A drowned Mesozoic bird breeding colony from the Late Cretaceous of Transylvania

Despite a rapidly improving fossil record, the reproductive biology of Mesozoic birds remains poorly known: only a handful of undisputed, isolated Cretaceous eggs (some containing embryonic remains) are known. We report here the first fossil evidence for a breeding colony of Mesozoic birds, preserved at the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Oarda de Jos (Od) site in the Sebe? area of Transylvania, Romania. A lens of calcareous mudstone with minimum dimensions of 80?cm length, 50?cm width and 20?cm depth contains thousands of tightly packed, morphologically homogenous eggshell fragments, seven near-complete eggs and neonatal and adult avialan skeletal elements. Eggshell forms 70–80?% of the matrix, and other fossils are entirely absent. The bones exhibit clear characters of the Cretaceous avialan clade Enantiornithes, and the eggshell morphology is also consistent with this identification. Both taphonomy and lithology show that the components of this lens were deposited in a single flood event, and we conclude that it represents the drowned remains of a larger enantiornithine breeding colony, swamped by rising water, washed a short distance and deposited in a shallow, low-energy pond. The same fate often befalls modern bird colonies. Such a large concentration of breeding birds suggests aquatic feeding in this species, augments our understanding of enantiornithine biology and shows that colonial nesting was not unique to crown birds.     

Communities of different plant diversity respond similarly to drought stress: experimental evidence from field non-weeded and greenhouse conditions

Accelerating rate of species loss has prompted researchers to study the role of species diversity in processes that control ecosystem functioning. Although negative impact of species loss has been documented, the evidence concerning its impact on ecosystem stability is still limited. Here, we studied the effects of declining species and functional diversity on plant community responses to drought in the field (open to weed colonization) and greenhouse conditions. Both species and functional diversity positively affected the average yields of field communities. However, this pattern was similar in both drought-stressed and control plots. No effect of diversity on community resistance, biomass recovery after drought and resilience was found because drought reduced biomass production similarly at each level of diversity by approximately 30?%. The use of dissimilarity (characterized by Euclidean distance) revealed higher variation under changing environments (drought-stressed vs. control) in more diverse communities compared to less species-rich assemblages. In the greenhouse experiment, the effect of species diversity affected community resistance, indicating that more diverse communities suffered more from drought than species-poor ones. We conclude that our study did not support the insurance hypothesis (stability properties of a community should increase with species richness) because species diversity had an equivocal effect on ecosystem resistance and resilience in an environment held under non-weeded practice, regardless of the positive relationship between sown species diversity and community biomass production. More species-rich communities were less resistant against drought-stressed conditions than species-poor ones grown in greenhouse conditions.     

Sand-swimming behaviour reduces ectoparasitism in an iguanian lizard

Social interactions may shape brain development. In primitively eusocial insects, the mushroom body (MB), an area of the brain associated with sensory integration and learning, is larger in queens than in workers. This may reflect a strategy of neural investment in queens or it may be a plastic response to social interactions in the nest. Here, we show that nest foundresses—the reproductive females who will become queens but are solitary until their first workers are born—have larger MBs than workers in the primitively eusocial sweat bee Augochlorella aurata. Whole brain size and optic lobe size do not differ between the two groups, but foundresses also have larger antennal lobes than workers. This shows that increased neural investment in MBs precedes social group formation. Larger MBs among foundresses may reflect the increased larval nutrition provisioned to future queens and the lack of social aggression from a dominant queen upon adult emergence.

     

Chemical looping with oxygen uncoupling: an advanced biomass combustion technology to avoid CO2 emissions

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change - Bioenergy with carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (BECCS) technologies represent an interesting option to reach negative carbon...     

A longitudinal study relating carpeting with sick building syndrome

A longitudinal questionnaire study was performed among personnel in two Swedish primary schools with wall-to-wall carpets and four schools with hard floor covering. The study groups consisted of all primary schools equipped with wall-to-wall carpets in the town of Uppsala, plus a random sample of two newer and two elderly primary schools with hard floor covering. In an initial cross-sectional study, the wall-to-wall carpet group reported an enhanced prevalence of eye and airway symptoms, face rashes, headache, abnormal tiredness and a sensation of being electrostatically charged in comparison with personnel in schools with hard floor covering. Since the enhanced prevalence of symptoms in the wall-to-wall carpets versus the hard floor covering group was also observed among persons without signs of atopy it was concluded that wall-to-wall carpets are not exclusively a problem for the sensitive atopic individual. The type of ventilation system (mechanical ventilation versus natural ventilation) had no significant effect on the symptom frequencies. After the removal of the wall-to-wall carpets, many of the reported symptoms decreased to a level similar to the group without previous or present exposure to such carpets. However, the frequency of airway symptoms remained enhanced among the wall-to-wall carpet group.     

Cercopagis pengoi and Mysis spp. alter their feeding rate and prey selection under predation risk of herring (Clupea harengus membras)

The anti-predator behaviour of Baltic crustacean planktivores was studied in feeding experiments under predation pressure of herring. The experiments were conducted with pelagic mysids: Mysis mixta and Mysis relicta, and with Cercopagis pengoi, a non-indigenous cladoceran, which invaded the Baltic Sea in 1992. Zooplankton was offered as prey. Two kinds of experiments were performed in the absence and presence of chemical predator cues: (1) two-prey experiments with prey, which have poor or good escape responses and all three planktivores and (2) natural prey experiments with mysids in natural zooplankton assemblages. The results showed that all three species reacted to the chemical cue of herring by decreasing their feeding rate and altering prey selection. C. pengoi selected easily captured prey (rotifers) in two-prey experiments under predation risk while selection for any prey was evident in mysids in natural prey experiments only in the absence of predator cues. This indicates that planktivores have different anti-predator strategies, which are modified by their own prey capture abilities. C. pengoi was a very efficient predator on small prey with size-specific prey consumption rate 5 to 18 times the rate of mysids. Results show that the studied planktivores are capable of adjusting their feeding behaviour to decrease their conspicuousness in order to increase survival under predation risk. Further, results support the view that C. pengoi has adapted well to the Baltic ecosystem, sharing food niche with pelagic mysids and most probably having a strong influence on the whole pelagic food web.     

A side-by-side comparison of two systems of sequencing coupled reactors for anaerobic digestion of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste.

The objective of this work was to compare the performance of two laboratory-scale, mesophilic systems aiming at the anaerobic digestion of the organic fraction of municipal solid wastes (OFMSW). The first system consisted of two coupled reactors packed with OFMSW (PBR1.1-PBR1.2) and the second system consisted of an upflow anaerobic sludge bed reactor (UASB) coupled to a packed reactor (UASB2.1-PBR2.2). For the start-up phase, both reactors PBR 1.1 and the UASB 2.1 (also called leading reactors) were inoculated with a mixture of non-anaerobic inocula and worked with leachate and effluent full recirculation, respectively. Once a full methanogenic regime was achieved in the leading reactors, their effluents were fed to the fresh-packed reactors PBR1.2 and PBR2.2, respectively. The leading PBR 1.1 reached its full methanogenic regime after 118 days (Tm, time to achieve methanogenesis) whereas the other leading UASB 2.1 reactor reached its full methanogenesis regime after only 34 days. After coupling the leading reactors to the corresponding packed reactors, it was found that both coupled anaerobic systems showed similar performances regarding the degradation of the OFMSW. Removal efficiencies of volatile solids and cellulose and the methane pseudo-yield were 85.95%, 80.88% and 0.109 NL CH4 g(-1) VS(fed) in the PBR-PBR system; and 88.75%, 82.61% and 0.115 NL CH4 g(-1) VS(fed0 in the UASB-PBR system [NL, normalized litre (273 degrees K, 1 ata basis)]. Yet, the second system UASB-PBR system showed a faster overall start-up.