Understanding implications of consumer behavior for wildlife farming and sustainable wildlife trade

Unsustainable wildlife trade affects biodiversity and the livelihoods of communities dependent upon those resources. Wildlife farming has been proposed to promote sustainable trade, but characterizing markets and understanding consumer behavior remain neglected but essential steps in the design and evaluation of such operations. We used sea turtle trade in the Cayman Islands, where turtles have been farm raised for human consumption for almost 50 years, as a case study to explore consumer preferences toward wild‐sourced (illegal) and farmed (legal) products and potential conservation implications. Combining methods innovatively (including indirect questioning and choice experiments), we conducted a nationwide trade assessment through in‐person interviews from September to December 2014. Households were randomly selected using disproportionate stratified sampling, and responses were weighted based on district population size. We approached 597 individuals, of which 37 (6.2%) refused to participate. Although 30% of households had consumed turtle in the previous 12 months, the purchase and consumption of wild products was rare (e.g., 64–742 resident households consumed wild turtle meat [i.e., 0.3–3.5% of households] but represented a large threat to wild turtles in the area due to their reduced populations). Differences among groups of consumers were marked, as identified through choice experiments, and price and source of product played important roles in their decisions. Despite the long‐term practice of farming turtles, 13.5% of consumers showed a strong preference for wild products, which demonstrates the limitations of wildlife farming as a single tool for sustainable wildlife trade. By using a combination of indirect questioning, choice experiments, and sales data to investigate demand for wildlife products, we obtained insights about consumer behavior that can be used to develop conservation‐demand‐focused initiatives. Lack of data from long‐term social–ecological assessments hinders the evaluation of and learning from wildlife farming. This information is key to understanding under which conditions different interventions (e.g., bans, wildlife farming, social marketing) are likely to succeed.     

走滑断层作用下X80管道设计应变规律和神经网络预测

走滑断层是埋地管道常见的地质灾害威胁，断层作用下管道会发生较大的拉压应变而失效。为得到X80管道的设计应变，基于有限元方法建立了走滑断层作用下管道的应变响应数值计算模型，模型使用壳单元模拟管道，非线性弹簧单元模拟土壤约束，采用西二线实际工程的管道应变影响参数范围，计算了管道的设计应变；为预测管道的设计应变值，基于以上参数化分析得到的4 817组设计应变结果，采用人工神经网络建立了管道设计应变预测模型。结果表明:该神经网络模型预测结果的最大相对误差小于10%，预测准确性良好，且该方法具有较高的计算效率，可以为断层作用下埋地管道的应变设计与评估提供参考。     

家用洗涤剂中特征污染物的检测及潜在风险研究

家用洗涤剂的特征污染物磷与表面活性剂随废水排入环境水体造成水体溶解氧下降、富营养化,破坏水生生态环境。从北京市三个具有代表性的市场购买洗衣液、洗衣粉、洗衣皂和洗洁精四种形态的家用洗涤剂共40个样本,并对其中磷与阴离子表面活性剂(LAS)含量进行检测。结果显示,所有衣用洗涤剂总P2O5含量均小于1.1%,符合无磷洗涤剂国家标准(GB/T 13171.2-2009);而LAS含量差异较大,范围为6.9%~31.4%,基本趋势是洗洁精洗衣液洗衣粉;经估算,洗涤等量衣物,洗衣液的LAS排放量比洗衣粉高49.1%,北京市每年家用洗涤剂LAS产生量至少为1.23万吨;经检测蓟运河北京段水样,61.5%的样点水样中LAS含量达到III类水质标准,但局部地区污染仍较为严重,污染风险不可忽视。     

表面活性剂Burkholderia xenoborans LB400体系对低氯代PCBs的好氧强化降解

增强多氯联苯(PCBs)的水溶性是强化PCBs微生物降解的主要控制因素之一,本研究选取了PCB5(2,3-CB)和PCB31(2,4',5-CB)作为低氯代PCBs的典型代表,以曲拉通100(TX-100)、吐温80(Tween 80)、鼠李糖脂粗提物(RL crude)3种表面活性剂和β-环糊精( HPCD)联合Burkholderia xenoνorans LB400构建PCBs好氧降解体系,测试了它们对PCB5和PCB31的溶出率及微生物生长的影响.结果表明,TX-100(CMC＝194 mg·L-1)、 Tween 80(CMC＝13.1 mg·L-1)、 RL crude(CMC＝50 mg·L-1)浓度在1~7 CMC 时和 HPCD 浓度在500~1500 mg·L-1时对 PCB5和 PCB31溶出率分别达到54.7％~100％、59.8％~100％;10.5％~40.8％、6.8％~31.6％;10.3％~19.9％、3.3％~11.6％和19.5％~34.2％、4.2％~10.7％. TX-100浓度在1~7 CMC时对B. xenoνorans LB400生长的抑制率达到30.3％~45.8％,而Tween 80浓度在0.1~1 CMC时对其生长的抑制率为10.0％~15.4％; RL crude 本身能作为底物促进 LB400的生长,而 HPCD 对其生长无明显影响. B. xenoνorans LB400对PCB31(5 mg·L-1)的降解效率在添加表面活性剂后有不同程度的提高：TX-100,23.7％~65.5％; Tween 80,14.6％~44.3％;RL crude,9.6％~27.2％;HPCD,15.3％~20.7％;而表面活性剂对PCB5(10 mg·L-1)的降解效率则无明显影响.表面活性剂主要通过增大溶液中PCBs-表面活性剂的胶束浓度来提高LB400对PCBs的降解效率,在水溶液培养体系中当设置TX-100和Tween 80浓度分别在1和7 CMC时,PCB31的降解效率达到100％和81.7％,而此时B. xenoνorans LB400生长的抑制率为30.3％和5.4％.     

改性氢氧化镁制备及其去除地下水中Cr3+性能研究

氢氧化镁作为一种可缓慢释放OH-的碱,能使多数重金属离子转换为沉淀,而且不会引起太大的pH变化.但氢氧化镁难溶于水,在含水层中的迁移能力很差.若要用于地下水重金属污染修复,需要对氢氧化镁进行改性.因此,本文利用表面活性剂对氢氧化镁粉末进行改性,合成了氢氧化镁胶体,并对改性氢氧化镁的稳定性、粒度及其对Cr3+的稳定化效果进行了分析.结果表明,复配表面活性剂改性的氢氧化镁悬浮液稳定性好,粒径小,0.6~8.4μm的颗粒占82.41%.利用改性氢氧化镁对Cr3+污染地下水进行处理,其对Cr3+的去除机理主要为沉淀反应,氢氧化镁和Cr3+反应的质量比约为1.333∶1,氢氧化镁和初始Cr3+浓度对Cr3+的去除效果都有较大的影响.     

土壤颗粒对纳米TiO_2悬浮稳定性作用机制的实验研究

在不含表面活性剂和含有表面活性剂两种条件下,研究了土壤颗粒对纳米TiO2(nTiO2)悬浮稳定性的影响.结果表明,土壤颗粒降低了nTiO2在水相中的悬浮稳定性.当体系中不含表面活性剂时,nTiO2在土壤大颗粒上的沉积是导致nTiO2脱稳沉淀的主要原因.在含有表面活性剂的溶液中,土壤颗粒降低nTiO2悬浮稳定性的作用变得更加明显了.一方面,表面活性剂加速了土壤颗粒本身的沉降从而增强了nTiO2在其中的沉降,另一方面,表面活性剂在土壤上的强烈吸附促进了表面活性剂-nTiO2在土壤上的沉积.扫描电镜显示,nTiO2不仅吸附在土壤大颗粒上,还会吸附在土壤小颗粒表面.3种表面活性剂中,十六烷基三甲基溴化铵(CTAB)悬浮的nTiO2与土壤颗粒共沉淀现象最明显.除了土壤对CTAB的吸附作用之外,XDLVO/DLVO能量计算显示CTAB体系中土壤颗粒与nTiO2之间存在显著第二极小值,表明nTiO2能够在第二极小值位置与土壤颗粒结合,从而与土壤颗粒一起快速沉淀.     

Quantifying progress toward a conservation assessment for all plants

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) set an ambitious target to achieve a conservation assessment for all known plant species by 2020. We consolidated digitally available plant conservation assessments and reconciled their scientific names and assessment status to predefined standards to provide a quantitative measure of progress toward this target. The 241,919 plant conservation assessments generated represent 111,824 accepted land plant species (vascular plants and bryophytes, not algae). At least 73,081 and up to 90,321 species have been assessed at the global scale, representing 21–26% of known plant species. Of these plant species, at least 27,148 and up to 32,542 are threatened. Eighty plant families, including some of the largest, such as Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, and Rubiaceae, are underassessed and should be the focus of assessment effort if the GSPC target is to be met by 2020. Our data set is accessible online (ThreatSearch) and is a baseline that can be used to directly support other GSPC targets and plant conservation action. Although around one‐quarter of a million plant assessments have been compiled, the majority of plants are still unassessed. The challenge now is to build on this progress and redouble efforts to document conservation status of unassessed plants to better inform conservation decisions and conserve the most threatened species.     

Landscape consequences of aggregation rules for functional equivalence in compensatory mitigation programs

Mitigation and offset programs designed to compensate for ecosystem function losses due to development must balance losses from affected ecosystems with gains in restored ecosystems. Aggregation rules applied to ecosystem functions to assess site equivalence are based on implicit assumptions about the substitutability of functions among sites and can profoundly influence the distribution of restored ecosystem functions on the landscape. We investigated the consequences of rules applied to the aggregation of ecosystem functions for wetland offsets in the Beaverhill watershed in Alberta, Canada. We considered the fate of 3 ecosystem functions: hydrology, water purification, and biodiversity. We set up an affect‐and‐offset algorithm to simulate the effect of aggregation rules on ecosystem function for wetland offsets. Cobenefits and trade‐offs among functions and the constraints posed by the quantity and quality of restorable sites resulted in a redistribution of functions between affected and offset wetlands. Hydrology and water purification functions were positively correlated with one another and negatively correlated with biodiversity function. Weighted‐average rules did not replace functions in proportion to their weights. Rules prioritizing biodiversity function led to more monofunctional wetlands and landscapes. The minimum rule, for which the wetland score was equal to the worst performing function, promoted multifunctional wetlands and landscapes. The maximum rule, for which the wetland score was equal to the best performing function, promoted monofunctional wetlands and multifunctional landscapes. Because of implicit trade‐offs among ecosystem functions, no‐net‐loss objectives for multiple functions should be constructed within a landscape context. Based on our results, we suggest criteria for the design of aggregation rules for no net loss of ecosystem functions within a landscape context include the concepts of substitutability, cobenefits and trade‐offs, landscape constraints, heterogeneity, and the precautionary principle.     

吐温80与氢氧化钠耦合强化剩余污泥溶胞效果的研究

利用吐温80的润湿、渗透作用,将其与氢氧化钠耦合应用于剩余污泥的溶胞。结果表明,吐温80的存在能有效提高氢氧化钠对剩余污泥的溶胞效果;而同样的溶胞效果下,吐温80的存在能降低溶胞的环境温度。吐温80与氢氧化钠耦合剩余污泥溶胞工艺的最佳工艺条件为：吐温80投加量100 mg/L、作用时间15 min,先加吐温80再加氢氧...     

Mesoporous carbon nanomaterials induced pulmonary surfactant inhibition, cytotoxicity, inflammation and lung fibrosis

Environmental exposure and health risk upon engineered nanomaterials are increasingly concerned. The family of mesoporous carbon nanomaterials(MCNs) is a rising star in nanotechnology for multidisciplinary research with versatile applications in electronics,energy and gas storage, and biomedicine. Meanwhile, there is mounting concern on their environmental health risks due to the growing production and usage of MCNs. The lung is the primary site for particle invasion under environmental exposure to nanomaterials. Here, we studied the comprehensive toxicological profile of MCNs in the lung under the scenario of moderate environmental exposure. It was found that at a low concentration of 10 μg/mL MCNs induced biophysical inhibition of natural pulmonary surfactant. Moreover, MCNs at similar concentrations reduced viability of J774 A.1 macrophages and lung epithelial A549 cells.Incubating with nature pulmonary surfactant effectively reduced the cytotoxicity of MCNs.Regarding the pro-inflammatory responses, MCNs activated macrophages in vitro, and stimulated lung inflammation in mice after inhalation exposure, associated with lung fibrosis.Moreover, we found that the size of MCNs played a significant role in regulating cytotoxicity and pro-inflammatory potential of this nanomaterial. In general, larger MCNs induced more pronounced cytotoxic and pro-inflammatory effects than their smaller counterparts. Our results provided valuable information on the toxicological profile and environmental health risks of MCNs, and suggested that fine-tuning the size of MCNs could be a practical precautionary design strategy to increase safety and biocompatibility of this nanomaterial.