The present study is the field experiment on kerosene pollution impact on southern taiga plant communities. Experimental sites were located in a mixed forest, a deciduous forest, a sedge fen and a ...wet meadow within the Amur Region of the Russian Far East. Kerosene loads from 1 to 500 g/kg of soil were applied to 50 × 50 cm plots in three replications and their effects on number of species and projective cover of ground vegetation were analysed in 1.5 months and 1 year after exposure. Statistical analyses of data included Student's t-test, Friedman ANOVA and correlation coefficient (r). Phylogenetic analysis was carried out for herbaceous plants on experimental plots. The highest susceptibility to kerosene pollution was found in the mixed forest, where the edificator species (Pteridium aquilinum subsp. pinetorum) was significantly suppressed by the kerosene load of only 1 g/kg of soil. Wetland communities regenerated faster than ground vegetation of forests, especially, in tests with high (>25 g/kg) kerosene loads. The wet meadow community was the most resistant to kerosene pollution, i.e., despite significant decreases in projective cover and number of species after exposure to kerosene loads of 5 and 25 g/kg in the first season, it had the highest regeneration success in the next season. In our study, the kerosene load of 25 g/kg of soil was the threshold level of pollution, above which there were significant structural changes in the studied plant communities. Depending on their abilities to resist kerosene pollution and to regenerate in the next year, dominant species of the studied plant communities were arranged in the following ascending order: Pteridium aquilinum ssp. pinetorum, Convallaria keiskei < Carex cespitosa, Calamagrostis purpurea < Lespedeza bicolor < Vaccinium uliginosum.
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•We discovered the impact of kerosene pollution on southern taiga phytocenoses.•Kerosene load of 25 g/kg of soil causes significant changes in vegetation structure.•The most vulnerable species to kerosene is Pteridium aquilinum subsp. pinetorum.•The most resistant species to kerosene is Vaccinium uliginosum.•Wetland communities demonstrate lower damage and higher recovery rate than forests.
One of the most important challenges for soil science is to determine the limits for the sustainable functioning of contaminated ecosystems. The response of soil microbiomes to kerosene pollution is ...still poorly understood. Here, we model the impact of kerosene leakage on the composition of the topsoil microbiome in pot and field experiments with different loads of added kerosene (loads up to 100 g/kg; retention time up to 360 days). At four time points we measured kerosene concentration and sequenced variable regions of 16S ribosomal RNA in the microbial communities. Mainly alkaline Dystric Arenosols with low content of available phosphorus and soil organic matter had an increased fraction of Actinobacteriota, Firmicutes, Nitrospirota, Planctomycetota, and, to a lesser extent, Acidobacteriota and Verrucomicobacteriota. In contrast, in highly acidic Fibric Histosols, rich in soil organic matter and available phosphorus, the fraction of Acidobacteriota was higher, while the fraction of Actinobacteriota was lower. Albic Luvisols occupied an intermediate position in terms of both physicochemical properties and microbiome composition. The microbiomes of different soils show similar response to equal kerosene loads. In highly contaminated soils, the proportion of anaerobic bacteria-metabolizing hydrocarbons increased, whereas the proportion of aerobic bacteria decreased. During the field experiment, the soil microbiome recovered much faster than in the pot experiments, possibly due to migration of microorganisms from the polluted area. The microbial community of Fibric Histosols recovered in 6 months after kerosene had been loaded, while microbiomes of Dystric Arenosols and Albic Luvisols did not restore even after a year.
The aims of this paper are (1) to assess the role of sociodemographic and psychosocial risk factors on antenatal anxiety (AA) and antenatal depression (AD) in first-generation migrant women in ...Geneva, as compared to a control group of native Swiss women, and (2) to examine the role of acculturation and other sociocultural factors in the development of antenatal distress in migrant women. A sample of 43 migrant and 41 Swiss pregnant women were recruited during the third trimester of pregnancy. AA was assessed by using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory, and AD by using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Acculturation was assessed as a bidimensional process comprising
and
, using the Vancouver Index of Acculturation. AA in migrant women was mainly predicted by psychosocial factors, namely socioeconomic status, marital support, family presence in Geneva and parity, while AD was predicted by one dimension of acculturation, i.e., attachment to the heritage culture. Our study can inform perinatal health care professionals about some specific risk factors for antenatal distress in migrant women in order to increase systematic screening procedures.
The article presents protocols for determining the biological activity of kerosene-contaminated soils in terms of two indicators, i.e. cellulolytic activity and biological consumption of oxygen. A ...method for determining the cellulolytic activity of soils is based on measuring the rate of cellulose decomposition in situ. Model test objects (linen fragments 10 × 20 cm weighing 4–6 g) were put in the root layer of soil. A month later, the linen was removed from soil and its weight loss was measured. Cellulolytic activity was estimated by the weight loss of readily hydrolysable organic matter (RHOM) per day (mg/g RHOM per day). The method for determining the biological consumption of oxygen of water was adapted for soils. The indicator characterizes the ability of microorganisms to oxidize organic substances using oxygen for 5 days. The analytic procedure includes taking a soil sample, preparing the suspension (the ratio of soil to distilled water is at least 1:10) and after 5 days measuring the concentration of unspent dissolved oxygen using the oxygen meter. The proposed methods give reproducible and reliable results on the biochemical activity of soil microorganisms in a wide range of soils, e.g. Retisols, Arenosols and Histosols, including those under hydrocarbon pollution.
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Fires in the ecosystems of Central Kazakhstan trigger a pyrogenic succession for 1-2 decades as usual. In recent years, changes of climate and land use in region have led to the intensification of ...fires and the gradual steppification of the territory, where desert vegetation was previously successfully restored. We analyzed the change in aboveground phytomass stocks during 40 years of pyrogenic succession. In the zonal communities, the phytomass reaches the background values in eight years after the fire and does not change later. For intrazonal communities in river valleys and gullies, aboveground phytomass stocks at the 4
th
and 16
th
years of succession do not differ significantly, and the structure of phytomass fractions by the 16
th
year resembles background zonal communities. This can be associated with a more intense grazing on the intrazonal communities in river valleys and gullies in the studied region.
The soil response to a jet-fuel contamination is uncertain. In this article, original data on the influence of a jet-fuel spillage on the topsoil properties are presented. The data set is obtained ...during a one-year long pot and field experiments with Dystric Arenosols, Fibric Histosols and Albic Luvisols. Kerosene loads were 1, 5, 10, 25 and 100 g/kg. The data set includes information about temporal changes in kerosene concentration; physicochemical properties, such as рН, moisture, cation exchange capacity, content of soil organic matter, available P and K, exchangeable NH4+, and water-soluble NO3–; and biological properties, such as biological consumption of oxygen, and cellulolytic activity. Also, we provide sequencing data on variable regions of 16S ribosomal RNA of microbial communities from the respective soil samples.
Significant environmental impacts of mining activities connected with high-sulfur materials result from the production of acid mine drainage and potentially toxic elements, which easily migrate to ...adjacent ecosystems due to the typical absence of vegetation on spoil heaps and toeslope talus mantle. In this paper, we present the results of the first comprehensive study of the ecosystems affected by acidic and metal-enriched (Al, Ca, Co, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ni, and Zn) mine drainage conducted at spoil heaps and adjacent talus mantle under semihumid climate conditions within the Moscow Brown Coal Basin (Central Russian Upland, Tula Region, Russia). A total of 162 samples were collected, including 98 soil samples, 42 surface water samples, and 22 plant samples (aerial tissues of birch). Coal talus mantle materials of Regosols were characterized by the increased concentration of water-soluble Ca, K, Mg, and S, and all mobile fractions of Al, Co, S, and Zn. The chemical composition of birch samples within the zones affected by acid mine drainage differed insignificantly from those in the unpolluted ecosystems with black soils, due to the high tolerance of birch to such conditions. Differences between the affected and undisturbed sites in terms of the chemical composition decreased in the following order: waters > soils > plants. The geochemical characterization of plants and soils in coal mining areas is essential for the mitigation of negative consequences of mining activities.
The environmental impact of space transport Koroleva, Tatyana V.; Krechetov, Pavel P.; Semenkov, Ivan N. ...
Transportation research. Part D, Transport and environment,
January 2018, 2018-01-00, Letnik:
58
Journal Article
Recenzirano
•Intense impact of space transport operation on terrestrial ecosystems is local.•The type of LV determines the area and degree of ecosystem disturbances.•Pollution by the toxic propellant and ...products of their transformation is short-term.•The heavy vehicles evacuating LV fragments increase the area of ecosystem disturbances.•The impact of the LV launches is negligible in the winter.
In this paper we will analyze the impact of Russian launch vehicles (LV) Proton and Soyuz on the terrestrial ecosystems of the Central Kazakhstan and Altai-Sayan region. All LV were launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in 2014–2016. The operation of the LV leads to local mechanical, chemical, and pyrogenic effects on the ecosystems of separating stages falling regions (FR).
Mechanical disturbances of ecosystems on the Proton first stage falling sites (FS) took the form of soil and vegetation cover damage when the large fragments scattered over an area of 1229 m2 and small fragments scattered over an area of 22,044 m2. The area of vegetation fire reached 245,588 m2, and the leakage of propellant components (nitrogen tetroxide (NT) and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH)) – up to 737 m2. We detected UDMH mainly in the snow of the Proton first stage FS, where its content reached up to 2200 mg/dm3 (the most common range of concentrations was 0.1–0.2 mg/dm3) and in sporadic soil samples it was up to 1.5 mg/kg. In early spring the content of UDMH was 0.09–0.69 mg/kg in the soil, in summer it did not exceed 0.05 mg/kg. In the NT leakage areas content of NO3– increased up to 22.3 g/dm3 in the snow and 24.8 g/kg in the soil. In the places of UDMH leakages, pH value in the snow and soil increased to 10.3 and 9.4, respectively, and the background values varied from 5.1 to 7.9 and from 6.6 to 8.3, respectively. The pollution of snow and soil by NT decreased in pH value to 0.9, and 2.3, respectively.
In the cases of Soyuz side blocks, the scattering of FS of large and small fragments reached 325 and 43,627 m2, respectively, the area of vegetation fire – up to 8556 m2, and the leakage of propellant components – to 129 m2. The contents of total petroleum hydrocarbons in places of kerosene T-1 leakage increased to 4354 mg/dm3 in the snow and to 45,167 mg/kg in the soil while background values were 0.03–0.05 mg/dm3 and 5–84 mg/kg, respectively. The operation of the heavy vehicle during the evacuation of fragments of the LV first stage can expand the impact zone several times.
In the FR of the Proton and Soyuz second stages the main impact is associated with the mechanical pollution of ecosystems with the fragments of fallen stages. We did not detect chemical transformation in the soil and snow during three years of observation.
Understanding the rate and direction of pyrogenic succession in arid ecosystems, which depends on many factors, including the intensity of grazing and the frequency of pyrogenic expo-sure, will allow ...for more accurate predictions of the consequences of fire onplant communities, and will assist with better fire management. We studied the vegetation on 55 sites in and near the “Chernye Zemli” Natural Biosphere Reserve that burned at different times or were not affected by fires over the past 35 years and characterized the changes in vegetation cover associated with the impact of wildfire and grazing. The descriptions were grouped into chronological stages according to the time elapsed since the last fire, or into groups according to the frequency of fires. In pairwise comparison of the projective cover of plant species between chronological stages, it correlated most strongly between successive initial stages (for stages 1 and 2, p = 0.003, r = 0.73; for stages 2 and 3, p < 0.001, r = 0.78). Species with an initially higher projective cover were more likely to grow on plots in the first year after the fire: p < 0.03. Plots with rare and frequent fires had similar projective cover of individual species (r = 0.64, p < 0.001). We conclude that in the course of pyrogenic succession, communities are gradually replaced over at least ten years. At the same time, the composition of a plant community at the initial point of succession depends on the prevalence of species in the community before the fire. No fundamental effect of the frequency of fires on the composition of plant communities has been revealed.
The dynamics of species richness and diversity indices in pyrogenic successions of sagebrush and perennial saltwort communities in Central Kazakhstan were analyzed. The biodiversity of such ...communities during the initial years after fires was higher than that in unburnt phytocenoses. However, values of biodiversity parameters significantly decreased 27-31 years after fires.
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