Degradation of Pyrimethanil in Soil: Influence of Light,Oxygen, and Microbial Activity

The research was carried out in order to verify the influence that light, oxygen, and microbial activity have on the degradability of pyrimethanil (PYR) in soil. The products of degradation were also identified and their evolution in time evaluated. The results indicate that the molecule is more persistent in the absence of light, oxygen, and microbial activity. The order of importance of these three factors is as follows: light < microbial activity < oxygen. The following products of degradation were identified: (1) benzoic acid, (2) cis,cis-muconic acid, (3) hydroxyl-4,6-dimethyl-2-pirimidinamine, (4) N′-ethyl-N-hydroxyformamidine, and (5) 4,6-dimethyl-2-piridinamine, which appeared different from those reported in literature for the degradation of PYR in abiotic conditions. This result suggests that the degradation in soil is mainly biotic.     

Mapping shifts in spatial synchrony in grassland birds to inform conservation planning

Spatial synchrony, defined as the correlated fluctuations in abundance of spatially separated populations, can be caused by regional fluctuations in natural and anthropogenic environmental population drivers. Investigations into the geography of synchrony can provide useful insight to inform conservation planning efforts by revealing regions of common population drivers and metapopulation extinction vulnerability. We examined the geography of spatial synchrony and decadal changes in these patterns for grassland birds in the United States and Canada, which are experiencing widespread and persistent population declines. We used Bayesian hierarchical models and over 50 years of abundance data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey to generate population indices within a 2° latitude by 2° longitude grid. We computed and mapped mean local spatial synchrony for each cell (mean detrended correlation of the index among neighboring cells), along with associated uncertainty, for 19 species in 2, 26-year periods, 1968–1993 and 1994–2019. Grassland birds were predicted to increase in spatial synchrony where agricultural intensification, climate change, or interactions between the 2 increased. We found no evidence of an overall increase in synchrony among grassland bird species. However, based on the geography of these changes, there was considerable spatial heterogeneity within species. Averaging across species, we identified clusters of increasing spatial synchrony in the Prairie Pothole and Shortgrass Prairie regions and a region of decreasing spatial synchrony in the eastern United States. Our approach has the potential to inform continental-scale conservation planning by adding an additional layer of relevant information to species status assessments and spatial prioritization of policy and management actions. Our work adds to a growing literature suggesting that global change may result in shifting patterns of spatial synchrony in population dynamics across taxa with broad implications for biodiversity conservation.     

A framework for allocating conservation resources among multiple threats and actions

Land managers decide how to allocate resources among multiple threats that can be addressed through multiple possible actions. Additionally, these actions vary in feasibility, effectiveness, and cost. We sought to provide a way to optimize resource allocation to address multiple threats when multiple management options are available, including mutually exclusive options. Formulating the decision as a combinatorial optimization problem, our framework takes as inputs the expected impact and cost of each threat for each action (including do nothing) and for each overall budget identifies the optimal action to take for each threat. We compared the optimal solution to an easy to calculate greedy algorithm approximation and a variety of plausible ranking schemes. We applied the framework to management of multiple introduced plant species in Australian alpine areas. We developed a model of invasion to predict the expected impact in 50 years for each species-action combination that accounted for each species’ current invasion state (absent, localized, widespread); arrival probability; spread rate; impact, if present, of each species; and management effectiveness of each species-action combination. We found that the recommended action for a threat changed with budget; there was no single optimal management action for each species; and considering more than one candidate action can substantially increase the management plan's overall efficiency. The approximate solution (solution ranked by marginal cost-effectiveness) performed well when the budget matched the cost of the prioritized actions, indicating that this approach would be effective if the budget was set as part of the prioritization process. The ranking schemes varied in performance, and achieving a close to optimal solution was not guaranteed. Global sensitivity analysis revealed a threat's expected impact and, to a lesser extent, management effectiveness were the most influential parameters, emphasizing the need to focus research and monitoring efforts on their quantification.     

Fetoscopic myelomeningocoele closure: Is the scientific evidence enough to challenge the gold standard for prenatal surgery?

Since the completion of the Management of Myelomeningocoele Study, maternal-fetal surgery for spina bifida has become a valid option for expecting parents. More recently, multiple groups are exploring a minimally invasive approach and recent outcomes have addressed many of the initial concerns with this approach. Based on a previously published framework, we attempt to delineate the developmental stage of the surgical techniques. Furthermore, we discuss the barriers of performing randomized controlled trials comparing two surgical interventions and suggest that data collection through registries is an alternative method to gather high-grade evidence.     

Heirs and spares: caste conflict and excess queen production in Melipona bees

The caste conflict hypothesis states that there is potential conflict over the caste fate of totipotent immature females in social insects. In most species, an immature female has little control over her fate because workers control her nutrition. However, in Melipona bees, immature females should have considerable control over their own caste fate because they develop on a provision mass in a sealed cell, and because queens are not larger than workers. This may explain why, in Melipona, large numbers of queens are reared only to be executed. (Because Melipona colonies are founded by swarms very few reproductive opportunities for adult queens occur.) This study uses a one-locus genetic model to determine the optimum proportion of females that should develop into queens from the perspective of immature totipotent females who control their own caste fate. For a population in which all colonies are headed by a single, single-mated queen, which is the typical situation in Melipona, the optimum rises from 14-20% as male production by workers declines from 100% to zero. This agrees well with previous studies which, collectively, give an average of 22% of females developing into queens.     

Material and energy recovery from Automotive Shredded Residues (ASR) via sequential gasification and combustion

Shredding is the common end-of-life treatment in Europe for dismantled car wrecks. It produces the so-called Automotive Shredded Residue (ASR), usually disposed of in landfill. This paper summarizes the outcome of a study carried out by Politecnico di Milano and LEAP with the support of Actelios SpA on the prospects of a technology based on sequential gasification and combustion of this specific waste stream. Its application to the treatment of ASR allows the recovery of large fractions of metals as non-oxidized, easily marketable secondary raw materials, the vitrification of most of the ash content and the production of power via a steam cycle. Results show that despite the unfavourable characteristics of ASR, the proposed technology can reach appealing energy performances. Three of four environmental impact indicators and the cumulative energy demand index are favourable, the main positive contributes being electricity production and metal recovery (mainly aluminium and copper). The only unfavourable indicator is the global warming index because, since most of the carbon in ASR comes from fossil sources, the carbon dioxide emissions at the stack of the thermal treatment plant are mainly non-renewable and, at the same time, the avoided biogas production from the alternative disposal route of landfilling is minor.