美国先进生物燃料技术政策与态势分析

美国是生物燃料大国,更是先进生物燃料研发强国。美国制定了宏大的生物燃料发展目标,采取了有力的政策支持措施,组织实施了生物质计划,将纤维素乙醇作为目前先进生物燃料研究、开发和示范的焦点,并已着手第三代生物燃料的研发。美国政府十分重视生物燃料的规划分析和部际协调工作,在立足于基础研究和应用研究前沿的基础上,大力推进技术示范与商业化,正努力加速向先进生物燃料转变。     

Options for biodiversity conservation in managed forest landscapes of multiple ownerships in Oregon and Washington,USA

We examine existing and developing approaches to balance biodiversity conservation and timber production with the changing conservation roles of federal and nonfederal forest land ownerships in the US Pacific Northwest. At landscape scales, implementation of the reserve-matrix approach of the federal Northwest Forest Plan in 1994 was followed by proposals of alternative designs to better integrate disturbance regimes or to conserve biodiversity in landscapes of predominantly young forests through active management without reserves. At stand scales, landowners can improve habitat heterogeneity through a host of conventional and alternative silvicultural techniques. There are no state rules that explicitly require biodiversity conservation on nonfederal lands in the region. However, state forest practices rules require retention of structural legacies to enhance habitat complexity and establishment of riparian management areas to conserve aquatic ecosystems. Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) under the US Endangered Species Act provide regulatory incentives for nonfederal landowners to protect threatened and endangered species. A state-wide programmatic HCP has recently emerged as a multi-species conservation approach on nonfederal lands. Among voluntary incentives, the Forest Stewardship Council certification comprehensively addresses fundamental elements of biodiversity conservation; however, its tough conservation requirements may limit its coverage to relatively small land areas. Future changes in landscape management strategies on federal lands may occur without coordination with nonfederal landowners because of the differences in regulatory and voluntary incentives between ownerships. This raises concerns when potentially reduced protections on federal lands are proposed, and the capacity of the remaining landscape to compensate has been degraded. This paper was previously published in Biodiversity and Conservation, Volume 16(13) under doi:     

First record of Terpios fugax Duchassaing and Michelotti, 1864 (Demospongiae: Suberitidae) in the Eastern Pacific Ocean

ABSTRACT

The brightly blue shallow water species Terpios fugax Duchassaing and Michelotti, 1864 was originally described from the Caribbean and has been extensively recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, but rarely found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In the Pacific Ocean it has been only reported from Sulawesi, Indonesia and from the Caroline and Marshall Islands. Here we report the first record of Terpios in the Eastern Pacific, based on the presence of T. fugax at Caldera, Región de Atacama, northern Chile. Although this species may have been inadvertently introduced to the area by human activity, it should also be considered that the geographically distant populations of this sponge (from the Caribbean to the Eastern Pacific) may represent different species.     

美国国家植物基因组计划资助情况分析

美国植物基因组计划（National Plant Genome Initiative,NPGI）于1998年正式启动,该计划在美国国家科学基金会（NSF）的支持下,成立了由美国农业部（USDA）、能源部（DOE）、国立卫生研究院（NIH）、国家科学基金会（NSF）、科学与技术政策办公室（OSTP）、管理与预算办公室（OMB）和美国国际开发署（USAID）等组成的植物基因组跨机构工作组（Interagency Working Group on Plant Genomes,IWG）,IWG每5年制定一项5年计划来指导协调基因组研究工作。对1998～2009年期间,美国国家科学基金会（NSF）资助国家植物基因组计划（NPGI）的目标、经费、项目变化情况进行了分析,以期得到某些启示和借鉴。     

Taxonomy of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Koeberlinia</Emphasis> (Koeberliniaceae)

Koeberlinia has a natural amphitropical distribution that includes the deserts of central Bolivia, northern Mexico, and the southwestern United States. Despite the long recognition of only one species, K. spinosa, field, herbarium, and SEM studies support the recognition of two species. Koeberlinia spinosa of northern Mexico and adjacent United States is recognized to consist of three varieties: K. spinosa var. spinosa of northeastern Mexico and the adjacent United States, K. spinosa var. tenuispina of the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona, adjacent California, and northwestern Mexico, and K. spinosa var. wivaggii from south central Texas and northern Mexico to Arizona, which is described as new. Koeberlina holacantha, endemic to the deserts of Bolivia, is proposed as new.     

The role of posttranslational modifications of α-synuclein and LRRK2 in Parkinson's disease: Potential contributions of environmental factors

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the most prevalent movement disorder. PD is characterized by dopaminergic neurodegeneration in the substantia nigra, but its etiology has yet to be established. Among several genetic variants contributing to PD pathogenesis, α-synuclein and leucine-rich repeat kinase (LRRK2) are widely associated with neuropathological phenotypes in familial and sporadic PD. α-Synuclein and LRRK2 found in Lewy bodies, a pathogenic hallmark of PD, are often posttranslationally modified. As posttranslational modifications (PTMs) are key processes in regulating the stability, localization, and function of proteins, PTMs have emerged as important modulators of α-synuclein and LRRK2 pathology. Aberrant PTMs altering phosphorylation, ubiquitination, nitration and truncation of these proteins promote PD pathogenesis, while other PTMs such as sumoylation may be protective. Although the causes of many aberrant PTMs are unknown, environmental risk factors may contribute to their aberrancy. Environmental toxicants such as rotenone and paraquat have been shown to interact with these proteins and promote their abnormal PTMs. Notably, manganese (Mn) exposure leads to a PD-like neurological disorder referred to as manganism—and induces pathogenic PTMs of α-synuclein and LRRK2. In this review, we highlight the role of PTMs of α-synuclein and LRRK2 in PD pathogenesis and discuss the impact of environmental risk factors on their aberrancy.     

Forecasting climate change impacts to plant community composition in the Sonoran Desert region

Hotter and drier conditions projected for the southwestern United States can have a large impact on the abundance and composition of long‐lived desert plant species. We used long‐term vegetation monitoring results from 39 large plots across four protected sites in the Sonoran Desert region to determine how plant species have responded to past climate variability. This cross‐site analysis identified the plant species and functional types susceptible to climate change, the magnitude of their responses, and potential climate thresholds. In the relatively mesic mesquite savanna communities, perennial grasses declined with a decrease in annual precipitation, cacti increased, and there was a reversal of the Prosopis velutina expansion experienced in the 20th century in response to increasing mean annual temperature (MAT). In the more xeric Arizona Upland communities, the dominant leguminous tree, Cercidium microphyllum, declined on hillslopes, and the shrub Fouquieria splendens decreased, especially on south‐ and west‐facing slopes in response to increasing MAT. In the most xeric shrublands, the codominant species Larrea tridentata and its hemiparasite Krameria grayi decreased with a decrease in cool season precipitation and increased aridity, respectively. This regional‐scale assessment of plant species response to recent climate variability is critical for forecasting future shifts in plant community composition, structure, and productivity.     

Optimizing survey effort for burrow‐nesting seabirds

ABSTRACT Regular monitoring of seabird populations is necessary to improve our understanding of their responses to environmental change and inform conservation management. However, given the difficulty in accessing remote breeding sites and the limited resources typically available to land managers, conducting regular, extensive surveys of seabird populations is often not feasible. Our objective was to determine the minimum survey effort required to obtain accurate and precise population estimates of Short‐tailed Shearwaters (Ardenna tenuirostris) and Little Penguins (Eudyptula minor), two abundant burrowing seabird species in southeastern Australia, by comparing bootstrapped means and confidence intervals under different sampling regimes on four islands. We found that, in many cases, survey effort (the proportion of transects and quadrats along transects surveyed) could be reduced. For Short‐tailed Shearwaters, reducing the number of transects resulted in a maximum difference of 15% between the means at full survey effort and two levels of reduced survey effort. Means differed by <3% when we halved the number of quadrats. For Little Penguins, reducing the number of transects and quadrats by 50% resulted in differences of 7–40% and 4–34%, respectively, between the full and reduced survey effort means. Confidence intervals generally increased with decreasing survey effort for both species. Differences in required survey effort between the two species in our study may have been due to differences in burrow distribution on islands, with Short‐tailed Shearwater burrows generally uniformly distributed on each island and Little Penguin burrows typically occurring in patches. These would be influenced by island‐specific characteristics in concert with habitat preferences, population size, and seasonal variation in seabird abundance. Stratified sampling did not increase survey accuracy and simulations showed that large reductions in survey effort could be made under a pseudo‐random sampling regime, with mean abundance estimates similar at most levels of survey effort. For both species, reducing the proportion of pseudo‐random quadrats to 50% and 25% of the full survey effort produced confidence intervals of 12% and 21%, respectively, of the maximum, whereas a survey effort of 10% produced confidence intervals of up to 36% of the maximum for both species. A pseudo‐random sampling regime would maximize survey efficiency because considerably fewer quadrats would be required and allow development of more efficient sampling protocols and regimes.     

Exploring the potential of food forestry to assist in ecological restoration in North America and beyond

Food forests—edible, perennial, polyculture systems—are of increasing interest in North America and the United Kingdom, as reflected in projects ranging from urban food initiatives to integrated conservation and restoration planning. To examine emerging food forestry (FF) against the backdrop of ecological restoration (ER), we conducted semi‐structured interviews with eight experts each from the fields of FF and ER in conjunction with observations of food forests in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Using content analysis, our study builds a FF model that encompasses the underlying goals of emerging FF—forest function; diversity of yields; education and culture sharing; healthy habitats for people and other species; and sustainability. We argue that FF has potential as an urban restoration tool in terms of enhancing the multifunctionality of heterogeneous landscapes undergoing significant changes. This will require meaningful consideration of ethical issues (e.g. commodification of nature), landscape contexts, ecological integrity, integration of historical knowledge, and resilience for interdependent, dynamic social and ecological systems. Moreover, systematic, long‐term monitoring of different types of food forests will be crucial in order to mindfully apply FF in ER. This research provides one of the first in‐depth analyses of how emerging FF might contribute to restoration in the time of the Anthropocene, especially outside traditional tropic regions where most FF has been practiced.