Environmental feedbacks in temperate aquatic ecosystems under global change: why do we need to consider chemical stressors?

Regional Environmental Change - Globally increasing temperature and modifications in precipitation patterns induce major environmental alterations in aquatic ecosystems. Particularly profound...     

Soil microbial response to waste potassium silicate drilling fluid

Potassium silicate drilling fluids (PSDF) are a waste product of the oil and gas industry with potential for use in land reclamation. Few studies have examined the influence of PSDF on abundance and composition of soil bacteria and fungi. Soils from three representative locations for PSDF application in Alberta, Canada, with clay loam, loam and sand textures were studied with applications of unused, used once and used twice PSDF. For all three soils, applying ≥ 40 m³/ha of used PSDF significantly affected the existing soil microbial flora. No microbiota was detected in unused PSDF without soil. Adding used PSDF to soil significantly increased total fungal and aerobic bacterial colony forming units in dilution plate counts, and anaerobic denitrifying bacteria numbers in serial growth experiments. Used PSDF altered bacterial and fungal colony forming unit ratios of all three soils.     

Spatial and temporal land use and carbon stock changes in Uganda: implications for a future REDD strategy

Using a map overlay procedure in a Geographical Information System environment, we quantify and map major land use and land cover (LULC) change patterns in Uganda period 1990–2005 and determine whether the transitions were random or systematic. The analysis reveals that the most dominant systematic land use change processes were deforestation (woodland to subsistence farmland—3.32%); forest degradation (woodland to bushland (4.01%) and grassland (4.08%) and bush/grassland conversion to cropland (5.5%) all resulting in a net reduction in forests (6.1%). Applying an inductive approach based on logistic regression and trend analyses of observed changes we analyzed key drivers of LULC change. Significant predictors of forest land use change included protection status, market access, poverty, slope, soil quality and presence/absence of a stream network. Market access, poverty and population all decreased the log odds of retaining forests. In addition, poverty also increased the likelihood of degradation. An increase in slope decreased the likelihood of deforestation. Using the stock change and gain/loss approaches we estimated the change in forest carbon stocks and emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Results indicate a negligible increase in forest carbon stocks (3,260 t C yr-1) in the period 1990–2005 when compared to the emissions due to deforestation and forest degradation (2.67 million t C yr-1). In light of the dominant forest land use change patterns, the drivers and change in carbon stocks, we discuss options which could be pursued to implement a future national REDD plus strategy which considers livelihood, biodiversity and climate change mitigation objectives.     

Superfund site remediation by landfilling—overview of landfill design,operation, closure,and postclosure issues

This article discusses the appropriateness of using landfills as part of remediating hazardous chemical and Superfund sites, with particular emphasis on providing for true long‐term public health and environmental protection from the wastes and contaminated soils that are placed in the landfills. On‐site landfilling or capping of existing wastes is typically the least expensive approach for gaining some remediation of existing hazardous chemical/Superfund sites. The issues of the deficiencies in US EPA and state landfilling approaches discussed herein are also applicable to the landfilling of municipal and industrial solid “nonhazardous” wastes. These deficiencies were presented in part as “Problems with Landfills for Superfund Site Remediation” at the US EPA National Superfund Technical Assistance Grant Workshop held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in February 2003. They are based on the author's experience in investigating the properties of landfill liners and the characteristics of today's landfills, relative to their ability to prevent groundwater pollution and to cause other environmental impacts. Discussed are issues related to both solid and hazardous waste landfills and approaches for improving the ability of landfills to contain wastes and monitor for leachate escape from the landfill for as long as the wastes in the landfill will be a threat. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Two decision analysis approaches: Choosing a chemical analysis method

This article illustrates how two different decision analysis (DA) methods can be used to assist in making environmental remediation decisions. The two DA methods are Multiattribute Utility Theory (MAUT) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). MAUT and AHP differ greatly in their underlying philosophies. MAUT employs an interval scale and constructs utility functions that quantify the total utility to the decision maker of each technology alternative; AHP employs a ratio scale and uses pairwise comparisons to produce a final ranking of the alternatives that reflects the decision maker's comparative preferences. In this study, the same technology was ranked first by both methods; however, the remaining rankings did not agree. Also, statistical analysis indicated that some score differences may be statistically insignificant. These results are presented and discussed along with a comparison of the features, advantages, and disadvantages of these two DA approaches.     

The hypoxia avoidance behaviour of juvenile Atlantic cod (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Gadus morhua</Emphasis> L.) depends on the provision and pressure level of an O<Subscript>2</Subscript> refuge

The frequency of low O₂ (hypoxia) has increased in coastal marine areas but how fish avoid deleterious water masses is not yet clear. To assess whether the presence and oxygen pressure (PO₂) level of an O₂ refuge affects the hypoxia avoidance behaviour of fish, individual Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.) were exposed to a range of O₂ choices in a 2-way choice chamber at 11.4°C over two different experiments. Cod in the first experiment were allowed access to a fixed O₂ refuge (fully air-saturated seawater) whilst oxygen pressure (PO₂) on the other side was reduced in steps to a critically low level, i.e. 4.3 kPa—a point where cod can no longer regulate O₂ consumption. Under these conditions, cod did not avoid any level of hypoxia and fish swimming speed also remained unchanged. In contrast, strong avoidance reactions were exhibited in a second experiment when fish were again exposed to 4.3 kPa but the safety, i.e. PO₂, of the refuge was reduced. Fish not only spent less time at 4.3 kPa as a result of fewer sampling visits but they also swam at considerably slower speeds. The presence of an avoidance response was thus strongly related to refuge PO₂ and it is unlikely that cod, and possibly other fish species, would enter low O₂ to feed in the wild if a sufficiently safe O₂ refuge was not available. It is therefore hypothesized that the feeding range of fish may be heavily compressed if hypoxia expands and intensifies in future years.     

Land Use Changes in Regional Economic Theory

Land use and land cover changes are a major source of environmental degradation and therefore a serious issue in sustainable development studies and in the integrated assessment of environmental problems. In an attempt to understand part of the complexity of land use change we here aim to explore the ways in which economists deals with the land use issue. We argue that space is one of the forgotten items in economics. Economists often seem to ignore high-resolution spatial dynamics either because they are not considered as an important feature of the problem or out of habit. It seems as though there is a trade-off between spatial resolution and human behaviour in current applications. Certain types of models are capable of capturing the spatial complexity of urban and regional areas, for instance, by using cellular automata. Other types of land use models clearly have shortcomings where it concerns spatial detail. Dynamic modelling approaches do not guarantee a high spatial resolution.We propose to give more attention to agent based modelling as this type of modelling provides a specific connection between processes on micro level and macro-level spatial structures.     

Is sex-biased maternal care limited by total maternal expenditure in polygynous ungulates?

We examined data on sex-specific differences in neonatal weight, litter size and adult female body weight in 32 populations of polygynous ungulates of 18 different species to test for the existence of a trade-off between sex-biased maternal care and the total amount of maternal expenditure. This corresponds to an extension of the hypothesis of Byers and Moodie (1990) that sex-biased maternal care is limited by a high level of maternal expenditure. We did not find any relationship between sex-biased care and two measures of total maternal expenditure. We highlighted high intraspecific variability in sex-biased care and very low intraspecific variability in total maternal expenditure. Even when this between-population variability in sex-biased care was accounted for, no relationship between sex-biased maternal care and maternal expenditure was detected. Apart from difficulties in finding suitable measures for both variables, two other reasons may account for the lack of a relationship between sex-biased maternal care and total maternal expenditure. Firstly, male offspring seem to be more affected than female offspring by harsh environmental conditions. This may lead to the variation observed in the extent of sex-specific differences in birth weight within a single species. If we assume that for a given maternal expenditure reproductive costs incurred by mothers are highest during harsh conditions, this could indicate the existence of a trade-off between sex-biased maternal care and maternal expenditure at the intra-specific level, thereby supporting the Byers and Moodie hypothesis. Secondly, polygyny is only a poor predictor of sex-biased care and factors such as compensatory growth or extended periods of growth may be expected to modify predictions for different species. Thus, environmental conditions and relative effects of maternal care on male and female lifetime reproductive success are better predictors of sex-biased care than total maternal expenditure.Communicated by P.M. Kappeler