Metal composition of arrow squid (Nototodarus sloanii [Gray 1849]) from the Chatham Rise,New Zealand: implications for human consumption

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Cephalopods are important in the diets of humans and many other apex predators, and can play an important role in the bioaccumulation of metals. In...     

Future sea ice conditions and weather forecasts in the Arctic: Implications for Arctic shipping

The ability to forecast sea ice (both extent and thickness) and weather conditions are the major factors when it comes to safe marine transportation in the Arctic Ocean. This paper presents findings focusing on sea ice and weather prediction in the Arctic Ocean for navigation purposes, in particular along the Northeast Passage. Based on comparison with the observed sea ice concentrations for validation, the best performing Earth system models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) program (CMIP5—Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5) were selected to provide ranges of potential future sea ice conditions. Our results showed that, despite a general tendency toward less sea ice cover in summer, internal variability will still be large and shipping along the Northeast Passage might still be hampered by sea ice blocking narrow passages. This will make sea ice forecasts on shorter time and space scales and Arctic weather prediction even more important.     

Biomonitoring mit Stadttaubeneiern

Experiences of biological monitoring with feral pigeons over a 12-year period in the cities of Halle, leipzig and Saarbrücken, and in rural areas of the Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein, show how to combine the management of feral pigeon populations with scientific questions. Especially the eggs of feral pigeons are suitable for environmental observation. Their advantage is, to show both concentrations of substances and their effects. In addition, there is almost no alternative in urban ecosystems by the use of other specimens. Requirements on standard operation procedures for sampling and sample treatment are presented. Examples of significant differences in analytical and biometric information between the observed areas and trends over the 12-year monitoring period with the use of pigeon eggs are presented. In specially constructed pigeon houses (pigeonry) with nesting cells, pigeon eggs can permanently be used for long term monitoring studies. At the same time, the possibility for the control and regulation of population health and desity is given.     

Differential responses of vertebrate and invertebrate herbivores to traits of New Zealand subalpine shrubs

Plant traits are influenced by herbivore diet selection, but little is known about how traits are affected by different types of herbivores. We related eight traits of 27 subalpine shrub species in South Island, New Zealand, to damage of these shrubs by introduced red deer (Cervus elaphus) and native invertebrate herbivores using phylogenetically explicit modeling. Deer preferentially consumed species that grew quickly, were low in foliar tannins, or had high leaf area per unit mass. However, these traits did not trade off against each other; rather, they could be related to different multivariate defense strategies. Although the proportion of leaves damaged by leaf-chewing invertebrates also increased with stem growth, invertebrates did not damage the same fast growing species as those preferred by deer. Other traits may also be important in determining herbivore preferences, as suggested by the high proportion of variation in herbivory explained by phylogeny. Last, we found that the composition of invertebrate herbivore communities was more similar among closely related shrubs, and consequently, the range of invertebrate-plant associations may change if introduced deer shift plant composition toward slow-growing species. Overall, our results demonstrate the importance of herbivore type and coevolved interactions for the adaptive significance of plant traits.     

The Baltic Sea spring phytoplankton bloom in a changing climate: an experimental approach

The response of the Baltic Sea spring bloom was studied in mesocosm experiments, where temperatures were elevated up to 6°C above the present-day sea surface temperature of the spring bloom season. Four of the seven experiments were carried out at different light levels (32–202?Wh?m^?2 at the start of the experiments) in the different experimental years. In one further experiment, the factors light and temperature were crossed, and in one experiment, the factors density of overwintering zooplankton and temperature were crossed. Overall, there was a slight temporal acceleration of the phytoplankton spring bloom, a decline of peak biomass and a decline of mean cell size with warming. The temperature influence on phytoplankton bloom timing, biomass and size structure was qualitatively highly robust across experiments. The dependence of timing, biomass, and size structure on initial conditions was tested by multiple regression analysis of the y-temperature regressions with the candidate independent variables initial light, initial phytoplankton biomass, initial microzooplankton biomass, and initial mesozooplankton (=copepod) biomass. The bloom timing predicted for mean temperatures (5.28°C) depended on light. The peak biomass showed a strong positive dependence on light and a weaker negative dependence on initial copepod density. Mean phytoplankton cell size predicted for the mean temperature responded positively to light and negatively to copepod density. The anticipated mismatch between phytoplankton supply and food demand by newly hatched copepod nauplii occurred only under the combination of low light and warm temperatures. The analysis presented here confirms earlier conclusions about temperature responses that are based on subsets of our experimental series. However, only the comprehensive analysis across all experiments highlights the importance of the factor light.     

A tiered procedure for assessing the formation of biotransformation products of pharmaceuticals and biocides during activated sludge treatment

Upon partial degradation of polar organic micropollutants during activated sludge treatment, transformation products (TPs) may be formed that enter the aquatic environment in the treated effluent. However, TPs are rarely considered in prospective environmental risk assessments of wastewater-relevant compound classes such as pharmaceuticals and biocides. Here, we suggest and evaluate a tiered procedure, which includes a fast initial screening step based on high resolution tandem mass spectrometry (HR-MS/MS) and a subsequent confirmatory quantitative analysis, that should facilitate consideration of TPs formed during activated sludge treatment in the exposure assessment of micropollutants. At the first tier, potential biotransformation product structures of seven pharmaceuticals (atenolol, bezafibrate, ketoprofen, metoprolol, ranitidine, valsartan, and venlafaxine) and one biocide (carbendazim) were assembled using computer-based biotransformation pathway prediction and known human metabolites. These target structures were screened for in sludge-seeded batch reactors using HR-MS/MS. The 12 TPs found to form in the batch experiments were then searched for in the effluents of two full-scale, municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to confirm the environmental representativeness of this first tier. At the second tier, experiments with the same sludge-seeded batch reactors were carried out to acquire kinetic data for major TPs that were then used as input parameters into a cascaded steady-state completely-stirred tank reactor (CSTR) model for predicting TP effluent concentrations. Predicted effluent concentrations of four parent compounds and their three major TPs were corroborated by comparison to 3-day average influent and secondary effluent mass flows from one municipal WWTP. CSTR model-predicted secondary effluent mass flows agreed within a factor of two with measured mass flows and confidence intervals of predicted and measured mass flows overlapped in all cases. The observed agreement suggests that the combination of batch-determined transformation kinetics with a simple WWTP model may be suitable for estimating aquatic exposure to TPs formed during activated sludge treatment. Overall, we recommend the tiered procedure as a realistic and cost-effective approach to include consideration of TPs of wastewater-relevant compounds into exposure assessment in the context of prospective chemical risk assessment.     

Introducing integrated product and process development into the education of science and engineering undergraduates: a lecture course with an accompanying case-study programme at the ETH chemistry department

Increased quality requirements in the development of chemical products and a growing awareness within society of the activities of chemical companies present a new challenge to the education of young scientists. Nowadays, the teaching of chemists, chemical engineers and environmental scientists at universities has to go beyond the traditional, discipline-orientated knowledge acquisition. The students also have to learn to work and communicate in interdisciplinary teams, to solve application-oriented tasks and to integrate scientific, economical, ecological and social aspects into their work. For this reason, a case-study programme was launched at the chemistry department of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. In this paper, we describe the organisational aspects of the programme, its inclusion into academic and industrial environments and summarise some of the scientific methodologies applied. One of the seven case-studies, an assessment of a modern insecticide, is presented in more detail. Finally, we discuss how far the case-study programme is suitable for introducing a new mode of knowledge production to universities.     

The EU-project ERAPharm. Incentives for the further development of guidance documents?

- Triggered by the detection of a large variety of pharmaceuticals in surface waters, soils and groundwaters across the world (e.g. Halling- Sørensen et al. 1998, Daughton & Ternes 1999, Jones et al. 2001, Heberer 2002) and the widespread occurrence of endocrine active compounds and related effects in the environment (e.g. Purdom et al. 1994, Tyler et al. 1998, Vethaak et al. 2002), pharmaceuticals in the environment have become an issue for both the scientific and the public community. During the last few years, our understanding of the fate and effects of pharmaceuticals in the environment has progressed significantly. However, there are still a number of uncertainties concerning the effects of pharmaceuticals on the environment and the assessment of potential exposure (e.g. Hanisch et al. 2004, Salomon 2005). These uncertainties will be addressed by the EU-project ‘Environmental risk assessment of pharmaceuticals’ (ERAPharm). This project, a specific targeted research project, is carried out within the priority ‘Global change and ecosystems’ of the 6th framework programme of the European Union. ERAPharm has started on 1st October 2004; the project duration is three years.