Using culturomics and social media data to characterize wildlife consumption

Wildlife provides food, medicine, clothing, and other necessities for humans, but overexploitation can disrupt the sustainability of wildlife resources and severely threaten global biodiversity. Understanding the characteristics of consumer behavior is helpful for wildlife managers and policy makers, but the traditional survey methods are laborious and time-consuming. In contrast, culturomics may more efficiently identify the features of wildlife consumption. As a case study of the culturomics approach, we examined tiger bone wine consumption in China based on social media and Baidu search engine data. Tiger bone wine is one of the most purchased tiger products; its consumption is closely related to tiger poaching, which greatly threatens wild tiger survival. We searched a popular social media website for the term “tiger bone wine” and focused on posts that were originally created from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2018. We filtered and classified posts related to the purchase, sale, or consumption of tiger bone wine and extracted information on providers, consumption motivations, year of production, and place of origin of the tiger bone wines based on the texts and photos of these posts. We found 756 posts related to tiger bone wine consumption, 113 of which mentioned providers of tiger bone wine, including friends (53%), elder relatives (37%), peer relatives (7%), and others (3%). Out of the 756 posts, 266 indicated the motivations of tiger bone wine consumption. Tiger bone wines were consumed as a tonic (34%), medicine (23%), game product (30%), and a symbol of wealth (28%). Some posts indicated ≥2 consumption motivations. These findings were consistent with the search queries from Baidu index. Such information could help develop targeted strategies for tiger conservation. The culturomics approach illustrated by our study is a rapid and cost-efficient way to characterize wildlife consumption.     

How does population structure affect pollutant discharge in China? Evidence from an improved STIRPAT model

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - China is the most populous country in the world, and the pollution caused by the excessive population should not be underestimated. In recent years,...     

Characteristic and mechanism of sorption and desorption of benzene on humic acid

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The sorption/desorption behaviors of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) on soil organic matter (SOM) have a significant influence on...     

Toxic cyanobacteria and microcystin dynamics in a tropical reservoir: assessing the influence of environmental variables

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Toxic cyanobacterial blooms (TCBs) have become a growing concern worldwide. The present study investigated the dynamic of toxic cyanobacteria and...     

Promoting e-mobility in India: challenges,framework, and future roadmap

The purpose of the research is to identify the critical challenges that are impeding the adoption of e-mobility in India. It also aims to give a roadmap how to address these challenges while taking into considerations concerns of all the relevant stakeholders. Based on an in-depth literature review, an exploratory research design is employed to delve deep into various aspects of e-mobility. This is followed by a three-phase Delphi technique to identify and rate the e-mobility challenges in the Indian context. The study successfully identifies four different categories of challenges and proposes integrative framework for e-mobility. Further, the research goes on to lay out the future roadmap for mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in India. The research is novel in terms of presenting a holistic viewpoint on e-mobility in India. Its originality lies in identifying the major inhibitors obstructing EVs adoption in India and then suggesting the roadmap how to overcome these impediments for mass adoption of e-mobility.     

消防员职业健康测试项目的研究

本文从医学测试、体质测试和心理测试三个方面论述了消防员职业健康测试项目研究的重要性,以促进我国消防员职业健康研究水平的提高。