MANAGEMENT AND ANALYSIS OF WATER-USE DATA USING A GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM1

ASSTRACT: As part of its mission, the U.S. Geological Survey conducts water-resources research. Site-specific and aggregate water-use data are used in the Survey's National Water-Use Information Program and in various hydrologic investigations. Both types of activities have specific requirements in terms of water-use data access, analysis, and display. In Kansas, the Survey obtains water-use information from several sources. Trpically, this information is in a format that is not readily usable by the Survey. Geographic information system (GIS) technology is being used to restructure the available water-use data into a format that allows users to readily access and summarize site-specific water-use data by source (i.e., surface or ground water), type of use, and user-defined area.     

Interaction of carbonaceous nanomaterials with wastewater biomass

Increasing production and use of carbonaceous nanomaterials (NMs) will increase their release to the sewer system and to municipal wastewater treatment plants. There is little quantitative knowledge on the removal of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), graphene oxide (GO), or few-layer graphene (FLG) from wastewater into the wastewater biomass. As such, we investigated the quantification of GO and MWCNTs by UV-Vis spectrophotometry, and FLG using programmable thermal analysis (PTA), respectively. We further explored the removal of pristine and oxidized MWCNTs (O-MWCNTs), GO, and FLG in a biomass suspension. At least 96% of pristine and O-MWCNTs were removed from the water phase through aggregation and 30-min settling in presence or absence of biomass with an initial MWCNT concentration of 25 mg·L⁻¹. Only 65% of GO was removed with biomass concentration at or above 1,000 mg·L⁻¹ as total suspended solids (TSS) with the initial GO concentration of 25 mg·L⁻¹. As UV-Vis spectrophotometry does not work well on quantification of FLG, we studied the removal of FLG at a lower biomass concentration (50 mg TSS·L⁻¹) using PTA, which showed a 16% removal of FLG with an initial concentration of 1 mg·L⁻¹. The removal data for GO and FLG were fitted using the Freundlich equation (R² = 0.55, 0.94, respectively). The data presented in this study for carbonaceous NM removal from wastewater provides quantitative information for environmental exposure modeling and life cycle assessment.     

Do activity costs determine foraging tactics for an arctic seabird?

How energy costs affect foraging decisions is poorly understood for marine animals. To provide data relevant to this topic, we examined the relationship between activity levels and foraging behavior by attaching activity recorders to 29 chick-rearing wing-propelled diving birds (thick-billed murres, Uria lomvia) in 1999–2000. We connected the activity during the final dive bout with the prey item we observed being fed to the chicks. After accounting for changes in activity level with depth, activity was highest during the final dive of a dive bout, reflecting maneuvring during prey capture. Pelagic prey items, especially invertebrates (amphipods), were associated with higher depth-corrected activity, leading to shorter dives for a given depth (presumably due to higher oxygen consumption rates) and, thus, shorter search times (lower bottom time for a given depth). Pelagic prey items were likely captured during active pursuit, with the birds actively seeking and pursuing schooling mid-water prey. In contrast, benthic prey involved low activity and extended search times, suggesting that the birds slowly glided along the bottom in search for prey hidden in the sediments or rocks. We concluded that activity levels are important in determining the foraging tactics of marine predators. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Can collaborative innovation constrain ecological footprint? Empirical evidence from Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area,China

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Collaborative innovation can promote scientific productivity and the development of clean technology and thus has a great potential in constraining...     

Wave disturbance overwhelms top-down and bottom-up control of primary production in California kelp forests

We took advantage of regional differences in environmental forcing and consumer abundance to examine the relative importance of nutrient availability (bottom-up), grazing pressure (top-down), and storm waves (disturbance) in determining the standing biomass and net primary production (NPP) of the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera in central and southern California. Using a nine-year data set collected from 17 sites we show that, despite high densities of sea urchin grazers and prolonged periods of low nutrient availability in southern California, NPP by giant kelp was twice that of central California where nutrient concentrations were consistently high and sea urchins were nearly absent due to predation by sea otters. Waves associated with winter storms were consistently higher in central California, and the loss of kelp biomass to winter wave disturbance was on average twice that of southern California. These observations suggest that the more intense wave disturbance in central California limited NPP by giant kelp under otherwise favorable conditions. Regional patterns of interannual variation in NPP were similar to those of wave disturbance in that year-to-year variation in disturbance and NPP were both greater in southern California. Our findings provide strong evidence that regional differences in wave disturbance overwhelmed those of nutrient supply and grazing intensity to determine NPP by giant kelp. The important role of disturbance in controlling NPP revealed by our study is likely not unique to giant kelp forests, as vegetation dynamics in many systems are dominated by post-disturbance succession with climax communities being relatively uncommon. The effects of disturbance frequency may be easier to detect in giant kelp because it is fast growing and relatively short lived, with cycles of disturbance and recovery occurring on time scales of years. Much longer data sets (decades to centuries) will likely be needed to properly evaluate the role of disturbance relative to other processes in determining patterns of NPP in other systems.     

Higher trophic level prey does not represent a higher quality diet in a threatened seabird: implications for relating population dynamics to diet shifts inferred from stable isotopes

Diet quality is a key determinant of population dynamics. If a higher trophic level, more fish-based diet is of higher quality for marine predators, then individuals with a higher trophic level diet should have a greater body mass than those feeding at a lower trophic level. We examined this hypothesis using stable isotope analysis to infer dietary trophic level and foraging habitat over three years in eastern rockhopper penguins Eudyptes chrysocome filholi on sub-Antarctic Campbell Island, New Zealand. Rockhopper penguins are ‘Vulnerable’ to extinction because of widespread and dramatic population declines, perhaps related to nutritional stress caused by a climate-induced shift to a lower trophic level, lower quality diet. We related the stable nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) and carbon (δ¹³C) isotope values of blood from 70 chicks, 55 adult females, and 55 adult males to their body masses in the 2010, 2011, and 2012 breeding seasons and examined year, stage, age, and sex differences. Opposite to predictions, heavier males consumed a lower trophic level diet during incubation in 2011, and average chick mass was heavier in 2011 when chicks were fed a more zooplankton-based, pelagic/offshore diet than in 2012. Contrary to the suggested importance of a fish-based diet, our results support the alternative hypothesis that rockhopper penguin populations are likely to be most successful when abundant zooplankton prey are available. We caution that historic shifts to lower trophic level prey should not be assumed to reflect nutritional stress and a cause of population declines.     

Parents adjust care in response to weather conditions and egg dehydration in a Neotropical glassfrog

Parental hydration of terrestrially developing eggs has evolved repeatedly among frogs and is thought to buffer embryos from environmental variation. While many anurans offer relevant opportunities to study parental care, research on how parents respond to environmental variation and offspring conditions are lacking. In this study, we investigated the interrelationships of weather, embryo hydration demands, and parental provisioning in a wild population of the glassfrog Hyalinobatrachium (‘Centrolenella’) fleischmanni in Oaxaca, Mexico. We determined whether males modify parental behavior in response to changes in weather conditions that effect embryo dehydration, how variation in both weather and parental hydration affect egg water balance and embryonic mortality, and whether parental provisioning is related to the hydration levels of egg clutches. We found that male H. fleischmanni compensate for environmental variation in offspring conditions by adjusting the frequency of parental care in response to both weather and egg dehydration. Using a male removal experiment, we examined the function of paternal care and made comparisons with previous research, finding that both the adaptive value of parental care and flexibility in parental behavior are impacted by spatial and temporal conditions. We present observations that indicate a direct conflict between providing parental care and multiple matings. In summary, this research demonstrates that the variable frequency of paternal care in H. fleischmanni is a response to the fluctuating nature of the climate and resulting hydration requirements of embryos in combination with the allocation of effort to parental care versus mating activity.