Vocal acrobatics in a Chinese frog, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Amolops tormotus</Emphasis>

Although amphibians are highly vocal, they generally emit only a limited number of acoustic communication signals. We report here the extraordinarily rich vocal repertoire of Amolops tormotus, a ranid species in China. These frogs produce countless vocalizations, some of which share features of birdsong or primate calls, e.g., ultrasonic frequency components, multiple upward and downward FM sweeps, and sudden onset and offset of selective harmonic components within a call note. Frame-by-frame video analysis of the frog's calling behavior suggests the presence of two pairs of vocal sacs that may contribute to the remarkable call-note complexity in this species. Electronic supplementary material to this paper can be obtained by using the Springer LINK server located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00114-002-0335-x.     

Transient division of labor and behavioral specialization in the ant Formica schaufussi

Cooperative prey retrieval in the monomorphic ant Formica schaufussi is carried out by workers that perform functionally distinct roles which persist only for the duration of a single retrieval event. A forager (scout) that locates prey too large to retrieve individually organizes cooperative prey transport by recruiting nestmates (recruits) to assist in retrieval. The scout and recruit roles appear to be determined by whether a worker activates recruitment or is recruited from the nest. Scouts organize recruitment and play a key role in maintaining the cohesion of the retrieval group. If a scout that has initiated group transport is experimentally removed, the recruited workers composing the retrieval group typically abandon the prey and cooperative foraging is terminated. In this context, recruits are unable to function as scouts and reorganize group transport. Individuals marked as recruits in one prey retrieval, however, can switch and act as scouts in subsequent retrievals. Because the roles of individuals persist within but not between retrieval events, the specialization involved in cooperative prey retrieval cannot easily be explained as a response associated with age-related or genetic predispositions. This transient division-of-labor, in which individual roles may persist only for the duration of a single group action, represents a novel type of short-term individual specialization.     

处理重金属废水技术的研究进展

如何消除工业废水中重金属对环境和人类健康的危害,并且能够有效地回收废水中的贵重金属离子是环境保护工作者需解决的热点问题之一.详细地介绍了近十几年来国内外,处理重金属废水的技术方法,包括传统方法中的化学沉淀法、电化学法、吸附法和膜分离法,新出现的技术方法如分子印迹法和光催化法,并对以上各种技术方法的机理、研究进展、优点和所面临的主要问题进行了综合评述,同时阐述了处理重金属废水的技术和方法的发展趋势和应用前景.     

New process for anaerobic treatment of Vitamin C wastewater in a full scale plant

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无剩余污泥接触氧化法处理漂染废水的探讨

对漂染废水的处理，虽能做到达标排放，但其剩余污泥的生成量也过多，该文以上海信泰纺织品有限公司无剩余污泥接触氧化法处理漂染废水的实例，表明了既可提高污染物去除率，又能节省投资和运转费用，通过两年的运行实践，证明效果良好，在对酸化反应器的设计和有效控制方面，以及氧化反应器与酸化反应器的运行管理等方面也进行了探讨。     

Inventory of emissions from major air pollutant categories in Turkey

In this study, an inventory of air pollutant emission estimates from major air polluting sources in Turkey for period between 1985 and 2005 with 5-year intervals were estimated. Inventory covers anthropogenic sources of five major air pollutants of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and non-methane volatile organic compounds. Their break-down with respect to main activity sectors were shown and their distribution by the largest industrial source categories were worked out as annual estimates. This inventory and its analysis point to serious environmental implications of air pollutants and a need to develop a policy plan for reducing these emissions.     

重庆的能源利用与大气污染

文章分析了大气污染和酸雨对重庆生态环境产生的危害。研究表明，重庆的大气污染主要由燃煤导致，控制大气污染的对策应与能源发展规划相协调，只有降低煤炭使用比例才能使重庆乃至我国的大气污染物排放量做到根本性消减，要把调整能源结构提到能源发展战略的高度     

Carbon Budget Implications of the Transition from Natural to Managed Disturbance Regimes in Forest Landscapes

Land-use change from an unmanaged to a managed forested landscape in northern forests is associated with a reduction of the area annually affected by natural disturbances (wildfires and forest insects) and the introduction of harvesting as a new disturbance. This study examined the impacts of changes in the disturbance regime-the frequency and type of disturbance-on landscape-level carbon (C) content and fluxes. The Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector was used to assess these impacts in six representative landscapes (100,000 ha each) with a range of disturbance regimes that are characteristic of conditions in coastal British Columbia, the interior of British Columbia, and the eastern boreal forest in Canada. The model was used to simulate ecosystem C fluxes during a period of natural disturbances, a 50-year transition period during which harvesting replaced natural disturbances, followed by 150 years of harvesting. The initial landscape-level biomass C content under natural disturbance regimes in the six example landscapes was 22 to 75% of their potential maximum content which is often used as the reference or baseline case. After 200 years of forest management, the C stored in the landscape plus the C retained in forest products manufactured from harvested biomass was between 58 and 101% of the landscape C content prior to the onset of harvesting. Landscape-level ecosystem C content was found to be affected by changes in the disturbance frequency, the age-dependence of the disturbance probabilities, and the disturbance-specific impacts on ecosystem C content. The results indicate that using the potential maximum C content of a landscape as the baseline always overestimates the actual C release due to land use change. A more meaningful procedure would be to assess the actual differences in landscape-level C content between the natural and the managed disturbance regime.