The Export Potential of Colombian Coal

Colombian coal-exporting capacity is examined in terms of the country's advantageous location with regard to potential markets, coal reserves and development plans. By the year 2000 Colombia could have the capacity to export 40 million tonnes of coal per annum.     

Conservation Planning with Multiple Organizations and Objectives

Abstract: There has been a dramatic increase in the number of conservation organizations worldwide. It is now common for multiple organizations to operate in the same landscape in pursuit of different conservation goals. New objectives, such as maintenance of ecosystem services, will attract additional funding and new organizations to conservation. Systematic conservation planning helps in the design of spatially explicit management actions that optimally conserve multiple landscape features (e.g., species, ecosystems, or ecosystem services). But the methods used in its application implicitly assume that a single actor implements the optimal plan. We investigated how organizational behavior and conservation outcomes are affected by the presence of autonomous implementing organizations with different objectives. We used simulation models and game theory to explore how alternative behaviors (e.g., organizations acting independently or explicitly cooperating) affected an organization's ability to protect their feature of interest, and investigated how the distribution of features in the landscape influenced organizations’ attitudes toward cooperation. Features with highly correlated spatial distributions, although typically considered an opportunity for mutually beneficial conservation planning, can lead to organizational interactions that result in lower levels of protection. These detrimental outcomes can be avoided by organizations that cooperate when acquiring land. Nevertheless, for cooperative purchases to benefit both organizations’ objectives, each must forgo the protection of land parcels that they would consider to be of high conservation value. Transaction costs incurred during cooperation and the sources of conservation funding could facilitate or hinder cooperative behavior.     

Consensus on Criteria for Potential Areas for Wolf Reintroduction in Mexico

Abstract: Given the conflict with human interests that in many cases results in the extirpation of large carnivores, acceptance of their reintroduction is a considerable challenge. By the 1980s Mexican wolves (Canis lupus) were extinct in the wild. In 1998 a population was reintroduced in the Blue Range Mountains of New Mexico (U.S.A.). Efforts to reintroduce the species in Mexico have been ongoing since the late 1980s. Four teams working independently identified 6 areas in northern Mexico in the historic range of Mexican wolves, where reintroductions could potentially be successful. Each team used different methods and criteria to identify the areas, which makes it difficult to prioritize among these areas. Therefore, members of the different teams worked together to devise criteria for use in identifying priority areas. They identified areas with high, intermediate, and low potential levels of conflict between wolves and humans. Areas with low potential conflict had larger buffers (i.e., distance from human settlement to areas suitable for wolves) around human settlements than high‐ and intermediate‐conflict areas and thus were thought most appropriate for the first reintroduction. High‐conflict areas contained habitat associated with wolf presence, but were closer to human activity. The first reintroduction of Mexican wolves to Mexico occurred in October 2011 in one of the identified low‐conflict areas. The identification of suitable areas for reintroduction represents a crucial step in the process toward the restoration of large carnivores. Choice of the first reintroduction area can determine whether the reintroduction is successful or fails. A failure may preclude future reintroduction efforts in a region or country.     

硫丹对草鱼乙酰胆碱酯酶及抗氧化酶活性的影响

研究了硫丹暴露对草鱼肝脏、肌肉抗氧化酶及脑乙酰胆碱酯酶活性的影响。结果表明,硫丹24 h暴露可诱导草鱼脑AChE活性,当暴露时间延长或质量浓度升高时,AChE活性表现为受抑制,120 h较高质量浓度组抑制率为41.8%和56.2%,抑制率与暴露时间呈良好的线性相关。硫丹暴露24 h后,草鱼肝脏及肌肉SOD、GSH-Px活性受到显著影响,表现出先诱导后缓慢降低的趋势,120 h后SOD活性显著低于对照组水平,GSH-Px活性与对照组无显著差异。在抗氧化酶受到影响的同时,鱼体脂质过氧化LPO程度不断上升,组织MDA含量逐渐增大,96 h达到最高值。硫丹可影响草鱼AChE及抗氧化酶活性,其变化可作为生物标志物,来评价化学污染物对水生动物的生物学效应。     

Ecological‐Niche Modeling and Prioritization of Conservation‐Area Networks for Mexican Herpetofauna

Abstract: One of the most important tools in conservation biology is information on the geographic distribution of species and the variables determining those patterns. We used maximum‐entropy niche modeling to run distribution models for 222 amphibian and 371 reptile species (49% endemics and 27% threatened) for which we had 34,619 single geographic records. The planning region is in southeastern Mexico, is 20% of the country's area, includes 80% of the country's herpetofauna, and lacks an adequate protected‐area system. We used probabilistic data to build distribution models of herpetofauna for use in prioritizing conservation areas for three target groups (all species and threatened and endemic species). The accuracy of species‐distribution models was better for endemic and threatened species than it was for all species. Forty‐seven percent of the region has been deforested and additional conservation areas with 13.7% to 88.6% more native vegetation (76% to 96% of the areas are outside the current protected‐area system) are needed. There was overlap in 26 of the main selected areas in the conservation‐area network prioritized to preserve the target groups, and for all three target groups the proportion of vegetation types needed for their conservation was constant: 30% pine and oak forests, 22% tropical evergreen forest, 17% low deciduous forest, and 8% montane cloud forests. The fact that different groups of species require the same proportion of habitat types suggests that the pine and oak forests support the highest proportion of endemic and threatened species and should therefore be given priority over other types of vegetation for inclusion in the protected areas of southeastern Mexico.