Improving effectiveness of systematic conservation planning with density data

Systematic conservation planning aims to design networks of protected areas that meet conservation goals across large landscapes. The optimal design of these conservation networks is most frequently based on the modeled habitat suitability or probability of occurrence of species, despite evidence that model predictions may not be highly correlated with species density. We hypothesized that conservation networks designed using species density distributions more efficiently conserve populations of all species considered than networks designed using probability of occurrence models. To test this hypothesis, we used the Zonation conservation prioritization algorithm to evaluate conservation network designs based on probability of occurrence versus density models for 26 land bird species in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. We assessed the efficacy of each conservation network based on predicted species densities and predicted species diversity. High‐density model Zonation rankings protected more individuals per species when networks protected the highest priority 10‐40% of the landscape. Compared with density‐based models, the occurrence‐based models protected more individuals in the lowest 50% priority areas of the landscape. The 2 approaches conserved species diversity in similar ways: predicted diversity was higher in higher priority locations in both conservation networks. We conclude that both density and probability of occurrence models can be useful for setting conservation priorities but that density‐based models are best suited for identifying the highest priority areas. Developing methods to aggregate species count data from unrelated monitoring efforts and making these data widely available through ecoinformatics portals such as the Avian Knowledge Network will enable species count data to be more widely incorporated into systematic conservation planning efforts.     

Lisbon’s womb: an approach to the city metabolism in the turn to the twentieth century

The consumption and production of food products in the municipality of Lisbon in the 1890–1900 decade is assessed with the support of historical cartography and statistical resources. For the first time, food production in a municipality in the turn to the twentieth century is accounted and simultaneously subject of a visual analysis of the land used for agriculture and of the water infrastructures that supported such uses. Agriculture occupied at least 40 % of the territory of the city, while the built environment occupied no more than 16 % of the territory. However, local production of food was far from supplying most of the citizens’ needs, and substantial food imports were needed. In this context, the municipality behaved like a heterotrophic system, highly dependent on the external supply of resources. Moreover, comparing to other European cities at the time Lisbon was facing in the end of the nineteenth century a late and slow transition from an agrarian social metabolism to an industrial one, suggesting that Lisbon was still relatively high-solar-powered as compared to other European cities at the time that were already highly fossil-fuel-powered.     

Fetal akinesia/hypokinesia sequence: Prenatal diagnosis and intra-familial variability

Intrauterine fetal movement plays a key role in normal embryonic and fetal development (Moessinger, 1983). When movement is absent or decreased, abnormal development takes place which can be appreciated in newborns and/or fetuses with the fetal akinesia/ hypokinesia sequence. This sequence is caused by a number of heterogeneous entities which result in decreased fetal movements by the action of intrinsic or extrinsic factors. Prenatal diagnosis of the akinesia/hypokinesia sequence may be possible during the second trimester through the use of real-time ultrasonographic evaluation of fetal movement. We report a family with three consecutive affected pregnancies in which the prenatal presentation of this sequence varied. Based on the phenotypic findings of the three affected fetuses, we believe that although they superficially resemble those features found in the New–Laxova syndrome, they are probably affected with a distinctly different lethal form of akinesia/ hypokinesia transmitted in an autosomal recessive fashion.     

来自印度Adayar河的重金属:渗透进入相邻的地下水含水层

引言 Adayar河是一条很短的河流(40km长),向西南方向流去,流经Chennai(北纬13°05',东经80°15'),从这里蜿蜒曲折大约13km后汇入孟加拉湾(图1).在河口地带它变得很宽,河口宽达2km.汇水面积约有800km2,其中大多数地方地势平坦,有岩层的露头.     

Estimation of aqueous solubility of organic compounds by using the general solubility equation

The general solubility equation (GSE) proposed by Jain and Yalkowsky was used to estimate aqueous solubility of 1026 non-electrolytes. The only parameters used in the GSE are melting points (MP) and octanol-water partition coefficients (Kow). No fitted parameters and no training set are employed in the GSE. The experimental solubility values were taken from the AQUASOL dATAbASE. The average absolute error and the root-mean-square error in the solubility estimates are 0.38 and 0.53 log units, respectively. Thus, with an observed MP and calculated Kow; the users can obtain a reasonable estimation of the aqueous solubility of any organic non-electrolyte.     

A sensibility analysis of model selection in modeling the reactive transport of cesium in crushed granite

We performed a sensibility analysis of model selection in modeling the reactive transport of cesium in crushed granite through model calibration and validation. Based on some solid phase analysis data and kinetic batch experimental results, we hypothesized three two-site sorption models in the LEHGC reactive transport model to fit the breakthrough curves (BTCs) from the corresponding column experiments. The analysis of breakthrough curves shows that both the empirical two-site kinetic linear sorption model and the semi-mechanistic/semi-empirical two-site kinetic surface complexation model, regardless of their complexity, can match our experimental data fairly well under given test conditions. A numerical experiment to further compare the two models shows that they behave differently when the pore velocity is not of the same order of magnitude as our test velocities. This result indicates that further investigations to help determine a better model are needed. We suggest that a multistage column experiment, which tests over the whole range of practical flow velocities, should be conducted to help alleviate inadequate hypothesized models.