A Comparison of Campfire Impacts and Policies in Seven Protected Areas

Using resource-monitoring data from seven protected areas, the effectiveness of three campfire policies—campfire ban, designated campfires, and unregulated campfires—were assessed based on the number of fire sites and the amount of tree damage. Results indicate that unregulated campfire policies permitted substantial numbers of fire sites and tree damage in campsites, although fire bans did not eliminate or even substantially decrease these problems. A designated campfire policy was effective in decreasing number of fire sites, but little difference was found among policies regarding tree damage. Given the importance of campfires to visitor experiences, campfire prohibitions could be viewed as unnecessarily restrictive based on their limited success in preventing resource damage. Conclusions encourage protected-area managers to consider designated campfire policies and prohibitions on axes, hatchets, and saws to better meet resource protection and visitor experience mandates.     

When experts disagree: the need to rethink indicator selection for assessing sustainability of agriculture

Sustainability indicators are well recognized for their potential to assess and monitor sustainable development of agricultural systems. A large number of indicators are proposed in various sustainability assessment frameworks, which raises concerns regarding the validity of approaches, usefulness and trust in such frameworks. Selecting indicators requires transparent and well-defined procedures to ensure the relevance and validity of sustainability assessments. The objective of this study, therefore, was to determine whether experts agree on which criteria are most important in the selection of indicators and indicator sets for robust sustainability assessments. Two groups of experts (Temperate Agriculture Research Network and New Zealand Sustainability Dashboard) were asked to rank the relative importance of eleven criteria for selecting individual indicators and of nine criteria for balancing a collective set of indicators. Both ranking surveys reveal a startling lack of consensus amongst experts about how best to measure agricultural sustainability and call for a radical rethink about how complementary approaches to sustainability assessments are used alongside each other to ensure a plurality of views and maximum collaboration and trust amongst stakeholders. To improve the transparency, relevance and robustness of sustainable assessments, the context of the sustainability assessment, including prioritizations of selection criteria for indicator selection, must be accounted for. A collaborative design process will enhance the acceptance of diverse values and prioritizations embedded in sustainability assessments. The process by which indicators and sustainability frameworks are established may be a much more important determinant of their success than the final shape of the assessment tools. Such an emphasis on process would make assessments more transparent, transformative and enduring.     

Influence of Chronic Man-made Pollution on Bromus inermis Genome Size

Russian Journal of Ecology - Technogenic pollution can accelerate microevolutionary processes in natural populations. We estimated the nuclear DNA content of 10 Bromus inermis Leyss. samples from...     

Nutritional benefits of filial cannibalism in three-spined sticklebacks (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Gasterosteus aculeatus</Emphasis>)

Although filial cannibalism (eating one’s own offspring) occurs in numerous species, including several teleost fishes, its adaptive value is still not well understood. One often-discussed explanation is that individuals enhance their mass and body condition by consuming part of their eggs. However, evidence for this assumption is scarce thus far. In this study, male three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus), a species with paternal care, were allowed to care for a batch of eggs or for an empty nest under food-deprived conditions. All brood-caring males cannibalised at least part of their eggs and thus preserved their initial mass and body condition. Furthermore, mass as well as body condition was significant positively correlated with the number of cannibalised eggs. In contrast, empty-nest males that had no possibility to cannibalise eggs significantly lost mass and body condition. This is, to our knowledge, the first experimentally documented evidence that mass as well as body condition were preserved by filial cannibalism.     

METRO集团对可持续发展负责:良好的实践范例

METRO集团,世界领军零售公司之一,已经在26个国家落户.集团的贸易战略目标设定在向一个可持续性的、赢利的公司发展.在它的第一份可持续性报告(发表于2002年春季)里,集团的许多可持续性发展的相关活动非常醒目.智能物流系统和广泛的废物管理行动扎根于集团的环境实力之中.强调食品安全的世界采购方针和措施,是满足消费者要求产品符合社会和环境标准的两种手段.只要消费者能获得全面的信息,只要员工的积极性被调动起来并经过适当的培训,那么METRO集团在其可持续性报告中所列出的所有的可持续性目标最终就一定能实现.     

Biotic systems to mitigate landfill methane emissions.

Landfill gases produced during biological degradation of buried organic wastes include methane, which when released to the atmosphere, can contribute to global climate change. Increasing use of gas collection systems has reduced the risk of escaping methane emissions entering the atmosphere, but gas capture is not 100% efficient, and further, there are still many instances when gas collection systems are not used. Biotic methane mitigation systems exploit the propensity of some naturally occurring bacteria to oxidize methane. By providing optimum conditions for microbial habitation and efficiently routing landfill gases to where they are cultivated, a number of bio-based systems, such as interim or long-term biocovers, passively or actively vented biofilters, biowindows and daily-used biotarps, have been developed that can alone, or with gas collection, mitigate landfill methane emissions. This paper reviews the science that guides bio-based designs; summarizes experiences with the diverse natural or engineered substrates used in such systems; describes some of the studies and field trials being used to evaluate them; and discusses how they can be used for better landfill operation, capping, and aftercare.     

Development of Layered Sediment Structure and its Effects on Pore Water Transport and Hyporheic Exchange

Hyporheic exchange is known to provide an important control on nutrient and contaminant fluxes across the stream-subsurface interface. Similar processes also mediate interfacial transport in other permeable sediments. Recent research has focused on understanding the mechanics of these exchange processes and improving estimation of exchange rates in natural systems. While the structure of sediment beds obviously influences pore water flow rates and patterns, little is known about the interplay of typical sedimentary structures, hyporheic exchange, and other transport processes in fluvial/alluvial sediments. Here we discuss several processes that contribute to local-scale sediment heterogeneity and present results that illustrate the interaction of overlying flow conditions, the development of sediment structure, pore water transport, and stream-subsurface exchange. Layered structures are shown to develop at several scales within sediment beds. Surface sampling is used to analyze the development of an armor layer in a sand-and-gravel bed, while innovative synchrotron-based X-ray microtomography is used to observe patterns of grain sorting within sand bedforms. We show that layered bed structures involving coarsening of the bed surface increase interfacial solute flux but produce an effective anisotropy that favors horizontal pore water transport while limiting vertical penetration.     

Comparison between lab- and full-scale applications of in situ aeration of an old landfill and assessment of long-term emission development after completion

Sustainable landfilling has become a fundamental objective in many modern waste management concepts. In this context, the in situ aeration of landfills has been recognised for its potential to convert conventional anaerobic landfills into biological stabilised state, whereby both current and potential (long-term) emissions of the landfilled waste are mitigated. In recent years, different in situ aeration concepts have been successfully applied in Europe, North America and Asia, all pursuing different objectives and strategies.In Austria, the first full-scale application of in situ landfill aeration by means of low pressure air injection and simultaneous off-gas collection and treatment was implemented on an old, small municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill (2.6 ha) in autumn 2007. Complementary laboratory investigations were conducted with waste samples taken from the landfill site in order to provide more information on the transferability of the results from lab- to full-scale aeration measures. In addition, long-term emission development of the stabilised waste after aeration completion was assessed in an ongoing laboratory experiment. Although the initial waste material was described as mostly stable in terms of the biological parameters gas generation potential over 21 days (GP₂₁) and respiration activity over 4 days (RA₄), the lab-scale experiments indicated that aeration, which led to a significant improvement of leachate quality, was accompanied by further measurable changes in the solid waste material under optimised conditions. Even 75 weeks after aeration completion the leachate, as well as gaseous emissions from the stabilised waste material, remained low and stayed below the authorised Austrian discharge limits. However, the application of in situ aeration at the investigated landfill is a factor 10 behind the lab-based predictions after 3 years of operation, mainly due to technical limitations in the full-scale operation (e.g. high air flow resistivity due to high water content of waste and temporarily high water levels within the landfill; limited efficiency of the aeration wells). In addition, material preparation (e.g. sieving, sorting and homogenisation) prior to the emplacement in Landfill Simulation Reactors (LSRs) must be considered when transferring results from lab- to full-scale application.     

Prenatal diagnosis of congenital nephrosis by in utero kidney biopsy

The diagnosis of congenital nephrosis is difficult during the antepartum period. The combination of an elevated amniotic fluid alpha-fetoprotein, a negative acetylcholinesterase, and a negative ultrasound examination is highly indicative of congenital nephrosis; however, these findings can also be associated with a normal gestation. This is the first report of pathologic confirmation of congenital nephrosis from an in utero fetal kidney biopsy. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does the risk of encountering lions influence African herbivore behaviour at waterholes?

A central question in the study of predator–prey relationships is to what extent prey behaviour is determined by avoidance of predators. Here, we test whether the long-term risk of encountering lions and the presence of lions in the vicinity influence the behaviour of large African herbivores at waterholes through avoidance of high-risk areas, increases in group size, changes in temporal niche or changes in the time spent in waterhole areas. In Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, we monitored waterholes to study the behaviour of nine herbivore species under different risks of encountering lions. We radio-collared 26 lions in the study area which provided the opportunity to monitor whether lions were present during observation sessions and to map longer-term seasonal landscapes of risk of encountering lions. Our results show that the preferred prey species for lions (buffalo, kudu and giraffe) avoided risky waterholes. Group size increased as encounter risk increased for only two species (wildebeest and zebra), but this effect was not strong. Interestingly, buffalo avoided the hours of the day which are dangerous when the long-term and short-term risks of encountering lions were high, and all species showed avoidance of waterhole use at night times when lions were in the vicinity. This illustrates well how prey can make temporal adjustments to avoid dangerous periods coinciding with predator hunting. Additionally, many herbivores spent more time accessing water to drink when the long- and short-term risks of encountering lions were high, and they showed longer potential drinking time when the long-term risk of encountering lions was high, suggesting higher levels of vigilance. This study illustrates the diversity of behavioural adjustments to the risk of encountering a predator and how prey respond differently to temporal variations in this risk.