Simple nomenclature for chlorinated camphenes and dihydrocamphenes from which structural information can be directly deduced

The systematic nomenclature for chlorinated camphenes and dihydrocamphenes is rather complicated and confusing. Therefore, a simple structure-related nomenclature is proposed for these compounds, which is based on the same logic as was recently used for the chlorinated bornanes, bomenes and bornadienes. Although final IUPAC rules for the systematic nomenclature for camphenes and dihydrocamphenes have not yet been presented, the present nomenclature can be used for retrieving the correct conformation without the help of extensive tables or computer programmes, and vice versa. When the final IUPAC rules will be presented, the present nomenclature can easily be adjusted, if necessary     

Source apportionment of airborne fine particulate matter in an underground mine

The chemical mass balance source apportionment technique was applied to an underground gold mine to assess the contribution of diesel exhaust, rock dust, oil mists, and cigarette smoke to airborne fine (<2.5 microm) particulate matter (PM). Apportionments were conducted in two locations in the mine, one near the mining operations and one near the exit of the mine where the ventilated mine air was exhausted. Results showed that diesel exhaust contributed 78-98% of the fine particulate mass and greater than 90% of the fine particle carbon, with rock dust making up the remainder. Oil mists and cigarette smoke contributions were below detection limits for this study. The diesel exhaust fraction of the total fine PM was higher than the recently implemented mine air quality standards based on total carbon at both sample locations in the mine.     

Geographic assignment of seabirds to their origin: combining morphologic, genetic, and biogeochemical analyses.

Longline fisheries, oil spills, and offshore wind farms are some of the major threats increasing seabird mortality at sea, but the impact of these threats on specific populations has been difficult to determine so far. We tested the use of molecular markers, morphometric measures, and stable isotope (delta15N and delta13C) and trace element concentrations in the first primary feather (grown at the end of the breeding period) to assign the geographic origin of Calonectris shearwaters. Overall, we sampled birds from three taxa: 13 Mediterranean Cory's Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea diomedea) breeding sites, 10 Atlantic Cory's Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea borealis) breeding sites, and one Cape Verde Shearwater (C. edwardsii) breeding site. Assignment rates were investigated at three spatial scales: breeding colony, breeding archipelago, and taxa levels. Genetic analyses based on the mitochondrial control region (198 birds from 21 breeding colonies) correctly assigned 100% of birds to the three main taxa but failed in detecting geographic structuring at lower scales. Discriminant analyses based on trace elements composition achieved the best rate of correct assignment to colony (77.5%). Body measurements or stable isotopes mainly succeeded in assigning individuals among taxa (87.9% and 89.9%, respectively) but failed at the colony level (27.1% and 38.0%, respectively). Combining all three approaches (morphometrics, isotopes, and trace elements on 186 birds from 15 breeding colonies) substantially improved correct classifications (86.0%, 90.7%, and 100% among colonies, archipelagos, and taxa, respectively). Validations using two independent data sets and jackknife cross-validation confirmed the robustness of the combined approach in the colony assignment (62.5%, 58.8%, and 69.8% for each validation test, respectively). A preliminary application of the discriminant model based on stable isotope delta15N and delta13C values and trace elements (219 birds from 17 breeding sites) showed that 41 Cory's Shearwaters caught by western Mediterranean long-liners came mainly from breeding colonies in Menorca (48.8%), Ibiza (14.6%), and Crete (31.7%). Our findings show that combining analyses of trace elements and stable isotopes on feathers can achieve high rates of correct geographic assignment of birds in the marine environment, opening new prospects for the study of seabird mortality at sea.     

Adsorption kinetics of the herbicide safeners, benoxacor and furilazole, to activated carbon and agricultural soils

Chloroacetamide herbicides, namely acetochlor and metolachlor, are common herbicides used on corn and soybean fields. Dichloroacetamide safeners, namely benoxacor and furilazole, are commonly used in formulations containing chloroacetamide herbicides. Extensive reports on adsorption of chloroacetamide herbicides are available, yet little information exists regarding adsorption potential of co-applied safeners. Herein, the adsorption and desorption characteristics of selected herbicide safeners to granular activated carbon (GAC) and in agricultural soils are reported. Further, soil column studies were performed to understand the leaching behaviour of the herbicide Dual II Magnum. Equilibrium sorption experiments of safeners to three agricultural soils and one GAC showed that adsorption was best fitted by the Freundlich isotherm. The Freundlich adsorption constant, K_f, for benoxacor and furilazole sorption onto three agricultural soils ranged from 0.1 to 0.27 and 0.1 to 0.13 (mg/g) × (mg/L)?(1/n), respectively. The K_f for benoxacor and furilazole to GAC was 6.4 and 3.4 (mg/g) × (mg/L)?(1/n), respectively, suggesting more favorable sorption of benoxacor to GAC than furilazole to GAC. The sorption to soils was reversible as almost 40%–90% of both safeners was desorbed from three soils. These results were validated in four replicated soil column studies, where S-metolachlor was shown to leach similarly to the safener benoxacor, originating from the herbicide formulation. The leaching of S-metolachlor and benoxacor was influenced by soil texture. Cumulatively, these results show that safeners will move through the environment to surface waters similarly to the active ingredients in herbicides, but may be removed during drinking water treatment via GAC.     

Adaptation to changing water resources in the Ganges basin, northern India

An ensemble of regional climate model (RCM) runs from the EU HighNoon project are used to project future air temperatures and precipitation on a 25 km grid for the Ganges basin in northern India, with a view to assessing impact of climate change on water resources and determining what multi-sector adaptation measures and policies might be adopted at different spatial scales.The RCM results suggest an increase in mean annual temperature, averaged over the Ganges basin, in the range 1–4 °C over the period from 2000 to 2050, using the SRES A1B forcing scenario. Projections of precipitation indicate that natural variability dominates the climate change signal and there is considerable uncertainty concerning change in regional annual mean precipitation by 2050. The RCMs do suggest an increase in annual mean precipitation in this region to 2050, but lack significant trend. Glaciers in headwater tributary basins of the Ganges appear to be continuing to decline but it is not clear whether meltwater runoff continues to increase. The predicted changes in precipitation and temperature will probably not lead to significant increase in water availability to 2050, but the timing of runoff from snowmelt will likely occur earlier in spring and summer. Water availability is subject to decadal variability, with much uncertainty in the contribution from climate change.Although global social-economic scenarios show trends to urbanization, locally these trends are less evident and in some districts rural population is increasing. Falling groundwater levels in the Ganges plain may prevent expansion of irrigated areas for food supply. Changes in socio-economic development in combination with projected changes in timing of runoff outside the monsoon period will make difficult choices for water managers.Because of the uncertainty in future water availability trends, decreasing vulnerability by augmenting resilience is the preferred way to adapt to climate change. Adaptive policies are required to increase society's capacity to adapt to both anticipated and unanticipated conditions. Integrated solutions are needed, consistent at various spatial scales, to assure robust and sustainable future use of resources. For water resources this is at the river basin scale. At present adaptation measures in India are planned at national and state level, not taking into account the physical boundaries of water systems. To increase resilience adaptation plans should be made locally specific. However, as it is expected that the partitioning of water over the different sectors and regions will be the biggest constraint, a consistent water use plan at catchment and river basin scale may be the best solution. A policy enabling such river basin planning is essential.     

Indigenous culture and adaptation to climate change: sockeye salmon and the St’át’imc people

This paper provides a culturally-informed understanding of the impacts of climate change on a highly important subsistence activity that has been practiced by First Nations of central British Columbia for thousands of years. The paper begins with a review of the science regarding sockeye salmon and climate change. It discusses harvest patterns, and how the timing of runs has changed. A survey was conducted by the first author regarding St’át’imc traditional fishing at a historic site on the Fraser River, in 2005. The results show that the impacts of climate change are apparent to those conducting traditional fishing practices, in terms of changed timing and abundance of salmon runs. These perceptions fit closely with the information available from scientists and management agencies. These changes are highly problematic for the St’át’imc, in that the preservation method (drying) is tied to seasonal weather patterns. The whole cultural setting, and the relevance of salmon for subsistence would be highly altered by climate change that leads to changes in the timing and abundance of sockeye salmon. The paper discusses mitigation and adaptation alternatives, but also indicates the scope of these seem limited, given the resource systems and the context of these activities.     

Random forests for classification in ecology

Classification procedures are some of the most widely used statistical methods in ecology. Random forests (RF) is a new and powerful statistical classifier that is well established in other disciplines but is relatively unknown in ecology. Advantages of RF compared to other statistical classifiers include (1) very high classification accuracy; (2) a novel method of determining variable importance; (3) ability to model complex interactions among predictor variables; (4) flexibility to perform several types of statistical data analysis, including regression, classification, survival analysis, and unsupervised learning; and (5) an algorithm for imputing missing values. We compared the accuracies of RF and four other commonly used statistical classifiers using data on invasive plant species presence in Lava Beds National Monument, California, USA, rare lichen species presence in the Pacific Northwest, USA, and nest sites for cavity nesting birds in the Uinta Mountains, Utah, USA. We observed high classification accuracy in all applications as measured by cross-validation and, in the case of the lichen data, by independent test data, when comparing RF to other common classification methods. We also observed that the variables that RF identified as most important for classifying invasive plant species coincided with expectations based on the literature.     

Remediation strategies for rural territories contaminated by the Chernobyl accident.

The objective of the present paper is to derive remediation strategies for rural settlements contaminated by the Chernobyl accident in which annual doses to a critical group still exceed 1 mSv. Extensive radioecological data have been collected for 70 contaminated settlements. A dose model based on these data resulted in estimates that are on average close to and a bit less than the official dose estimates ('catalogue doses') published by the responsible Ministries of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. For eight remedial actions that can be applied on a large scale, effectiveness and costs have been assessed in light of their dependence on soil type, contamination level and on the degree of previous application of remedial actions. Remediation strategies were derived for each of the 70 settlements by choosing remedial actions with lowest costs per averted dose and with highest degree of acceptability among the farmers and local authorities until annual doses are assessed to fall below 1 mSv. The results were generalised to 11 contamination/internal-dose categories. The total numbers of rural inhabitants and privately owned cows in the three countries distributed over the categories were determined and predicted until the year 2015. Based on these data, costs and averted doses were derived for the whole affected population. The main results are (i) about 2000 Sv can be averted at relatively low costs, (ii) the emphasis on reducing external exposures should be increased, (iii) radical improvement of hay-land and meadows and application of Prussian blue to cows should be performed on a large scale if annual doses of 1 mSv are an aim to be achieved, (iv) additional remedial actions of importance are fertilising of potato fields, distribution of food monitors and restriction of mushroom consumption, and (v) for inhabitants of some settlements (in total about 8600) annual doses cannot be reduced below 1 mSv by the remedial actions considered.     

Is the effect of forest structure on bird diversity modified by forest productivity?

Currently, the most common strategy when managing forests for biodiversity at the landscape scale is to maintain structural complexity within stands and provide a variety of seral stages across landscapes. Advances in ecological theory reveal that biodiversity at continental scales is strongly influenced by available energy (i.e., climate factors relating to heat and light and primary productivity). This paper explores how available energy and forest structural complexity may interact to drive biodiversity at a regional scale. We hypothesized that bird species richness exhibits a hump-shaped relationship with energy at the regional scale of the northwestern United States. As a result, we hypothesized that the relationship between energy and richness within a landscape is positive in energy-limited landscapes and flat or decreasing in energy-rich landscapes. Additionally, we hypothesized that structural complexity explains less of the variation in species richness in energy-limited environments and more in energy-rich environments and that the slope of the relationship between structural complexity and richness is greatest in energy-rich environments. We sampled bird communities and vegetation across seral stages and biophysical settings at each of five landscapes arrayed across a productivity gradient from the Pacific Coast to the Rocky Mountains within the five northwestern states of the contiguous United States. We analyzed the response of richness to structural complexity and energy covariates at each landscape. We found that (1) richness had a hump-shaped relationship with available energy across the northwestern United States, (2) the landscape-scale relationships between energy and richness were positive or hump shaped in energy-limited locations and were flat or negative in energy-rich locations, (3) forest structural complexity explained more of the variation in bird species richness in energy-rich landscapes, and (4) the slope of the relationship between forest structural complexity and richness was steepest in energy-limited locations. In energy-rich locations, forest managers will likely increase landscape-scale bird diversity by providing a range of forest structural complexity across all seral stages. In low-energy environments, bird diversity will likely be maximized by managing local high-energy hotspots judiciously and adjusting harvest intensities in other locations to compensate for slower regeneration rates.     

Periodic characterization of alkyl-naphthalenes in stack gas and ambient air around a medical waste incinerator

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Due to the subtle occurrence of environmental polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) pollution from incinerators, it is seldom considered a...