demands and pollution and distributional exports. As the only natural element in this ecosystem, UGI (urban green infrastructures) is considered as an important human-environment interaction provider with urban ecosystem services (UES) largely focused by academic scholars, urban planners and policy managers. As one of the fastest urbanizing cities in the world, Shanghai is considered as having huge cultural and social developments combined with socioeconomic acceleration. Under the unique background of policy planning and traditional Confucian culture transformation, the impacts to urban dweller demands, whether these newly developed modern demands can be satisfied by UES provided by UGI and how the understandings of these normal dwellers to UGI in Shanghai are necessary for academic researches. By considering the interactions with urban dwellers, six urban parks in the center of Shanghai are chosen as research sites in this study. Combined with factors of urbanization processes and observed patterns of visitor interactions, the indicator of “park age” is concerned with three old parks (older than 25 years old) and three new parks (younger than 25 years old). With methodologies of fieldwork mapping, questionnaires, indicator based evaluation system constructions, etc., the quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out to habitat diversity, cultural and regulation UES results, and the background reasons caused by political and financial influences are subject to further discussion. The visitors to urban parks of Shanghai are classified into four sorts: “retired dwellers”, “dwellers for children care”, “tourist visitors” and “other visitors”, we found out that related demands and interactions with urban parks have significant differences. After detailed discussions, it could be figured out that the visitors demands play a significant role, and the interactions between visitors and UES in Shanghai are comprehensively influenced by multiple factors of “visiting objectives”, “park cultures (ages, popularities, etc.)” and “personal identities (educations, incomes, etc.)”. Based on this, the detailed differences of policy, finance, Confucian culture, nature understanding, and community society between old and new parks were further discussed. With all aspects of physical, mental, psychological and other demand aspects especially focused on, the typical features in Shanghai are also highly concentrated on dominant activities. For China is suffering from national environmental and urbanization problems but lack in related concerns combined with dweller demands, this research work may make certain efforts on model assessment methodologies constructions and national implementations. Also, with a combined background of top-down policy systems and natural understandings under socioeconomic duress, this research could also make significant efforts in dweller-UES interactions researches in similar cases of other countries and newly developed urban ecosystems in the world.

This paper looks at the intersections of nature and culture through a study of forest ecosystem restoration efforts in the Ouachita National Forest (Arkansas and Oklahoma). Ecosystem restoration goals are often informed by a pre-European settlement (PES) condition, with an implicit (and occasionally explicit) assertion that such conditions are both more natural than and preferable to the contemporary state. In many cases resuming pre-suppression fire regimes remains a key mechanism for achieving this restored condition. This study’s three main objectives include: (1) determining how PES benchmarks arose in restoration thought, (2) examining how the choice to use a PES benchmark is influenced by culture, and (3) evaluating the pragmatism of including a PES benchmark in restoration projects. The issues of the naturalness of PES conditions, along with the cultural implications of adopting a PES benchmark, are critically examined against the backdrop of historic legacies of fire suppression and paleoecological change. Normative balance-of-nature ideas are discussed in light of their influence on natural resource management paradigms. Linkages are drawn between PES conditions and forest health. Evidence supporting the ecological resilience associated with PES vegetation communities is considered alongside the anticipation of future forcing factors. The idea that restored forests represent an ecological archetype is addressed. Finally, an alternative explanation concerning the tendency of ecosystem restoration efforts to converge on a single historic reference condition – a point of equifinality – is weighed against notions of: (1) anthropic degradation, (2) a regional optimum, and (3) a socially-constructed yearning for a frontier ideal. Because of the unique convergence between historical human activities and natural processes, contemporary culture has conceived of the PES time period as a sort of frontier ideal. The creation of PES benchmarks appears to be an unintentional consequence of attempts to restore forest health rigorously defined by biometric standards. This study offers, to restoration thinking, a framework for critically evaluating the inclusion of historic reference conditions and a means of responding to criticism surrounding their use. This study's findings rest on evidence gathered from paleoecological and historical biogeography data, interviews, archival materials, cultural landscape interpretation, landscape and nature-based art, and complexity theory.

<p>Att bevarandet av biologisk mångfald är en grundpelare för att nå en hållbar utveckling enades världens länder om i Konventionen om biologisk mångfald (CBD) som upprättades under toppmötet i Rio de Janeiro 1992. I konventionen förespråkas den s.k. ekosystemansatsen (EA), vilket är en strategi som innebär en helhetssyn på ekosystem. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka i vilken grad EA tillämpas på nationell och regional nivå. Frågan är också om EA är en bra utgångspunkt för att upprätthålla biologisk mångfald på landskapsnivå samt vad som kan öka tillämpningen av EA på regional nivå. På nationell nivå analyserades två delar i miljömålspropositionen och på regional nivå analyserades de landskapsstrategier som sju län har fått i uppdrag av regeringen att upprätta i ett pilotprojekt. Min teoretiska utgångspunkt har varit ekosystemansatsen och dess principer och vägledande punkter. Metoden bestod av främst en kvantitativ innehållsanalys med kvalitativa inslag och som komplement utfördes fyra intervjuer.</p><p>Resultatet visade att de delar av miljömålspropositionen som analyserades i hög grad följde ekosystemansatsen. En brist i propositionen var dock att det saknades riktlinjer om att det behövdes involvering av olika aktörer när den ursprungliga definitionen av landskapsavsnittet i strategierna skulle bestämmas. Att denna aspekt var implicit ledde troligtvis till det faktum att den även var implicit i landskapsstrategierna. Tillämpningen av EA i landskapsstrategierna skedde, trots att länsstyrelserna endast tillämpade den indirekt, i ganska hög grad och särskilt togs hänsyn till sociala aspekter som involvering av olika aktörer i själva processen och kontakt med vetenskapliga discipliner. Det som däremot var bristfälligt gällde tillämpningen av komplexa aspekter, vilka inte klart hade uttryckts i riktlinjerna till länsstyrelserna från regeringen. Dessa faktorer var beaktande av förvaltning av ekosystem inom ramen för dess funktion, processer i ekosystem samt adaptiv förvaltning. Alla intervjupersoner var överens om att EA är övergripande och ganska luddig, men det måste den vara för att gälla globalt. Av vikt är att konkretisera den på nationell och regional nivå. Ett förslag är att Naturvårdsverket i detta projekt ger tydliga riktlinjer angående tillämpningen av EA i landskapsstrategierna och att det är en tvåvägskommunikation mellan Naturvårdsverket och länsstyrelserna så att det blir en iterativ process. Genom en konkretisering kan tillämpningen av EA öka och därmed ett steg tas mot en hållbar utveckling.</p> / <p>The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) promotes the Ecosystem Approach (EA), which is a strategy that endeavours to take a comprehensive approach to managing ecosystems. The aim of this report is to study to what degree the EA is being followed on a national and regional level. A key question of the research is whether EA is conceptually sound and whether it has been operationalised effectively at both national and regional scale. Using articulated EA principles and operational guidelines from the CBD this study analyzed the Government's national environmental directive concerning biodiversity. The same approach was also applied to an analysis of several regional landscape strategies that are being developed as part of a pilot project. The results show that the national biodiversity directive is largely consistent with an EA. Although one area of inadequacy was the level of involvement by different stakeholders in the original decision about defining the landscape area in the pilot studies. This was also a weakness in the landscape strategies- perhaps because communication on this issue was not explicit in the directive from the government.</p><p>The implementation of EA in the landscape strategies at the regional level was also found to be good, especially the participation from different stakeholders (especially local stakeholders) in the process and scientific institutions. However inadequate factors not represented in these strategies were complex ecological aspects such as principle 6 (ecosystem must be managed within the limits of their functioning) and operational guideline 1 (focus on the functional relationships and processes within ecosystems). Adaptive management (operational guideline 3), a relatively new approach in Sweden, was also found to be deficient. All the respondents agreed that the EA needed to be made more concrete on a national and regional level. A suggestion from the research to improve the development and adoption of the EA would be to develop iterative mechanisms between regional and national authorities to ensure national guiding principles are informed by more concrete regional experience. When the EA is implemented more effectively we will take one step further on the way to reaching a sustainable development.</p>

<p>During the last few decades, coral reefs have become a disappearing feature of tropical marine environments, and those reefs that do remain are severely threatened. It is understood that humans have greately altered the environment under which these ecosystems previously have thrived and evoloved. Overharvesting of fish stocks, global warming and pollution are some of the most prominent threats, acting on coral reefs at several spatial and temporal scales. Presently, it is common that coral reefs have been degraded into alternative ecosystem regimes, such as macroalgae-dominated or sea urchin-barren. Although these ecosystems could potentially return to coral dominance in a long-term perspective, when considdering current conditions, it seems likely that they will persist in their degraded states. Thus, recovery of coral reefs cannot be taken for granted on a human timescale. Multiple stressors and disturbances, which are increasingly characteristic of coral reef environments today, are believed to act synergistically and produce ecological surprises. However, current knowledge of effects of compounded disturbances and stress is limited. Based on five papers, this thesis investigates the sublethal response of multiple stressors on coral physiology, as well as the effects of compounded stress and disturbance on coral reef structure and function. Adaptive responses to stress and disturbance in relation to prior experience are highlighted. The thesis further explores how inherent characteristics (traits) of corals and macroalgae may influence regime expression when faced with altered disturbance regimes, in particular overfishing, eutrophication, elevated temperature, and enhanced substrate availability. Finally, possibilities of affecting the resilience of macroalgae-dominaed reefs and shifting the community composition towards a coral-dominated regime are explored.</p>