Cryptic prey colouration increases search time in brown trout (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Salmo trutta</Emphasis>): effects of learning and body size

Little is known about how cryptic colouration influences prey search in near-surface aquatic habitats, although such knowledge is critical for understanding the adaptive value of colour crypsis as well as the perceptive constraints influencing foraging behaviour in these environments. This study had two main aims: (1) to investigate how background colour matching by prey affects foraging efficiency by brown trout parr and (2) to investigate how foraging ability on cryptic and conspicuous prey is affected by fish size at age (reflecting dominance). We addressed these questions by training wild brown trout parr to forage individually on live brown-coloured maggots on a cryptic (brown) or conspicuous (green) background. A separate experiment confirmed the absence of trout preference for brown or green substrate. The results show that prey background colour matching increases search time in brown trout. Search time generally decreased by learning, but conspicuous prey remained an easier prey to find throughout the six training trials. Thus, perceptive constraints appear to limit search efficiency for cryptic prey, suggesting that cryptic colouration can confer survival benefits to prey in natural environments. Smaller fish generally found conspicuous prey faster than larger individuals, whereas search time for cryptic prey was not influenced by body size. This suggests that smaller individuals compensate for inferior competitive ability by increasing foraging activity rather than improving cognitive ability. The technique of varying cognitive demands in behavioural tasks could be used more in future studies aimed at distinguishing motivational effects from cognitive explanations for variation in behavioural performance.     

Social information use is a process across time, space, and ecology, reaching heterospecifics

Decision making can be facilitated by observing other individuals faced with the same or similar problem, and recent research suggests that this social information use is a widespread phenomenon. Implications of this are diverse and profound: for example, social information use may trigger cultural evolution, affect distribution and dispersal of populations, and involve intriguing cognitive traits. We emphasize here that social information use is a process consisting of the scenes of (1) event, (2) observation, (3) decision, and (4) consequence, where the initial event is a scene in such a process of another individual. This helps to construct a sound conceptual framework for measuring and studying social information use. Importantly, the potential value of social information is affected by the distance in time, space, and ecology between the initial observation and eventual consequence of a decision. Because negative interactions between individuals (such as direct and apparent competition) also depend on the distance between individuals along these dimensions, the potential value of information and the negative interactions may form a trade-off situation. Optimal solutions to this trade-off can result in adaptively extended social information use, where using information gathered some time ago, some distance away, and from ecologically different individuals is preferred. Conceivably, using information gathered from a heterospecific individual might often be optimal. Many recent studies demonstrate that social information use does occur between species, and the first review of published cases is provided here. Such interaction between species, especially in habitat selection, has important consequences for community ecology and conservation. Adaptively extended social information use may also be an important evolutionary force in guild formation. Complex coevolutionary patterns may result depending on the effect of information use on the provider of information.     

Preferences for different nitrogen forms by coexisting plant species and soil microbes

The growing awareness that plants might use a variety of nitrogen (N) forms, both organic and inorganic, has raised questions about the role of resource partitioning in plant communities. It has been proposed that coexisting plant species might be able to partition a limited N pool, thereby avoiding competition for resources, through the uptake of different chemical forms of N. In this study, we used in situ stable isotope labeling techniques to assess whether coexisting plant species of a temperate grassland (England, UK) display preferences for different chemical forms of N, including inorganic N and a range of amino acids of varying complexity. We also tested whether plants and soil microbes differ in their preference for different N forms, thereby relaxing competition for this limiting resource. We examined preferential uptake of a range of 13C15N-labeled amino acids (glycine, serine, and phenylalanine) and 15N-labeled inorganic N by coexisting grass species and soil microbes in the field. Our data show that while coexisting plant species simultaneously take up a variety of N forms, including inorganic N and amino acids, they all showed a preference for inorganic N over organic N and for simple over the more complex amino acids. Soil microbes outcompeted plants for added N after 50 hours, but in the long-term (33 days) the proportion of added 15N contained in the plant pool increased for all N forms except for phenylalanine, while the proportion in the microbial biomass declined relative to the first harvest. These findings suggest that in the longer-term plants become more effective competitors for added 15N. This might be due to microbial turnover releasing 15N back into the plant-soil system or to the mineralization and subsequent plant uptake of 15N transferred initially to the organic matter pool. We found no evidence that soil microbes preferentially utilize any of the N forms added, despite previous studies showing that microbial preferences for N forms vary over time. Our data suggest that coexisting plants can outcompete microbes for a variety of N forms, but that such plant species show similar preferences for inorganic over organic N.     

Humanpharmakawirkstoffe in der Umwelt: Einträge, Vorkommen und der Versuch einer Bestandsaufnahme

Background

The presence of a large spectrum of pharmaceutical agents has been reported for aquatic environments (surface—and groundwater) and other aquatic media (influents and effluents of sewage treatment plants) in Germany and beyond, including their occurrence in drinking water. Considering the large number of pharmaceuticals produced for human use and released into the environment, various authors (Sattelberger 1999, Hanisch et al. 2004, Castiglioni et al. 2006, IWW 2006, Stockholm County Council 2006) tried to compile ‘priority lists’ focusing on those substances with environmental relevance. The following agents are included in all lists: ciprofloxacine, clarythromycine (antibiotics), carbamazepine (anti-epileptic agent), bezafibrate (lipid reducer), clofibric acid (lipid reducer metabolite), ethinylestradiol (sex hormone) and cylophosfamide (cytostatic agent). The agents erythromycine and sulfamethoxazole (antibiotics), ibuprofen, indometacine, propyphenazone (analgesics), atenolol (beta-blocker) and ifosfamide (cytostatic agent) can be found in three of four priority lists.

Results

Pharmaceuticals mainly enter the aquatic environment via effluent water, coming from wastewater treatment plants (including hospital and household sewerage), untreated discharges (e.g, secondary transfer of active agents into ground- and surface waters via sewage sludge application in agriculture and via landfill leachate) and leakages in the municipal sewer network.

Discussion

Potential activities towards a reduced release of pharmaceuticals into the environment should consider primarily the origin of the exposure to allow a separation of drug containing flows already at the source. Following the latter it would be possible to minimize the contamination of spring-, ground- and surface waters which serve as raw water resources for drinking water supply. However, considering the actual water pollution with pharmaceuticals and other substances, ‘end-of pipe’ techniques in the sewage and drinking water treatment are absolutely essential.

Conclusions

Sustainability criteria (e.g. protection of drinking water resources, habitats and biocoenoses, recycling and economizing use of resources) and economic aspects of modern sewage disposal concepts require a useful choice and combination of technical measures as components of centralized and decentralized sewage and drinking water treatment methods. It is though not realistic to cover and eliminate all pharmaceutical agents of environmental relevance equally effective even if a catalogue of potential technical treatment methods is elaborated thoroughly. Therefore, a concentration of efforts on selected drug agents, at least following initially some of the priority lists, is recommended.

Recommendations and Perspectives

The contamination of the water cycle with pharmaceuticals is nevertheless not exclusively to be solved via the application of technical methods. The BMBF (Federal Ministry for Education and Research) funded project start (Management Strategies for Pharmaceuticals in Drinking Water, www.start-project.de) therefore tries by implementation of a transdisciplinary approach to integrate technical-, behavioral-, and agent-orientated management strategies towards a more comprehensive and sustainable problem solution.     

Medikamentenentsorgung in privaten Haushalten: Ein Faktor bei der Gewässerbelastung mit Arzneimittelwirkstoffen?

Background

Residues of pharmaceuticals are meanwhile detected widely in the aquatic environment. Waste water treatment plants are the main route of entry: after intake the agents or their metabolites are excreted predominantly via urine into the sewage. Largely unknown is, however, if the improper disposal of unused medicines via domestic sanitary devices (toilet or sink) contributes to the measured concentrations in the environment. Aim of this investigation was to clarify to what extent consumers in Germany dispose of unused medicines directly via domestic sewage. In July and August 2006 a representative survey of the population with 2.000 interviewees was performed for this purpose.

Results

The analysis of the survey shows that the disposal of unused medicines via domestic sewage takes place on relevant scales: approx. 16% of the population dispose at least occasionally of unused or expired tablets in the toilet whereas 43% proceed alike with liquid drugs (toilet or sink).

Discussion

A possible reason for this disposal behaviour is the widely inconsistent waste disposal communication by the municipalities and the federal states. The resulting uncertainty about the correct way to dispose of unused medicines gains in importance in the context of the high recycling willingness of the (German) population: appropriate disposal options for drug residues (tablets or liquids) arising from waste separation are often not realised.

Conclusions

Quantitative assessments on the basis of the collected data demonstrate that the established frequency of direct disposal of unused medicines via domestic sewage can partly contribute significantly to the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment. Crucial parameters are here the excretion rate of the active pharmaceutical ingredient considered and the actual amount of medication waste.

Recommendations

Based on the inquiry results, measures that lead to a more adequate handling of pharmaceutical waste disposal are demanded. The establishment of a consistent and binding disposal standard for unused medicines via return in pharmacies is recommended. This measure needs to be accompanied by a simplification of the established take back systems which partly cause high time and effort for pharmacies.     

Assessing the extinction risk of insular,understudied marine species

Hydrothermal vents are rare deep-sea oases that house faunal assemblages with a similar density of life as coral reefs. Only approximately 600 of these hotspots are known worldwide, most only one-third of a football field in size. With advancing development of the deep-sea mining industry, there is an urgent need to protect these unique, insular ecosystems and their specialist endemic faunas. We applied the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Red List criteria to assess the extinction risk of vent-endemic molluscs with varying exposure to potential deep-sea mining. We assessed 31 species from three key areas under different regulatory frameworks in the Indian, West Pacific, and Southern Oceans. Three vent mollusc species were also examined as case studies of different threat contexts (protected or not from potential mining) to explore the interaction of local regulatory frameworks and IUCN Red List category assignment. We found that these assessments were robust even when there was some uncertainty in the total range of individual species, allowing assessment of species that have only recently been named and described. For vent-endemic species, regulatory changes to area-based management can have a greater impact on IUCN Red List assessment outcomes than incorporating additional data about species distributions. Our approach revealed the most useful IUCN Red List criteria for vent-endemic species: criteria B and D2. This approach, combining regulatory framework and distribution, has the potential to rapidly gauge assessment outcomes for species in insular systems worldwide.     

Effects of heavy metals and nitroaromatic compounds on horseradish glutathione S-transferase and peroxidase

Glutathione S-transferase (GST) and peroxidase (POX) activities have a direct relation to the effect of stress on plant metabolism. Changes in the activities of the enzymes were therefore studied. Horseradish hairy roots were treated by selected bivalent ions of heavy metals (HMs) and nitroaromatic compounds (NACs). We have shown differences in GST activity when assayed with substrates 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene (CDNB) and 1,2-dichloro-4-nitrobenzene (DCNB). The conjugation of DCNB catalysed by GST was inhibited in all roots treated with HMs as compared to non-treated roots, whereas NACs caused induction of the activity in dependence on the exposition time and concentration of compounds. The conjugation of CDNB by GST was not affected to the same extent. The increase of GST activity was determined in cultures treated by nickel (0.1 mM) and diaminonitrotoluenes (DANTs, 0.1 mM) for 6 h, whereas the roots treated by 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), 4-amino-2,6-dinitrotoluene (ADNT) and dinitrotoluene (DNT, 1.0 mM) needed 27 h treatment to induce the activity. The POX activity of cultures treated by HMs was inhibited to 17-35% in comparison to non-treated cultures. The POX activity of roots treated by TNT (0.1 and 1.0 mM) for 6 and 27 h and by ADNT (0.1 and 1.0 mM) for 6 h was inhibited. A partial increase of POX activity was measured in roots treated by all NACs for 27 h. The content of oxidized glutathione (GSSG) and reduced glutathione (GSH) in the roots differed significantly. It was followed as a symptom of the stress reaction of the plant metabolism to the effect of NACs and HMs.     

Boreal bog plants: nitrogen sources and uptake of recently deposited nitrogen

The main goals of this study were to determine the delta15N signature of quantitatively important boreal bog plants as basis for discussing their N sources, and to assess the effects of five different 3 year N treatments (i.e. 0, 5, 10, 20 and 40 kg N ha(-1) year(-1)) on the bog plants and surface peat at different depths (i.e. 0, 5, 10, 20 and 40 cm) by using 15N as tracer. Plants and peat were analyzed for N concentration, 15N natural abundance and 15N at.%. From the results we draw three main conclusions: First, the relative importance of different N sources is species-specific among bog plants. Second, an annual addition of 5 kg N ha(-1) year(-1) was sufficient to significantly increase the N concentration in Sphagnum mosses, liverworts and shallow rooted vascular plants, and an annual addition of 40 kg N ha(-1) year(-1) during 3 years was not sufficient to increase the N concentration in deep rooted plants, although the 15N content increased continuously, indicating a possible longer term effect. Third, an annual addition of 40 kg N ha(-1) year(-1) during 3 years increased the N content in surface peat at depths of 5 and 10 cm, but not at depths of 20 and 40 cm, indicating the capacity of the living Sphagnum mosses and the surface peat to take up deposited N, and thereby function as a filter.     

Benzyl-penicillin (Penicillin G) transformation in aqueous solution at low temperature under controlled laboratory conditions

Antibiotics are released into the environment in a variety of ways: via wastewater effluent as a result of incomplete metabolism in the body after use in human therapy, as runoff after use in agriculture, through improper disposal by private households or hospitals or through insufficient removal by water treatment plants. Unlike in most European countries, in Arctic regions effluents are not suitably treated prior to their release into the aquatic environment. Also, many of the scattered human settlements in remote regions of the Arctic do not possess sewage treatment facilities and pharmaceutical residues therefore enter the aqueous environment untreated. Only limited data are available on the biodegradation of antibiotics under Arctic conditions. However, such information is needed to estimate the potential harm of antibiotics for the environment. Pen-G is used in this study since it is a widely prescribed antibiotic compound whose environmental properties have not yet been investigated in detail. Thus, for a very first assessment, the OECD approved biodegradation Zahn-Wellens test (ZWT, OECD 302 B) was used to study biodegradation and non-biotic elimination of the antibiotic Benzyl-penicillin (Pen-G) at different temperatures (5°C, 12.5°C and 20°C). The testing period was extended from the OECD standard of 28-42d. In addition to dissolved organic carbon (DOC), Pen-G levels and major transformation products were recorded continuously by LC-ion-trap-MS/MS. DOC monitoring revealed considerable temperature dependence for the degradation process of Pen-G. DOC loss was slowest at 5°C and considerably faster at 12.5°C and 20°C. In the initial step of degradation it was found that Pen-G was hydrolyzed. This hydrolyzed Pen-G was subsequently further degraded by decarboxylation, the result of which was 2-(5,5-dimethyl-1,3-thiazolidin-2-yl)-2-(2-phenylacetamido)acetic acid. Furthermore, direct elimination of 2-phenyl-acetaldehyde from the hydrolyzed and decarboxylated Pen-G also led to the formation of 2-[amino(carboxy)methyl]-5,5-dimethyl-1,3-thiazolidone-4-carboxylic acid. Since biodegradation slows down considerably at a low temperature, the resulting transformation products had considerably longer residence times at 5°C compared to higher temperature conditions within the 42-d experiment. The results presented here clearly demonstrate that a risk assessment for pharmaceuticals present in low ambient temperature environments (i.e. the Arctic) cannot be based on test results obtained under standard laboratory conditions (i.e. 20°C ambient temperatures).     

Volatile nanoparticle formation and growth within a diluting diesel car exhaust

A major source of particle number emissions is road traffic. However, scientific knowledge concerning secondary particle formation and growth of ultrafine particles within vehicle exhaust plumes is still very limited. Volatile nanoparticle formation and subsequent growth conditions were analyzed here to gain a better understanding of "real-world" dilution conditions. Coupled computational fluid dynamics and aerosol microphysics models together with measured size distributions within the exhaust plume of a diesel car were used. The impact of soot particles on nucleation, acting as a condensational sink, and the possible role of low-volatile organic components in growth were assessed. A prescribed reduction of soot particle emissions by 2 orders of magnitude (to capture the effect of a diesel particle filter) resulted in concentrations of nucleation-mode particles within the exhaust plume that were approximately 1 order of magnitude larger. Simulations for simplified sulfuric acid-water vapor gas-oil containing nucleation-mode particles show that the largest particle growth is located in a recirculation zone in the wake of the car. Growth of particles within the vehicle exhaust plume up to detectable size depends crucially on the relationship between the mass rate of gaseous precursor emissions and rapid dilution. Chassis dynamometer measurements indicate that emissions of possible hydrocarbon precursors are significantly enhanced under high engine load conditions and high engine speed. On the basis of results obtained for a diesel passenger car, the contributions from light diesel vehicles to the observed abundance of measured nucleation-mode particles near busy roads might be attributable to the impact of two different time scales: (1) a short one within the plume, marked by sufficient precursor emissions and rapid dilution; and (2) a second and comparatively long time scale resulting from the mix of different precursor sources and the impact of atmospheric chemistry.