Climate change effects on the Baltic Sea borderland between land and sea

Coastal habitats are situated on the border between land and sea, and ecosystem structure and functioning is influenced by both marine and terrestrial processes. Despite this, most scientific studies and monitoring are conducted either with a terrestrial or an aquatic focus. To address issues concerning climate change impacts in coastal areas, a cross-ecosystem approach is necessary. Since habitats along the Baltic coastlines vary in hydrology, natural geography, and ecology, climate change projections for Baltic shore ecosystems are bound to be highly speculative. Societal responses to climate change in the Baltic coastal ecosystems should have an ecosystem approach and match the biophysical realities of the Baltic Sea area. Knowledge about ecosystem processes and their responses to a changing climate should be integrated within the decision process, both locally and nationally, in order to increase the awareness of, and to prepare for climate change impacts in coastal areas of the Baltic Sea.     

Optimizing line intercept sampling and estimation for feral swine damage levels in ecologically sensitive wetland plant communities

Ecological sampling can be labor intensive, and logistically impractical in certain environments. We optimize line intercept sampling and compare estimation methods for assessing feral swine damage within fragile wetland ecosystems in Florida. Sensitive wetland sites, and the swine damage within them, were mapped using GPS technology. Evenly spaced parallel transect lines were simulated across a digital map of each site. The length of each transect and total swine damage under each transect were measured and percent swine damage within each site was estimated by two methods. The total length method (TLM) combined all transects as a single long transect, dividing the sum of all damage lengths across all transects by the combined length of all transect lines. The equal weight method (EWM) calculated the damage proportion for each transect line and averaged these proportions across all transects. Estimation was evaluated using transect spacings of 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, and 20 m. Based on relative root mean squared error and relative bias measures, the TLM produced higher quality estimates than EWM at all transect spacings. Estimation quality decreased as transect spacing increased, especially for TLM. Estimation quality also increased as the true proportion of swine damage increased. Diminishing improvements in estimation quality as transect spacings decreased suggested 5 m as an optimal tradeoff between estimation quality and labor. An inter-transect spacing of 5 m with TLM estimation appeared an optimal starting point when designing a plan for estimating swine damage, with practical, logistical, economic considerations determining final design details.     

A plea for the use of copepods in freshwater ecotoxicology

Standard species used in ecological risk assessment are chosen based on their sensitivity to various toxicants and the ease of rearing them for laboratory experiments. However, this mostly overlooks the fact that species in the field that may employ variable life-history strategies, which may have consequences concerning the vulnerability of such species to exposure with contaminants. We aimed to highlight the importance of copepods in ecology and to underline the need to include freshwater copepods in ecotoxicology. We carried out a literature search on copepods and Daphnia in ecology and ecotoxicology to compare the recognition given to these two taxa in these respective fields. We also conducted a detailed analysis of the literature on copepods and their current role in ecotoxicology to characterize the scale and depth of the studies and the ecotoxicological information therein. The literature on the ecology of copepods outweighed that in ecotoxicology when compared with daphnids. Copepods, like other zooplankton, were found to be sensitive to toxicants and important organisms in aquatic ecosystems. The few studies that were conducted on the ecotoxicology of copepods mainly focused on marine copepods. However, very little is known about the ecotoxicology of freshwater copepods. To enable a more realistic risk higher tier environmental risk assessment, we recommend considering freshwater copepods as part of the hazard assessment process. This could include the establishment of laboratory experiments to analyse the effects of toxicants on copepods and the development of individual-based models to extrapolate effects across species and scenarios.     

Daily Mortality and Air Pollution in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

We studied the association of daily mortality with short-term variations in the ambient concentrations of major gaseous pollutants and PM in the Netherlands. The magnitude of the association in the four major urban areas was compared with that in the remainder of the country. Daily cause-specific mortality counts, air quality, temperature, relative humidity, and influenza data were obtained from 1986 to 1994. The relationship between daily mortality and air pollution was modeled using Poisson regression analysis. We adjusted for potential confounding due to long-term and seasonal trends, influenza epidemics, ambient temperature and relative humidity, day of the week, and holidays, using generalized additive models.

Influenza episodes were associated with increased mortality up to 3 weeks later. Daily mortality was significantly associated with the concentration of all air pollutants. An increase in the PM₁₀ concentration by 100 u.g/m³ was associated with a relative risk (RR) of 1.02 for total mortality. The largest RRs were found for pneumonia deaths. Ozone had the most consistent, independent association with mortality. Particulate air pollution (e.g., PM₁₀, black smoke [BS]) was not more consistently associated with mortality than were the gaseous pollutants SO₂ and NO₂. Aerosol SO₄ ^-2, NO₃ ^-, and BS were more consistently associated with total mortality than was PM₁₀. The RRs for all pollutants were substantially larger in the summer months than in the winter months. The RR of total mortality for PM₁₀ was 1.10 for the summer and 1.03 for the winter. There was no consistent difference between RRs in the four major urban areas and the more rural areas.     

Conflicts between biodiversity conservation and human activities in the central and eastern European countries

Conflicts between the conservation of biodiversity and other human activities have been and continue to be of increasing concern in the European Union, often having important political, economic, and environmental repercussions. These conflicts have been addressed in the European Union by using a wide array of top down and bottom up tools, with varying degrees of success. A new challenge is now facing Europe with the integration of 10 new countries in the European Union (EU) and an additional range of biodiversity-rich habitats placed under EU legislation. The rich biodiversity of the central and eastern European countries (CEEC) is likely to be threatened by some aspects of the integration process, and conflicts between the conservation of biodiversity and other human activities are expected. In this paper, we review certain existing conflicts between biodiversity conservation and human activities in the CEEC, expected conflicts associated with integration to the EU, particularly in terms of new policy and legislation implementation, and, finally, explore possible conflict management options.     

Tree and stand growth of mature Norway spruce and European beech under long-term ozone fumigation

In a 50- to 70-year-old mixed stand of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) and European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) in Germany, tree cohorts have been exposed to double ambient ozone (2×O₃) from 2000 through 2007 and can be compared with trees in the same stand under the ambient ozone regime (1×O₃). Annual diameter growth, allocation pattern, stem form, and stem volume were quantified at the individual tree and stand level. Ozone fumigation induced a shift in the resource allocation into height growth at the expense of diameter growth. This change in allometry leads to rather cone-shaped stem forms and reduced stem stability in the case of spruce, and even neiloidal stem shapes in the case of beech. Neglect of such ozone-induced changes in stem shape may lead to a flawed estimation of volume growth. On the stand level, 2×O₃ caused, on average, a decrease of 10.2 m³ ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ in European beech.