PERCEPTION OF WATER QUALITY BY SELECT RESPONDENT GROUPINGS IN INLAND WATER-BASED RECREATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS1

ABSTRACT: This paper examines four lake environments which are paired by lake size and by trophic state, where trophic state is employed as an identifier of water quality. Two large lakes and two intermediate-sized lakes, with each pair having one oligotrophic lake and one eutrophic lake are selected for cross-sectional survey-oriented questionnaire research. This paper focuses upon one aspect of the research, namely, the perception of water quality by three user groups. The user groups examined are recreationists, cottage and homeowners, and fishermen. The groups are compared utilizing percentage response profiles and cluster level groupings. It appears from a preliminary analysis of the data that the lakes selected are viable trophic state endpoints for questionnaire analysis of respondents. Each user group surveyed does appear sensitive to select water quality parameters; where shifts in sensitivity appear within and between user groups with changes in ecological settings, as well as with factors independent of ecological settings.     

The effect of light and heterotrophy on carotenoid concentrations in the Caribbean anemone<Emphasis Type="Italic"> Aiptasia pallida</Emphasis> (Verrill)

One of the consequences of ultraviolet radiation exposure in anthozoans possessing photosynthetic endosymbionts (i.e., zooxanthellae) is production of reactive oxygen species that can damage cellular components, especially lipids and photosynthetic membranes. It is well known that carotenoids are potent antioxidants that can mitigate oxygen radical damage, but the origin of these compounds in zooxanthellate anthozoans is obscured because they can potentially originate from endosymbionts, heterotrophic feeding by the host, or a combination thereof. We used Aiptasia pallida, a common Caribbean anemone, to investigate the effects of exogenous food sources, ultraviolet-A radiation (UVA, 320–400 nm), and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR, 400–700 nm) on carotenoid levels in zooxanthellate anthozoans. Anemones were exposed to one of three simulated light treatments in the laboratory for 38 days: PAR (60% below ambient)/UVA (similar to ambient), PAR/low UVA (42% below ambient), and low PAR (98.4% below ambient)/no UVA. In addition, anemones were either fed a carotenoid-rich diet of Artemia salina nauplii, or starved. Carotenoids identified in A. pallida included peridinin, diadinoxanthin, diatoxanthin and -carotene. While a diet of Ar. salina nauplii had no effect on the carotenoid composition of A. pallida, a two-way analysis of variance revealed that anemones exposed to ambient UVA levels had significantly greater diatoxanthin concentrations relative to the total xanthophyll pool [diato:(diato+diadino)] after 10 days of exposure. This difference among treatments was not present at 20 days, but reappeared as an effect due to starvation rather than UVA at days 30 and 38. These results suggest that carotenoids in A. pallida are not influenced by exogenous feeding and that photoprotective xanthophyll cycling is sensitive to stresses such as UVA and starvation.Communicated by P.W. Sammarco, Chauvin     

Attitudes towards Recycling Household Waste in Exeter, Devon: quantitative and qualitative approaches

Recycling of household waste has become a very problematic area of British local government policy-making in which central government has set ambitious targets. Although local government can provide facilities for recycling, the attitudes of residents will be crucial if these targets are to be met. Accordingly, this paper outlines a framework for studying how households decide to recycle or not. The framework has been tested in Exeter in south-west England where a major survey found that respondents were much more likely to recycle if they had access to a structured kerbside recycling scheme. Many other factors influenced their attitudes and behaviours towards recycling, including their acceptance of the activity and their perception of the benefits and problems of recycling as a whole. The research uses the quantitative and qualitative data from the survey to demonstrate how individual attitudes can impact on recycling and how such research can yield useful data to enable policy-makers to adapt measures accordingly.     

GENERATING FARM DESCRIPTIONS IN A WATERSHED FROM INCOMPLETE DATA USING SIMULATED ANNEALING1

ABSTRACT: A fundamental problem faced in developing spatially explicit, simulation‐based analyses of watershed management and policy options is determining the distribution and spatial location of agricultural resources within a watershed based on incomplete information. This paper describes the use of simulated annealing, a heuristic scheduling process, to generate an assignment of all livestock and agricultural fields in a watershed to hypothetical farms such that the combined distribution of farm types, livestock, and farmland within the watershed is a reasonable representation of watershed‐level data. Compared to a manual method using GIS‐based analysis and data from aerial photography, the heuristic method was more likely to generate realistic spatial characterizations of the distribution of agricultural resources and practices in a watershed. Also compared to the manual method, the heuristic process was considerably more efficient and could more easily accommodate multiple criteria and modifications to those criteria.     

Hydrologic Model Framework for Water Resources Planning in the Santa Cruz River,Southern Arizona1

Abstract: The authors develop a model framework that includes a set of hydrologic modules as a water resources management and planning tool for the upper Santa Cruz River near the Mexican border, Southern Arizona. The modules consist of: (1) stochastic generation of hourly precipitation scenarios that maintain the characteristics and variability of a 45‐year hourly precipitation record from a nearby rain gauge; (2) conceptual transformation of generated precipitation into daily streamflow using varied infiltration rates and estimates of the basin antecedent moisture conditions; and (3) surface‐water to ground‐water interaction for four downstream microbasins that accounts for alluvial ground‐water recharge, and ET and pumping losses. To maintain the large inter‐annual variability of streamflow as prevails in Southern Arizona, the model framework is constructed to produce three types of seasonal winter and summer categories of streamflow (i.e., wet, medium, or dry). Long‐term (i.e., 100 years) realizations (ensembles) are generated by the above described model framework that reflects two different regimes of inter annual variability. The first regime is that of the historic streamflow gauge record. The second regime is that of the tree ring reconstructed precipitation, which was derived for the study location. Generated flow ensembles for these two regimes are used to evaluate the risk that the regional four ground‐water microbasins decline below a preset storage threshold under different operational water utilization scenarios.     

Fate and transport of pathogens in lakes and reservoirs

Outbreaks of water-borne disease via public water supplies continue to be reported in developed countries even though there is increased awareness of, and treatment for, pathogen contamination. Pathogen episodes in lakes and reservoirs are often associated with rain events, and the riverine inflow is considered to be major source of pathogens. Consequently, the behaviour of these inflows is of particular importance in determining pathogen transport and distribution. Inflows are controlled by their density relative to that of the lake, such that warm inflows will flow over the surface of the lake as a buoyant surface flow and cold, dense inflows will sink beneath the lake water where they will flow along the bathymetry towards the deepest point. The fate of pathogens is determined by loss processes including settling and inactivation by temperature, UV and grazing. The general trend is for the insertion timescale to be shortest, followed by sedimentation losses and temperature inactivity. The fate of Cryptosporidium due to UV light inactivation can occur at opposite ends of the scale, depending on the location of the oocysts in the water column and the extinction coefficient for UV light. For this reason, the extinction coefficient for UV light appears to be a vitally important parameter for determining the risk of Cryptosporidium contamination. For risk assessment of pathogens in supply reservoirs, it is important to understand the role of hydrodynamics in determining the timescale of transport to the off-take relative to the timescale of inactivation. The characteristics of the riverine intrusion must also be considered when designing a sampling program for pathogens. A risk management framework is presented that accounts for pathogen fate and transport for reservoirs.     

Bumblebees exhibit the memory spacing effect

Associative learning is key to how bees recognize and return to rewarding floral resources. It thus plays a major role in pollinator floral constancy and plant gene flow. Honeybees are the primary model for pollinator associative learning, but bumblebees play an important ecological role in a wider range of habitats, and their associative learning abilities are less well understood. We assayed learning with the proboscis extension reflex (PER), using a novel method for restraining bees (capsules) designed to improve bumblebee learning. We present the first results demonstrating that bumblebees exhibit the memory spacing effect. They improve their associative learning of odor and nectar reward by exhibiting increased memory acquisition, a component of long-term memory formation, when the time interval between rewarding trials is increased. Bombus impatiens forager memory acquisition (average discrimination index values) improved by 129% and 65% at inter-trial intervals (ITI) of 5 and 3 min, respectively, as compared to an ITI of 1 min. Memory acquisition rate also increased with increasing ITI. Encapsulation significantly increases olfactory memory acquisition. Ten times more foragers exhibited at least one PER response during training in capsules as compared to traditional PER harnesses. Thus, a novel conditioning assay, encapsulation, enabled us to improve bumblebee-learning acquisition and demonstrate that spaced learning results in better memory consolidation. Such spaced learning likely plays a role in forming long-term memories of rewarding floral resources.     

Where clocks are redundant: weak circadian mechanisms in reindeer living under polar photic conditions

Biological rhythms are a result of interplay between endogenous clocks and the ambient light–dark (LD) cycle. Biological timing in resident polar organisms presents a conundrum because these experience distinct daily LD cycles for only a few weeks each year. We measured locomotor activity in reindeer, Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus (SR, n = 5 and 6) and R. tarandus tarandus (NR, n = 6), ranging freely at 78 and 70°N, respectively, continuously throughout 1 year using data loggers. NR, but not SR, are gregarious which enabled us to examine the integrated effects of differences in social organisation and the photic environment at two different latitudes on the organisation of activity. In both sub-species, ultradian bouts of activity and inactivity alternated across the 24-h day throughout the year. This pattern was modified by the LD cycle in NR but barely at all in SR. Periodogram analysis revealed significant ultradian rhythmicity in both sub-species; the frequency of daily cycles of activity increased from three per day in winter to nearly five in summer. We conclude that this increase, and a concomitant increase in the level of daily activity, reflected the seasonal increase in the animals’ appetite and the quality of their forage. Secondly, the combination, most evident in SR, of a weak photic response, weak circadian mechanisms and a weak social synchronization reduces the constraints of biological timing in an environment which is effectively non-rhythmic most of the year and permits expression of the basic ultradian pattern of ruminant activity. Third, the weaker 24-h rhythmicity in SR compared to NR indicates a latitudinal decrease in circadian organization and photic responsiveness in Rangifer.