Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an important area of study due to the multiple positive firm outcomes associated with an effective CSR program. In addition, CSR has become a more ...high-profile topic due to recent events in the United States stemming from societal unrest in 2020 and beyond. Therefore, understanding the possible impacts on CSR from firm strategic decisions like mergers and acquisitions is important as well. Mergers and acquisitions are a fruitful venue for examining CSR because (a) mergers and acquisitions are consequential actions that are outside of the daily operations of the firm and have impacts on firm wealth, and (b) cooperation and trade-offs from the firm’s stakeholders is required to secure approval and successfully execute the transaction. This study’s objectives are two-fold. First, impacts to CSR, using Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings as a proxy, from corporate merger and acquisition activity are examined to determine overall impacts as well as relative impacts to various categories of industries. Second, ESG pillar ratings, as well as total (ESG) ratings, are used to: (a) study the individual impact of the pillars on overall ratings, (b) examine relationships between CSR and firm performance, and (c) how ESG ratings have grown over time as well as which pillars have experienced the most growth in various industry categories. Using Difference in Differences (DID) statistical methodology, results indicate mergers and acquisitions act as a moderator to increase CSR in the combined company. Results indicate companies that completed a significant merger (i.e., $1 billion or greater) in 2019 saw their ESG ratings increase by 3.84 points in 2020 and 2021. This finding is explained by Stakeholder theory, which holds that firms must successfully address the implicit and explicit needs of their stakeholders to gain support and buy-in for firm plans. Thus, when firms undertake mergers or acquisitions, they must address their universe of stakeholders to be successful. In addition, results indicate that merged firms in non-environmentally sensitive industries experienced a greater increase in their CSR programs compared to environmentally sensitive industries. The Environmental Pillar was found to have contributed the most when examining the individual pillar impacts on total ESG scores via regression analysis. Interestingly, higher ESG scores (a proxy for successful CSR programs) were not found to be related to superior firm performance as examined through a regression analysis of a key firm financial performance ratio. Finally, ESG scores were found to have grown over the study period 2016-202. During this time, the Governance pillar grew the most for environmentally sensitive industries while the Environmental pillar experienced the greatest growth for environmentally non-sensitive industries. The study’s results contribute to our knowledge of how meaningful firm strategic actions like mergers and acquisitions impact CSR in the combined company. In addition, the study makes various methodological contributions via the statistical methods used, studying industry effects and further examining the effectiveness of ESG ratings as a proxy for CSR performance. These findings also present ample opportunity for future research.
Are island ecosystems connected to their nearshore marine environment? Islands are global biodiversity hotspots and the management of their natural resources is vital to the maintenance of global ...biodiversity and the survival of Earth's life support systems. However, both research and management have been slow to incorporate the importance of land-sea connections into their practice. Terrestrial and marine habitats are inextricably connected; incorporating the connections between the two to any research or management of these systems will improve efficacy by improving the resolution of our understanding of ecosystem drivers. If we are to incorporate land-sea connectivity into research and management, we first need to clarify our understanding of the patterns and variability of connectivity across geographic and biological contexts. The focus of this paper is to identify the factors mediating the ecological connection between land and sea on islands, which can be interpreted to determine the local importance of land-sea connectivity and identify candidate mechanisms defining the connectivity. With more detailed understanding of land-sea linkages, there is opportunity to apply this knowledge toward applied issues of island resource management and restoration. Using a practical case study of island restoration, we operationalize our proposed factors mediating the strength of land-sea connectivity to compare a set of islands targeted for restoration efforts, creating a prioritization based upon the island-specific estimated potential for improved land-sea connectivity and associated marine co-benefit of terrestrial management.
Coral reef ecology in the Anthropocene Williams, Gareth J.; Graham, Nicholas A. J.; Jouffray, Jean‐Baptiste ...
Functional ecology,
June 2019, Volume:
33, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We are in the Anthropocene—an epoch where humans are the dominant force of planetary change. Ecosystems increasingly reflect rapid human‐induced, socioeconomic and cultural selection rather than ...being a product of their surrounding natural biophysical setting. This poses the intriguing question: To what extent do existing ecological paradigms capture and explain the current ecological patterns and processes we observe?
We argue that, although biophysical drivers still influence ecosystem structure and function at particular scales, their ability to offer predictive capacity over coupled social–ecological systems is increasingly compromised as we move further into the Anthropocene.
Traditionally, the dynamics of coral reefs have been studied in response to their proximate drivers of change rather than their underlying socioeconomic and cultural drivers. We hypothesise this is limiting our ability to accurately predict spatial and temporal changes in coral reef ecosystem structure and function.
We propose “social–ecological macroecology” as a novel approach within the field of coral reef ecology to a) identify the interactive effects of biophysical and socioeconomic and cultural drivers of coral reef ecosystems across spatial and temporal scales; b) test the robustness of existing coral reef paradigms; c) explore whether existing paradigms can be adapted to capture the dynamics of contemporary coral reefs; and d) if they cannot, develop novel coral reef social–ecological paradigms, where human dynamics are part of the paradigms rather than the drivers of them.
Human socioeconomic and cultural processes must become embedded in coral reef ecological theory and practice as much as biophysical processes are today if we are to predict and manage these systems successfully in this era of rapid change. This necessary shift in our approach to coral reef ecology will be challenging and will require truly interdisciplinary collaborations between the natural and social sciences.
A plain language summary is available for this article.
Plain Language Summary
U okviru ove doktorske disertacije vršeno je istraživanje zajednica makrogljiva u okviru 5 šumskih staništa na Vidliču, Kopaoniku i Tari. Ispitivan je mikodiverzitet sa morfološkog, funkcionalnog i ...genetskog stanovišta. U istraživanju morološkog i funkcionalnog diverziteta, korišćene su različite klasične metode čiji rezultati su omogućili procenu stanja posmatranih mikocenoza, kao i samih šumskih staništa. Za analizu sastava vrsta u okviru mikocenoza, kao i procenu uticaja abiotičkih faktora na brojnost i sastav vrsta u okviru različitih funkcionalnih grupa, korišćeno je nekoliko statističkih metoda (PCA, PLS, CA i CCA). Osam vrsta, koje su pripadale najrasprostranjenijim i najzastupljenijim vrstama su odabrane za molekularne analize, koje su podrazumevale sekvenciranje ITS regiona rDNK, analizu njihovih polimorfizama kao i filogenetske analize u okviru vrste/roda. U cilju procene zagađenja staništa, u plodnim telima makrogljiva i njihovom supstratu je određen sadržaj metala (atomskom apsorpcionom spektrofotometrijom) i radionuklida (gamaspektrometrijom). Dobijeni rezultati ukazuju na to da diverzitet makrogljiva oslikava stanje samog staništa i da dugoročnim monitoringom mogu ukazati na promene u njemu.
The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is one of the most widely studied patterns in ecology, yet no consensus has been reached about its underlying causes. We argue that the reasons for this are ...the verbal nature of existing hypotheses, the failure to mechanistically link interacting ecological and evolutionary processes to the LDG, and the fact that empirical patterns are often consistent with multiple explanations. To address this issue, we synthesize current LDG hypotheses, uncovering their eco-evolutionary mechanisms, hidden assumptions, and commonalities. Furthermore, we propose mechanistic eco-evolutionary modeling and an inferential approach that makes use of geographic, phylogenetic, and trait-based patterns to assess the relative importance of different processes for generating the LDG.
The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is one of the most widely debated patterns in ecology and evolution, associated with hundreds of papers, dozens of hypotheses, and disagreements about its underlying processes.
The lack of agreement stems from: (i) the verbal nature of existing hypotheses, (ii) the failure to mechanistically integrate all relevant ecological and evolutionary processes to the LDG, and (iii) the degree to which many empirical patterns are consistent with multiple LDG explanations.
We show how mapping LDG hypotheses to a set of key ecological and evolutionary processes leads to a better understanding of the internal logic of those hypotheses. The codification of those processes within a mechanistic eco-evolutionary model is essential for contrasting support for hypotheses and for understanding the relative importance of the processes themselves.
How have we arrived at the diverse set of complex species that we currently find in our world? Using statistical simulations of evolutionary processes, this study investigates how the fundamental ...minimum sizes of species increase irreversibly over time, and how complexities evolved along the way compound throughout that process. Our results imply that unless a random mutation opens up a new dimension of nichespace for the clade to expand within, the mutation will eventually become extinct due to inherent genetic drift.
Aim
Macroecological analyses provide valuable insights into factors that influence how parasites are distributed across space and among hosts. Amid large uncertainties that arise when generalizing ...from local and regional findings, hierarchical approaches applied to global datasets are required to determine whether drivers of parasite infection patterns vary across scales. We assessed global patterns of haemosporidian infections across a broad diversity of avian host clades and zoogeographical realms to depict hotspots of prevalence and to identify possible underlying drivers.
Location
Global.
Time period
1994–2019.
Major taxa studied
Avian haemosporidian parasites (genera Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, Leucocytozoon and Parahaemoproteus).
Methods
We amalgamated infection data from 53,669 individual birds representing 2,445 species world‐wide. Spatio‐phylogenetic hierarchical Bayesian models were built to disentangle potential landscape, climatic and biotic drivers of infection probability while accounting for spatial context and avian host phylogenetic relationships.
Results
Idiosyncratic responses of the three most common haemosporidian genera to climate, habitat, host relatedness and host ecological traits indicated marked variation in host infection rates from local to global scales. Notably, host ecological drivers, such as migration distance for Plasmodium and Parahaemoproteus, exhibited predominantly varying or even opposite effects on infection rates across regions, whereas climatic effects on infection rates were more consistent across realms. Moreover, infections in some low‐prevalence realms were disproportionately concentrated in a few local hotspots, suggesting that regional‐scale variation in habitat and microclimate might influence transmission, in addition to global drivers.
Main conclusions
Our hierarchical global analysis supports regional‐scale findings showing the synergistic effects of landscape, climate and host ecological traits on parasite transmission for a cosmopolitan and diverse group of avian parasites. Our results underscore the need to account for such interactions, in addition to possible variation in drivers across regions, to produce the robust inference required to predict changes in infection risk under future scenarios.
Spatial patterns of biodiversity are inextricably linked to their collection methods, yet no synthesis of bias patterns or their consequences exists. As such, views of organismal distribution and the ...ecosystems they make up may be incorrect, undermining countless ecological and evolutionary studies. Using 742 million records of 374 900 species, we explore the global patterns and impacts of biases related to taxonomy, accessibility, ecotype and data type across terrestrial and marine systems. Pervasive sampling and observation biases exist across animals, with only 6.74% of the globe sampled, and disproportionately poor tropical sampling. High elevations and deep seas are particularly unknown. Over 50% of records in most groups account for under 2% of species and citizen‐science only exacerbates biases. Additional data will be needed to overcome many of these biases, but we must increasingly value data publication to bridge this gap and better represent species' distributions from more distant and inaccessible areas, and provide the necessary basis for conservation and management.
Ecologists and evolutionary biologists are increasingly using big-data approaches to tackle questions at large spatial, taxonomic, and temporal scales. However, despite recent efforts to gather two ...centuries of biodiversity inventories into comprehensive databases, many crucial research questions remain unanswered. Here, we update the concept of knowledge shortfalls and review the tradeoffs between generality and uncertainty. We present seven key shortfalls of current biodiversity data. Four previously proposed shortfalls pinpoint knowledge gaps for species taxonomy (Linnean), distribution (Wallacean), abundance (Prestonian), and evolutionary patterns (Darwinian). We also redefine the Hutchinsonian shortfall to apply to the abiotic tolerances of species and propose new shortfalls relating to limited knowledge of species traits (Raunkiæran) and biotic interactions (Eltonian). We
conclude with a general framework for the combined impacts and consequences of shortfalls of large-scale biodiversity knowledge for evolutionary and ecological research and consider ways of overcoming the seven shortfalls and dealing with the uncertainty they generate.
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