Dynamics of the Community of Hole-nesting Birds upon Reduction of Industrial Emissions (the Example of the Middle Ural Copper Smelter)

Russian Journal of Ecology - The dynamics of the species richness, breeding density, and structure of the community of birds occupying nest-boxes upon a 50-fold reduction of atmospheric emissions...     

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.     

Optimizing the removal of small fish passage barriers

Removing small artificial barriers that hinder upstream migrations of fish is a major problem in riparian habitat restoration. Because of budgetary limitations, it is necessary to prioritize barrier removal and repair decisions. These have usually been based on scoring and ranking procedures, which, although simple to use, can be very inefficient in terms of increasing the amount of accessible instream habitat. We develop a novel decision-making approach, based on integer programming techniques, which optimizes repair and removal decisions. Results show based on real datasets of barrier culverts located in Washington State that scoring and ranking is over 25% below the optimum on average and a full 100% below in the worst case, producing no net habitat gain whatsoever. This is compared to a dynamic programming method that was able to find optimal solutions in less than a second, even for problems with up to several hundred variables, and a heuristic method, which found solutions with less than a 1% average optimality gap in even less time.     

Novel synthesis blends between bacterial polyesters and acrylic rubber: A study on enzymatic biodegradation

The biodegradability of a multicomponent system based on biotechnological occurring polyester (poly(-hydroxybutyrate-co--hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV)) with inclusion of acrylate elastomer (polybutylacrylate) (PBA) was investigated. A bacterium which produced extracellular enzymes that degrades PHBV even when blended with PBA was isolated and tentatively designated asAureobacterium saperdae. It was observed, by morphological investigation, that, while the bacterial degradation was permitted for PBA content of 20% by weight, it was inhibited for PBA content of 30%, owing to the occurrence of a rubbery layer that prevents to the bacteria an easy accessibility in the PHBV-rich regions. In fact, owing the bacterial growth, only PHBV was metabolized, whereas no degradation of PBA was detected for blend samples. It was confirmed that the degradation proceeded via surface erosion of PHBV also in the blends. Finally, mechanical tests on PHBV/PBA specimens as a function of degradation extent have shown different behavior of the blends at different the PBA content. Thermal analysis of blends and PHBV has been reported, too     

Domestic UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol Mechanisms Project Supply Coordination Through Tendering – Lessons from the New Zealand Experience

A United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Joint Implementation (JI) host country has to make sure that JI projects are additional to avoid extra costs to generate the reductions necessary to cover the deduction of Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) from the country’s Kyoto Protocol emissions budget. A tender of ERUs by the government allows to generate additional reductions beyond the ERUs issued if it thoroughly checks project additionality. The government of New Zealand is running a tender for JI projects under the title “Projects to Reduce Emissions” since 2003. In two rounds, 10 million ERUs have been awarded and several projects have already entered into contracts with European buyers. The ratio of ERUs awarded to reductions achieved was 0.8 in the second tender. However it remains to be seen whether the additionality test of this tender is sufficient to exclude clearly non-additional projects.     

Age-related decline in metabolic competence of small and medium-sized synaptic mitochondria

A computer-assisted morphometric investigation of cytochrome oxidase (COX) activity, selectively evidenced by preferential diaminobenzidine cytochemistry, has been carried out on synaptic mitochondria in the cerebellar cortex of adult and old rats. The ratio (R) of the area of the cytochemical precipitate (CPA) to the overall area of each mitochondrion (MA) was calculated. R refers to the fraction of the inner mitochondrial membrane actively involved in cellular respiration, thus its quantitative estimation constitutes a reliable index of the mitochondrial metabolic competence (MMC). In adult rats a significant negative correlation between MA and R values was found, while in old animals there was just a positive trend. Paired-quartile comparisons of R values showed a significant age-related decrease in small and medium-sized mitochondria, whereas the lowest and not significant age-related reduction was found in oversized organelles. A paired decrease in number and increase in size is reported to be a general trend for mitochondria during aging, but oversized organelles, according to their low R value, constitute a scanty, though functional, compensating reaction. Thus, the present findings support the argument that the currently reported age-related cellular metabolic decay appears to rely both on the decline in MMC of the small and medium-sized mitochondria, and on their specific reduction in number. This novel result is of biological relevance since it is largely the small and medium-sized mitochondria that are required for the provision of adequate amounts of ATP for actual cellular performance, while the significantly enlarged organelles are thought to represent an intermediate ultrastructural feature in mitochondrial genesis and/or remodelling.     

A participatory approach to the establishment of a baseline scenario for a reforestation Clean Development Mechanism project

This paper is part of a two-year study to investigate the feasibility of initiating a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in an indigenous community of Eastern Panamá, Ipetí-Emberá. We use participatory mapping and matrices as well as household surveys to develop a land-use/land-cover baseline scenario and examine the role of local participation in assessing land-use change. In Ipetí, land-use change has not occurred in a linear way over the last decades, and our data unveils socio-economic factors as potential key drivers of change. The concordance that we observed between geographic information and individual and collective perceptions of land-use change substantiates the possibility of using local knowledge in the establishment of baseline data for CDM projects. Our calculations suggest that the total carbon (C) stocks in the Tierra Colectiva (TC) of Ipetí-Emberá in 2004 represents a 47% reduction from the estimated C stock at the onset of settlement in the early 1970’s. Results from the participatory assessments predict that, in 2024 and in absence of a CDM project, the C stocks will decline from 301,859 t C in 2004 to 155,730 t C, which constitutes a reduction of 52%. The scenario with CDM estimates C stocks of 305,853 t C for 2024, a value slightly superior to the 2004 value. In the TC there is ground to believe that cattle ranching is likely to become an ever more important activity as the population is young and growing and cannot easily move elsewhere. Forests tend to be cleared for cultivation while pastures are established on short fallows. Our baseline scenario underlines the potential for a CDM project to make a significant difference in the future C stocks of this landscape.