Oregon State University

About: Oregon State University is a education organization based out in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 28192 authors who have published 64044 publications receiving 2634108 citations. The organization is also known as: Oregon Agricultural College & OSU.

Marine reserves are necessary but not sufficient for marine conservation

Abstract: The intensity of human pressure on marine systems has led to a push for stronger marine conservation efforts. Recently, marine reserves have become one highly advocated form of marine conservation, and the number of newly designated reserves has increased dramatically. Reserves will be essential for conservation efforts because they can provide unique protection for critical areas, they can provide a spatial escape for intensely exploited species, and they can potentially act as buffers against some management miscalculations and unforeseen or unusual conditions. Reserve design and effectiveness can be dramatically improved by better use of existing scientific understanding. Reserves are insufficient protection alone, however, because they are not isolated from all critical impacts. Communities residing within marine reserves are strongly influenced by the highly variable conditions of the water masses that continuously flow through them. To a much greater degree than in terrestrial systems, the scales of fundamental processes, such as population replenishment, are often much larger than reserves can encompass. Further, they offer no protection from some important threats, such as contamination by chemicals. Therefore, without adequate protection of species and ecosystems outside reserves, effectiveness of reserves will be severely compromised. We outline conditions under which reserves are likely to be effective, provide some guidelines for increasing their conservation potential, and suggest some research priorities to fill critical information gaps. We strongly support vastly increasing the number and size of marine reserves; at the same time, strong conservation efforts outside reserves must complement this effort. To date, most reserve design and site selection have involved little scientific justification. They must begin to do so to increase the likelihood of attaining conservation objectives.

Ecosystem carbon dioxide fluxes after disturbance in forests of North America

Abstract: Disturbances are important for renewal of North American forests. Here we summarize more than 180 site years of eddy covariance measurements of carbon dioxide flux made at forest chronosequences in North America. The disturbances included stand-replacing fire (Alaska, Arizona, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan) and harvest (British Columbia, Florida, New Brunswick, Oregon, Quebec, Saskatchewan, and Wisconsin) events, insect infestations (gypsy moth, forest tent caterpillar, and mountain pine beetle), Hurricane Wilma, and silvicultural thinning (Arizona, California, and New Brunswick). Net ecosystem production (NEP) showed a carbon loss from all ecosystems following a stand-replacing disturbance, becoming a carbon sink by 20 years for all ecosystems and by 10 years for most. Maximum carbon losses following disturbance (g C m−2y−1) ranged from 1270 in Florida to 200 in boreal ecosystems. Similarly, for forests less than 100 years old, maximum uptake (g C m−2y−1) was 1180 in Florida mangroves and 210 in boreal ecosystems. More temperate forests had intermediate fluxes. Boreal ecosystems were relatively time invariant after 20 years, whereas western ecosystems tended to increase in carbon gain over time. This was driven mostly by gross photosynthetic production (GPP) because total ecosystem respiration (ER) and heterotrophic respiration were relatively invariant with age. GPP/ER was as low as 0.2 immediately following stand-replacing disturbance reaching a constant value of 1.2 after 20 years. NEP following insect defoliations and silvicultural thinning showed lesser changes than stand-replacing events, with decreases in the year of disturbance followed by rapid recovery. NEP decreased in a mangrove ecosystem following Hurricane Wilma because of a decrease in GPP and an increase in ER.

Reactive and effortful processes in the organization of temperament

Abstract: Self-organization can be approached in terms of developmental processes occurring within and between component systems of temperament. Within-system organization involves progressive shaping of cortical representations by subcortical motivational systems. As cortical representations develop, they feed back to provide motivational systems with enhanced detection and guidance capabilities. These reciprocal influences may amplify the underlying motivational functions and promote excessive impulsivity or anxiety. However, these processes also depend upon interactions arising between motivational and attentional systems. We discuss these between-system effects by considering the regulation of approach motivation by reactive attentional processes related to fear and by more voluntary processes related to effortful control. It is suggested than anxious and impulsive psychopathology may reflect limitations in these dual means of control, which can take the form of overregulation as well as underregulation.