Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - The use of agro-residue in resource-limited regions can be a smart way for civil construction to reduce costs, reduce emissions of pollutant gases... 相似文献
Obligate avian brood parasites lay their eggs in nests of other species (hosts), which raise parasitic young. Parasitic nestlings
are likely to influence host’s parental behaviours as they typically beg for food more vigorously than young host for a given
hunger level. However, few studies have tested this idea, with conflicting results. These prior studies were largely limited
to biparental hosts, but little is known about the effect of brood parasitism on parental behaviours in hosts that breed cooperatively.
We followed a multimodel approach to examine the effect of brood parasitism on nest provisioning and helper recruitment in
the baywing (Agelaioides badius), a cooperative breeder parasitised by screaming (Molothrus rufoaxillaris) and shiny (Molothrus bonariensis) cowbirds. Multimodel inference results indicated that feeding visits increased with nestling age, cooperative group size
and number of cowbird nestlings in the brood. Brood size had little influence on feeding visits, which further suggests that
baywings adjusted their provisioning effort in response to cowbird parasitism. In addition, nests parasitised artificially
with shiny cowbird eggs or hatchlings recruited more helpers than unmanipulated nests having only host or screaming cowbird
young. Our results provide novel evidence that brood parasitism and cooperative breeding interact in determining the levels
of nest provisioning. 相似文献
This work investigates the capability of an oceanic numerical model dynamic and thermodynamically coupled to a three-dimensional
mesoscale atmospheric numerical model to simulate the basic features of the air–sea interaction in the coastal upwelling area
of Cabo Frio (RJ, Brazil). The upwelling/downwelling regime is an important feature in the oceanic circulation of Cabo Frio
and determines the sustainability of local ecosystems. This regime is predominantly driven by the atmospheric circulation
and is well documented, being suitable to be used as test reference for atmospheric and oceanic coupled and uncoupled models.
The oceanic boundary conditions, coastline shape and coupling effect have been tested. The uncoupled oceanic model forced
by a NE (SW) wind field generates a realistic upwelling (downwelling) phenomenon regardless of the proximity of the lateral
boundary and how realistic is the shape of the coastline. The atmospheric-oceanic coupled model generates an upwelling location
and intensity similar to the uncoupled simulation, but the upwelling is gradually enhanced by the sea-breeze circulation.
It also generates vertical profiles of mixing ratio that compare better to the observations than the uncoupled simulation
and air potential temperature and wind vertical profiles that represent particular features of the atmospheric circulation
at Cabo Frio. 相似文献
Food and Environmental Virology - Norovirus is a major cause of foodborne-associated acute gastroenteritis (AGE) outbreaks worldwide. Usually, food products are contaminated either during... 相似文献
Environmental Chemistry Letters - Water contamination by emerging contaminants is increasing in the context of rising urbanization, industrialization, and agriculture production. Emerging... 相似文献
Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The growing demand for products with lower environmental impact and the extensive applicability of cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) have received... 相似文献
Heterogeneous photocatalysis is highlighted to treat volatile organic compound (VOC) emission. Then, this work analysed the influence of palladium (Pd) content loaded in TiO2 on n-octane and iso-octane photodegradation. For this, TiO2 was loaded with Pd in different contents: 0.4%, 0.7%, and 1.0%. The samples were characterized, and the photodegradation experiments were conducted by Pd/TiO2/UV process. The characterization analyses showed that the metal presence did not change the catalyst structure or its surface area; however, it reduced the bandgap energy. The photocatalytic results proved that palladium improved n-octane degradation from 62% (pure TiO2) to 92.6% (0.4%Pd/TiO2) and, iso-octane degradation enhanced from 59% (pure TiO2) to 90.6% (0.7%Pd/TiO2); all results were obtained in the space time of 39 s. Therefore, 0.4%Pd/TiO2 and 0.7%Pd/TiO2 showed better oxidation results to degradation n-octane and iso-octane, respectively. The kinetic model of pseudo-first order showed a good fit for the data of both VOCs. Heterogeneous photocatalysis with Pd/TiO2 showed to be an adequate technique to reduce VOCs emission.
Size advantage in male–male competition over mates, combined with male preference over large females, is a common feature
that can drive to size assortative mating and, eventually, sexual selection. In crabs, appendage autotomy can affect assortative
mating and opportunity for sexual selection by affecting size advantage in mating contests. In this work, we evaluate the
effect of size and appendage autotomy in generating assortative mating in the mud crab Cyrtograpsus angulatus. Field observations of guarding pairs in two different populations show a positive correlation between carapace width of
males and females in both the populations. In one of the populations, incidence of appendage autotomy was low and the variability
in the size of reproductive males was lower than the variability in the size of randomly collected males (i.e. only larger
males were successful in getting a female), whereas there was no differences in the other population (i.e. most male sizes
were successful) where the incidence of appendage autotomy was very high, indicating that the importance of size is higher
when the incidence of autotomy is low. In this context, experiments (in both populations) show that, in contests for a female,
larger males outcompete smaller ones only when they had intact appendages. When males had missing chelipeds, winning or loosing
against smaller males was random. This may lead to a decrease in the importance of male size in populations with high incidence
of cheliped autotomy, affecting assortative mating and opportunity for selection and, thus, affecting selective pressures. 相似文献
This paper describes a direct analysis study carried out in a recycling unit for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in Portugal to characterize the plastic constituents of WEEE. Approximately 3400 items, including cooling appliances, small WEEE, printers, copying equipment, central processing units, cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors and CRT televisions were characterized, with the analysis finding around 6000 kg of plastics with several polymer types. The most common polymers are polystyrene, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, polycarbonate blends, high-impact polystyrene and polypropylene. Additives to darken color are common contaminants in these plastics when used in CRT televisions and small WEEE. These additives can make plastic identification difficult, along with missing polymer identification and flame retardant identification marks. These drawbacks contribute to the inefficiency of manual dismantling of WEEE, which is the typical recycling process in Portugal. The information found here can be used to set a baseline for the plastics recycling industry and provide information for ecodesign in electrical and electronic equipment production. 相似文献
The European Union introduced several policy instruments based in the extended producer responsibility (EPR) in order to improve the environmental performance of products and services through their life cycles. In this context, the Portuguese government decided to apply the EPR concept to tyres, and producers were obliged to constitute an end-of-life management system to promote the collection, recycling and reuse of end-of-life (EOL) tyres. This required producers, distributors, recyclers and retreaders to be identified and characterized, and local processing infrastructures to be analyzed. The information was used to design an economically optimised EOL tyre management system while promoting the activity of all EOL operators in order for the imposed collecting and recovery targets to be fulfilled. This paper discusses the interaction between the different governmental, private and academic institutions for the creation of the integrated management system for EOL tyres, the approach taken, the technical, political and legal aspects underneath them, as well as the environmental consequences induced by the creation of the management system. The results obtained during the first years of operation are reported and show an increase in the collection and recycling of EOL tyres and the consolidation of the collection and processing infrastructures. 相似文献