A targeting approach for ecosystem protection

The Critical Ecosystems Team of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 5, has developed an approach to prioritize and target ecologically high-quality areas for enhanced environmental protection in the Midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Using this approach, we intend to employ a pro-active strategy to protect the environment by protecting and restoring natural ecosystems rather than the traditional EPA approach of remediating and attempting to restore already degraded habitats. The approach consists of two components: (1) partnership and (2) criteria. For the partnership component, we collected, mapped, and summarized information on ecosystems considered critical to federal and state agencies, tribes and non-profit organizations. Multi-county areas with high numbers of ecosystems identified by a variety of partners were designated as ‘Ecologically Rich Regions’. These Ecologically Rich Regions highlight broad geographic areas where there are high levels of partner interest and, correspondingly, areas with high potential for forming collaborative partnerships for enhanced environmental protection. The second component, which relies on criteria, is still under development and defines critical ecosystems as having three important properties: (1) high ecological diversity, (2) potential for long-term sustainability and (3) presence of relict native ecosystems or communities. The information compiled under both components of this ecosystem targeting approach will inform ecological risk managers and assessors about important ecosystems that should be considered in risk management and assessment processes.     

In their words: How Detroit residents perceive the effects of their physical environment

This article examines results from in-depth interviews conducted with parents of children with asthma living in an urban environment. We examine themes from the in-depth interviews related to participants' perceptions of the influence of their physical environment on their mental and physical health, and the actions that they take in an effort to protect their health within this context. The findings from this study suggest several implications for understanding the interface between the physical environment of urban communities and residents' health, as well as for the policy and practice of risk assessment strategies.     

Disease resistance: a benefit of sociality in the dampwood termite Zootermopsis angusticollis (Isoptera: Termopsidae)

The benefit of sociality in relation to disease susceptibility was studied in the dampwood termite Zootermopsis angusticollis. Although contact with high concentrations of fungal conidia is lethal, the survivorship of nymphs exposed to spore suspensions ranging from 6 × 10⁶ to 2 × 10⁸ spores/ml of the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae increased with group size. The survivorship (measured as LT₅₀) of isolated individuals ranged from 3.0 to 4.8 days, but infected nymphs living in groups of 10 and 25 individuals survived significantly longer (5.6–8.3 and 5.6–9.1 days, respectively). In most cases, there were no significant differences in the survival distributions of the 10- and 25-termite groups. When nymphs were infected with concentrations of 7 × 10¹–7 × 10⁴ spores/ml and allowed to interact with healthy nestmates, fungal infections were not contracted by the unexposed termites. Moreover, infected termites benefitted from social contact with unexposed nestmates: their survival rates were significantly higher than those of infected termites living with similarly infected nestmates. Allogrooming, which increased in frequency during and after exposure to conidia, appeared to remove potentially infectious spores from the cuticle, thus increasing termite survivorship. These results suggest that allogrooming plays a crucial role in the control of disease and its death hazard in termites. The infection-reducing advantage of group living may have been significant in the evolution of social behavior in the Isoptera. Received: 18 March 1998 / Accepted after revision: 31 May 1998