Toward a new understanding of the links between poverty and illegal wildlife hunting

Conservation organizations have increasingly raised concerns about escalating rates of illegal hunting and trade in wildlife. Previous studies have concluded that people hunt illegally because they are financially poor or lack alternative livelihood strategies. However, there has been little attempt to develop a richer understanding of the motivations behind contemporary illegal wildlife hunting. As a first step, we reviewed the academic and policy literatures on poaching and illegal wildlife use and considered the meanings of poverty and the relative importance of structure and individual agency. We placed motivations for illegal wildlife hunting within the context of the complex history of how wildlife laws were initially designed and enforced to indicate how hunting practices by specific communities were criminalized. We also considered the nature of poverty and the reasons for economic deprivation in particular communities to indicate how particular understandings of poverty as material deprivation ultimately shape approaches to illegal wildlife hunting. We found there is a need for a much better understanding of what poverty is and what motivates people to hunt illegally.     

An investigation on pollutant emissions from co-firing of RDF and coal

Pollutant emissions from co-firing of refuse derived fuel (RDF) and coal were investigated in a vortexing fluidized bed combustor (VFBC). RDF-5 was made of common municipal solid waste (MSW). CaCO₃ was injected in the combustor to absorb HCl at 850 °C. The results show that NO_x and HCl emissions increase with RDF-5 co-firing ratio. The NO_x concentration in flue gas at the bottom of the combustor is higher than that at the top. However, the trend of HCl released is reverse compared with NO_x emissions. It was found that the HCl concentration decreases with increasing the molar ratio of Ca/Cl. However, the effect of CaCO₃ addition on HCl retention is not significant when the molar ratio of Ca/Cl is higher than 5. The chlorine content in fly ash increases obviously with the molar ratio of Ca/Cl. PCDD/Fs emissions decrease slightly with an addition of CaCO₃. In this study incomplete combustion is regarded as the main cause for polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) formation.     

An evolutionary analysis of corruption in the process of collecting environmental tax in China

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Considering the bargaining power of enterprises, this paper distinguishes between “Offering Bribes Voluntarily” (OBV) and “Offering...     

NABat: A top-down,bottom-up solution to collaborative continental-scale monitoring

Collaborative monitoring over broad scales and levels of ecological organization can inform conservation efforts necessary to address the contemporary biodiversity crisis. An important challenge to collaborative monitoring is motivating local engagement with enough buy-in from stakeholders while providing adequate top-down direction for scientific rigor, quality control, and coordination. Collaborative monitoring must reconcile this inherent tension between top-down control and bottom-up engagement. Highly mobile and cryptic taxa, such as bats, present a particularly acute challenge. Given their scale of movement, complex life histories, and rapidly expanding threats, understanding population trends of bats requires coordinated broad-scale collaborative monitoring. The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) reconciles top-down, bottom-up tension with a hierarchical master sample survey design, integrated data analysis, dynamic data curation, regional monitoring hubs, and knowledge delivery through web-based infrastructure. NABat supports collaborative monitoring across spatial and organizational scales and the full annual lifecycle of bats.     

Long-term study of heavy metal pollution in the northern Hangzhou Bay of China: temporal and spatial distribution,contamination evaluation,and potential ecological risk

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Coastal ecosystem is vulnerable to heavy metal contamination. The northern Hangzhou Bay is under intensifying impact of anthropogenic activities. To...     

A comparison of antibiotics,antibiotic resistance genes,and bacterial community in broiler and layer manure following composting

Animal manure is an important source of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the environment. However, the difference of antibiotic residues and ARG profiles in layer and broiler manure as well as their compost remains unexplored. In this study, we investigated the profiles of twelve antibiotics, seventeen ARGs, and class 1 integrase gene (intI1) in layer and broiler manure, and the corresponding compost at large-scale. Compared with layer manure, broiler manure exhibited approximately six times more residual tetracyclines, especially chlortetracycline. The relative abundances of qnrS and ermA genes in broiler manure were significantly higher than those in layer manure. The concentration of tetracyclines not only had a significantly positive correlation with tetracycline resistance genes (tetA and tetC) but was also positively correlated with quinolone resistance (qepA, qnrB, and qnrS) and macrolide resistance (ermA and ermT). Most ARGs in manure were reduced after composting. However, the relative abundance of sulfonamide resistance gene sul1 increased up to 2.41% after composting, which was significantly higher than that of broiler (0.41%) and layer (0.62%) manure. The associated bacterial community was characterized by high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The relative abundances of thermophilic bacteria had significant positive correlations with the abundance of sul1 in compost. The composting has a significant impact on the ARG-associated gut microbes in poultry manure. Variation partitioning analysis indicated that the change of bacterial community compositions and antibiotics contributed partially to the shift in ARG profiles. The results indicate that at industry-scale production broiler manure had more antibiotics and ARGs than layer manure did, and composting decreased most ARG abundances in poultry manure except for sulfonamide resistance genes.

     

Characterization of a novel marine aerobic denitrifier Vibrio spp. AD2 for efficient nitrate reduction without nitrite accumulation

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Aerobic denitrifiers have the potential to reduce nitrate in polluted water under aerobic conditions. A salt-tolerant aerobic denitrifier was newly...     

碱活化过一硫酸盐降解水中环丙沙星

采用碱活化过一硫酸盐(peroxymonosulfate,PMS)对环丙沙星(ciprofloxacin,CIP)的去除进行了系统地研究.结果表明,碱活化PMS体系能够高效地去除CIP.通过自由基捕获实验确定了单线态氧(~1O_2)和超氧自由基(O_2~-·)是反应体系中的主要活性物种.NaOH浓度、PMS浓度、反应温度和共存阴离子等对CIP在碱活化PMS体系中的去除均有一定影响.随着NaOH和PMS浓度的增加,CIP的降解均呈现出先增加后降低的趋势.提高反应温度能够加大CIP的反应速率,经过阿伦尼乌斯方程拟合得到的反应活化能为5.09 k J·mol~(-1).不同的阴离子对CIP的去除呈现不同的影响:Cl~-、SO_4~(2-)和NO_3~-对CIP的降解没有呈现明显的作用,H_2PO_4~(2-)能够有效地抑制环丙沙星的去除,而CO_3~(2-)极大地促进了反应进程.通过UPLC-MS/MS可检测到10种降解产物,CIP分子结构中的哌嗪环易于受到活性物种的攻击.     

太湖表层水体及沉积物中双酚A类似物的分布特征及潜在风险

本研究对太湖表层水和沉积物中7种双酚A类似物(BPs)的浓度水平及分布特征进行了调查,并对其潜在的风险进行了评估.结果表明太湖表层水中双酚F(BPF)、双酚S(BPS)和双酚A(BPA)为主要的BPs组分;沉积物中BPA对BPs总浓度的贡献率最高,其次为BPF和BPS,且与沉积物中TOC含量具有显著的正相关;BPA、BPF和BPS在表层水和沉积物中的高浓度水平均分布在太湖入湖支流(采样点S4~S10).风险评估表明BPs的联合毒性风险熵表现出低生态风险,且对人体不具有明显的健康风险.     

北京市郊区夏季臭氧重污染特征及生成效率

为研究北京郊区夏季O₃(臭氧)重污染过程特征及O₃生成的光化学敏感性,基于2016年夏季在北京郊区开展的针对O₃及其相关污染物的强化观测试验(7月23日—8月31日,共计40 d),分析了观测期间O₃浓度[以φ(O₃)计]变化特征、O₃重污染过程主控因素与O₃敏感性化学特征.结果表明:观测期间φ(O₃)超标时有发生,最大小时φ(O₃)为151.1×10-9,其中有15 d的φ(O₃)最大8 h滑动平均值(O₃-max-8h)超过了GB 3095—2012《环境空气质量标准》二级标准限值,占观测天数的37.5%;不同O₃重污染过程成因有所不同,城市烟羽传输的污染物对郊区O₃重污染过程影响显著(观测期间臭氧重污染过程:过程1,7月27—29日;过程3,8月9—11日;过程4,8月16日;过程5,8月21—24日),区域光化学污染对郊区O₃重污染过程也有贡献(观测期间O₃重污染过程2:8月4—6日);结合后向气流轨迹进一步辅助说明了不同重污染过程中O₃的来源不同.研究还发现,观测区域存在反“周末效应”现象,说明观测区域周末受人为影响较为明显;基于观测数据计算的OPE(O₃生成效率)分析了O₃光化学敏感性表明,在有OPE值的22 d内NO_x控制区和VOCs控制区出现的概率(41%)相等,即观测区域O₃对NO_x和VOCs均敏感;此外还发现,在O₃重污染过程中光化学敏感性会随其反应进程发生改变,由NO_x控制区逐渐转变为VOCs控制区.