The contribution from shipping emissions to air quality and acid deposition in Europe

A global three-dimensional Lagrangian chemistry-transport model STOCHEM is used to describe the European regional acid deposition and ozone air quality impacts along the Atlantic Ocean seaboard of Europe, from the SO2, NOx, VOCs and CO emissions from international shipping under conditions appropriate to the year 2000. Model-derived total sulfur deposition from international shipping reaches over 200 mg S m(-2) yr(-1) over the southwestern approaches to the British Isles and Brittany. The contribution from international shipping to surface ozone concentrations during the summertime, peaks at about 6 ppb over Ireland, Brittany and Portugal. Shipping emissions act as an external influence on acid deposition and ozone air quality within Europe and may require control actions in the future if strict deposition and air quality targets are to be met.     

Temporal and spatial trends of PCB congeners in UK gannet eggs

Gannet (Sula bassana) eggs collected from Ailsa Craig, Western Scotland between 1977-1998 have been analyzed retrospectively for several PCB congeners. Concentrations of a range of congeners were determined in 8-10 eggs analyzed separately for several individual years. All congeners declined in concentrations throughout the time period, but the rates of decline differed for different congeners. Declines were first order and half-lives varied between 5.4 years for PCB-101 to 10.1 years for PCB-180. Egg concentrations reflect the maternal body burden, which itself is controlled by the birds rate of intake (principally via the diet) and losses (via metabolism and other clearance mechanisms). The declining concentrations in eggs, therefore, broadly reflect reductions in prey concentrations (principally herring and mackerel) and--in turn--water column concentrations. Rates of change in PCB concentrations from this study were similar to those noted in fish-eating birds from the Baltic Sea and North American Great Lakes, and ambient air in the UK. This provides indirect evidence that gannet eggs are broadly reflecting regional/global scale clearance/removal mechanisms which are controlling ambient PCB concentrations.     

Discrimination between nestmate and non-nestmate kin by social wasps (Polistes fuscatus,Hymenoptera: Vespidae)

Summary The threespine stickleback,Gasterosteus aculeatus is a voracious cannibal of both its own eggs and those of conspecific neighbours. Females, but not males, can distinguish their progeny from those of other fish and attacked alien eggs more frequently. In experiments to examine nest raiding, females that initiated raids on nests resulting in cannibalism were the first females to spawn in the reconstructed nest. These results support the hypothesis that cannibalism by females may be adaptive in situations where intense female competition for male guardians occurs.     

Land use change around protected areas: management to balance human needs and ecological function.

Protected areas throughout the world are key for conserving biodiversity, and land use is key for providing food, fiber, and other ecosystem services essential for human sustenance. As land use change isolates protected areas from their surrounding landscapes, the challenge is to identify management opportunities that maintain ecological function while minimizing restrictions on human land use. Building on the case studies in this Invited Feature and on ecological principles, we identify opportunities for regional land management that maintain both ecological function in protected areas and human land use options, including preserving crucial habitats and migration corridors, and reducing dependence of local human populations on protected area resources. Identification of appropriate and effective management opportunities depends on clear definitions of: (1) the biodiversity attributes of concern; (2) landscape connections to delineate particular locations with strong ecological interactions between the protected area and its surrounding landscape; and (3) socioeconomic dynamics that determine current and future use of land resources in and around the protected area.     

Understanding the distribution of cattle production systems in the South American Chaco

ABSTRACT

Impacts of cattle production vary among different production systems, but data on their distribution is scarce for most world regions. In this work, we combine datasets on cattle vaccination locations and land cover in a regression framework to define and map major cattle production systems in the Argentinean Dry Chaco. We also explore how cattle occurrence relates to spatial determinants. Results indicate that the region harbors about 5.5 million heads. Cattle density was mainly described by the share of pasture (69.9%), cropland (28.1%) and aridity (23.8%). We identified 12-major cattle production systems: six cow-calf, three whole-cycle, and three fattening systems. Of these, four systems had high woodland cover (>85%). Data generated is available in a website. Understanding the distribution of cattle production systems is important to assess the environmental impacts of beef production at broad scales. Integrating vaccination data with land-cover information provides a promising avenue to identify livestock systems.