Socioeconomic evaluation of the impact of natural resource stressors on human-use services in the Great Lakes environment: A Lake Michigan case study

The Great Lakes watershed is home to over 40 million people (Canadian and U.S.) who depend on a healthy Great Lakes ecosystem for economic, societal, and personal vitality. The challenge to policymakers and the public is to balance economic benefits with the need to conserve and replenish regional natural resources in a manner that ensures long term prosperity. Nine critical broad-spectrum stressors of ecological services are identified, which include pollution and contamination, agricultural erosion, non-native species, degraded recreational resources, loss of wetlands habitat, climate change, risk of clean water shortage, vanishing sand dunes, and population overcrowding. Many of these stressors overlap. For example, mining activities alone can create stress in at least five of these categories. The focus groups were conducted to examine the public’s awareness of, concern with, and willingness to expend resources on these stressors. This helped generate a grouping of stressors that the public is especially concerned about, those they care little about, and everything else in between. Stressors that the respondents have direct contact with tend to be the most important to them. This approach of using focus groups is a critical first step in helping natural resource managers such as Trustees and NGOs understand what subsequent steps to take and develop policy measures that are of most interest and value to the public. Skipping or glossing over this key first task could lead to difficulties with respect to survey design and model development in a non-market valuation study. The focus group results show that concern related to pollution and contamination is much higher than for any of the others. It is thus clear that outreach programs may be necessary to educate the public about the severity of some low-ranked stressors including climate change.     

Cladistic biogeographic analysis suggests an early Caribbean diversification in Mexico

The Great American Biotic Interchange has been the predominant paradigm for explaining biotic diversification in the Nearctic/Neotropical overlap or Mexican Transition Zone, which is commonly explained by the collision of the North and South American continental plates, which began in the Oligocene and fused both landmasses. In the most far-reaching cladistic biogeographical analysis of the area to date, evidence has been found supporting the existence of a remnant Caribbean region extending from eastern Mexico to southeastern USA, a hypothesis that challenges current views of the Great American Biotic Interchange and the Mexican Transition Zone. We show herein that an older terrane, which has drifted to the present day positions of Yucatan and Cuba, may be biogeographically linked to an early ‘Gondwanan’ biota of the Paleocene (ca. 60 Ma). The evidence indicates an east–west biotic divide in Mexico, existing before the collision and formation of Central America. The south–north division of the country, previously recognized by several authors as associated with the Great American Biotic Interchange and the Mexican Transition Zone, is of a younger age. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

明太祖的荒政立法

救荒是明代经济发展、社会稳定的重要措施。为了保证荒政的顺利而有效地进行,明太祖从灾害防治到灾害赈济,从赈灾官员的选用到对吏治腐败的整治,都制定了较为详细的法律条文。从这些法律条文中可以概括出明太祖的荒政立法包含以下两个方面：一、防灾与减灾中的立法;二、救灾中的立法。朱元璋通过荒政立法,一方面惩治了救灾中的腐败,提高了救灾的效率;另一方面也使灾民在自然灾害面前得到国家的救济,使社会生产力的破坏得以减轻,为明王朝的经济恢复和发展奠定了基础。     

明太祖的荒政立法

救荒是明代经济发展、社会稳定的重要措施。为了保证荒政的顺利而有效地进行,明太祖从灾害防治到灾害赈济,从赈灾官员的选用到对吏治腐败的整治,都制定了较为详细的法律条文。从这些法律条文中可以概括出明太祖的荒政立法包含以下两个方面:一、防灾与减灾中的立法;二、救灾中的立法。朱元璋通过荒政立法,一方面惩治了救灾中的腐败,提高了救灾的效率;另一方面也使灾民在自然灾害面前得到国家的救济,使社会生产力的破坏得以减轻,为明王朝的经济恢复和发展奠定了基础。     

联合基于野外的代谢组学和化学分析手段筛选优先关注新兴污染物：在五大湖流域的案例研究

由于毒性评估项目很难与日渐增长的需要测试的污染物保持同步,所以较难将关注点集中在影响水生生态系统的最为生物相关的污染物上。由于评估潜在毒性污染物所造成的生物影响已被证明是有效的,内生性代谢物的研究（代谢组学）对于剔除那些较低可能造成生物影响的污染物或许有一定帮助,从而找出生物重要性最高的污染物。本研究在北美五大湖流域的18个地点针对置于笼中的黑头软口鲦（Pimephales promelas）进行实验。我们测定了水体温度和水样中的污染物浓度（目标污染物132种,检出86种）,并使用1H-NMR谱测量了肝极性提取物中的内生性代谢物。利用偏最小二乘法回归来比对内生性代谢物的相对丰度与污染物浓度和环境温度。结果表明内生性极性代谢物的指标与最多49种污染物存在共同变化。因此我们认为至多52%的检出污染物与内生性代谢物变化的共同变化不显著,表明这些污染物很可能不会在这些地点造成可以检测到的影响。这是通过缩短对于实验地点有着潜在影响的污染物列表从而扫描出检出污染物生物相关性的第一步。类似的信息有助于风险评估者区分不同污染物的重要性并将重点毒性测试放在最为生物相关的污染物上。
精选自Nicol Janecko, Lucie Pokludova, Jana Blahova, Zdenka Svobodova, Ivan Literak. Linking field-based metabolomics and chemical analyses to prioritize contaminants of emerging concern in the Great Lakes basin. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry: Volume 35, Issue 10, pages 2493–2502, October 2016. DOI: 10.1002/etc.3409
详情请见http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.3409/full
     

Changes in Avian and Plant Communities of Aspen Woodlands over 12 Years after Livestock Removal in the Northwestern Great Basin

Abstract: Riparian and quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) woodlands are centers of avian abundance and diversity in the western United States, but they have been affected adversely by land use practices, particularly livestock grazing. In 1990, cattle were removed from a 112,500‐ha national wildlife refuge in southeastern Oregon. Thereafter, we monitored changes in vegetation and bird abundance in years 1–3 (phase 1) and 10–12 (phase 2) in 17 riparian and 9 snow‐pocket aspen plots. On each 1.5‐ha plot, we sampled vegetation in 6 transects. Three times during each breeding season, observers recorded all birds 50 m to each side of the plot's 150‐m centerline for 25 minutes. We analyzed data with multivariate analysis of variance and paired t tests with p values adjusted for multiple comparisons. In both periods, riparian and snow‐pocket aspen produced extensive regeneration of new shoots ( stems/ha and 7079 stems/ha, respectively). By phase 2, a 64% increase in medium‐diameter trees in riparian stands indicated successful recruitment into the overstory, but this pattern was not seen in snow‐pocket stands, where the density of trees was over 2 times greater. By phase 2 in riparian and snow‐pocket stands, native forb cover had increased by 68% and 57%, respectively, mesic shrub cover had increased by 29% and 58%, and sagebrush cover had decreased by 24% and 31%. Total avian abundance increased by 33% and 39% in riparian and snow‐pocket aspen, respectively, ground or understory nesters increased by 133% and 67% and overstory nesters increased by 34% and 33%. Similarly, ground or understory foragers increased by 25% and 32%, aerial foragers by 55% and 57%, and overstory foragers by 66% and 43%. We interpreted the substantial regeneration of aspen shoots, increased densities of riparian forbs and shrubs, and increased avian abundances as a multitrophic‐level response to the total removal of livestock and as substantial movement toward recovery of biological integrity.     

How sensitive are elasticities of long-run stochastic growth to how environmental variability is modelled?

A variable environment leaves a signature in a population's dynamics. Deriving statistical and mathematical models of how environmental variability affects population projections has - in the wake of reports of substantial climatic fluctuations - received much recent attention. If the model changes, then so too does the population projection. This is because a different model of environmental variability changes estimates of long-run stochastic growth, which is a function of demographic rates and their temporal sequence. Decomposing elasticities of long-run stochastic growth into constituent parts can assess the relative influence of different components. Here, we investigate the consequences of changing the environmental state definition, and therefore altering the shape of demographic rate distributions and their temporal sequence, by using age-structured matrix models to project vertebrate populations into the future under a range of environmental scenarios. The identity of the most influential demographic rate was consistent among all approaches that perturbed only the mean, but was not when only the variance was perturbed. Furthermore, the influence of each demographic rate fluctuated among projections by up to factors of six and two for changes to the variance and mean, respectively. These changes in influence depend in part upon how environmental variability - in particular, the color of environmental noise - is incorporated. In the light of predictions of increasing climatic variability in the future, these results suggest caution when drawing quantitative conclusions from stochastic population projections.     

苯酚和间甲酚的竞争吸附研究

研究了水中苯酚和间甲酚在大孔树脂上的吸附,结果表明,ＩＡＳ及ＬＣＡ模型都能较好地反映这一吸附系统的竞争吸附规律。     

HOW CLIMATE UNCERTAINTY SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN GREAT LAKES MANAGEMENT: MODELING WORKSHOP RESULTS1

ABSTRACT: In two workshops, we evaluated decision analysis methods for comparing Lake Erie levels management alternatives under climate change uncertainty. In particular, we wanted to see how acceptable and effective those methods could be in a public planning setting. The methods evaluated included simulation modeling, scenario analysis, decision trees and structured group discussions. We evaluated the methods by interviewing the workshop participants before and after the workshops. The participants, who were experienced Great Lakes water resources managers, concluded that simulation modeling is user-friendly enough to enable scenario analysis even in workshop settings for large public planning studies. They felt that simulation modeling can improve not only understanding of the system, but also of the options for managing it. Scenario analysis revealed that the decision for the case study, Lake Erie water level regulation, could be altered by the likelihood of climate change. The participants also recommended that structured group discussions be used in public planning settings to elicit ideas and opinions. On the other hand, the participants were less optimistic about decision trees because they felt that the public might view subjective probabilities as difficult to understand and subject to manipulation.