磺胺类抗生素在斑马鱼体内的生物富集性及模型预测评估

针对磺胺类抗生素在鱼体内的生物富集特性,采用半静态生物富集测试法,研究磺胺二甲嘧啶(SMT)和磺胺甲恶唑(SMX)在斑马鱼(Brachydanio rerio)体内的生物富集规律及生物富集系数(bio-concentration factor,BCF),并选用3种常用预测模型对2种磺胺类抗生素的BCF值进行估算,比较了估算值与实际测定值,为磺胺类抗生素生物富集性的预测提供依据。研究结果表明,当暴露浓度为0.01 mg·L~(-1)~1.00 mg·L~(-1)时,鱼体对SMT的最大生物富集系数BCF值为1.11,最大富集量出现在暴露24~48 h期间;SMX的最大BCF值为1.15,最大富集量处于暴露96~168 h之间。根据磺胺类抗生素的理化性质,通过比较3种生物富集预测模型获得SMT和SMX的BCF值,发现其中Kow预测模型所得估算值最为接近实测值。因此可利用该模型作为磺胺类抗生素富集性的预测工具,为我国兽药抗生素的环境风险预测和评价提供依据。     

Could wastewater analysis be a useful tool for China? — A review

Analysingwastewater samples is an innovative approach that overcomesmany limitations of traditional surveys to identify and measure a range of chemicals that were consumed by or exposed to people living in a sewer catchment area. First conceptualised in 2001, much progress has been made to make wastewater analysis (WWA) a reliable and robust tool for measuring chemical consumption and/or exposure. At the moment, the most popular application of WWA, sometimes referred as sewage epidemiology, is to monitor the consumption of illicit drugs in communities around the globe, including China. The approach has been largely adopted by lawenforcement agencies as a device tomonitor the temporal and geographical patterns of drug consumption. In the future, themethodology can be extended to other chemicals including biomarkers of population health (e.g. environmental or oxidative stress biomarkers, lifestyle indicators or medications that are taken by different demographic groups) and pollutants that people are exposed to (e.g. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, perfluorinated chemicals, and toxic pesticides). The extension of WWA to a huge range of chemicals may give rise to a field called sewage chemical-information mining (SCIM) with unexplored potentials. China has many densely populated cities with thousands of sewage treatment plants which are favourable for applying WWA/SCIM in order to help relevant authorities gather information about illicit drug consumption and population health status. However, there are some prerequisites and uncertainties of the methodology that should be addressed for SCIM to reach its full potential in China.     

The difference conservation makes to extinction risk of the world's ungulates

Previous studies show that conservation actions have prevented extinctions, recovered populations, and reduced declining trends in global biodiversity. However, all studies to date have substantially underestimated the difference conservation action makes because they failed to account fully for what would have happened in the absence thereof. We undertook a scenario‐based thought experiment to better quantify the effect conservation actions have had on the extinction risk of the world's 235 recognized ungulate species. We did so by comparing species’ observed conservation status in 2008 with their estimated status under counterfactual scenarios in which conservation efforts ceased in 1996. We estimated that without conservation at least 148 species would have deteriorated by one International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List category, including 6 species that now would be listed as extinct or extinct in the wild. The overall decline in the conservation status of ungulates would have been nearly 8 times worse than observed. This trend would have been greater still if not for conservation on private lands. While some species have benefited from highly targeted interventions, such as reintroduction, most benefited collaterally from conservation such as habitat protection. We found that the difference conservation action makes to the conservation status of the world's ungulate species is likely to be higher than previously estimated. Increased, and sustained, investment could help achieve further improvements.     

A stochastic model for colloid transport and deposition

Profiles of retained colloids in porous media have frequently been observed to be hyper-exponential or non-monotonic with transport depth under unfavorable attachment conditions, whereas filtration theory predicts an exponential profile. In this work we present a stochastic model for colloid transport and deposition that allows various hypotheses for such deviations to be tested. The model is based on the conventional advective dispersion equation that accounts for first-order kinetic deposition and release of colloids. One or two stochastic parameters can be considered in this model, including the deposition coefficient, the release coefficient, and the average pore water velocity. In the case of one stochastic parameter, the probability density function (PDF) is characterized using log-normal, bimodal log-normal, or a simple two species/region formulation. When two stochastic parameters are considered, then a joint log-normal PDF is employed. Simulation results indicated that variations in the deposition coefficient and the average pore water velocity can both produce hyper-exponential deposition profiles. Bimodal formulations for the PDF were also able to produce hyper-exponential profiles, but with much lower variances in the deposition coefficient. The shape of the deposition profile was found to be very sensitive to the correlation of deposition and release coefficients, and to the correlation of pore water velocity and deposition coefficient. Application of the developed stochastic model to a particular set of colloid transport and deposition data indicated that chemical heterogeneity of the colloid population could not fully explain the observed behavior. Alternative interpretations were therefore proposed based on variability of the pore size and the water velocity distributions.