Controls on Coarse Wood Decay in Temperate Tree Species: Birth of the LOGLIFE Experiment

Dead wood provides a huge terrestrial carbon stock and a habitat to wide-ranging organisms during its decay. Our brief review highlights that, in order to understand environmental change impacts on these functions, we need to quantify the contributions of different interacting biotic and abiotic drivers to wood decomposition. LOGLIFE is a new long-term ‘common-garden’ experiment to disentangle the effects of species’ wood traits and site-related environmental drivers on wood decomposition dynamics and its associated diversity of microbial and invertebrate communities. This experiment is firmly rooted in pioneering experiments under the directorship of Terry Callaghan at Abisko Research Station, Sweden. LOGLIFE features two contrasting forest sites in the Netherlands, each hosting a similar set of coarse logs and branches of 10 tree species. LOGLIFE welcomes other researchers to test further questions concerning coarse wood decay that will also help to optimise forest management in view of carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation.     

Emissions of gases and particles from biomass burning during the 20th century using satellite data and an historical reconstruction

A new dataset of emissions of trace gases and particles resulting from biomass burning has been developed for the historical and the recent period (1900–2005). The purpose of this work is to provide a consistent gridded emissions dataset of atmospheric chemical species from 1900 to 2005 for chemistry-climate simulations. The inventory is built in two steps. First, fire emissions are estimated for the recent period (1997–2005) using satellite products (GBA2000 burnt areas and ATSR fire hotspots); the temporal and spatial distribution of the CO₂ emissions for the 1997–2005 period is estimated through a calibration of ATSR fire hotspots. The historical inventory, covering the 1900–2000 period on a decadal basis, is derived from the historical reconstruction of burned areas from Mouillot and Field (2005). The historical emissions estimates are forced, for each main ecosystem, to agree with the recent inventory estimates, ensuring consistency between past and recent emissions.The methodology used for estimating the fire emissions is discussed, together with the time evolution of biomass burning emissions during the 20th century, first at the global scale and then for specific regions. The results are compared with the distributions provided by other inventories and results of inverse modeling studies.     

Conventional and non-conventional adsorbents for wastewater treatment

Environmental Chemistry Letters - The removal of contaminants from wastewaters is a major challenge in the field of water pollution. Among numerous techniques available for contaminant removal,...     

Responses of juvenile European flounder (Platichthys flesus) to multistress in the Vilaine estuary, during a 6-month survey

Physiological and genetic responses of age 0+ Platichthys flesus were investigated in the eutrophicated and moderately contaminated Vilaine estuary, during a 6-month survey. The main objective of this study was to explore the biological responses of fishes during their juvenile period in an estuarine system in order to detect a possible selective pressure induced by the environmental stress. Our results showed a general convergence in physiological responses along the survey: an increase in genotoxicity was associated with an increase in mRNA expression of ATPase and betaine homocysteine methyltransferase. These results could suggest an increase of cellular damage, energetic request, and detoxification rate related to the growing exposure time to stress. Considering the aging of the cohort, the genetic characteristics of the Vilaine flounder cohort came closer to the one observed in a highly stressed system, the Seine estuary, suggesting a potential selective pressure mainly induced by the chemical stress.     

Fatty acids mediate aggressive behavior in the spider Tegenaria atrica

Summary. The aggressiveness of the house spider (Tegenaria atrica) has a chemical basis in terms of intra- and interspecific chemical communication. Vibrations are used for longer range detection of intruders on the web territory whereas cuticular lipids mediate shorter range agonistic behaviors. Two cuticular acids were shown to promote aggressive responses from adult spiders, whereas mixtures of cuticular alkanes acted as inhibition signals.     

Air pollution exposure monitoring and estimating. Part I. Integrated air quality monitoring system

This paper presents an integrated exposure monitoring system, based on an expansion of existing air quality monitoring systems using dispersion modelling. The system allows: (1) identifying geographical areas whose inhabitants are most exposed to ambient pollution; (2) identifying how many people in an area are exposed to concentrations of pollution exceeding air quality guidelines; (3) describing the exposure of population subgroups (e.g. children); (4) planning pollution abatement measures and quantifying their effects; (5) establishing risk assessment and management programs, and (6) investigating the short- and long-term effects of both pollutants and pollution sources on public health. The effect of pollution is rarely very large and in order to discover it, exposure estimation must provide data that reflects both spatial and temporal variations. Estimates of pollution exposure are obtained using an integrated approach that combines results of measurements from monitoring programs with dispersion calculations. These values can serve as estimates for individual short-term or long-term exposure. The grouped data allows the expression of ambient pollution concentrations as the spatial distribution of estimates such as the mean or 98th percentile of such compounds as SO2, O3, NO2, PM10 and PM2.5. This integrated approach has been combined into a single software package, AirQUIS.     

EIA as Regulation: Does it Work?

Since its introduction into Danish planning in 1989, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been widely discussed. At the centre of the debate the question has been whether EIA has actually offered anything new and there has been a great deal of scepticism about the efficacy of the instrument. Although, in principle EIA offers a holistic and proactive methodology, it does not seem to lead to a more holistic and proactive regulation which covers more ground than traditional planning and environmental regulation. In an evaluation of Danish experiences, this study has looked more closely at the effects of EIA. Three types of effects on projects have been examined: changes occurring prior to the formal application; changes during the EIA process; and the mitigation measures that are demanded of projects. The general conclusion is that EIA does generate a significant number of changes to projects. In approximately half of the cases studied, modifications are made prior to the formal application. During the formal EIA process, modifications were made in more than 90% of the cases. However, most of these could be considered as minor. EIA is characterized by being based upon a broad concept of the environment. It was found that a progressive narrowing of the concept of environment takes place during the course of the EIA process.