Environmental Risk Management Decision-Making in a Societal Context

Recent studies point to the need for improved understanding of environmental management frameworks designed to combine qualitative public and quantitative technical inputs in decision-making processes. Flux in public perception and concern about risks imply frameworks must be iterative in nature and incorporate a variety of assessment triggers in the form of decision points. A conceptual model is proposed here to explain the de facto operation of standard risk analytic frameworks within the broader sociopolitical milieu of public policy. The model is presented as a decision flow diagram that emphasizes setting environmental management goals based on societal input and the formulation of decision criteria for selecting management actions to achieve those goals. Prospective and retrospective decision control points operate to select management options that, respectively, avoid or reduce actual or predicted effects. Feedback loops that modify risk management outcomes are identified. Technical and scientific inputs (i.e., risk analysis) are assigned an essential information role within the framework and are responsible for informing the management process with the results of appropriately conducted and reviewed investigations. The proposed model is intended primarily to indicate how environmental risk management decision-making and associated technical assessments may be influenced by social pressures. It is hoped this understanding will lead to analytical transparency and better public communication of the environmental implications of policy options.     

Non-aerated cultivation ofHalobacterium cutirubrum and its effect on cellular squalenes

Summary Halobacterium cutirubrum was successfully cultivated under aerobic and microaerobic conditions. The early stationary phase of growth was obtained at 2.2 days and 45–55 days for aerated and non-aerated cultures, respectively. The dry cell yields were 0.7–1.2 gm/l in all preparations grown to early stationary growth phase. The cellular ratio of squalene to dihydro- and tetra-hydrosqualene decreased proportionately with decreased aeration rates.     

Life history responses of fishes to culture

The protected environment in culture permits fishes to reduce the proportion of energy normally channelled into the costs associated with competition for food, shelter and mates, avoidance of predators and counteracting parasites and diseases. The surplus energy so released is allocated to growth and reproduction, accelerating development through increased growth rate, earlier maturation and increased relative fecundity. Cultivators manipulate the rearing environment to remove seasonal variation in availability of resources, so that the fishes grow and develop through otherwise unproductive seasons. Such environmental manipulations exaggerate the basic accelerative effects. Since maturation deflects energy from growth, farmers also manipulate the fishes nutritionally, physiologically, hormonally and genetically to postpone maturation. As environmental regulators determine sex in many fish species, environmental manipulation in culture may have unintended effects on sex ratios. Mortality in culture should be very low, but survival of fishes released from culture is rarely as high as that of wild conspecifics. Finally, while short life‐cycles and simplified population age‐structures permit high rates of production in farms, they lead to ecological instability when the fishes are cultured for support of wild populations.     

Identification of heat shock protein gene expression in hair follicles as a novel indicator of heat stress in beef calves

Heat shock proteins (HSPs) consist of highly preserved stress proteins that are expressed in response to stress. Two studies were carried out to investigate whether HSP genes in hair follicles from beef calves can be suggested as indicators of heat stress (HS). In study 1, hair follicles were harvested from three male Hanwoo calves (aged 172.2 ± 7.20 days) on six dates over the period of 10 April to 9 August 2017. These days provided varying temperature–humidity indices (THIs). In study 2, 16 Hanwoo male calves (aged 169.6 ± 4.60 days, with a BW of 136.9 ± 6.23 kg) were maintained (4 calves per experiment) in environmentally controlled chambers. A completely randomized design with a 2 × 4 factorial arrangement involving two periods (thermoneutral: TN; HS) and four THI treatment groups (threshold: THI = 68 to 70; mild: THI = 74 to 76; moderate THI = 81 to 83; severe: THI = 88 to 90). The calves in the different group were subjected to ambient temperature (22°C) for 7 days (TN) and subsequently to the temperature and humidity corresponding to the target THI level for 21 days (HS). Every three days (at 1400 h) during both the TN and HS periods, the heart rate (HR) and rectal temperature (RT) of each individual were measured, and hair follicles were subsequently collected from the tails of each individual. In study 1, the high variation (P < 0.0001) in THI indicated that the external environment influenced the HS to different extents. The expression levels of the HSP70 and HSP90 genes at the high-THI level were higher (P = 0.0120, P = 0.0002) than those at the low-THI level. In study 2, no differences in the THI (P = 0.2638), HR (P = 0.2181) or RT (P = 0.3846) were found among the groups during the TN period, whereas differences in these indices (P < 0.0001, P < 0.0001 and P < 0.0001, respectively) were observed during the HS period. The expression levels of the HSP70 (P = 0.0010, moderate; P = 0.0065, severe) and HSP90 (P = 0.0040, severe) genes were increased after rapid exposure to heat-stress conditions (moderate and severe levels). We conclude that HSP gene expression in hair follicles provides precise and accurate data for evaluating HS and can be considered a novel indicator of HS in Hanwoo calves maintained in both external and climatic chambers.     

The effectiveness of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control,pollination services and crop yield: a quantitative synthesis

Floral plantings are promoted to foster ecological intensification of agriculture through provisioning of ecosystem services. However, a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of different floral plantings, their characteristics and consequences for crop yield is lacking. Here we quantified the impacts of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control (18 studies) and pollination services (17 studies) in adjacent crops in North America, Europe and New Zealand. Flower strips, but not hedgerows, enhanced pest control services in adjacent fields by 16% on average. However, effects on crop pollination and yield were more variable. Our synthesis identifies several important drivers of variability in effectiveness of plantings: pollination services declined exponentially with distance from plantings, and perennial and older flower strips with higher flowering plant diversity enhanced pollination more effectively. These findings provide promising pathways to optimise floral plantings to more effectively contribute to ecosystem service delivery and ecological intensification of agriculture in the future.     

Bacterial isolates harboring antibiotics and heavy-metal resistance genes co-existing with mobile genetic elements in natural aquatic water bodies

The rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria and contamination of water bodies is a serious issue that demands immense attention of scientific acumen. Here, we examined the pervasiveness of ESBL producing bacteria in Dal Lake and Wular Lake of Kashmir valley, India. Isolates were screened for antibiotic, heavy metal resistant elements, and their coexistence with mobile genetic elements. Out of two hundred one isolates screened, thirty-eight were found positive for ESBL production. Antibiotic profiling of ESBL positive isolates with 16 different drugs representing β-lactam or -non-β-lactam, exhibited multidrug resistance phenotype among 55% isolates. Molecular characterization revealed the occurrence of drug resistance determinants blaTEM, AmpC, qnrS, and heavy metal resistance genes (MRGs) merB, merP, merT, silE, silP, silS, and arsC. Furthermore, mobile genetic elements IntI, SulI, ISecp1, TN3, TN21 were also detected. Conjugation assay confirmed the transfer of different ARGs, HMRGs, and mobile elements in recipient Escherichia coli J53 AZ^R strain. Plasmid incompatibility studies showed blaTEM to be associated with Inc groups B/O, HI1, HI2, I1, N, FIA, and FIB. Co-occurrence of blaTEM, HMRGs, and mobile elements from the aquatic milieu of Kashmir, India has not been reported so far. From this study, the detection of the blaTEM gene in the bacteria Bacillus simplex and Brevibacterium frigoritolerans are found for the first time. Considering all the facts it becomes crucial to conduct studies in natural aquatic environments that could help depict the epidemiological situations in which the resistance mechanism might have clinical relevance.     

Connecting species’ geographical distributions to environmental variables: range maps versus observed points of occurrence

Connecting the geographical occurrence of a species with underlying environmental variables is fundamental for many analyses of life history evolution and for modeling species distributions for both basic and practical ends. However, raw distributional information comes principally in two forms: points of occurrence (specific geographical coordinates where a species has been observed), and expert-prepared range maps. Each form has potential short-comings: range maps tend to overestimate the true occurrence of a species, whereas occurrence points (because of their frequent non-random spatial distribution) tend to underestimate it. Whereas previous comparisons of the two forms have focused on how they may differ when estimating species richness, less attention has been paid to the extent to which the two forms actually differ in their representation of a species’ environmental associations. We assess such differences using the globally distributed avian order Galliformes (294 species). For each species we overlaid range maps obtained from IUCN and point-of-occurrence data obtained from GBIF on global maps of four climate variables and elevation. Over all species, the median difference in distribution centroids was 234 km, and median values of all five environmental variables were highly correlated, although there were a few species outliers for each variable. We also acquired species’ elevational distribution mid-points (mid-point between minimum and maximum elevational extent) from the literature; median elevations from point occurrences and ranges were consistently lower (median −420 m) than mid-points. We concluded that in most cases occurrence points were likely to produce better estimates of underlying environmental variables than range maps, although differences were often slight. We also concluded that elevational range mid-points were biased high, and that elevation distributions based on either points or range maps provided better estimates.     

The effects of competition on fitness depend on the sex of both competitors

In intraspecific competition, the sex of competing individuals is likely to be important in determining the outcome of competitive interactions and the way exposure to conspecifics during development influences adult fitness traits. Previous studies have explored differences between males and females in their response to intraspecific competition. However, few have tested how the sex of the competitors, or any interactions between focal and competitor sex, influences the nature and intensity of competition. We set up larval seed beetles Callosobruchus maculatus to develop either alone or in the presence of a male or female competitor and measured a suite of traits: development time, emergence weight; male ejaculate mass, copulation duration, and lifespan; and female lifetime fecundity, offspring egg–adult survival, and lifespan. We found effects of competition and competitor sex on the development time and emergence weight of both males and females, and also of an interaction between focal and competitor sex: Females emerged lighter when competing with another female, while males did not. There was little effect of larval competition on male and female adult fitness traits, with the exception of the effect of a female competitor on a focal female's offspring survival rate. Our results highlight the importance of directly measuring the effects of competition on fitness traits, rather than distant proxies for fitness, and suggest that competition with the sex with the greater resource requirements (here females) might play a role in driving trait evolution. We also found that male–male competition during development resulted in shorter copulation times than male–female competition, a result that remained when controlling for the weight of competitors. Although it is difficult to definitively tease apart the effects of social environment and access to resources, this result suggests that something about the sex of competitors other than their size is driving this pattern.     

Panmixia across elevation in thermally sensitive Andean dung beetles

Janzen's seasonality hypothesis predicts that organisms inhabiting environments with limited climatic variability will evolve a reduced thermal tolerance breadth compared with organisms experiencing greater climatic variability. In turn, narrow tolerance breadth may select against dispersal across strong temperature gradients, such as those found across elevation. This can result in narrow elevational ranges and generate a pattern of isolation by environment or neutral genetic differentiation correlated with environmental variables that are independent of geographic distance. We tested for signatures of isolation by environment across elevation using genome‐wide SNP data from five species of Andean dung beetles (subfamily Scarabaeinae) with well‐characterized, narrow thermal physiologies, and narrow elevational distributions. Contrary to our expectations, we found no evidence of population genetic structure associated with elevation and little signal of isolation by environment. Further, elevational ranges for four of five species appear to be at equilibrium and show no decay of genetic diversity at range limits. Taken together, these results suggest physiological constraints on dispersal may primarily operate outside of a stable realized niche and point to a lower bound on the spatial scale of local adaptation.