THE FUNCTIONING OF ECOSYSTEMS Edited by Mahamane Ali THE FUNCTIONING OF ECOSYSTEMS Edited by Mahamane Ali The Functioning of Ecosystems Edited by Mahamane Ali Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2012 InTech All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. As for readers, this license allows users to download, copy and build upon published chapters even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. Notice Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published chapters. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Jana Sertic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer InTech Design Team First published April, 2012 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechopen.com The Functioning of Ecosystems, Edited by Mahamane Ali p. cm. ISBN 978-953-51-0573-2 Contents Preface IX Chapter 1 Autonomic Management of Networked Small-Medium Factories 1 Flavio Bonfatti, Matteo Berselli, Luca Martinelli and Federico Stradi Chapter 2 Land Cover/Use Dynamics and Vegetation Characteristics in the Rural District of Simiri (Tillabery Region, Niger) 27 Karim Saley, M. Zaman Allah, Boubé Morou, A. Mahamane and M. Saadou Chapter 3 Organizational Ecosystems: Interaction and Alignment Towards Innovation 39 Adalberto Mantovani Martiniano de Azevedo, Ana Karina da Silva Bueno, Antonio José Balloni, Moacir de Souza Dias Neto and Marco Antonio Silveira Chapter 4 The Effects of the N-Fixing Tree Pentaclethra macroloba on the Above and Below Ground Communities Within a Primary Forest in the Northern Zone of Costa Rica 57 W.D. Eaton, D. Shebitz, K. Niemiera and C. Looby Chapter 5 Sustainable Solutions for an Environmentally and Socially Just Society 79 Sukhmander Singh Chapter 6 Phosphate Solubilization and Mobilization in Soil Through Microorganisms Under Arid Ecosystems 93 B. K. Yadav and Arvind Verma Chapter 7 Human Impacts on a Small Island Ecosystem: Lessons from the Lucayans of San Salvador, Bahamas for This Island Earth 109 Jeffrey P. Blick VI Contents Chapter 8 Tidal Wetlands Restoration 149 Roy C. Messaros, Gail S. Woolley, Michael J. Morgan and Patricia S. Rafferty Chapter 9 Ecological Footprint Applied in Agro-Ecosystems: Methods and Case Studies 171 Alessandro K. Cerutti, Gabriele L. Beccaro, Marco Bagliani, Simone Contu, Dario Donno and Giancarlo Bounous Chapter 10 Techniques for Assessment of Heavy Metal Toxicity Using Acanthamoeba sp, a Small, Naked and Free-Living Amoeba 199 Nakisah Mat Amin Chapter 11 Commercial Exploitation of Zooplankton in the Norwegian Sea 213 Eduardo Grimaldo and Svein Helge Gjøsund Chapter 12 Evidence of Island Effects in South African Enterprise Ecosystems 229 Daan Toerien and Maitland Seaman Chapter 13 Toxicity Analysis of Effluent Released During Recovery of Metals from Polymetallic Sea Nodules Using Fish Haematological Parameters 249 Huma Vaseem and T.K. Banerjee Chapter 14 Environmental Assessment of Brick Kilns in Chihuahua State, México, Using Digital Cartography 261 Alba Yadira Corral Avitia and Antonio De la Mora Covarrubias Chapter 15 Challenges to the Expansion of Ethanol Production in Brazil 283 Ester Galli Chapter 16 Analysis of Hydrologic Alteration Due to River Diversion 311 Giancarlo Principato and Giuseppe Viggiani Preface If we unanimously agree that the survival of each living organism depends on the nature and ecological services rendered by ecosystems, we must equally agree unanimously that these ecosystems do not always benefit the required attention. Hence they are subjected to many treats. Indeed, the ecosystems are subjected to many pressing usages at unknown tolerable levels. It generally results to equilibrium breaks leading ineluctably to their degradation. This tendency has engendered many international initiatives to prevent ecosystems degradation. For instance, the Biodiversity Convention, United Nations Convention to Combact Desertification (UNCCD), etc. Regarding to the magnitude and modification consequences of ecosystems, the United Nations have commended the study on Millennium Ecosystems Assessment (MA). In order to better conserve the ecosystems and their services, it will be better to understand these ecosystems in all their complexity. It is to this aim that this book suggests some case studies undertaking all continents. Indeed we try to fill the gap on the knowledge on ecosystems diversity and functioning. Since we have started the book project, we were invaded by many chapters on current environmental issues from reputable international research teams and laboratories. This shows that this book has aroused many interests from international scientific community given the important number of chapters submitted form the beginning. Consequently, we were subjected to make selection. We use this opportunity to thank the Publisher for publishing this book to the benefit of the international scientific community. This book is educational and useful to students, researchers and all those are interested in environmental issues. This book offers a compilation of 16 chapters on the methods of study of dynamics of ecosystems, diverse methods on ecosystems biogeochemical cycle, impact evaluation methods of human activities on dynamics of exposed environments, ecological imprint, evaluation methods of toxicity determined by heavy metals, pollution impacts aquatic vegetation community equilibrium. X Preface We invite students, researchers, teachers and all people interested in environmental issues to aread this book which is educational considering the different methods which are presented. Dr. Mahamane Ali, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Dean of Faculty of Sciences and Technics (FST), University of Maradi, Maradi, Niger [...]... plan the transport and then estimate its duration and cost The duration is added to the end time of the previous activity to determine the real start time of the next one, the cost is added to the overall process cost for profitability analysis The invocation of all the suppliers under consideration is indeed the moment showing the benefits of the autonomic mechanism While planning successive customer... integrating this information from the sample of small-medium factories The characteristics of these first research outcomes are briefly summarised in the following points: The first critical aspect of the collaboration model is identifying the decision steps in the frame of the distributed processes, and formalise them so as to enable the network leader and every node to customise their respective behaviours... and the like Therefore it is necessary to consider a wide spectrum of cases and the actions that shall be undertaken to face each of them with the maximum level of efficiency Let us consider one of the many possible situations of exception (see Figure 6): supplier S4 that had assigned activity A2 of process P(X) informs the leader of a 4-days delay to complete that activity The leader activates the. .. representing one of the possible cases of exception, this example shows one of the most important benefits brought to the networked small-medium factory by the autonomic 24 The Functioning of Ecosystems approach Indeed exceptions occur very often and much time is wasted in phone or fax communications between the involved actors to solve the problem The same or likely a better result is achieved by the autonomic... case of parallelism its branches are scanned in parallel to determine the overall execution time (the time computed on the slowest branch) to become again the start time for the next activity More precisely, not always the end time of an activity becomes the start time of the next one In fact, whenever materials must be moved from one company to the other it is necessary to plan the transport and then... planning activity with the involvement of further companies to fulfil the proposed tasks (see Figure 3) Fig 3 Order (task assignment) propagation in the networked factory According to the received answers and the rules of its policy the leader company will select the best configuration of the working supply chain for that customer order, and will confirm the assigned task to each of the involved partners... considered again, therefore its availability must exclude the booked periods to avoid phase overlapping Instead, once completed the scheduling of one routing and produced the expected estimation of execution time and cost, all the bookings of the involved resources shall be cancelled The reason is that the scheduling of the next routing, for the same assigned task, must start from the same initial conditions... responses flow back inversely The final response to the customer and the confirmation of the assigned tasks to the selected partners are fast and accurate when all of them are provided with the same, or equivalent, technology No interference from other orders is expected to occur in such a brief planning time, therefore the plan is perfectly compliant with the current conditions of the involved companies... immediately revoke the respective tasks assigned; then (b) a radical replanning of activities A3, A4 and A7 is carried out by means of the Self-Configuration function with the involvement of all the candidate suppliers In either cases the conclusion is a new overall lead time and cost, hopefully compliant with the indications of the customer order If not, the change shall be communicated to the customer... to perform the phases of the relative routing To this purpose the work calendars of the proper resource instances are examined and one or more combinations are identified under the given constraints The choice of the best combination will be based on the policy established by that company Further improvements are obtained by periodic revisions of the current schedule aimed at squeezing the resource . THE FUNCTIONING OF ECOSYSTEMS Edited by Mahamane Ali THE FUNCTIONING OF ECOSYSTEMS Edited by Mahamane Ali The Functioning. environmental issues. This book offers a compilation of 16 chapters on the methods of study of dynamics of ecosystems, diverse methods on ecosystems biogeochemical