A rationale for recycling

The decision as to whether to recycle discarded objects or not has traditionally been made on a simple financial basis. However, over the last few years a popular movement has sprung up which regards recycling as a good in itself, and this movement finds itself at odds with the present financial basis for recycling. In this paper a rationale for recycling is worked out in an attempt to resolve this conflict. It is concluded that the normal market signals do not provide a proper basis for recycling decisions and that this market failure must be corrected by government intervention. However, this intervention should not take the form of uncritical support for recycling. Rather the societal objectives of individual recycling proposals should be identified and the proposal should then be evaluated in terms of whether it would achieve these objectives more effectively than some alternative action.     

Accumulation of bis(tributyltin) oxide by the mud crab, Rhithropanopeusharrisii

Accumulation of ¹⁴C labelled bis(tributyltin) oxide (TBTO) by the mud crab, $\text{Rhithropanopeus}$$\text{harrisii}$, was determined through short-term exposure to labelled water and food. The potential for trophic accumulation during chronic low level exposure is emphasized.     

The most important but least understood semicolon in environmental literature

This paper examines implications of the first semicolon appearing in paragraph 4321 of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (PL-91-190 U.S.A.) and suggests a broader meaning for the concept of environment.     

Quantified scenarios analysis of drivers and impacts of changing flood risk in England and Wales: 2030–2100

Flood risk to the economy, society and the environment reflects the cumulative effects of environmental and socio-economic change over decades. Long-term scenarios are therefore required in order to develop robust and sustainable flood risk management policies. Quantified national-scale flood risk analysis and expert appraisal of the mechanisms causing change in flood risk have been used to assess flood risk in England and Wales over the period 2030–2100. The assessment involved the use of socio-economic and climate change scenarios. The analysis predicts increasing flood risk unless current flood management policies, practices and investment levels are changed—up to 20-fold increase in economic risk by the 2080s in the scenario with highest economic growth. The increase is attributable to a combination of climate change (in particular increasing precipitation and relative sea level rise in parts of the UK) and increasing socio-economic vulnerability, particularly in terms of household/industrial contents and infrastructure vulnerability. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

Growth rate and hatching date in ostrich chicks reflect humoral but not cell-mediated immune function

A tradeoff between immune response and life history traits, in particular growth rate, has been documented in various bird species. Ostriches are fast-growing birds and a typical feature of cohorts is that offspring often differ greatly in size. We investigated the relationship between hatching date and growth rate of chicks and both cell-mediated (measured using a phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) injection) and humoral immune responses in ostrich chicks maintained on a research farm. Chicks with higher growth rates had intermediate responses to both diphtheria and tetanus toxoids. By contrast, no relation between growth rates and responses to PHA injection were found. We conclude that chick growth rate variation may be explained beyond a certain threshold by a tradeoff between the humoral response and growth. Both responses to PHA injection and humoral responses in chicks were found to decrease with chick hatching date. Within the context of ostrich farming, these results could partially explain size variations observed in cohorts of chicks, as well as high mortality rates during their first 3 months of age.     

A new chasmosaurine from northern Laramidia expands frill disparity in ceratopsid dinosaurs

A new taxon of chasmosaurine ceratopsid demonstrates unexpected disparity in parietosquamosal frill shape among ceratopsid dinosaurs early in their evolutionary radiation. The new taxon is described based on two apomorphic squamosals collected from approximately time equivalent (approximately 77 million years old) sections of the upper Judith River Formation, Montana, and the lower Dinosaur Park Formation of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. It is referred to Chasmosaurinae based on the inferred elongate morphology. The typical chasmosaurine squamosal forms an obtuse triangle in dorsal view that tapers towards the posterolateral corner of the frill. In the dorsal view of the new taxon, the lateral margin of the squamosal is hatchet-shaped with the posterior portion modified into a constricted narrow bar that would have supported the lateral margin of a robust parietal. The new taxon represents the oldest chasmosaurine from Canada, and the first pre-Maastrichtian ceratopsid to have been collected on both sides of the Canada–US border, with a minimum north–south range of 380 km. This squamosal morphology would have given the frill of the new taxon a unique dorsal profile that represents evolutionary experimentation in frill signalling near the origin of chasmosaurine ceratopsids and reinforces biogeographic differences between northern and southern faunal provinces in the Campanian of North America.     

Flame retardants and legacy contaminants in polar bears from Alaska, Canada, East Greenland and Svalbard, 2005-2008

Flame retardants and legacy contaminants were analyzed in adipose tissue from 11 circumpolar polar bear (Ursus maritimus) subpopulations in 2005-2008 spanning Alaska east to Svalbard. Although 37 polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), total-(α)-hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD), 2 polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), pentabromotoluene, pentabromoethylbenzene, hexabromobenzene, 1,2-bis(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy(ethane) and decabromodiphenyl ethane were screened, only 4 PBDEs, total-(α-)HBCD and BB153 were consistently found. Geometric mean ΣPBDE (4.6-78.4 ng/g lipid weight (lw)) and BB153 (2.5-81.1 ng/g lw) levels were highest in East Greenland (43.2 and 39.2 ng/g lipid weight (lw), respectively), Svalbard (44.4 and 20.9 ng/g lw) and western (38.6 and 30.1 ng/g lw) and southern Hudson Bay (78.4 and 81.1 ng/g lw). Total-(α)-HBCD levels (<0.3-41.1 ng/g lw) were lower than ΣPBDE levels in all subpopulations except in Svalbard, consistent with greater European HBCD use versus North American pentaBDE product use. ΣPCB levels were high relative to flame retardants as well as other legacy contaminants and increased from west to east (1797-10,537 ng/g lw). ΣCHL levels were highest among legacy organochlorine pesticides and relatively spatially uniform (765-3477 ng/g lw). ΣDDT levels were relatively low and spatially variable (31.5-206 ng/g lw). However, elevated proportions of p,p'-DDT to ΣDDT in Alaska and Beaufort Sea relative to other subpopulations suggested fresh inputs from vector control use in Asia and/or Africa. Comparing earlier circumpolar polar bear studies, ΣPBDE, total-(α)-HBCD, p,p'-DDE and ΣCHL levels consistently declined, whereas levels of other legacy contaminants did not. International regulations have clearly been effective in reducing levels of several legacy contaminants in polar bears relative to historical levels. However, slow or stalling declines of certain historic pollutants like PCBs and a complex mixture of "new" chemicals continue to be of concern to polar bear health and that of their arctic marine ecosystems.     

The Role of Published Information in Reviewing Conservation Objectives for Natura 2000 Protected Areas in the European Union

Protected areas are designated to protect species and other features known to be present at the time of designation, but over time the information about the presence of protected species may change and this should call for a continued review of conservation objectives. Published scientific literature is one of the possible information sources that would trigger a review of conservation objectives. We studied how published data on new discoveries of protected animal species were taken into account by the nature conservation authorities in updating species lists of Natura 2000 sites in the European Union, which are the basis for conservation planning at the site-level. Over the period studied (2000–2011) only 40 % of published new protected species records were recognized by the authorities. The two main reasons for this seem to be a reliance on other sources of information by authorities and the difficulty in finding relevant information in scientific papers. The latter is because published faunistic information is very fragmented among different journals, and often insufficient in details. We recommend better cooperation between authors, publishers, and nature conservation authorities in terms of information presentation, publishing policy, and a regular review of published information.     

Adaptive Management of Nonnative Species: Moving Beyond the “Either-Or” Through Experimental Pluralism

This paper develops the outlines of a pragmatic, adaptive management-based approach toward the control of invasive nonnative species (INS) through a case study of Kings Bay/Crystal River, a large artesian springs ecosystem that is one of Florida’s most important habitats for endangered West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus). Building upon recent critiques of invasion biology, principles of adaptive management, and our own interview and participant–observer research, we argue that this case study represents an example in which rigid application of invasion biology’s a␣priori imperative to minimize INS has produced counterproductive results from both an ecological and social standpoint. As such, we recommend that INS control in Kings Bay should be relaxed in conjunction with an overall program of adaptive ecosystem management that includes meaningful participation and input from non-institutional stakeholders. However, we also note that adaptive management and INS control are by no means mutually exclusive, in Kings Bay or elsewhere. Instead, we suggest that adaptive management offers a means by which INS control efforts can emerge from—and be evaluated through—ongoing scientific research and participatory dialogue about the condition of specific places, rather than non-contextual assumptions about the harmfulness of INS as a general class.