Search results for "Water"
showing 10 items of 9348 documents
Response of transgenic mannitol-producing tobacco plants to water deficit
2008
Transgenic mannitol-producing (+mtlD) and wild type (-mtlD) tobacco plants were exposed to water deficit to test whether mannitol is involved in drought stress protection. Rooted cuttings of -mtlD and +mtlD plants were fully irrigated (100% ET) or received 25% ET for 40 days, followed by 20 days of re-watering. Water deficit reduced RWC of both plant types starting on the 22nd day, total stem length of -mtlD 25% ET already after 11 days, whereas that of +mtlD 25% ET only after 34 days. After 30 days of deficit, a greater percentage of mature foliage was retained by +mtlD 25% ET compared to -mtlD 25% ET. Mannitol-1-phosphate dehydrogenase activity of +mtlD plants was not affected by water de…
Illicit drugs consumption evaluation by wastewater-based epidemiology in the urban area of Palermo city (Italy)
2017
Introduction. A wastewater-based epidemiology approach was performed to estimate the drug consumption in Palermo city, the fifth largest city of Italy with a population of 671 696 inhabitants, and to investigate the monthly variability of drug loads in wastewater from different areas of the city. A seven-months detection campaign was conducted at the two wastewater treatment plants of the city. Methods. Following a pre-treatment, 32 samples of wastewater were analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Results. We estimated a mean cocaine use in Palermo of 0.19 g/day/1000 people, corresponding to 1.90 doses/1000 people and cannabinoids use of 2.85 g/day/1000 people, correspo…
Thermal and Mechanical Characterization of Yarn Samples from Flemish Tapestry of the Sixteenth Century
2022
We propose a physico-chemical approach for theharacterization of the conservation condition of yarns from a Flemish tapestry of the sixteenth century. The aging effect on the yarns’ performance was evaluated by comparison with commercial materials. Water uptake experiments highlighted the aptitude of yarns toward water sorption and their increased hydrophilicity upon aging. Thermogravimetric analysis can be considered a fast approach for the fiber identification and assessment on the material life-time. The dynamic mechanical analysis provided direct evidence on the yarns, conservation state and their performance under different mechanical stresses. The proposed characterization path can be…
Effect of substrate particle size on burrowing of the juvenile freshwater pearl mussel Margaritifera margaritifera
2021
AbstractJuveniles of the endangered freshwater pearl mussel (FPM,Margaritifera margaritifera) live burrowed in stream substrate for the first years of their life. Fine sediments block water exchange within substrate and may cause juvenile mortality and recruitment failure. To better understand the connection between success of juvenile FPM and substrate particle size, it would be important to understand behavioural responses of FPM to varying substrate sizes at this critical life stage. We placed newly detached FPM juveniles in a 7-mm layer of sieved sand sorted into five sizes (< 120, 120–200, 200–250, 250–500 and 500–650 µm) each with 10 replicate dishes, 10 juveniles per dish, with bu…
Effects of waterg gun on echinoderms: biochemical changes on sea urchin (Arbacia lixula) and sea cucumber (Holothuria tubulosa)
2019
Sources Airguns and Waterguns are used in seismic exploration the marine seafloor for different purposes such as oil and gas search, or geological-geodynamic reconstruction. In this technique a bubble of compressed air is produced with a consequently production of loud sound wave penetrating the ocean floor. The impact of seismic Airguns was assessed in some cetaceans (Kyhn et al. 2019), fish species and invertebrate (Carroll et al. 2017), but we need to know more. In this study we evaluate the biochemical changes in sea urchin (Arbacia lixula) and sea cucumber (Holothuria tubulosa) exposed to a 20 minutes of watergun noise (1 pulse each 10 s) at a distance of 50 m. For each species 40 indi…
Modeling belowground water table fluctuations in the Everglades
2010
Humid lands, such as riparian zones, peatlands, and unsubmerged wetlands, are considered among the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, providing a bountiful habitat for a large number of plant and animal species. In such ecosystems, the water table dynamics play a key role in major ecohydrological processes. The aim of the present study is to test with field data a recent analytical model for the estimation of the long‐term probability distribution of the belowground water table position in groundwater‐dependent environments. This model accounts for stochastic rainfall and processes such as infiltration, root water uptake, water flow from/to an external water body, and capillary fl…
Functional classifications in phytoplankton ecology: a comparative review of approaches and experiences
2013
Empirical models of phytoplankton groups and their recurrence in water bodies have traditionally made use of taxonomic classifications, implicitly or explicitly assuming that species classified together could share similar ecological properties. Nevertheless, the use of taxonomy in ecology has many drawbacks. From one side, many broader groups include species with very different ecological properties. From the other side, convergent evolution, the independent evolution of similar characters in different lineages, can explain why distantly phylogenetically related species can be linked together by close analogous ecological affinities. With the aim to obtain a better understanding of the fun…
Ecological risk assessment of pesticides in the Mijares River (eastern Spain) impacted by citrus production using wide-scope screening and target qua…
2021
The widespread use of pesticides, especially in agricultural areas, makes necessary to control their presence in surrounding surface waters. The current study was designed to investigate the occurrence and ecological risks of pesticides and their transformation products in a Mediterranean river basin impacted by citrus agricultural production. Nineteen sites were monitored in three campaigns distributed over three different seasons. After a qualitative screening, 24 compounds was selected for subsequent quantitative analysis. As expected, the lower section of the river was most contaminated, with total concentration >5 µg/L in two sites near to the discharge area of wastewater treatment pla…
Consistency of Targeted Metatranscriptomics and Morphological Characterization of Phytoplankton Communities
2020
The composition of phytoplankton community is the basis for environmental monitoring and assessment of the ecological status of aquatic ecosystems. Community composition studies of phytoplankton have been based on time-consuming and expertise-demanding light microscopy analyses. Molecular methods have the potential to replace microscopy, but the high copy number variation of ribosomal genes and the lack of universal primers for simultaneous amplification of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genes complicate data interpretation. In this study, we used our previously developed directional primer-independent high-throughput sequencing (HTS) approach to analyze 16S and 18S rRNA community structures. C…