Assessing the effect of climate oscillations and land-use changes on streamflow in the central Spanish Pyrenees

Plans to increase the amount of irrigated land in Mediterranean countries should consider how changes in climate and land-use affect water resources. In this study, both precipitation and temperature were used to analyze regional trends in discharge in the basins of the Central Spanish Pyrenees since the mid-20th century. Annual variations in the relationship between precipitation and discharge suggested that discharge was relatively lower in the second half of the study period, coinciding with major changes in land use. On a monthly scale, precipitation increased significantly in October, April, and July, and decreased in March, and temperature increased in January and February and decreased in April. Nevertheless, discharge has decreased significantly in most months in the past 50 years. Land-use and plant-cover changes are the only nonclimatic factor that can explain the loss of around 30% of the average annual discharge.     

Diet of young Atlantic bluefin tuna (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Thunnus thynnus</Emphasis>) in eastern and western Atlantic foraging grounds

Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) are highly migratory predators whose abundance, distribution, and somatic condition have changed over the past decades. Prey community composition and abundance have also varied in several foraging grounds. To better understand underlying food webs and regional energy sources, we performed stomach content and stable isotope analyses on mainly juvenile (60–150 cm curved fork length) bluefin tuna captured in foraging grounds in the western (Mid-Atlantic Bight) and eastern (Bay of Biscay) Atlantic Ocean. In the Mid-Atlantic Bight, bluefin tuna diet was mainly sand lance (Ammodytes spp., 29% prey weight), consistent with historic findings. In the Bay of Biscay, krill (Meganyctiphanes norvegica) and anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) made up 39% prey weight, with relative consumption of each reflecting annual changes in prey abundance. Consumption of anchovies apparently declined after the local collapse of this prey resource. In both regions, stable isotope analysis results showed that juvenile bluefin tuna fed at a lower trophic position than indicated by stomach content analysis. In the Mid-Atlantic Bight, stable isotope analyses suggested that >30% of the diet was prey from lower trophic levels that composed <10% of the prey weights based upon traditional stomach content analyses. Trophic position was similar to juvenile fish sampled in the NW Atlantic but lower than juveniles sampled in the Mediterranean Sea in previous studies. Our findings indicate that juvenile bluefin tuna targeted a relatively small range of prey species and regional foraging patterns remained consistent over time in the Mid-Atlantic Bight but changed in relation to local prey availability in the Bay of Biscay.     

Iron oxide nanoparticles embedded in organic microparticles from Yerba Mate useful for remediation of textile wastewater through a photo-Fenton treatment: Ilex paraguariensis as a platform of environmental interest – Part 1

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Seven composites of iron oxide nanoparticles embedded in organic microparticles mediated by Cu(II) were synthesized using yerba mate (Ilex...     

Adjusting to Climate Change: Implications of Increased Variability and Asymmetric Adjustment Costs for Investment in Water Reserves

In this paper we study the determination of optimal water storage capacity in a region, taking into account that the supply of the resource, the flow into the reserve, is uncertain, that a measure of the uncertainty, the variance, is likely to increase with climate change, that building capacity is costly, and that the development of water resources may entail alsoenvironmental costs. We find that water storage capacity in the long run ispositivelyrelated to increases in uncertainty if the marginal benefit of water withdrawal isconvexand that, for the case of costly reversibility of investment, a range of inaction for investment appears, and the stability of water storage capacity with respect to changes in variance increases.     

保护生物多样性应对农业生产者进行补偿

几千年以来，不同的社会都热衷于通过基因改良来改变物种以使其适应人们所处的环境条件。通过这种方式，人们已经持续改变了用于食物和农业的基因资源。现在的农业生产中所用的基因有一部分还是野生的，而另一部分则是人工培育或改变的基因。目前，人类食物供给的大部分是通过后一种方式获得的。所有物种，特别是那些野生物种为农业和食品生产的扩大和多样化提供了巨大潜力。     

Value congruence,control, sense of community and demands as determinants of burnout syndrome among hospitality workers

Employees working in the hospitality industry are constantly exposed to occupational stressors that may lead employees into experiencing burnout syndrome. Research addressing the interactive effects of control, community and value congruence to alleviate the impact of workplace demands on experiencing burnout is relatively limited. The present study examined relationships among control, community and value congruence, workplace demands and the three components of burnout. A sample of 418 employees working in a variety of hospitality associations including restaurants and hotels in Spain were recruited. Moderation analyses and linear regressions analyzed the predictive power of control, community and value congruence as moderating variables. Results indicate that control, community and value congruence were successful buffers in the relationships between workplace demands and the burnout dimensions. The present findings offer suggestions for future research on potential moderating variables, as well as implications for reducing burnout among hospitality employees.     

Hemosporidian blood parasites in seabirds—a comparative genetic study of species from Antarctic to tropical habitats

Whereas some bird species are heavily affected by blood parasites in the wild, others reportedly are not. Seabirds, in particular, are often free from blood parasites, even in the presence of potential vectors. By means of polymerase chain reaction, we amplified a DNA fragment from the cytochrome b gene to detect parasites of the genera Plasmodium, Leucocytozoon, and Haemoproteus in 14 seabird species, ranging from Antarctica to the tropical Indian Ocean. We did not detect parasites in 11 of these species, including one Antarctic, four subantarctic, two temperate, and four tropical species. On the other hand, two subantarctic species, thin-billed prions Pachyptila belcheri and dolphin gulls Larus scoresbii, were found infected. One of 28 thin-billed prions had a Plasmodium infection whose DNA sequence was identical to lineage P22 of Plasmodium relictum, and one of 20 dolphin gulls was infected with a Haemoproteus lineage which appears phylogenetically clustered with parasites species isolated from passeriform birds such as Haemoproteus lanii, Haemoproteus magnus, Haemoproteus fringillae, Haemoproteus sylvae, Haemoproteus payevskyi, and Haemoproteus belopolskyi. In addition, we found a high parasite prevalence in a single tropical species, the Christmas Island frigatebird Fregata andrewsi, where 56% of sampled adults were infected with Haemoproteus. The latter formed a monophyletic group that includes a Haemoproteus line from Eastern Asian black-tailed gulls Larus crassirostris. Our results are in agreement with those showing that (a) seabirds are poor in hemosporidians and (b) latitude could be a determining factor to predict the presence of hemosporidians in birds. However, further studies should explore the relative importance of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on parasite prevalence, in particular using phylogenetically controlled comparative analyses, systematic sampling and screening of vectors, and within-species comparisons.     

The Management of a Large Mediterranean Reservoir: Storage Regimens of the Yesa Reservoir,Upper Aragon River Basin,Central Spanish Pyrenees

Agriculture in Mediterranean countries is mainly based upon the irrigation of productive areas in the lowlands. For this reason, it is necessary to store large volumes of water in reservoirs located in mountain headwaters. These reservoirs have a relatively simple regimen of storage, increasing the water stored during the wet season (from October until May) and reaching the maximum volume shortly before the beginning of the hot, very dry season, when the water is released. This paper considers the storage regimen (inflow and outflow) of the Yesa Reservoir in the Spanish Pyrenees as an example of management of a large reservoir in a mountain Mediterranean environment, subject to a strong interannual variability. On average, the highest water storage level is achieved by retaining the high flows of the Aragón River in autumn and spring. Nevertheless, the irregularity of rainfalls and the existence of changes in the hydrological regimen lead to changes in the patterns of reservoir filling. Two patterns were identified in the Yesa Reservoir: (1) a quick increase of the stored volume in autumn, a stabilization in winter, and a new increase in spring; and (2) a continuous increase from October until May. These patterns are distributed in time over different periods since the construction of the reservoir in 1959, demonstrating the adjustment of the reservoir management to changes in the hydrological regimen.     

Optimal Environmental Policy for a Polluting Monopoly with Abatement Costs: Taxes Versus Standards

In this paper, we characterize the optimal environmental policy for a polluting monopoly that devotes resources to abatement activities when damages are caused by a stock pollutant. With this aim, we calculate the stagewise feedback Stackelberg equilibrium of a (differential) policy game where the regulator is the leader and the monopolist is the follower. Our analysis shows that the first-best policy consists of applying a Pigouvian tax and a subsidy on production equal to the difference between the price and the marginal revenue. However, for a stock pollutant, the Pigouvian tax is not equal to the marginal damages but is given by the difference between the social and private valuation of the pollution stock. On the other hand, if a second-best emission tax is used, the tax is lower than the Pigouvian tax and the difference decreases with the price elasticity of the demand. Finally, we find that taxes and standards are equivalent in a second-best setting. In the second part of the paper, we solve a linear-quadratic differential game and we obtain that the first-best tax increases with the pollution stock whereas the subsidy decreases. Moreover, the tax is negative for low values of the pollution stock, i.e., for low values of the pollution stock, we obtain that the social valuation of the stock is lower than the private valuation. Furthermore, when a second-best policy is applied, the steady-state pollution stock is lower than the steady-state pollution stock associated with the efficient outcome.