Scaling up qualitative research to harness the capacity of lay people in invasive plant management.

Successful management of invasive plants (IPs) requires the active participation of diverse communities across land tenures. This can be challenging because communities do not always share the views of scientists and managers. They may directly disagree, have alternative views, or be unwilling to manage IPs. Reviews of IP social science identify opportunities to better understand the role of cultural processes and everyday practices to address these challenges. To scale up and leverage the insights of existing qualitative social science IP research, we used meta-ethnography to unlock accounts and interpretations of lay perspectives. Meta-ethnography is a form of qualitative research synthesis increasingly used beyond its origins in health and education to produce interpretive syntheses of an area of research. In the 7 phases of meta-ethnography, we systematically identified and synthesized 19 qualitative articles pertinent to lay experience and knowledge of IPs in diverse settings. Action and meaning regarding IPs were influenced by 6 meta-themes in personal and social life: dissonance, priorities, difference, agency, responsibility, and future orientations. Through descriptions and examples of each meta-theme, we demonstrated how the meta-themes are higher level structuring concepts across the qualitative research that we analyzed and we retained grounding in the in-depth qualitative research. We characterized the meta-themes as leverage points and tensions by which we reframed lay people in terms of capacity for reflective IP management rather than as obstacles. The meta-ethnography synthesis shows how leverage points and tensions emerge from everyday life and can frame alternative and meaningful starting points for both research and public engagement and deliberation regarding IP management. These insights are not a panacea, but open up new space for reflective and mutual consideration of how to effectively navigate often complex IP problems and address conservation and social and livelihood issues in dynamic social and physical environments.

El manejo exitoso de las plantas invasoras requiere de la participación de las diferentes comunidades participantes en la tenencia de tierras. Esto puede ser un reto porque las comunidades no siempre comparten las opiniones de los científicos y los gestores. Puede que las comunidades estén en desacuerdo directo con estas opiniones, tengan opiniones alternativas o no estén dispuestas a manejar las plantas invasoras. Las revisiones a las ciencias sociales de las plantas invasoras identifican oportunidades para entender de mejor manera el papel de los procesos culturales y las prácticas diarias para abordar estos retos. Usamos la meta-etnografía para revelar explicaciones e interpretaciones de las perspectivas comunes para aumentar y potenciar el conocimiento cualitativo de las investigaciones en ciencias sociales de las plantas invasoras. La meta-etnografía es una forma de síntesis de la investigación cualitativa que se usa cada vez más fuera de sus orígenes en la salud y educación para producir síntesis interpretativas de un área de investigación. En las siete fases de la meta-etnografía identificamos y sintetizamos sistemáticamente 19 artículos cualitativos correspondientes a la experiencia y el conocimiento no profesional de las plantas invasoras en diferentes escenarios. Las acciones y significados con respecto a las plantas invasoras estuvieron influenciadas por seis meta-temas en la vida personal y social: disonancia, prioridades, diferencia, agencia, responsabilidad y orientaciones a futuro. Por medio de descripciones y ejemplos de cada meta-tema, demostramos cómo estos son conceptos estructuradores de nivel más alto a lo largo de la investigación cualitativa que analizamos y mantuvimos basados en la investigación cualitativa a profundidad. Caracterizamos los meta-temas como puntos de potenciación y tensiones por la cual replanteamos a la gente común en términos de capacidad de reflexión en el manejo de plantas invasoras en lugar de considerarlas obstáculos. La síntesis de la meta-etnografía muestra cómo los puntos de potenciación y las tensiones emergen de la vida cotidiana y pueden plantear puntos de partida alternativos y significativos para la investigación, la participación pública y la deliberación en el manejo de plantas invasoras. Esta información no es la panacea, pero puede abrir un espacio nuevo para la consideración mutua y reflexiva de cómo navegar efectivamente los problemas complejos de las plantas invasoras y cómo abordar los temas de conservación social y de sustento en los ambientes dinámicos sociales y físicos.

Three ways social identity shapes climate change adaptation.

Adaptation to climate change is inescapably influenced by processes of social identity-how people perceive themselves, others, and their place in the world around them. Yet there is sparse evidence into the specific ways in which identity processes shape adaptation planning and responses. This paper proposes three key ways to understand the relationship between identity formation and adaptation processes: (a) how social identities change in response to perceived climate change risks and threats; (b) how identity change may be an objective of adaptation; and (c) how identity issues can constrain or enable adaptive action. It examines these three areas of focus through a synthesis of evidence on community responses to flooding and subsequent policy responses in Somerset county, UK and the Gippsland East region in Australia, based on indepth longitudinal data collected among those experiencing and enacting adaptation. The results show that adaptation policies are more likely to be effective when they give individuals confidence in the continuity of their in-groups, enhance the self-esteem of these groups, and develop their sense of self-efficacy. These processes of identity formation and evolution are therefore central to individual and collective responses to climate risks.

Global patterns of adaptation to climate change by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. A systematic review.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities have implemented myriad responses to deal with and mitigate climate change impacts. However, little effort has been invested in compiling, aggregating, and systematizing such responses to assess global patterns in local adaptation. Drawing on a systematic review of 119 peer-reviewed publications with 1851 reported local responses to climate change impacts, we show that Indigenous Peoples and local communities across the world apply a diverse portfolio of activities to address climate change impacts. While many responses involve changes to natural resource based livelihoods, about one-third of responses involve other activities (e.g. networking, off-farm work). Globally, local responses to climate change impacts are more likely to be shaped by people's livelihood than by the climate zone where they live.

Can Development Programs Shape Cooperation? : Results from a Framed Field Experiment in Indonesia.

Empirical studies among small-scale societies show that participation in national development programs impact traditional norms of community cooperation. We explore the extent to which varying levels of village and individual involvement in development policies relate to voluntary cooperation within community settings. We used a field experiment conducted in seven villages (208 participants) from an indigenous society in Indonesia known for their strong traditional cooperative norms, the Punan Tubu. We framed the experiment in terms of an ongoing government house-building program. The results indicate that there were synergistic and antagonistic interactions between existing cooperative norms and government development policies. Participants' cooperation in the experimental setting was low, probably because the Punan Tubu are used to cooperating and sharing both under demand and in a context in which uncooperative behavior is largely unpunished. Variation in experimental behavior was related to both village- and individual-level variables, with participants living in resettlement villages and participants living in a house constructed under the government program displaying more cooperative behavior. The cooperation evident in resettled villages may indicate that people in these villages are more comfortable interacting in anonymous settings and less committed to the demand-sharing norms still prevalent in the upstream villages. The more cooperative behavior among villagers who have previously received a house might indicate that they recognize that they are now better off than others and feel more obliged to cooperate. Policies aiming to capitalize on existing cooperative behavior to stimulate community collective action should consider the specific conditions under which cooperation occurs in real settings since traditional norms that regulate cooperative behavior might not translate well to cooperation in government-led programs.

Considering weed management as a social dilemma bridges individual and collective interests.

Weeds pose severe threats to agricultural and natural landscapes worldwide. One major reason for the failure to effectively manage weeds at landscape scales is that current Best Management Practice guidelines, and research on how to improve such guidelines, focus too narrowly on property-level management decisions. Insufficiently considered are the aggregate effects of individual actions to determine landscape-scale outcomes, or whether there are collective practices that would improve weed management outcomes. Here, we frame landscape-scale weed management as a social dilemma, where trade-offs occur between individual and collective interests. We apply a transdisciplinary system approach-integrating the perspectives of ecologists, evolutionary biologists and agronomists into a social science theory of social dilemmas-to four landscape-scale weed management challenges: (i) achieving plant biosecurity, (ii) preventing weed seed contamination, (iii) maintaining herbicide susceptibility and (iv) sustainably using biological control. We describe how these four challenges exhibit characteristics of 'public good problems', wherein effective weed management requires the active contributions of multiple actors, while benefits are not restricted to these contributors. Adequate solutions to address these public good challenges often involve a subset of the eight design principles developed by Elinor Ostrom for 'common pool social dilemmas', together with design principles that reflect the public good nature of the problems. This paper is a call to action for scholars and practitioners to broaden our conceptualization and approaches to weed management problems. Such progress begins by evaluating the public good characteristics of specific weed management challenges and applying context-specific design principles to realize successful and sustainable weed management.

Opportunities for better use of collective action theory in research and governance for invasive species management.

Controlling invasive species presents a public-good dilemma. Although environmental, social, and economic benefits of control accrue to society, costs are borne by only a few individuals and organizations. For decades, policy makers have used incentives and sanctions to encourage or coerce individual actors to contribute to the public good, with limited success. Diverse, subnational efforts to collectively manage invasive plants, insects, and animals provide effective alternatives to traditional command-and-control approaches. Despite this work, there has been little systematic evaluation of collective efforts to determine whether there are consistent principles underpinning success. We reviewed 32 studies to identify the extent to which collective-action theories from related agricultural and environmental fields explain collaborative invasive species management approaches; describe and differentiate emergent invasive species collective-action efforts; and provide guidance on how to enable more collaborative approaches to invasive species management. We identified 4 types of collective action aimed at invasive species-externally led, community led, comanaged, and organizational coalitions-that provide blueprints for future invasive species management. Existing collective-action theories could explain the importance attributed to developing shared knowledge of the social-ecological system and the need for social capital. Yet, collection action on invasive species requires different types of monitoring, sanctions, and boundary definitions. We argue that future government policies can benefit from establishing flexible boundaries that encourage social learning and enable colocated individuals and organizations to identify common goals, pool resources, and coordinate efforts.

Oportunidades para un Mejor Uso de la Teoría de Acción Colectiva en la Investigación y el Control del Manejo de Especies Invasoras Resumen El control de especies invasoras es un dilema para el bien público. Aunque los beneficios ambientales, sociales y económicos del control se acoplan a la sociedad, los costos los resuelven unos cuantos individuos y organizaciones. Durante décadas, los legisladores han utilizado incentivos y sanciones para alentar y forzar a los actores individuales a contribuir con el bien público, aunque con un éxito limitado. Los diversos esfuerzos sub-nacionales para manejar colectivamente plantas, insectos y otros animales proporcionan alternativas efectivas a las estratégicas tradicionales de comando y control. A pesar de esta labor, ha habido una evaluación sistemática mínima de los esfuerzos colectivos para determinar si hay principios congruentes que estén respaldando el éxito. Revisamos 32 estudios para identificar la extensión a la cual las teorías de acción colectiva a partir de los campos agrícolas y ambientales relacionados explican las estrategias colaborativas de manejo de especies invasoras; describen y diferencian los esfuerzos de acción colectiva para especies invasoras emergentes; y proporcionan una guía sobre cómo posibilitar estrategias más colaborativas para el manejo de especies invasoras. Identificamos cuatro tipos de acción colectiva enfocada en las especies invasoras - guiada externamente, guiada por la comunidad, co-manejada, y coaliciones organizacionales - que proporcionan los planos para el manejo futuro de especies invasoras. Las teorías existentes de acción colectiva podrían explicar la importancia que se le atribuye al conocimiento compartido en desarrollo sobre los sistemas socio-ecológicos y la necesidad de capital social. Aun así, la acción colectiva sobre las especies invasoras requiere de diferentes tipos de monitoreo, sanciones y definición de los límites. Argumentamos que las próximas políticas gubernamentales pueden beneficiarse del establecimiento de límites flexibles que alientan el aprendizaje social y permiten que individuos y organizaciones colocadas identifiquen objetivos en común, acumulen y compartan recursos y coordinen esfuerzos.

Weed hygiene practices in rural industries and public land management: Variable knowledge, patchy implementation, inconsistent coordination.

Weed management science and practice largely focuses on eradicating, containing and reducing existing weed populations; the focus is on plants in situ. More recently, the redefinition of biosecurity to include weeds has seen greater attention paid to preventing the introduction of weeds to previously uninfested areas within countries. Thus weed hygiene has come to the fore, with a growing number of publications recommending a diverse range of practices to minimise the spread of weeds across farm, regional and state boundaries. Yet little is known about the uptake of weed hygiene practices. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which best practice weed hygiene is being implemented on, across and along private and public lands. Telephone interviews were conducted with 54 private and public land managers, weed contractors, and agricultural transport operators in New South Wales, Australia. Vehicle hygiene was commonly undertaken across all stakeholder groups when it was consistent with other goals, requirements or norms. Other practices, such as sequencing harvesting from least to most weedy paddocks or including weed hygiene clauses in contracts were often known, but rarely practiced because of the onerous labour and financial costs or concerns about social etiquette. Individual commitment to weed hygiene efforts were also undermined by intra and inter-organisational coordination challenges. Public debate and assessment are needed on the benefits and costs to society of weed hygiene compared to in situ weed control to determine where best to invest limited time and resources.

How Local Landholder Groups Collectively Manage Weeds in South-Eastern Australia.

For two decades researchers and policy makers have been arguing that community-based collective action is needed to effectively control weeds. Yet there has been little social research into the ways that collective weed control emerges at local scales. The aim of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms through which three local landholder groups in south-eastern Australia collectively manage weeds and the measures they use to evaluate success. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of three Landcare groups-Jerrawa Creek/Upper Lachlan, MacLaughlin River and Towamba Valley-as well as government staff external to the groups. The results reveal that for all three groups collective weed control is about supporting individual weed control efforts as well as proactively engaging landholders with the worst infestations. The groups were seen to be successful because they focused on the common challenge that weeds pose to all landholders, thereby removing the shame associated with having weeds, and because they organised community events that were as much about building and maintaining social relationships as improving weed control. Groups were positive about what they had achieved as collectives of landholders, but also saw an important role for government in providing funding, engaging with landholders who were unwilling to engage directly with the group, and controlling weeds on public lands.

Honey bee nest thermoregulation: diversity promotes stability.

A honey bee colony is characterized by high genetic diversity among its workers, generated by high levels of multiple mating by its queen. Few clear benefits of this genetic diversity are known. Here we show that brood nest temperatures in genetically diverse colonies (i.e., those sired by several males) tend to be more stable than in genetically uniform ones (i.e., those sired by one male). One reason this increased stability arises is because genetically determined diversity in workers' temperature response thresholds modulates the hive-ventilating behavior of individual workers, preventing excessive colony-level responses to temperature fluctuations.