Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The potential use of a metal-tolerant sunflower mutant line for biomonitoring Cu phytoavailability, Cu-induced soil phytotoxicity, and Cu... 相似文献
The main achievements of the debates on deliberative democracy and democratised science are investigated in order to analyse the reasons, meanings and prospects for a democratisation of global environmental policy. A deliberative systems approach, which emphasises the need to explore how processes in societal spheres interact to shape the deliberative qualities of the system as a whole, is adopted. Although science plays a key role in this, its potential to enhance deliberative capacity has hardly been addressed in deliberative theories. The democratisation of science has potential to contribute to the democratisation of global environmental policy, in that it also shapes the potential of deliberative arrangements in the policy sphere. Deliberative arrangements within the policy sphere may stimulate the democratisation of science to different degrees. 相似文献
Rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) and willow ptarmigan (L. lagopus) are Arctic birds with a circumpolar distribution but there is limited knowledge about their status and trends across their circumpolar distribution. Here, we compiled information from 90 ptarmigan study sites from 7 Arctic countries, where almost half of the sites are still monitored. Rock ptarmigan showed an overall negative trend on Iceland and Greenland, while Svalbard and Newfoundland had positive trends, and no significant trends in Alaska. For willow ptarmigan, there was a negative trend in mid-Sweden and eastern Russia, while northern Fennoscandia, North America and Newfoundland had no significant trends. Both species displayed some periods with population cycles (short 3–6 years and long 9–12 years), but cyclicity changed through time for both species. We propose that simple, cost-efficient systematic surveys that capture the main feature of ptarmigan population dynamics can form the basis for citizen science efforts in order to fill knowledge gaps for the many regions that lack systematic ptarmigan monitoring programs.
Dissolved organic sulfur (DOS) is an important fraction for sulfur mobilization in ecosystem. In this work stream waters were sampled in 25 forested sites in southern China to study the dissolved sulfur fractions. Dissolved sulfur was fractionated into dissolved organic sulfur (DOS) and inorganic sulfate (SO42-) for 95 stream water samples. The results showed that the concentration of DOS ranged from 0 to 13.1 mg/L (average 1.3 mg/L) in all the streams. High concentrations of DOS in stream waters were found in the sites with high concentrations of sulfate. DOS constituted less than 60.1% of dissolved sulfur (average 17.9%). Statistical analysis showed that DOS concentration was correlated with SO42- in streams waters and total sulfur in surface layer soils. The results also showed that DOS concentration in stream waters had a seasonal variation, but no trends were found with it. The implication was that the long term sulfur deposition had led the increase of the concentration and fraction of DOS in stream waters in acid rain prevailing regions 相似文献
Here, we review Charles Darwin’s relation to beetles and developments in coleopteran systematics in the last two centuries.
Darwin was an enthusiastic beetle collector. He used beetles to illustrate different evolutionary phenomena in his major works,
and astonishingly, an entire sub-chapter is dedicated to beetles in “The Descent of Man”. During his voyage on the Beagle,
Darwin was impressed by the high diversity of beetles in the tropics, and he remarked that, to his surprise, the majority
of species were small and inconspicuous. However, despite his obvious interest in the group, he did not get involved in beetle
taxonomy, and his theoretical work had little immediate impact on beetle classification. The development of taxonomy and classification
in the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth century was mainly characterised by the exploration of new character systems
(e.g. larval features and wing venation). In the mid-twentieth century, Hennig’s new methodology to group lineages by derived
characters revolutionised systematics of Coleoptera and other organisms. As envisioned by Darwin and Ernst Haeckel, the new
Hennigian approach enabled systematists to establish classifications truly reflecting evolution. Roy A. Crowson and Howard
E. Hinton, who both made tremendous contributions to coleopterology, had an ambivalent attitude towards the Hennigian ideas.
The Mickoleit school combined detailed anatomical work with a classical Hennigian character evaluation, with stepwise tree
building, comparatively few characters and a priori polarity assessment without explicit use of the outgroup comparison method.
The rise of cladistic methods in the 1970s had a strong impact on beetle systematics. Cladistic computer programs facilitated
parsimony analyses of large data matrices, mostly morphological characters not requiring detailed anatomical investigations.
Molecular studies on beetle phylogeny started in the 1990s with modest taxon sampling and limited DNA data. This has changed
dramatically. With very large data sets and high throughput sampling, phylogenetic questions can be addressed without prior
knowledge of morphological characters. Nevertheless, molecular studies have not lead to the great breakthrough in beetle systematics—yet.
Especially the phylogeny of the extremely species rich suborder Polyphaga remains incompletely resolved. Coordinated efforts
of molecular workers and of morphologists using innovative techniques may lead to more profound insights in the near future.
The final aim is to develop a well-founded phylogeny, which truly reflects the evolution of this immensely species rich group
of organisms. 相似文献
Seepage from Hg mine wastes and calcines contains high concentrations of mercury (Hg). Hg pollution is a major environmental
problem in areas with abandoned mercury mines and retorting units. This study evaluates factors, especially the hydrological and
sedimentary variables, governing temporal and spatial variation in levels and state of mercury in streams impacted by Hg contaminated
runo . Samples were taken during di erent flow regimes in theWanshan Hg mining area in Guizhou Province, China. In its headwaters
the sampled streams/rivers pass by several mine wastes and calcines with high concentration of Hg. Seepage causes serious Hg
contamination to the downstream area. Concentrations of Hg in water samples showed significant seasonal variations. Periods of
higher flow showed high concentrations of total Hg (THg) in water due to more particles being re-suspended and transported. The
concentrations of major anions (e.g., Cl??, F??, NO3?? and SO4
2??) were lower during higher flow due to dilution. Due to both sedimentation
of particles and dilution from tributaries the concentration of THg decreased from 2100 ng/L to background levels (< 50 ng/L) within
10 km distance downstream. Sedimentation is the main reason for the fast decrease of the concentration, it accounts for 69% and 60%
for higher flow and lower flow regimes respectively in the upper part of the stream. Speciation calculation of the dissolved Hg fraction
(DHg) (using Visual MINTEQ) showed that Hg(OH)2 associated with dissolved organic matter is the main form of Hg in dissolved
phase in surface waters in Wanshan (over 95%). 相似文献
With the development of ambient air quality standards (AAQS), the need arises to describe the characteristics of regional surface air-pollutant concentration frequency distributions. In the evaluation of land use plans, numerous agencies will be concerned with evaluating the effectiveness of emission zoning and/or control actions. On a regional basis, one means of performing this assessment lies in determining the changes in the pollutant frequency distributions resulting from control actions. This study presents new data concerning the surface air-pollutant concentration frequency distributions observed for area sources and continuous point sources, and compares these distributions with those of the pertinent meteorological variables describing the transport and diffusion of the pollutant. The observed surface air pollutant frequency distributions are compared to those corresponding to simple modeling concepts from either an urban area source or a continuous point source. For an urban source and a relatively inert pollutant like CO, we found that the observed frequency distribution for CO surface air concentration parallels the approximately log-normal frequency distribution of the reciprocal of the wind speed. We show that the constant relating these two well-correlated frequency distributions can be determined either experimentally or with a numerical simulation model of air pollution. The usefulness of numerical models in air pollution is discussed. 相似文献
In Switzerland many kinds of waste, e.g. paper, metals, electrical and electronic equipment are separately collected and recycled to a large extent. The residual amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) has to be thermally treated before final disposal. Efforts to recover valuable metals from incineration residues have recently increased. However, the resource potential of critical elements in the waste input (sources) and their partitioning into recyclable fractions and residues (fate) is unknown. Therefore, a substance flow analysis (SFA) for 31 elements including precious metals (Au, Ag), platinum metal group elements (Pt, Rh) and rare earth elements (La, Ce, etc.) has been conducted in a solid waste incinerator (SWI) with a state-of-the-art bottom ash treatment according to the Thermo-Re® concept. The SFA allowed the determination of the element partitioning in the SWI, as well as the elemental composition of the MSW by indirect analysis. The results show that the waste-input contains substantial quantities of precious metals, such as 0.4 ± 0.2 mg/kg Au and 5.3 ± 0.7 mg/kg Ag. Many of the valuable substances, such as Au and Ag are enriched in specific outputs (e.g. non-ferrous metal fractions) and are therefore recoverable. As the precious metal content in MSW is expected to rise due to its increasing application in complex consumer products, the results of this study are essential for the improvement of resource recovery in the Thermo-Re® process. 相似文献