Ecological Issues Research Articles

Measuring and reducing the ecological risk of community tourism for ecosystem conservation

The escalating ecological risks associated with Community Tourism (CT) pose a significant threat to ecosystem conservation worldwide, yet methods to predict and prevent CT-induced problems remain underexplored. In the context of the pronounced emphasis on the economic advantages of CT and its extensive implementation, the spatial prediction of CT-induced ecological issues and the corresponding effective preventative strategies are crucial. This study integrates composite indicators, Public Participation Geographic Information Systems, spatial statistics, and scenario analysis to develop Community Tourism Ecological Risk Models (CTERMs). Using the Qinghai Lake region as a case study, this study quantifies the spatial distribution of ecological risks associated with CT, identify priority areas for intervention, and propose enhanced mitigation strategies. Results indicate that CTERMs effectively pinpoint sites of ecological concern, making them valuable tools for forecasting CT-induced problems. Although high-risk areas constitute a small portion of the study area, significant disparities among communities highlight three clusters requiring urgent preventive measures. The current tourism concession layout is inadequate for mitigating CT-induced ecological risks. Adjusting the locations of concessions, while maintaining their current number, can significantly reduce ecological threats and protect endangered species. These findings demonstrate that strategic concession placement offers considerable ecological benefits. As new frameworks for biodiversity conservation are being considered, conservation scientists and policymakers are presented with an opportunity to integrate community development, poverty reduction, and ecosystem conservation by utilizing CTERMs for the strategic allocation of concessions.

Aplikasi Edukasi Berbasis Android Dengan Metode Waterfall Untuk Pemanfaatan Limbah

— This study focuses on the creation and implementation of an Android-based educational application designed to improve waste management practices within smart villages. The application addresses the needs of both local communities and village administrations, providing residents with access to waste management resources while enabling village officials to efficiently input and manage waste-related data through a web-based platform. Utilizing a REST API, the system ensures smooth communication between the mobile application and the web interface. Developed using the Waterfall methodology, the project followed stages including requirements analysis, system design, implementation, testing, and maintenance. The results highlight the application’s potential to support sustainable waste management, raise environmental awareness, and tackle ecological issues. Achieving an 80% user approval rate during testing, the application demonstrates itself as a reliable and user-friendly tool aligned with Indonesia's Smart Village goals. Future plans include enhancing user experience and incorporating advanced features to ensure broader adoption and scalability over time.

Eco-consciousness through the Dialectics of Hope and Hopelessness in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

The dialectics of hope and hopelessness unfolds eco-consciousness in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. In the narrative, two unnamed characters embark on their journey through the devastated landscape in search of life supporting climate and safety. This paper examines how their journey oscillates between optimistic and pessimistic events. McCarthy's fiction implicitly attributes the natural disaster to human misdeeds. Going after material achievements and material greed, human beings are paying less attention towards ecological issues. They are interfering the course of nature and violating the web of interdependence of the biotic and abiotic world. Consequently, it has invited different types of apocalypses pushing the ecosphere in danger. This paper claims that the display of the dystopian world is purposeful for the author for making human beings serious towards ecological issues. To create awareness against such misdeeds, the novel gives a sense of imminent environmental peril. At the same time, the novel presents different events and situations that signal hope with a strand of positive possibility. This dialectical presentation of hope and hopelessness that creates eco-consciousness is the issue this paper has explored in the novel. Applying qualitative research design, this study critically examines and analyzes both dystopian and hopes generating events and situations in the novel. Lawrence Buell's critical insights on environmental apocalypse serve as a theoretical perspective for textual analysis of the primary text.

Cormorant management in Denmark: A retrospective analysis using the Systems Approach Framework

Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) aims to ensure sustainable management of coastal areas. The Systems Approach Framework (SAF) provides a structure for an ICM process that includes scenario simulations of management options for complex systems. Through the SAF stakeholders are identified and engaged at an early stage. Further, the SAF guides a process to assess the ecological sustainability, economic efficiency, and social equity of management options, even for complex issues. Implementation of the European Union's Birds Directive (BD) in 1979 instigated protective management plans to protect a waning population of cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis). Since then, multiple adjustments were made to the management plans to mitigate arising issues and conflicts. In this study, we used the SAF to conduct a retrospective analysis of cormorant management in Europe, Denmark, and a local community in order to identify which ICM elements were put into effect and their effectiveness. The analysis comprised the two initial steps of the SAF: Issue Identification and System Design. Data and information were extracted from EU and Danish management plans, available literature and interviews with stakeholders. The management process was divided into two periods related to the motivation: i), 1979–2002 focusing on cormorant protection promoted by nature conservations organisations, and ii), 2003–2020 focusing on ad hoc adaptive management to mitigate negative effects of an exponentially increasing cormorant population on other sectors and related income and activities. Our study revealed that cormorant management at all levels lacked elements important for a sustainable ICM process. Implementation of the BD was a top-down process leading to a single sector solution, influenced by a few highly organised stakeholders with strong views. The ecological issue of protecting the species was resolved, but the lack of Systems Thinking and specific success targets, for which indicators could have been developed, led to new conflicts and negative user perceptions. In response to increasing and new emerging conflicts, more stakeholders became involved during the second period. Thorough mapping of stakeholders, institutions and governance structures at the outset could have provided for a more transparent, inclusive, and participatory process. In addition, the management plans did not involve cross-sectorial, bio-economic assessments. The latter would have allowed deliberations of potential ecological and socio-economic consequences of different management options, which could have enhanced transparency and equity in the decision-making and thus could have facilitated compliance and long-term sustainability during implementation.

Information and communication technology, economic globalization, and environmental sustainability inAPECnations: Insights fromLCCandEKChypotheses testing

AbstractAs the world grapples with pressing ecological issues, this study delves into the essential concept of environmental sustainability, following the sustainable development goal (SDG) 13, aiming to uncover pathways for a greener future. For this, the study examines the effects of information & communication technology (ICT) and economic globalization (ECG) on environmental sustainability (ENS) from a new angle, focusing on three ENS proxy variables; carbon dioxide emission (CO2e), ecological footprint (EFP), and load capacity factor (LCF), for better ecological assessment. Dissimilar to prior studies, the current study simultaneously tests the load capacity curve (LCC) and environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypotheses. The study employed advanced panel data estimation techniques along with causality tests, taking into account cross‐sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity for Asia‐Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies, for the period 1991–2020. The long‐run empirical outcomes reveal that information & communication technology, economic globalization, renewable energy consumption, and green financial development have the potential to enhance environmental sustainability; whereas industrialization has a detrimental influence over time. Further, the LCC and EKC hypotheses are supportable in APEC economies. Considering the overall findings there is a need for a favorable policy environment, that is APEC nations should bolster up the deployment of green ICT infrastructure; promote enhanced and collective efforts with global partners for ECG; expand the adoption of renewable energy; direct green financial development to areas of greatest benefit, and well‐managed industrialization as part of their environmental policies.

Synthesis and characterization of CuCoFe2O4@GA/AC as a bio-based matrix magnetic nano-heterogeneous photocatalyst for ceftriaxone degradation from aqueous media

Emerging contaminants such as ceftriaxone are a significant issue in the environment. They have led to a series of ecological, environmental, and health issues, and it is urgent to find a green and secure method to remove antibiotics from water effectively. In this research, the CuCoFe2O4@Gum Arabic (GA)/Activated Carbon (AC) as an innovative bio-based matrix magnetic nanocatalyst was synthesized for the efficient degradation of ceftriaxone from aqueous media. The structure of CuCoFe2O4@GA/AC was characterized via FESEM, EDS, Mapping, XRD, FTIR, VSM, and DRS analyses. The structural analysis of the catalyst revealed its synthesis at the nanometer scale (40–50 nm), exhibiting high magnetic strength (Ms: 5.38 emu/g) and favorable optical properties with a bandgap of 3.6 eV. Under optimized conditions, including a pH of 5, 60 min of irradiation time, 0.24 g/L photocatalyst dose, and ceftriaxone concentration of 5 mg/L, the removal efficiency from synthetic and real samples was 94.43% and 62.5%, respectively. The photocatalytic degradation process of ceftriaxone followed pseudo-first-order and Langmuir–Hinshelwood kinetic models. Furthermore, analysis of the process mechanism indicated a prominent role of the superoxide radical. The catalyst had a high recovery capability and chemical stability. The photocatalytic degradation of ceftriaxone by CuCoFe2O4@GA/AC showcased remarkable efficiency, indicating its potential utility in the treatment of wastewater contaminated with antibiotics.

Hope and Crisis in McCarthy's The Road and Mandel's Station Eleven

Presentation of the duality of hope and crisis for eco-conscious is the main feature of post-apocalyptic fictions. This research work comparatively analyzes the revelation of hope and crisis in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven from ecocritical perspective. These fictional works expose extreme destruction of life, property and even the natural world.Human beings interfere in the course of nature, by violating the web of interdependence between plants and animals and neglecting its autonomous existence. These novels reveal the germination of the different types of apocalypses because of such invasion, which ultimately push our ecosphere in danger.Such displays of the dystopian worlds are purposeful. They aim to strike the thoughts of people and make them serious towards ecological issues. They give the sense of imminent environmental peril to correct their misdeeds. At the same time, such fictional works also include events and situations that signal optimism in the readers. The comparative study reveals that the key point of the post-apocalyptic fictions is to present the dialectics of hope and hopelessness for the eco-conscious in readers and make them ecofriendly.This paper follows qualitative research design focusing on the textual analysis method for the analysis of the primary texts to justify the claim. Critical ideas of Lawrence Buell in relation to the environmental apocalypse are used as analytical tools for critical analysis.

Renewable Power Systems: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis

The ongoing amplification of climate change necessitates the exploration and implementation of effective strategies to mitigate ecological issues while simultaneously preserving economic and social well-being. Renewable power systems offer a way to reduce adverse anthropogenic effects without hindering economic growth. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of renewable power systems to explore their historical context, identify influential studies, and uncover research gaps, hypothesizing that global contributions and policy support significantly influence the field’s dynamics. Following Preferred Reporting Items For Systematic Reviews And Meta-Analyses guidelines, this study utilized Scopus tools analysis and VOSviewer 1.6.20 software to examine the metadata sourced from scientific databases in Scopus. The outcomes of this investigation facilitate the identification of the most prolific countries and authors, as well as collaborative efforts that enrich the theoretical landscape of renewable power systems. The study also traces the evolution of research on renewable power systems. Furthermore, the results reveal key scientific clusters in the analysis: the first cluster concentrates on renewable energy and sustainable development, the second on the relationship between government policies and renewable power systems, and the third on the role of incentives that catalyse the advancement of renewable power systems. The findings of this meta-analysis not only contribute valuable insights to existing research but also enable the identification of emerging research areas related to renewable power system development.

Pollution characteristics of microplastics in greenhouse soil profiles with the long-term application of organic compost

Organic composts are significant sources of microplastic (MP) pollution in soils, and their input is much higher in greenhouse agriculture than open-field agriculture. However, how long-term compost application affects MPs pollution in greenhouse soil profiles remains unclear. This study examined MPs characteristics in chicken manure compost and earthworms, exploring the long-term impacts of compost application on MPs accumulation and vertical migration in 0–100 cm soil depth through a 15-year greenhouse experiment. Microplastics abundance was 3965 items kg−1 in compost, 191–248 items kg−1 in compost-amended soils, and 2.73–4.52 items individual−1 in earthworms from compost-amended soils; the latter two increased significantly with compost application and were significantly higher than unamended soils. Soil MPs accumulation from long-term compost amendment contributed 45.4% of the total. The proportion of MPs <2 mm in compost (49.7%) was less than in compost-amended soils (65.5%) and earthworms (65.4%). Microplastics size and abundance decreased with increasing soil depth. Microplastics polymer types and shapes in composts, compost-amended soils, and earthworms exhibited similarities, mainly including polyethylene and polypropylene fragments and fibers. Compost-derived MPs in soils exhibited complex weathering morphology and adhered to mineral colloids. Therefore, soil MPs originating from compost gradually weathered and degraded into smaller particles and migrated to deeper soil, maybe resulting in more serious ecological issues.

Impact of agricultural inputs on the abundance of heavy metals (Cu, Zn) in soil, water, and plants in the south of Algeria

he aim of our study is to assess the impact of agricultural inputs on the levels of heavy metals, specifically copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in soil, water, and plants in the oasis of El Ghrous, Branis, and Sidi Okba in Algeria. The existence of perilous substances in the surroundings is a significant ecological issue, endangering both human well-being and agricultural output. The overuse of fertilizers and pesticides may be causing heavy metals build-up. The aim will be to highlight a better understanding of the concentrations of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), considering as detrimental contaminants, after extensive utilization of agricultural inputs. In order to examine the levels of trace metals (TMs), we performed additional tests by comparing field samples using metal analysis techniques that involved ammonium acetate and EDTA, and detection by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Our findings suggest that in soils affected by fertilizers and phytosanitary agents, the concentrations of Cu++ and Zn++ are below levels that would cause toxicity. Indeed, the levels of Cu++ are measured at 6.14 µg/g and the levels of Zn++ are measured at 4.97 µg/g. Nevertheless, the copper contents in irrigation waters from sites 01 and 02 beyond the levels that are considered dangerous. Similarly, copper levels in plants are categorized as hazardous. The findings emphasize the significance of implementing integrated pest management strategies in order to reduce the negative consequences of excessive use of agricultural inputs. Additionally, our study imposes the need to closely monitoring agricultural practices in order to mitigate environmental and public health hazards. Implementing sustainable farming practices and employing effective resource management strategies is crucial for safeguarding agricultural ecosystems and guaranteeing sustainable food production in the long run. Adopting an all-encompassing strategy is crucial for preserving the well-being of both the ecosystem and the populace.

Human activities and ecosystem health: A historical analysis of Poyang Lake

Urbanization, industrialization, land development, and other human activities have led to ecological issues such as shrinking lake wetlands, fragmented cropland, and reduced biodiversity. Taking the Poyang Lake urban agglomeration as the study area, the textual analysis method was used to analyze the typical facts of the historical succession of human activities since 1949, and then the index method and the spatial analysis method were adopted to characterize the spatial and temporal evolution of the ecosystem health and human activities in the period of 2003–2020. On this basis, the spatial spillover effects of human activities on ecosystem health were investigated based on the spatial Durbin model in four dimensions. The results of the study show that since 1949, human activities in the Poyang Lake area have gone through the management path from “agricultural retreat and fishery advancement” and “dike reclamation” to “sand ban” and “returning the lake”. Ecological protection has gone through the sublimation from “enlightenment” to “full implementation” to “strengthening and upgrading”. The ecosystem health of Poyang Lake urban agglomeration from 2003 to 2020 has been in the range of 0.37709 ∼ 0.3709 ∼ 0.3709. 0.37709 ∼ 0.48485, with the spatial characteristics of “low in the center and high in the periphery”. The city expansion and agricultural activities in the county are generally distributed in the pattern of “high center, low periphery”, while the spatial distribution of water body area is characterized by “near-lake” and “near-river”, and the newly registered enterprises show a change from “point” to “surface”. The spatial distribution of water body area is characterized by “proximity to the lake” and “proximity to the river”, and the newly registered enterprises show changes from “point” to “surface”. There is a significant spatial competition effect on the effects of city expansion on ecosystem health, while there is a significant negative spatial collaboration effect on the effects of industrial activities, and agricultural activities show a significant spatial spillover effect. The results of the study can provide more detailed empirical support for the regulation and management of ecosystem health in global lakeside urban agglomerations.

Does consumer scepticism impact purchase intention toward palm oil as a food product?

Abstract In recent years, the production of vegetable oil crops has expanded more quickly than other food or industrial crops. With a negative impact on the environment and the viability of producing communities, palm oil primarily grown in tropical regions has emerged as the most traded and produced oil globally. Palm oil is increasingly used in many products despite being linked to several troubling ecological, social, and health-related issues. Customers are given a wrong impression of the industry by popular opinion. To examine the reasons behind this disparity in the instance of palm oil, the current study uses an online survey to investigate the influence of consumer attitude and scepticism toward Indonesian consumers’ purchase intention (N = 200). The result showed that consumers’ intention to purchase palm oil as a food product has been influenced by increasing consumer attitude and decreasing consumer scepticism. An increase in consumer intentions to buy palm oil as a food product is driven by this alignment, which gets stronger. The findings of this study provide important new information for developing production and marketing strategies that will improve consumers’ behavioural intention to use vegetable oils.

Sentiment and attitudes toward offsetting and the biodiversity market in online media articles.

Biodiversity offsetting, a conservation approach to offset loss of habitat and ecosystem services, has been widely accepted and implemented in different legislative frameworks around the globe. I assigned sentiment scores (from -3 [very negative] to +3 [very positive]) to online news articles to examine public sentiment toward offsetting. I identified 86 pertinent articles published from 2013 to 2023 by web scraping online media outlets through keywords. I examined article content based on topics commonly associated in scientific literature with offsetting, such as risks or financial aspects. Most articles were from Australia (44%), 16% were from the United Kingdom, and 5% were from Colombia and Madagascar. Three distinct groups covered finances (n=47), species, and social impacts of offsetting (n = 23) and offsetting frameworks (n=16). Articles covering monetary and finance aspects had a lower predicted sentiment score (-0.72, 95% CI -0.98 to -0.47) than articles that covered new, alternative offsetting forms (-0.15, 95% CI -0.46 to 0.17), such as mitigation banking and credits. In articles focused on charismatic species and loss of livelihood, offsetting risk and social issues were associated with low sentiment scores (<-0.85). Sentiment scores were high for articles on offsetting at a multicountry or global scale (0.47, 95% CI -0.06 to 0.99), and scores were the lowest in Australia (-1.03, 95% CI -1.36 to -0.70). Public sentiment based on media articles was generally negative toward offsetting, and many of the ecological and methodological issues and risks were reflected in the articles, but mitigation measures as a prerequisite to offsetting were mentioned in only 18% of all articles. With the seemingly high public interest in conservation and hence offsetting, it will be imperative to expand the current breadth of information about offsetting that is being communicated or made available to the public.

USING THE GEOSPATIAL MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS MODEL AND METHODS FOR SOIL DEGRADATION RISK MAPPING

Modern methods of spatial analysis and modeling are increasingly being combined with decision-making methods and fuzzy set theory. The latter are actively integrated into the environment of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), such as well-known ones like ArcGIS or QGIS, in the form of separate tools, plugins, or Python scripts. Decision-making methods allow structuring the problem in geographical space, as well as taking into account the knowledge and judgments of experts and the preferences of the decision-maker in determining the priorities of alternative solutions. This paper provides a description of a geospatial multi-criteria decision analysis model, which allows addressing a wide range of ecological and socio-economic issues. An example of applying this model to map soil degradation risk in Ukraine is presented in the paper. According to the object-spatial approach, the properties of a territory are determined as the result of the action (impact) of a set of objects (processes) belonging to this territory. The territory is represented as a two-dimensional discrete grid, each point of which (local area) is an alternative. The set of local areas of the territory constitutes the set of alternatives. The representation of the territory model as a system of objects and relationships between them allows justifying the choice of a set of criteria (factors) for assessing soil degradation risk. Each criterion is a separate raster layer of the map. To build a hierarchical decision-making structure and calculate the importance coefficients of the criteria, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is used. To account for uncertainty in assessments and judgments of experts at the stages of standardization of alternative attributes by different criteria and aggregation of their assessments, expert membership functions for fuzzy sets and fuzzy quantifiers are applied. The particular feature of the proposed multi-criteria decision analysis model is its low computational complexity and ease of integration into the GIS environment.

Hidden Potential of the Subdominant Ant Formica lemani Bondroit (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): The Formation of Large Nest Complexes and Restructuring Behavioural Stereotypes

The potential of subdominant ants of the Formica fusca group and their role in forests are still underestimated. Since ant behaviour is dependent on colony size, studying the functional organisation of nest complexes (NC) is most promising for a more accurate assessment of species capabilities. The study focused on the main ecological and ethological issues of the life activity of Formica lemani Bondroit within large NC (&gt;150 nests) and beyond. After preliminary mapping of the F. lemani NC (main nests, trails, foraging trees), off-nest activity, aggressiveness, and trophobiotic relationships with aphids in and outside the NC territory were studied. Within the NC, the dynamic density, the intensity of movement on trails, and aggressiveness of F. lemani were significantly higher than beyond; the range of symbiont aphids was twice as small, with aphids on birches playing a key role in carbohydrate nutrition of F. lemani. The latter ensures accelerated restoration of trophobiotic interactions in spring and stability of the food supply until autumn. Combined with the lack of pressure from F. rufa group ants, this allowed F. lemani to maintain high population densities, and significantly increased its competitiveness, and role in plant protection against phytophages.

The limits of “resilience”: Relationalities, contradictions, and re‐appropriations

AbstractThe concept of “resilience” is ubiquitous in global governance, extending from climate and ecological issues to practically all spheres of human endeavor. However, post‐pandemic discourses suggest that the concept may no longer be capable of synthesizing diverse and diverging geopolitical interests into common policy goals. Responding to what we see as an emerging “crisis of resilience,” we reconsider the utility of the concept and advance “irresilience” as its critical relational “other.” We argue that to make resilience meaningful in a “polycrisis,” it is necessary to think about it dialectically and consider how it is undermined by the very actors that evangelize it.This article is categorized under: International Policy Framework &gt; Policy and Governance Climate, History, Society, Culture &gt; Disciplinary Perspectives The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge &gt; Knowledge and Practice Climate and Development &gt; Sustainability and Human Well‐Being

The state against the environment? Water management and the regulation of tensions between sectoral policies in France

AbstractThe effectiveness and efficiency of environmental policy largely depends on how other policies take account of ecological objectives, whether in the industrial, agricultural, urban planning, transport, housing or budget sectors. The state bears responsibility for how these public policies interrelate, including establishing a hierarchy of priority or allowing one area to ignore another. What can we learn about environmental policy from an analysis of the tensions between multiple sectoral policies, and more generally about the state and the political and institutional functioning that shapes the management of an environmental issue? Taking water management in France as a case study, this article argues that an approach focused on the regulation of tensions between various public policies can shed new light on the structural difficulties of environmental policy. It shows how ideas, norms, interests, strategies, professional cultures, and so forth, that underpin public policy outside the environmental field shape the handling of ecological issues. It also highlights the way the state views and handles these tensions between policies through institutional arrangements and socio‐political compromises with influential sectoral actors and social groups.

Exploring the spatial and temporal evolution of landscape ecological risks under tourism disturbance: A case study of the Min River Basin, China

Numerous ecological issues will arise from the expansion of tourism-related infrastructure and activities, potentially having a major effect on the ecosystem. However, its impact on landscape ecological risk (LER) is still poorly understood. Taking the Min River Basin as an example, an improved LER evaluation method was adopted in this study, which uses landscape disturbance based on landscape pattern and incorporates ecosystem services (ESs) represent landscape vulnerability. On this basis, the impacts of tourism-related infrastructure and activities on ecology environment were comprehensively considered, and buffer zone analysis, scenario analysis, response index (RI), and the bivariate Moran’s I approaches were applied to identify the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of LER under tourism interference. The results show that: (1) The Min River Basin’s LER from 2000 to 2020 demonstrates a trend of gradually decreased, primarily in the middle and low risk areas. Most of the areas where scenic spots and roads are located are high risk areas, suggesting that tourism disturbances negatively affect LER. (2) There is a spatial gradient effect associated with the influence of tourism infrastructure on LER, and the impact degree varies throughout different tourism infrastructure. (3) The difference of scenic spots causes diverse degrees of LER. Through comparison, it is found that the LER of high-grade and cultural scenic spots is larger than that of low-grade and natural scenic spots. The quantitative results of the RI show that the values inside the influence zones of scenic spots and roads are 5 times and 9 times more than the values outside, respectively. This suggests that tourism infrastructure increases LER. (4)There is a spatial correlation between LER and tourism activities intensity. In order to offer a scientific reference for balancing local tourism development and ecological environmental conservation, this study develops a more thorough and rigorous research framework of the impact of tourism on LER.

Characteristics of microplastics and their abundance impacts on microbial structure and function in agricultural soils of remote areas in west China

As an emergent pollutant, microplastics (MPs) are becoming prevalent in the soil environment. However, the characteristics of MPs and the response of microbial communities to the abundance of MPs in agricultural soils in West China still need to be elucidated in detail. This study utilized the Agilent 8700 Laser Direct Infrared (LDIR) to analyze the characteristics of small-sized MPs (20–1000 μm) in soils from un-mulched and mulched agricultural fields in West China, and illustrated their correlation with microbial diversity. The results revealed a higher abundance of MPs in mulched soil ((4.12 ± 2.13) × 105 items kg−1) than that in un-mulched soil ((1.04 ± 0.26) × 105 items kg−1). The detected MPs were dominated by fragments, 20–50 μm and Polyamide (PA). High-throughput sequencing analysis indicated that alpha diversity (Chao1 and Shannon indices) in the plastisphere was lower compared to that in soil, and varied significantly with MPs abundance in soil. As the abundance of MPs increased, the proportion of soil about the degradation of organic matte and photoautotrophic taxa increased, which showed enrichment in the plastisphere. Functional predictions further indicated that MPs abundance affected potential soil functions, such as metabolic pathways associated with the C and N cycling. The plastisphere showed higher functional abundance associated with organic matter degradation, indicating higher potential health risks compared to soil environments. Based on the RDA analyses, it was determined that environmental physicochemical properties and MPs abundance had a greater impact on fungal communities than on bacterial communities. In general, the abundance of MPs affected the microbial diversity composition and potentially influenced the overall performance of soil ecosystems. This study offers empirical data on the abundance of MPs in long-term mulched agricultural fields and new insights for exploring the ecological risk issues associated with MPs.

“We never even touched plants this way”: school gardens as an embodied context for motivating environmental actions

A critical objective of environmental education (EE) is sustained and active care for the natural world. Numerous studies point to the inadequacy of information-centered pedagogies in motivating such ecologically responsive action. The primacy of action in effectively addressing environmental issues calls for conceptions of EE that emphasize the conative and affective domains of the human mind. While recent research studies have recognized the significance of affective approaches in EE, the role of sensory and embodied engagements, which ground such affective encounters, are relatively less understood. Based on a year-long facilitation of a school terrace-garden in a metropolitan city, we outline how situated and embodied interactions can foster an understanding of diverse ecological practices, and thus a different way of being with the natural world. The study indicates that multi-modal sensorimotor experiences, and the possibility of sharing these with others, motivate children to expand their sphere of environmental activities beyond the site of learning. Specifically, students extended their care-based interactions with the garden to their communities and broader ecological issues. These findings indicate that integrative forms of situated and embodied interactions with the living world can provide the generative force to learn, act, care, and live in ways that encourage ecological flourishing.