Regulation of Tilapia metallothionein gene expression by heavy metal ions

Tilapia is a common fish species inhabiting inland waters and estuarine regions in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, and useful for bio-monitoring of metal pollution. Metallothionein (MT) gene expression in fish tissues has been useful to sub-lethal risk assessment as biomarker of exposure to metal ions in fishes inhabiting metal contaminated area. To investigate metal inductions of Tilapia MT gene expression in vivo, Tilapias were injected with different concentrations of heavy metals and tissues were then removed for quantitative PCR assay using mimic PCR methods. All of the metal ions tested (Cu(2+), Cd(2+), Hg(2+), Ni(2+), Pb(2+) and Zn(2+)) were able to induce hepatic MT mRNA levels. Renal MT mRNA levels of Cd(2+) and Zn(2+) treated fish was not induced with significant fold induction, however MT mRNA levels in gills were sensitive to the administrations of these metal ions. These data indicated that Tilapia MT mRNA levels in gills and liver are sensitive biomarker of exposure to various metal ions.     

Ecosystem-based management institutional design: Balance between federal,state, and local governments within the Gulf of Mexico Alliance

We present a case study of the organizational framework of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA), which was implemented to promote the use of ecosystem-based management (EBM) at a regional level. GOMA is a state-led initiative formed to protect and restore coastal and marine resources of the Gulf of Mexico. Representatives of the US Gulf States, together with their federal partners, clearly defined ecological, social, and economic short- and long-term objectives to be reached through regional collaborations. The aim of this paper is to show how GOMA, and particularly the Ecosystem Integration and Assessment Priority Issue Team, in its attempt to apply ecosystem approaches to manage marine resources, modified the common organizational scheme by implementing partnerships at various governmental (federal, state, local) and nongovernmental levels. We address the following major points considered to be of importance for EBM implementation: (1) multilevel cooperation, (2) stakeholders’ involvement, (3) sharing of information, (4) bridging science and policy, and (5) consensus-based decision making.     

Subliquidus glass-glass immiscibility along the albite-diopside join

A calorimetric study has shown that glasses along the albite-diopside join in the system albiteanorthite-diopside have positive enthalpies of mixing. Thermodynamic calculations based on these data describe a nearly symmetric, metastable, subliquidus irascibility gap along the join with a critical temperature at 910 K. The existence of the miscibility gap was tested experimentally by annealing an Ab₅₀Di₅₀ glass at 748 K and 823 K. Annealed glasses were examined by optical microscopy and by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The glasses showed morphological and chemical features consistent with unmixing of two glass phases. The apparent mechanism of phase separation involves initial spinodal decomposition followed by coarsening to produce 0.1 μm–0.3 μm spherical glass phases.     

Geoecology of ecosystem recovery at an inactive coal mine site,New Zealand

Ecological restoration of the Wangaloa coal mine in southern New Zealand is hindered by a range of geoecological factors. The site has some substrate acidification (down to pH 1) and acid rock drainage with discharge waters initially down to pH 4, although this has since risen to ca. pH 6. Surface and ground waters develop elevated sulfate (up to 700 mg/kg) during oxidation of pyrite in coal and quartz in waste rock. Coal has elevated boron content (up to 450 mg/kg) and surface waters on coal-rich waste rock have up to 6 mg/L dissolved boron. Evaporation causes formation of salt encrustations dominated by gypsum with minor boron salts. Boron is bioavailable and may be at toxic levels (>200 mg/kg) in some plants. Quartz-rich waste rock is readily eroded, and develops a cm-scale low-nutrient quartz pebble armouring layer with low water retention properties. All waste rocks including loess siltstone have low nutrient contents, and low moisture retention properties, that are barely sufficient for plant establishment. Native plants introduced to the site during rehabilitation have grown on loess substrate (up to fivefold increase in height over 3 years), with poor or no growth on coal-rich and quartz-rich substrates. In contrast, natural colonisation of manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) has been most effective at revegetation on even the most hostile substrates. This natural revegetation has been facilitated by islands of manuka established accidentally during 60 years of mining history. Manuka from local genetic stock is most viable for this revegetation, and introduced manuka seedlings have had a 70% mortality rate. Natural plant colonisation is the key step in overall ecosystem recovery, and invertebrates rapidly colonise beneath new shrubs irrespective of the nature of the substrate from vegetation islands that have high invertebrate numbers and species richness.     

Future wave climate over the west-European shelf seas

In this paper, we investigate changes in the wave climate of the west-European shelf seas under global warming scenarios. In particular, climate change wind fields corresponding to the present (control) time-slice 1961–2000 and the future (scenario) time-slice 2061–2100 are used to drive a wave generation model to produce equivalent control and scenario wave climate. Yearly and seasonal statistics of the scenario wave climates are compared individually to the corresponding control wave climate to identify relative changes of statistical significance between present and future extreme and prevailing wave heights. Using global, regional and linked global–regional wind forcing over a set of nested computational domains, this paper further demonstrates the sensitivity of the results to the resolution and coverage of the forcing. It suggests that the use of combined forcing from linked global and regional climate models of typical resolution and coverage is a good option for the investigation of relative wave changes in the region of interest of this study. Coarse resolution global forcing alone leads to very similar results over regions that are highly exposed to the Atlantic Ocean. In contrast, fine resolution regional forcing alone is shown to be insufficient for exploring wave climate changes over the western European waters because of its limited coverage. Results obtained with the combined global–regional wind forcing showed some consistency between scenarios. In general, it was shown that mean and extreme wave heights will increase in the future only in winter and only in the southwest of UK and west of France, north of about 44–45° N. Otherwise, wave heights are projected to decrease, especially in summer. Nevertheless, this decrease is dominated by local wind waves whilst swell is found to increase. Only in spring do both swell and local wind waves decrease in average height.     

柴达木盆地那棱格勒河及其尾闾盐湖锂成矿物源：来自水化学和锶、硫同位素证据

柴达木盆地那棱格勒河尾闾盐湖(一里坪干盐滩、东台吉乃尔盐湖、西台吉乃尔盐湖和察尔汗盐湖别勒滩区段)赋存了我国目前最大的卤水锂矿床。那棱格勒河及其尾闾盐湖锂的物源仍存在一定争议,主要有围岩风化、古湖残留、含盐系地层淋滤、油田水、深部水等,目前缺乏有力的地球化学证据。本文系统采集了那棱格勒河流域及其尾闾盐湖不同水体样品16件,分析了其主、微量元素含量及锶、硫同位素组成。结合前人的研究成果,对区域水体中锂的来源进行了探讨,得出结论如下:那棱格勒河水锂含量(0.45～0.79 mg/L)比楚拉克阿拉干河支流(0.00～0.05 mg/L)高出一个数量级,其高锂含量主要受洪水河支流的补给;洪水河高锂含量与其上游热泉水的补给有关,该热泉水锂、锶含量高、⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr比值偏高,δ³⁴S值偏低,与青藏高原典型热泉水地球化学特征(锂含量0.4～34.8 mg/L,锶含量0.07～4.24 mg/L,⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr比值0.71224～0.71259,δ³⁴S值-10....     

Shaping the relation between the mass of supermassive black holes and the velocity dispersion of galactic bulges

I use the fact that the radiation emitted by the accretion disk of supermassive black hole can heat up the surrounding gas in the protogalaxy to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium during the galaxy formation. The correlation between the black hole mass M _BH and velocity dispersion σ thus naturally arises. The result generally agrees with empirical fittings from observational data, even with M _BH ≤10⁶ M _⊙. This model provides a clear picture on how the properties of the galactic supermassive black holes are connected with the kinetic properties of the galactic bulges.     

Radiating gravitational collapse with shear viscosity

A model is proposed of a collapsing radiating star consisting of an isotropic fluid with shear viscosity undergoing radial heat flow with outgoing radiation. The pressure of the star, at the beginning of the collapse, is isotropic but owing to the presence of the shear viscosity the pressure becomes more and more anisotropic. The behaviour of the density, pressure, mass, luminosity and the effective adiabatic index is analysed. Our work is compared to the case of a collapsing shearing fluid of a previous model, for a star with 6 M_⊙.