Introduced and cryptogenic species in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia

Port Phillip Bay (PPB) is a large (1,930 km²), temperate embayment in southern Victoria, Australia. Extensive bay-wide surveys of PPB have occurred since 1840. In 1995/1996 the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Centre for Research on Introduced Marine Pests (CRIMP) undertook an intensive evaluation of the region with the aims of developing a comprehensive species list of native and introduced biota and contrasting previous bay-wide assessments with a current field survey in order to detect new incursions and discern alterations to native communities. Two methods were used to meet these aims: a re-evaluation of regional museum collections and published research in PPB to identify and determine the timing of introductions; and field surveys for benthic (infauna, epifauna and encrusting) organisms between September 1995 to March 1996. One hundred and sixty introduced (99) and cryptogenic (61) species were identified representing over 13% of the recorded species of PPB. As expected, the majority of these are concentrated around the shipping ports of Geelong and Melbourne. Invasions within PPB appear to be increasing, possibly due to an increase in modern shipping traffic and an increase in aquaculture (historically associated with incidental introductions); however the records of extensive biological surveys suggest that this may, in part, be an artefact of sampling effort. In contrast to Northern Hemisphere studies, PPB (and Southern Hemisphere introductions in general) have significantly different suites of successfully invading taxa. PPB is presented as one of the most invaded marine ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere.Communicated by M.S. Johnson, Crawley     

Zinc processing in the USA : An analysis of a declining industry

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the recent behaviour of the US zinc processing industry and the impact of US government policies on it. The first section of the paper is a discussion on the basic structure and conditions of the US zinc processing industry since 1950 and how they have changed. The discussion contains a general presentation of the US zinc market, a detailed look at the behaviour of individual primary zinc processing plants in the USA, Canada, Japan and Western Europe and an analysis of US government policies and their impacts on the US zinc industry. The second section of the paper is a discussion of the factors that have contributed to the decline in US zinc processing capacity and the type of government policy that should be followed in response.     

Effects of calcium hydroxide and calcium chloride addition to bentonite in iron ore pelletization.

Pyrite ash is created as waste from the roasting of pyrite ores during the production of sulphuric acid. These processes generate great amounts of pyrite ash waste that is generally land filled. This creates serious environmental pollution due to the release of acids and toxic substances. Pyrite ash waste can be utilized in the iron production industry as a blast furnace feed to process this waste and prevent environmental pollution. The essential parameters affecting the pelletization process of pyrite ash were studied using bentonite as a binder. Experiments were then carried out using bentonite and a mixture of bentonite with calcium hydroxide and calcium chloride in order to make the bentonite more effective. The metallurgical properties of pyrite ash, bentonite, calcium hydroxide, calcium chloride, a mixture of these and sintered pellets were studied using X-ray analysis. The crushing strength tests were carried out to investigate the strength of pyrite ash waste pellets. The results of these analyses showed that pyrite ash can be agglomerated to pellets and used in the iron production industry as a blast furnace feed. The crushing strength of the pellets containing calcium hydroxide and calcium chloride in addition to bentonite was better than the strength of pellets prepared using only bentonite binder.     

Working backwards to move forwards: Graph-based connectivity metrics for reserve network selection

In this paper we apply graph theory in a reserve selection exercise to explore the tradeoffs between maintaining connectivity and minimizing the total area of a protected area network. Rather than focus on a single organism, we used a multi-species approach and looked at the tradeoff curves for organisms with varying dispersal abilities. We first generated the tradeoff curves using a graph-based metric to determine the importance of individual patches for maintaining connectivity. We then performed an analogous set of analyses using patch size as a surrogate measure of importance.     

A modular approach to Integrated Assessment modeling

In this paper, we present a new approach to model coupling that probably forms the methodological basis of a new generation of Integrated Assessment models. This approach respects the knowledge and expertise that is embodied in existing models and encourages their gradual evolution. Modularity is the guiding principle. Our approach is distinguished by the way modules are coupled which is based on an interplay of a job control module, a numerical coupling module, and a couple of stand-alone functional modules. The numerical coupling module - the core component - serves to treat the feedbacks between the functional modules. A first implemented example that couples an economic and a climate module by means of a two-phase meta-optimization is presented here. The algorithm and mathematical structure behind are discussed as well as important features such as convergence behavior and reliability.     

Optimizing the removal of small fish passage barriers

Removing small artificial barriers that hinder upstream migrations of fish is a major problem in riparian habitat restoration. Because of budgetary limitations, it is necessary to prioritize barrier removal and repair decisions. These have usually been based on scoring and ranking procedures, which, although simple to use, can be very inefficient in terms of increasing the amount of accessible instream habitat. We develop a novel decision-making approach, based on integer programming techniques, which optimizes repair and removal decisions. Results show based on real datasets of barrier culverts located in Washington State that scoring and ranking is over 25% below the optimum on average and a full 100% below in the worst case, producing no net habitat gain whatsoever. This is compared to a dynamic programming method that was able to find optimal solutions in less than a second, even for problems with up to several hundred variables, and a heuristic method, which found solutions with less than a 1% average optimality gap in even less time.     

Using Multiple Antibiotic Resistance and land use characteristics to determine sources of fecal coliform bacterial pollution

Multiple Antibiotic Resistance (MAR) analysis and regression modeling techniques were used to identify surface water areas impacted by fecal pollution from human sources, and to determine the effects of land use on fecal pollution in Murrells Inlet, a small, urbanized, high-salinity estuary located between Myrtle Beach and Georgetown, South Carolina. MAR analysis was performed to identify areas in the estuary that are impacted by human-source fecal pollution. Additionally, regression analysis was performed to determine if an association exists between land use and fecal coliform densities over the ten-year period from 1989 to 1998. Land-use variables were derived using Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques and were used in the regression analysis.MAR analyses were conducted by comparing the frequency and patterns of antibiotic resistance found in Escherichia coli isolates derived from surface water samples and from sewage sources in the Murrells Inlet sewage collection system. The MAR results suggest that the majority of the fecal pollution detected in the Murrells Inlet estuary may be from non-human sources, including fecal coliforms isolated from areas in close proximity to high densities of active septic tanks.A MAR Index, which measures the frequency of antibiotic resistance, was calculated for each of twenty-three water samples and nine sewage samples. The antibiotic resistance pattern comparisons were performed using cluster analysis. Although the MAR indices indicated that several surface water sites had potential human-source contamination, the cluster analysis suggests that only one sampling site had MAR patterns that were similar to those found in the sewage samples. This site was in close proximity to several large pleasure boats as well as a sewage collection system lift station, but was not near areas with active septic tanks. The results of the regression analysis also suggest that sewage sources and rainfall runoff from urbanized areas may contribute to fecal pollution in the estuary.