| 1. |
- Bishop, Kevin, et al.
(författare)
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Nature as the "Natural" Goal for Water Management : A Conversation
- 2009
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Ingår i: Ambio. - : Springer Netherlands. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; Volume 38:Issue 4
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The goals for water-quality and ecosystem integrity are often defined relative to "natural" reference conditions in many water-management systems, including the European Union Water Framework Directive. This paper examines the difficulties created for water management by using "natural" as the goal. These difficulties are articulated from different perspectives in an informal (fictional) conversation that takes place after a workshop on reference conditions in water-resources management. The difficulties include defining the natural state and modeling how a system might be progressed toward the natural, as well as the feasibility and desirability of restoring a natural state. The paper also considers the appropriateness for developing countries to adopt the use of natural as the goal for water management. We conclude that failure to critically examine the complexities of having "natural" as the goal will compromise the ability to manage the issues that arise in real basins by not making the ambiguities associated with this "natural" goal explicit. This is unfortunate both for the western world that has embraced this model of "natural as the goal" and for the developing world in so far as they are encouraged to adopt this model.
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| 2. |
- Blanck, Hans, 1950, et al.
(författare)
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A retrospective analysis of contamination and periphyton PICT patterns for the antifoulant irgarol 1051, around a small marina on the Swedish west coast
- 2009
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Ingår i: Marine Pollution Bulletin. - : Elsevier BV. - 0025-326X .- 1879-3363. ; 58:2, s. 230-237
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Irgarol is a triazine photosystem II (PSII) inhibitor that has been used in Sweden as an antifouling ingredient since the 1990´s. Early microcosm studies indicated that periphyton was sensitive to irgarol at concentrations regularly found in harbours and marinas. However, field studies of irgarol effects on the Swedish west coast in 1994, using the Pollution-Induced Community Tolerance (PICT) approach, failed to detect any effects of the toxicant in the field. A PICT study involves sampling of replicate communities in a gradient of contamination, and a comparison of their community tolerance levels, with an increase being an indication that sensitive species have been eliminated and replaced by more tolerant ones. Typically, short-term assays are used to quantify the community tolerance levels. Later PICT studies in the same area over a 10 year period demonstrate that irgarol tolerance levels have increased, although the contamination pattern has been stable. Our results support the hypothesis that that the PICT potential was low initially, due to a small differential sensitivity between the community members, and that a persistent selection pressure was required to favour and enrich irgarol tolerant species or genotypes.
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| 3. |
- Carlsson, Gunnar, et al.
(författare)
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Effluent from Bulk Drug Production is Toxic to Aquatic Vertebrates.
- 2009
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Ingår i: Environmental toxicology and chemistry. - : Wiley. - 0730-7268 .- 1552-8618. ; 28:12, s. 2656-2662
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Very high levels of a range of pharmaceuticals have recently been reported in the effluent from a wastewater treatment plant near Hyderabad, India. The plant serves approximately 90 manufacturers of bulk drugs that primarily are exported to the world market. Fluoroquinolone antibiotics were found at levels that are highly toxic to various microorganisms. Despite that mg/L levels of drugs targeting human proteins have also been found, it is difficult to conclude whether these levels are sufficiently high to adversely affect fish or amphibians due to the lack of relevant chronic toxicity data for most human pharmaceuticals. To assess potential effects on aquatic vertebrates, tadpoles of Xenopus tropicalis were exposed to three dilutions of effluent (0.2, 0.6 and 2%) over 14 days, starting at developmental stage 51. Additionally, newly fertilized zebrafish (Danio rerio) were exposed to diluted effluent in 96-well plates for up to 144 hours post-fertilization (hpf). The tadpoles' body lengths, weights and developmental stages were recorded, whereas a larger number of sub-lethal and lethal endpoints were studied in the zebrafish. A 40% reduced growth of the exposed tadpoles was demonstrated at the lowest tested effluent concentration (0.2%), indicating that there are potent constituents in the effluent that can adversely affect aquatic vertebrates. The LC50 for zebrafish at 144 hpf was between 3.1 and 7.9% in different experiments. Reduced spontaneous movements, pigmentation and heart rate were recorded within 48 hpf at 8 and 16% effluent concentrations. Treated effluent from a plant, which serves as an important link in the global supply chain for bulk drugs, is thus shown to cause adverse effects to aquatic vertebrates even at very high dilutions.
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| 4. |
- Fridman, Jonas, et al.
(författare)
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Education and advice contribute to increased density of broadleaved conservation trees, but not saplings, in young forest in Sweden
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of Environmental Management. - : Elsevier BV. - 0301-4797 .- 1095-8630. ; 90, s. 1081–1088-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The effectiveness of different conservation policies is debated, but the policies are rarely evaluated quantitatively. A voluntary or ‘soft’ policy based mainly on education provides information about ecosystems and effects of land use, to encourage conservation action. Swedish forestry relies mainly on soft policy, with substantial resources for education and advice to more than 200,000 forest owners, while legal regulation is weak. Increased retention of broadleaved trees at clear-cutting, with environmental benefits in the conifer-dominated forestry, is important in the policy. We used the Swedish National Forest Inventory to analyse this policy for young forests in southern Sweden. Between 1983–1987 and 1998–2002 the policy had no positive effect on saplings (1.3 m tall to 4.9 cm dbh) of birch, oak, beech and other species that mostly decreased in density, due to planting of conifers and browsing by ungulates. However, broadleaved conservation trees (??15 cm dbh) increased in density, e.g. to about one oak and six birches per ha in young coniferous forest in 1998–2002. The relative increase in density was higher for large (??20 cm dbh) than for small trees (15–20 cm dbh). The density of conservation trees was higher on forestland of high than of low productivity. Thus, the soft conservation policy did not influence regeneration of saplings in this type of forestry system, but large broadleaved trees were increasingly saved at ‘clear-cuttings’. Advice and educational programmes probably contributed to this result. A continued increase in conservation trees at harvest may require economical support to forest owners
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| 5. |
- Gelang, Magnus, et al.
(författare)
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Phylogeny of babblers (Aves, Passeriformes): major lineages, family limits and classification
- 2009
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Ingår i: Zoologica Scripta. - : Wiley. - 0300-3256 .- 1463-6409. ; 38:3, s. 225-236
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Babblers, family Timaliidae, have long been subject to debate on systematic position, family limits and internal taxonomy. In this study, we use five molecular regions to estimate the relationships among a large proportion of genera traditionally placed in Timaliidae. We find good support for five main clades within this radiation, and propose a new classification, dividing the babblers into the families Sylviidae and Timaliidae. Within the latter family, four subfamilies are recognized: Zosteropinae, Timaliinae, Pellorneinae and Leiothrichinae. Several taxa, previously not studied with molecular data, are phylogenetically placed within Sylviidae or Timaliidae. This is, however, not the case for the genus Pnoepyga, for which we propose the family name Pnoepygidae fam. n.
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| 6. |
- Hall, Marianne, 1976, et al.
(författare)
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Carbon dioxide exchange of buds and developing shoots of boreal Norway spruce exposed to elevated or ambient CO2 concentration and temperature in whole-tree chambers
- 2009
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Ingår i: Tree Physiology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0829-318X .- 1758-4469. ; 29:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Effects of ambient and elevated temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]) on CO2 assimilation rate and the structural and phenological development of shoots during their first growing season were studied in 45-year-old Norway spruce trees (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) enclosed in whole-tree chambers. Continuous measurements of net assimilation rate (NAR) in individual buds and shoots were made from early bud development to late August in two consecutive years. The largest effect of elevated temperature (TE) was manifest early in the season as an earlier start and completion of shoot length development, and a 1–3-week earlier shift from negative to positive NAR compared with the ambient temperature (TA) treatments. The largest effect of elevated [CO2] (CE) was found later in the season, with a 30% increase in maximum NAR compared with trees in the ambient [CO2] treatments (CA), and shoots assimilating their own mass in terms of carbon earlier in the CE treatments than in the CA treatments. Once the net carbon assimilation compensation point (NACP) had been reached, TE had little or no effect on the development of NAR performance, whereas CE had little effect before the NACP. No interactive effects of TE and CE on NAR were found. We conclude that in a climate predicted for northern Sweden in 2100, current-year shoots of P. abies will assimilate their own mass in terms of carbon 20–30 days earlier compared with the current climate, and thereby significantly contribute to canopy assimilation during their first year.
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| 7. |
- Johansson, Denny, 1980, et al.
(författare)
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Protein autoproteolysis: conformational strain linked to the rate of peptide cleavage by the pH dependence of the N --> O acyl shift reaction.
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of the American Chemical Society. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1520-5126 .- 0002-7863. ; 131:27, s. 9475-7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nucleophilic attack by a side chain nucleophile on the adjacent peptide bond followed by N --> O or N --> S acyl shift is the primary step in protein autoproteolysis. Precursor structures of autoproteolytic proteins reveal strained (or twisted) amides at the site of cleavage, and we previously showed that SEA domain autoproteolysis involves substrate destabilization by approximately 7 kcal/mol. However, the precise chemical mechanism by which conformational energy is converted into reaction rate acceleration has not been understood. Here we show that the pH dependence of autoproteolysis in a slow-cleaving mutant (1G) of the MUC1 SEA domain is consistent with a mechanism in which N --> O acyl shift proceeds after initial protonation of the amide nitrogen. Unstrained amides have pK(a) values of 0 with protonation on the oxygen, and autoproteolysis is therefore immeasurably slow at neutral pH. However, conformational strain forces the peptide nitrogen into a pyramidal conformation with a significantly increased pK(a) for protonation. We find that pK(a) values of approximately 4 and approximately 6, as in model compounds of twisted amides, reproduce the rate of autoproteolysis in the 1G and wild-type SEA domains, respectively. A mechanism involving strain, nitrogen protonation, and N --> O shift is also supported by quantum-chemical calculations. Such a reaction therefore constitutes an alternative to peptide cleavage that is utilized in autoproteolysis, as opposed to a classical mechanism involving a structurally conserved active site with a catalytic triad and an oxyanion hole, which are not present at the SEA domain cleavage site.
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| 8. |
- Karlsson, Per Erik, 1957, et al.
(författare)
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Evidence for Impacts of Near-ambient Ozone Concentrations on Vegetation in Southern Sweden
- 2009
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Ingår i: Ambio. - : Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. ; 38:8, s. 425-431
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Substantial impacts of near-ambient ozone concentrations on agricultural crops, trees, and seminatural vegetation are demonstrated for southern Sweden. Impacts of ambient ozone levels (2–15 μL L-¹ hr annual accumulated ozone exposure over a threshold of 40 nL L-¹ [AOT40]) range from a 2%–10% reduction for trees (e.g., leaf chlorophyll, tree growth) up to a 15% reduction for crops (e.g., yield, wheat/potato). Visible leaf injury on bioindicator plants caused by ambient ozone levels has been clearly demonstrated. The humid climatic conditions in Sweden promote high rates of leaf ozone uptake at a certain ozone concentration. This likely explains the comparatively large ozone impacts found for vegetation in southern Sweden at relatively low ozone concentrations in the air. It is important that the future methods used for the representation of ozone impacts on vegetation across Europe are based on the leaf ozone uptake concept and not on concentration-based exposure indices, such as AOT40.
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| 9. |
- Leonardsson, Kjell, et al.
(författare)
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Theoretical and practical aspects on benthic quality assessment according to the EU-Water Framework Directive - examples from Swedish waters
- 2009
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Ingår i: Marine Pollution Bulletin. - : Elsevier BV. - 0025-326X .- 1879-3363. ; 58, s. 1286-1296
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A previously presented objective method to calculate each species sensitivity to disturbance is here slightly modified and implemented in the Benthic Quality Index (BQI) for marine benthic invertebrates. A framework for assessment of water bodies based on multi-site BQI-values is also presented, where a certain variation of BQI-values is allowed to cover the heterogeneity within each water body. The 20th percentile, using bootstrapping, from the available sites' BQI-values is compared with the status boundaries for quality assessment. The reliability of the assessment depends on the background information available for the boundary setting as well as the number of sampling sites included in the assessment. Agreement between time series of quality assessments in areas with known changes in anthropogenic disturbances is encouraging. Problems associated with water body assessment based on few or no samples, as well as multiple sampling occasions during the 6-yr WFD cycle are discussed. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 10. |
- Lindborg, Regina, et al.
(författare)
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Investigating biodiversity trajectories using scenarios – Lessons from two contrasting agricultural landscapes
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of Environmental Management. - : Elsevier BV. - 0301-4797 .- 1095-8630. ; 91:2, s. 499-508
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Agriculture is the major land use at a global scale. In addition to food production, multifunctionality of landscapes, including values and ecosystem services like biodiversity, recreation and culture, is now focus for management. This study explores how a scenario approach, involving different stakeholders, may help to improve landscape management for biodiversity conservation. Local farmers and executives at the County Administrative Board were invited to discuss rural development and conditions for farmland biodiversity in two Swedish landscapes. The potential biodiversity for three future land use scenarios for the two landscapes was discussed: nature conservation, outdoor recreation and energy production, and compared with current and historical landscapes in each region. Analyses of habitat areas, connectedness and landscape diversity suggested that the energy and recreation scenarios had a negative impact on farmland biodiversity, whereas the nature conservation scenario, the current and historically reconstructed landscapes had a higher potential for biodiversity. The farmers appreciated the nature conservation scenario, but also the energy production scenario and they highlighted the need of increased subsidies for management of biodiversity. The farmers in the high production area were less interested in nature quality per se. The executives had similar opinions as the farmers, but disagreed on the advantages with energy production, as this would be in conflict with the high biodiversity and recreational values. The local physical and socio-economical conditions differ between landscapes and potentially shaped the stakeholders emotional attachment to the local environment, their opinions and decisions on how to manage the land. We stress the importance of incorporating local knowledge, visions and regional prerequisites for different land uses in conservation, since site and landscape specific planning for biodiversity together with a flexible subsidy system are necessary to reach the conservation goals within EU.
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