Maarten B. Eppinga

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to elicit global mobilization to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and are increasingly used in support of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Previous studies have highlighted interdependencies between SDGs, with potential interactions between four Sustainability Domains: Economy, Governance, Planet and Society. This study aimed to assess whether people’s perception of the relative importance of the SDGs refects recognition of the need to prioritize eforts across Domains, or whether this perception is based on diferent valuations of the Sustainability Domains themselves. We designed an interactive online tool in which participants used the Q-sort technique to rank the SDGs according to their subjective valuation of importance. We analyzed the rankings of 108 participants, all learners at universities in three Small Island States (SIS): Aruba, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Analysis of the correlation structure among participants’ Q-sorts showed that higher perceived importance of the Societyand Economy-related SDGs 2, 3, 4, 8 and 9 traded of with lower perceived importance of the Planet-related SDGs 13, 14 and 15. Furthermore, SDG rankings of learners from Aruba occurred furthest toward the Planet-based part of this trade-of axis. For ESD programs, our method provides a novel tool to identify key interactions between SDGs that may not yet be recognized by program participants. In this way, communicating the need for simultaneous action and policy development across Sustainability Domains could be specifcally tailored to the local context. Such connections may increase the efectiveness of ESD in addressing the substantial sustainability challenges facing SIS.

Abstract

Invasions by non-native plant species are widely recognized as a major driver of biodiversity loss. Globally, (sub-)tropical islands form important components of biodiversity hotspots, while being particularly susceptible to invasions by plants in general and vines in particular. We studied the impact of the invasive vine A. leptopus on the diversity and structure of recipient plant communities on the northern Caribbean island St. Eustatius. We used a paired-plot design to study differences in species richness, evenness and community structure under A. leptopus-invaded and uninvaded conditions. Community structure was studied through species co-occurrence patterns. We found that in plots invaded by A. leptopus, species richness was 40–50% lower, and these plots also exhibited lower evenness. The magnitude of these negative impacts increased with increasing cover of A. leptopus. Invaded plots also showed higher degrees of homogeneity in species composition. Species co-occurrence patterns indicated that plant communities in uninvaded plots were characterized by segregation, whereas recipient plant communities in invaded plots exhibited random cooccurrence patterns. These observations suggest that invasion of A. leptopus is not only associated with reduced species richness and evenness of recipient communities in invaded sites, but also with a community disassembly process that may reduce diversity between sites. Given that A. leptopus is a successful invader of (sub-)tropical islands around the globe, these impacts on plant community structure highlight that this invasive species could be a particular conservation concern for these systems.

Supplementary information for Coralita mapping (Report) publication (BioNews Article).  

Supplementary Text In the Material and Methods section of the main text, we provide an overview of the classification procedure using a Support Vector Machine (SVM). In this Supplementary text, we provide further details regarding the following components of the procedure: i) the radiometric and atmospheric correction of the WorldView-2 image (part of Step 0 in the main text); ii) the selection of the 10 independent, most-explaining variables to be considered within the SVM classification (part of Step 2 in the main text); iii) Cross-validation to evaluate SVM model performance iv) the post-processing steps that were performed after obtaining a Coralita distribution map from the SVM procedure (also part of Step 2 in the main text).

Related Resources:

1. Topographic Wetness Index raster layer for Statia developed for use in the Coralita mapping publication (https://www.dcbd.nl/document/topographic-wetness-index-raster-layer-statia). 

2. Raster layers: High spatial resolution mapping identifies habitat characteristics of the invasive vine Antigonon leptopus on St. Eustatius (Lesser Antilles) (Raster Layers).

On the Caribbean island of St. Eustatius, Coralita (Antigonon leptopus) is an aggressive invasive vine posing major biodiversity conservation concerns. The generation of distribution maps can address these conservation concerns by helping to elucidate the drivers of invasion. We test the use of support vector machines to map the distribution of Coralita on St. Eustatius at high spatial resolution and use this map to identify potential landscape and geomorphological factors associated with Coralita presence. This latter step was performed by comparing the actual distribution of Coralita patches to a random distribution of patches. To train the support vector machine algorithm, we used three vegetation indices and seven texture metrics derived from a 2014 WorldView-2 image. The resulting map shows that Coralita covered 3.18% of the island in 2014, corresponding to an area of 64 ha. The mapped distribution was highly accurate, with 93.2% overall accuracy (Coralita class producer's accuracy: 76.4%, user's accuracy: 86.2%). Using this classification map, we found that Coralita is not randomly distributed across the landscape, occurring significantly closer to roads and drainage channels, in areas with higher accumulated moisture, and on flatter slopes. Coralita was found more often than expected in grasslands, disturbed forest, and urban areas but was relatively rare in natural forest. These results highlight the ability of high spatial resolution data from sensors such as WorldView-2 to produce accurate invasive species, providing valuable information for predicting current and future spread risks and for early detection and removal plans.

Referenced in BioNews publication (BioNews Article). 

Related Resources:

1. Supplementary Infromation (Report)

2. Topographic Wetness Index raster layer for Statia developed for use in the Coralita mapping publication (Raster Layers). 

3. Raster layers: High spatial resolution mapping identifies habitat characteristics of the invasive vine Antigonon leptopus on St. Eustatius (Lesser Antilles) (Raster Layers).