Sentiment analysis as a measure of conservation culture in scientific literature

Culturomics is emerging as an important field within science, as a way to measure attitudes and beliefs and their dynamics across time and space via quantitative analysis of digitized data from literature, news, film, social media, and more. Sentiment analysis is a culturomics tool that, within the last decade, has provided a means to quantify the polarity of attitudes expressed within various media. Conservation science is a crisis discipline; therefore, accurate and effective communication are paramount. We investigated how conservation scientists communicate their findings through scientific journal articles. We analyzed 15,001 abstracts from articles published from 1998 to 2017 in 6 conservation-focused journals selected based on indexing in scientific databases. Articles were categorized by year, focal taxa, and the conservation status of the focal species. We calculated mean sentiment score for each abstract (mean adjusted z score) based on 4 lexicons (Jockers-Rinker, National Research Council, Bing, and AFINN). We found a significant positive annual trend in the sentiment scores of articles. We also observed a significant trend toward increasing negativity along the spectrum of conservation status categories (i.e., from least concern to extinct). There were some clear differences in the sentiments with which research on different taxa was reported, however. For example, abstracts mentioning lobe finned fishes tended to have high sentiment scores, which could be related to the rediscovery of the coelacanth driving a positive narrative. Contrastingly, abstracts mentioning elasmobranchs had low scores, possibly reflecting the negative sentiment score associated with the word shark. Sentiment analysis has applications in science, especially as it pertains to conservation psychology, and we suggest a new science-based lexicon be developed specifically for the field of conservation.     

Soil burdens of persistent organic pollutants - Their levels, fate and risk. Part II. Are there any trends in PCDD/F levels in mountain soils?

Good quality data apt for an assessment of temporal trends of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans (PCDDs/Fs) in soils are difficult to obtain since there is a general lack of information on their residues in soils. Variability of soil profiles, non-homogeneity of samples, and often also inconsistency of applied sampling procedures further complicate this problem. To assess spatial and temporal trends of contamination, three soil sampling campaigns have been performed over the period of 12 years at the mountain forest sites in the Czech Republic. Relation between the air, needle and soil contaminations was addressed in addition to time-related variability of soil. It has been confirmed that soil is a good matrix for evaluation of spatial distribution of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) but difficult for establishment of temporal trends. A slow rate of the soil-forming processes and their site-specificity was generally the major source of uncertainties.     

Application of the comet assay and detection of DNA damage in haemocytes of medicinal leech affected by aluminium pollution: A case study

This report describes an investigation of genotoxic effects in medicinal leech (Hirudo verbana) exposed to water and sediment of Lake Njivice (Krk Island, Croatia) contaminated by aluminium compounds. The levels of primary DNA damage in leech haemocytes and loss of DNA integrity caused by acute and chronic exposure to contaminated water and sediment were investigated using the alkaline comet assay. Genotoxic effects induced by acute exposure to contaminants were evaluated on leech haemocytes and blood cells of fish and mouse treated ex vivo. The effects of chronic exposure were assessed on haemocytes sampled from an animal kept under laboratory conditions on contaminated water and sediment for 180 days. The results indicate the DNA damaging potential of aluminium compounds present in an excess amount in tested samples.     

Lead pollution in East Trinidad resulting from lead recycling and smelting activities

Several problems of acute lead poisoning in children have been identified over the past three years in Trinidad. In all cases investigated so far, continual exposure to lead from battery recycling or from lead-smelter wastes have been found responsible. In East Trinidad, illicit dumping of lead wastes from such sources has resulted in several sites becoming heavily contaminated. Some of these sites are in environmentally sensitive areas, including rivers and wetlands, and require urgent remedial action. Results of monitoring studies at several of these sites show lead levels as high as 75% by weight. The potential for surface and ground water contamination exists, as evidenced by leaching of lead into surrounding areas.     

INTERACTION BETWEEN RIPARIAN VEGETATION,WATER TEMPERATURE,AND SALMONID HABITAT IN THE TUCANNON RIVER1

ABSTRACT: This analysis relates physical-process, ecological, and economic models to: (1) analyze the instream water temperatures with respect to existing and proposed riparian vegetation under natural conditions; (2) use these water temperatures to determine salmon and steel-head fish populations that were based upon actual field count and known temperature preference data; and (3) determine the economic worth based upon the estimated carrying capacity of the river, the estimated number of return spawners, and the economic value of commercially caught and sport-caught salmon and steelhead. The economic evaluations are in accordance with procedures outlined by the U.S. Water Resources Council (1983).     

Home range of immature green turtles tracked at an offshore tropical reef using automated passive acoustic technology

Seventeen immature green turtles Chelonia mydas were tracked concurrently by automated ultrasonic receivers at a coral reef off North-Eastern Australia (September–December 2010, 16.4°S, 145.6°E). The majority (n = 11) were tracked for the entire 100-day study, the remainder for 23–85 days. Detection data aggregated at 30-min intervals produced median 6.5–35 daily locations for individual turtles. Home range areas (95 % utilisation distribution) were ≤1 km², $ {\bar{\text{x}}} $  ± SD = 0.74 km² ± 0.159. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first home range estimates for C. mydas foraging at offshore tropical reefs. The findings are important for conservation in revealing near-continuous presence of the same individuals within a small geographic area. Time between detections was very short (median <3 min) demonstrating passive ultrasonic technology can track multiple turtles in a foraging environment with higher temporal resolution than typically achieved by satellite tracking.     

Changes in mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis protein profile as a reaction of water pollution

In the present report the changes in mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis protein profile, as a reaction of water pollution, is presented. The antioxidant capacity was determined by the efficacy to scavenge the derived radical in mussel samples using the Trolox Equivalent Antioxidant Capacity (TEAC) assay. The highest percentage of inhibition was estimated in protein mussels from the dirty area (DM) in comparison with the clean samples (CM). The amounts of both zinc and copper determined by atomic spectroscopy were significantly higher in the protein mussels from the dirty than from the clean areas (P<0.05). Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and fluorescence revealed specific qualitative changes in secondary and tertiary structures of mussel proteins from the dirty area by the shift in the amides I and II positions and fluorescence intensity. Estimated temperature and enthalpy of denaturation in the protein mussels well correlated with fluorescence and spectroscopic measurements and showed the changes influenced by water pollution.     

Endogenous control of fuelling in a migratory songbird

The Northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) is a small long-distance migratory songbird that breeds throughout the Northern hemisphere and winters in sub-Saharan Africa. The main components of its migratory behaviour, i.e. seasonal migratory restlessness and body mass changes, have been shown to be under endogenous control. However, it is still unknown whether the disposition to accumulate fuel reserves is an inherited trait. We cross-bred Northern wheatears from two populations known to accumulate different amounts of fuel in a common-garden setup, and measured their maximum fuelling as the difference between the lightest and heaviest body mass recorded over each year for 4 years or longer. We used the largest value as a measure of maximum voluntary fuelling potential. F1-generation “hybrids” showed intermediate values to those of the parent populations. It was previously shown that in the wheatear the amount of fuel accumulated is closely linked to the presence of large ecological barriers to cross. This study shows that this adaptation has been fixed at the genetic level, and that intermediate traits are transferred to the next generation, with possible implications on the viability of such individuals in nature.     

Ranking potential impacts of priority and emerging pollutants in urban wastewater through life cycle impact assessment

Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), a feature of the Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, is used in this work outside the LCA framework, as a means to quantify the potential environmental impacts on ecotoxicity and human toxicity of wastewater containing priority and emerging pollutants. In order to do this, so-called characterisation factors are obtained for 98 frequently detected pollutants, using two characterisation models, EDIP97 and USES-LCA. The applicability of this methodology is shown in a case study in which wastewater influent and effluent samples from a Spanish wastewater treatment plant located in the Mediterranean coast were analysed. Characterisation factors were applied to the average concentration of each pollutant, obtaining impact scores for different scenarios: discharging wastewater to aquatic recipient, and using it for crop irrigation. The results show that treated wastewater involves a substantially lower environmental impact when compared to the influent, and pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are very important contributors to toxicity in this wastewater. Ciprofloxacin, fluoxetine, and nicotine constitute the main PPCPs of concern in this case study, while 2,3,7,8-TCDD, Nickel, and hexachlorobenzene are the priority pollutants with highest contribution. Nevertheless, it must be stressed that the new characterisation factors are based on very limited data, especially with regard to toxicology, and therefore they must be seen as a first screening to be improved in the future when more and higher quality data is available.