Anthropogenic threats to evolutionary heritage of angiosperms in the Netherlands through an increase in high-competition environments

Present biodiversity comprises the evolutionary heritage of Earth's epochs. Lineages from particular epochs are often found in particular habitats, but whether current habitat decline threatens the heritage from particular epochs is unknown. We hypothesized that within a given region, humans threaten specifically habitats that harbor lineages from a particular geological epoch. We expect so because humans threaten environments that dominated and lineages that diversified during these epochs. We devised a new approach to quantify, per habitat type, diversification of lineages from different epochs. For Netherlands, one of the floristically and ecologically best-studied regions, we quantified the decline of habitat types and species in the past century. We defined habitat types based on vegetation classification and used existing ranking of decline of vegetation classes and species. Currently, most declining habitat types and the group of red-listed species are characterized by increased diversification of lineages dating back to Paleogene, specifically to Paleocene-Eocene and Oligocene. Among vulnerable habitat types with large representation of lineages from these epochs were sublittoral and eulittoral zones of temperate seas and 2 types of nutrient-poor, open habitats. These losses of evolutionary heritage would go unnoticed with classical measures of evolutionary diversity. Loss of heritage from Paleocene-Eocene became unrelated to decline once low competition, shade tolerance, and low proportion of non-Apiaceae were accounted for, suggesting that these variables explain the loss of heritage from Paleocene-Eocene. Losses of heritage from Oligocene were partly explained by decline of habitat types occupied by weak competitors and shade-tolerant species. Our results suggest a so-far unappreciated human threat to evolutionary heritage: habitat decline threatens descendants from particular epochs. If the trends persist into the future uncontrolled, there may be no habitats within the region for many descendants of evolutionary ancient epochs, such as Paleogene.     

Increasing significance of advanced physical/chemical processes in the development and application of sustainable wastewater treatment systems

The awareness of the problem of the scarcity of water of high quality has strongly changed the approach of wastewater treatment. Currently, there is an increasing need for the beneficial reuse of treated wastewater and to recover valuable products and energy from the wastewater. Because microbiological treatment methods are, only to a limited part, able to satisfy these needs, the role and significance of physical/chemical processes in wastewater treatment are gaining more and more interest. The specific future role and aim of the various physical/chemical treatment processes can be categorized in five groups: improvement of the performance of microbiological treatment processes, achievement of the high quality required for reuse of the effluent, recovery of valuable components and energy from the wastewater for beneficial reuse, desalination of brackish water and seawater, and treatment of concentrated liquid or solid waste residues produced in a wastewater treatment process. Development of more environmentally sustainable wastewater treatment chains in which physical/chemical processes play a crucial role, also requires application of process control and modeling strategies. This is briefly introduced by the elaboration of treatment scenarios for three specific wastewaters.     

Climate vs. soil factors in local adaptation of two common plant species

Evolutionary theory suggests that divergent natural selection in heterogeneous environments can result in locally adapted plant genotypes. To understand local adaptation it is important to study the ecological factors responsible for divergent selection. At a continental scale, variation in climate can be important while at a local scale soil properties could also play a role. We designed an experiment aimed to disentangle the role of climate and (abiotic and biotic) soil properties in local adaptation of two common plant species. A grass (Holcus lanatus) and a legume (Lotus corniculatus), as well as their local soils, were reciprocally transplanted between three sites across an Atlantic-Continental gradient in Europe and grown in common gardens in either their home soil or foreign soils. Growth and reproductive traits were measured over two growing seasons. In both species, we found significant environmental and genetic effects on most of the growth and reproductive traits and a significant interaction between the two environmental effects of soil and climate. The grass species showed significant home site advantage in most of the fitness components, which indicated adaptation to climate. We found no indication that the grass was adapted to local soil conditions. The legume showed a significant home soil advantage for number of fruits only and thus a weak indication of adaptation to soil and no adaptation to climate. Our results show that the importance of climate and soil factors as drivers of local adaptation is species-dependent. This could be related to differences in interactions between plant species and soil biota.     

Historical processes constrain patterns in global diatom diversity

There is a long-standing belief that microbial organisms have unlimited dispersal capabilities, are therefore ubiquitous, and show weak or absent latitudinal diversity gradients. In contrast, using a global freshwater diatom data set, we show that latitudinal gradients in local and regional genus richness are present and highly asymmetric between both hemispheres. Patterns in regional richness are explained by the degree of isolation of lake districts, while the number of locally coexisting diatom genera is highly constrained by the size of the regional diatom pool, habitat availability, and the connectivity between habitats within lake districts. At regional to global scales, historical factors explain significantly more of the observed geographic patterns in genus richness than do contemporary environmental conditions. Together, these results stress the importance of dispersal and migration in structuring diatom communities at regional to global scales. Our results are consistent with predictions from the theory of island biogeography and metacommunity concepts and likely underlie the strong provinciality and endemism observed in the relatively isolated diatom floras in the Southern Hemisphere.     

The power of simulating experiments

Addressing complex ecological research questions often requires complex empirical experiments. However, due to the logistic constraints of empirical studies there is a trade-off between the complexity of experimental designs and sample size. Here, we explore if the simulation of complex ecological experiments including stochasticity-induced variation can aid in alleviating the sample size limitation of empirical studies. One area where sample size limitations constrain empirical approaches is in studies of the above- and belowground controls of trophic structure. Based on a rule- and individual-based simulation model on the effect of above- and belowground herbivores and their enemies on plant biomass, we evaluate the reliability of biomass estimates, the probability of experimental failure in terms of missing values, and the statistical power of biomass comparisons for a range of sample sizes. As expected, we observed superior performance of setups with sample sizes typical of simulations (n = 1000) as compared to empirical experiments (n = 10). At low sample sizes, simulated standard errors were smaller than expected from statistical theory, indicating that stochastic simulation models may be required in those cases where it is not possible to perform pilot studies for determining sample sizes. To avoid experimental failure, a sample size of n = 30 was required. In conclusion, we propose that the standard tool box of any ecologist should comprise a combination of simulation and empirical approaches to benefit from the realism of empirical experiments as well as the statistical power of simulations.     

Lack of population genetic structuring in the marine planktonic diatom Pseudo-nitzschia pungens (Bacillariophyceae) in a heterogeneous area in the Southern Bight of the North Sea

Several marine holoplanktonic organisms show a high degree of geographically structured diversity for which it often remains unclear to what extent this differentiation is due to the presence of cryptic taxa. For the genetically distinct diatom Pseudo-nitzschia pungens var. pungens, we used six microsatellite markers to investigate the spatial and temporal genetic composition in the heterogeneous Southern Bight of the North Sea. Although our sampling area (ca. 100 km) comprised water bodies with different environmental conditions (marine, estuary, saline lake) and different degrees of connectivity (from complete isolation to supposedly free exchange between environments), no evidence of genetic differentiation was found. Expanding our sampling area (ca. 650 km), suggested a homogenous population structure over even larger areas in the North Sea. Our results suggest that the population structure of this diatom is mainly shaped by strong homogenizing effects of gene flow preventing genetic drift, even in water bodies with limited connectivity. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Functional recovery of biofilm bacterial communities after copper exposure

Potential of bacterial communities in biofilms to recover after copper exposure was investigated. Biofilms grown outdoor in shallow water on glass dishes were exposed in the laboratory to 0.6, 2.1, 6.8 micromol/l copper amended surface water and a reference and subsequently to un-amended surface water. Transitions of bacterial communities were characterised with denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and community-level physiological profiles (CLPP). Exposure to 6.8 micromol/l copper provoked distinct changes in DGGE profiles of bacterial consortia, which did not reverse upon copper depuration. Exposure to 2.1 and 6.8 micromol/l copper was found to induce marked changes in CLPP of bacterial communities that proved to be reversible during copper depuration. Furthermore, copper exposure induced the development of copper-tolerance, which was partially lost during depuration. It is concluded that bacterial communities exposed to copper contaminated water for a period of 26 days are capable to restore their metabolic attributes after introduction of unpolluted water in aquaria for 28 days.     

Differential treatment within sports teams,leader–member (coach–player) exchange quality,team atmosphere,and team performance

Using the leader–member exchange (LMX) theory as a theoretical framework, the present study focused on the occurrence of differential treatment by leaders on social and task‐related issues within teams. It was investigated whether team members' perceptions of the frequency and degree of social and task‐related differential treatment by the leader were associated with their evaluation of team atmosphere and team performance, in addition to the effects of the quality of their own working relationship with the leader (LMX quality). The context of this study consisted of interdependent sports teams. The participants were 605 players belonging to 69 amateur sports teams playing various team sports such as soccer, hockey, and basketball. Social differential treatment was negatively associated with team atmosphere and unrelated to team performance. In addition, it was found that the two forms of task‐related differential treatment included in this study were unrelated to team atmosphere and were differently associated with team performance. The results are discussed with reference to the existing leadership literature. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

认识建筑部门促进可持续发展的潜力

要支持续建筑和建造部门的合作,必须对这个部门的组成、谁是主要的利益相关者以及必须解决的主要问题有一致的定义.确定术语有助于确定为了实现可持续发展的总体目标可以采取的各种措施.如果不同的参与者要采取包含非传统形式合作的行动,他们必须承认他们是同一个利益相关者的团体的一部分,属于同一个部门,不管这个部门是如何定义的.《21世纪可持续建筑议程》和《21世纪发展中国家可持续建筑议程》两份刊物和欧盟CRISP计划可以作为包括SBC各个方面的概念框架和术语的基础.     

Toward a Sectorwide Design for Environment Support System for the Rail Industry

Rail has an important role to play in the development toward a sustainable transportation system. In this perspective, the European Brite Euram Project RAVEL (Rail Vehicle Eco-Efficient Design) has developed a rail sectorwide Design for Environment system to be used and standardized throughout the full supply chain. At the core of the system, quantitative environmental performance indicators for rail vehicles and components are used to incorporate environmental performance target levels in the product requirements and to measure and communicate achieved environmental performance. The concept of eco-efficiency is used to integrate both environmental and economical considerations. The methodology further builds on a standardized material list, standardized data formats, and proactive design guidance. To date, first steps are already taken to integrate the RAVEL project results into sector initiatives toward industrywide acceptance and standardization.Published online Note: This version was published online in June 2005 with the cover date of August 2004.