A stingless bee (Melipona panamica) indicates food location without using a scent trail

The study of location specification in recruitment communication by bees has focused on two dimensions: direction and distance from the nest. Yet the third dimension, height above ground, may be significant in the tall and dense forest habitats of stingless bees. Foragers of the stingless bee Scaptotrigona postica recruit to a specific three-dimensional location by laying a scent trail. Stingless bees in the genus Melipona are thought to have a more sophisticated recruitment system that communicates distance through sounds inside the nest and direction through pointing zig-zag flights outside the nest. However, prior research on Melipona has not examined height communication or even established that foragers can recruit newcomers to a specific location. We used identical paired feeders to investigate recruitment to food in M panamica on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. We trained foragers from an observation hive to one feeder and monitored both feeders for the subsequent arrival of newcomers. We changed the relative positions of the feeders to test for correct direction, distance, and canopy-level communication. A 40-m canopy tower located inside the forest enabled us to examine canopy-level communication. We found that M. panamica foragers can recruit to a specific (1) direction, (2) distance, and (3) canopy level. To test the possibility that foragers accomplish this by means of a scent trail, we placed the colony on one shore of a small cove and trained bees over 116 m of open water to a feeder located on the opposite shore. We also placed a second feeder on this shore, equidistant from the colony but 20 m from the first feeder. Significantly more newcomers consistently arrived at the feeder visited by the foragers. Thus foragers evidently do not need a scent trail to communicate direction. Inside the nest, a forager produces pulsed sounds while visibly vibrating her wings after returning from a good food source. She is attended by other bees who cluster and hold their antennae around her, following her as she rapidly spins clockwise and counterclockwise. Locational information may be encoded in this behavior. However, foragers may also directly lead newcomers to the food source. Further experiments are planned to test for such piloting and other communication mechanisms.     

Salvage Logging, Ecosystem Processes, and Biodiversity Conservation

Abstract:  We summarize the documented and potential impacts of salvage logging—a form of logging that removes trees and other biological material from sites after natural disturbance. Such operations may reduce or eliminate biological legacies, modify rare postdisturbance habitats, influence populations, alter community composition, impair natural vegetation recovery, facilitate the colonization of invasive species, alter soil properties and nutrient levels, increase erosion, modify hydrological regimes and aquatic ecosystems, and alter patterns of landscape heterogeneity. These impacts can be assigned to three broad and interrelated effects: (1) altered stand structural complexity; (2) altered ecosystem processes and functions; and (3) altered populations of species and community composition. Some impacts may be different from or additional to the effects of traditional logging that is not preceded by a large natural disturbance because the conditions before, during, and after salvage logging may differ from those that characterize traditional timber harvesting. The potential impacts of salvage logging often have been overlooked, partly because the processes of ecosystem recovery after natural disturbance are still poorly understood and partly because potential cumulative effects of natural and human disturbance have not been well documented. Ecologically informed policies regarding salvage logging are needed prior to major natural disturbances so that when they occur ad hoc and crisis-mode decision making can be avoided. These policies should lead to salvage-exemption zones and limits on the amounts of disturbance-derived biological legacies (e.g., burned trees, logs) that are removed where salvage logging takes place. Finally, we believe new terminology is needed. The word salvage implies that something is being saved or recovered, whereas from an ecological perspective this is rarely the case.     

科技期刊如何走向市场

科技期刊作为一种专业性较强的学术性刊物,不同于其他通俗性时尚刊物,它的受众面较为狭窄,读者群也受到相应的限制,而要在社会主义市场经济体制下求得生存与发展,必须走向市场、适应新形势,在市场竞争中取得社会效益与经济效益的统一,开拓出新的局面。     

Use of landscape and land use parameters for classification and characterization of watersheds in the mid-Atlantic across five physiographic provinces

The Atlantic Slope Consortium (ASC) is a project designed to develop and test a set of indicators in coastal systems that are ecologically appropriate, economically reasonable, and relevant to society. The suite of indicators will produce integrated assessments of the condition, health and sustainability of aquatic ecosystems based on ecological and socioeconomic information compiled at the scale of estuarine segments and small watersheds. The research mandate of the ASC project is the following:

Using a universe of watersheds, covering a range of social choices, we ask two questions:

• ? How “good” can the environment be, given those social choices?
• ? What is the intellectual model of condition within those choices, i.e., what are the causes of condition and what are the steps for improvement?

As a basis for compiling ecological indicators, a watershed classification system was required for the experimental design. The goal was to develop approximately five categories of watersheds for each physiographic province, utilizing landscape and land use parameters that would be predictive of aquatic resource condition. All 14-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) watersheds in the Mid-Atlantic region would then be classified according to the regime. Five parameters were utilized for the classification: three land cover categories, consisting of forested, agricultural, and urban, median slope or median elevation, and total variance of land covers in 1-km-radius circles positioned on all stream convergence points in a specified 14-digit?HUC watershed. Cluster analysis utilizing these five parameters resulted in approximately five well-defined watershed classes per physiographic province. The distribution of all watersheds in the Mid-Atlantic region across these categories provides a unique report on the probable condition of watersheds in the region.     

Attitudes to nuclear energy: Beliefs,values and false consensus

Attitudinal differences regarding the use of nuclear energy were investigated. Results obtained in a random sample drawn from the population of four communities in The Netherlands within 30 miles of a nuclear power plant showed a strong relationship between subjects' attitudes towards nuclear energy and their perceptions of the possible consequences of nuclear energy. ‘Pro’- and ‘con’-subjects showed marked differences in the importance attached to the different possible consequences and their endorsement of the salience of more general social issues. Results provide support for the view that individuals perceive a false consensus with respect to the relative prevalence of similar attitudes among other people. Finally, subjects' perceptions of others with similar or opposing attitudes towards the issue of nuclear energy showed marked differences in evaluation especially for the extreme attitude groups.     

Concentration of some elements in the hair of cattle as an indicator of contamination by air pollutant deposition on grass

Some 20 elements were determined in cow hair sampled in farms located in various industrial and rural zones of Belgium. Apart from the well-documented dependence of hair contamination as a function of age, the most characteristic feature observed in this study is that the high correlations existing between concentrations of some elements in cow hair provide inter-element ratios which significantly vary from one farm to another. These variations parallel the variations observed in the air pollutants deposited on grass while the inter-element ratios remain almost constant in the soils of all the sampling sites. As a consequence, it is proposed that elemental deposition on pastures is the main source of contamination of cattle by these elements, at least in the rural sites of industrialized countries such as Belgium.     

球接管容器气体爆炸尺寸效应的试验研究与数值分析

为了解尺寸对球形容器连接管道甲烷-空气混合物爆炸的影响规律,利用Fluent软件,采用κ-ε湍流模型、涡耗散模型(简称EDC模型)、壁面热耗散、热辐射模型及SIMPLE算法,建立了球形容器连接管道内甲烷-空气混合物爆炸的数值模型,对容器与管道内甲烷-空气预混气体爆炸的尺寸效应进行了数值模拟。结果表明:随管道内径增大,球形容器内最大爆炸压力逐渐增大,管道末端最大爆炸压力变化无明显规律;而随管道长度增加,球形容器内最大爆炸压力逐渐减小;改变管道内径,较大体积球形容器内最大爆炸压力均大于较小体积球形容器内最大爆炸压力,最大爆炸压力上升速率的规律则相反,容器体积对管道末端最大爆炸压力的影响无明显规律。     

A new approach to managing work-related road traffic injury: The development of a health investment framework

Objective: Statistics indicate that employees commuting or traveling as part of their work are overrepresented in workplace injury and death. Despite this, many organizations are unaware of the factors within their organizations that are likely to influence potential reductions in work-related road traffic injury.

Methods: This article presents a multilevel conceptual framework that identifies health investment as the central feature in reducing work-related road traffic injury. Within this framework, we explore factors operating at the individual driver, workgroup supervisor, and organizational senior management levels that create a mutually reinforcing system of safety.

Results: The health investment framework identifies key factors at the senior manager, supervisor, and driver levels to cultivating a safe working environment. These factors are high-performance workplace systems, leader–member exchange and autonomy, trust and empowerment, respectively. The framework demonstrates the important interactions between these factors and how they create a self-sustaining organizational safety system.

Conclusions: The framework aims to provide insight into the future development of interventions that are strategically aligned with the organization and target elements that facilitate and enhance driver safety and ultimately reduce work-related road traffic injury and death.     

牧民参与草场治理的偏好与支付意愿——来自禁牧区和草畜平衡区的实证对比

选取内蒙古生态脆弱区荒漠草原典型禁牧区和草畜平衡区进行对比研究.结合区域基本生态社会经济状况,设计了草场治理的选择实验问卷,使用Mixed Logit模型,分析牧民参与草场治理的偏好与支付意愿,以支付意愿作为牧民从草原生态改善中获得效用的测算依据,最终通过总体福利分析提出了相应的补偿标准.结果表明,两区牧民对于草场治理的偏好存在差异,禁牧区牧民的支付意愿显著高于草畜平衡区.禁牧区补偿标准最低应为0.57元/hm²,草畜平衡区补偿标准0.23元/hm².禁牧区牧民偏好景观建设,而草畜平衡区牧民偏好地下水位上升.     

人为扰动下河流复氧激增现象及机制分析

为探究河流复氧规律及其机制,研制出改变河道局部水流流速的深控型水平推流曝气装置,并使用该装置在天津市外环河中进行原位试验,探究人为扰动对河流复氧系数的影响.试验结果表明,装置工作时纵向流速提高至40cm/s,最大增幅22倍;水体溶解氧浓度提高0.6~1.7mg/L,约10%.研究发现,经典的Owens等5组河流复氧系数经验公式均低估了扰动下的复氧系数,试验均值约为49.5d^-1,是理论值的10~100倍,即河流复氧在人为扰动下发生激增现象.分析成因表明,湍流动能与河流复氧系数显著正相关,区别于自然流动,人为扰动提升了水体纵向和垂向湍流动能,加速了中下层水体溶解氧扩散,提高了复氧率,进而发生了复氧激增现象.研究成果为提升城市河流水质的水力学方法提供了科学依据.