应用猪饲料生产情景分析法的植物保护策略环境评价

对未来的猪肉生产构建了两种情景.一种是"基型"(即一切照旧)(business as usual)情景,这一情景中,猪饲料是以国内生产的谷谷和进口的豆饼为基本原料,未努力减少农药的用量.第二种情景更多的关注环境,在猪场还种植豌豆和油菜用以提供谷物和蛋白质饲料.采用更多种不同作物的轮作和机械除草相结合来降低农药的用量,以达到降低环境污染的目的.这两种情景同时用两种方法进行环境评估:生命周期评价法(LCA)(Life cycle Assessment)和农药风险指标模型(PRI-Farm)(Pesticide risk indicator model).结论表明:在猪饲料生产中通过运用改变作物的保护策略以期降低农药的用量和减小其风险是环保可行的.组织起农场的饲料生产,使蛋白质饲料和谷物生产相结合可促成更多种作物的轮作.     

Environmental variability and fledging body mass of Common Guillemot Uria aalge chicks

To gain a better understanding of population processes and in the light of the critically endangered status of the Common Guillemot Uria aalge in Norway, we investigate which environmental factors might affect the fitness of guillemot chicks as they depart from the nest site over a 16-year period on a colony in NE Norway. Although prey composition did not seem to influence the fledging body mass of the chicks, there were significant relationships between the yearly variations in chick body mass and abundance of two important prey species (1-group herring Clupea harengus that is an important chick food item and 0-group cod Gadus morhua that is an important adult food item), population size and the sea surface temperature around the colony. The positive influence of young herring and cod on Common Guillemot chick mass occurred during a period of warming in the Barents Sea such that future recruitment into the population will depend partly on the long-term changes in ocean climate in the region.     

Reconnecting to the Biosphere

Humanity has emerged as a major force in the operation of the biosphere, with a significant imprint on the Earth System, challenging social-ecological resilience. This new situation calls for a fundamental shift in perspectives, world views, and institutions. Human development and progress must be reconnected to the capacity of the biosphere and essential ecosystem services to be sustained. Governance challenges include a highly interconnected and faster world, cascading social-ecological interactions and planetary boundaries that create vulnerabilities but also opportunities for social-ecological change and transformation. Tipping points and thresholds highlight the importance of understanding and managing resilience. New modes of flexible governance are emerging. A central challenge is to reconnect these efforts to the changing preconditions for societal development as active stewards of the Earth System. We suggest that the Millennium Development Goals need to be reframed in such a planetary stewardship context combined with a call for a new social contract on global sustainability. The ongoing mind shift in human relations with Earth and its boundaries provides exciting opportunities for societal development in collaboration with the biosphere--a global sustainability agenda for humanity.     

Agriculture as Provider of Both Food and Fuel

A database of global agricultural primary production has been constructed and used to estimate its energy content. The portion of crops available for food and biofuel after postharvest losses was evaluated. The basic conditions for agriculture and plant growth were studied, to ensure sustainable scenarios regarding use of residues. The available energy contents for the world and EU27 was found to be 7,200–9,300 and 430 TWh, respectively, to be compared with food requirements of 7,100 and 530 TWh. Clearly, very little, or nothing, remains for biofuel from agricultural primary crops. However, by using residues and bioorganic waste, it was found that biofuel production could theoretically replace one-fourth of the global consumption of fossil fuels for transport. The expansion potential for global agriculture is limited by availability of land, water, and energy. A future decrease in supply of fossil energy and ongoing land degradation will thus cause difficulties for increased biofuel production from agriculture.     

Social and Cultural Sustainability: Criteria, Indicators, Verifier Variables for Measurement and Maps for Visualization to Support Planning

Policies on economic use of natural resources require considerations to social and cultural values. In order to make those concrete in a planning context, this paper aims to interpret social and cultural criteria, identify indicators, match these with verifier variables and visualize them on maps. Indicators were selected from a review of scholarly work and natural resource policies, and then matched with verifier variables available for Sweden’s 290 municipalities. Maps of the spatial distribution of four social and four cultural verifier variables were then produced. Consideration of social and cultural values in the studied natural resource use sectors was limited. The spatial distribution of the verifier variables exhibited a general divide between northwest and south Sweden, and regional rural and urban areas. We conclude that it is possible to identify indicators and match them with verifier variables to support inclusion of social and cultural values in planning.     

Perfluorinated and chlorinated pollutants as predictors of demographic parameters in an endangered seabird

Despite global occurrence of several perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) the potential ecological effects of such substances on natural populations are not known. In endangered lesser black-backed gulls (Larus fuscus fuscus) on the Norwegian Coast, the blood concentrations of PFCs were as high as legacy organochlorines (OCs), and here we examined whether PFCs show associations similar to those of OCs to factors potentially affecting population growth, by evaluating relationships between contaminant concentrations and demographic parameters (reproductive performance and the probability of adults returning between breeding seasons). PFCs were not adversely associated with demographic parameters, while the most persistent OCs; notably PCB and p,p′-DDE, were adversely associated with early chick survival, and adult return rate. This study thus suggests that when the concentrations of PFCs and OCs are of similar magnitude in a gull population, OCs are more likely to cause adverse ecological effects.     

Design of an integrated monitoring programme in Sweden

A National Swedish Environmental Monitoring Programme, the PMK, has been designed for regular and permanent recording of environmental conditions and long-term changes in background regions, and for keeping track of the flux of pollutants in and between various media. Many of the projects involved deal with integrated monitoring of terrestrial and limnic ecosystems. This work is carried out in or near some 20 small watersheds, usually selected in national parks or nature reserves. The environmental factors monitored in these areas include concentrations of chemical substances in precipitation, soil, groundwater, surface water, and organisms, as well as biological parameters—such as the population size and reproductive capacity of certain species—that may indicate effects of environmental disturbances. The data from this programme can be used as a reference to environmental data acquired near pollution sources, and as a basis for measures against e.g. acid rain, heavy-metal pollution, and use of pesticides. The biological parameters may also reveal effects of yet unknown pollutants or other disturbances.     

Pooled analysis of two Swedish case-control studies on the use of mobile and cordless telephones and the risk of brain tumours diagnosed during 1997-2003.

Here we present the pooled analysis of 2 case-control studies on the association of brain tumours with mobile phone use. Use of analogue cellular phones increased the risk for acoustic neuroma by 5%, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 2-9% per 100 hrs of use. The risk increased for astrocytoma grade III-IV with latency period with highest estimates using >10-year time period from first use of these phone types. The risk increased per one year of use of analogue phones by 10%, 95% CI = 6-14%, digital phones by 11%, 95% CI = 6-16%, and cordless phones by 8%, 95% CI = 5-12%. For all studied phone types OR for brain tumours, mainly acoustic neuroma and malignant brain tumours, increased with latency period, especially for astrocytoma grade III-IV.     

Sex ratio in lesser black-backed gull in relation to environmental pollutants

In birds, there is ample evidence that the mother can manipulate the sex of the young and produce more of the sex, which gives the highest fitness return. This has previously been documented in gulls, Laridae. Gulls are sexually size dimorphic with males larger than females, and there is good evidence that parents in poor body condition switch their investment to the smallest sex. In the present study, we examined the primary sex ratio and the survival of male and female chicks of lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus fuscus) in relation to their blood levels of organochlorines (OCs), perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (BDE-47). We show that females with high levels of OCs (but not PFCs and BDE-47) are likely to skew their sex ratio at hatching towards female offspring. Few females had very high levels of OCs, and the many females with low levels of OCs overproduced sons resulting in a male skew at hatching (59%). The survival of female offspring was lower than the survival of male offspring, causing an even stronger male skew in sex ratio (71%). There is evidence to conclude that circulating levels of OCs in the blood of females may have detrimental effect on the sex allocation strategy and could be of serious threat to the population. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

The measurement of job characteristics: A content and contextual analytic look at scale validity

This investigation provides an examination of the validity of the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) and the Job Characteristics Inventory (JCI). The verbal content of the two measure is examined, as are the contrasts between the verbal content of these scales and the verbal content of three popular measures of job satisfaction. The Minnesota Contextual Content Analysis program is used to examine the ideas emphasized by these research scales. Both measures of job characteristics were found to discriminate from certain measures of job satisfaction, to emphasize an instrumental and not an affective context, and to possess some internal dimensionality problems.