A landscape analysis of cougar distribution and abundance in Montana, USA

Recent growth in the distribution and abundance of cougars (Puma concolor) throughout western North America has created opportunities, challenges, and problems for wildlife managers and raises questions about what factors affect cougar populations. We present an analysis of factors thought to affect cougar distribution and abundance across the broad geographical scales on which most population management decisions are made. Our objectives were to: (1) identify and evaluate landscape parameters that can be used to predict the capability of habitats to support cougars, and (2) evaluate factors that may account for the recent expansion in cougar numbers. Habitat values based on terrain ruggedness and forested cover explained 73% of the variation in a cougar abundance index. Indices of cougar abundance also were spatially and temporally correlated with ungulate abundance. An increase in the number and total biomass of ungulate prey species is hypothesized to account for recent increases in cougars. Cougar populations in Montana are coping with land development by humans when other components of habitat and prey populations are sufficient. Our analysis provides a better understanding of what may have influenced recent growth in cougar distribution and abundance in Montana and, when combined with insights about stakeholder acceptance capacity, offers a basis for cougar management at broad scales. Long-term conservation of cougars necessitates a better understanding of ecosystem functions that affect prey distribution and abundance, more accurate estimates of cougar populations, and management abilities to integrate these components with human values.     

Displaced honey bees perform optimal scale-free search flights

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are regularly faced with the task of navigating back to their hives from remote food sources. They have evolved several methods to do this, including compass-directed "vector" flights and the use of landmarks. If these hive-centered mechanisms are disrupted, bees revert to searching for the hive, but the nature and efficiency of their searching strategy have hitherto been unknown. We used harmonic radar to record the flight paths of honey bees that were searching for their hives. Our subsequent analysis of these paths revealed that they can be represented by a series of straight line segments that have a scale-free, Lévy distribution with an inverse-square-law tail. We show that these results, combined with the "no preferred direction" characteristic of the segments, demonstrate that the bees were flying an optimal search pattern. Lévy movements have already been identified in a number of other animals. Our results are the best reported example where the movements are mostly attributable to the adoption of an optimal, scale-free searching strategy.     

Indoor airborne infection

Airborne infection from person to person is an indoor phenomenon. The infectious organisms are atomized by coughing, sneezing, singing, and even talking. The smallest droplets evaporate to droplet nuclei and disperse rapidly and randomly throughout the air of enclosed spaces. Droplet nuclei have negligible settling velocity and travel wherever the air goes. Outdoors, dilution is so rapid that the chance of inhaling an infectious droplet nucleus is minimal. Measles and other childhood contagions, the common respiratory virus infections, pulmonary tuberculosis, and Legionnaires' Disease are typically air-borne indoors. In analyzing a measles outbreak, the probability that a susceptible person would breathe a randomly distributed quantum of airborne infection during one generation of an outbreak was expressed mathematically. Estimates of the rate of production of infectious droplet nuclei ranged between 93 and 8 per min, and the concentration in the air produced by the index case was about 1 quantum per 5 m³ of air. Infectious airborne particles are thus few and far between. Control of indoor airborne infection can be approached through immunization, therapeutic medication, and air disinfection with ultraviolet radiation.     

BETR global--a geographically-explicit global-scale multimedia contaminant fate model

We present two new software implementations of the BETR Global multimedia contaminant fate model. The model uses steady-state or non-steady-state mass-balance calculations to describe the fate and transport of persistent organic pollutants using a desktop computer. The global environment is described using a database of long-term average monthly conditions on a 15° × 15° grid. We demonstrate BETR Global by modeling the global sources, transport, and removal of decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5).     

Atrazine degradation in a containerized rhizosphere system

Abstract

The effect of atrazine (2‐chloro‐4‐ethylamino‐6‐isopropylamino‐s‐triazine) on rhizosphere microorganisms and its fate in a containerized rhizosphere system was studied. The rhizosphere system consisted of corn grown in pot containing a defined potting mix of sand and bark with atrazine. Sterilized potting mix and a container without plants served as controls. Atrazine was extracted and analyzed via HPLC. Fluorescent pseudomonad populations increased 100‐fold in the rhizposphere during a 60‐day incubation period as compared to the nonvegetated control. Atrazine degradation was higher in the rhizosphere system (half‐life of 7 days) compared to the nonvegetated control (half‐life of greater than 45 days). The major degradation product detected in the rhizosphere system was deisopropylatrazine; other products detected included deethylatrazine, deethylhydroxyatrazine, deisopropylatrazine and hydroxyatrazine. Hydroxyatrazine was detected in the nonvegetated and sterile controls. The containerized rhizosphere system provides an experimental system to study the fate of pesticidal chemicals as well as the effects on microbial populations.     

Political ideology and views about climate change in the European Union

There is a strong political divide on climate change in the US general public, with Liberals and Democrats expressing greater belief in and concern about climate change than Conservatives and Republicans. Recent studies find a similar though less pronounced divide in other countries. Its leadership in international climate policy making warrants extending this line of research to the European Union (EU). The extent of a left–right ideological divide on climate change views is examined via Eurobarometer survey data on the publics of 25 EU countries before the 2008 global financial crisis, the 2009 ‘climategate’ controversy and COP-15 in Copenhagen, and an increase in organized climate change denial campaigns. Citizens on the left consistently reported stronger belief in climate change and support for action to mitigate it than did citizens on the right in 14 Western European countries. There was no such ideological divide in 11 former Communist countries, likely due to the low political salience of climate change and the differing meaning of left–right identification in these countries.     

Curbside collection of recyclables. II. Simulation and economic analysis

Curbside collection of recyclable material can be expensive because the inherent costs of curbside collection are high, but also because amounts collected per residence are small compared to the total waste stream, and extra activity may be required, such as sorting. In this paper a simulation model is used to investigate the effect of collection method and route characteristics on route time. The simulation models presented calculate set-out amount based on route characteristics, set-out rate (SOR), and participation rate (PR). Route times are estimated for various conditions: constant SOR, constant PR, and constant set-out amount. Furthermore, a method for using route time to estimate vehicle and labor needs is presented, and used to estimate economic costs for one and two-person crew collection methods for the three simulation conditions mentioned above. The two-person crew is found to cost less than the one-person crew, for most simulated conditions.     

Assessment of Disinfectant Performance in Chicken Cages Using Coliphages

To control the spread of avian flu (influenza) and other viruses of concern among commercial flocks, it is essential that proper disinfection procedures be developed along with methods for assessing their performance. Such methods must be rapid and inexpensive. Coliphages were used as indicators to demonstrate the efficacy of quaternary ammonium compounds and chlorine bleach for the inactivation of viruses in chicken cages. The concentration of indigenous coliphages in chicken litter was found to be 10⁴–10⁷ per gram and from 0 to 8,500 per 100 cm² of floor surface. To assess the effectiveness of the disinfectants, floor samples were collected pre and post disinfection. These results indicated that chlorine bleach was more effective than quaternary ammonium compounds in reducing the amount of indigenous coliphages. To obtain better quantitative data, MS-2 coliphage was sprayed onto cage floors, left overnight to dry, and then the surfaces disinfected. Similar results were obtained with both indigenous coliphages and MS-2. There appears to be no significant difference in coliphage reduction by increasing the contact time from 10 to 30 min. To ensure at least a 99.9% reduction of virus at least 236 ml of household bleach per 3.78 l should be used.     

Determining the drivers of population structure in a highly urbanized landscape to inform conservation planning

Understanding the environmental contributors to population structure is of paramount importance for conservation in urbanized environments. We used spatially explicit models to determine genetic population structure under current and future environmental conditions across a highly fragmented, human‐dominated environment in Southern California to assess the effects of natural ecological variation and urbanization. We focused on 7 common species with diverse habitat requirements, home‐range sizes, and dispersal abilities. We quantified the relative roles of potential barriers, including natural environmental characteristics and an anthropogenic barrier created by a major highway, in shaping genetic variation. The ability to predict genetic variation in our models differed among species: 11–81% of intraspecific genetic variation was explained by environmental variables. Although an anthropogenically induced barrier (a major highway) severely restricted gene flow and movement at broad scales for some species, genetic variation seemed to be primarily driven by natural environmental heterogeneity at a local level. Our results show how assessing environmentally associated variation for multiple species under current and future climate conditions can help identify priority regions for maximizing population persistence under environmental change in urbanized regions.