Using lysosomal membrane stability of haemocytes in Ruditapes philippinarum as a biomarker of cellular stress to assess contamination by caffeine, ibuprofen, carbamazepine and novobiocin

Although pharmaceuticals have been detected in the environment only in the range from ng/L to g/L, it has been demonstrated that they can adversely affect the health status of aquatic organisms. Lysosomal membrane stability (LMS) has previously been applied as an indicator of cellular well-being to determine health status in bivalve mussels. The objective of this study is to evaluate LMS in Ruditapes philippinarum haemolymph using the neutral red retention assay (NRRA). Clams were exposed in laboratory conditions to caffeine (0.1, 5, 15, 50 μg/L), ibuprofen (0.1, 5, 10, 50 μg/L), carbamazepine and novobiocin (both at 0.1, 1, 10, 50 μg/L) for 35 days. Results show a dose-dependent effect of the pharmaceuticals. The neutral red retention time measured at the end of the bioassay was significantly reduced by 50% after exposure to environmental concentrations (p < 0.05) (caffeine = 15 μg/L; ibuprofen = 10 μg/L; carbamazepine = 1 μg/L and novobiocin = 1 μg/L), compared to controls. Clams exposed to these pharmaceuticals were considered to present a diminished health status (retention time < 45 min), significantly worse than controls (96 min) (p < 0.05). The predicted no environmental effect concentration (PNEC) results showed that these pharmaceuticals are very toxic at the environmental concentrations tested. Measurement of the alteration of LMS has been found to be a sensitive technique that enables evaluation of the health status of clams after exposure to pharmaceuticals under laboratory conditions, thus representing a robust Tier-1 screening biomarker.     

Prevalence of Norovirus Infection in Children and Adults with Acute Gastroenteritis,Tehran, Iran, 2008–2009

Noroviruses are one of important agents that cause acute viral gastroenteritis worldwide. These viruses are belonging to Caliciviridae family and are genetically diverse. To date, there is no valuable data about prevalence of norovirus infection and the dominant genogroup/genotype among Iranian population. The objective of this study was to determine the frequency of norovirus infection in Iranian patients with gastroenteritis referred to three hospitals of Tehran and to specify the dominant genogroup/genotype of this virus among our study population. A total of 293 patients with acute gastroenteritis were included in the study. Detection of norovirus was performed using RT-PCR method and confirmed by direct sequencing with specific designed primers for capsid region of norovirus genome. Phylogenetic analysis was performed using the neighbor-joining method. Norovirus strains identified in our study were subsequently categorized according to previously defined genogroup/genotypes. Of these, norovirus GII was dominant genogroup. Sixty-five percent (17 of 26) of positive samples were determined as GII and 35% (9 of 26) were determined as GI, respectively, in 2008–2009. And among 8 sequenced strains of genogroup II the most frequent genotype was GII.3. The results of this study indicated that norovirus must be considered as one of the infectious causes of acute gastroenteritis among Iranian population. We also found that GII.3 is more prevalent in our study population. To the best of our knowledge there is limited data about the role of noroviruses in children and adults’ acute gastroenteritis among Iranian patients and this prevalence and genotyping report of norovirus infection could be remarkable for further studies.     

Supporting Diverse Data Providers in the Open Water Data Initiative: Communicating Water Data Quality and Fitness of Use

Shared, trusted, timely data are essential elements for the cooperation needed to optimize economic, ecologic, and public safety concerns related to water. The Open Water Data Initiative (OWDI) will provide a fully scalable platform that can support a wide variety of data from many diverse providers. Many of these will be larger, well‐established, and trusted agencies with a history of providing well‐documented, standardized, and archive‐ready products. However, some potential partners may be smaller, distributed, and relatively unknown or untested as data providers. The data these partners will provide are valuable and can be used to fill in many data gaps, but can also be variable in quality or supplied in nonstandardized formats. They may also reflect the smaller partners' variable budgets and missions, be intermittent, or of unknown provenance. A challenge for the OWDI will be to convey the quality and the contextual “fitness” of data from providers other than the most trusted brands. This article reviews past and current methods for documenting data quality. Three case studies are provided that describe processes and pathways for effective data‐sharing and publication initiatives. They also illustrate how partners may work together to find a metadata reporting threshold that encourages participation while maintaining high data integrity. And lastly, potential governance is proposed that may assist smaller partners with short‐ and long‐term participation in the OWDI.     

Rapid metal extractability tests from polluted mining soils by ultrasound probe sonication and microwave-assisted extraction systems

Ultrasonic probe sonication (UPS) and microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) were used for rapid single extraction of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn from soils polluted by former mining activities (Mónica Mine, Bustarviejo, NW Madrid, Spain), using 0.01 mol L^?1 calcium chloride (CaCl₂), 0.43 mol L^?1 acetic acid (CH₃COOH), and 0.05 mol L^?1 ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) at pH 7 as extracting agents. The optimum extraction conditions by UPS consisted of an extraction time of 2 min for both CaCl₂ and EDTA extractions and 15 min for CH₃COOH extraction, at 30% ultrasound (US) amplitude, whereas in the case of MAE, they consisted of 5 min at 50 °C for both CaCl₂ and EDTA extractions and 15 min at 120 °C for CH₃COOH extraction. Extractable concentrations were determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). The proposed methods were compared with a reduced version of the corresponding single extraction procedures proposed by the Standards, Measurements and Testing Programme (SM&T). The results obtained showed a great variability on extraction percentages, depending on the metal, the total concentration level and the soil sample, reaching high values in some areas. However, the correlation analysis showed that total concentration is the most relevant factor for element extractability in these soil samples. From the results obtained, the application of the accelerated extraction procedures, such as MAE and UPS, could be considered a useful approach to evaluate rapidly the extractability of the metals studied.     

Developing an analytical framework for assessing progress toward ecosystem-based management

Ecosystem-based management (EBM) has become a key instrument of contemporary environmental policy and practice. Given the increasingly important role of EBM, there is an urgent need for improved analytical approaches to assess if and to what extent EBM has been accomplished in any given case. Drawing on the vast literature on EBM, we identify five key ecosystem aspects for assessment. By linking these aspects to four phases of management, we develop an interdisciplinary, analytical framework that enables a high-resolution and systematic assessment of the degree of specificity and integration of ecosystem aspects in an EBM. We then apply the framework to evaluate five coastal EBM initiatives in Sweden, four on the Baltic coast and one on the west coast. Our results demonstrate our framework’s usefulness for in-depth and continuous assessments of processes aiming for EBM, and also provide an empirical basis for inferences about the key challenges for successful EBM.     

Carp (Cyprinidae) Fisheries in Swedish Lakes: A Combined Environmental Assessment Approach to Evaluate Data-limited Freshwater Fish Resources as Food

Environmental Management - The role of aquatic resources to food security is both promising and constrained since the global seafood consumption is increasing while marine fisheries approach the...     

Applying the zoo model to conservation of threatened exceptional plant species

Maintaining a living plant collection is the most common method of ex situ conservation for plant species that cannot be seed banked (i.e., exceptional species). Viability of living collections, and their value for future conservation efforts, can be limited without coordinated efforts to track and manage individuals across institutions. Using a pedigree-focused approach, the zoological community has established an inter-institutional infrastructure to support long-term viability of captive animal populations. We assessed the ability of this coordinated metacollection infrastructure to support the conservation of 4 plant species curated in living collections at multiple botanic gardens around the world. Limitations in current practices include the inability to compile, share, and analyze plant collections data at the individual level, as well as difficulty in tracking original provenance of ex situ material. The coordinated metacollection framework used by zoos can be adopted by the botanical community to improve conservation outcomes by minimizing the loss of genetic diversity in collections. We suggest actions to improve ex situ conservation of exceptional plant species, including developing a central database to aggregate data and track unique individuals of priority threatened species among institutions and adapting a pedigree-based population management tool that incorporates life-history aspects unique to plants. If approached collaboratively across regional, national, and global scales, these actions could transform ex situ conservation of threatened plant species.     

Frequency of PPAR-γ, FTO and ABCC8 genetic variation in Pakistani cardiovascular smokers

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Smoking is considered as one of the major reasons behind genetic variations in cardiometabolic disorders. However, effect of nicotine via smoking on...     

Hurricane Harvey and Greater Houston households: comparing pre-event preparedness with post-event health effects,event exposures,and recovery

Most disaster studies rely on convenience sampling and ‘after-only’ designs to assess impacts. This paper, focusing on Hurricane Harvey (2017) and leveraging a pre-/post-event sample of Greater Houston households (n=71) in the United States, establishes baselines for disaster preparedness and home structure flood hazard mitigation, explores household-level ramifications, and examines how preparedness and mitigation relate to health effects, event exposures, and recovery. Between 70 and 80 per cent of participants instituted preparedness measures. Mitigation actions varied: six per cent had interior drainage systems and 83 per cent had elevated indoor heating/cooling components. Sixty per cent reported home damage. One-half highlighted allergies and two-thirds indicated some level of post-traumatic stress (PTS). Three-quarters worried about family members/friends. The results of generalised linear models revealed that greater pre- event mitigation was associated with fewer physical health problems and adverse experiences, lower PTS, and faster recovery. The study design exposed the broad benefits of home structure flood hazard mitigation for households after Harvey.     

Discrete-choice experiments valuing local environmental impacts of renewables: two approaches to a case study in Portugal

Despite the often mentioned environmental benefits associated with transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, their use for electricity production has non-negligible negative environmental impacts. The most commonly mentioned in surveys concern different types of landscape impacts, impacts on the fauna and flora, and noise. These impacts differ by size and location of plants, and by source of energy, rendering the policy decision complex. In addition, there are other welfare issues to take into consideration, as positive and negative environmental impacts are not evenly distributed among population groups. This paper proposes to compare the welfare impacts of renewable energy sources controlling for the type of renewable as well as the specific environmental impact by source. To this end, two discrete-choice experiments are designed and applied to a national sample of the Portuguese population. In one case, only individual negative impacts of renewables are used, and in another case, the negative impacts interact with a specific source. Results show the robustness of discrete-choice experiments as a method to estimate the welfare change induced by the impacts of renewable energy sources. Overall, respondents are willing to pay to reduce the environmental impacts, thus making compensation for local impacts feasible. Moreover, the estimations reveal that respondents are significantly sensitive to the detrimental environmental effects of specific renewable energy sources, being willing to pay more to use these sources of energy relative to others.