A Life Cycle Comparison of Alternative Cheese Packages

A comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) between three different cheese packages (P1: completely polypropylene (PP), P2: tin and polyethylene (PE), and P3: carton and PE) has been carried out for the production, distribution and waste disposal (100% landfill) phase. A package for 1 kg of cheese was selected as the functional unit. SimaPro7 software (PRèConsultants, The Netherlands) was used for the LCA study. The EcoIndicator 99 method was selected for comparison of the packages. The comparisons show that the total environmental performance of the cheese package types in order from worst to best is P2, P1, and P3. This conclusion was supported by a sensitivity analysis, which was conducted by using different impact assessment methods.     

渤海涟虫类和软体动物幼虫食性的观察

根据消化道内食物分析结果得出：涟虫类、三叶针尾涟虫和驼背涟虫、瓣锶类后期幼虫和腹足类后期幼虫都营浮游植物食性,以硅藻类为主要食物。细长涟虫以星脐圆筛藻、未查明的圆筛藻和辐射圆筛藻为主要摄食对象;三叶针尾涟虫以舟形藻和新月菱形藻为主要摄食对象;驼背涟虫以辐射圆筛为主要摄食对象。鳃类后期幼虫以辐射圆筛藻和未查明的圆筛藻为主要摄食对象;腹足类后期幼虫以未查明的圆筛藻、辐射圆筛藻和中心圆筛藻为主要摄食对象     

Food web structure of the coastal area adjacent to the Tagus estuary revealed by stable isotope analysis

The identification of energy sources, pathways and trophic linkages among organisms is crucial for the understanding of food web dynamics. Stable isotopes were used to identify the trophic level of food web components and track the incorporation of organic matter of different origins in the coastal ecosystem adjacent to the Tagus estuary. It was shown that the river Tagus is a major source of organic carbon to this system. Also, the wide difference in δ¹³C among the primary consumers allowed the identification of the pelagic and the benthic energy pathways. The maximum trophic level observed was 2.4 for Sepia officinalis. This value is indicative of a short food web. It was concluded that the diet of the upper trophic level species relies directly on the lower food web levels to a considerable extent, instead of relying mostly on intermediate trophic level species. Moreover, the δ¹⁵N values of primary consumers were very close to that of particulate organic matter, probably due to poorly known processes occurring at the basis of the food web. This lowers the trophic length of the whole food web. Reliance on benthic affinity prey was high for all upper trophic level secondary consumers.     

Fish distribution patterns and habitat availability in lakes Moreno Este and Moreno Oeste,Patagonia, Argentina

Andean Patagonian lakes are ultraoligotrophic and deep, have simple food webs and low fish diversity and abundance. In this work the distributional abundance data of fish was studied in two interconnected Andean Patagonian lakes with varying proportions of contrasting habitat types. Hydroacoustic data (120 kHz) were used to analyze fish abundance and habitat use during the mixis and stratification periods. Three types of habitat (near shore, surface pelagic and deep pelagic) and two groups of fish, based on size (Big Fish >12 cm total length and Fish Larvae and Small Fish <12 cm total length) were defined. The distribution of both fish groups in these lakes revealed differences in habitat use for each lake and period. Fish group abundance was related to the availability of habitat types, according to the morphology of each lake. The Big Fish group showed preference for the near shore habitat during lake stratification and always appeared as individual targets. The Fish Larvae and Small Fish group used mainly the pelagic habitat during mixis, where they formed dense sound scattering layers. However, during lake stratification many individual targets from this group were found both in pelagic and near shore habitats, which would seem to indicate a change in distributional behavior. This is possibly associated with niche changes in the Galaxiids (Galaxias spp), a key component of Northern Patagonian lake food webs. Lakes like Moreno Oeste, which are morphologically and structurally more complex, could have more diverse fish ensembles with higher abundances. In contrast, lakes of simple morphology with low development of near shore habitats and ample deep zones, like Lake Moreno Este, could present lower Big Fish abundance. The contrasting habitat availability between lakes accounts for the abundances and distribution patterns of each fish group. While in these lakes fish assemblage species composition could depends on the environmental filter, the particular structure of a fish assemblage in terms of the proportional abundances of species depends on proportional habitat type availability. We can speculate that in Andean Patagonian lakes Galaxiids mediate a habitat coupling process critical for the transfer of energy and matter in oligotrophic lakes. We may also consider that the Small Puyen in this type of lake is a keystone prey species that relieves predation pressure on other potential prey. The existence of deep pelagic habitats in numerous deep lakes in the Northern Patagonian Andean region provides not only daytime refuge for Galaxiids, which allows them to maintain their high numbers in the lakes, but could also, in the long term, act as a Galaxiid source for other water bodies.     

FAO's state of fisheries and aquaculture: Correcting some misrepresentations by Pauly and Froese

A paper by Pauly and Froese published in Marine Policy includes several misrepresentations concerning a paper published in Nature by Branch et al. on the tropic fingerprint of marine fisheries. The purpose of this Short Communication is to examine and refute their claims.     

Response of gastropod grazers to food conditions,current velocity,and substratum roughness

Freshwater snails are widely distributed in running water systems. Most of them are feeding on biofilms attached to substrata. We used gastropods with different morphology and potentially different traits to analyse the effect of water currents and substratum roughness on the interactions between grazers and biofilms. The gastropods were exposed to naturally grown biofilms from the River Rhine that differed in age and in their artificial substratum roughness (mimicked by abrasive paper). The experiments were conducted in endless channels with paddle wheels where the current velocity could be set steplessly. The freshwater pulmonates Ancylus fluviatilis and Physella acuta as well as the freshwater prosobranchs Bithynia tentaculata and Potamopyrgus antipodarum were used as model organisms in this investigation. The time the snails remained on the test area related to the substratum roughness, and current velocity was used to compare the performance of the four snail species on different aged biofilms. In one experiment, the locomotive activity of snails was traced.Gastropods left substrata without biofilms and did not show different responses to biofilms of diverse ages with significant differences in their biochemical contents. Grazing by snails altered the biofilms in their chlorophyll-a content, ash-free dry mass, and ash mass. A current velocity above 0.12 m s⁻¹ drove B. tentaculata, P. acuta, and P. antipodarum off the test areas, only A. fluviatilis remained unaffected by the applied current velocities (up to 0.23 m s⁻¹). The substratum roughness had no direct influence on the retention time of snails and their locomotive activity on the substrata, whereas the chlorophyll-a content of the biofilm strongly influenced snail activity. Substratum roughness had only an indirect influence on the behaviour of snails contrary to studies on marine snail species.     

Stable isotope fractionation of fatty acids of Daphnia fed laboratory cultures of microalgae

We tested a comparatively new method of tracing of natural food webs, compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) of fatty acids (FA), using laboratory culture of Daphnia galeata fed Chlorella vulgaris and Cryptomonas sp. In general, Daphnia had significantly lighter carbon stable isotope composition of most fatty acids, including essential, than those of their food, microalgae. Thus, our results did not support the pivotal premise of the FA-CSIA application for food web analysis, i.e., transmitting the isotope ‘signal’ of essential FAs to consumers from their food without any modification. Moreover, the values of isotope fractionation of particular FAs in the consumer relative to its food were not constant, but varied from 1.35‰ to 7.04‰. The different isotope fractionation (depletion) values of diverse FAs in consumer were probably caused by different processes of their synthesis, catabolism and assimilation. More work is evidently to be done for correct interpretation of results of FA-CSIA during field studies for tracing of natural food webs.     

微乳液介质—DBH-PF光度法测定食品中微量锗的研究

以阳离子型 O/ W CTMAB/ n- C5H11OH/ n- C7H16/ H2 O微乳液为介质 ,进行 Ge( IV) - DBH- PF的分光光度法测定 ,ε510 nm=2 .18× 10 5L· mol-1.cm-1,建立了高灵敏测定食品中微量锗的新方法 ,锗量在每 2 5m L 0～ 7.0μg范围内符合比尔定律 ,方法选择性好 ,试样无需萃取分离 ,可快速测定     

Reconstruction of food conditions for Northeast Atlantic bivalve species based on Dynamic Energy Budgets

Required assimilated energy to support observed growth was reconstructed for four common bivalve species (Mya arenaria, Cerastoderma edule, Mytilus edulis and Macoma balthica) from various Northeast Atlantic coastal areas, along the species distributional range. The approach applied was based on the Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) theory whereby observed growth patterns in the field, in combination with prevailing temperatures, were used to reconstruct the average food intake experienced in the field scaled to the maximum possible. For all species, results suggest food limitation over the range of locations. In general, reconstructed food intake indicated better conditions for C. edule compared to the other species, while M. edulis presented the lowest food conditions in all the areas. Despite the indications for a latitudinal trend in primary production, no clear pattern or relationship between reconstructed food conditions and latitude was observed suggesting that any trend may be overruled by local conditions.