The role of arbuscular mycorrhiza on change of heavy metal speciation in rhizosphere of maize in wastewater irrigated agriculture soil

To understand the roles of mycorrhiza in metal speciation in the rhizosphere and the impact on increasing host plant tolerance against excessive heavy metals in soil, maize(Zea mays L.) inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus(Glomus mosseae) was cultivated in heavy metal contaminated soil. Speciations of copper, zinc and lead in the soil were analyzed with the technique of sequential extraction. The results showed that,in comparison to the bolked soil, the exchangeable copper increased from 26% to 43% in non-infected and AM-infected rhizoshpere respectively; while other speciation (organic, carbonate and Fe-Mn oxide copper) remained constant and the organic bound zinc and lead also increased but the exchangeable zinc and lead were undetectable. The organic bound copper, zinc and lead were higher by 15%, 40% and 20%, respectively, in the rhizosphere of arbuscular mycorrhiza infected maize in comparison to the non-infected maize. The results might indicate that mycorrhiza could protect its host plants from the phytotoxicity of excessive copper, zinc and lead by changing the speciation from bio-available to the non-bio-available form. The fact that copper and zinc accumulation in the roots and shoots of mycorrhia infected plants were significantly lower than those in the non-infected plants might also suggest that mycorrhiza efficiently restricted excessive copper and zinc absorptions into the host plants. Compared to the non-infected seedlings, the lead content of infected seedlings was 60% higher in shoots. This might illustrate that mycorrhiza have a different mechanism for protecting its host from excessive lead phytotoxicity by chelating lead in the shoots.

ECOLOGICALLY STRATEGIC POINTS IN LANDSCAPE AND SURFACE MODEL

Various processes occur across a landscape, including ecological processes such as the movement of species, the flow of nutrients, the spread of fire and other disturbances, and the diffusion of pollutants, economic processes such as land conversion for agricultural production, marketing of new product, transportation and immigration; political and diplomatic processes such as the construction of political influence sphere at local, national and global scale. At the fact of limited space and resources on the surface of the earth, a generic issue regarding these processes across the landscapes is: how to control (promote or retard) the processes efficiently, namely using less energy and space for a bigger influence sphere. The overall assumption for this issue is that, there are some positions and portion in a landscape that may have critical influence on a certain process across the landscape. These critical positions in a landscape are called strategic points. Occupancy of these strategic points may give a process the momentum of controlling and covering the landscape more effectively, due to their quality of; Initiative, occupancy of these points may give the process the advantage of leading the game; Co-ordlnation, occupancy of these points may give the process the advantage of forming an overall influence sphere; Efficiency, occupancy of these points may give the process the advantage of having a bigger coverage of the landscape while costing less energy. By identifying and using these critical positions and portions in the landscape, therefore, may unproportionately increase the efficiency of controlling this process. It is further assumed that, in order to take control of the landscape, the process has to overcome a certain resistance. A resistance surface can therefore visualize the dynamics of the process itself. The resistance surface resembles a topographic surface, indicating where the process (flow) diverges or converges. It is, therefore, possible to identify strategically important positions or portions in a landscape that may have important influence on the dynamics of the process. Assuming species movement across a landscape is a competitive gaming process of control and coverage against some resistance, this paper discusses a methodology of identifying strategic points according to the properties of resistance surfaces which resembles a gaming board as well as a topographic surface. Three types of resistance surfaces are discussed: The archipelago type: where lower resistance islands are surrounded by higher resistance matrix, representing such landscapes as agricultural fields dotted with native forest patches. The network type: where the lower resistance portions form a linear network surrounded by higher resistance matrix. The plateau type: where, areas with higher resistance are surrounded by lower resistance matrix. Accordingly, five types of strategic points are identified in terms of their locations. They are strategic points at saddle points , at intersections, at the center, at an edge and at a corner. Strategic points for biodivershy conservation are minimax points in a given resistance surface associated with the dispersibility of a certain species. A case study is used to illustrate the methodology. The rules leading to the strategic points are largely hypothetical, though supported by a limited number of observations. This approach may provide a framework and a new model of thinking for field observations of landscape ecology as well as landscape change.

Long-term temporal-spatial dynamics of marine coastal water quality in the Tolo Harbor,Hong Kong,China

The long-term temporal and spatial dynamics of marine coastal water quality in Tolo Harbor, Hong Kong were explored. The Harbor is divided into three zones represented as Harbor, Buffer, and Channel Subzones. The time range for the study covers the period from the 1970s to the 1990s. The selected indicators for the comprehensive assessment of water quality consist of physical, chemical and biological aspects, including suspended solids(SS), Secchi disk depth(SD), 5-day biochemical oxygen demand(BOD\-5), total nitrogen(TN), total phosphorus(TP), faecal coliform, chlorophyll-a(Chl-a), and the number of red tide occurrences. The results indicated the presence of obvious temporal and spatial trends with regard to changes in water quality. Spatially, water quality in the Channel Subzone is the best, while that in the Harbor Subzone is the worst. On a temporal basis, the average trend from bad to good was 1980s>1990s>1970s as indicated by most of the selected water quality indicators. Water quality during the late 1980s reached its worst level with the lowest SD, the highest BOD\-5, TN, TP, Chl-a concentrations, and the number of red tide occurrences. These long-term temporal-spatial water quality trends were also found in other studies of the Tolo Harbor. The large quantity of pollutants produced as a result of increasing population, industrial and commercial actives, and urbanization and industrialization trends in both Shatin and Tai Po seem to be primarily responsible for the changes in marine coastal water quality.

Vegetation patterns and nature reserve construction in an extremely-arid desert in Anxi, NW China's Gansu Province

Anxi County is located in the northwestern part of the Hexi Corridor in Gansu Province and has the sole national level nature reserve of extremely arid desert in China. Phytosociological methods (Braun Blanquet, 1964) are used to classify plant community types in this area. Eleven are distinguished, including six of deserts, four of oases and one transitional type between deserts and oases. Direct gradient analysis(DCA) is employed to correlate the distribution of plant communities to physiogeographic conditions. This study makes clear that water is the most important ecological factor for the distribution of plant species and communities in this area. The effects of water have been demonstrated in different ways. A vegetation gradient from lower altitude to higher altitude in the southern part of the reserve is driven by a precipitation gradient. The effects of the depth of ground water table contribute to the differentiation of vegetation from desert to oasis in the flat area. In a finer scale, the washed gullies have obviously higher species richness and also higher vegetation cover than the surround gobi surfaces, possibly caused by the effects of floods. The vegetation patterns demonstrate that the area of Anxi County is a complete landscape unit. The range of the current nature reserve is not large enough for the purpose of conserving the unique biodiversity in this area.

Thermodynamics of phenanthrene partition into solid organic matter from water

The thermodynamic behavior of organic contaminants in soils is essential to develop remediation technologies and assess risk from alternative technologies. Thermodynamics of phenanthrene partition into four solids(three soils and a bentonite) from water were investigated. The thermodynamics parameters(ΔH, ΔG o, ΔS o,) were calculated according to experimental data. The total sorption heats of phenanthrene to solids from water ranged from -7.93 to -17.1 kJ/mol, which were less exothermic than the condensation heat of phenanthrene-solid(i.e., -18.6 kJ/mol). The partition heats of phenanthrene dissolved into solid organic matter ranged from 23.1 to 32.2 kJ/mol, which were less endothermic than the aqueous dissolved heat of phenanthrene(i.e., 40.2 kJ/mol), and were more endothermic than the fusion heat of phenanthrene-solid(i.e., 18.6 kJ/mol). The standard free energy changes, ΔG o, are all negative which suggested that phenanthrene sorption into solid was a spontaneous process. The positive values of standard entropy changes, ΔS o, show a gain in entropy for the transfer of phenanthrene at the stated standard state. Due to solubility-enhancement of phenanthrene, the partition coefficients normalized by organic carbon contents decrease with increasing system temperature(i.e., lnK oc =-0.284lnS+9.82(n=4, r 2=0.992)). The solubility of phenanthrene in solid organic matter increased with increasing temperatures. Transports of phenanthrene in different latitude locations and seasons would be predicted according to its sorption thermodynamics behavior.

Concurrency: a system design approach to environmental manag-ement and sustainability

The lessons of history indicate that mismanagement of natural resources and the environment often leads to potentially adverse consequences. The increasing interest in economic development, particularly in the developing countries of the world coupled with increasing population pressures and the globalization of economic activity is placing noticeable stresses on the ultimate sustainability of both human and environmental systems. Sustainable development is not a new concept. It has been an area of concern for different elements of society for some time. Yet efforts to understand the implications of sustainable development have not, until recently, been formalized. We have focused singularly on economic development and environmental quality as if they were mutually exclusive. This paper focuses on the concept of concurrency as both a conceptual framework and practicable method of understanding and implementing the ecology and economy of sustainability.

Agroecosystem functional assessment and its difficulties

Agroecosystem functional assessment indicators provide a necessary bridge between decision makers and scientists. The development of acceptable indicators, however, remains a difficult task because the current knowledge and understanding of ecosystems is not sufficient to allow an objective assessment of all ecosystem functions. These difficulties were summarized from three perspectives. First, there are difficulties in individual function assessment. Of the four functions associated with agroecosystems energy flow, materials cycling, information flow and value flow data on material cycling and information flow remain difficult to obtain and the indicators relatively immature. Secondly, there are difficulties of integration. During the assessment process, the integration of the agroecosystem functions remains the biggest obstacle. Until now, there has been no practical or effective methodology established to resolve the problem. At present, the makeshift approach has been to weight the various indicators and then add them together. Thirdly, there is the problem of obscure concepts and concept confusion. When assessments of agroecosystems are conducted, concepts such as structure, function, benefit, and resource utilization are used extensively. To date, no logical relationship(either real or implied) has been developed between any of these concepts. Are they causes and results such that the relationship between them is linear, or are they independent from one another such that the relationship is parallel? Thus far, the essence of this question is yet to be explored.