Understanding implications of consumer behavior for wildlife farming and sustainable wildlife trade

Unsustainable wildlife trade affects biodiversity and the livelihoods of communities dependent upon those resources. Wildlife farming has been proposed to promote sustainable trade, but characterizing markets and understanding consumer behavior remain neglected but essential steps in the design and evaluation of such operations. We used sea turtle trade in the Cayman Islands, where turtles have been farm raised for human consumption for almost 50 years, as a case study to explore consumer preferences toward wild‐sourced (illegal) and farmed (legal) products and potential conservation implications. Combining methods innovatively (including indirect questioning and choice experiments), we conducted a nationwide trade assessment through in‐person interviews from September to December 2014. Households were randomly selected using disproportionate stratified sampling, and responses were weighted based on district population size. We approached 597 individuals, of which 37 (6.2%) refused to participate. Although 30% of households had consumed turtle in the previous 12 months, the purchase and consumption of wild products was rare (e.g., 64–742 resident households consumed wild turtle meat [i.e., 0.3–3.5% of households] but represented a large threat to wild turtles in the area due to their reduced populations). Differences among groups of consumers were marked, as identified through choice experiments, and price and source of product played important roles in their decisions. Despite the long‐term practice of farming turtles, 13.5% of consumers showed a strong preference for wild products, which demonstrates the limitations of wildlife farming as a single tool for sustainable wildlife trade. By using a combination of indirect questioning, choice experiments, and sales data to investigate demand for wildlife products, we obtained insights about consumer behavior that can be used to develop conservation‐demand‐focused initiatives. Lack of data from long‐term social–ecological assessments hinders the evaluation of and learning from wildlife farming. This information is key to understanding under which conditions different interventions (e.g., bans, wildlife farming, social marketing) are likely to succeed.     

The aggregation pheromone ofIps duplicatus and its role in competitive interactions withI. typographus (Coleoptera: Scolytidae)

Summary Ips duplicatus withI. typographus co-inhabiting Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) would benefit from a pheromone blend distinct from that of the larger competitorI. typographus. GC-MS analysis showed thatI. duplicatus males feeding in the host produced ipsdienol (Id),cis-verbenol (cV),trans-verbenol (tV), myrtenol (Mt), andE-myrcenol (EM) and traces of 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol (MB).I. duplicatus produced Id in approximately racemic form (48.9-54.5% (+)-(S)-isomer). The amounts of Id and EM released over a 9 day period had a maximum of 250 and 5 ng/h/male, respectively, on day 2. Exposure ofI. duplicatus males to myrcene and -pinene resulted in the production of small amounts of Id, cV, tV, Mt, andtrans-pinocarveol, but not of EM. In laboratory bioassays with walking beetles, the pheromone component Id alone was weakly attractive while EM was inactive, but in binary combination with Id strongly synergized attraction. A combination of EM and Id at a release rate equivalent to 100–200 males was more attractive in the field than 70 unmated males in a spruce log. The addition of myrcene ( a suggested pheromone precursor of Id) to Id did not enhance trap caches, while addition of EM increased catches > 10-fold. Subtracting EM from a blend of Id, EM, cV and MB drastically reduced trap catches while subtraction of cV or MB or both had no significant effect. Addition of EM over a wide concentration range to the synthetic pheromone ofI. typographus did not reduce the attraction of females of this species in the laboratory. A two-species pheromone interaction field test releasingI. typographus pheromone components (MB + cV) at 10–1000 male equivalents (ME) andI. duplicatus pheromone (Id + EM) at 0, 10–1000 ME in all possible combinations showed both positive intraspecific dose-response effects and an interspecific inhibition. Higher release rates of EM appeared to inhibitI. typographus, especially males. In a tree colonization model, the response of the two competing species to their respective pheromones show a good separation during the mass-attack with a small initial cross-attraction. It remains to be shown whether either of the two pheromone systems have in fact evolved in the present sympatry, or if they are an incidental effect of ancestry of these phylogenetically distantIps.     

不同来源土样胶体对氯霉素吸附行为的影响

选取不同来源沉积物或土壤样品（沉积物A1和A2,天然土壤B1和B2,市售营养土B3）,采用切向超滤与多种纳米分析技术相结合的方法,分析了不同土样中胶体的理化特征及其对氯霉素（CAP）吸附行为的影响.荧光区域积分法结果显示,土样胶体的荧光组分以色氨酸类蛋白质、类富里酸和类腐殖酸为主,络氨酸类蛋白质和溶解性微生物代谢物质存在较少.吸附实验结果表明,B3胶体对CAP的吸附率最大（36.25%）,在胶体浓缩液和超滤液中的分配比例最高（1.91）,但其有机碳归一化结合系数最低（3.93）.与天然土壤相比,河湖沉积物胶体的吸附率较高,但其与CAP的结合能力却较低.冗余分析结果表明,胶体对CAP的吸附主要与其芳香度、有色溶解性有机质丰度、溶解性有机碳浓度及分子量有关;此外,胶体的腐殖化程度、芳环上羧基、羰基等官能团的比重及荧光物质中溶解性微生物代谢产物和类腐殖酸对CAP的吸附行为也具有较大影响.     

双酚S在两种典型地带性土壤中的吸附/解吸行为研究

采用批平衡实验方法研究了双酚S（BPS）在两种典型地带性土壤中的吸附/解吸行为.结果表明,吸附动力学曲线符合拟二级动力学方程.吸附等温线呈非线性,且同时符合Freundlich和Langmuir方程.相比而言,BPS更易吸附在高有机质含量的黑土中,298 K反应温度下BPS在黑土和红壤上的最大吸附容量分别为497.8和156.6 mg·kg^-1.吸附到两种土壤中的BPS存在解吸滞后现象,这可能是由于BPS以化学吸附和微孔扩散的形式存在于土壤中的缘故.溶液pH与BPS在土壤中的吸附容量呈负相关关系,即中性形态的BPS比阴离子形态的BPS具有更高的吸附容量.与结构类似物双酚A（BPA）的吸附相比,BPS在土壤中的吸附量更低,因此具有更高的迁移能力,可能会引起更高的环境健康风险.本研究结果为了解BPS在土壤中的迁移规律提供了数据支持.     

核壳结构KNbO3@Co(OH)2的制备及其活化过一硫酸盐降解帕珠沙星的研究

制备了以KNbO₃为载体材料的Co（OH）₂复合材料并对其进行了详细的表征,分析了材料的组成成分、组成形态进而确定了其为核壳结构形貌的KNbO₃@Co（OH）₂.利用合成的样品作为催化剂活化过一硫酸盐（peroxymonosulfate,PMS）来降解帕珠沙星（pazufloxacin,PZF）,结果表明制备的催化剂对PZF的去除效率显著增加.讨论了不同初始PMS剂量对降解效率的影响,发现随着PMS增加可活化生成更多的硫酸根自由基（sulfate radicals,SO₄^·-）和羟基自由基（hydroxyl radicals,HO^·）来降解PZF,但继续增大PMS用量降解效率未见明显提升.酸性和中性pH值条件下利于反应活化PMS降解PZF,而碱性体系减缓反应,甚至强碱体系更易形成Co（OH）₂沉淀不利于反应体系中活性组分CoOH⁺的形成,大大抑制了催化性能.此外,在体系中加入淬灭剂叔丁醇（tert-Butanol,TBA）或者乙醇（ethanol,ETOH）进行自由基的淬灭实验,结果表明SO₄^·-自由基为体系降解PZF过程中主要贡献的自由基,而HO^·自由基的贡献较少.催化剂具有较好的稳定性5次循环之后仍能在10 min之内完全去除PZF.本研究提出了新的思路为制备其他载体的Co（OH）₂核壳结构提供参考依据,同时将该催化剂结合高级氧化技术应用到水体新兴有机污染物净化领域具有很好的应用前景.     

Plasmonic silver/silver oxide nanoparticles anchored bismuth vanadate as a novel visible-light ternary photocatalyst for degrading pharmaceutical micropollutants

The degradation of pharmaceutical micropollutants is an intensifying environmental problem and synthesis of efficient photocatalysts for this purpose is one of the foremost challenges worldwide. Therefore, this study was conducted to develop novel plasmonic Ag/Ag₂O/BiVO₄ nanocomposite photocatalysts by simple precipitation and thermal decomposition methods, which could exhibit higher photocatalytic activity for mineralized pharmaceutical micropollutants. Among the different treatments, the best performance was observed for the Ag/Ag₂O/BiVO₄ nanocomposites (5 wt.%; 10 min's visible light irradiation) which exhibited 6.57 times higher photodegradation rate than the pure BiVO₄. Further, the effects of different influencing factors on the photodegradation system of tetracycline hydrochloride (TC-HCl) were investigated and the feasibility for its practical application was explored through the specific light sources, water source and cycle experiments. The mechanistic study demonstrated that the photogenerated holes (h⁺), superoxide radicals (?O₂^?) and hydroxyl radicals (?OH) participated in TC-HCl removal process, which is different from the pure BiVO₄ reaction system. Hence, the present work can provide a new approach for the formation of novel plasmonic photocatalysts with high photoactivity and can act as effective practical application for environmental remediation.     

Synergistic effects of Cu species and acidity of Cu-ZSM-5 on catalytic performance for selective catalytic oxidation of n-butylamine

In this work, a series of Cu-ZSM-5 catalysts with different SiO₂/Al₂O₃ ratios (25, 50, 100 and 200) were synthesized and investigated in n-butylamine catalytic degradation. The n-butylamine can be completely catalytic degradation at 350°C over all Cu-ZSM-5 catalysts. Moreover, Cu-ZSM-5 (25) exhibited the highest selectivity to N₂, exceeding 90% at 350°C. These samples were investigated in detail by several characterizations to illuminate the dependence of the catalytic performance on redox properties, Cu species, and acidity. The characterization results proved that the redox properties and chemisorption oxygen primarily affect n-butylamine conversion. N₂ selectivity was impacted by the Brønsted acidity and the isolated Cu²⁺ species. Meanwhile, the surface acid sites over Cu-ZSM-5 catalysts could influence the formation of Cu species. Furthermore, in situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectra was adopted to explore the reaction mechanism. The Cu-ZSM-5 catalysts are the most prospective catalysts for nitrogen-containing volatile organic compounds removal, and the results in this study could provide new insights into catalysts design for VOC catalytic oxidation.     

UV/H2O2 oxidation of tri(2-chloroethyl) phosphate: Intermediate products, degradation pathway and toxicity evaluation

Tri(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP) with the initial concentration of 5 mg/L was degraded by UV/H₂O₂ oxidation process. The removal rate of TCEP in the UV/H₂O₂ system was 89.1% with the production of Cl^? and PO₄^3? of 0.23 and 0.64 mg/L. The removal rate of total organic carbon of the reaction was 48.8% and the pH reached 3.3 after the reaction. The oxidative degradation process of TCEP in the UV/H₂O₂ system obeyed the first order kinetic reaction with the apparent rate constant of 0.0025 min^?1 (R²=0.9788). The intermediate products were isolated and identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometer. The addition reaction of HO? and H₂O and the oxidation reaction with H₂O₂ were found during the degradation pathway of 5 mg/L TCEP in the UV/H₂O₂ system. For the first time, environment risk was estimated via the “ecological structure activity relationships” program and acute and chronic toxicity changes of intermediate products were pointed out. The luminescence inhibition rate of photobacterium was used to evaluate the acute toxicity of intermediate products. The results showed that the toxicity of the intermediate products increased with the increase of reaction time, which may be due to the production of chlorine compounds. Some measures should be introduced to the UV/H₂O₂ system to remove the highly toxic Cl-containing compounds, such as a nanofiltration or reverse osmosis unit.     

Will polycentric cities cause more CO2 emissions? A case study of 232 Chinese cities

From 2000 to 2010 China experienced rapid economic development and urbanization. Many cities in economically developed areas have developed from a single-center status to polycentricity. In this study, we used exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) to identify the population centers, which identified 232 cities in China as having urban centers. COMP was used to represent urban agglomeration, and POLYD (representing how far is the city's sub-centers to the main center), POLYC (representing the number of a city's centers), and POLYP (representing the population distributed between the main center and the sub-centers) were used to indicate urban polycentricity. Night light data were used to determine the CO₂ emissions from various cities in China. A mixed model was used to study the impact of urban aggregation and polycentric data on the CO₂ emission efficiency in 2000 and 2010. The study found that cities with higher compactness were distributed in coastal areas, and the cities with higher multicentricity were distributed in the Yangtze River Delta and Shandong Province. The more compact the city was, the less conducive it was to improving CO₂ emission efficiency. Polycentric development of the city was conducive to improving the CO₂ emission efficiency, but the number of urban centers had no significant relationship with the CO₂ emission efficiency. Our research showed that the compactness and multicentricity of the city had an impact on the CO₂ emission efficiency and provided some planning suggestions for the low carbon development of the city.     

闽江河口养虾塘养殖期和非养殖期CO2通量变化特征

为揭示河口区陆基养虾塘从养殖期到非养殖期一年间的CO₂通量变化,以福建省闽江河口鳝鱼滩陆基养虾塘为研究对象,于2016年5月-2017年3月采用悬浮箱/静态箱-气相色谱法对养虾塘养殖期水-大气界面和非养殖期沉积物-大气界面白天CO₂垂直通量进行原位观测.结果表明:①养虾塘在整个研究期间CO₂通量变化范围为-62.87~162.81 mg/（m2·h）,平均值为（42.66±18.12）mg/（m2·h）,总体上表现为大气CO₂的释放源,且呈非养殖期CO₂通量平均值[（78.51±16.61）mg/（m2·h）]显著高于养殖期[（17.98±18.26）mg/（m2·h）]的特征.②养殖期间,养虾塘CO₂通量呈"排放-吸收"交替变化的特征,而非养殖期养虾塘一直是大气CO₂的净排放源.③养虾塘养殖期CO₂通量时间变化特征主要受到ρ（DOC）（DOC为总溶解有机碳）、ρ（SO₄2-）、ρ（Cl-）、盐度、pH、ρ（Chla）（Chla为叶绿素a）的影响,其中,pH和ρ（SO₄2-）是其主要影响因子,而ρ（TDN）（TDN为总溶解氮）、ρ（TDP）（TDP为总溶解磷）、ρ（SO₄2-）对非养殖期CO₂通量时间变化影响较大.研究显示,滨海陆基养殖塘是大气CO₂的重要来源,其排放通量多低于河流、水库等水生生态系统,但高于湖泊生态系统;养殖塘CO₂通量受人为影响明显,其较高的变异性与养殖生物、饲料投放以及浮游藻类有关.