The objective of this study is to evaluate South Carolina (SC) consumers' willingness to pay for "SC grown" products. Results indicate that consumers in SC are willing to pay an average premium of 27% for local produce and 23% for local animal products.Premiums for local products are influenced by age, gender, and income.

In Latin America, the country of Ecuador was one of the first and most severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to evaluate the demand for a COVID-19 vaccine in Ecuador by estimating individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the vaccine, and by assessing the effect of vaccine attributes (duration of protection and efficacy) and individuals’ characteristics on this valuation. The sample used (N = 1,050) was obtained through an online survey conducted from April 2 to April 7, 2020. Two levels of vaccine efficacy (70% and 98%) and two levels of vaccine duration of protection (1 and 20 years) were considered. The willingness to pay estimates were obtained using a double-bounded dichotomous-choice contingent valuation format. Survey results show that a very large proportion of individuals (at least 97%) were willing to accept a COVID-19 vaccine, and at least 85% of individuals were willing to pay a positive amount for that vaccine. Conservative estimates of the average WTP values ranged from USD 147.61 to 196.65 and the median WTP from USD 76.9 to 102.5. Only the duration of protection was found to influence individuals’ WTP for the vaccine ( p < 0.01). On average, respondents were willing to pay 30% more for a COVID-19 vaccine with 20 years of protection relative to the vaccine with 1 year of protection. Regression results show that WTP for the vaccine was associated with income, employment status, the perceived probability of needing hospitalization if contracting the virus causing COVID-19, and region of residence.

Invasive species are a major threat to the sustainable provision of ecosystem products and services, both in natural and agricultural ecosystems. To understand the spatial arrangement of species successively introduced into the same ecosystem, we examined the tolerance to temperature and analyzed the field distribution of three potato tuber moths (PTM, Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), that were introduced in Ecuador since the 1980s. We studied physiological responses to constant temperatures of the three PTM species under laboratory conditions and modeled consequences for their overall population dynamics. We then compared our predictions to field abundances of PTM adults collected in 42 sites throughout central Ecuador. Results showed that the three PTM species differed with respect to their physiological response to temperature. Symmetrischema tangolias was more cold tolerant while Tecia solanivora had the highest growth rates at warmer temperatures. Phthorimaea operculella showed the poorest physiological performance across the range of tested temperatures. Overall, field distributions agree with predictions based on physiological experiments and life table analyses. At elevations >3000 m, the most cold-tolerant species, S. tangolias, was typically dominant and often the only species present. This species may therefore represent a biological sensor of climate change. At low elevations (<2700 m), T. solanivora was generally the most abundant species, probably due to its high fecundity at high temperatures. At mid elevations, the three species co-occurred, but P. operculella was generally the least abundant species. Consistent with these qualitative results, significant regression analyses found that the best predictors of field abundance were temperature and a species x temperature interaction term. Our results suggest that the climatic diversity in agricultural landscapes can directly affect the community composition following sequential invasions. In the tropical Andes, as in other mountain ecosystems, the wide range of thermal environments found along elevational gradients may be one reason why the risks of invasion by successively introduced pest species could increase in the near future. More data on potential biological risks associated with climatic warming trends in mountain systems are therefore urgently needed, especially in developing nations where such studies are lacking.

A major challenge of ecological research is to assess the functional consequences of species richness loss over time and space in global biodiversity hotspots, where extinctions are happening at an unprecedented rate. To address this issue, greater realism needs to be incorporated into both conceptual and experimental approaches. Here we propose a conceptual model that incorporates body size as a critical aspect of community responses to environmental change, which we tested in the Western Amazonian rain forest, one of the most speciose ecosystems on the planet. We employed an exclosure removal experiment (replicated under 10 microhabitats and four climatic conditions) in which we manipulated access to two types of resource by the whole community of dung and carrion beetles (> 60 species), depending on their size. Our 400 independent measurements revealed that changes in the number of species and functional groups, and temporal patterns in community composition, all affected resource burial rates, a key ecosystem process. Further, the functional contribution of species diversity in each size class was tightly dependent on beetle abundance, and while the role of large species could be performed by abundant smaller ones, and other naturally occurring decomposers, this was not the case when environmental conditions were harsher. These results demonstrate, for the first time in an animal assemblage in a tropical ecosystem, that although species may appear functionally redundant under one set of environmental conditions, many species would be needed to maintain ecosystem functioning at multiple temporal and spatial scales. This highlights the potential fragility of these systems to the ongoing global "Sixth Great Extinction," whose effects are likely to be especially pronounced in the Tropics.