Populations, longevity, mortality and fecundity of Chrysoperla carnea (Neuroptera, Chrysopidae) from olive-orchards with different agricultural management systems

The influence that different styles of olive-orchard management (conventional, integrated, and organic) exert on the predator Chrysoperla carnea has been studied to strengthen this insect’s role in the integrated management against pests. For this, the adult chrysopid populations were determined by McPhail traps, and laboratory examinations were made of certain biological characteristics of the first generation of adults captured in each of the olive orchards studied. The chrysopid populations increasing significantly during some months in the integrated and organic olive orchard. The most abundant species in all the zones was C. carnea, representing 95% of all captures in the conventional olive orchard. It was found that the larvae from the integrated olive orchard took longer to develop, while the pupae from the organic orchard evolved most rapidly to adulthood. The highest mortality rate was for larvae in the conventional olive orchard. The fecundity of the females from the organic orchards was significantly greater, presumably due to their greater longevity and shorter pre-oviposition period. These results can be used to improve conservation strategies and to increase C. carnea populations and their predatory activity.     

Ethanol From Corn: Clean Renewable Fuel for the Future,or Drain on Our Resources and Pockets?

It is shown here that one burns 1 gallon of gasoline equivalent in fossil fuels to produce 1 gallon of gasoline equivalent as ethanol from corn. When this corn ethanol is burned as a gasoline additive or fuel, its use amounts to burning the same amount of fuel twice to drive a car once. Therefore, the fuel efficiency of those cars that burn corn ethanol is halved. The widespread use of corn ethanol will cause manifold damage to air, surface water, soil and aquifers. The overall energy balance of corn conversion to ethanol demonstrates that 65% of the input energy is lost during the conversion. Carbon dioxide sequestration by corn is nullified when corn ethanol is burned, and there will be additional carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, and sulfur oxide emissions from the fossil fuels used to produce the ethanol. Students in the Spring 2003 CE24 Freshman Seminar offered at U.C. Berkeley by the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Treatment of effluent from re‐refined lubricating oils by combined processes of coagulation,flocculation, and Fenton process

This work examines the possibility and the potential application of physicochemical processes (coagulation and flocculation) and advanced oxidative processes (Fenton Process) in the treatment of effluents from the re‐refining of used lubricating oils.     

Fate and effects of amphoteric surfactants in the aquatic environment

Amphoteric surfactants form part of specialty surfactants available for formulators to improve or design new formulations in response to environmental, toxicity, safety and performance demands. Nevertheless, limited information on the ecological properties of amphoterics is available. In the present work, the aerobic and anaerobic biodegradability and the aquatic toxicity of different types of amphoteric surfactants (three alkyl betaines, one alkylamido betaine and three alkyl imidazoline derivatives) were studied. The amphoteric surfactants tested were readily biodegradable under aerobic conditions (CO(2) headspace test) and alkylamido betaines and alkyl imidazoline derivatives were also easily biodegradable under anaerobic conditions (test based on the ECETOC method). Toxicity to Photobacterium phosphoreum and Daphnia magna increased with the fatty chain length of the surfactant. The EC(50) toxicity values of the amphoterics tested were higher than 5 mg/L, and alkyl imidazoline derivatives, with EC(50) values from 20 to >200 mg/L, showed the lowest aquatic toxicity.     

The neglected burden of agricultural intensification: a contribution to the debate on land-use change

ABSTRACT

Between 1992 and 2015 Argentina lost 17% of its tree cover. Regionally, deforestation continues, but net forest loss recently came to a halt. Some scholars argue that this was facilitated by industrial agricultural intensification. This view is debated, but we focus on the neglected costs associated with this intensification. An almost tenfold increase of pesticide use in Argentina during the last two decades caused the pollution of soil, water and sediments. The widespread use of pesticides is impairing the health of agricultural workers and people living near agricultural fields, and is putting the health of vulnerable parts of the population (children and pregnant women) at risk. More than 50 pesticide active ingredients marketed in Argentina have been banned in the European Union for safety reasons. We contend that health and pollution aspects need to be taken into account when assessing the benefits and drawbacks of different types of land use.     

Degradation of reactive dyes I. A comparative study of ozonation, enzymatic and photochemical processes

The environmental problems associated with textile activities are represented mainly by the extensive use of organic dyes. A great number of these compounds are recalcitrant and shown carcinogenic or mutagenic character. In this work three processes were studied for degradation of an anthraquinone dye (C.I. reactive blue-19). The ozonation process leads to complete decolorization with a very short reaction time; however, effective mineralization of the dye was not observed. The enzymatic process promotes quick decolorization of the dye; nevertheless, maximum decolorization degrees of about 30% are insignificant in relation to the decolorization degree achieved by the other processes. The best results were found for the photocatalytical process. The use of ZnO or TiO2 as photocatalysts, permits total decolorization and mineralization of the dye with reaction times of about 60 min.     

Biodegradation of azo dyes by the yeast Candida zeylanoides in batch aerated cultures

A number of simple azo dyes was degraded in liquid aerated batch cultures by a strain of the yeast Candida zeylanoides. The standard decolorization medium contained glucose as a carbon and energy source, and its pH was either controlled to 5.0-5.2, or allowed to decrease to 3.2-2.8, in the course of microorganism growth. The extent of colour removal in the culture medium was assessed through the decrease in dye absorbance of the supernatants. The extent of colour removal ranged from 44 to 90%, after 7 days, for 5 out of 6 dyes studied in shaked cultures, without pH control, and from 46 to 67%, after 22 hours, for 6 out of 8 dyes in batch experiments, at controlled pH.     

Analysing countries’ contribution to climate change: scientific and policy-related choices

This paper evaluates the influence of different policy-related and scientific choices on the calculated regional contributions to global climate change (the “Brazilian Proposal”). Policy-related choices include the time period of emissions, the mix of greenhouse gases and different indicators of climate change impacts. The scientific choices include historical emissions and model representations of the climate system. We generated and compared results of several simple climate models. We find that the relative contributions of different nations to global climate change—from emissions of greenhouse gases alone—are quite robust, despite the varying model complexity and differences in calculated absolute changes. For the default calculations, the average calculated contributions to the global mean surface temperature increase in 2000 are about 40% from OECD, 14% from Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union, 24% from Asia and 22% from Africa and Latin America. Policy-related choices, such as time period of emissions, climate change indicator and gas mix generally have larger influence on the results than scientific choices. More specifically, choosing a later attribution start date (1990 instead of 1890) for historical emissions, decreases the contributions of regions that started emitting early, such as the OECD countries by 6 percentage points, whereas it increases the contribution of late emitters such as Asia by 8 percentage points. However, only including the fossil CO₂ emissions instead of the emissions of all Kyoto gases (fossil and land use change), increases the OECD contributions by 21 percentage points and decreases the contribution of Asia by 14 percentage points.     

A methodological proposal for the evaluation of farmer’s adaptation to climate variability, mainly due to drought in watersheds in Central America

The current study shows the process and the results of a methodology proposed to contribute with the issue of how to evaluate the adaptation to climate variability and future climate change. The proposed methodology consists of a standard to evaluate farmer’s adaptation to climate variability, mainly due to drought in watersheds in Central America; and was created with contributions from experts and professionals around this region. The phases for this process were: (1) literature review about the topic, (2) development of a preliminary standard, (3) expert interviews for the evaluation of this preliminary standard, (4) construction of a standard to evaluate the issue of adaptation to climate variability emphasizing drought through contributions from experts and their preliminary evaluations, (5) applicability test of this standard for the evaluation of climate variability under real conditions and (6) application of this standard through a case study in the Aguas Calientes river sub-watershed in Nicaragua, which permanently undergoes drought problems and climate variability. This standard has five main principles that go from the general, considering regional and national policies and institutionalism, to the specifics at the level of watersheds. In addition to those principles, the standard contains ten criteria, 26 indicators and 51 verifiers distributed among the main five principles. In the process for testing this standard in the Aguas Calientes river watershed in Nicaragua, the score for the general applicability to this standard was middle-level (score of 3 in a scale of 1 to 5), although, for the main principles of this standard, the score was four (high).