Sediment quality guidelines: challenges and opportunities for improving sediment management

During the International Conference on Deriving Environmental Quality Standards for the Protection of Aquatic Ecosystems held in Hong Kong in December 2011, an expert group, comprising scientists, government officials, and consultants from four continents, was formed to discuss the important scientific and regulatory challenges with developing sediment quality guidelines (SQGs). We identified the problems associated with SQG development and made a series of recommendations to ensure that the methods being applied were scientifically defensible and internationally applicable. This document summarizes the key findings from the expert group. To enable evaluation of current SQG derivation and application systems, a feedback mechanism is required to communicate confounding factors and effects in differing environments, while field validation is necessary to gauge the effectiveness of SQG values in sediment quality assessments. International collaboration is instrumental to knowledge exchange and method advancement, as well as promotion of ‘best practices’. Since the paucity of sediment toxicity data poses the largest obstacle to improving current SQGs and deriving new SQGs, a standardized international database should be established as an information resource for sediment toxicity testing and monitoring data. We also identify several areas of scientific research that are needed to improve sediment quality assessment, including determining the importance of dietary exposure in sediment toxicity, mixture toxicity studies, toxicity screening of emerging chemicals, how climate change influence sediments and its biota, and possible use of new toxicity study approaches such as high throughput omic-based toxicity screenings.     

微生物利用食品废物合成聚羟基烷酸酯

为了降低聚羟基烷酸酯(PHAs)的生产成本,以麦芽、豆类、糖果、冰激凌、牛奶、芝麻油和食醋废物为底物,研究了产碱弧菌(Alcaligenes latus)、表皮匍萄球菌(Staphylococcus epidermidis)和活性污泥合成PHAs的工艺可行性和产物的物化性质.结果表明,通过两段式间歇补料发酵.3类微生物利用麦芽废物合成的聚羟基丁酸酯(PHB)产量最大,分别达细胞内含量的70.1%、16.0%和43.3%.A.latus适应食品废物开始细胞生长和PHAs合成的延迟短,在缺氮阶段合成PHB的产量、产率高.微好氧时,从芝麻油提取出的S.epidermidis可以合成分子量超过1×106的PHB.活性污泥可利用豆类废物合成聚羟基丁酸-羟基戊酸酯(PHBV)共聚物,其中羟基戊酸比例(HV%)占21%.多数食品废物适合合成具有不同物化性质的PHAs.PHAs产物的组分及物化性质受微生物种类、底物类型、发酵条件的影响.     

Male reproductive tactics to increase paternity in the polygynandrous Columbian ground squirrel (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Urocitellus columbianus</Emphasis>)

In polyandrous and polygynandrous species where females mate with multiple partners, males are expected to maximize their fitness by exhibiting an array of reproductive behaviors to ensure fertilization success, such as competing for the best mating order within a mating sequence, optimizing their investment in copulation, and mate guarding. Though there is genetic evidence of a first-male precedence in siring success for many mammalian species, the causes of this effect are poorly understood. We studied influences on first-male precedence in Columbian ground squirrels (Urocitellus columbianus). We found that the time a male spent consorting and mate guarding declined with his mating order (both the highest for the first male to mate). Mate guarding by the first male significantly reduced, but did not exclude, the number of additional males a female accepted. Later mating males reduced the time spent consorting, suggesting a perceived decreased chance of fertilization success. Consortship and mate guarding durations were positively related to the male’s siring success and to each other, suggesting that males adjusted these behaviors strategically to increase their chances of fertilization success. Our results suggest that besides being the first male to consort, first-male sperm precedence is further enhanced through longer mating bouts and by suppressing the chances and/or efforts of later mating males.     

Prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 20 by chorionic villus sampling (CVS): a case report with long-term outcome

A case of prenatally diagnosed non-mosaic trisomy 20 in cells cultured from a chorionic villus sample (CVS)is presented. The term placental karyotype was also non-mosaic trisomy 20. The karyotype of thenewborn was 46,XY/47,XY,+20 in foreskin cultures and in a second skin culture; blood lymphocyte culture was 46,XY. Aside from diffuse, hypopigmentary swirls along the lines of Blaschko observed on hisextremities and trunk, referred to as hypomelanosis of Ito, the patient is clinically normal at 8¾ years ofage. In addition, he is one of the oldest reported cases of mosaic trisomy 20 confirmed after birth forwhich the clinical outcome has been monitored. This case demonstrates that these trisomy 20 findings are compatible with normal psychomotor development and phenotype. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Environmental courses require a common core

Shirley Ali Khan is the Director of the Environmental Responsibility Centre at the University of Hertfordshire, and Dr Stephen Martin is a Senior Executive of COUNTEC, Milton Keynes, UK.