Historical changes in the conductivity and ionic charateristics of the source water for the Shark River Slough,Everglades National Park,Florida, U.S.A.

Man-made changes in the hydrological regime of South Florida have significantly altered the conductivity and ionic composition of water in the Shark River Slough system of Everglades National Park. The shift in water inputs from unregulated marsh water flow to regulated delivery of canal water has resulted in a 140% increase in conductivity and 149% increase in total ionic concentration since the early 1960s. Associated with this change has been a 300–400% increase in sodium and chloride concentrations in the waters entering the Shark River Slough of Everglades National Park.     

Salt marsh vegetation of the Western Mediterranean desert of Egypt

The extensive salt marshes in the plains and depressions of the western Mediterranean desert of Egypt were classified into three habitat types: A with shallow water table and high salinity, B with relatively deep water table and high salinity, and C transitional habitats in which salinity and water table are no controlling factors. Fourteen vegetation types were distinguished, each dominated by one or two species.The dominating life forms are chamaephytes in sites of high salinity, and therophytes in sites of low salinity. Spatial and temporal variations in the standing crop biomass were pronounced. The accumulation of material started during spring and reached a maximum in autumn, when photosynthetic activity was maintained to account for transpiration losses.There was a general trend of increasing salinity and concentration of different ions from habitat type A to habitat type C through habitat type B. The periodical variation in the water table was insignificant, while a significant drop in salinity and the concentration of different ions was detected in spring, which was attributed to the diluting effect of rain water during that season.Most species exhibited clear distribution patterns and their a bundance varied significantly along gradients of different factors. Simple correlations between the compositional gradients or the distributional behaviour of species and salinity or the concentration of individual ions were generally low, while correlations with combinations of ions in the form of ratios (notably sodium and potassium adsorption ratos) were higher.During the early stages of succession the building up of soil and the decrease in salinity are the most important factors while at more advanced stages, soil texture and calcium carbonate content become more decisive.Nomenclature follows Täckholm (1974)     

Brain-specific lipids from marine, lacustrine, or terrestrial food resources: potential impact on early African Homo sapiens

The polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) composition of the mammalian central nervous system is almost wholly composed of two long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (AA). PUFA are dietarily essential, thus normal infant/neonatal brain, intellectual growth and development cannot be accomplished if they are deficient during pregnancy and lactation. Uniquely in the human species, the fetal brain consumes 70% of the energy delivered to it by mother. DHA and AA are needed to construct placental and fetal tissues for cell membrane growth, structure and function. Contemporary evidence shows that the maternal circulation is depleted of AA and DHA during fetal growth. Sustaining normal adult human brain function also requires LC-PUFA.Homo sapiens is unlikely to have evolved a large, complex, metabolically expensive brain in an environment which did not provide abundant dietary LC-PUFA. Conversion of 18-carbon PUFA from vegetation to AA and DHA is considered quantitatively insufficient due to a combination of high rates of PUFA oxidation for energy, inefficient and rate limited enzymatic conversion and substrate recycling. The littoral marine and lacustrine food chains provide consistently greater amounts of pre-formed LC-PUFA than the terrestrial food chain. Dietary levels of DHA are 2.5–100 fold higher for equivalent weights of marine fish or shellfish vs. lean or fat terrestrial meats. Mammalian brain tissue and bird egg yolks, especially from marine birds, are the richest terrestrial sources of LC-PUFA. However, land animal adipose fats have been linked to vascular disease and mental ill-health, whereas marine lipids have been demonstrated to be protective. At South African Capesites, large shell middens and fish remains are associated with evidence for some of the earliest modern humans. Cape sites dating from 100 to 18 kya cluster within 200 km of the present coast. Evidence of early H. sapiens is also found around the Rift Valley lakes and up the Nile Corridor into the Middle East; in some cases there is an association with the use of littoral resources. Exploitation of river, estuarine, stranded and spawning fish, shellfish and sea bird nestlings and eggs by Homo could have provided essential dietary LC-PUFA for men, women, and children without requiring organized hunting/fishing, or sophisticated social behavior. It is however, predictable from the present evidence that exploitation of this food resource would have provided the advantage in multi-generational brain development which would have made possible the advent of H. sapiens. Restriction to land based foods as postulated by the savannah and other hypotheses would have led to degeneration of the brain and vascular system as happened without exception in all other land based apes and mammals as they evolved larger bodies.     

Seed dispersal of East Asian coastal dune plants via seawater – short and long distance dispersal

Coastal plants provide precious and irreplaceable services to human and coastal ecosystems, but people are still rather unaware how coastal plants relate with sea tides. We assumed that their seeds may reflect some relationships with tides. Our objective was to understand seed dispersal of plants living in the upper coastal regions, not reached by normal tides, but inundated by storm surges. For this purpose, we observed seed characteristics, especially seed buoyancy, of coastal and non-inundated plants of the Shandong Peninsula, north China. Through field simulation, we studied how buoyancy affected the dispersal during tides, using twig segments as retrievable dummies of seeds, in order to collect evidences with concern, how seed dispersal could occur during storm surges, which are extremes of tides. Coastal plants had predominantly buoyant seeds, while inland-growing plants had largely non-buoyant seeds. Ninety percent of buoyant twig segments (mimicking seeds) were recaptured after tides on experimentally used coastal areas; only 1% of non-buoyant ones of such dummies were recaptured, whereas the rest probably had been swept away by wave action to deposit at the sea bottom. Buoyant twig segments (mimicking seeds) dispersed along the coastlines as tides surged towards the coast. About 10% of these buoyant twigs were swept away with off-shore currents, but they might land elsewhere, similar as it might happen with long-distance dispersal of seeds.     

Seed banks of Phragmites australis-dominated brackish wetlands: Relationships to seed viability, inundation, and land cover

In tidal wetlands of the eastern United States, buried seeds of the non-native haplotype of Phragmites australis may be a source of propagules for re-establishment after eradication efforts but factors controlling the development and expression of seed banks in non-native Phragmites stands have not been examined. We sampled surface soil at four Chesapeake Bay brackish tidal wetlands dominated by the non-native (European) haplotype M of Phragmites and used the seedling emergence method to quantity species of seedlings emerging under flooded and non-flooded soil conditions. Within each subestuary, one site was dominated by Phragmites that produced viable seeds (high viability) and the other by Phragmites that did not (low viability). We also described standing vegetation in plots, measured soil salinity, analyzed soil characteristics, and described surrounding land cover. Based on number of emerging seedlings, we found that 284 and 698 Phragmites seeds m⁻² occurred at the two high-viability sites, which was significantly higher than seed densities at the low-viability sites (10 seeds m⁻²), and greater than densities reported elsewhere. We also found that emergence of Phragmites seedlings from soil samples was prevented by continuous flooding of 3.5 cm of standing water, suggesting that colonization of deep water areas is due to vegetative clonal expansion from Phragmites in adjacent higher elevations. The density of Phragmites seeds was not related to soil salinity or abundance of other species in the seed bank or vegetation, but instead was positively related to greater wave energy disturbance (much longer fetch and more open water) and lower area of wetlands nearby. The seed bank was more species-rich (15-22 species observed) than standing vegetation (3-15 species) at all sites, meaning that the dominance of Phragmites in vegetation does not prevent the development of a diverse seed bank and implying that a species-rich community may establish rapidly following control efforts. Based on these results and our findings in related studies, we postulate that wave energy disturbance generates repeated opportunities for seedling recruitment by Phragmites, which creates stands of Phragmites with higher genotypic diversity. In turn, genetically diverse stands favor greater cross-pollination and production of viable seed. These findings suggest that, in North America, targeting control efforts on non-native Phragmites patches in areas of higher exposure to wave energy may be more effective in reducing source populations than efforts in more protected locations.     

小兴安岭天然森林沼泽湿地生态系统碳源/汇

采用静态箱-气相色谱法与相对生长方程法,同步测定小兴安岭7种天然沼泽湿地(草丛沼泽-C、灌丛沼泽-G、毛赤杨沼泽-M、白桦沼泽-B、落叶松苔草沼泽-L-T、落叶松藓类沼泽-L-X、落叶松泥炭藓沼泽-L-N)的土壤呼吸(CO_2、CH_4)净碳排放量、植被年净固碳量,并依据生态系统净碳收支平衡,揭示温带天然沼泽湿地的碳源/汇作用规律。结果表明:(1)7种天然沼泽CH_4年通量(0.006—7.756 mg m~(-2)h~(-1))呈M(高于其他类型1.0—1291.7倍,P0.05)C、G、B(高于针叶林沼泽17.7—649.0倍,P0.05)针叶林沼泽变化趋势,其季节动态存在3种类型(C、G单峰型、M、B多峰型及针叶林沼泽排放与吸收交替型);(2)其CO_2年通量(157.40—231.06 mg m~(-2)h~(-1))呈G(高于森林沼泽28.7%—46.8%,P0.05)C(高于森林沼泽7.4%—22.5%,P0.05)森林沼泽的变化趋势,其季节动态存在2种类型(C、G、L-X和L-N双峰型和M、B、L-T单峰型);(3)C、G、M、B、L-N CH_4排放仅受0—40 cm不同土壤层温度所控制;7种天然沼泽土壤CO_2排放均受气温及0—40 cm不同土壤层温度所控制,但B、L-X、L-N受温度与水位综合控制;(4)其植被年净固碳量((2.05±0.09)—(6.75±0.27)t C hm-2a-1)呈C(高于其他类型65.4%—229.3%,P0.05)G、B、L-T、L-X、L-N(高于M 80.0%—99.0%,P0.05)M变化趋势;(5)7种天然沼泽的碳源/汇(-2.32—2.09 t C hm-2a-1)作用不同,C、B和L-N为碳吸收汇(C强汇、B和L-N弱汇),M、G、L-T和L-X则为碳排放源(M、G强源、L-T和L-X弱源)。因此,温带小兴安岭草丛沼泽为碳强汇、灌丛沼泽为碳强源、森林沼泽基本维持碳平衡(除M外)。     

基于Pb稳定同位素分析的海岸带生态保护关键区域识别

Pb稳定同位素分析可以精确确定Pb的来源,揭示Pb在空间上的潜在迁移过程,从而对目标区域实行精确的污染管理.研究采集了盐城海岸带12个样方点的表层(0～10 cm)土壤样品,每个样方点3～5个重复,采用等离子光谱质谱仪测定各土壤样品Pb的含量及Pb同位素组成(²⁰⁶Pb、²⁰⁷Pb、²⁰⁸Pb).结果表明:研究区域土壤Pb含量平均值是背景值的1.7倍,参考国家土壤环境质量标准GB 15618—2008,研究区域受到较严重的Pb污染.分析表明,盐城海岸带土壤Pb污染源主要为局地污染源,包括江苏省射阳电厂、双灯纸业芦苇基地污水处理厂和王港闸华丰工业园.采用归一化植被指数(NDVI)和距离分析,通过计算筛选出了盐城海岸带应对主要压力源的关键格局.     

广东湿地资源及其分布特征研究

采用遥感技术对最新卫星图象数据进行解译,分类统计广东全省湿地面积。结果表明,广东湿地类型丰富,有五类20型,包括了中国湿地所有的类、80%的型;湿地总面积1864101.3hm²,占广东陆地总面积的10.4%,高于全国和全世界的相关比例。同时近海近岸湿地面积有1081988.3hm²,占全省湿地总面积的58.04%,显示了广东是海洋大省的特征。此外,广东湿地分布有丰富的湿地植物,湿地动物和湿地鱼类以及众多珍稀濒危和国家保护物种,显示出保护广东湿地的迫切性和重要性。     

2D finite element ecological model for the Curonian lagoon

The results of application of 2D finite element model SHYFEM to the Curonian lagoon (Baltic Sea) are considered. SHYFEM consist of a physical processes module and an eutrophication module EUTRO adapted for the SHYFEM code from well known modelling system WASP. The SHYFEM/EUTRO model calibration results were compared with the performance of various biogeochemical models analysed in other studies (153 studies published from 1990 to 2002). The performance of all corresponding state variables—dissolved oxygen, NO₃, NH₄, PO₄, phyto- and zooplankton—was slightly lower than median model performance which could be considered satisfactory given the initial state of model formulation and calibration. Model underestimates phytoplankton autumn blooms, especially for the southern part of the lagoon, where fine sediments dominate and water residence time is high. It can be concluded that, in order to increase model performance, the eutrophication module should be improved to account for the dominance of different phytoplankton groups as well as for the exchanges between the sediments and the water column. The amount and quality of the data available for the model setup and calibration are unsatisfactory and should be improved for the development of the next enhanced model version. Guest editors: A. Razinkovas, Z. R. Gasiūnaitė, J. M. Zaldivar & P. Viaroli European Lagoons and their Watersheds: Function and Biodiversity