Search results for "Earth"
showing 10 items of 12204 documents
Effect of NaCl road salt on the ionic composition of soils and Aesculus hippocastanum L. foliage and leaf damage intensity.
2021
AbstractWe investigated the accumulation of sodium chloride in roadside soils and common horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum L. under urban conditions to evaluate changes in soil and leaf ionic content and their relationship with foliar damage, considering the visual assessment of trees of the same health status. A total of 15 field sites were assessed in late June 2016. The analysis included soil granulometric composition, pH, electrical conductivity, and the content of Cl−, Na+, K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+ ions in soil and foliage samples. The results showed increased salinity and alkalization of roadside soils together with the decreased magnesium content. Foliage samples manifested significant…
Granulation and microbial community dynamics in the chitosan-supplemented anaerobic treatment of wastewater polluted with organic solvents.
2018
Abstract The effect of chitosan on the development of granular sludge in upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors (UASB) when treating wastewater polluted with the organic solvents ethanol, ethyl acetate, and 1-ethoxy-2-propanol was evaluated. Three UASB reactors were operated for 219 days at ambient temperature with an organic loading rate (OLR) of between 0.3 kg COD m −3 d −1 and 20 kg COD m −3 d −1 . One reactor was operated without the addition of chitosan, while the other two were operated with the addition of chitosan doses of 2.4 mg gVSS −1 two times. The three reactors were all able to treat the OLR tested with COD removal efficiencies greater than 90%. However, the time required to…
Study of Mass Oxygen Transfer in a Biotrickling Filter for Air Pollution Control
2012
Biotrickling filtration is a potential and cost effective alternative for the treatment of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions in air, so it is necessary to deepen into the key aspects of design and operation for the optimization of this technology. One of these factors is the oxygen mass transfer of the process. This study would facilitate the selection of the packing material and the mathematical modelling and simulation of bioreactors. Four plastic packing materials with a different specific surface area have been evaluated in terms of oxygen mass transfer. For the tested range of superficial liquid velocities, data show a relationship between the kLa and the superficial liquid vel…
Exploration of the Oxynoticeratidae ornamental morphospace using the discrete cosine transform (DCT) to analyze rib patterns.
2006
The discrete cosine transform (DCT) is a Fourier-related transform widely used in signal processing and well suited to analyzing open outlines such as ammonite ribs. The method is applied here to depict and decipher the ribbing morphospace of a large group of Lower Jurassic ammonites composed of the Oxynoticeratidae and their close ancestors. Because they are clearly associated with buoyancy and/or swimming ability, the usually clearly involute, comparatively smooth and compressed shells of these ammonites may well be misleading taxonomic markers. In this context, quantitative analysis of the ribbing pattern using the DCT may significantly improve our perception of the ornamental patterns e…
Climatic influence on the growth pattern ofPanthasaurus maleriensisfrom the Late Triassic of India deduced from paleohistology
2020
Metoposaurids are representatives of the extinct amphibian clade Temnospondyli, found on almost every continent exclusively in the Late Triassic deposits. Osteohistologically, it is one of the best-known temnospondyl groups, analyzed with a wide spectrum of methods, such as morphology, morphometry, bone histology or computed modelling. The least known member of Metoposauridae isPanthasaurus maleriensisfrom the Pranhita-Godavari basin in Central India, being geographically the most southern record of this family. For the first time the bone histology of this taxon was studied with a focus on the intraspecific variability of the histological framework and the relationship between the observed…
Ornamentation of dermal bones of Metoposaurus krasiejowensis and its ecological implications
2018
Background Amphibians are animals strongly dependent on environmental conditions, like temperature, water accessibility, and the trophic state of the reservoirs. Thus, they can be used in modern palaeoenvironmental analysis, reflecting ecological condition of the biotope. Methods To analyse the observed diversity in the temnospondyl Metoposaurus krasiejowensis from Late Triassic deposits in Krasiejów (Opole Voivodeship, Poland), the characteristics of the ornamentation (such as grooves, ridges, tubercules) of 25 clavicles and 13 skulls were observed on macro- and microscales, including the use of a scanning electron microscope for high magnification. The different ornamentation patterns fo…
Merging cranial histology and 3D-computational biomechanics : A review of the feeding ecology of a Late Triassic temnospondyl amphibian
2021
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a useful method for understanding form and function. However, modelling of fossil taxa invariably involves assumptions as a result of preservation-induced loss of information in the fossil record. To test the validity of predictions from FEA, given such assumptions, these results could be compared to independent lines of evidence for cranial mechanics. In the present study a new concept of using bone microstructure to predict stress distribution in the skull during feeding is put forward and a correlation between bone microstructure and results of computational biomechanics (FEA) is carried out. The bony framework is a product of biological optimisation; bon…
Sex specific differences recorded in the behavior of an amphipod: implications for behavioral toxicology
2020
Behaviour is a useful endpoint in ecotoxicological research; it links the biochemical effects of contamination with physiology of individuals, which can be applied to higher levels of organisation with relevance to ecology. Animals exhibit species-specific and sex specific behaviours. Previous experiments within ecotoxicology using amphipods as models have either not separated by sex or have on the assumption that they may create more variability in the results. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of time (which controlled light conditions), sex, and the interaction of time and sex on the swimming velocity in males and females of the marine amphipod Echino…
Effect of methylparaben in Artemia franciscana.
2017
In this study, the toxicity of methylparaben (MeP) an emerging contaminant, was analysed in the sexual species Artemia franciscana, due to its presence in coastal areas and marine saltworks in the Mediterranean region. The acute toxicity (24 h-LC50) of MeP in nauplii was tested and its chronic effect (9 days) evaluated by measuring survival and growth under two sublethal concentrations (0.0085 and 0.017 mg/L). Also, the effect on several key enzymes involved in: antioxidant defences (catalase (CAT) and gluthathion-S-transferase (GST)), neural activity (cholinesterase (ChE)) and xenobiotic biotransformation (carboxylesterase (CbE), was assessed after 48 h under sublethal exposure. The result…
One taxon does not fit all: Herb-layer diversity and stand structural complexity are weak predictors of biodiversity in Fagus sylvatica forests
2016
Abstract Since adequate information on the distribution of biodiversity is hardly achievable, biodiversity indicators are necessary to support the management of ecosystems. These surrogates assume that either some habitat features, or the biodiversity patterns observed in a well-known taxon, can be used as a proxy of the diversity of one or more target taxa. Nevertheless, at least for certain taxa, the validity of this assumption has not yet been sufficiently demonstrated. We investigated the effectiveness of both a habitat- and a taxa-based surrogate in six European beech forests in the Apennines. Particularly, we tested: (1) whether the stand structural complexity and the herb-layer speci…