The global environment monitoring system (GEMS): Some recent developments

GEMS is an established, operational fact, a fact that has been with us for ten years. In 1975, following the instructions of the UN Conference on the Human Environment, UNEP moved into the field of environmental monitoring by establishing at its Nairobi Headquaters a Programme Activity Centre for GEMS. The role given to this Programme Activity Centre is to co-ordinate the disparate international monitoring activities that are conducted thoughout the world, particulary within the UN system, and to advise the Environment Fund of UNEP on how best to support and stimulate the initiation of new activities or the expansion of ongoing ones through the allocation of financial resources to these activities.The data gathered within the GEMS networks are used for assessment of the state of the environment and its trends, for better, more rational management of the environment and its natural resources. Ten years after it began the United Nations GEMS effort can be seen to be both fully operational and global in scope.     

Courtship feeding in katydids benefits the mating male's offspring

Summary For species exhibiting courtship feeding it is typically argued that the food gift presented by males is a sexually-selected trait in serving to acquire fertilizations. An alternative hypothesis is that the trait is maintained by natural selection for parental investment in which the fitness of the mating male's offspring is increased. Here I argue that the spermatophylax, a nutritious part of the spermatophore provided to female katydids, Requena verticalis, functions mainly as parental investment. Previous research suggested that variation in the size of the male donation in this species (1) did not influence the ability of males to transfer ejaculates and (2) resulted in variation in offspring fitness. In the present paper genetic markers and radiolabels are used to show that the offspring are fathered by the males that donate the nutrients. Although these results indicate that the large spermatophylax is maintained by selection for increased parental investment, it is likely that this male offering originated in a sexual selection context whereby males fed females in order to obtain fertilizations.     

Laboratory-scale comparison of anaerobic-digestion alternatives.

Laboratory-scale digesters were used to perform side-by-side evaluations of alternative digestion systems including thermophilic-mesophilic-phased digestion (TPAD), acid/methane-phased digestion, mesophilic digestion, and the performance of the thermophilic stage of TPAD alone. Total detention times in the systems evaluated varied from 8 to 20 days. Temperatures in the mesophilic stage of TPAD were varied from 35 to 43.3 degrees C and temperatures in the thermophilic stage were varied from 55 to 58.9 degrees C. The purpose of the study was to evaluate volatile solids (VS) reduction and thickening properties of the different systems. Parameters evaluated included solids, volatile acids, gas production and quality, various chemical constituents of the sludge, and thickening properties using polymer and ferric chloride plus polymer. The TPAD systems were found capable of higher VS destruction at total detention times of 10 and 12.5 days compared to single-stage mesophilic or thermophilic digestion at 15 to 20 days. A laboratory-scale thickening test was performed to evaluate thickening properties. Based on obtaining 95% capture in the test, the polymer demand of mesophilic and acid-methane-phased digestion was the lowest. The TPAD system required approximately 180% of the dosage of the mesophilic sludge and thermophilic sludge required approximately 310% of the dosage. Temperatures of 40.5 and 43.3 degrees C in the mesophilic stage of TPAD were found to increase the polymer requirement and decrease the VS reduction of the TPAD system. Higher temperatures (above 56.1 degrees C) and lower detention times (less than 15 days) in the thermophilic digesters seemed to result in problems with degradation of volatile acids, particularly propionic acid.     

量化沿海海域中背景营养盐的富集:波罗的海城市港湾的实例研究

对受到破坏的海岸生态系统进行成功的管理需要它们过去状况的可靠的科学根据.我们证明,生物指标的沉积物记录可用于在监测记录所经历的较短时间跨度之前对营养盐的浓度进行定量重建.我们为总溶解氮建立了一个具有0.09g/L(对数log10的单位)预测精度的借助于硅藻的、加权平均的、部分最小二乘传递函数模型.该模型被用于处理采自拉亚拉赫蒂(Laajalahti)湾的沉积岩心数据,拉亚拉赫蒂湾是位于芬兰赫尔辛基的一个城市港湾,在该港湾中,该模型的性能在30年的水质数据记录和该流域中已知土地使用变化的基础上得以证实.尽管该模型低估了受到严重影响的该港湾中的高营养盐浓度,但它仍成功跟踪了该营养盐记录中的各种趋势.实际值与预测值之间存在的总体一致性显示出该方法在对沿海水域中的背景营养盐浓度进行评估方面具有的巨大潜力.     

Lessons learned from classroom training on natural attenuation of chlorinated solvents

Technology and information transfer are critical functions within the remediation industry. Researchers in the private sector, academia, and government all struggle to have their findings accepted and put to good use by the remediation industry at large but must work even harder to have their findings accepted and put into practice by state and federal regulators in the environmental agencies overseeing cleanups. Unfortunately, many technology and information transfer efforts fail to reach state and federal regulators, and even fewer achieve regulatory acceptance. A two‐year‐long campaign to deliver a training class on the natural attenuation of chlorinated solvents in groundwater is one prominent example of very effective technology and information transfer. Several of the elements and aspects of that successful training class are presented and discussed in order to provide others with a proven and workable template. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Catalyzing sustainable fisheries management through behavior change interventions

Small-scale fisheries are an important livelihood and primary protein source for coastal communities in many of the poorest regions in the world, yet many are overfished and thus require effective and scalable management solutions. Positive ecological and socioeconomic responses to management typically lag behind immediate costs borne by fishers from fishing pressure reductions necessary for fisheries recovery. These short-term costs challenge the long-term success of these interventions. However, social marketing may increase perceptions of management benefits before ecological and socioeconomic benefits are fully realized, driving new social norms and ultimately long-term sustainable behavior change. By conducting underwater visual surveys to quantify ecological conditions and by conducting household surveys with community members to quantify their perceptions of management support and socioeconomic conditions, we assessed the impact of a standardized small-scale fisheries management intervention that was implemented across 41 sites in Brazil, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The intervention combines TURF reserves (community-based territorial use rights for fishing coupled with no-take marine reserves) with locally tailored social-marketing behavior change campaigns. Leveraging data across 22 indicators and 4 survey types, along with data from 3 control sites, we found that ecological and socioeconomic impacts varied and that communities supported the intervention and were already changing their fishing practices. These results suggest that communities were developing new social norms and fishing more sustainably before long-term ecological and socioeconomic benefits of fisheries management materialized.     

The employee as a punching bag: The effect of multiple sources of incivility on employee withdrawal behavior and sales performance

The link between the interpersonal stressor of workplace mistreatment and objective measures of performance is often overlooked in organizational research. In order to fill this research gap, we examined the unique and combined effects of two sources of incivility (customer and coworker) on objective sales performance and withdrawal behaviors (absenteeism and tardiness). We hypothesized that coworker and customer incivility would interact to predict reduced performance and increased withdrawal, using the conservation of resources model to support our hypotheses. We surveyed 120 bank tellers regarding experienced incivility and obtained performance and withdrawal data spanning a period of several months following the survey. The data indicated that coworker and customer incivility did interact to predict decreased sales performance and increased absenteeism, supporting the majority of our proposed hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings and future directions are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of attached data-logging devices on little penguins (Eudyptula minor)

Data-logging devices are commonly used to study the foraging behaviour of individual seabirds. Such studies need to examine the potential effects of using devices on instrumented individuals, not only for ethical reasons but also to ensure the validity of data gathered. We studied the effects of two types of device (time-depth recorder and global positioning system) on little penguins (Eudyptula minor) during the 2010 and 2011 breeding season at Oamaru, New Zealand. Mixed-effect models were used to test for effects of devices by comparing changes in body weight, chick growth and breeding performance between instrumented and control individuals. We found no detectable effects of the attached devices on body weight change, hatching success, fledging success, chick growth parameters or adult survival. We conclude that it is possible to attach data-logging devices to adult little penguins for extended periods during the breeding season with minimal impacts.