A review of selection‐based tests of abiotic surrogates for species representation

Because conservation planners typically lack data on where species occur, environmental surrogates—including geophysical settings and climate types—have been used to prioritize sites within a planning area. We reviewed 622 evaluations of the effectiveness of abiotic surrogates in representing species in 19 study areas. Sites selected using abiotic surrogates represented more species than an equal number of randomly selected sites in 43% of tests (55% for plants) and on average improved on random selection of sites by about 8% (21% for plants). Environmental diversity (ED) (42% median improvement on random selection) and biotically informed clusters showed promising results and merit additional testing. We suggest 4 ways to improve performance of abiotic surrogates. First, analysts should consider a broad spectrum of candidate variables to define surrogates, including rarely used variables related to geographic separation, distance from coast, hydrology, and within‐site abiotic diversity. Second, abiotic surrogates should be defined at fine thematic resolution. Third, sites (the landscape units prioritized within a planning area) should be small enough to ensure that surrogates reflect species’ environments and to produce prioritizations that match the spatial resolution of conservation decisions. Fourth, if species inventories are available for some planning units, planners should define surrogates based on the abiotic variables that most influence species turnover in the planning area. Although species inventories increase the cost of using abiotic surrogates, a modest number of inventories could provide the data needed to select variables and evaluate surrogates. Additional tests of nonclimate abiotic surrogates are needed to evaluate the utility of conserving nature's stage as a strategy for conservation planning in the face of climate change.     

Using abiotic variables to predict importance of sites for species representation

In systematic conservation planning, species distribution data for all sites in a planning area are used to prioritize each site in terms of the site's importance toward meeting the goal of species representation. But comprehensive species data are not available in most planning areas and would be expensive to acquire. As a shortcut, ecologists use surrogates, such as occurrences of birds or another well‐surveyed taxon, or land types defined from remotely sensed data, in the hope that sites that represent the surrogates also represent biodiversity. Unfortunately, surrogates have not performed reliably. We propose a new type of surrogate, predicted importance, that can be developed from species data for a q% subset of sites. With species data from this subset of sites, importance can be modeled as a function of abiotic variables available at no charge for all terrestrial areas on Earth. Predicted importance can then be used as a surrogate to prioritize all sites. We tested this surrogate with 8 sets of species data. For each data set, we used a q% subset of sites to model importance as a function of abiotic variables, used the resulting function to predict importance for all sites, and evaluated the number of species in the sites with highest predicted importance. Sites with the highest predicted importance represented species efficiently for all data sets when q = 25% and for 7 of 8 data sets when q = 20%. Predicted importance requires less survey effort than direct selection for species representation and meets representation goals well compared with other surrogates currently in use. This less expensive surrogate may be useful in those areas of the world that need it most, namely tropical regions with the highest biodiversity, greatest biodiversity loss, most severe lack of inventory data, and poorly developed protected area networks.     

CO2 Emission Trends in the Cement Industry: An International Comparison

We present an in-depth decompositionanalysis using physical indicators oftrends in Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in the cementindustry in Brazil, China, South Korea andthe United States. Physical indicatorsallow a detailed analysis of intra-sectoraltrends, in contrast to the often usedmonetary indicators. We assess thecontribution of different factors affectingCO₂ emissions in the cement industry,including change in product mix, efficiencyof power generation, changes in fuel mixand changes in energy efficiency. Thedecomposition results show that in allexamined countries, increased productionwas the main contributor to the increase intotal CO₂ emissions. Energy-efficiencyimprovement is the most important factorthat led to the reduction of emissionintensities for all countries except Korea.For Korea, structural change in the productmix is the most important factorcontributing to the emission intensityreduction.     

Untersuchungskonzept zur Charakterisierung toxischer Stoffe in belastetem Wasser

Zusammenfassung  Zur ?kotoxikologischen Beurteilung von belastetem Wasser werden h?ufig einfache Biotests eingesetzt. Nicht selten werden dabei toxische Effekte festgestellt. Es stellt sich dann die Frage nach den verantwortlichen Wasserinhalts-stoffen. Durch Festphasenextraktion (SPE) werden diese angereichert, gewonnen und dünnschichtchromatographisch unter Verwendung der automatisierten Mehrfachentwicklung aufgetrennt. Von der DC-Platte wird ein Streifen abgetrennt und darauf direkt die biologische Detektion mit Mikroorganismen (Bacillus subtilis, Leuchtbakterien) durchgeführt. Dadurch k?nnen toxische Banden erkannt werden, Auf dem DC-Plattenrest wird von der toxischen Bande mit einem DC-scanner ein UV-Spektrum aufgenommen, die entsprechende Bande herausgekratzt, der toxische Stoff eluiert und infrarotspektroskopisch untersucht. Durch Spektrenvergleich gelingt es meistens, den Stoff zu charakterisieren. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird am Beispiel eines Zitzengummieluates das Analysenkonzept vorgestelit. Es zeigte sich, dass dieser Gummiartikel einen Vulkanisationsbeschleuniger (2-Mercaptobenzothiazol) freisetzt. Online-Publikation am: 21.12.1999     

Absch?tzung der Quecksilberexposition

Zusammenfassung  Ein quecksilberkontaminierter Altstandort dient als Beispiel für eine umweltmedizinische Beurteilung der Belastung der im Umfeld wohnenden Personen durch Quecksilberimmissionen. Dabei wird die innere Exposition für sieben verschiedene Altersgruppen bezüglich der KontaktmedienBoden, Luft undNahrungsmittel anhand von konventionell festgelegten Szenarien abgesch?tzt und ein Vergleich mit den epidemiologischen Ergebnissen eines Humanmonitorings angestrebt. Die standortspezifisch und pfadspezifisch durchgeführte Expositionsabsch?tzung stützt sich auf cine Vielzahl von unterschiedlichen Probenehmern sowie auf über mehrere Jahre durchgeführte Konzentrationsmessungen in den aufnahmerelevanten Kompartimenten. Sowohl die Berechnungen als auch die epidemiologischen Untersuchungen zeigen eine leichte Erh?hung der Quecksilberexposition, gemessen an strengen Richtwerten.      

Calibration and testing of a dynamic flow-through chamber for field determination of methyl bromide volatilization flux

Accurate emission measurement of highly volatile chemicals such as methyl bromide (MeBr) is a crucial step in assessing their potential for environmental contamination. Use of flux chambers is a simple method for measuring emission rate under field conditions. To validate the applicability of a dynamic flow-through chamber for measuring MeBr emission, we provide a complete presentation of calibration and testing of the chamber. The calibration was made under a controlled system subject to ambient temperature changes. Two field experiments were conducted to test the chamber for measuring MeBr flux under conditions similar to commercial soil fumigation practices. In both the calibration and the two field experiments, the chamber provided accurate emission estimates. The maximum mass balance error was < 10% which is comparable to the micrometerological method. Because of its simplicity, we believe this dynamic flux chamber can be used reliably in quantifying the emission dynamics of highly volatile chemicals such as MeBr.