Wetlands

To avoid submergence during sea-level rise, coastal wetlands build soil surfaces vertically through accumulation of inorganic sediment and organic matter. At climatic boundaries where mangroves are expanding and replacing salt marsh, wetland capacity to respond to sea-level rise may change. To compare how well mangroves and salt marshes accommodate sea-level rise, we conducted a manipulative field experiment in a subtropical plant community in the subsiding Mississippi River Delta. Experimental plots were established in spatially equivalent positions along creek banks in monospecific stands of Spartina alterniflora (smooth cordgrass) or Avicennia germinans (black mangrove) and in mixed stands containing both species...

Potential toxic effects of thiamethoxam (TMX) on non-target organisms and community structure of a generic Midwestern farm pond and emergent wetland were assessed using two versions of the Comprehensive Aquatic System Model, the CASMGFP - a generic farm pond model, and the CASMGWL - a generic wetland model. The CASMGFP and CASMGWL are integrated bioenergetics-based and habitat quality models that describe the daily biomass values of selected producer and consumer populations representative of generalized Midwestern farm ponds and emergent wetlands...

The formation of toluene by microbiological processes can confound environmental investigations relating to petroleum releases. This is because toluene is a constituent of petroleum and can move readily within wetland environments, and analysis for toluene in relation to a petroleum release can lead to incorrect assignment of detected biogenic toluene as related to the release. No legally defensible method of distinguishing biogenic and petrogenic origins of detectible concentrations of toluene have been demonstrated to date...

Phragmitesaustralis (P. australis), a worldwide distributed wetland grass, is traditionally used as food-making helper and spice in China. The pharmacological effect of this plant is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrated that lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced production of inflammatory mediators nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species (ROS), and the pro-inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) in RAW264.7 macrophage were significantly inhibited by the crude extract...

Suitability of surface water of Kanjli wetland, Punjab (India) during the period of 2013-2015 was assessed for drinking, irrigation and aquatic life using a water quality index (WQI), heavy metal pollution index (HPI) and aquatic toxicity index (ATI). WQI was calculated using 14 physico-chemical parameters while HPI determination used nine heavy metals like As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb and Zn. WQI revealed that Kanjli wetland contained medium quality water (irrigation and aquatic life). Cr, Cd and Co exceeded desirable limits of World Health Organization (WHO, Guidelines for drinking-water quality, World Health Organization, Geneva, 2011) and Indian drinking water standard (2012) during all the three seasons (monsoon, post monsoon and winter)...

The sika deer (Cervus nippon yesoensis) population in the Ramsar-listed Kushiro Wetland has increased in recent years, and the Ministry of the Environment of Japan has decided to take measures to reduce the impact of deer on the ecosystem. However, seasonal movement patterns of the deer (i.e., when and where the deer inhabit the wetland) remain unclear. We examined the seasonal movement patterns of sika deer in the Kushiro Wetland from 2013 to 2015 by analyzing GPS location data for 28 hinds captured at three sites in the wetland...

Opportunistic citizen science databases are becoming an important way of gathering information on species distributions. These data are temporally and spatially dispersed and could have limitations regarding biases in the distribution of the observations in space and/or time. In this work, we test the influence of landscape variables in the distribution of citizen science observations for eight taxonomic groups. We use data collected through a Portuguese citizen science database (biodiversity4all.org). We use a zero-inflated negative binomial regression to model the distribution of observations as a function of a set of variables representing the landscape features plausibly influencing the spatial distribution of the records...

Campylobacter is a pathogen frequently detected in urban stormwater worldwide. It is one of the leading causes of enteric disease in many developed countries and is the leading cause of enteric disease in Australia. Prior to harvesting stormwater, adequate treatment is necessary to mitigate risks derived from such harmful pathogens. The goal of this research was to estimate the health risks associated with the exposure to Campylobacter when harvesting urban stormwater for toilet flushing and irrigation activities, and the role treatment options play in limiting risks...

During the last decade, West Nile virus (WNV) outbreaks have increased sharply in both horses and human in Europe. The aims of this study were to evaluate characteristics and spatio-temporal distribution of WNV outbreaks in horses in Spain between 2010 and 2016 in order to identify the environmental variables most associated with WNV occurrence and to generate high-resolution WNV suitability maps to inform risk-based surveillance strategies in this country. Between August 2010 and November 2016, a total of 403 WNV suspected cases were investigated, of which, 177 (43...

The aims of this study were to measure the concentrations of nutrients and pollutants in peri-urban wetlands, to analyze the plant morphology of the most representative macrophyte species, and to determine their potential use as biomonitors. Four wetlands in the Middle Paraná River floodplain evidencing contamination or anthropogenic impact were studied. The studied species were Typha domingensis Pers., Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms., Alternanthera philoxeroides (Mart.) Griseb., and Pistia stratiotes L...

The Muli coal mine is the largest open-cast coal mine in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and it consists of two independent mining sites named Juhugeng and Jiangcang. It has received much attention due to the ecological problems caused by rapid expansion in recent years. The objective of this paper was to monitor the mining area and its surrounding land cover over the period 1976-2016 utilizing Landsat images, and the network structure of land cover changes was determined to visualize the relationships and pattern of the mining-induced land cover changes...

Multi-stage constructed wetlands (CWs) have been proved to be a cost-effective alternative in the treatment of various wastewaters for improving the treatment performance as compared with the conventional single-stage CWs. However, few long-term full-scale multi-stage CWs have been performed and evaluated for polishing effluents from domestic wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). This study investigated the seasonal and spatial dynamics of carbon and the effects of the key factors (input loading and temperature) in the large-scale seven-stage Wu River CW polishing domestic WWTP effluents in northern China...

Chinese tallowtree, Triadica sebifera (L.) Small (Euphoriaceae), is one of the most aggressive weeds of coastal wetlands and forests of the southeastern United States. The lack of specialist herbivores in the invaded range may be one of the factors that contribute to the invasive nature of this weed. Chinese tallowtree has been the target of a classical biological control project since 2006. Several herbivore species are being tested for biological control of Chinese tallowtree. Concurrently, an adventive herbivore, Caloptilia triadicae Davis (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae), was found feeding on Chinese tallowtree in the southeastern United States in 2004 and now occurs throughout the invaded range...

A relationship between soil organic carbon and soil color is acknowledged-albeit not a direct one. Since heightened carbon contents can be an indicator of wetlands, a quantifiable relationship between color and carbon might assist in determining wetland boundaries by rapid, field-based appraisal. The overarching aim of this initial study was to determine the potential of top soil color to indicate soil organic carbon, and by extension wetland boundaries, on a sandy coastal plain in South Africa. Data were collected from four wetland types in northern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa...

The mid-Holocene has had profound demographic impacts on wildlife on the African continent, though there is little known about the impacts on species from Central Africa. Understanding the impacts of climate change on co-distributed species can enhance our understanding of ecosystem dynamics and for formulating restoration objectives. We took a multi-genome comparative approach to examine the phylogeographic structure of two poorly known Central African crocodile species - Mecistops sp. aff. cataphractus and Osteolaemus tetraspis...

BACKGROUND: Orange mud crab Scylla olivacea is one of the most important fisheries resources. A new development in ageing technique of crustaceans has been introduced. The detection of growth band deposited in hard structure of gastric mill in the cardiac stomach are found retained after moulting process can be used as age indicator and growth estimation. OBJECTIVE: This study was carried out to determine the comparison between carapace width and growth band count of S...

Clonal plants producing both clumping and spreading ramets can adjust their growth forms in response to resource heterogeneity or environmental stress. They might produce clumping ramets to retain favorable patches, or produce spreading ramets to escape from stress-affected patches. This study aimed to investigate the rarely reported concurrent effects of sediment accretion and nutrient enrichment, which often occur simultaneously in lacustrine wetlands, on the vegetative propagation and clonal growth forms of Carex brevicuspis C...

BACKGROUND: Iron based ferromagnetic nanoparticles (IONP) have found a wide range of application in microelectronics, chemotherapeutic cell targeting, and as contrast enhancers in MRI. As such, the design of well-defined monodisperse IONPs is crucial to ensure effectiveness in these applications. Although these nanostructures are currently manufactured using chemical and physical processes, these methods are not environmentally conducive and weigh heavily on energy and outlays. Certain microorganisms have the innate ability to reduce metallic ions in aqueous solution and generate nano-sized IONP's with narrow size distribution...

Aquatic ecosystems are vulnerable to biological invasions, and will also be strongly impacted by climate change, including temperature increase. Understanding the colonization dynamics of aquatic invasive plant species is of high importance for preservation of native biodiversity. Many aquatic invasive plants rely on clonal reproduction to spread, but mixed reproductive modes are common. Under future climate changes, these species may favor a sexual reproductive mode. The aim of this study was to test the germination capacity and the seedling growth of two water primrose species, Ludwigia hexapetala and Ludwigia peploides, both invasive in Europe and in the United States...

Environmental sex determination (ESD) - a change in sexual function during an individual life span driven by environmental cues - is an exceedingly rare sexual system among angiosperms. Because ESD can directly affect reproduction success, it could influence diversification rate as compared with lineages that have alternative reproductive systems. Here we test this hypothesis using a solid phylogenetic framework of Neotropical Catasetinae, the angiosperm lineage richest in taxa with ESD. We assess whether gains of ESD are associated with higher diversification rates compared to lineages with alternative systems while considering additional traits known to positively affect diversification rates in orchids...