Rapid acquisition of antipredatory responses to new predators by an insular lizard

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology - Pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism (Pre-SC), where females attack and consume courting males, is considered an extreme case of sexual conflict. Different...     

Restoration planning to guide Aichi targets in a megadiverse country

Ecological restoration has become an important strategy to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems services. To restore 15% of degraded ecosystems as stipulated by the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi target 15, we developed a prioritization framework to identify potential priority sites for restoration in Mexico, a megadiverse country. We used the most current biological and environmental data on Mexico to assess areas of biological importance and restoration feasibility at national scale and engaged stakeholders and experts throughout the process. We integrated 8 criteria into 2 components (i.e., biological importance and restoration feasibility) in a spatial multicriteria analysis and generated 11 scenarios to test the effect of assigning different component weights. The priority restoration sites were distributed across all terrestrial ecosystems of Mexico; 64.1% were in degraded natural vegetation and 6% were in protected areas. Our results provide a spatial guide to where restoration could enhance the persistence of species of conservation concern and vulnerable ecosystems while maximizing the likelihood of restoration success. Such spatial prioritization is a first step in informing policy makers and restoration planners where to focus local and large‐scale restoration efforts, which should additionally incorporate social and monetary cost–benefit considerations.     

Modeling non-point source pollution from rice farming in the Thachin River Basin

With the worldwide intensification of agriculture, non-point source pollution of surface waters has become a pressing issue. Conventional river water quality models consider non-point sources as accumulated entries into the rivers and do not investigate into the processes generating the pollution at its source, thus preventing the determination of effective mitigation measures. The models require extensive data inputs, which is a deficiency in many developing and emerging countries with limited data availability. The current study applies a Material Flow Model as a complementary approach to quantify non-point source pollution from agricultural areas. Rice farming in the Thachin River Basin is presented as a case study, with a focus on nutrients. The total nitrogen and phosphorus flows from rice farming to the river system are quantified, the key parameters influencing these flows are determined and potential mitigation measures are discussed. The results show that rice contributes considerable nutrient loads to the Thachin River Basin. Scenario simulations demonstrate that a significant nutrient load reduction could be achieved by following the official recommendations for fertilizer application, thus confirming the local efforts to introduce best management practice. Our results underline the importance of non-point source pollution control in intensive agricultural areas, particularly of tropical lowland delta areas such as the Central Plains of Thailand. The specific benefit of applying a Material Flow Model in this context is that with limited data availability, one can reach an understanding of the system and gain a first overview over its key pollution problems. This can serve as supportive basis for determining consecutive in-depth research requirements.     

Confronting limitations: new solutions required for urban water management in Kunming City

Despite continuous investment and various efforts to control pollution, urban water environments are worsening in large parts of the developing world. In order to reveal potential constraints and limitations of current practices of urban water management and to stimulate proactive intervention, we conducted a material flow analysis of the urban water system in Kunming City. The results demonstrate that the current efficiency of wastewater treatment is only around 25% and the emission of total phosphorous from the city into its receiving water, Dianchi Lake, is more than 25 times higher than its estimated tolerance. With regard to the crisis of water quantity and quality, the goal of a sustainable urban water environment cannot be attained with the current problem-solving approach in the region due to the technical limitations of the conventional urban drainage and treatment systems. A set of strategies is therefore proposed. The urban drainage system in Zurich is used as a reference for a potential best-available technology for conventional urban water management (BAT) scenario in terms of its low combined frequency of sewer overflow.     

Integrated environmental assessment of biodiesel production from soybean in Brazil

This paper presents the results of an environmental impact assessment of biodiesel production from soybean in Brazil. In order to achieve this objective, environmental impact indicators provided by Emergy Accounting (EA), Embodied Energy Analysis (EEA) and Material Flow Accounting (MFA) were used. The results showed that for one liter of biodiesel 8.8 kg of topsoil are lost in erosion, besides the cost of 0.2 kg of fertilizers, about 5.2 m² of crop area, 7.33 kg of abiotic materials, 9.0 tons of water and 0.66 kg of air and about 0.86 kg of CO₂ were released. About 0.27 kg of crude oil equivalent is required as inputs to produce one liter of biodiesel, which means an energy return of 2.48 J of biodiesel per Joule of fossil fuel invested. The transformity of biodiesel (3.90E + 05 seJ J^?1) is higher than those calculated for fossil fuels as other biofuels, indicating a higher demand for direct and indirect environmental support. Similarly, the biodiesel emergy yield ratio (1.62) indicates that a very low net emergy is delivered to consumers, compared to alternatives. Obtained results show that when crop production and industrial conversion to fuel are supported by fossil fuels in the form of chemicals, goods, and process energy, the fraction of fuel that can actually be considered renewable is very low (around 31%).     

Stress and the union steward's role

This paper develops and tests hypotheses concerning some psychological correlates of role ambiguity and role conflict in a population that has not been extensively studied in relation to stress, union stewards. Survey data on role ambiguity and role conflict, the indicators of stress, were collected from 285 stewards at the local union steward meeting, with the stewards perceiving a moderate amount of role ambiguity and perceiving a lesser amount of role conflict. The stewards were also asked about their role expectations, their motivations for remaining a steward, their grievance handling strategies, and their affective commitment toward the union and employer. Each of those four sets of variables was hypothesized to be related to role ambiguity and role conflict and each was influential in explaining variance. As predicted, those stewards who were more motivated to remain stewards for personal reasons had both higher role ambiguity and higher role conflict. Further, the conditions of being more motivated to remain a steward to help the union and employees and having higher union commitment were associated with lower role conflict, but, opposite to the hypotheses, higher role ambiguity.     

INTEGRATING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND MODFLOW FOR GROUND WATER RESOURCE ASSESSMENTS1

ABSTRACT: The Floridan Aquifer is the primary source of water in the coastal area of Santa Rosa County, Florida. In order to optimize well field design and analyze aquifer stress problems, the USGS MODFLOW code (McDonald and Harbaugh, 1988) is applied to develop a numerical computer model of the aquifer. The Geographical Information System (GIS) is the primary tool used in the development of the model grid, performance of the modeling procedure, and model analysis. The GIS is used in generating multiple grids in which to simulate both regional scale and local scale flow. The grid topology is recorded in geographic coordinates which facilitates geo-referencing and orientation of the grid to base maps and data coyerages. The GIS allows data transfer from various coverages to the nodes of the block centered grid where hydrogeologic information is stored as attributes to the grid coverage. From this grid coverage, pertinent information is queried within the GIS environment and used to generate the input files for the MODFLOW simulation. After MODFLOW execution, simulated heads and drawdown are imported into the grid coverage where residual error and recharge rates can be calculated. Contoured surfaces are then created for selected data sets including simulated heads, drawdown, residual error, and recharge rates. Model calibration is conducted utilizing the GIS to generate and process data sets associated with model simulations.     

Investigations on the photosynthetic system of spruce affected by forest decline and ozone fumigation in closed chambers

Investigations using chlorophyll fluorescence induction kinetics provide the parameters Rfd, L, and Ap to characterize different specifications of the photosynthetic system (PS). The application of ozone, with concentrations between 100 microg m(-3) and 2000 microg m(-3) to spruce in closed chambers yields a reduction of Rfd between 6% and 23% for the current year's needles, which indicates a reduced potential photosynthetic capacity. Further measurements on the current year's needles of spruce of the damage classes S0/S1, S2 and S3 show also a reduction of Rfd of between 7% and 14% in 2 successive years. In addition, the parameter L increases for damaged trees by between 11% and 49%, indicating a change of the chlorophyll content and of the internal energy distribution between PSI and PSII. As no effect of L can be observed with ozone fumigation, it is concluded that the change of some specifications of the PS can be simulated well by ozone fumigation (e.g. Rfd) while other specifications cannot (e.g. L).