Search results for "Earth"
showing 10 items of 12204 documents
Combined metabolic activity within an atrazine-mineralizing community enriched from agrochemical factory soil
2007
Abstract The main objective of this work was to characterize an atrazine-mineralizing community originating from agrochemical factory soil, especially to elucidate the catabolic pathway and individual metabolic and genetic potentials of culturable members. A stable four-member bacterial community, characterized by colony morphology and 16S rDNA sequencing, was rapidly able to mineralize atrazine to CO 2 and NH 3 . Two primary organisms were identified as Arthrobacter species (ATZ1 and ATZ2) and two secondary organisms (CA1 and CA2) belonged to the genera Ochrobactrum and Pseudomonas, respectively. PCR assessment of atrazine-degrading genetic potential of the community, revealed the presence…
Quantification of LAI interannual anomalies by adjusting climatological patterns
2011
International audience; Scaling variations and shifts in the timing of seasonal phenology are central features of global change research. In this study, we propose a novel climatology fitting approach to quantify inter-annual anomalies in LAI seasonality. A consistent archive of daily LAI estimates was first derived from historical AVHRR satellite data for the 1981-2000 period over a globally representative sample of sites. The climatology values were then computed by averaging multi-year LAI profiles, gap filling and smoothing to eliminate possible high temporal frequency residual artifacts. The inter-annual variations in LAI were finally quantified by scaling and shifting the seasonal cli…
The impact of the farming, abandonment and agricultural intensification on loss of water and soil. The example of the northern slopes of the Serra Gr…
2012
Land abandonment throughout the twentieth century led to an intense landscape transformation in the mountain areas of the Iberian Peninsula. In some cases, and after 50 years of abandonment, agriculture returned with the development of commercial farms and the intensification of the agrarian activities. In the Easter Iberian Peninsula, following the abandonment of olive groves, vineyards and cereals during the 50's, has been in the past two decades the expansion of intensive citrus production on sloping terrain. Geomorphological transects and simulated rainfall experiments have quantified the impact of traditional rainfed cultivation of the 50's, abandonment, and the intensification of farm…
Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of soils and grasses as indicators of soil characteristics and biological taxa
2019
Abstract The use of stable isotope techniques can assist in understanding interactions of plants with various abiotic and biotic processes. In the research, we focused on carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) isotopes because they are the most important resources influencing plant function and the biogeochemical cycles. The 13C/12C and 15N/14N ratios in plants and in soils and the relationships between these ratios and biological and environmental factors of widely distributed native C3 plants (couch grass, plantain and yarrow) collected from two sites in St. Petersburg, Russia were studied. The soil characteristics of the sites were rather different. This had a significant effect on the isotope rati…
Prebiotic Evolution and the Origin of Life: Chemical and Biochemical Aspects
1988
Evolution, as the term is used here, signifies any development or change adapting to the environment. Chemical evolution connotes changes of chemical substances, it thus signifies that changes occur fundamentally in the molecules. Frequently “chemical evolution” is used synonymously for “abiotic” or “prebiotic formation” of organic molecules in a cosmic system, usually on the prebiotic (or primitive) Earth. It is then assumed that the organic molecules were formed from the constituents of the primitive atmosphere, hydrosphere, and — in part — lithospere.
Ammonoid recovery after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction: a re-exploration of morphological and phylogenetic diversity patterns.
2013
The explosive ammonoid rediversification after the Permian–Triassic mass extinction is now well understood in terms of taxonomic richness and biogeography. Using an updated dataset of Early Triassic ammonoids, we compare morphological disparity and taxonomic richness patterns at the regional and global scales. Disparity evolved similarly at both scales, suggesting a global influence of abiotic factors. Morphological diversification occurred early in the Smithian and a marked contraction of the morphospace took place during the end-Smithian extinction. We confirm that trends in disparity and richness were decoupled during the Griesbachian and Dienerian. Three macroevolutionary processes may …
Analysis of emerging and related pollutants in aquatic biota
2020
Water bodies cover approximately 70 % of the earth s surface, making them ecosystems with a high environmental value and the habitat for numerous species of flora and fauna. Emerging pollutants (EPs) are ubiquitous anthropogenic compounds of environmental concern that can be found at different concentration levels in matrices such as sediment, water and aquatic biota. In addition, EPs can be bioaccumulated and biomagnified, inducing adverse effects on biota, and posing a risk to humans when contaminated biota is consumed. Unlike abiotic matrices, the occurrence of EPs in aquatic biota has not been widely studied. This is probably because their complexity, due to the presence of lipids, prot…
Sr-isotope analysis of speleothems by LA-MC-ICP-MS: High temporal resolution and fast data acquisition
2017
Speleothems are well established climate archives. A wide array of geochemical proxies, including stable isotopes and trace elements are present within speleothems to reconstruct past climate variability. However, each proxy is influenced by multiple factors, often hampering robust interpretation. Sr isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) can provide useful information about water residence time and water mixing in the host rock, as they are not fractionated during calcite precipitation. Laser ablation multi-collector-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) has rarely been used for determination of Sr isotope signatures in speleothems, as speleothems often do not possess appropriate…
Post-mortem alteration of diet-related enamel surface textures through artificial biostratinomy: A tumbling experiment using mammal teeth
2019
In the fossil record, teeth are often all that remains of a fossil organism. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is a common proxy for diet using dental wear features at the μm-scale, enabling comparative and quantitative assessments of various feeding traits in extant and extinct species. In extinct species, original diet-related dental wear features may be overprinted by post-mortem alteration including fluvial transport. Here we experimentally investigate the effects of mechanical alteration on diet-related 3D enamel surface texture (3DST) patterns of different mammal teeth. Post canine teeth of Equus sp., Capreolus capreolus and Otomys sp. are tumbled in sediment-water suspensio…
Solar radiation in Spain
1986
In Spain there are only a few stations registering solar radiation, but by using correlations with other meteorological variables, an estimate of the solar radiation can be made in other areas throughout the country. The best results have been obtained using the correlation with hours of bright sunshine. Four linear expressions between the two variables have been obtained, corresponding to the four seasons of the year. Employing such expressions, monthly maps of solar radiation isolines have been plotted for the peninsular part of Spain. The mean deviation is not higher than 5 per cent.