Boitechnology

Urban Systems - research developing new technologies and providing integrated infrastructure solutions to reduce Australia’s urban ecological footprint and increase infrastructure effectiveness.
Creating urban sustainability - (CSIRO.au Web site) CSIRO is applying its technological expertise to help Australia improve the sustainability of its cities.
Urban Ecological Commission - a foundation dedicated to raising public awareness about the flora and fauna of big-city America
TwinCam Futures - a new and innovative research partnership that will build regional capacity in Campbelltown and Camden for exploring the opportunities and risks of a range of possible future development pathway

Urban ecosystems are the cities, towns, and urban strips constructed by humans.

This is the growth in the urban population and the supporting built infrastructure has impacted on both urban environments and also on areas which surround urban areas. These include semi or ‘peri-urban’ environments that fringe cities as well as agricultural and natural landscapes.

Scientists are now developing ways to measure and understand the effects of urbananisation on human and environmental health.

By considered urban areas as part of a broader ecological system, scientists can investigate how urban landscapes function and how they affect other landscapes with which they interact. In this context, urban environments are affected by their surrounding environment but also impact on that environment. Knowing this may provide clues as to which alternative development options will lead to the best overall environmental outcome.

CSE’s urban ecosystem research is focused on:
Understanding how cities work as ecological system
Developing sustainable approaches to development of city fringe areas that reduce negative impact on surrounding environments
Developing approaches to urban design that provide for health and opportunity for citizens.

Subsurface Lithoautotrophic Microbial Ecosystems, or “SLIMEs” (also abbreviated “SLMEs” or “SLiMEs”), are defined by Edward O. Wilson as “unique assemblages of bacteria and fungi that occupy pores in the interlocking mineral grains of igneous rock beneath Earth’s surface.”[1]

The inconsistent results concerning Rapoport’s rule suggest that certain characteristics of species may be responsible for their different latitudinal ranges. These characteristics may include, for example, their evolutionary age: species that have evolved recently in the tropics may have small latitudinal ranges because they have not had the time to spread far from their origin, whereas older species have extended their ranges[17].

The methods used to demonstrate the rule have been subject to some controversy. Most commonly, authors plot means of latitudinal ranges in a particular 5o latitudinal band against latitude, although modal or median ranges have been used by some[15]. In the original paper by Stevens, all species occurring in each band were counted, i.e., a species with a range of 50 degrees occurs in 10 or 11 bands. However, this may lead to an artificial inflation of latitudinal ranges of species occurring at high latitudes, because even a few tropical species with wide ranges will affect the means of ranges at high latitudes, whereas the opposite effect due to high latitude species extending into the tropics is negligible: species diversity is much smaller at high than low latitudes. – As an alternative method the “midpoint method” has been proposed, which avoids this problem. It counts only those species with the midpoint of their ranges in a particular latitudinal band[8]. An additional complication in assessing Rapoport’s rule for data based on field sampling is the possibility of a spurious pattern driven by a sample-size artifact. Equal sampling effort at species-rich and species-poor localities tends to underestimate range size at the richer localities relative to the poorer, when in fact range sizes might not differ among localities[16].

Rohde (1996)[10] explained the fact that the rule is restricted to very high latitudes by effects of glaciations which have wiped out species with narrow ranges, a view also expressed by Brown (1995)[12]. Another explanation of Rapoport’s rule is the “climatic variability” or “seasonal variability hypothesis”[13][5]. According to this hypothesis, seasonal variability selects for greater climatic tolerances and therefore wider latitudinal ranges (see also Fernandez and Vrba 2005[14]).

Support for the generality of the rule is at best equivocal[6]. For example, marine teleost fishes have the greatest latitudinal ranges at low latitudes[7][8]. In contrast, freshwater fishes do show the trend, although only above a latitude of about 40 degrees North[8]. Some subsequent papers have found support for the rule, others, probably even more numerous, have found exceptions to it [6][9]. For most groups that have been shown to follow the rule, it is restricted to or at least most distinct above latitudes of about 40-50 degrees. Rohde therefore concluded that the rule describes a local phenomenon[10]. Computer simulations using the Chowdhury Ecosystem Model did not find support for the rule.[11]

Stevens (1989)[1] named the rule after Eduardo H. Rapoport, who had earlier provided evidence for the phenomenon for subspecies of mammals (Rapoport 1975[2], 1982[3]). Stevens used the rule to “explain” greater species diversity in the tropics in the sense that latitudinal gradients in species diversity and the rule have identical exceptional data and so must have the same underlying cause. Narrower ranges in the tropics would facilitate more species to coexist. He later extended the rule to altitudinal gradients, claiming that altitudinal ranges are greatest at greater altitudes (Stevens 1992 [4]), and to depth gradients in the oceans (Stevens 1996 [5]). The rule has been the focus of intense discussion and given much impetus to exploring distributional patterns of plants and animals. Stevens’ original paper has been cited about 330 times in the scientific literature.

Rapoport’s rule is an ecological hypothesis that states that latitudinal ranges of plants and animals are generally smaller at low than at high latitudes.

IPEC - Ecocentro at the Instituto de Permacultura e Ecovilas do Cerrado - the Institute of Permaculture and Ecovillage of the Cerrado

IPCP - Instituto de Permacultura Cerrado-Pantanal (Permaculture Institute of Cerrado-Pantanal), Campo Grande, MS. Specializing in interactive teaching of Permaculture and direct work with Indigenous communities within the Cerrado biome.

IPOEMA - Institute of Permaculture, Ecovillages and Environment - Brasilia DF BRAZIL