Endangered species,archaeology, and stable isotopes: huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) isotopic ecology in central-western Patagonia (South America)

The management and conservation of animal species should be based upon a long-term analysis that considers its geographical distribution and feeding patterns. The study of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes on skeletal remains provides a quantitative approach to the paleodietary reconstructions and constitutes a potent tool for comparing behavioral aspects of the fauna. In this paper we present the first set of isotopic values for modern and archaeological samples of Huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) from the forests of Central-western Patagonia, Chile. Contrary to initial expectations, our analysis indicates that there is no evidence of an important incidence of the canopy effect on the δ¹³Ccollagen values, which we suggest is due to an ecological selection that drives the huemul to focus its predation on open sectors within the forest. On the other hand, a wide range of δ¹⁵Ncollagen values for huemul was verified. This could reflect the N impoverishment of the forest soils and provide an interesting ecological indicator. The long-term information offered by the archaeological record provides the necessary context for decision-making conducive towards the preservation of Hippocamelus bisulcus in Patagonia.     

The Ecology of Games as a Theory of Polycentricity: Recent Advances and Future Challenges

The Ecology of Games approach to examining complex governance systems in democratic societies has been recently refurbished to infuse renewed vitality in the analysis of institutions and collective action in polycentric governance systems. This opening article to the special issue on the Ecology of Games Theory (EGT) will discuss the main component elements of the theory, as well as recently produced empirical advances that test and extend it. The article is structured in three sections. The first section describes the EGT as a theory of polycentricity and explains why it is critical to study both the structure and function of polycentric governance systems, including collaboration among policy stakeholders, learning about problems, and equitably distributing the resources generated by policy interactions. The second section reviews empirical evidence that examine structure and function in polycentric systems, including their coevolution. Finally, the third section will provide insights on future research needs to strengthen this newly developed theory of polycentricity.     

Testing Policy Theory with Statistical Models of Networks

This article presents a conceptual framework for clarifying the network hypotheses embedded in policy theories and how they relate to macrolevel political institutions and microlevel political behavior. We then describe the role of statistical models of networks for testing these hypotheses, including the problem of operationalizing theoretical concepts with the parameters of statistical models. Examples from existing theories of the policy process and empirical research are provided and potential extensions are discussed.     

Processing Complexity in Networks: A Study of Informal Collaboration and its Effect on Organizational Success

Do organizations with more collaborative partners perform better than organizations with fewer partners? And is this relationship conditional on the ability of those partners to provide nonredundant resources from their network of contact with other actors? This article answers these questions with data describing the participation of governmental and nongovernmental organizations in the Cooperative Funding Initiative (CFI), a program sponsored by the one of the five water management districts in Florida. Results show a positive relationship between the inclusion of more partners in a project and the chances of getting funded, but also that once the project becomes too inclusive; those chances decrease if the partners fill more structural holes (e.g., provide more nonredundant resources). In other words, organizations perform better by adding more partners as long as this addition does not result in excessive complexity. These results are valuable for the growing community of policy scholars seeking to understand the specific conditions under which collaborative behavior positively affects organizational performance.     

Scaling down or scaling up? Local actor decisions and the feasibility of decentralized environmental governance: a case of Páramo wetlands in Southern Ecuador

In Latin America and the Global South, policy-makers are adopting community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) principles for local governments. The idealized emphasis on ‘local’ collaborative approaches is known to neglect human geographic contexts and issues of capacity, power, and human drivers of change at larger scales. However, critiques lack empirical evidence of policy implementation decisions. How do local government and community actors choose to use decentralized environmental governance policies in relation to a threatened cultural and natural landscape across their jurisdictions? This question is explored in an ethnographic case of a high Andean wetland region in southern Ecuador by focusing on the context and micro-politics of two seemingly contradictory local government decisions: proposals to nationalize a local community protected area and to work with other local governments to construct a road across the wetlands that could threaten protected area status. When different sectors are devolved to different local actors without strong sub-state institutions for conflict management, decentralization may create incentives for conflict rather than conservation. Governance design depends on understanding how and why diverse local actors engage in boundary-spanning regional strategies, calling for additional contributions from political geographers.