Wilcoxbusch8204

We found 2149 individual reptiles from 15 species. The functional response of reptiles to fire was forest-type dependent functional richness did not change with fire in cork oak forest plots, but increased with fire in the pine plantation ones. High reptile functional richness in cork oak plots was due to high species richness in this forest type. The functional-redundancy analysis showed that cork oak forest hosts a reptile community functionally composed of small Mediterranean ground- and rock-dwelling lizards. In pine plantation plots, however, saxicolous geckos and phytophagous tortoises indicate the availability of other microhabitat and food resources to be exploited by reptile species with different functional traits.Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is associated with decreased cardiac function, especially in high risk populations such as obese ones. In this study, impacts of PM2.5 exposure on cardiac function were investigated by using the diet-induced obesity mice model. Hippo inhibitor Mice were fed with normal diet or high-fat diet (HFD) for four weeks and then exposed to phosphate-buffered solution or Taiyuan winter PM2.5 (0.25 mg/kg body/day) through intratracheal instillation for another four weeks. Among physiological indices recorded, heart rate and blood pressure were increased after PM2.5 exposure in the heart of the obese mice. Metabolomics and lipidomics were applied to explore molecular alterations in response to the co-treatment of PM2.5 and HFD. Our results demonstrated both direct impacts on cardiac function and indirect effects resulted from the injury of other organs. Inflammation of lung and hypothalamus may be responsible for the elevation of phenylalanine metabolism in serum and its downstream products epinephrine and norepinephrine, the catecholamines involves in regulating cardiac system. In intracardiac system, the co-treatment led to imbalance of energy metabolism, in addition to oxidative stress and inflammation. In contrast to the upregulation of glucose and fatty acids uptake and CoA synthesis, levels of ATP, acetyl-CoA and the intermediates in glycolysis pathway decreased in the heart. The results indicated that energy metabolism disorder was possibly one of the important contributing factors to the more severe adverse effects of the combined treatment of HFD and PM2.5.The strategic interaction of inter-regional environmental regulation is a typical feature of local government behavior in China, which can affect the green productivity growth in the local region through the Porter effect and the pollution refuge effect. Based on the panel data of 274 prefecture-level cities from 2005 to 2015 in China, this thesis constructs a comprehensive indicator of environmental regulation, accurately identifies the mode of China's inter-regional strategic interaction of environmental regulation and calculates the green total factor productivity, green technology efficiency and green technology progress in 274 cities. In addition, this thesis also conducts an empirical analysis on the effect of the strategic interaction of environmental regulation on the green productivity in China. The author of this thesis finds that (1) the mode of strategic interaction of environmental regulation in China is complementary "race to the top", that is, the local region will strengthen its environmental regulation, if the environmental regulations in its adjacent regions are strengthened; (2) the environmental regulation in the local region promotes the green productivity in China, while the weighted environmental regulation in the adjacent regions inhibits the green productivity. What's more, environmental regulations in economic-proximity regions have greater negative spatial spillover effects on green productivity in the local region, compared with those in geographic-proximity regions; (3) environmental regulation in the local region and its adjacent regions can affect the green productivity growth in China through the channels of green innovation and pollution transfer, that is, the Porter effect and pollution refuge effect coexist in China. They mean that in the process of China's regional environmental governance, it is necessary to reduce pollution transfer, and promote green innovation so as to achieve sustainable and high-quality economic development.The refractory properties of waste activated sludge and wheat straw inhibit their bioenergy recovery by anaerobic digestion. This paper attempted to estimate the digestive performance, energy conversion efficiency and economic feasibility of wheat straw mono-digestion and its co-digestion with sludge by hydrothermal pretreatment at different temperature gradients (125, 150 and 175 °C). The results illustrated that the hydrolysis of both wheat straw and sludge were improved with the temperature increasing. It is noted that after pretreatment at 175 °C, wheat straw mono-digestion obtained the cumulative specific methane yield of 168.8 mL/g·VS, 6.9% reduction compared to the unpretreated straw (181.4 mL/g·VS) due to the inhibition by by-products (furfural and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, 5-HMF) formed at high temperatures. The highest cumulative specific methane yield of 225.7 mL/g·VS was achieved by the co-digestion of pretreated wheat straw and pretreated sludge under 175 °C, indicating that the participation of sludge in co-digestion improved the buffer capacity of the system to relieve the inhibition. In addition, the co-digestion of sludge and wheat straw both pretreated at 175 °C obtained the maximum energy production of 7901.1 MJ/t, 52% promotion compared to the mono-digestion without pretreatment. The results of economic analysis showed that the mono-digestion of wheat straw obtained relatively low net profits and the mono-digestion of sludge pretreated at 175 °C achieved the highest net profit of 31.44 US$/t. These results suggest that the co-digestion of both pretreated wheat straw and sludge can achieve the highest biogas production and energy conversion efficiency.Accelerating the rate-limiting step of Fe3+/Fe2+ conversion is a major challenge for H2O2 decomposition in conventional Fenton process. In this study, the catalytic mechanism of H2O2 by molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanoparticles and Fe3+ ions was revealed and the abatement of organic micropollutants was investigated. The presence of both MoS2 and Fe3+ can efficiently decompose H2O2. Reaction system of H2O2/MoS2/Fe3+ is found to remove most of the tested pollutants by over 80% (except 65.9% for carbamazepine) within 60 min at pH of 3.0. Effective pH range of this reaction system can be extended to pH of 5.0. Adding MoS2 to Fe3+/H2O2 system promotes the Fe3+/Fe2+ cycle and improves the reaction rate between Fe3+ and H2O2. The formation of Mo6+ ions and Mo6+ peroxo-complexes is beneficial to H2O2 decomposition and pollutant degradation. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements and quenching experiments confirm the important role of hydroxyl radicals in H2O2/MoS2/Fe3+ system. Chloride ions (Cl-) promote degradation, while bicarbonate ions (HCO3-) inhibit degradation.