河南环境问题城乡差异的对比研究

消费、教育、医疗等方面的城乡差异一直是社会各界关注的问题,然而,日益突出的城乡环境差异却没有引起足够的重视。河南作为农业大省,其城乡环境差异的表现更具代表性,本文通过对河南省城乡环境压力指标、环境状态指标以及环境保护工作等方面的差异的具体特征和表现形式进行深入的对比分析,发掘出导致城乡二元环境差别产生的认识上、理论上及组织工作上的深层次的问题及原因,为进一步推动和实现城乡环境一体化以及新农村建设提供理论支持。     

淹水条件下三峡库区典型消落带土壤释放DOM的光谱特征:紫外-可见吸收光谱

消落带土壤在淹水发生时释放溶解性有机质(DOM),是上覆水体DOM的重要来源.但同时对淹水释放DOM进行定量定性分析的报道并不多见.本文以三峡库区典型消落带为研究对象,通过模拟实验,利用紫外-可见吸收光谱,研究了厌氧淹水和正常淹水条件下,淹水土壤释放DOM的光谱特征.结果表明,消落带4个区域土壤淹水均呈"快速释放-下降-动态平衡"释放规律;释放速率和通量计算表明,DOM释放呈现出"源-汇动态交换"特征.对比两种淹水处理,尽管溶解性有机碳(DOC)和有色溶解性有机质(CDOM)无显著差异,但厌氧淹水DOM芳香性(SUVA280)高于正常淹水,而光谱斜率比值(SR)对不同淹水条件不敏感.同时,厌氧淹水时,DOC和CDOM的相关性也明显高于正常淹水.另外,各区域土壤淹水释放DOM存在差异,以忠县石宝寨土壤释放强度最高,尽管土壤有机质含量是影响各区域土壤淹水释放DOM差异的重要原因之一,但其他地化因素仍需考虑.因此,仅仅关注DOC浓度变化并不足以完全描述DOM的释放特征.     

Mechanisms of allicin exposure for the sludge fermentation enhancement: Focusing on the fermentation processes and microbial metabolic traits

As a frequently used product with antimicrobial activity, consumed allicin might be discharged and concentrated in waste-activated sludge (WAS). However, the influence of allicin (as an exogenous pollutant) on WAS fermentation has not been clearly revealed. This study aimed to disclose the impacts of allicin on volatile fatty acid (VFA) generation during WAS fermentation. The results showed that the appropriate presence of allicin (10 mg/g TSS) significantly enhanced the VFA yield (1894 versus 575 mg COD/L in the control) with increased acetate proportion (24.3%). Further exploration found that allicin promoted WAS solubilization, hydrolysis and acidification simultaneously. Metagenomic analysis revealed that the key genes involved in extracellular hydrolysis metabolism (i.e., CAZymes), membrane transport (i.e., gtsA and ytfT), substrate metabolism (i.e., yhdR and pfkC) and fatty acid synthesis (i.e., accA and accD) were all highly expressed. Allicin also induced the bacteria to produce more signalling molecules and regulate cellular functions, thereby enhancing the microbial adaptive and regulatory capacity to the unfavourable environment. Moreover, the variations in fermentative microbes and their contributions to the upregulation of functional genes (i.e., ytfR, gltL, INV, iolD and pflD) for VFA generation were disclosed. Overall, the simultaneous stimulation of functional microbial abundances and metabolic activities contributed to VFA production in allicin-conditioned reactors.     

Functional regulatory spaces and policy diffusion in Europe: The case of mountains

The aim of this article is to propose a new analytical framework for comparing and explaining the emergence and diffusion of European regional mountain initiatives (ERMIs), envisaged as ‘functional regulatory spaces’ (FRS). The article examines three exploratory hypotheses. The first hypothesis considers that the different ERMIs (Alps, Pyrenees, Jura, Carpathian, Balkan Mountains, Dinaric Arc, Caucasus) can be compared, distinguished, and classified using the FRS approach. The second hypothesis addresses the relationship between the degree to which ERMIs correspond to an ideal-type FRS and their role and position within policy diffusion processes. We suggest that the more an ERMI corresponds to an ideal-type FRS, the more important is its role in diffusion processes. The third hypothesis focuses on the relationship between the degree of formalization and institutionalization of ERMIs and their role in policy diffusion processes. We argue that the more and the earlier an ERMI is “formalized” and “institutionalized” in a clear and robust way as a “mature” FRS, the more important its role, and the more central its position, in diffusion processes. This article is a very first attempt to link FRS and policy diffusion concepts. As such it seeks to assess the link's feasibility and relevance, rather than a definitive empirical (in)validation of the three hypotheses.     

Division of labor in a dynamic environment: response by honeybees (Apis mellifera) to graded changes in colony pollen stores

 A fundamental requirement of task regulation in social groups is that it must allow colony flexibility. We tested assumptions of three task regulation models for how honeybee colonies respond to graded changes in need for a specific task, pollen foraging. We gradually changed colony pollen stores and measured behavioral and genotypic changes in the foraging population. Colonies did not respond in a graded manner, but in six of seven cases showed a stepwise change in foraging activity as pollen storage levels moved beyond a set point. Changes in colony performance resulted from changes in recruitment of new foragers to pollen collection, rather than from changes in individual foraging effort. Where we were able to track genotypic variation, increases in pollen foraging were accompanied by a corresponding increase in the genotypic diversity of pollen foragers. Our data support previous findings that genotypic variation plays an important role in task regulation. However, the stepwise change in colony behavior suggests that colony foraging flexibility is best explained by an integrated model incorporating genotypic variation in task choice, but in which colony response is amplified by social interactions. Received: 17 October 1998 / Received in revised form: 11 March 1999 / Accepted: 12 March 1999     

The honey bee’s tremble dance stimulates additional bees to function as nectar receivers

If a forager bee returns to her hive laden with high-quality nectar but then experiences difficulty finding a receiver bee to unload her, she will begin to produce a conspicuous communication signal called the tremble dance. The context in which this signal is produced suggests that it serves to stimulate more bees to function as nectar receivers, but so far there is no direct evidence of this effect. We now report an experiment which shows that more bees do begin to function as nectar receivers when foragers produce tremble dances. When we stimulated the production of tremble dances in a colony and counted the number of bees engaged in nectar reception before and after the period of intense tremble dancing, we found a dramatic increase. In two trials, the number of nectar receivers rose from 17% of the colony’s population before tremble dancing to 30–50% of the population after the dancing. We also investigated which bees become the additional nectar receivers, by looking at the age composition of the receiver bees before and after the period of intense tremble dancing. We found that none of the bees recruited to the task of nectar reception were old bees, most were middle-aged bees, and some were even young bees. It remains unclear whether these auxiliary nectar receivers were previously inactive (as a reserve supply of labor) or were previously active on other tasks. Overall, this study demonstrates that a honey bee colony is able to rapidly and strongly alter its allocation of labor to adapt to environmental changes, and it further documents one of the communication mechanisms underlying this ability. Received: 31 May 1996/Accepted after revision: 9 August 1996     

What makes a honeybee scout?

A honeybee colony needs to divide its workforce so that each of the many tasks it performs has an appropriate number of workers assigned to it. This task allocation system needs to be flexible enough to allow the colony to quickly adapt to an ever-changing environment. In this study, we examined possible mechanisms by which a honeybee colony regulates the division of labor between scouts (foragers that search for new food sources without having been guided to them) and recruits (foragers that were guided via recruitment dances toward food sources). Specifically, we examined the roles that the availability of recruitment dances and worker genotype has in the colony-level regulation of the number of workers engaged in scouting. Our approach was threefold. We first developed a mathematical model to demonstrate that the decision to become a scout or a recruit could be regulated by whether a potential forager can find a recruitment dance within a certain time period. We then tested this model by investigating the effect of dance availability on the regulation of scouts in the field. Lastly, we investigated if the probability of being a scout has a genetic basis. Our field data supported the hypothesis that scouts are those foragers that have failed to locate a recruitment dance as predicted by our model, but we found no effect of genotype on the propensity of foragers to become scouts.     

Policy and reality of Environmentally Sensitive Areas in Whitman County,Washington, USA

The Washington State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) promotes the conservation of natural resources through procedural review of proposed actions which may impact natural systems. There are, however, many actions specifically exempt from the SEPA review process. Since many exempt actions could have significant adverse effects on natural resources at one location and not another, the SEPA statute contains a provision that enables local governments to designate Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs). Within the ESAs, these potentially adverse activities are subject to SEPA review. Local governments have complete control over the exact definition of the ESA criteria and the types of local projects exempt from SEPA. Whitman County, the most productive wheat-producing county in Washington, has recognized the need for conservation of its natural resources in its comprehensive plan but has not implemented the ESA provision. A representative watershed within Whitman County was used as a case study to identify areas which would qualify for ESA status. In these areas, specific soil, water, and biological characteristics or resources were identified as sensitive to certain common land uses. Significant differences were found between state and county policies regarding ESAs and actual conditions within the watershed. It may be more effective for the state to manage ESAs on a consistent and regional basis.