Quantifying the impact of vegetation-based metrics on species persistence when choosing offsets for habitat destruction

Developers are often required by law to offset environmental impacts through targeted conservation actions. Most offset policies specify metrics for calculating offset requirements, usually by assessing vegetation condition. Despite widespread use, there is little evidence to support the effectiveness of vegetation-based metrics for ensuring biodiversity persistence. We compared long-term impacts of biodiversity offsetting based on area only; vegetation condition only; area × habitat suitability; and condition × habitat suitability in development and restoration simulations for the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. We simulated development and subsequent offsetting through restoration within a virtual landscape, linking simulations to population viability models for 3 species. Habitat gains did not ensure species persistence. No net loss was achieved when performance of offsetting was assessed in terms of amount of habitat restored, but not when outcomes were assessed in terms of persistence. Maintenance of persistence occurred more often when impacts were avoided, giving further support to better enforce the avoidance stage of the mitigation hierarchy. When development affected areas of high habitat quality for species, persistence could not be guaranteed. Therefore, species must be more explicitly accounted for in offsets, rather than just vegetation or habitat alone. Declines due to a failure to account directly for species population dynamics and connectivity overshadowed the benefits delivered by producing large areas of high-quality habitat. Our modeling framework showed that the benefits delivered by offsets are species specific and that simple vegetation-based metrics can give misguided impressions on how well biodiversity offsets achieve no net loss.     

洪泽湖水体富营养化时空分布特征与影响因素分析

通过2014年—2017年对洪泽湖12个水质断面定期调查,采用营养状态指数(TLI)综合评价其水体富营养状态,同时应用主成分分析方法(PCA)分析其富营养化状态的时空变化特征。结果表明,洪泽湖70%以上的调查断面水质全年处于轻度富营养化状态,夏季是其富营养化最严重的季节;洪泽湖年内水体水质差异较大,而其水华特征并未呈现明显差异;洪泽湖富营养化很大程度上受制于营养盐的积累程度,并与湖泊透明度呈现极显著的负相关关系(p0.001),与湖水pH值呈现极显著的正相关关系。     

Effectiveness of biodiversity-conservation marketing

Conservation marketing holds potential as a means to engage audiences with biodiversity conservation and help to address the human dimensions of biodiversity loss. Empirical evaluations of conservation marketing indicatives are growing, so we reviewed the literature on this research to inform future directions in the field. We used a systematic search strategy to identify studies that evaluated the effects of conservation marketing interventions (techniques and campaigns) on psychosocial outcomes, categorized as cognitive, affective, or behavioral. Six academic databases (Business Source Complete, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Greenfile, Proquest, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collections), 3 gray-literature databases (BASE, Zenodo, and Google Scholar), and 2 websites (Rare and WildAid) were searched. Articles were subjected to critical appraisal to assess their methodological quality, and data were extracted from each article and analyzed using narrative synthesis. Altogether 28 studies from 26 articles were included in the review. Twenty-five studies were conducted from 2014 through 2016. Methodological quality of most studies was weak (n = 16, 57%) (moderate quality n = 8, 29%; high quality n = 4, 14%). The proportion of studies that evaluated a conservation-marketing technique (e.g., variants of texts, images, or videos) versus a campaign (e.g., community-based campaigns targeting locally relevant issues, such as unsustainable palm oil agriculture, light pollution, or wood fuel fire use) was relatively balanced. Although many studies reported statistically significant results in the intended direction, the utility of findings was limited by persistent methodological limitations, such as a lack of a comparator group, use of non-validated assessment tools, and a focus on self-reported data and subjective outcomes. Conservation marketing is clearly a nascent field of scientific enquiry that warrants further, high-quality research investigations.     

The moral residue of conservation

Should conservationists use lethal management to control introduced wildlife populations? Should they kill individual animals to protect endangered species? Are trade-offs that prioritize some values at the expense of others morally appropriate? These sorts of ethical questions are common in conservation. In debating such questions, conservationists often seem to presume 1 of 2 possible answers: the act in question is right or it is wrong. But morality in conservation is considerably more complex than this simple binary suggests. A robust conservation ethic requires a vocabulary that gives voice to the uncertainty and unease that arise when what seems to be the best available course of action also seems to involve a measure of wrongdoing. The philosophical literature on moral residue and moral dilemmas supplies this vocabulary. Moral dilemmas arise when one must neglect certain moral requirements to fulfill others. Under such circumstances, even the best possible decision leaves a moral residue, which is experienced emotionally as some form of grief. Examples of conservation scenarios that leave a moral residue include management of introduced rabbits in Australia, trophy hunting in Africa, and forest management trade-offs in the Pacific Northwest. Moral residue is integral to the moral experience of conservationists today, and grief is an appropriate response to many decisions conservationists must make. Article impact statement: Defensible conservation decisions may neglect moral requirements, leaving a moral residue; conservationists should respond with grief.     

Applying the zoo model to conservation of threatened exceptional plant species

Maintaining a living plant collection is the most common method of ex situ conservation for plant species that cannot be seed banked (i.e., exceptional species). Viability of living collections, and their value for future conservation efforts, can be limited without coordinated efforts to track and manage individuals across institutions. Using a pedigree-focused approach, the zoological community has established an inter-institutional infrastructure to support long-term viability of captive animal populations. We assessed the ability of this coordinated metacollection infrastructure to support the conservation of 4 plant species curated in living collections at multiple botanic gardens around the world. Limitations in current practices include the inability to compile, share, and analyze plant collections data at the individual level, as well as difficulty in tracking original provenance of ex situ material. The coordinated metacollection framework used by zoos can be adopted by the botanical community to improve conservation outcomes by minimizing the loss of genetic diversity in collections. We suggest actions to improve ex situ conservation of exceptional plant species, including developing a central database to aggregate data and track unique individuals of priority threatened species among institutions and adapting a pedigree-based population management tool that incorporates life-history aspects unique to plants. If approached collaboratively across regional, national, and global scales, these actions could transform ex situ conservation of threatened plant species.     

Catalytic oxidation of CO over Pt/Fe3O4 catalysts: Tuning O2 activation and CO adsorption

• Strong metal-support interaction exists on Pt/Fe₃O₄ catalysts. • Pt metal particles facilitate the formation of oxygen vacancies on Fe₃O₄. • Fe₃O₄ supports enhance the strength of CO adsorption on Pt metal particles. The self-inhibition behavior due to CO poisoning on Pt metal particles strongly impairs the performance of CO oxidation. It is an effective method to use reducible metal oxides for supporting Pt metal particles to avoid self-inhibition and to improve catalytic performance. In this work, we used in situ reductions of chloroplatinic acid on commercial Fe₃O₄ powder to prepare heterogeneous-structured Pt/Fe₃O₄ catalysts in the solution of ethylene glycol. The heterogeneous Pt/Fe₃O₄ catalysts achieved a better catalytic performance of CO oxidation compared with the Fe₃O₄ powder. The temperatures of 50% and 90% CO conversion were achieved above 260°C and 290°C at Pt/Fe₃O₄, respectively. However, they are accomplished on Fe₃O₄ at temperatures higher than 310°C. XRD, XPS, and H₂-TPR results confirmed that the metallic Pt atoms have a strong synergistic interaction with the Fe₃O₄ supports. TGA results and transient DRIFTS results proved that the Pt metal particles facilitate the release of lattice oxygen and the formation of oxygen vacancies on Fe₃O₄. The combined results of O₂-TPD and DRIFTS indicated that the activation step of oxygen molecules at surface oxygen vacancies could potentially be the rate-determining step of the catalytic CO oxidation at Pt/Fe₃O₄ catalysts. The reaction pathway involves a Pt-assisted Mars-van Krevelen (MvK) mechanism.     

农地整治权属调整中农户认知对行为响应的作用机制--基于改进TPB及多群组SEM

农地整治权属调整是实现农业规模化和现代化的重要手段,而农户有效参与是推动权属调整的内在动力,研究农地整治权属调整中农户认知对其行为响应的作用机制,有助于高效引导农户参与权属调整,并为制定农地整治权属调整的政策提供科学依据。基于改进计划行为理论和湖北省11个县(市、区)1044份农户抽样调查数据,采用多群组结构方程模型探究了农地整治权属调整中不同类型农户认知对其行为响应的作用机制。结果表明:农地整治权属调整中农户行为逻辑符合改进计划行为理论,农户的行为态度、主观规范、知觉行为控制交互影响行为意愿,进而转换为行为响应,政府支持在行为意愿和行为响应之间起到部分中介作用。总体上,农户行为响应是"自发性""诱发性"和"约束性"三重行动逻辑的结合,且"自发性"占主导地位。多群组结构方程估计结果表明,纯农型与兼业Ⅰ型农户的行为响应受到"自发性""诱发性"和"约束性"三重影响,兼业Ⅱ型农户受到"自发性"和"诱发性"双重影响,非农型农户仅受到"诱发性"单一影响。因此,为引导农户积极参与农地整治权属调整,应该分别针对各类农户相应地提高其参与的"自发性"和"诱发性",降低"约束性",充分发挥农村社会经济组织的作用,将四种不同类型农户的利益需求统筹考虑,降低权属调整过程中利益协调难度。     

隧道救援站通风网络优化设计及人员疏散研究*

为确定铁路隧道救援站最佳通风结构，对烟道布置提出合理建议，采用计算流体力学（CFD）的方法，对铁路隧道救援站通风网络进行优化设计。同时，采用模拟计算的方法对救援站人员疏散进行模拟分析，确定救援横通道布置及防护门开度设置的合理性。研究结果表明:在同等通风参数工况设置下，采用多节点排烟竖井结构后各救援横通道流量分配更均匀，救援站压力平衡性更好，通风效率可提升15%；通过疏散模拟证实，在长560 m的紧急救援站范围内设置10条疏散横通道，横通道设1.7 m宽的逃生门能够满足疏散要求。     

铁路沿线可燃重气储罐最小隔离区域划分探讨*

为保护铁路线，以某化工厂距离高铁路线最近的丙烯球罐为例，提出丙烯球罐泄漏最小隔离区域划分方法以及2种保护高铁线路方案，利用重气扩散模型和定量风险评价（QRA）软件分别进行丙烯扩散模拟、爆炸模拟，并进行危险与可操作性分析（HAZOP）和保护层分析（LOPA）。结果表明:球罐发生泄漏及火灾爆炸等事故，会给附近铁路线带来严重破坏；丙烯泄漏或球罐因周围其他设备设施或可燃物质着火而温度升高时，保护措施不足；隧道的安全可靠性要高于仅设1道防爆墙，隧道长度需覆盖最小隔离区域的可及范围，在扩散区域内也需设立普通挡墙，在极度危险情况下，需要实施高铁停开等保护措施。     

深部煤层钻屑粒度随钻进深度分布规律

为了研究煤层钻屑粒度随钻进深度分布规律，选取具有冲击危险性的平煤八矿己15煤作为研究对象，采取钻屑量测试和孔口瓦斯浓度监测，通过筛分实验煤样并应用Rosin Rammler分布模型，探究了钻屑粒度和钻屑量大小随孔深变化关系，分析不同点钻屑粒度分布特征。结果表明:小于0.075 mm钻屑粒度分布随孔深变化与钻屑量变化规律相吻合；不同钻孔随深度变化分别对应不同Rosin Rammler分布函数，随着应力过渡越平缓，粒径分布宽度系数n值越小，煤体应力越大粒径相关系数D越大；不同范围钻屑粒度占比大小也会影响钻屑量大小；在钻屑量较大时，孔口瓦斯体积分数会出现增高现象。通过对钻屑粒度分布规律分析，更好地了解深部煤体应力分布，有助于冲击危险的预警。