Client preferences by Caribbean cleaning gobies: food,safety or something else?

Predation risk is amongst the most pervasive selective pressures influencing behaviour and animals have been repeatedly shown to trade-off foraging success for safety. We examined the nature of this trade-off in cleaning symbioses amongst Caribbean coral reef fishes. We predicted that cleaning gobies (Elacatinus evelynae and Elacatinus prochilos) should prefer fish clients that pose a low risk of predation (e.g. herbivores) over clients that may have more ectoparasites but pose a higher risk (e.g. piscivores). Our field observations revealed that cleaners did clean preferentially client species with more parasites but predatory and non-predatory clients had similar ectoparasite loads. Despite the lack of a foraging advantage for inspecting predators, cleaners did not avoid risky clients. On the contrary, a larger proportion of visiting predators than non-predators was inspected, gobies initiated more interactions with predatory clients, and predators were attended to immediately upon arrival at cleaning stations. This preferential treatment of dangerous clients may allow the rapid identification of cleaners as non-prey item or may be due to the effect of predators on the rest of the cleaners’ clientele, which avoided cleaning stations whilst predators were present. Dealing with potentially risky clients may allow gobies to regain access to their main food source: non-predatory clients.     

坚持人与自然和谐共生,推动生态文明建设——“美丽秦巴”专家笔谈

建设生态文明是中华民族永续发展的千年大计。为维护全球生态安全,建设美丽中国,为人民创造良好生产生活环境,达到坚持人与自然和谐共生的目标,就必须正确认识自然规律、尊重地球、敬畏地球、规范人类行为;必须树立和践行绿水青山就是金山银山的理念,坚持节约资源和保护环境的基本国策,像对待生命一样对待生态环境;必须坚持节约优先、保护优先、自然恢复为主的方针,形成节约资源和保护环境的空间格局、产业结构、生产方式和生活方式,还自然以宁静、和谐与美丽。     

Genomic analyses of metal resistance genes in three plant growth promoting bacteria of legume plants in Northwest mine tailings, China

To better understand the diversity of metal resistance genetic determinant from microbes that survived atmetal tailings in northwest of China, a highly elevated level of heavymetal containing region, genomic analyses was conducted using genome sequence of three native metal-resistant plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB). It shows that: Mesorhizobium amorphae CCNWGS0123 contains metal transporters from P-type ATPase, CDF (Cation Diffusion Facilitator), HupE/UreJ and CHR (chromate ion transporter) family involved in copper, zinc, nickel as well as chromate resistance and homeostasis. Meanwhile, the putative CopA/CueO system is expected to mediate copper resistance in Sinorhizobium meliloti CCNWSX0020 while ZntA transporter, assisted with putative CzcD, determines zinc tolerance in Agrobacterium tumefaciens CCNWGS0286. The greenhouse experiment provides the consistent evidence of the plant growth promoting effects of these microbes on their hosts by nitrogen fixation and/or indoleacetic acid (IAA) secretion, indicating a potential in-site phytoremediation usage in themining tailing regions of China.     

Environmental Rights: on the Perspective of Harmonious Development between Human Beings and Nature

The idea of environmental rights was first ascertained as a universal concern in the late 20th century and then became a fundamental part of environmental law along with the growth of serious disasters brought by the frequent occurrence of extreme environmental crisis. Generally speaking, the environmental rights safeguard and defend human rights and ultimately facilitate producing better conditions of life on earth by stretching and expanding the theory of traditional human rights. But there are endless debates since environmental rights appeared and various views of environmental rights, such as anthropocentric doctrine and organism's centre doctrine. Differentiated from the traditional research, this article reviewed environmental rights from the perspective of harmonious development between human beings and nature rather than from the perspective of law. Therefore, it is very important to clarify the relationship between human beings and nature based on the environmental rights and to promote the environmental rights to be embodied in the constitution. This article emphasized the importance of the practical significance of environmental rights, and built a concrete structure within the legal system that could promote the transformation of environmental law from ‘should have’ right to practical right, and promote the further development of environmental rights and their weightiness in the legal system.     

Foraminifera as bioindicators in coral reef assessment and monitoring: the FORAM Index. Foraminifera in Reef Assessment and Monitoring

Coral reef communities are threatened worldwide. Resource managers urgently need indicators of the biological condition of reef environments that can relate data acquired through remote-sensing, water-quality and benthic-community monitoring to stress responses in reef organisms. The FORAM (Foraminifera in Reef Assessment and Monitoring) Index (FI) is based on 30 years of research on reef sediments and reef-dwelling larger foraminifers. These shelled protists are ideal indicator organisms because: Foraminifers are widely used as environmental and paleoenvironmental indicators in many contexts; Reef-building, zooxanthellate corals and foraminifers with algal symbionts have similar water-quality requirements; The relatively short life spans of foraminifers as compared with long-lived colonial corals facilitate differentiation between long-term water-quality decline and episodic stress events; Foraminifers are relatively small and abundant, permitting statistically significant sample sizes to be collected quickly and relatively inexpensively, ideally as a component of comprehensive monitoring programs; and Collection of foraminifers has minimal impact on reef resources.USEPA guidelines for ecological indicators are used to evaluate the FI. Data required are foraminiferal assemblages from surface sediments of reef-associated environments. The FI provides resource managers with a simple procedure for determining the suitability of benthic environments for communities dominated by algal symbiotic organisms. The FI can be applied independently, or incorporated into existing or planned monitoring efforts. The simple calculations require limited computer capabilities and therefore can be applied readily to reef-associated environments worldwide. In addition, the foraminiferal shells collected can be subjected to morphometric and geochemical analyses in areas of suspected heavy-metal pollution, and the data sets for the index can be used with other monitoring data in detailed multidimensional assessments.     

城市基础设施安全系统的结构与和谐发展

城市基础设施安全关系到人民生命财产的安全,也制约着城市经济、社会、环境的协调发展。整个安全系统由7个安全子系统组成,它们相对独立,协调运转,共同影响城市经济、社会和环境的效益。笔者运用ANP法(网络分析法)剖析了城市基础设施安全系统的结构及其内在规律;应用科学发展观,整合城市基础设施安全系统和经济系统、社会系统、环境系统之间相辅相成的发展关系,提出一体化的可持续发展模式;同时指出,可持续发展的动力、资源和条件都受到城市内外经济、社会、环境因素的制约,为满足整个安全系统和谐发展的要求,必须科学规划和管理城市基础设施,保证其安全运行。     

改善海洋环境保护工作的一条有效途径

文章首先对我国海洋环境保护现状进行了分析,然后通过对秦皇岛市海洋环境保护统一协调管理机制的探讨,提出了解决目前涉海地区普遍存在的“多头管海”,又“无人管海”这一制的海洋环境保护工作发展问题的途径。     

生态文明阈值和绿值二步测度:指标-指数耦合链方法

拟破解生态文明测度和评价的现存难题:在指标选取方面,评价目标模糊,指标筛选的主观性强,缺乏结构化方法,导致指标泛化,与一般环境经济评价混淆;在测度标尺方面,无法确定生态文明阈值,对不同文明阶段用同一把尺子去衡量,导致一些非生态文明区域的排名反而靠前;在应用价值方面,综合指标值失去生态经济意义,只是一个抽象的排名数字,导致测度结果不便于理解和运用。为此,依据文明演化的共生理论创立指标-指数耦合链方法,用以导出生态文明测度的阈值和绿值二步指数。依次运用扎根理论法、PSIR及SEM结构模型、足迹家族法、Lotka-Volterra模型等工具,构建从生态文明的指标体系到二步指数的结构化耦合链。全过程始终聚焦生态文明的本质属性——产业与生态的互利共生性:以定性科学属性为出发点,以人与自然复合系统的结构模型为纽带,以生态文明阈值和绿值二步指数定量模型为归宿点。其中,阈值用产业受力指数、生态受力指数和共生度指数3项指数进行衡量,合称为阈值指数;而绿值用1项综合反映区域产业与生态的总量、共生程度和均衡程度的绿值指数进行衡量。据此进行区域生态文明的二步测度。第一步,基于阈值指数的阶段或资格判定:通过产业与生态的共生性,考量被测区域是否进入生态文明门槛,"未入门"区域处于哪一个文明阶段。第二步,基于绿值指数的水平判定:通过产业与生态的互利共生程度,考量"入门"区域的生态文明水平。研究表明,指标-指数耦合链方法不仅可以有效克服单纯指标体系综合法或指数函数法的缺陷和难点,而且能够将两者的长处结合起来。如此,不仅能够避免生态文明测度结果与物质文明"成正比"的弊端,而且能够通过从生态文明二步指数回溯至指标体系的逆向解耦,分析出导致生态文明问题的根本原因,便于提出切中肯綮的对策。     

中美校园安全文化对比研究

通过安全文化、校园安全文化的结构层次理论综述及校园安全的影响因素剖析,提出校园安全文化5层次理论,即心态安全文化层、行为安全文化层、制度安全文化层、物态安全文化层、和谐安全文化层,为科学构建和谐校园提供理论支撑。依据校园安全文化5层次理论对中美校园安全文化进行比较分析,其结果显示,中美两国校园安全文化表现为差异性与趋同性,两国校园安全文化在一定时期内可以保持一定的稳定性,但随着两国文化交流的逐步深入,其差异性正在缩小,出现相互融合的良性发展趋势。从建设和谐社会的实践角度来看,笔者提出建设和谐校园对形成具有中国特色的校园安全文化具有重大的推进作用。     

安全文化与和谐社会的关系及其建设的研究

在分析和谐社会、安全及安全文化内涵的基础上,从和谐社会的评价指标体系论证了安全与和谐的一致性;从安全文化与和谐社会的特征、功能、原则等方面,深入阐述安全文化建设与和谐社会构建的统一性;提出安全科学可以为和谐社会建设提供理论指导的新观点,进而为和谐社会建设作出贡献的思想。笔者提出了倡导安全健康主义、倡导安全健康信仰等建设安全文化的具体措施。