The plant physical features selected by wildcats as signal posts: an economic approach to fecal marking

The chemical signals of solitary and territorial felid species are essential for their intraspecific communication. We studied the selection of plant substrates during the fecal marking behavior of the European wildcat Felis silvestris from September 2008 to June 2009 in a protected area in Northwest Spain. The aim of the study was to examine the selection of plants as signal posts with respect to their physical characteristics. We hypothesized that wildcats deposit their fecal marks on plants with physical characteristics (e.g., size, species, and visual conspicuousness) that enhance the olfactory and visual effectiveness of the signal. Our results indicate that diameter, plant group, visual conspicuousness, and interaction between the diameter and plant group influence the decision of wildcats to deposit their fecal marks on plants. The wildcats chose plants with greater diameters and greater visual conspicuousness as scent-marking posts. Moreover, the wildcats chose woody and herbaceous plants, and certain plant species were marked more frequently than expected at random. Indeed, our results indicate that the fecal marks were not randomly distributed on the plants: the wildcats chose to place their marks on plants with certain physical characteristics that maximized the detectability of the signal by intruders and potential mates, thus facilitating the spatial distribution of the species.     

Anaerobic microbial dechlorination: an approach to on-site treatment of toxaphene-contaminated soil

Enhanced microbial degradation of toxaphene by natural microorganisms occurred in soil and sediment amended with organic matter kept under anaerobic (flooded) conditions. Laboratory experiments yielded a dissipation half-life of approximately 3 and 1 week for soil and sediment, respectively, containing 10 ppm of technical toxaphene and a 1% alfalfa meal amendment. Dissipation was accompanied by an increase in early eluting gas chromatographic peaks and a decrease in later eluting peaks, indicating that dechlorination had occurred. Enhanced anaerobic dissipation also took place in soil containing 500 ppm of toxaphene, although at a lesser rate than at 10 ppm, and when cotton gin waste was used as amendment in place of alfalfa meal. Sediment in a toxaphene-contaminated pesticide waste disposal ditch was amended with 10% steer manure and flooded to ascertain field utility of the technique for on-site decontamination. Toxaphene residues were reduced from 63 to 23 ppm in 120 days, and some degradation activity still occurred up to 8 months after this single treatment.     

Determination of sorbent point zero charge: usefulness in sorption studies

Potentiometric mass titration (PMT) technique has been adapted to determine the pH _pzc of four vegetable wastes: grape stalks, cork, yohimbe bark and olive stones wastes used for Cu(II) removal. The pH at the point zero charge (pH _pzc), determined by PMT, are compared with that obtained by two classical techniques: mass titration (MT) and immersion technique (IT). PMT has been found to be an easy and appropriate technique to determine pH _pzc of the studied materials. From the results, the knowledge of sorbents pH _pzc provides information about the possible attraction and repulsion between sorbent and sorbate but in any case enables to ensure that electrostatic force is one of the mechanisms that takes place in metal sorption.     

Enhancement of the anaerobic hydrolysis and fermentation of municipal solid waste in leachbed reactors by varying flow direction during water addition and leachate recycle

Poor performance of leachbed reactors (LBRs) is attributed to channelling, compaction from waste loading, unidirectional water addition and leachate flow causing reduced hydraulic conductivity and leachate flow blockage. Performance enhancement was evaluated in three LBRs M, D and U at 22 ± 3 °C using three water addition and leachate recycle strategies; water addition was downflow in D throughout, intermittently upflow and downflow in M and U with 77% volume downflow in M, 54% volume downflow in U while the rest were upflow. Leachate recycle was downflow in D, alternately downflow and upflow in M and upflow in U. The strategy adopted in U led to more water addition (30.3%), leachate production (33%) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) solubilisation (33%; 1609 g against 1210 g) compared to D (control). The total and volatile solids (TS and VS) reductions were similar but the highest COD yield (g-COD/g-TS and g-COD/g-VS removed) was in U (1.6 and 1.9); the values were 1.33 and 1.57 for M, and 1.18 and 1.41 for D respectively. The strategy adopted in U showed superior performance with more COD and leachate production compared to reactors M and D.     

Modelling local and synoptic scale influences on ozone concentrations in a topographically complex region of Southern Italy

A modelling study with the on-line coupled Eulerian chemical-weather model WRF/Chem for the Southern Italian region around Cosenza (Calabria) was conducted to identify the influences of synoptic scale meteorology, local scale wind systems and local emissions on ozone concentrations in this orographically complex region. Four periods of 5–7 days were chosen, one from each season, which had wind pattern characteristics representative of typical local climatological conditions, in order to study the local versus non-local impacts on ozone transport and formation. To account for the complex terrain, the horizontal resolution of the smallest modelling domain was 3 km. Model results were compared with measurements to demonstrate the capability of the model to reproduce ozone concentrations in the region. The comparison was favourable with a mean bias of ?1.1 ppb. The importance of local emissions on ozone formation and destruction was identified with the use of three different emission scenarios. Generally the influence of regional emissions on the average ozone concentration was small. However during periods when mountain-sea wind systems were well developed and synoptic scale winds were weak, the influence of local emissions from the urban area was at its greatest. The maximum influence of local emissions on ozone concentrations was 18 ppb.     

Formation of Soluble Complexes of Metals with Humic Acid and Its Environmental Significance

In order to investigate the role of functional groups present in humic acid(s) (HA) during complex formation, water soluble complexes between HA isolated from soil and metals (Pb, Ca, As, Ni, Cr, Co, Cu, Cd, Fe, Mn, Mg and Zn) were prepared and subjected to infrared (IR) spectroscopy. the IR data revealed the involvement of the - OH group of humic acid in complex formation with all metals except copper and arsenic, whereas the - COOH group of HA was found to be the preferred site of binding for all the metals. the significance of findings in relation to detoxification of environmental pollutants is discussed in this paper.