Annual Nutritional Organ Mass Cycle of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bufo gargarizans</Emphasis> (Cantor, 1842) in Response to Extreme High Temperature

The annual relative mass of storage organs cycle of Bufo gargarizans in southwestern China was studied from December 2005 to November 2006. We described how those organs changed in response to extreme temperatures. Energy reservation dropped to the lowest levels after dormancy for both sexes, and then increased for period of 4.25 month. However, the mass of these organs dropped again rapidly until August (liver) and September (fat bodies) due to the constraint from extreme high temperature occurred during the summer, and then non-significantly increased before hibernation. For ovaries, varied with a different profile to those of liver and fat bodies have a resting period of four months. In addition, the toads’ ovaries kept growing when the mass of liver and fat bodies declining accordingly during hibernation. Therefore, ovarian mass increased during the hibernation and non-hibernation period.     

Plant Species Richness and Developmental Morphology Stage Influence Mycorrhizal Patagonia Plants Root Colonization

The objectives of this study were to determine the percentage of root colonization by arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi at various levels of plant species richness and developmental morphology stages in various perennial grass, and herbaceous and woody dicots species using experimental plots during 2013 and 2014. An auger was used to obtain six replicate root + soil samples at each sampling time on each of the study parameters. Roots were washed free of soil, and percentage AM was determined. The shrub Larrea divaricata was the species which showed the lowest percentage of colonization by AM at the vegetative developmental morphology stage at the monocultures and six-species-mixtures on the experimental plots. Dicots, but not grass, species showed a greater percentage colonization by AM fungi at the greatest (i.e., six-species-mixtures) than lowest (i.e., monocultures) species richness. Although at different degrees of species richness and developmental morphology stages, the perennial grasses Nassella longiglumis and N. tenuis, the herbaceous dicot Atriplex semibaccata, and the shrubs L. divaricata and Schinus fasciculatus showed a greater (p < 0.050) percentage colonization by AM fungi during the second than the first study year. Even though it was species- and sampling time-dependent, percentage colonization by AM fungi increased as species richness also increased most of the times. Our results demonstrated that the plant species differences in percentage colonization by AM fungi in the experimental plots were species richness-, developmental morphology stage-, and sampling-time dependents.     

Identifying Key Habitats to Conserve the Threatened Brown Bear in Northern Iran

Many factors such as human activities threat brown bears (Ursus arctos) in Southern Asia, and limit it to small populations in remote and rocky mountainous regions. Brown bears are generally studied in North America and Europe, but there is little information about its conditions and requirements for survival in Asia. During the recent years, brown bear populations in Iran have decreased sharply. Therefore, they are now officially listed as a threatened species in local scale. Therefore, we tried to recognize brown bear habitat relationships in northern Iran using species distribution model (SDM). Maxent method was applied using multiscale approach to predict suitable habitats and habitat relationships of the species. Our results revealed that the predictive ability of environment variables and species distribution maps varied across scales strongly. Also, our findings showed that identifying a proper scale is important issue to improve habitat modeling accuracy. Only 17% of the protected areas was found suitable for brown bear and divided to 5.1% poor, 8.8% suitable, and 3.1% high-quality habitat. Consequently, it is suggested that the protected area of northern Iran reconsiders with interventions aimed at maintaining suitable habitats of brown bear.     

Larval and Juvenile Fish Assemblage Structure of Inshore Habitats in the Middle Reaches of Li River,China: Spatial and Temporal Patterns in Relation to Abiotic Factors

To evaluate the effect of abiotic factors on larval and juvenile fish assemblage in shallow waters of middle reaches of Li River, Guilin, China. Samplings were taken monthly at 7 stations in the mainstream and 2 stations in 3 tributaries from May 2014 to April 2015. Synchronously, temperature, pH, turbidity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen rainfall and discharge were obtained. In all, 11.886 larval and juvenile fish from 18 species belonging to 8 families, 16 genera was captured. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed obvious significant difference between the environmental variables across sampling areas and months. The results of Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) indicated that water temperature, turbidity, discharge and rainfall were dominant factors on larval and juvenile fish assemblage.     

Making spatial development scenario for south of Bushehr province,Iran, based on strategic foresight

In recent years, the science of foresight has been entered into planning activities by urban and regional planners and this science has impacted on planning activities. This study discusses spatial development in the south of Bushehr province using the foresight approach. The general aim of this research is to compile scenarios for the development of the mentioned study area which comprises the southern part of Bushehr province including four counties of Dayyer, Jam, Kangan and Asaluyeh. The main reason for selecting this region is their direct impressibility by major changes in the country’s oil and gas industry. This research has extremely made use of the Delphi and cross-impact analysis methods to develop foresight scenarios. Using the Delphi method, 30 initial factors were identified in the economic, political-security, linkages, science and technology, manufacturing, natural, social, infrastructural and residential issues and then the cross-impact matrix was used to investigate the impact of factors on each other. In the next step, the ranking of direct and indirect factors was determined by Micmac software and on this basis, the final refining in the selection of drivers was done. In the final stage, axes of future scenarios were presented and then the future scenarios were drawn. Results of this research indicate that two main drivers namely Iran’s international relations and energy resources are the main axes of scenarios. These two drivers have more uncertainty and higher importance than other factors and the results in four scenarios showing the possibility of each situation’s occurrence.     

Effects of meteorology on ground-level ozone (GLO) concentrations and identifying the hot spots having significantly higher GLO concentration in a semi-urban area

The present study aims to analyse the influences of five meteorological parameters (temperature, wind speed, barometric pressure, rainfall, and solar radiations) on ground-level ozone (GLO) concentrations over the region of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (Jharkhand, India). The diurnal variation of GLO concentration and the meteorological parameters were analysed in each month to understand the associations. The results indicated that the correlation coefficients of GLO concentration with SR, AT, and DPT are found to be positive in each month and also statistically significant. But, the association between WS and GLO concentration was not uniform between the study days. Furthermore, the study also demonstrates an approach for identifying the hot spots that are having the higher level of GLO concentration. The hot spot maps were produced for each month to understand the shifting of the locations of hot spot locations. The results reveal that the hot spot locations are changes frequently in each case. Since the hot spot analysis was conducted with limited data, the presented hot spots are indicative and dependent on the meteorological conditions of the specific period and cannot be considered as a robust epidemiological study.     

Traffic and outdoor air pollution levels near highways in Baghdad,Iraq

In Iraq, the number of passenger cars, trucks and buses, local generators, and heavy construction equipment rose to a considerable extent since 2003, causing high environmental problems. Many types of pollutants were monitored and recorded for 24 h during March 2016. The study attempts to explore and establish a relationship between the volume of activity and the movement of motor vehicles of various compounds and contaminants resulting from their exhaust pipes, such as sulfur dioxide, particulate matters, oxides of nitrogen, VOCs, and unburned hydrocarbons. The study focused in and around Mohammad Al-Qasim highway adjacent to the University of Technology, Baghdad. The results showed the need for urgent treatments addressed by the environmental authorities in the city. The study results demonstrated that these contaminants are increased during periods of the beginning and end of working hours for government departments. Some types of sulfur compounds (H₂S and SO₂) concentrations were at serious health-threatening levels, which is a result of the high sulfur content in the Iraqi fuel. The concentrations of NOx and VOC were high, also, which could make the studied area vulnerable to the risk of smog formation. The Iraqi government should make greater efforts to protect the environment and human in this country from the transportation pollution risks.     

Energy–growth nexus revisited: an empirical application on transition countries

This study investigates the energy–growth nexus for transition countries analysing Granger causality between GDP growth per capita and energy use per capita. For this purpose, 17 countries located at Central and Eastern Europe and Caucasian region are chosen and a panel dataset consisting of these countries for the available period of 1990–2011 is studied. In the study, Granger causality is investigated using bootstrapped panel causality approach proposed by Konya (Econ Modell 23(6):978–992, 2006). The approach gives consistent results in case of cross-sectional dependency and heterogeneity of slope coefficients between countries. Causality is examined for two scenarios: one with a trend and one without a trend. The results reveal that, in general, there is no causality running between energy consumption and economic growth, yet there is causality running from energy consumption to economic growth for some countries and sign of the relationship is always negative. Therefore, increases in energy consumption harm economic growth.     

Selection of palm oil mill effluent treatment for biogas generation or compost production using an analytic hierarchy process

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is the liquid waste from palm oil mills, and is generally treated using open lagoon technology. However, open lagoons can also be combined with more environmentally friendly technologies. In this study, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to determine the best combination open lagoon of technology (COLT) for POME treatment. The selected criteria were benefit, opportunity, risk, and cost, with sub-criteria further determined based on these criteria. The sub-criteria were revenue, greenhouse gas reduction, employment absorption, corporate social responsibility, co-processing, environmental risk, marketing risk, technology reliability, investment cost, operation and maintenance cost, and opportunity cost. The alternatives were COLT-composting for fertilizer purpose and COLT-biogas for energy generation purpose. Calculation and analysis was performed on questionnaire data using Expert Choice^®. COLT-composting proved to be the superior COLT using tentative performance of alternative in this research, with advantages in benefit, opportunity, and risk. The priority weight for COLT-composting was 0.636. Sensitivity analysis was performed by changing criteria priorities. For COLT-biogas to be considered better than COLT-composting, the cost would need to be weighted more than 0.954.     

Landfill leachate enhances fermentative hydrogen production from glucose and sugarcane processing derivatives

Fermentation can use renewable raw materials as substrate, which makes it a sustainable method to obtain H₂. This study evaluates H₂ production by a mixed culture from substrates such as glucose and derivatives from sugarcane processing (sucrose, molasses, and vinasse) combined with landfill leachate. The leachate alone was not a suitable substrate for biohydrogen production. However, leachate blended with glucose, sucrose, molasses, or vinasse increased the H₂ production rate by 2.0-, 2.8-, 4.6-, and 0.5-fold, respectively, as compared with the substrates without the leachate. Determination of metals (Cu, Cd, Pb, Hg, Ni, and Fe) at the beginning and at the end of the fermentative assays showed how they were consumed during the fermentation and demonstrated improved H₂ production. During fermentation, Cu, Fe, and Cd were the most consumed leachate metals. The best substrate combination to produce H₂ was molasses and leachate, which gave high volumetric productivity—469 ml H₂/l h. However, addition of the leachate to the substrates stimulated lactic acid formation pathways, which lowered the H₂ yield. The use of leachate combined with sugarcane processing derivatives as substrates could add value to the leachate and reduce its polluting power, generating a clean energy source from renewable raw materials.