What is ‘normative’ at cooling water intakes? Defining normalcy before judging adverse

Judgments of adverse environmental impact from cooling water intake structures need to be preceded by an appreciation of what is normal. In its report, Return to the River, the Independent Scientific Group (now called the Independent Scientific Advisory Board) — the scientific peer review arm of the Northwest Power Planning Council — advanced the notion of a ‘normative river ecosystem’ as a new conceptual foundation for salmonid recovery in the Columbia River basin. With this perspective, the sum of the best scientific understanding of how organisms and aquatic ecosystems function should be the norm or standard of measure for how we judge the effects of human activities on aquatic systems. For the best likelihood of recovery, key aspects of altered systems should be brought back toward normative (although not necessarily fully back to the historical or pristine state); new alterations should be judged for adversity by how much they move key attributes away from normative or what might be considered normal. In this paper, I ask what ‘normative’ is for the setting of cooling water intake structures and how this concept could help resolve long-standing disputes between groups interested in avoiding damage to all organisms that might be entrained or impinged and those who take a more population or community perspective for judging adverse environmental impact. In essence, I suggest that if a water intake does not move the aquatic ecosystem outside the ‘normative’ range, based on expressions of normalcy such as those discussed, then no adverse impact has occurred. Having an explicit baseline in normal or normative would place 316(b) analyses on the same conceptual foundation as 316(a) analyses, which strive to demonstrate the continuation of a balanced, indigenous community of aquatic organisms at the power station location.     

Induced resistance enzymes in wild plants–do ‘early birds’ escape from pathogen attack?

Systemic acquired resistance (SAR) of plants to pathogens is a well-defined phenomenon. The underlying signalling pathways and its application in crop protection are intensively studied. However, most studies are conducted on crop plants or on Arabidopsis as a model plant. The taxonomic distribution of this phenomenon and its dependence on life history are thus largely unknown. We quantified activities of three classes of resistance-related enzymes in 18 plant species to investigate whether plants with varying life histories differ in their investment in disease resistance. Enzyme activities were quantified in untreated plants, and in plants induced with BION, a chemical resistance elicitor. All species showed constitutive activities of chitinase, peroxidase, or glucanase. However, constitutive chitinase activities varied by 30 times, and peroxidase by 50 times, among species. Several species did not respond to the induction treatment, while enzyme activities in other species increased more than threefold after BION application. Plant species differ dramatically in the presence and inducibility of resistance enzymes. This variation could be related to life history: While all resistance enzymes were significantly induced in larger perennial plants that flower during summer, spring geophytes hardly showed inducible resistance. These plants grow in an environment that is characterised by a low-pathogen pressure, and thus may simply ‘escape’ from infection. Our study presents the first comparative data set on resistance-related enzymes in noncultivated plants. The current view on SAR—narrowed by the concentration on cultivated crops—is not sufficient to understand the ecological and evolutionary relevance of this widespread plant trait.     

Coping with the ‘Indian summer’: unique nesting cycle and nest architecture of the paper wasp,Polistes wattii

The Science of Nature - Leaf-cutting ants are highly successful herbivores in the Neotropics. They forage large amounts of fresh plant material to nourish a symbiotic fungus that sustains the...     

Should we ‘open the kimono’ to release the results of rare autosomal aneuploidies following noninvasive prenatal whole genome sequencing?

The metaphor ‘open kimono’ has been applied in the business world to connote transparency via the release of all available data to an external party. Here, the author uses this term to discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of reporting on the presence of rare autosomal aneuploidies detected by massively parallel sequencing of placental cell-free DNA in the plasma of pregnant women. Newly presented data sets from multiple laboratories suggest that autosomal aneuploidies such as trisomies 7, 15, 16, 22, and 8 are easily detectable and are potentially associated with fetal growth restriction, pregnancy loss, and maternal preeclampsia. Furthermore, they may explain false positive results for the common autosomal trisomies (13, 18, and 21) as well as test failures. Thus, release of this information may result in improved clinical utility. At the present time, however, professional societies in various parts of the world differ in their recommendations as to whether or not to release expanded autosomal aneuploidy results beyond the common trisomies. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is the ‘Lost World’ really lost? Palaeoecological insights into the origin of the peculiar flora of the Guayana Highlands

The peculiar biogeography of the so-called Lost World, i.e. the summits of sandstone tableaux (tepuis) in the Neotropical Guyana region of Venezuela, has generated a debate regarding the factors that are thought to account for modern vegetation patterns in the region. Some argue that plant communities on these high-elevation summits reflect a long history of evolution in isolation, while others surmise that there has been substantial biotic interchange with the surrounding lowlands during glacial times. Until now, these apparently competing hypotheses have not been tested using palaeoecological methods. I used pollen analysis of Quaternary sediments and documented past vertical migrations of vegetation in response to climate changes, which supports the second hypothesis. Physiographical analysis, however, shows that about half the tableaux summits are too high for their flora to have reached the lowlands during the last glaciation, suggesting that a portion of the tableaux vegetation has always experienced some degree of biotic isolation. Thus, a component of the summit vegetation evolved in isolation, whereas other taxa experienced interchange, as reflected in endemism patterns among the tableaux summits. Biogeographical patterns on the summits are the result of complex evolutionary processes. The two hypotheses invoked to explain the vegetation patterns are not mutually exclusive, but instead complement one another.     

Parent–offspring communication in the Nile crocodile <Emphasis Type="Italic">Crocodylus niloticus</Emphasis>: do newborns’ calls show an individual signature?

Young Nile crocodiles Crocodylus niloticus start to produce calls inside the egg and carry on emitting sounds after hatching. These vocalizations elicit maternal care and influence the behaviour of other juveniles. In order to investigate the acoustic structure of these calls, focusing on a possible individual signature, we have performed acoustic analyses on 400 calls from ten young crocodiles during the first 4 days after hatching. Calls have a complex acoustic structure and are strongly frequency modulated. We assessed the differences between the calls of the individuals. We found a weak individual signature. An individual call-based recognition of young by the mother is thus unlikely. In other respects, the call acoustic structure changes from the first to the fourth day after hatching: fundamental frequency progressively decreases. These modifications might provide important information to the mother about her offspring—age and size—allowing her to customize her protective care to best suit the needs of each individual. Electronic supplementary material  Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at and is accessible for authorized users.     

Reprint of: ‘Heimat’ as a boundary object? Exploring the potentialities of a boundary object to instigate productive science-stakeholder interaction in North Frisia (Germany)

The North Frisian Wadden Sea represents one of the best researched natural regions in the world. Since the end of the 1980s, scientific research has been carried out to scientifically study, analyse and assess this intertidal coastal zone under the conceptual umbrella of ecosystem research. The outcome of this assessment materialised in the establishment of the Nationalpark Schleswig-Holsteinisches Wattenmeer. Its implementation caused considerable conflicts between coastal inhabitants, national park authorities and government officials. Arguments in these disputes revolved around the validity and relevance of scientific knowledge generated to assess and legitimately protect the tidelands and areas of the Waddensea. In summary, the whole implementation process was locally perceived as a politically endorsed top-down enforcement strategy only allowing scientific knowledge for decision-making purposes while local concerns and ‘knowledges’ were not included. To learn from these developments and past mistakes, we compare concepts of co-management, boundary work and boundary objects (BO) to theoretically and methodologically explore their potentials to generate shared meanings and instigate communication in the context of future managing purposes. Against this theoretical background, we propose the empirical show-case example of the German concept of ‘Heimat’ as a BO to assess its applicability to study place-based meanings and to illustrate it as a practice-oriented point of entry to initiate productive science-stakeholder interaction (SSI) in managing the North Frisian Wadden Sea.