Orchid conservation in the biodiversity hotspot of southwestern China

Xishuangbanna is on the northern margins of tropical Asia in southwestern China and has the largest area of tropical forest remaining in the country. It is in the Indo‐Burma hotspot and contains 16% of China's vascular flora in <0.2% of the country's total area (19,690 km²). Rapid expansion of monoculture crops in the last 20 years, particularly rubber, threatens this region's exceptional biodiversity. To understand the effects of land‐use change and collection on orchid species diversity and determine protection priorities, we conducted systematic field surveys, observed markets, interviewed orchid collectors, and then determined the conservation status of all orchids. We identified 426 orchid species in 115 genera in Xishuangbanna: 31% of all orchid species that occur in China. Species richness was highest at 1000–1200 m elevation. Three orchid species were assessed as possibly extinct in the wild, 15 as critically endangered, 82 as endangered, 124 as vulnerable, 186 as least concern, and 16 as data deficient. Declines over 20 years in harvested species suggested over‐collection was the major threat, and utility value (i.e., medicinal or ornamental value) was significantly related to endangerment. Expansion of rubber tree plantations was less of a threat to orchids than to other taxa because only 75 orchid species (17.6%) occurred below the 1000‐m‐elevation ceiling for rubber cultivation, and most of these (46) occurred in nature reserves. However, climate change is projected to lift this ceiling to around 1300 m by 2050, and the limited area at higher elevations reduces the potential for upslope range expansion. The Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden is committed to achieving zero plant extinctions in Xishuangbanna, and orchids are a high priority. Appropriate in and ex situ conservation strategies, including new protected areas and seed banking, have been developed for every threatened orchid species and are being implemented.     

一种钢渣中氯离子的测定方法

利用蒸馏装置蒸出钢渣中的氯离子,使用硝酸汞滴定方法进行滴定,选用两种钢渣,在不同实验室分别进行了分析测定的比较和验证。结果表明:该方法简便易操作,重现性和准确性都比较高,作为钢渣中氯离子的测定是可行的。     

Effects of fenvalerate concentrations and its chiral isomers on bacterial community structure in the sediment environment of aquaculture ponds

To investigate the effect of chiral pesticide fenvalerate (FV) on the micro-ecological environment of aquaculture pond sediment, we used an indoor static experiment to observe the effects of FV added at different concentrations with different chiral isomers on the changes in the sediment bacterial community. The 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing technique was used to conduct sequencing and analysis of the bacterial community structure as well as changes in aquaculture pond sediments after 4 weeks of cultivation. The results showed that the microbial alpha diversity indices (Sobs and Shannon indices) of the treated groups were significantly lower than those of the control group after 4 weeks (P < 0.05), and the values in the high-concentration group were significantly lower than those of the low-concentration group (P < 0.05). In terms of bacterial group composition, the proportion of abundance of Proteobacteria and Acidobacteria in the treated groups were greater than in the control group after 4 weeks, while the proportion of abundance of Bacteroidetes and Verrucomicrobia were lower. In the high-concentration FV treatment group, the proportion of abundance of Bacteroidetes, Acidobacteria, Chloroflexi, Nitrospinae, unclassified_k_norank, Ignavibacteriae, and Nitrospirae were significantly different from those of the other groups (P < 0.05). Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and ANONISIM/Adonis analysis showed that the cis-enantiomer had a stronger effect on the bacterial community as the concentration of FV increased. In addition, the linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) results revealed differences in the level of enrichment of bacterial groups caused by FV at different concentrations and isomer levels. Collectively, this study showed that FV residue has a pronounced effect on bacterial communities in sediment, which becomes more significant with increasing exposure concentration. The effects of the cis- and trans-enantiomers of FV on the sediment environment are different; the cis-enantiomer has a stronger effect on the bacterial community.

     

Benefits of environmental information disclosure in managing water pollution: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Environmental information disclosure (EID) is playing an increasingly important role in water pollution management. However, since EID is hard to...     

Review on the treatment of organic wastewater by discharge plasma combined with oxidants and catalysts

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Discharge plasma technology is a new advanced oxidation technology for water treatment, which includes the effects of free radical oxidation, high...     

Using water-based drilling cuttings from shale gas development to manufacture sintered bricks: a case study in the southern Sichuan Basin,China

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Large amounts of water-based drilling cuttings (WDC) would be generated during the drilling of shale gas wells, which would occupy land resources and...     

Multi-templates surface molecularly imprinted polymer for simultaneous and rapid determination of sulfonamides and quinolones in water: effect of carbon-carbon double bond

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In this work, the effect of a carrier modified with a carbon-carbon double bond (C=C) on preparing multi-templates surface molecularly imprinted...     

Antibiotic accumulation,growth performance,intestinal diversification,and function of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) feed by diets supplemented with different doses of sulfamethoxazole

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - To comprehensively investigate the effects of exposure to legal doses of sulfamethoxazole (SMZ) in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), fishes were...     

Spatiotemporal Variation of Karst Ecosystem Service Values and Its Correlation with Environmental Factors in Northwest Guangxi,China

In this investigation we analyzed the spatiotemporal variation of ecosystem service values (ESVs) and its correlation with numerous environmental factors (EFs) for the karst region of Northwest Guangxi, China, from 1985 to 2005 using remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical techniques. The results indicate that historically ESVs for this karst region decreased from 1985 (109.652 billion Yuan) to 1990 (88.789 billion Yuan) and then increased at the turn of the twenty-first century. However, the ESVs in both 2000 (103.384 billion Yuan) and 2005 (106.257 billion Yuan) never achieved the level recorded in 1985. The total of nutrient cycling, organic production and gas regulation combined were 72.69, 64.57, 70.18 and 72.10% of ESVs in 1985, 1990, 2000 and 2005, respectively. In contrast, the ESVs of water conservation, soil reservation, recreation and culture were determined to be relatively low contributing only 17.44, 23.82, 19.26 and 24.76% of total ESVs, respectively, during these four years. With regards to the spatial distribution of ESVs, larger values were recorded in the west and smaller ones recorded in the east. The most significant factors that were deemed to influence ESVs are annual rainfall, per capita cropland, slope and vegetation coverage. Annual rainfall and slope exert a negative force, whereas per capita cropland and vegetation coverage exert a positive force on ESVs. The results of the study would suggest that ecosystem conditions of this important karst region have been improved as the result of the implementation of rocky desertification control policies.     

A comparative study of the effect of clay binders on iron oxide sorbent in the high-temperature removal of hydrogen sulfide

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of clay binder, an important additive, on the performance of iron oxide sorbent in high temperature coal gas desulfurization. The four clay binders chosen for the study were kaolinite, diatomite, bentonite and brick clay. The sulfidation–regeneration cycles were conducted in a fixed-bed reactor. XRD, DTA and FTIR, together with texture characterizing techniques, such as mercury porosimetry and nitrogen adsorption, were adopted to characterize the sorbents and raw materials. The results obtained show that sorbents prepared from various clay binders exhibit different breakthrough behaviors. In addition, a correlation between pore volume and sulfur capacity reveals that sorbents with a greater number of pores larger than 200 nm (diameter), exhibit higher sulfur capacity. The reason for this is that a greater number of large pores can improve diffusion and provide a larger space for relieving heat impact. However, too many large pores may result in weak strength and very low bulk density, thus a balance between large pores and the density must be achieved. This study also reveals that clay binder can contribute to the modification of a sorbent's texture as gas is released when the mineral structure changes during calcination. In addition, a clay mineral with an active interlayer has been shown to be beneficial in improving the dispersion of active components in the sorbent, because of the existence of an interaction between the mineral and red mud.