Ecological Sense Research Articles

Allometry of Egg Size as a Factor Influencing Egg Shape in Birds

Despite a huge diversity of egg shapes among birds, similar egg shapes occur in species that differ in habitats and are not phylogenetically closely related; this indicates the presence of factors limiting the egg shape variability. We assume that one of these factors is a general pattern of egg shape change across all birds. We tested a hypothesis of allometric patterns of egg morphometric traits (radii of blunt end (infundibular zone, ri), pointed end (cloacal zone, rc), lateral zone (rl) and maximum diameter (D)) scaling against egg length (L). Phylogenetic allometric analysis was applied. We also studied hierarchical distribution of variation in egg traits at different taxonomic levels in order to determine the degree of egg shape variability on each of them. We revealed allometric patterns in the scaling of egg traits: D and ri scaled against L with negative allometry, while rc and rl were positively allometric. A high degree of covariation was observed between the length and diameter, radii of the lateral and infundibular zones, i.e. traits that are associated with the overall size of an egg, the degree of its elongation, and the shape of infundibular zone. Evolutionary correlation between L and rc was rather low. The greatest variation of egg traits resided at the level of orders. The identified general trends in egg shape variation are realized on the basis of various groups of birds in phylogenetic and ecological sense that assume the influence of these factors on the bird's egg shape.

Eco-environmental quality assessment based on pressure-state-response framework by remote sensing and GIS

Ecological environment quality assessment (EEQ) is an important parameter for sustainable development and sometimes it's more valuable during industrialization and urbanization progress of the region. This study compares remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) and ecological index (EI) and assesses EEQ with the most popular pressure-state-response (PSR) method based on a set of remote sensing and statistical indexes through a weight system in Samara region Russia. EI and RSEI framed from 15 toand 4 indicators respectively and in the PSR framework natural-human pressure and health state assessed based on 12 and 3 indicators respectively and in the last response index developed from pressure and state indicators. Results indicate that RSEI and EI showed very strong comparability in the ecological sense but EI reflect more effectively EEQ changes than RSEI. Finally this study explores all important effective indicators developed from remote sensing for eco-environment quality assessment, which provide a strong decision making base for sustainable development as well as provide a new and latest technological support for long term comprehensive mapping, monitoring and assessment of environment.

Anima Mundi Demands a Hearing from the Heart

This piece was written in the spring of 2020, in the month after many parts of the nation and globe had effectively shut down in an effort to contain the proliferation of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. In my reflections I attempt to explore and make a kind of ecological, psychological, and spiritual sense of a virus so powerful as to irreversibly interrupt the rhythms of human civilization which, as an engine of our collective life drive, has evolved on so many levels in contradistinction to the life of this planet. This disruption of human activity is, in essence, a kind of “gift,” as only through mindful and compassionate attention to the human and nonhuman life in our environment will we glimpse the full significance of our coexistence with the otherness that sustains us.

A Marxist Reading of William Blake’s Selected Poetry: Machineries in Green Studies

Being a dweller of Romantic ecology, William Blake familiarizes his readers with the slant of pastoral landscapes through the ecological sensibilities within the promiscuous city. In his poetry, he has speculated the adventurous plantation of slums in the metropolitan city in the light of machineries and matters that pack human in the box of ambitious dreams as the monstrous dreams of the metropolitan historicity root up the pastoral landscapes of Britain. Whereas critics engage themselves to explore the relation to the outcome of numerous English cultural dominations within his poetry, this study revisits the selected ‘ecopoetics’ through the lens of Marxism to explore the threats towards the green world, especially, within the city shore on Thames. Blake as a ‘green prophet’ enunciates the rural life that is pulverized by the mobility of the mechanistic forces of city life. These mechanistic forces are manipulated by the power of government, industrial revolution, commerce, and neo-colonialism in every day’s behavior in order to ensure the submissiveness of the working class in 18th century England. Thus, the paper aims to discuss the Marxist narratives of Blake’s ‘ecosophy’ that warns us against the severe repercussion of machines and its tyrannical reverberations over the marginalized in his selected poetry.

Ecological Remote Sensing: A Challenging Section on Ecological Theory and Remote Sensing

Ecosystems can now be studied from space, in large numbers, but with high spatial and spectral detail [...]

After Agrarian Virtue

What constitutes agrarian virtue? Across human or even geological history, agrarian virtue subsists in the sustained production of food, fiber, and fuel without the exhaustion of finite resources or the undue disruption of evolutionary processes on which human survival depends. Contemporary agricultural law, however, often emphasizes the expressive self-actualization of food preferences. This natural sublimation of economic independence from producers to consumers epitomizes agrarian vice. Restoration of agrarian virtue demands not telos (τέλος) in its purposive sense, but rather acceptance of kyklos (κύκλος), or cyclicality in its full economic and ecological sense.

Ornithological Passions of American Poet Celia Thaxter

American poet Celia Leighton Thaxter (1835 – 1894) was shaped by both environmental beauty and destruction she witnessed in her New England community. As a woman who spent much of her life on a small wind-swept island, she was educated by seasons and migrations that later informed her work. A brief education among Boston’s literary elite launched her creative career, where she focused on her local ecology. At that time, over-hunting and newly fashionable plumed hats and accessories had created a serious possibility of avian decimation. By creating awareness of humans’ culpability for birds’ endangerment, Thaxter’s work evoked public sympathy and contributed to social and political change.
 This essay applies ecofeminist and cultural analyses to Thaxter’s work written as part of the 19th century bird defense movement, by examining the emotional rhetoric employed and activism implied in her poems and prose about birds, specifically: “The Kittiwakes,” “The Wounded Curlew,” and “The Great Blue Heron: A Warning.” Little attention has been paid to Thaxter’s didactic poems which use birds as subjects to instruct children and adults about the fragility of birdlife and to warn of humans’ destructive behaviors. These works illustrate Thaxter’s ecological sensibility and her use of emotion and reason to communicate an ecological message. Her poetry and prose about birdlife fortified the budding Audubon Society and contributed to the birth of the environmental movement. We can learn from such poetic activism, from attention to nature turned commodity, and the dangers of depleting finite resources. In our global environmental crisis, we recognize the interwoven relationships between birds and humans. Perhaps poems can help stymie our current ecological trajectory.

Les Marmites de la Commune: Qu'on vive à table comme sur la barricade!

Stemming from the Commune, the social and gustatory experiment of the Marmites exemplifies concepts of solidarity, conviviality and manger-ensemble that provide a model for the contemporary French context of economic inequity. The socially-conscious feminist engagement responsible in establishing the Marmites offers an alternative vision to Versaillais representations of helpless cantinières and threatening pétroleuses. While French food history traditionally equates this bloody period with an obsessive quest for meat in all its forms, we examine instead how, both in practical and philosophical terms, the Marmites aligned with a nascent vegetarian and ecological sensibility as, in the largest sense, vivre-ensemble also includes living together with fellow non-human animals. (In French)

Krytyka ekofeministyczna a katastrofa klimatyczna. Narracje o kryzysie w nareszcie możemy się zjadać Moniki Lubińskiej

The aim of this study was to introduce and discuss ecofeminist literary criticism and its philosophical background rooted in works of ecofeminist researchers such as Val Plumwood and Ariel Salleh. As intersectional theory, ecofeminism provides a profound analysis of the conceptual connection between women and nature. Ecological feminism is also concerned with relations between various forms of discrimination — racism, sexism, heterosexism and speciesism. Ecofeminist criticism is believed to be a method of reading that provides an interdisciplinary study of the relationship between subject, literature and environment. It examines issues such as carnality and sexuality which are also viewed as significant motifs in contemporary Polish poetry, e.g. in the works of Monika Lubinska. Research that combines literature studies and ecological themes seem to be particularly important in the second decade of 21st century — a time increasingly associated with climate crisis. The ecofeminist approach was used to analyze nareszcie mozemy sie zjadac, a debut book of poetry written by Polish author Monika Lubinska. The existence of garbage, activism issues and femininity were among the topics examined. Special attention was paid to Lubinska’s juxtapositions of sensuality and technology and to her writing method which involves the use of recycled phrases from Internet search engines, Wikipedia and her smartphone’s dictionary. The study revealed that the ecological sensibility of Monika Lubinska is deeply intertwined with her feminist awareness.

Site Quality for Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla King) in Natural Forests in Quintana Roo

ABSTRACT The concept of site quality was developed to project the expected production of timber species in even-aged stands in order to produce standardized site index curves. This concept can also be used in a more ecological sense to discern the spatial growth patterns of timber species in natural forests. We used the height-diameter relationship to evaluate a method to determine site quality for Swietenia macrophylla King in natural forests in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Using linear models and analysis of covariance, we detected significant and notable differences in mahogany development (p < .001), with some trees exceeding the predicted height by more than one meter. These differences were related to micro-topographic and edaphic factors and to the spectral response of the vegetation. Using a predictive model of site quality to develop a site quality map, we also determined that 86% of the production forest in the study area fit in the low productivity category, with mahogany growing below the predicted height for the area. These results suggest that site quality maps can contribute to effective forest management where forest aptitude is not homogeneous for timber growth. Concentrating management practices on high quality sites has the potential to conserve investment resources and increase production.

GauseR: Simple methods for fitting Lotka-Volterra models describing Gause's "Struggle for Existence".

Point 1: The ecological models of Alfred J. Lotka and Vito Volterra have had an enormous impact on ecology over the past century. Some of the earliest—and clearest—experimental tests of these models were famously conducted by Georgy Gause in the 1930s. Although well known, the data from these experiments are not widely available and are often difficult to analyze using standard statistical and computational tools.Point 2: Here, we introduce the gauseR package, a collection of tools for fitting Lotka‐Volterra models to time series data of one or more species. The package includes several methods for parameter estimation and optimization, and includes 42 datasets from Gause's species interaction experiments and related work. Additionally, we include with this paper a short blog post discussing the historical importance of these data and models, and an R vignette with a walk‐through introducing the package methods. The package is available for download at github.com/adamtclark/gauseR.Point 3: To demonstrate the package, we apply it to several classic experimental studies from Gause, as well as two other well‐known datasets on multi‐trophic dynamics on Isle Royale, and in spatially structured mite populations. In almost all cases, models fit observations closely and fitted parameter values make ecological sense.Point 4: Taken together, we hope that the methods, data, and analyses that we present here provide a simple and user‐friendly way to interact with complex ecological data. We are optimistic that these methods will be especially useful to students and educators who are studying ecological dynamics, as well as researchers who would like a fast tool for basic analyses.

“[A]n Exterior Air of Pilgrimage”: The Resilience of Pilgrimage Ecopoetics and Slow Travel from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

While the Beats can be seen as critical actors in the environmental humanities, their works should be seen over the longue durée. They are not only an origin, but are also recipients, of an environmentally aware tradition. With Geoffrey Chaucer and Jack Kerouac, we see how a contemporary American icon functions as a text parallel to something generally seen as discrete and past, an instance of the modern embracing, interpreting, and appropriating the medieval. I argue that The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer influenced Kerouac’s shaping of On the Road. In the unpublished autograph manuscript travel diary dating from 1948–1949 (On the Road notebook), Kerouac imagines the novel as a quest tale, thinking of pilgrimage during its gestation. Further, Kerouac explicitly cites Chaucer. His novel can be seen not only in the tradition of Chaucer, but can bring out aspects of pilgrimage ecopoetics in general. These connections include structural elements, the spiritual development of the narrator, reliance on vernacular dialect, acute environmental awareness, and slow travel. Chaucer’s influence on Kerouac highlights how certain elements characteristic of pilgrimage literature persist well into the modern period, in a resilience of form, language, and ecological sensibility.

Human-nature relationships in experiential meaning: transitivity system of Chinese from an ecolinguistic perspective

ABSTRACT Following a systemic functional approach to ecolinguistic studies, this study explores the Chinese transitivity system's interpretative potential in revealing the dynamic relationship between human beings and their living places. The research extends the transitivity system under the ethical framework of Ecological Sense of Place, drawing on theories from human geography and traditional Chinese philosophies. Within such a premise, the system of process configurations and participants of Chinese process types are reinterpreted, arguing that both the participant and the process should be judged through an ecological lens concerning their function in construing the human-place relationships. The scale of influence and environmental stances of Participant roles is addressed, following a belief that every entity contains participative potential as -er/-ed role of a process. Place as a circumstantial role is expressly acknowledged for their contribution to circumscribe people-place relationships. Regarding the process types, a reconsideration of their emotive, cognitive and agentive features is proposed to reveal the embedded attitudes toward places. These observations extend the knowledge on how the transitivity system can be refined to show the speaker/writer's attitude toward the ecology and its further influences on the collective understanding of human-nature relationships.

Ecological Sensibility: Recovering Axel Honneth’s Philosophy of Nature in the Age of Climate Crisis

ABSTRACT What is “critical” about critical theory? I claim that, to be “critical enough”, critical theory’s future depends on being able to handle today’s planetary climate crisis, which presupposes a philosophy of nature. Here, I argue that Axel Honneth’s vision of critical theory represents a nature denial and is thus unable to criticize humans’ instrumentalization as well as capitalism’s exploitation of nature. However, I recover what I take to be a missed opportunity of what I term as the early Honneth’s original ecological insight, which I reconstruct precisely as a philosophy of nature. Consequently, I identify what I describe as an ecological sensibility in Honneth. This refers to a bodily capability through which humans sensuously can resonate, communicate, and interact – and through that morally engage – with nature in its entire complexity. Furthermore, by virtue of this ecological sensibility, humans can recognize nature’s inherent moral value as a sensuously affected party. Then, the early Honneth’s original insight is recovered as a critical political ecology, which is needed facing today’s climate crisis.

The Ecology of Porous Modernism in “Naples” and “Zone”

In The Ecology of Modernism, Joshua Schuster notes that modernism never displayed an acute ecological consciousness in a contemporary sense and that American modernism should be seen as “keenly attentive to environs but ambivalent about environmentalism” (3). “Environs” and “environmentalism” can be associated respectively with the two poles of his study, namely, representation as in “merely recording” and intervention as in “active preservation of a landscape” (ix, 161). Schuster argues that modernism engages with environment in ways different from “our own today” and proposes “a reading of modernism’s ecologies in its own time” (4, 161). He concludes that A nonredemptive yet still ecological sense of a global modernism remains to be written. The global ecology of modernism would manifest all colors of the environmental spectrum, not just those that are green, […]. To avoid resacralizing the modernist pastoral as the arbiter of things ecological, the global ecology of modernism...

Fish and fishpond. An ecological reading of G.W. Leibniz's Monadology §§ 63-70.

One of Leibniz's most original ideas is his conception of the living individual as a hierarchical network of living beings whose relationships are essential to the proper functioning of its organic body. This idea is also valid to explain any existing order in nature that depends on the set of relationships of living beings that inhabit it. Both ideas are present in the conception of the natural world that Leibniz presents in his Monadology (§§ 63-70) through his idea of biological infinitism. According to this idea, nature consists of infinite theatres (some within others and some unfolding from others) where living beings unfold their vital functions. Through this idea Leibniz defines both the biological complexity of nature and the living individual, which is in turn a portion of nature that unfolds from an infinite set of inferior living beings. The thesis that I defend in this work is that this Leibnizian understanding of the living individual and the natural complexity that includes infinite hierarchical levels of individuality has a marked ecological sense, as we would say today. This Leibnizian metaphysics of individuality that we could call biological is also interesting in light of the recent studies in the philosophy of biology.

Learning with vital materialities: weather assemblage pedagogies in early childhood education

Early Childhood Education in general, and Early Childhood Education for Sustainability in particular, have dominantly relied on an ontological framework that privileges children’s agency. This paper challenges this dominant narrative by attuning to the everyday ways in which children are moved by the weather within a multitude of weather assemblages. It attempts to illustrate how ‘learning’ could be achieved when bodies come in relation with, and are able to be affected by, other bodies. Drawing on ideas from post-qualitative research orientation that highlights weather-generated data, the paper elucidates how the weather acts on and comes into relation with humans and non-human bodies. It contends that noticing and engaging with the vitality of weather offers possibilities for creating affects and that this potentially leads to an attunement towards ecological sensibility. Notions such as ‘vital materiality’ and ‘lively assemblages’ are discussed as a possibility to go beyond an anthropocentric understanding of the weather, which could pave the way towards a more relational ontology as a basis for emphasizing human’s ‘inter and intra-dependence’ with non-human nature, and hence, arguably, sustainable living.

“Citadel of Science” and “Cathedral of Conscience”: The University, as Institution, Was Born to Be Concerned with Sustainable Knowledge, Long Before Sustainability Became a Universal Concern

Traditionally, the university is understood to be a custodian/depositary of common values, knowledge and inheritance of human cultures and civilization. In contrast to mere libraries, as well as to the complexity of the Internet, the uniqueness of the university consists of the fact that it coagulates individuals who interact in one-of-a-kind manner with this intellectual treasure. The activities associated with universities reside not only in the rigid preservation of knowledge but also in its flexible rediscovery, i.e., by discerning valuable ideas from the works of past scholars, on top of which comes the exploration of fresh views and their partaking with future generations of peer researchers for keen reflection. Still, judging the university’s performance, which these days focuses chiefly on measurable, quantitative, scientometric indicators, should not obscure one distinctive trait of this institution, namely the sustenance of a tradition, as a qualitative expression of its life. Translating this idea into present verbiage, we identify a sense of “profound sustainability”. In this essay, we have opened up four reflection fronts regarding “sustainable universities”. The first one reviews the conventional literature on sustainability, in the ecological sense, and responds with a broader view: that of a generic socio-cultural ecosystem, that is embodied by both the university itself and the surrounding community which integrates it. The second front outlines the constitutive ingredients of such deep sustainability. Thus, we emphasize two paramount facets: “cultural lastingness” and “academic freedom”. The third front radiographs what is sustainable, broadly speaking, in the institution of the university, identifying it in the societal landscape by the invariant features of time/space that make it both different and desirable in comparison with other educational-cultural forms. Finally, the fourth front highlights a paradoxical posture. We argue that this much-fetishized and politically-charged pursual for “new sustainability” ends up in eroding “old sustainability”, viz., the cultural/generic/profound meaning of it. The main take of this essay is that we need to wittily defend the very “university tradition” from the excesses of faulty modernity.

EL CURRÍCULO EN ESPACIOS TRANSMODERNOS

La siguiente investigación sigue la hermenéutica comprensiva, diatópica y ecosistémica como método de construcción, viendo aspectos teóricos del currículo en espacios implícitos, significativos y emergentes de la Educación Patrimonial Transcompleja. En el rizoma final, un currículum abierto, transcompleto, flexible y emergente cambia de tamaño con el uso relevante y relevante de la ciencia; el patrimonio cultural debe ser trascendido con una visión ampliada ante los ciudadanos y vivir antes de la vida cultural, social y activa de las ciudades y las personas. La clase de mente social, es una nueva visión de la Transcompleja de Educación del Patrimonio con un alto sentido ecológico, humanizando el proceso educativo oscuro y sólido que ha sido impartido por la educación del patrimonio tradicionalista.

Optimal Allocation Algorithm of Geological and Ecological High-resolution Remote Sensing Monitoring Sampling Points

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to solve the problem of unsatisfactory image representation of monitoring sampling points in high-resolution remote sensing due to the complexity of geological ecology. Firstly, three algorithms used in remote sensing technology were introduced, that is, extraction algorithm of monitoring sampling point (selective search algorithm), discriminant algorithm (support vector machine) and BING algorithm. Then, the BING algorithm was improved. Finally, the superiority of the improved BING algorithm was verified through experimental data set. The results showed that selective search algorithm could generate more candidate windows in remote sensing image and had better adaptability. The improved algorithm had higher quality of candidate windows extracted from remote sensing images. Although the IBING algorithm could greatly improve the extraction speed of remote sensing, the detection time of each image became larger. Such testing times were still acceptable. Therefore, in this research, the allocation algorithm of geological and ecological high-resolution remote sensing monitoring sampling points was optimized, which had a good guiding significance for the application of remote sensing technology in geological and ecological research.