Projecting Climate Change Effects on Forest Net Primary Productivity in Subtropical Louisiana,USA

This study projected responses of forest net primary productivity (NPP) to three climate change scenarios at a resolution of 5 km × 5 km across the state of Louisiana, USA. In addition, we assessed uncertainties associated with the NPP projection at the grid and state levels. Climate data of the scenarios were derived from Community Climate System Model outputs. Changes in annual NPP between 2000 and 2050 were projected with the forest ecosystem model PnET-II. Results showed that forest productivity would increase under climate change scenarios A1B and A2, but with scenario B1, it would peak during 2011–2020 and then decline. The projected average NPP under B1 over the years from 2000 to 2050 was significantly different from those under A1B and A2. Forest NPP appeared to be primarily a function of temperature, not precipitation. Uncertainties of the NPP projection were due to large spatial resolution of the climate variables. Overall, this study suggested that in order to project effects of climate change on forest ecosystem at regional level, modeling uncertainties could be reduced by increasing the spatial resolution of the climate projections.     

NABat: A top-down,bottom-up solution to collaborative continental-scale monitoring

Collaborative monitoring over broad scales and levels of ecological organization can inform conservation efforts necessary to address the contemporary biodiversity crisis. An important challenge to collaborative monitoring is motivating local engagement with enough buy-in from stakeholders while providing adequate top-down direction for scientific rigor, quality control, and coordination. Collaborative monitoring must reconcile this inherent tension between top-down control and bottom-up engagement. Highly mobile and cryptic taxa, such as bats, present a particularly acute challenge. Given their scale of movement, complex life histories, and rapidly expanding threats, understanding population trends of bats requires coordinated broad-scale collaborative monitoring. The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) reconciles top-down, bottom-up tension with a hierarchical master sample survey design, integrated data analysis, dynamic data curation, regional monitoring hubs, and knowledge delivery through web-based infrastructure. NABat supports collaborative monitoring across spatial and organizational scales and the full annual lifecycle of bats.     

Innovative aspects of environmental chemistry and technology regarding air,water, and soil pollution

Environmental Science and Pollution Research -     

Green method of stemming the tide of invasive marine and freshwater organisms by natural filtration of shipping ballast water

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Marine and freshwater pollution caused by transport of invasive species in shipping ballast water is a major global problem and will increase in...     

Ameliorative effects of deferiprone and tetraethylammonium salt of salinomycinic acid on lead-induced toxicity in mouse testes

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In this study, we compare the effects of deferiprone (Def) and tetraethylammonium salt of salinomycinic acid (Sal) on lead (Pb)-induced toxicity in...     

Method to assess component contribution to toxicity of complex mixtures: Assessment of puberty acquisition in rats exposed to disinfection byproducts

A method based on regression modeling was developed to discern the contribution of component chemicals to the toxicity of highly complex, environmentally realistic mixtures of disinfection byproducts(DBPs). Chemical disinfection of drinking water forms DBP mixtures.Because of concerns about possible reproductive and developmental toxicity, a whole mixture(WM) of DBPs produced by chlorination of a water concentrate was administered as drinking water to Sprague–Dawley(S–D) rats in a multigenerational study. Age of puberty acquisition,i.e., preputial separation(PPS) and vaginal opening(VO), was examined in male and female offspring, respectively. When compared to controls, a slight, but statistically significant delay in puberty acquisition was observed in females but not in males. WM-induced differences in the age at puberty acquisition were compared to those reported in S–D rats administered either a defined mixture(DM) of nine regulated DBPs or individual DBPs. Regression models were developed using individual animal data on age at PPS or VO from the DM study. Puberty acquisition data reported in the WM and individual DBP studies were then compared with the DM models. The delay in puberty acquisition observed in the WM-treated female rats could not be distinguished from delays predicted by the DM regression model, suggesting that the nine regulated DBPs in the DM might account for much of the delay observed in the WM. This method is applicable to mixtures of other types of chemicals and other endpoints.     

Revisiting chronodisruption: when the physiological nexus between internal and external times splits in humans

In this Concepts & Synthesis paper, we expand the definition of chronodisruption in humans by proposing that it can be operationalized as the split nexus of internal and external times. With this premise, we suggest how chronotype may be used as a temporal marker (chronomarker) of exposure to chronodisruption in studies of cancer, and beyond, offer cancer risk predictions for observational research on the basis of a chronotype-related hypothesis and corollary, and point to first empirical data in humans. In an a priori way, we examine possible outcomes and perspectives for preventive measures following from our rationale and the suggested chronobiology-driven studies and close with overall advances of chronodisruption research.     

Seasonal changes in burrow geometry of the common mole rat (Rodentia: Bathyergidae)

Sociality in mole rats has been suggested to have evolved as a response to the widely dispersed food resources and the limited burrowing opportunities that result from sporadic rainfall events. In the most arid regions, individual foraging efficiency is reduced, and energetic constraints increase. In this study, we investigate seasonal differences in burrow architecture of the social Cryptomys hottentotus hottentotus in a mesic region. We describe burrow geometry in response to seasonal weather conditions for two seasons (wet and dry). Interactions occurred between seasons and colony size for the size of the burrow systems, but not the shape of the burrow systems. The fractal dimension values of the burrow systems did not differ between seasons. Thus, the burrow complexity was dependent upon the number of mole rats present in the social group.