Ecological engineering: A field whose time has come

Ecological engineering is defined as “the design of sustainable ecosystems that integrate human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both.” It involves the restoration of ecosystems that have been substantially disturbed by human activities such as environmental pollution or land disturbance; and the development of new sustainable ecosystems that have both human and ecological value. While there was some early discussion of ecological engineering in the 1960s, its development was spawned later by several factors, including loss of confidence in the view that all pollution problems can be solved through technological means and the realization that with technological means, pollutants are just being moved from one form to another. Conventional approaches require massive amounts of resources to solve these problems, and that in turn perpetuates carbon and nitrogen cycle problems, for example. The development of ecological engineering was given strong impetus in the last decade with a textbook, the journal Ecological Engineering and two professional ecological engineering societies. Five principles about ecological engineering are: (1) It is based on the self-designing capacity of ecosystems; (2) It can be the acid test of ecological theories; (3) It relies on system approaches; (4) It conserves non-renewable energy sources; and (5) It supports biological conservation. Ecology as a science is not routinely integrated into engineering curricula, even in environmental engineering programs, while shortcoming, ecologists, environmental scientists, and managers miss important training in their profession—problem solving. These two problems could be solved in the integrated field of ecological engineering.     

Housing development as an application of ecological engineering on streamside

The work presented in this paper demonstrates housing development as an application of ecological engineering on streamside. The study site consists of terrestrial, riverbank and aquatic zones, on which their correlation and effects were investigated. Interdisciplinary methods involving ecology, hydrology, environment and landscape were applied to achieve maximum benefits for humans and nature. A technical scheme for housing development was established and organized as a hierarchy structure, i.e. determination of problems, establishment of goals, designation of functions, production of plan, and development of designs. The designs and implementation of housing and land consisted of riverbank restoration, vegetation replanting, rainwater purification and landscape protection. Ecological benefit was to be the core of the housing project with consideration of social and economic benefits.     

Ecosystem engineering,environmental decay and environmental states of landscapes

Although environmental modification by ecosystem engineers influences species distributions and abundances and ecological process rates, general determinants of the environmental states of engineered landscapes are not well understood. Here we develop a general, spatially implicit model of engineered landscapes that includes parameters driving engineer populations (demographics, environmental modification) and environmental decay. We show that average environmental states and heterogeneities of landscapes are the result of a balance between parameters determining engineering rates and decay rates that can be expressed as a net engineering ratio (NER). This ratio highlights the need to include environmental decay in ecosystem engineering studies. Moreover, it defines a significant engineer as one that can alter the environment despite decay and generates expectations for different kinds of effects on the engineer, other species and ecological processes depending on ratio values. Finally, it suggests that, in general, decay places limits as to what can be inferred about engineer population dynamics from environmental dynamics and vice versa.     

城市污水土地处理系统中优先有机污染物的生态行为及其调控对策

城市污水生态工程土地处理系统是一个多功能、多目标的净化污水,保护水体实现废水资源化的适用技术系列。如果条件合适,设计合理,科学运行和管理得当,它能对发展经济和保护环境起到积极的作用。应当指出,优先有机污染物及其生态环境问题可能成为推广应用生态工程土地处理系统的一个限制因素。本文从理论与实践的结合上论述净化功能、生态效应和生态风险评价等一系列复杂的基本性问题,主要目的是为制定生态工程土地处理系统优先有机污染物的调控对策提供科学依据。     

Ecological engineering: A rationale for standardized curriculum and professional certification in the United States

The demand for engineering solutions to ecosystem–level problems has increased as the impact of human activities has expanded to global proportions. While the science of restoration ecology has been developed to address many critical ecosystem management issues, the high degree of complexity and uncertainty associated with these issues demands a more quantitative approach. Ecological engineering uses science-based quantification of ecological processes to develop and apply engineering-based design criteria for sustainable systems. We suggest that in the United States ecological engineering curricula should be offered at the graduate level and should require rigorous Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology-accredited (or equivalent) undergraduate preparation in engineering fundamentals. In addition to strengthening students’ mastery of engineering theory and application, the graduate curriculum should provide core courses in ecosystem theory including quantitative ecology, systems ecology, restoration ecology, ecological engineering, ecological modeling, and ecological engineering economics. Advanced courses in limnology, environmental plant physiology, ecological economics, and specific ecosystem design should be provided to address students’ specific professional objectives. Finally, professional engineering certification must be developed to insure the credibility of this new engineering specialization.     

Forest reconstruction as ecological engineering

Land restoration involves reconstruction of the native biota in a sustainable form. If reconstruction involves deliberate manipulation of biological organisms and the physical-chemical environment to achieve specific human goals, it qualifies as ecological engineering. Restoration which uses natural processes to achieve endpoints which are unpredictable but can be accepted because they are “natural” is not ecological engineering. In Japan a system of forest reconstruction has been developed which is based on knowledge of the potential vegetation of a site, knowledge of the methods of germination and growth of the species which compose the mature vegetation and a method of site preparation and planting. This ecological engineering approach has been used on 285 sites, in a variety of habitats, to form dense stands of vegetation to hide industrial complexes, control visual, noise and chemical pollution, stabilize soil and beaches and provide urban green space. The technique has also been used to restore tropical rain forest.     

T cell engineering as therapy for cancer and HIV: our synthetic future

It is now well established that the immune system can control and eliminate cancer cells. Adoptive T cell transfer has the potential to overcome the significant limitations associated with vaccine-based strategies in patients who are often immune compromised. Application of the emerging discipline of synthetic biology to cancer, which combines elements of genetic engineering and molecular biology to create new biological structures with enhanced functionalities, is the subject of this overview. Various chimeric antigen receptor designs, manufacturing processes and study populations, among other variables, have been tested and reported in recent clinical trials. Many questions remain in the field of engineered T cells, but the encouraging response rates pave a wide road for future investigation into fields as diverse as cancer and chronic infections.     

Mitigating the impacts of rainforest roads in Queensland’s Wet Tropics: Effective or are further evaluations and new mitigation strategies required?

Summary Research into mitigation of the ecological impacts of rainforest roads in North Queensland has a long history, commencing during the formative years of Australian road ecology. In Queensland’s Wet Tropics and throughout Australia, installation of engineered structures to ameliorate ecological road impacts is now common during larger construction projects, but unusual in smaller road projects. Retro‐fitting of engineering solutions to roads that are causing obvious impacts is also uncommon. Currently, Australian mitigation measures concentrate on two important impacts: road mortality and terrestrial habitat fragmentation. Unfortunately, other important ecological impacts of roads are seldom addressed. These include edge effects, traffic disturbance, exotic invasions and fragmentation of stream habitats. In North Queensland, faunal underpasses and canopy bridges across rainforest roads have been monitored over long periods. These structures are used frequently by multiple individuals of various species, implying effectiveness for movements and dispersal of many generalist and specialised rainforest animals. However, without addressing population and genetic implications, assessment of effectiveness of these connectivity structures is not holistic. These aspects need sufficient long‐term funding to allow similar systematic monitoring before and after construction. Throughout Australia, more holistic approaches to mitigation of road impacts would routinely examine population and genetic connectivity, consider mitigation against more ecological impacts where appropriate and include landscape‐scale replication.     

Tissue engineering in the rheumatic diseases

Diseases such as degenerative or rheumatoid arthritis are accompanied by joint destruction. Clinically applied tissue engineering technologies like autologous chondrocyte implantation, matrix-assisted chondrocyte implantation, or in situ recruitment of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells target the treatment of traumatic defects or of early osteoarthritis. Inflammatory conditions in the joint hamper the application of tissue engineering during chronic joint diseases. Here, most likely, cartilage formation is impaired and engineered neocartilage will be degraded. Based on the observations that mesenchymal stem cells (a) develop into joint tissues and (b) in vitro and in vivo show immunosuppressive and anti-inflammatory qualities indicating a transplant-protecting activity, these cells are prominent candidates for future tissue engineering approaches for the treatment of rheumatic diseases. Tissue engineering also provides highly organized three-dimensional in vitro culture models of human cells and their extracellular matrix for arthritis research.     

以“环境微生物学”为载体的环境生态工程专业本科生科创能力培养

环境生态工程是一个设立较晚的新专业,其基本的教学体系和专业课程设计还有待摸索和完善。"环境微生物学"作为环境生态工程专业普遍设置的专业必修课,其授课内容和形式如何适应专业整体的培养需求是一个值得探讨的问题。我们结合所在学校、学院的特点和优势,提出将融入海洋特色和生态学思想的"环境微生物学"作为载体,结合课上理论教学、学生课堂报告、课下专题培训和实验技能培养等形式,培养环境生态工程专业本科生的科创能力。这可为同专业开设"环境微生物学"课程的教师提供教学参考,也可以为其他院校环境生态工程专业本科生科创能力的培养提供借鉴。     

Redefining ecological engineering to promote its integration with sustainable development and tighten its links with the whole of ecology

Ecological engineering was defined several decades ago, both in the academic field and in management. However, ecological engineering seems to be re-emerging as an academic field and as a cornerstone concept in French ecologists’ writings. I first summarize Barbault and Pavé's [Barbault, R., Pavé, A., 2003. Territoire de l’écologie et écologie des territoires. In: Caseau, P. (Ed.), Etudes sur l’environnement: de l’échelle du territoire à celle du continent, Tec et Doc Lavoisier, Paris, pp. 1–49] point of view on why ecological engineering now seems rehabilitated in France. I next propose a definition of ecological engineering, in accordance with the two reasons for its French re-emergence, i.e. the prevalence of the concept of sustainable development and the development of applied ecological sub-disciplines. This leads us to suggest that ecological engineering should be ecological in the broad sense, and not only targeted to the ecosystem level. I end the paper by discussing some problems and characteristics of ecological engineering that stem from this definition.     

Genetic engineering of reproductive sterility in forest trees

Containment of transgenes inserted into genetically engineered forest trees will probably be necessary before most commercial uses are possible. This is a consequence of (1) high rates of gene dispersal by pollen and seed, (2) proximity of engineered trees in plantations to natural or feral stands of interfertile species, and (3) potentially undesirable ecological effects if certain transgenes become widely dispersed. In addition to gene containment, engineering of complete or male sterility may stimulate faster wood production, reduce production of allergenic pollen, and facilitate hybrid breeding. We review the regulatory and ecological rationale for engineering sterility, potentially useful floral genes, strategies for creating sterility-causing transgenes, and problems peculiar to engineering sterility in forest trees. Each of the two primary options — ablating floral tissuesvia floral promoter-cytotoxin fusions, and disrupting expression of essential floral genes by various methods of gene suppression — has advantages and disadvantages. Because promoters from structural and enzymatic floral-specific genes often work well in heterologous species, ablation methods based on these genes probably will not require cloning of homologs from angiosperm trees. Methods that inhibit gene expression will require cloning of tree genes and may be more prone to epigenetic variability, but should allow assay of transgene efficacy in seedlings. Practical constraints include the requirement for vegetative propagation if complete sterility is engineered and the need for highly stable forms of sterility in long-lived trees. The latter may require suppression of more than one floral gene or employment of more than one genetic mechanism for sterility.     

Concepts and methods of ecological engineering

Ecological engineering was defined as the practice of joining the economy of society to the environment symbiotically by fitting technological design with ecological self design. The boundary of ecological engineering systems includes the ecosystems that self organize to fit with technology, whereas environmental engineering designs normally stop at the end of the pipe. For example, the coastal marsh wildlife sanctuary at Port Aransas, Texas, developed when municipal wastewaters were released on bare sands. The energy hierarchy concept provides principles for planning spatial and temporal organization that can be sustained. Techniques of ecological engineering are given with examples that include maintaining biodiversity with multiple seeding, experimental mesocosms, enclosed systems with people like Biosphere 2, wetland filtration of heavy metals, overgrowth and climax ecosystems, longitudinal succession, exotics, domestication of ecosystems, closing material cycles, and controlling water with vegetation reflectance.     

Expanding the metabolic engineering toolbox with directed evolution

Cellular systems can be engineered into factories that produce high-value chemicals from renewable feedstock. Such an approach requires an expanded toolbox for metabolic engineering. Recently, protein engineering and directed evolution strategies have started to play a growing and critical role within metabolic engineering. This review focuses on the various ways in which directed evolution can be applied in conjunction with metabolic engineering to improve product yields. Specifically, we discuss the application of directed evolution on both catalytic and non-catalytic traits of enzymes, on regulatory elements, and on whole genomes in a metabolic engineering context. We demonstrate how the goals of metabolic pathway engineering can be achieved in part through evolving cellular parts as opposed to traditional approaches that rely on gene overexpression and deletion. Finally, we discuss the current limitations in screening technology that hinder the full implementation of a metabolic pathway-directed evolution approach.     

湖泊富营养化治理的生态工程

1996年对长春南湖的富营养化实施了生治理工作,调查结果表明,通过收获水生高等植物和鱼产品带出湖体的P量分别为149．6和189．9kg,通过蚌体生长固定的P量为153.4kg,三者合计492.9kg,与湖体会年P输入量大体持平,生态工程运转后,水质明显好转,湖水中的总P浓度逐年下降,浮游植物个体密度减小,种类数增加,生态工程是城市湖泊富营养化治理较为理想的方法。     

Challenges in the development and use of ecological indicators

Ecological indicators can be used to assess the condition of the environment, to provide an early warning signal of changes in the environment, or to diagnose the cause of an environmental problem. Ideally the suite of indicators should represent key information about structure, function, and composition of the ecological system. Three concerns hamper the use of ecological indicators as a resource management tool. (1) Monitoring programs often depend on a small number of indicators and fail to consider the full complexity of the ecological system. (2) Choice of ecological indicators is confounded in management programs that have vague long-term goals and objectives. (3) Management and monitoring programs often lack scientific rigor because of their failure to use a defined protocol for identifying ecological indicators. Thus, ecological indicators need to capture the complexities of the ecosystem yet remain simple enough to be easily and routinely monitored. Ecological indicators should meet the following criteria: be easily measured, be sensitive to stresses on the system, respond to stress in a predictable manner, be anticipatory, predict changes that can be averted by management actions, be integrative, have a known response to disturbances, anthropogenic stresses, and changes over time, and have low variability in response. The challenge is to derive a manageable set of indicators that together meet these criteria.     

Chromosomal engineering

Artificial chromosomes (ACs) are engineered chromosomes with defined genetic contents that can function as non-integrating vectors with large carrying capacity and stability. The large carrying capacity allows the engineering of ACs with multiple copies of the same transgene, gene complexes, and to include regulatory elements necessary for the regulated expression of transgene(s). Artificial chromosome based systems are composed of AC engineered to harbor and express gene(s) of interest and an appropriate recombination system for 'custom' engineering of ACs. These systems have the potential to become an efficient tool in diverse gene technology applications such as cellular protein manufacturing, transgenic animal production, and ultimately gene therapy. Recent advances in artificial chromosome technologies outline the value of these systems and justify the future research efforts to overcome the obstacles in exploring their full capabilities.     

Ecological engineering analysis and eco-hydrodynamic simulation of tidal rivers in Shenzhen City of China

A comprehensive approach using ecological engineering analysis and eco-hydrodynamic simulation was conducted on the tidal rivers in Shenzhen City of China in this study. A tidal river along a near-shore city should be evaluated and regulated from a multidisciplinary point of view, focused especially on ecology, in order to maintain and enhance the ecological structure and function of the river. Firstly, eco-hydrodynamic control can be used, based on simulated modeling of tidal water circulation, to trace the distribution of pollutants and to predict circulation of tidal water. Using findings from this modeling effort, some water control facilities, such as additional channel connection and water gates, can be established. Appropriate operation strategy is to use tidal energy to promote effective water exchange in the water bodies and thereby improve water quality in the tidal river. Secondly, ecological engineering methods should be integrated with hydraulic measures to further improve the environment. Appropriate plant communities for this ecological engineering can be selected. Based on the simulated results of eco-hydrodynamic model, the optimum locations for adding reclaimed land can be determined. These ecological engineering methods are as follows: (1) it is necessary to calculate the ecological water requirements for the tidal river. The water effluent from the sewage treatment plant can be considered as reclaimed water and pumped to upstream of the tidal reach for reuse; (2) well planned aquatic plant systems composed of emergent, floating, and submergent plants can be used to promote water treatment; (3) the configuration of the engineered landscape should give preference to indigenous plants and appropriate non-indigenous plant species; (4) constructed wetlands, especially mangroves at coastal city sites, can also improve the tidal river aquatic environment.     

Yarn design for functional tissue engineering

Tissue engineering requires the ability to design scaffolds with mechanical properties similar to those of the native tissue. Here, B. mori silk yarns are used as a model system to demonstrate the potential benefits and drawbacks of several textile methods used to fabricate tissue engineering scaffolds. Fibers are plied, twisted, cabled, braided, and/or textured to form several geometries with a wide range of mechanical outcomes. Predictable changes in ultimate tensile strength and stiffness are demonstrated following processing and as a function of test environment. The mechanical effects of increasing turns per inch and combining groups of fibers into higher-order yarn structures are demonstrated. Braids, one of the most commonly used textile structures, are shown to be limited by a change in stiffness following the locking-angle and therefore, potentially not the ideal structure for tissue engineering. Cabled yarns appear to allow the most flexibility in mechanical outcomes with a highly organized geometry. Twisted yarns, while more economical than cabled yarns, result in a higher stiffness and lower percent elongation at break than cabled yarns.