蔬菜主要污染问题

根据国内外有关资料及杭州市菜区调查结果，讨论了重金属、硝酸盐、农药、氟化物、苯并（ａ）芘及塑料薄膜等对蔬菜污染的途径和危害，阐述了目前我国蔬菜所面临的主要污染问题。     

广东省农产品污染状况分析

对广东省农产品各主要污染物(重金属、农药、硝酸盐和氟化物)的污染状况进行了综述，同时对各污染物的来源、危害也进行了介绍。分析显示，韶关、茂名、广州等地的部分水稻、蔬菜以及珠海市场上的少数海鱼、甲壳类及贝壳类水产品Pb、Cd污染相当严重；茶叶农药残留超标率也逐年增加；尽管粮食作物、蔬菜的农药残留量有所下降，但有机磷等农药在蔬菜里的残留仍比较严重；此外，全省蔬菜还受到了硝酸盐和氟化物一定程度的污染。     

中国蔬菜重金属污染及控制

综述了近年来我国各大城市蔬菜中重金属污染状况和污染因素。表明,我国城市蔬菜中一些重金属如镉,铅等污染已不容忽视,探讨了蔬菜中重金属污染的控制方法及我国蔬菜中重金属污染的控制对策。     

大冶矿区土壤-蔬菜重金属污染特征及健康风险评价

对大冶铜绿山、铜山口矿区和非矿区的土壤、蔬菜重金属污染特征进行了分析,利用单因子污染指数及内梅罗综合污染指数法评价了土壤环境质量,并进一步分析了蔬菜重金属暴露接触对当地居民的健康风险.结果表明,矿区附近蔬菜地土壤均受到不同程度上的重金属污染,尤其是Cu和Cd的污染.非矿区蔬菜地土壤受到重金属的中度污染,主要是Cd污染.矿区蔬菜中Pb和Cd的含量均超过中国食品安全卫生标准,非矿区部分蔬菜中Pb和Cd的含量超标.矿区居民食用各种蔬菜均会产生Pb和Cd的健康风险.青少年儿童食用蔬菜比成年人更易受到重金属的危害.     

污泥对区域生态环境的影响

对上海某乡因施用大量污泥而造成的污染状况作跟踪调查研究和质量评价。研究对象为土壤、水稻和蔬菜，被研究的污染元素为Ｃｄ、Ｚｎ、Ｃｕ、Ｐｈ、Ｎｉ、Ｃｒ、Ｈｇ和Ａｓ．结果表明，该乡土壤为复合污染，Ｃｄ、Ｚｎ、Ｃｕ是主要污染元素．污泥施用越多的地区，水稻、蔬菜受污染就越严重，尤以Ｃｄ污染最为突出，超过了允许卫生标准。确定了污染村、污染程度和污染面积。     

中国蔬菜硝酸盐和亚硝酸盐污染机制及控制对策

综述了近十几年来我国城市蔬菜中硝酸盐和亚硝酸盐污染的调查结果,表明随着氮肥使用量的增大,蔬菜中硝酸协污染为严重,而亚硝酸盐污染也不容忽视。探讨了蔬菜受硝酸盐和亚硝酸盐污染的影响因素及控制对策。     

桂林市菜地土壤-蔬菜汞污染研究和评价

对桂林市近郊8个不同片区蔬菜产地的118个土壤样品和71个蔬菜样品中汞的含量水平进行了调查和分析。运用单因子污染指数法评价了菜地土壤一蔬菜中汞的污染现状。研究表明，桂林市及近郊菜地土壤和蔬菜已受到不同程度的汞污染，全市各片区菜地土壤汞含量平均值为0．098-0．523mg／kg，以国家土壤环境质量标准二级标准评价，土壤平均污染指数在0．33-1．74范围内，属非污染或轻污染状态，除穿山南片和纸马铺外，其余采样点均有样本超过国家二级标准，其中七星公园东北片的土壤汞超标率较高，达71．4％，污染情况比较均一；虞山桥东南岸土壤汞超标率较低，为33．3％，但土壤汞含量变异较大，说明污染情况变化大。全市各片区老菜的汞含量平均值为0．0625-0．128mg／kg，为国家标准GB2762—1994规定蔬菜汞含量(0．01mg／kg)的6．25—12．8倍，超标率已达100％。实验还发现，蔬菜中的汞含量与土壤中的汞含量具有显著的相关性，且蔬菜汞的大部分分布于地上部可食部分。分析了菜地土壤汞污染的主要原因，可能与使用含汞农药和生活垃圾肥有关。     

珠江三角洲典型地区蔬菜硝酸盐与亚硝酸盐污染评价

研究了珠江三角洲典型地区中山市大型蔬菜生产基地中9种蔬菜30个样品中硝酸盐与亚硝酸盐的污染现状,初步摸清了蔬菜中硝酸盐及亚硝酸盐的污染状况。并以WHO/FAO规定的日允许摄入量换算得到的标准评价了其主要蔬菜品种的硝酸盐污染状况。结果表明:在被调查的蔬菜中,硝酸盐含量由高到低依次为菜心→白菜>芥菜→空心菜→生菜→瓜果类,菜心、芥菜和白菜为严重污染,生菜与空心菜为重污染,瓜果类蔬菜为轻污染;亚硝酸盐含量普遍较低,均未超标。因而有必要采取有效的污染防治措施控制该地区蔬菜中的硝酸盐污染状况。     

湘中某工矿区农户菜园重金属污染分析与健康风险评价

为研究湘中某工矿区对周边农户菜园土壤和蔬菜的影响,采集矿区周边18个蔬菜样地15个品种计80个蔬菜样品,分析土壤及蔬菜中重金属Pb、Cd、Cu、Zn的含量,并采用污染指数法和健康风险评价模型对土壤和蔬菜重金属污染进行评价.研究表明,矿区蔬菜地土壤受到严重的重金属污染,Cd污染最为严重.从综合污染指数来看,蔬菜均受到中、重度污染,苋菜污染最严重.各元素在蔬菜中的富集能力大小为:Cd>Zn>Cu>Pb.重金属暴露接触对人体的风险评估结果表明,蔬菜可食部分Cd与Pb的危险度(HQ)均大于1,居民通过蔬菜途径摄入的Pb和Cd对人体健康存在较大的潜在风险.建议农户菜园在不能改制改种的情况下,种植根茎类蔬菜.     

珠江三角洲典型地区蔬菜重金属污染现状研究--以中山市和东莞市为例

以珠江三角洲典型地区中山市与东莞市为研究对象，通过对其大型蔬菜生产基地中10种蔬菜76个样品中重金属元素铬、铅、镉和汞的含量进行分析，初步摸清了珠江三角洲典型地区中山市与东莞市蔬菜中的重金属污染状况，并在不同城市不同蔬菜品种之间的污染程度进行了比较。结果表明，蔬菜中铬、铅、镉、汞的平均含量分别为0．1719、0．0962、0．0257和0.0014mg/kg，其中铬、铅、镉含量超出了国家卫生标准的允许量的蔬菜样品分别有1．3％、13，2％与13．2％；4种重金属在10种蔬菜中的平均残留量由大到小依次为：铬→铅→镉→汞；铅、镉是珠江三角洲典型地区中山市与东莞市蔬菜中的主要污染元素。     

Rapid,recurring, structured survey versus bioblitz for generating biodiversity data and analysis with a multispecies abundance model

A bioblitz inexpensively and quickly generates biodiversity data, but bioblitzes are often conducted with haphazard, unreplicated sampling. Results tend to be taxonomically, geographically, or temporally biased, lack metadata, and consist of lists of observed taxa that do not enable further analyses or correction for imperfect detection. A rapid, recurring, structured survey (RRSS) uses a structured sampling design and temporal and spatial replication to survey randomly selected sites on a conservation property. We participated in a loosely structured bioblitz and a subsequent RRSS at Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve in Springville (St. Clair County), Alabama (USA) to compare observed richness derived from the 2 survey approaches. The RRSS data structure enabled us to fit models that accounted for imperfect detection to estimate abundances, occupancy probabilities, and habitat associations. The loosely structured bioblitz data could not be used in such models. We present a new integrated multispecies abundance model that we applied to avian RRSS data. Our model extension enables estimation for the community, employs data augmentation to estimate the number of undetected species, and incorporates covariates. The RRSS generated a more comprehensive and less biased list of observed taxonomic richness than the loosely structured bioblitz (e.g., 73 vs. 45 bird species and 104 vs. 63 insect families from the RRSS vs. loosely structured bioblitz, respectively). Models fit to the RRSS data identified seasonal patterns in avian community composition and allowed for estimation of habitat–occupancy relationships for insect taxa. The RRSS protocol has potential for broad transferability as a standardized, quick, and inexpensive way to inventory biodiversity and estimate ecological parameters while providing an outreach opportunity.     

Compliance with and ecosystem function of biodiversity offsets in North American and European freshwaters

Land-use change via human development is a major driver of biodiversity loss. To reduce these impacts, billions of dollars are spent on biodiversity offsets. However, studies evaluating offset project effectiveness that examine components such as the overall compliance and function of projects remain rare. We reviewed 577 offsetting projects in freshwater ecosystems that included the metrics project size, type of aquatic system (e.g., wetland and creek), offsetting measure (e.g., enhancement, restoration, and creation), and an assessment of the projects’ compliance and functional success. Project information was obtained from scientific and government databases and gray literature. Despite considerable investment in offsetting projects, crucial problems persisted. Although compliance and function were related to each other, a high level of compliance did not guarantee a high degree of function. However, large projects relative to area had better function than small projects. Function improved when projects targeted productivity or specific ecosystem features and when multiple complementary management targets were in place. Restorative measures were more likely to achieve targets than creating entirely new ecosystems. Altogether the relationships we found highlight specific ecological processes that may help improve offsetting outcomes.     

Representation of the world's biophysical conditions by the global protected area network

Protected areas (PAs) are often implemented without consideration of already existing PAs, which is likely to cause an overrepresentation of certain biophysical conditions. We assessed the representativeness of the current PA network with regard to the world's biophysical conditions to highlight which conditions are underprotected and where these conditions are located. We overlaid terrestrial and marine PAs with information on biophysical conditions (e.g., temperature, precipitation, and elevation) and then quantified the percentage of area covered by the PA network. For 1 variable at a time in the terrestrial realm, high temperature, low precipitation, and medium and very high elevation were underrepresented. For the marine realm, low and medium sea surface temperature (SST), medium and high sea surface salinity (SSS), and the deep sea were underrepresented. Overall, protection was evenly distributed for elevation across the terrestrial realm and SST across the marine realm. For 2 variables at a time, cold and very dry terrestrial environments had mostly low protection, which was also the case for low SST and low and medium SSS across most depths for marine environments. Low protection occurred mostly in the Sahara and the Arabian Peninsula for the terrestrial realm and along the Tropic of Capricorn and toward the poles for the marine realm. Although biodiversity measures are of prime importance for the design of PA networks, highlighting biophysical gaps in current PAs adds a frequently overlooked perspective. These gaps may weaken the potential of PAs to conserve biodiversity. Thus, our results may provide useful insights for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to establish a more comprehensive global PA network.     

Quantitative composition of the defensive secretion ofBledius species (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Oxytelinae) is adapted to naturally occurring predators

Summary The adaptation of defensive secretions to their target organisms was examined for the abdominal gland secretions ofBledius furcatus, B. spectabilis andB. arenarius. Therefore the target organisms of the secretion of theseBledius species (i.e. their predators) had to be identified. At the collection sites examined these were the earwigLabidura riparia, the antCataglyphis bicolor, the flyLispe candicans, different carabids of the generaPogonus, Dichirotrichus, Dyschirius, Bembidion andCalathus and the wading birdsHaematopus ostralegus andCalidris alba. The secretion of the abdominal glands contains the toxin ptoluquinone dissolved in either-dodecalactone and 1-undecene (B. furcatus andB. spectabilis) or in octanoic acid and octyloctanoate (B. arenarius). The ratio of these solvents is species-specific. Application experiments using some of the natural insect predators (L. riparia, C. bicolor, Pogonus, Di. gustavii, Dyschirius) revealed that these solvent ratios provided a more effective deterrent than other possible ratios. Thus by combining the solvents in certain ratios, the capability of cuticular penetration and therefore the effectiveness of the defensive secretions are adapted to their natural targets.     

Democracy versus development: New urban debates

The politics of development includes subtexts of choice, as underpinned by community consensus (or lack of it), against the larger backdrop of a liberal democracy, with its intricate power structures that influence the choice of concepts and often lead to complicity rather than consent. A dilemma exists between the understanding of field-level practitioners and that of academics, whose understandings of progress differ. Progress can (and often does) imply long-term change across generations whereas development is often more a matter of crisis management and delivering tangible results to end-users. This makes it a bone of contention across political systems, irrespective of local or global dynamics. Development can emerge as a tool to be wielded for power and further political mileage at the expense of progress. Progress cannot be studied as a counterpoint to development as the sense of history is often missing in development interventions. Development tends to be piecemeal as its very logic often stems from the rationale of power. This is not to suggest, however, that development is only about politics; it is definitely more than the politics of everyday life and involves all of civil society that requires its critical and immediate attention. In this sense, it has become a priority for politicians with an underlying agenda designed to out-manouevre dissent and all statements of protest.     

A palaeo-hydrogeological model for arsenic contamination in southern and south-east Asia

An argument is presented in which areas of natural arsenic contamination of modern groundwaters throughout Asia have a common origin. Arsenic originally accumulated in oceanic ferro-manganoan sediments of the eastern Palaeo-Tethys. This was further concentrated through oceanic crustal extinction in what later became the south-east Chinese accreted mineralised terrain. Proto-Himalayan uplift of this area created the palaeo-drainage systems of the Ganges – Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Mekong, and Red Rivers, with consequent headwater erosion of arsenic-rich sediments. Their downstream deposition as immature and easily redistributed Neogene sandstones, silts, and iron-rich clays has created secondary and tertiary reservoirs of adsorbed and authigenic arsenic, from which the current arsenic-rich groundwaters have evolved. Considering river basins within the above palaeo-hydrogeological framework provides a basis for assessing the risk of arsenic in groundwater basins of south and south-eastern Asia.     

A framework to measure the wildness of managed large vertebrate populations

As landscapes continue to fall under human influence through habitat loss and fragmentation, fencing is increasingly being used to mitigate anthropogenic threats and enhance the commercial value of wildlife. Subsequent intensification of management potentially erodes wildness by disembodying populations from landscape-level processes, thereby disconnecting species from natural selection. Tools are needed to measure the degree to which populations of large vertebrate species in formally protected and privately owned wildlife areas are self-sustaining and free to adapt. We devised a framework to measure such wildness based on 6 attributes relating to the evolutionary and ecological dynamics of vertebrates (space, disease and parasite resistance, exposure to predation, exposure to limitations and fluctuations of food and water supply, and reproduction). For each attribute, we set empirical, species-specific thresholds between 5 wildness states based on quantifiable management interventions. We analysed data from 205 private wildlife properties with management objectives spanning ecotourism to consumptive utilization to test the framework on 6 herbivore species representing a range of conservation statuses and commercial values. Wildness scores among species differed significantly, and the proportion of populations identified as wild ranged from 12% to 84%, which indicates the tool detected site-scale differences both among populations of different species and populations of the same species under different management regimes. By quantifying wildness, this framework provides practitioners with standardized measurement units that link biodiversity with the sustainable use of wildlife. Applications include informing species management plans at local scales; standardizing the inclusion of managed populations in red-list assessments; and providing a platform for certification and regulation of wildlife-based economies. Applying this framework may help embed wildness as a normative value in policy and mitigate the shifting baseline of what it means to truly conserve a species.     

Sexual Predators,Energy Development,and Conservation in Greater Yellowstone

Abstract: In the United States, as elsewhere, a growing debate pits national energy policy and homeland security against biological conservation. In rural communities the extraction of fossil fuels is often encouraged because of the employment opportunities it offers, although the concomitant itinerant workforce is often associated with increased wildlife poaching. We explored possible positive and negative factors associated with energy extraction in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), an area known for its national parks, intact biological diversity, and some of the New World's longest terrestrial migrations. Specifically, we asked whether counties with different economies—recreation (ski), agrarian (ranching or farming), and energy extractive (petroleum)—differed in healthcare (gauged by the abundance of hospital beds) and in the frequency of sexual predators. The absolute and relative frequency of registered sex offenders grew approximately two to three times faster in areas reliant on energy extraction. Healthcare among counties did not differ. The strong conflation of community dishevel, as reflected by in‐migrant sexual predators, and ecological decay in Greater Yellowstone is consistent with patterns seen in similar systems from Ecuador to northern Canada, where social and environmental disarray exist around energy boomtowns. In our case, that groups (albeit with different aims) mobilized campaigns to help maintain the quality of rural livelihoods by protecting open space is a positive sign that conservation can matter, especially in the face of rampant and poorly executed energy extraction projects. Our findings further suggest that the public and industry need stronger regulatory action to instill greater vigilance when and where social factors and land conversion impact biological systems.     

Cost‐effective conservation of an endangered frog under uncertainty

How should managers choose among conservation options when resources are scarce and there is uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of actions? Well‐developed tools exist for prioritizing areas for one‐time and binary actions (e.g., protect vs. not protect), but methods for prioritizing incremental or ongoing actions (such as habitat creation and maintenance) remain uncommon. We devised an approach that combines metapopulation viability and cost‐effectiveness analyses to select among alternative conservation actions while accounting for uncertainty. In our study, cost‐effectiveness is the ratio between the benefit of an action and its economic cost, where benefit is the change in metapopulation viability. We applied the approach to the case of the endangered growling grass frog (Litoria raniformis), which is threatened by urban development. We extended a Bayesian model to predict metapopulation viability under 9 urbanization and management scenarios and incorporated the full probability distribution of possible outcomes for each scenario into the cost‐effectiveness analysis. This allowed us to discern between cost‐effective alternatives that were robust to uncertainty and those with a relatively high risk of failure. We found a relatively high risk of extinction following urbanization if the only action was reservation of core habitat; habitat creation actions performed better than enhancement actions; and cost‐effectiveness ranking changed depending on the consideration of uncertainty. Our results suggest that creation and maintenance of wetlands dedicated to L. raniformis is the only cost‐effective action likely to result in a sufficiently low risk of extinction. To our knowledge we are the first study to use Bayesian metapopulation viability analysis to explicitly incorporate parametric and demographic uncertainty into a cost‐effective evaluation of conservation actions. The approach offers guidance to decision makers aiming to achieve cost‐effective conservation under uncertainty.     

Comparison of the insecticidal effects of water extracted and intact aromatic plants onAcanthoscelides obtectus,a bruchid beetle pest of kidney beans

Summary Acanthoscelides obtectus (Say) is one of the most damaging pests of kidney beans,Phaseolus vulgaris L. worldwide. However, aromatic plants from the families Lamiaceae, Lauraceae, Myrtaceae and Poaceae can protect kidney beans by direct or delayed insecticidal effect, through increased adult mortality and inhibition of beetle reproduction (both oviposition and adult emergence). The efficiency of hydrodistillated and intact plants fromThymus vulgaris andT. serpyllum, Mentha piperata, Rosmarinus officinalis, Satureia hortensis, Eucalyptus globulus, Laurus nobilis, Origanum vulgare, andCymbopogon nardus was compared. For both extracts,Origanum vulgare had the best effect. The insecticidal effect was induced by more than the essential oils because no significant difference was noticed between distilled and intact plants extract. Inhibition of reproduction was particularly important. These results suggest that lipidic as well as non lipidic, allelochemicals, such as phenolics, or non-protein amino-acids, or flavonoids may be involved in the toxicity of aromatic plants to this beetle.