Antioxidant responses to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and organochlorine pesticides in green-lipped mussels (Perna viridis): Do mussels “integrate” biomarker responses?

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCs) are generally present in the marine environment in complex mixtures. The ecotoxicological nature of contaminant interactions, however, is poorly understood, with most scientific observations derived from single contaminant exposure experiments. The objective of this experiment was to examine dose-response relationships between antioxidant parameters and body contaminant levels in mussels exposed to different exposure regimes under laboratory conditions. Accordingly, the green-lipped mussel, Perna viridis, was challenged with a mixture of PAHs (anthracene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benzo[a]pyrene) and OC pesticides (α-HCH, aldrin, dieldrin, p,p′-DDT) over a 4 week period. Contaminants were delivered under four different dosing regimes, with all treatments receiving the same total contaminant load by the end of the exposure period. Antioxidant biomarkers were measured after 1, 2, 3 and 4 weeks, including glutathione (GSH), gluathione-S-transferase (GST), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione reductase (GR) and lipid peroxidase (LPO). GST and CAT were induced in hepatic tissues in most of the exposure regimes, with the majority of significant induction occurring in a constant exposure regime and a two-step alternate exposure regime. Significant differences among exposure regimes were detected in the body burden of contaminants after 28 days. Hepatic CAT and GSH are proposed as potentially useful biomarkers as they showed good correlation with target contaminants and were not readily affected by different dosing patterns.     

3-Dimensional Necklace Flower Constellations

A new approach in satellite constellation design is presented in this paper, taking as a base the 3D Lattice Flower Constellation Theory and introducing the necklace problem in its formulation. This creates a further generalization of the Flower Constellation Theory, increasing the possibilities of constellation distribution while maintaining the characteristic symmetries of the original theory in the design.     

Targeting European R&D for accidental marine pollution

Accidental marine pollution can have major ecological and economic consequences at national and trans-national levels, and there is a need to achieve a better integration of science into actual decision-making systems to support prevention measures, response systems and management activities.. Effective linking mechanisms between R&D and end-users/policy stakeholders are required to ensure the relevance of R&D, effective uptake of R&D outputs, and suitable policy development. Different issues and barriers to effectively link accidental marine pollution R&D effort to end-users concerns and needs and to develop a trans-national strategic approach are identified, analysed, and further developed into recommendations.     

Monitoring forest areas from continental to territorial levels using a sample of medium spatial resolution satellite imagery

A global systematic sampling scheme has been developed by the UN FAO and the EC TREES project to estimate rates of deforestation at global or continental levels at intervals of 5 to 10 years. This global scheme can be intensified to produce results at the national level. In this paper, using surrogate observations, we compare the deforestation estimates derived from these two levels of sampling intensities (one, the global, for the Brazilian Amazon the other, national, for French Guiana) to estimates derived from the official inventories. We also report the precisions that are achieved due to sampling errors and, in the case of French Guiana, compare such precision with the official inventory precision.We extract nine sample data sets from the official wall-to-wall deforestation map derived from satellite interpretations produced for the Brazilian Amazon for the year 2002 to 2003. This global sampling scheme estimate gives 2.81 million ha of deforestation (mean from nine simulated replicates) with a standard error of 0.10 million ha. This compares with the full population estimate from the wall-to-wall interpretations of 2.73 million ha deforested, which is within one standard error of our sampling test estimate. The relative difference between the mean estimate from sampling approach and the full population estimate is 3.1%, and the standard error represents 4.0% of the full population estimate.This global sampling is then intensified to a territorial level with a case study over French Guiana to estimate deforestation between the years 1990 and 2006. For the historical reference period, 1990, Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper data were used. A coverage of SPOT-HRV imagery at 20 m × 20 m resolution acquired at the Cayenne receiving station in French Guiana was used for year 2006.Our estimates from the intensified global sampling scheme over French Guiana are compared with those produced by the national authority to report on deforestation rates under the Kyoto protocol rules for its overseas department. The latter estimates come from a sample of nearly 17,000 plots analyzed from same spatial imagery acquired between year 1990 and year 2006. This sampling scheme is derived from the traditional forest inventory methods carried out by IFN (Inventaire Forestier National). Our intensified global sampling scheme leads to an estimate of 96,650 ha deforested between 1990 and 2006, which is within the 95% confidence interval of the IFN sampling scheme, which gives an estimate of 91,722 ha, representing a relative difference from the IFN of 5.4%.These results demonstrate that the intensification of the global sampling scheme can provide forest area change estimates close to those achieved by official forest inventories (<6%), with precisions of between 4% and 7%, although we only estimate errors from sampling, not from the use of surrogate data.Such methods could be used by developing countries to demonstrate that they are fulfilling requirements for reducing emissions from deforestation in the framework of an REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries) mechanism under discussion within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Monitoring systems at national levels in tropical countries can also benefit from pan-tropical and regional observations, to ensure consistency between different national monitoring systems.     

Fractal characteristics of pore structure of compacted bentonite studied by ESEM and MIP methods

Acta Geotechnica - In this paper, we aim to clarify microstructure of bentonite from Cerny vrch deposit in the Czech Republic. We adopt results of ESEM and MIP experiments performed at various...     

Improved salt imaging in a basin context by high resolution potential field data: Nordkapp Basin,Barents Sea

The seismic imaging of salt diapirs in the Nordkapp Basin gave rise to considerable problems in defining their shape and volume. Independent information was added by integrating the interpretation with high resolution gravity and magnetic data. We developed a novel, iterative workflow, separated into sub‐categories: sediments, salt structures, basement and Moho. Distinctions between the sources of the anomalies from different depths was achieved by utilizing the different decay characteristics of gravity, gravity gradiometry and high resolution magnetic anomalies. The workflow was applied to the southern part of the Nordkapp Basin. It started with the sedimentary model derived from seismics, populated with measured densities and magnetic susceptibilities and a starting model for the base salt. The residual after the removal of this model was interpreted in terms of a crustal model, including flexural isostatic calculations for the Moho with the sedimentary load. The residual after the removal of crustal and early sedimentary model was used to tune the salt model. As these major and minor modelling steps depend on each other, an iterative process was applied to stepwise improve the density and magnetic susceptibility model. The first vertical gradient of gravity and the magnetic field were found to give most information about the cap rock of the diapirs. The improvement in salt imaging, integrated with results from controlled‐source electromagnetic and magneto‐telluric modelling is shown for the salt diapir Uranus, where a well, terminated in the salt, constrains the minimum of the depth to base salt.     

Performance of ALADIN-Climate/CZ over the area of the Czech Republic in comparison with ENSEMBLES regional climate models

Nowadays Regional Climate Models (RCMs) are increasingly used for downscaling of information from the coarse resolution of global climate models (GCMs) and they represent a more and more popular tool for assessment of future climate changes and their impacts at regional scales. In spite of continual progress of RCMs, their outputs still suffer from many uncertainties and biases. Therefore, it is necessary to assess their ability to simulate observed climate characteristics and uncertainties in their outputs before they are applied in subsequent studies. In the present study, the assessment of RCM performance in simulating climate in the reference period of 1961–1990 over the area of Czech Republic is presented. Furthermore, we focused on the intercomparison of the models’ results, mainly on the comparison of the Czech model ALADIN-Climate/CZ with outputs of other RCMs. Simulation of ALADIN-Climate/CZ in 25-km horizontal resolution, and thirteen RCM simulations from the ENSEMBLES project were assessed. Attention was paid especially to comparison of simulated and observed spatial and temporal variability of several climatic variables. The monthly and seasonal values of surface air temperature, precipitation totals and relative humidity were examined for evaluation of temporal variability and 30-year seasonal and monthly values with respect to spatial variability. Climate model performance was evaluated in several ways, namely by boxplots, maps of variability characteristics, skill scores based on mean square error and Taylor diagrams. Model errors detected by model evaluation depend on many factors (e.g. considered variables and their characteristics, area of analysis, time scale of interest and the method of assessment). On the basis of incorporated performance criteria model ALADIN-Climate/CZ belonged to a better group of RCMs in most cases. However, it was definitely the worst in simulating spring monthly means of air temperature and relative humidity in all seasons.     

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Different Methods for the Remediation of Contaminated Groundwater by Determining the Petroleum Hydrocarbon Content

The effectiveness of different remediation procedures for decreasing the amount of TPH (total petroleum hydrocarbons) in contaminated groundwater was evaluated at the site of a former refinery. The investigations were carried out on samples taken from several gravel based HSSF (horizontal subsurface flow) constructed wetlands (CW) which differed in relation to their filter material additives (no additive, charcoal, and ferric oxides additives) and examined the potential effect of these additives on the overall treatment efficiency. Samples of the following gravel based HSSF CW were investigated. No filter additive (system A), 0.1% activated carbon (system B), 0.5% iron(III) hydroxide (system C), and the reference (system D). Systems A–C were planted with common reed (Phragmites australis), whereas system D remained unplanted. In addition, the influence of seasonal conditions on the reduction of these hydrocarbons and the correlation between the amounts of TPH and BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene isomers), on the one hand, and methyl tert‐butyl ether, on the other, was investigated. The study was carried out by using a modified GC‐FID approach and multivariate methods. The investigations carried out in the first year of operation demonstrated that the effectiveness of the petroleum hydrocarbon removal was highest and reached a level of 93 ± 3.5% when HSSF filters with activated carbon as a filter additive were used. This remediation method allowed the petroleum hydrocarbon content to be reduced independently of seasonal conditions. The correlation between the reduction of TPH and BTEX was found to be R = 0.8824. Using this correlation coefficient, the time‐consuming determination of the BTEX content was no longer necessary.     

Influence of local geological pattern on values of vibrations induced by road traffic

Buildings in the proximity of roads can be affected by vibrations induced by traffic. Local geological pattern is necessary to be taken into account because it has significant influence on values of vibrations and their characteristics. This paper summarizes results of experimental measurements. Four different types of buildings in different types of local geology were used for this purpose. The obtained results document that the generation of significant vibrations is mostly due to heavy vehicles. Some maximum velocity values exceed acceptable limits according to the Czech Technical Standard 73 0040 for evaluation of technical seismicity effect on buildings. Cosmetic damage, meaning the cracking of plaster, might occur due to traffic vibrations.     

Long-term monitoring of fish farms: application of Nematode/Copepod index to oligotrophic conditions

Interannual variability (2003-2008) of meiofaunal assemblages were analyzed in sediments beneath fish cages (Impact group) and in areas not affected by aquaculture activities (Control group). Organisms responded with spatial and seasonal variation in meiofauna assemblages, with an abrupt increase of abundances in locations beneath fish cages throughout the study period. This increase was greater during the last sampling year (2008) and mainly due to high abundances of nematodes. Univariate analyses showed differences between control and impacted sites at both sites, however, only significant variations were found in Los Gigantes, which are consistent with seasonal meiofauna variations throughout the study period. These results are partially explained by differences in current velocity between both sampling areas. The Ne/Co index showed the same trend and it seems to be a reliable index in sediment slightly affected by aquaculture wastes. This index is especially recommended in oligotrophic areas (e.g. Canary Islands) where meiofaunal assemblages are poorly represented in terms of abundances.