Specific features of bird community formation depending on the degree of anthropogenic impact

The population density and relative abundance of some bird species reach the highest values in the communities of habitats with a high degree of anthropogenic transformation. The species diversity of birds shows an inverse correlation with the index of anthropogenic impact (in grades) calculated with regard to a number of parameters. Relevant correlations change periodically, with the correlation coefficient reaching the highest values in the nesting period and decreasing to a minimum during the flight period.     

Double-brooded great tits (<Emphasis Type=Italic>Parus major</Emphasis>) in Mediterranean oak habitats: Do first broods always perform better than second broods?

Although mistimed reproduction (i.e., time-lag between peak food supply and offspring food demand) has been attributed to habitat modifications or climate change in recent avian investigations, earlier breeding parents have higher reproductive success in many habitats. Here we compare first and second broods in great tits (Parus major L.) from two Mediterranean oak habitats differing significantly in the timing (about 5 weeks), but not the amount of caterpillar supply required to rear chicks. The study indicates that both the extent of mistimed reproduction and the breeding date per se influence breeding performance in this study system. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

The centers of gravity and dynamic types of body shape of terrestrial invertebrates

In the framework of dynamic morphology theory, the centers of gravity and geometric centers of projections have been determined for the bodies of more than 182 forms of invertebrates, and these data have been used to distinguish four types of dynamic body shapes. It has been demonstrated that specific dynamic types of body shape are characteristic of individual taxa. In addition, there are a group of “transformers,” which may assume any dynamic type of shape, and a group of invertebrates with one predominant dynamic type.     

Evaluation and ranking of restoration strategies for radioactively contaminated sites.

An international project, whose aim was the development of a transparent and robust method for evaluating and ranking restoration strategies for radioactively contaminated sites (RESTRAT), was carried out under the Fourth Framework of the Nuclear Fission Safety Programme of the EU. The evaluation and ranking procedure used was based on the principles of justification and optimisation for radiation protection. A multi-attribute utility analysis was applied to allow for the inclusion of radiological health effects, economic costs and social factors. Values of these attributes were converted into utility values by applying linear utility functions and weighting factors, derived from scaling constants and expert judgement. The uncertainties and variabilities associated with these utility functions and weighting factors were dealt with by a probabilistic approach which utilised a Latin Hypercube Sampling technique. Potentially relevant restoration techniques were identified and their characteristics determined through a literature review. The methodology developed by this project has been illustrated by application to representative examples of different categories of contaminated sites; a waste disposal site, a uranium tailing site and a contaminated freshwater river.     

INSIGHT: a framework for determining impacts of changes in land and water policies.

CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems is constructing a spatially explicit modelling system capable of exploring alternative land and water policy alternatives against plausible price, cost, and climate scenarios for the next 20 years. INSIGHT will be used to identify the likely impacts of land and water policy options on regional economies and structural adjustment. Flowcharts have been constructed for most of the major crop and pasture and associated economic models for commodities produced in the Lachlan River Catchment of New South Wales. This enabled the most important components and interrelationships within these models to be readily identified. The next step has been to construct models at the regional scale that contain the essential elements of the more-detailed point models. The paper describes the progress to date in describing these models, and how they have been integrated into a coordinated agricultural crop production evaluation system.     

Effect of iron addition on the performance of anoxic-oxic membrane process and biological phosphorus removal北大核心CSCD

In order to solve the problem of poor treatment of phosphorus in membrane bioreactor (MBR) with long sludge retention time (SRT), a ferric salt was added to enhance phosphorus removal; FeCl36H2O (Fe/P = 2.0) was added to the reactor. The removal efficiency of nitrogen, organic matters, and phosphorus in the MBR was investigated systematically. Moreover, this study focused on the membrane performance, the change of active sludge flora, and the effect of adding a ferric salt on membrane fouling before and after the addition. It was seen that adding the ferric salt could not affect the removal of COD and NH4 +-N and the removal rate of COD and NH4 +-N reached over 90%. However, the average removal rate of phosphorus was 52%, while the removal rate increased by nearly 40% after adding the ferric salt. The effects of adding ferric salts on the dominant bacteria and biological phosphorus removal of activated sludge were further studied. The results showed that the addition of ferric salt (Fe/P = 2.0) decreased the diversity of active sludge flora and relative abundance of some phosphorusaccumulating organisms and had a negative effect on biological phosphorus removal. The analysis of transmembrane pressure difference (TMP) recording revealed that the concentration of iron salts did not exacerbate membrane fouling. The results showed that the concentration of iron salts entering the membrane bioreactor would reduce the relative abundance and phosphorus removal efficiency of the activated sludge in the system to a certain extent, but it had no obvious effect on membrane fouling. It allowed the effluent to attain acceptable standards, especially with respect to phosphorus removal efficiency. © 2018 Science Press. All rights reserved.     

Extractive Spectrofluorometric Determination of Quinalphos Using Fluorescein in Environmental Samples

A simple, sensitive, convenient and low cost spectrofluorometric technique for determination of quinalphos is described. Quinalphos is decomposed with sodium ethoxide. Resultant sodium diethyl thiophosphate (Na-DETP) is extracted with a cationic fluorescein as ion pair complex into 1-chloro-2-nitrobenzene. The fluorescence of the ion pair, fluorescein-DETP is measured at 530 nm after excitation at 490 nm. This technique is applicable for the determination of quinalphos in water, food grains and vegetable samples up to ng level with Amberlite XAD-4.