Integrating Groundwater Conservation and Reuse into Remediation Projects

Groundwater remediation projects generally involve extraction and treatment of contaminated groundwater. The current state of the practice does not include an emphasis on conservation and reuse of groundwater. Consequently treated groundwater is typically disposed in sanitary or storm sewers. Longstanding water conservation and reuse practices in the municipal wastewater industry provide a body of experience available to the remediation industry. Case studies of conservation and reuse options for groundwater at remediation sites have been found across a broad range of geographic settings and regulatory jurisdictions. The intent of this article is to stimulate a more holistic view of the groundwater associated with remediation projects and to promote conservation and beneficial reuse of a vital natural resource. © 2014 US Sustainable Remediation Forum     

Minimizing species extinctions through strategic planning for conservation fencing

Conservation fences are an increasingly common management action, particularly for species threatened by invasive predators. However, unlike many conservation actions, fence networks are expanding in an unsystematic manner, generally as a reaction to local funding opportunities or threats. We conducted a gap analysis of Australia's large predator‐exclusion fence network by examining translocation of Australian mammals relative to their extinction risk. To address gaps identified in species representation, we devised a systematic prioritization method for expanding the conservation fence network that explicitly incorporated population viability analysis and minimized expected species’ extinctions. The approach was applied to New South Wales, Australia, where the state government intends to expand the existing conservation fence network. Existing protection of species in fenced areas was highly uneven; 67% of predator‐sensitive species were unrepresented in the fence network. Our systematic prioritization yielded substantial efficiencies in that it reduced expected number of species extinctions up to 17 times more effectively than ad hoc approaches. The outcome illustrates the importance of governance in coordinating management action when multiple projects have similar objectives and rely on systematic methods rather than expanding networks opportunistically.     

The influence of swimming speed on sustained swimming performance of late-stage reef fish larvae

Replicate clutches of larvae were swum in a swimming flume at 4, 7, 10, 13, and 16 cm s^-1 and the time swum until exhaustion recorded. There was a significant relationship between sustained swimming time and swimming speed for both maximum (R²=0.77; P<0.05) and mean sustained swimming times (R²=0.78; P<0.05), with fish swimming at slower speeds swimming longer and covering greater total distances. The relationship observed agrees with theoretical principles relating increasing swimming speed with increasing drag. We used our data for Amphiprion melanopus, combined with published information, to predict the swimming speeds that other reef fish taxa should be able to maintain for significant lengths of time (12-48 h) using three different models. The results agree well with field estimates (R² values from 0.45 to 0.84), suggesting that there may be underlying factors influencing swimming ability in reef fish larvae that can be used to predict swimming abilities of different taxa. These models suggest that sustained swimming behaviour by reef fish larvae could have a much greater impact on modifying larval dispersal than previously thought.     

The importance of methane and thiosulfate in the metabolism of the bacterial symbionts of two deep-sea mussels

Undescribed hydrocarbon-seep mussels were collected from the Louisiana Slope, Gulf of Mexico, during March 1986, and the ultrastructure of their gills was examined and compared to Bathymodiolus thermophilus, a mussel collected from the deep-sea hydrothermal vents on the Galápagos Rift in March 1985. These closely related mytilids both contain abundant symbiotic bacteria in their gills. However, the bacteria from the two species are distinctly different in both morphology and biochemistry, and are housed differently within the gills of the two mussels. The symbionts from the seep mussel are larger than the symbionts from B. thermophilus and, unlike the latter, contain stacked intracytoplasmic membranes. In the seep mussel three or fewer symbionts appear to be contained in each host-cell vacuole, while in B. thermophilus there are often more than twenty bacteria visible in a single section through a vacuole. The methanotrophic nature of the seep-mussel symbionts was confirmed in ¹⁴C-methane uptake experiments by the appearance of label in both CO₂ and acid-stable, non-volatile, organic compounds after a 3 h incubation of isolated gill tissue. Furthermore, methane consumption was correlated with methanol dehydrogenase activity in isolated gill tissue. Activity of ribulose-1,5-biphosphate (RuBP) carboxylase and ¹⁴CO₂ assimilation studies indicate the presence of either a second type of symbiont or contaminating bacteria on the gills of freshly captured seep mussels. A reevaluation of the nutrition of the symbionts in B. thermophilus indicates that while the major symbiont is not a methanotroph, its status as a sulfur-oxidizing chemoautotroph, as has been suggested previously, is far from proven.     

Interactions of marine plankton with transuranic elements

In a series of laboratory experiments, the biokinetics of ²⁴¹Am, an important transuranium element, was studied in Meganyctiphanes norvegica, a euphausiid common in the northwestern Mediterranean. The euphausiids accumulated Am from water by passive adsorption onto exoskeletons, achieving wet weight concentration factors on the order of 10² after 1 wk exposure; concentration factors varied inversely with the size of the euphausiids and linearly with their surface area:wet weight ratios. Essentially all (96±10%) of the Am taken up from water was associated with the exoskeleton, so that negligible Am was retained by the euphausiids after molting. The retention half-time of Am in molts was 2.9 d. Euphausiids could also concentrate Am from feeding suspensions by ingesting Am-labelled diatom cells, although there was negligible Am assimilation (3±2% after 4 d feeding); after passage through the gut, virtually all (99%) of the ingested Am was defecated within 1 wk. The retention half-time of Am in fecal pellets was 41 and 51 d at 13° and 5°C, respectively. In oceanic waters, where the preponderance of ²⁴¹Am is in the dissolved phase, uptake of Am from water by euphausiids would be the dominant route of bioaccumulation. The results underscore the importance of sinking biogenic debris from zooplankters in mediating the vertical transport of Am in the sea. Given their retention half-times for ²⁴¹Am and their rapid sinking rates, fecal pellets and discarded molts have the potential to deliver most of their Am to the sediments.     

Methanotrophic symbiont location and fate of carbon incorporated from methane in a hydrocarbon seep mussel

Seep Mytilid Ia (SMIa), an undescribed mussel found at hydrocarbon seeps in the Gulf of Mexico, harbors intracellular methanotrophic symbionts. Two techniques were used to address the hypothesis that host digestion of symbionts is a significant mechanism of carbon transfer from symbiont to host in the SMIa association: lysosomal enzyme cytochemistry and ¹⁴C tissue autoradiography. Acid phosphatase activity was consistently localized in the Golgi apparatus and associated vesicles of gill cells, but was detected around bacteria in only three of approximately 50 bacteriocytes examined. These results indicate that the cellular equipment necessary for lysosomal digestion of symbionts is present in host bacteriocytes, but that acid phosphatase activity in symbiont vacuoles is rare at a given point in time. Tissue autoradiography was conducted with mussels collected in September 1992 to document carbon fixation by symbionts and follow the time course of transfer to host tissues. No asymbiotic host cell type showed a significant increase in relative grain density until at least 1 d after the end of incubation with ¹⁴C-methane. The ratio of label in the basal portion of bacteriocytes to total bacteriocyte label did not show a significant increase until 10 d after the end of the incubation period, indicating a slow increase of labeled carbon in the putative residual bodies, containing the remnants of lysosomal digestion. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that host digestion of symbionts is one route of nutrient acquisition in SMIa. Intracellular methanotrophic bacteria were found outside of the gill in SMIa juveniles, in mantle and foot epithelial tissues previously believed to be symbiont-free. These extra-gill symbionts and their host cells are morphologically similar to their gill counterparts and, like the gill symbionts, actively fix carbon from methane. Received: 29 March 1997 / Accepted: 12 May 1997     

Risk-based prenatal screening for trisomy 18 using alpha-fetoprotein,unconjugated oestriol and human chorionic gonadotropin

Nine centres collaborated to examine the feasibility of a screening method for trisomy 18 that was based on assigning individual risk, using a combination of maternal age and measurements of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), unconjugated oestriol (uE3), and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Second-trimester measurements of these analytes were obtained from 94 trisomy 18 pregnancies. In the 89 pregnancies without an associated open defect, the median levels for AFP, uE3, and hCG were 0.65, 0.43 and 0.36 multiples of the unaffected population median, respectively. The strongest individual predictor of risk for trisomy 18 was uE3, followed by hCG, AFP, and maternal age, in that order. Using a method of individual risk estimation that is based on the three markers and maternal age, 60 per cent of pregnancies associated with trisomy 18 would be detected at a risk cut-off level of 1:100, with a false-positive rate of about 0.2 per cent. One in nine pregnancies identified as being at increased risk for trisomy 18 would be expected to have an affected pregnancy. This risk-based screening method is more efficient than an existing method that is based on fixed analyte cut-off levels. Even though the birth prevalence of trisomy 18 is low, prenatal screening can be justified when performed in conjunction with Down syndrome screening and when a high proportion of women offered amniocentesis have an affected fetus.     

土壤理化特性对稻田CH4排放的影响

为了研究土壤理化特性对稻田CH4 排放的影响 ,室外盆栽试验于 2 0 0 0年水稻生长季在南京农业大学实施 ,1 8个供试水稻土分别取自江苏宜兴、江宁、六合、仪征及宝应等地 .所有供试土壤的季节性CH4 平均排放通量为 6 42± 2 70mg·(m2 ·h) - 1,最低和最高值分别为 1 96mg·(m2 ·h) - 1和 1 1 0 6mg·(m2 ·h) - 1,两者相差约 5 6倍 .单相关分析结果表明 :影响CH4 排放的主要土壤参数为质地、氮素状况及铜含量 .CH4 排放与土壤砂粒含量呈正相关 (r =0 5 2 8,p =0 0 2 4) ,与粘粒含量呈负相关 (r =-0 484,p =0 0 42 ) .氮素含量高的土壤CH4 排放较低 ,CH4 排放与土壤全氮、速效氮和铵态氮含量的线性相关系数分别为 -0 449(p =0 0 62 )、-0 61 1 (p =0 0 0 7)和 -0 649(p =0 0 0 4) .土壤铜含量直接影响CH4 的排放 ,CH4 排放与有效态铜和全铜含量的线性相关系数分别为 -0 5 94(p =0 0 0 9)和 -0 5 47(p =0 0 1 9) .本研究并未观测到CH4 排放与土壤有机碳含量有相关关系 ,这与前人报道的实验室培养测定结果及稻田CH4 排放随土壤有机质含量提高而增加的假设完全不同 .逐步回归分析表明 ,不同土壤间CH4 排放的变异性有 75 5 %可由土壤有效态铜含量、镁 (全量 )含量及有效铁含量与全量铁之     

The impact of maternal serum alpha fetoprotein screening on open neural tube defect births in North-East Scotland

Over the three years period 1980–1982, 18 256 pregnancies in the Grampian Region of N-E Scotland including the islands of Orkney and Shetland were screened for raised levels of maternal serum alpha fetoprotein (MSAFP) in the second trimester. Thirty six cases of fetal open neural tube defect in singletons were detected (18 anencephaly and 18 spina bifida). Four additional cases of open spina bifida were associated with normal MSAFP levels although two of these were detected by amniotic fluid AFP measurement when amniocentesis was carried out because of previous NTD history. A further three cases of open spina bifida and two of anencephaly occurred in unscreened pregnancies. The MSAFP screening programme alone was thus instrumental in reducing the birth incidence of open neural tube defects by 36 out of 45 cases (80 per cent) in singletons.