Bringing together raptor collections in Europe for contaminant research and monitoring in relation to chemicals regulations

Raptors are good sentinels of environmental contamination and there is good capability for raptor biomonitoring in Europe. Raptor biomonitoring can benefit from natural history museums (NHMs), environmental specimen banks (ESBs) and other collections (e.g. specialist raptor specimen collections). Europe’s NHMs, ESBs and other collections hold large numbers of raptor specimens and samples, covering long periods of time. These collections are potentially a valuable resource for contaminant studies over time and space. There are strong needs to monitor contaminants in the environment to support EU and national chemical management. However, data on raptor specimens in NHMs, ESBs and other collections are dispersed, few are digitised, and they are thus not easy to access. Specimen coverage is patchy in terms of species, space and time. Contaminant research with raptors would be facilitated by creating a framework to link relevant collections, digitising all collections, developing a searchable meta-database covering all existing collections, making them more visible and accessible for contaminant research. This would also help identify gaps in coverage and stimulate specimen collection to fill gaps in support of prioritised contaminant monitoring. Collections can further support raptor biomonitoring by making samples available for analysis on request.     

The need for a systems theory approach to road safety

In other hazardous complex socio-technical systems in society, e.g. nuclear power and aviation, systems-theoretical assumptions are considered a promising way to better understand and manage safety. In this paper, two fundamental approaches to road safety were assessed in the light of a systems theory approach. One approach, is based on a premise where individual road-users are solely responsible when crashes occur. In that case countermeasures are aimed at altering the behavior of the road-user in order to adapt him/her to the road transport system. The other approach, the so-called zero-tolerance position, or Vision Zero approach, to road safety is built around two axioms; the system must be adapted to the psychological and physical conditions and limitations of the human being and the responsibility for road safety must be shared between the road-users and the designers and professional operators of the system. It was found that the most important determinants of systems theory are basically not present in the road-user approach. However, even if the Vision Zero approach clearly takes step towards systems theory, it does leave room for articulating even more features of systems theory.     

Three-dimensional patterns of moisture, water repellency, bromide and pH in a sandy soil

Soil water repellency might lead to preferential flow of water and solutes through the unsaturated zone of soils. To study this process in a water repellent sandy field soil, a bromide tracer had been applied on a 2.2 m long and 0.4 m wide plot. The bromide application rate was 8 g/m², and the plot was sampled using 100 cm³ steel cylinders after 52 mm of rainfall in 12 days. A total of seven layers were sampled to a depth of 74 cm. Each layer was sampled at 240 locations in a 40 by 6 grid. All samples were used for the determination of soil water content, degree of actual and potential water repellency, bromide concentration and pH. The spatial distribution of these properties was visualized three-dimensionally and compared. The degree of water repellency, bromide concentration, and pH distribution bore close resemblance to the fingered flow induced soil water content distribution. The degree of potential water repellency was relatively low in places with such fingers. Actual water repellency occurred between the fingers at the dry spots. Bromide was not found, or only in very low concentrations, in such places. Bromide depth profiles clearly indicated the occurrence of diverging flow in the wetter subsoil. Most likely, manuring activities during the last decades resulted in relatively high pH values in the topsoil, and in the subsoil along the recurring fingered flow pathways.     

Sex-specific energy requirements in nestlings of an extremely sexually size dimorphic bird, the European sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus)

Allocation of parental investment is predicted to be equal at the population level between both sexes of offspring, and should lead to sex ratio biases in species that exhibit a sex-difference in parental care. Sex-differences in parental care are rarely quantified. We measured daily energy expenditure in free-living nestlings of the extremely sexually size dimorphic European sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), using the doubly labelled water method. These data were combined with measured growth characteristics to estimate daily and total metabolised energy intake of male and female young during the nestling stage. Females reached an asymptotic body mass 1.6 times higher than males. This resulted in a total metabolised energy an estimated 1.4 times higher for the nestling stage. Furthermore, we observed a decline in daily metabolised energy with an increase in brood size, which was significantly stronger for females than for males. These results are discussed in the context of Fishers equal allocation theory. Empirical evidence of a sex ratio bias at the end of parental care, with an overall excess of males, is lacking in this species. Consequently, our data do not support the idea of equal allocation between the sexes. The observed sex difference in daily metabolised energy in response to brood size may give scope for sex ratio bias at the level of the individual brood.     

Examining the asymptote in safety progress: a literature review

Many industries are confronted by plateauing safety performance as measured by the absence of negative events – particularly lower-consequence incidents or injuries. At the same time, these industries are sometimes surprised by large fatal accidents that seem to have no connection with their understanding of the risks they faced; or with how they were measuring safety. This article reviews the safety literature to examine how both these surprises and the asymptote are linked to the very structures and practices organizations have in place to manage safety. The article finds that safety practices associated with compliance, control and quantification could be partly responsible. These can create a sense of invulnerability through safety performance close to zero; organizational resources can get deflected into unproductive or counterproductive initiatives; obsolete practices for keeping human performance within a pre-specified bandwidth are sustained; and accountability relationships can encourage suppression of the ‘bad news’ necessary to learn and improve.     

Overview of temporary ponds in the Mediterranean region: threats, management and conservation issues

Mediterranean temporary ponds (MTPs) comprise an endangered habitat with several endemic species that can be found in many countries, mainly in the Mediterranean region but are disappearing at a high rate. For designing optimal conservation and management strategies for the particular ecosystems, appropriate characterization and classification of these ponds is necessary based on the different type of habitats and on their varying environmental conditions. This paper presents the current ecological status and the threats of Mediterranean temporary ponds and summarizes some management and conservation issues based on the existing experience on a regional level. Emphasis is given in the Greek MTPs with respect to their characteristics and the pressures received mainly from human activities such as agriculture and water overexploitation. Restoration practices should be commenced immediately aiming at the reestablishment of the ponds' hydroperiod and water quality at the natural levels.     

A novel survey of raptor collections in Europe and their potential to provide samples for pan-European contaminant monitoring

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This paper provides a novel survey of current collections of frozen raptor carcasses and tissue samples in natural history museums (NHMs),...     

Are safety investigations pro-active?

This paper elaborates on the debate whether safety investigations are obsolete and should be replaced by more modern safety assessment approaches. Despite their past performance, in particular in aviation, accident investigations are criticized for their reactive nature and the lack of learning potential they provide. Although safety management systems are considered a modern method with a more prospective potential, they too are hard to judge by their quantitative performance. Instead of measuring both concepts along the lines of their output, this contribution explores the origin, context and notions behind both approaches. Both approaches prove to be adaptive to new developments and have the ability to shift their focus towards learning and cognition. In assessing their potential, accident investigations prove to cover a specific domain of application in the risk domain of low probability and major consequences, fulfilling a mission as public safety assessor. In order to make optimal use of their analytic and diagnostic potential, investigations should mobilize more complex and sophisticated scientific theories and notions, in particular of a non-linear nature. Consequently, they are neither reactive, nor proactive, but provide a specific approach to safety issues.