Responses of the earthworm Eisenia andrei exposed to sublethal aluminium levels in an artificial soil substrate

Industrial discharges of Al are increasingly common. In this study, the activities of three antioxidases, malondialdehyde (MDA) content and changes in coelomocytes were investigated in earthworms (Eisenia andrei) exposed to different concentrations of aluminium chloride (range 0–200 mg Al kg^?1 dry soil) in artificial soils for 32 days. Within the first 16 days of Al exposure, catalase activity was elevated in most treatments, while the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) were inhibited in all treatments. After 16 days exposure, SOD and GSH-Px activities returned to normal at lower Al concentrations, but were still inhibited at higher concentrations, hence the inhibition of SOD and GSH-Px showed some exposure-level dependence during the late exposure phase. MDA content was significantly elevated from 16 days after initial exposure. Neutral Red retention time of coelomocytes decreased at the highest exposure concentrations after 32 days, and an increased proportion of cells showing membrane damage was also observed at this time using flow cytometry. We conclude that excessive Al in soils can cause oxidative stress and cell damage in earthworms. Hence, Al accumulation in the environment may present an ecological hazard through suppression of the important functions of earthworms in soil ecosystems.     

2014年春季东海大面积甲藻赤潮的生态特征

为准确掌握东海近岸海域赤潮发生情况,深入了解东海海域赤潮发生时和未发生时的生态环境条件,根据浙江省舟山海洋生态环境监测站对东海近岸海域常年的监测结果,选定从杭州湾外侧向南到温州南麂列岛的东海近岸海域为赤潮高发区,开展生态环境研究.2014 年4 月和5 月利用专业海洋调查船,按《海洋监测规范》对东海赤潮高发海域进行了二次综合海洋生态环境调查,结果发现调查海域氮、磷营养盐含量普遍较高,4 月研究海域无机氮均值为0.406 mg·L^-1,活性磷酸盐均值0.013 mg·L^-1;5 月无机氮均值0.244 mg·L^-1,活性磷酸盐均值0.004 mg·L^-1.大多数样品无机氮超一类海水水质标准,尤其是4 月91.7%的样品超-类海水标准,5 月也有35.7%样品超-类海水标准.硝酸盐氮是无机氮的主要存在形式.2014 年5 月调查期间发生了大面积的赤潮,赤潮原因种是东海原甲藻（Prorocentrum donghaiense）,细胞密度平均在107/L 以上.分析赤潮发生前后的水环境变化,5 月调查海域海水温度有较大上升,各海域水温均超过了20 ℃,海域平均温度从4 月的15.9 ℃上升到5 月的21.9 ℃.通过本次研究发现在营养盐浓度普遍较高的调查海域,水温上升是引发赤潮的关键因素.使用专业统计软件SPSS17 发现赤潮藻类的细胞密度与水温、化学需氧量和溶解氧存在着极显著的正相关（P〈0.01）,与活性磷酸盐、硝酸盐氮和无机氮存在着显著负相关（P〈0.05）.另外本次调查还发现,大面积东海原甲藻赤潮暴发后,活性磷酸盐被大量消耗.综合目前有关东海原甲藻赤潮期间对活性磷酸盐的吸收动力学研究,发现今后应进一步加强这方面的调查研究.     

Harnessing the potential of integrated systematics for conservation of taxonomically complex,megadiverse plant groups

The value of natural history collections for conservation science research is increasingly recognized, despite their well-documented limitations in terms of taxonomic, geographic, and temporal coverage. Specimen-based analyses are particularly important for tropical plant groups for which field observations are scarce and potentially unreliable due to high levels of diversity-amplifying identification challenges. Specimen databases curated by specialists are rich sources of authoritatively identified, georeferenced occurrence data, and such data are urgently needed for large genera. We compared entries in a monographic database for the large Neotropical genus Myrcia in 2007 and 2017. We classified and quantified differences in specimen records over this decade and determined the potential impact of these changes on conservation assessments. We distinguished misidentifications from changes due to taxonomic remodeling and considered the effects of adding specimens and georeferences. We calculated the potential impact of each change on estimates of extent of occurrence (EOO), the most frequently used metric in extinction-risk assessments of tropical plants. We examined whether particular specimen changes were associated with species for which changes in EOO over the decade were large enough to change their conservation category. Corrections to specimens previously misidentified or lacking georeferences were overrepresented in such species, whereas changes associated with taxonomic remodeling (lumping and splitting) were underrepresented. Among species present in both years, transitions to less threatened status outnumbered those to more threatened (8% vs 3%, respectively). Species previously deemed data deficient transitioned to threatened status more often than to not threatened (10% vs 7%, respectively). Conservation scientists risk reaching unreliable conclusions if they use specimen databases that are not actively curated to reflect changing knowledge.     

Automated conservation assessment of the orchid family with deep learning

International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List assessments are essential for prioritizing conservation needs but are resource intensive and therefore available only for a fraction of global species richness. Automated conservation assessments based on digitally available geographic occurrence records can be a rapid alternative, but it is unclear how reliable these assessments are. We conducted automated conservation assessments for 13,910 species (47.3% of the known species in the family) of the diverse and globally distributed orchid family (Orchidaceae), for which most species (13,049) were previously unassessed by IUCN. We used a novel method based on a deep neural network (IUC-NN). We identified 4,342 orchid species (31.2% of the evaluated species) as possibly threatened with extinction (equivalent to IUCN categories critically endangered [CR], endangered [EN], or vulnerable [VU]) and Madagascar, East Africa, Southeast Asia, and several oceanic islands as priority areas for orchid conservation. Orchidaceae provided a model with which to test the sensitivity of automated assessment methods to problems with data availability, data quality, and geographic sampling bias. The IUC-NN identified possibly threatened species with an accuracy of 84.3%, with significantly lower geographic evaluation bias relative to the IUCN Red List and was robust even when data availability was low and there were geographic errors in the input data. Overall, our results demonstrate that automated assessments have an important role to play in identifying species at the greatest risk of extinction.     

An agent-based model of red colobus resources and disease dynamics implicates key resource sites as hot spots of disease transmission

The effect of anthropogenic landscape change on disease in wildlife populations represents a growing conservation and public health concern. Red colobus monkeys (Procolobus rufomitratus), an endangered primate species, are particularly susceptible to habitat alteration and have been the focus of a great deal of disease and ecological research as a result. To infer how landscape changes can affect host and parasite dynamics, a spatially explicit agent-based model is created to simulate movement and foraging of this primate, based on a resource landscape estimated from extensive plot-derived tree population data from Kibale National Park, Uganda. Changes to this resource landscape are used to simulate effects of anthropogenic forest change. With each change in the landscape, disease outcomes within the simulated red colobus population are monitored using a hypothetical microparasite with a directly transmitted life cycle. The model predicts an optimal distribution of resources which facilitates the spread of an infectious agent through the simulated population. The density of resource rich sites and the overall heterogeneity of the landscape are important factors contributing to this spread. The characteristics of this optimal distribution are similar to those of logged sections of forest adjacent to our study area.     

Evidence-based guidelines for automated conservation assessments of plant species

Assessing species’ extinction risk is vital to setting conservation priorities. However, assessment endeavors, such as those used to produce the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, have significant gaps in taxonomic coverage. Automated assessment (AA) methods are gaining popularity to fill these gaps. Choices made in developing, using, and reporting results of AA methods could hinder their successful adoption or lead to poor allocation of conservation resources. We explored how choice of data cleaning type and level, taxonomic group, training sample, and automation method affect performance of threat status predictions for plant species. We used occurrences from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) to generate assessments for species in 3 taxonomic groups based on 6 different occurrence-based AA methods. We measured each method's performance and coverage following increasingly stringent occurrence cleaning. Automatically cleaned data from GBIF performed comparably to occurrence records cleaned manually by experts. However, all types of data cleaning limited the coverage of AAs. Overall, machine-learning-based methods performed well across taxa, even with minimal data cleaning. Results suggest a machine-learning-based method applied to minimally cleaned data offers the best compromise between performance and species coverage. However, optimal data cleaning, training sample, and automation methods depend on the study group, intended applications, and expertise.     

环境监测站资源优化配置的设想

分析了现行计划体制下环境监测站资源配置的弊端,提出通过人事管理制度、分配制度、经营机制等方面的创新,采取以市场机制为基础的竞争性的资源配置方式,发挥市场经济优化配置资源的基础职能,最终达到资源的优化配置。     

活性污泥中需氧量的研究现状及供氧系统的节能技术

叙述了国内外活性污泥法中需氧量的研究过程及微孔曝气系统的节能技术，对微孔曝气器与穿孔曝管进行对比，证实前者较后者节电４４％．     

Red light: A novel,non-pharmacological intervention to promote alertness in shift workers

Introduction: Night work requires inversion of the natural, diurnal human activity-rest cycle and is associated with decreased alertness and some measures of performance, reduced safety, adverse health effects, and chronic disruption of the melatonin cycle that has been associated with increased risk for several major diseases. Previous studies show that red light exposures at night can promote alertness and improve performance while not negatively affecting melatonin secretion. Method: This ongoing crossover, mixed (within- and between-subjects) design field study is testing the efficacy and acceptance of red light delivered to day-shift and night-shift workers using personal light glasses while they are at work. Each participant experienced three lighting interventions at the eyes: red light (50 lx, 630 nm, the treatment intervention), blue light (50 lx, 460 nm, the positive control intervention), and dim white light (10 lx, 3,000 K, the placebo control). During the interventions, participants underwent visual performance testing, submitted salivary melatonin and cortisol samples, and provided subjective reports of sleepiness, sleep disturbance, and general health over the 20-week protocol. Due to the ongoing nature of the study, only the performance and subjective reports are presented here. Results: Preliminary results indicate that response times were improved by the red and blue interventions, but not accuracy and hit rates. Blue light was associated with improvements to self-reported sleep disturbances compared to dim light. Conclusions: These field results partially support our laboratory results that showed a positive effect of red light for promoting alertness and certain performance outcomes during the day and at night. Practical Applications: Red light may be used to improve response times in shift workers. Continued research will elucidate the lighting interventions’ effects on melatonin and objective sleep measures (actigraphy).     

Citrobacter sp.CK3对活性红KN-3B的脱色反应动力学研究

采用脱色菌Citrobacter sp. CK3,以活性红KN-3B染料为处理对象,在厌氧批式反应条件下,系统考察了pH值,温度和染料浓度对脱色反应速度的影响;通过动力学模拟及反应过程中染料的UV-Vis扫描图分析,探讨了脱色反应机理。结果表明:Citrobacter sp. CK3对活性红KN-3B的脱色反应的适宜pH为7～9;脱色反应速度在温度为32℃时达到最大。染料初浓度从57 mg/L逐渐增大到458 mg/L时脱色率逐渐降低。脱色过程中染料的偶氮键发生断裂,脱色反应符合二级反应动力学。