Bundgaardjuarez8384
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been detected in many agricultural products in contaminated fields and in supply chains. Roots are the main organ in plants to uptake and bio-accumulate PFASs, but the changes of metabolic regulation in roots by PFASs are largely unexplored. Here, lettuce exposed to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) at different concentrations (500, 1000, 2000 and 5000 ng/L) was investigated via metabolomics. Many key metabolites, such as antioxidants, lipids, amino acids, fatty acids, carbohydrates, linolenic acid derivatives, purine and nucleosides, were significantly altered. Tyrosine metabolism, purine metabolism, isoquinoline alkaloid biosynthesis and terpenoid backbone biosynthesis were altered in roots by PFOA and PFOS. Tricarboxylic acid cycle was perturbed by 5000 ng/L exposure. Activation of antioxidant defense pathways, reallocation of carbon and nitrogen metabolism, regulation of energy metabolism and purine metabolism were reprogrammed in roots. Lettuce employed multiple strategies to increase tolerance to PFOA and PFOS, which includes the adjustment of membrane composition, elevation of inorganic nitrogen fixation and respiration, accumulation of sucrose and regulation of signaling molecules. The results of this study offer insights into the molecular reprogramming of plant roots in response to PFAS exposure and provide important information for the risk assessment of PFASs in environment.Natural vegetation is important for ecosystem services (ESs) provision, but is decreasing rapidly due to human-driven land use change, especially rapid expansion of commercial plantations. This is leading to a decrease in ESs provision, so measures are urgently needed to protect natural vegetation. Human activities, especially commercial plantations, can also lead to differences in vegetation types and associated ESs provision. This feature varies with altitude, an issue which has received insufficient attention. In this study, four ESs relevant to stakeholders (carbon storage, nitrogen export, sediment retention and water yield) were assessed. InVEST models and statistical methods (ANOVA; exploratory hierarchical clustering) were used to analyse 1) similarities/differences in ESs provision between different vegetation types and 2) spatial differences in ESs in different altitude zones in the Xishuangbanna region of China. The results showed that vegetation types in Xishuangbanna and their ESs supply capacity differed markedly, with the overall ESs supply capacity of natural forests exceeding that of commercial plantations. Promotion of mixed organic agriculture can be a balanced measure to secure future economic development and ecological protection. This study can act as reference for vegetation protection in other areas within and beyond China.Uncertainty in the information obtained through monitoring complicates decision making about aquatic ecosystems management actions. We suggest the value of information (VOI) to assess the profitability of paying for additional monitoring information, when taking into account the costs and benefits of monitoring and management actions, as well as associated uncertainty. Estimating the monetary value of the ecosystem needed for deriving VOI is challenging. Therefore, instead of considering a single value, we evaluate the sensitivity of VOI to varying monetary value. We also extend the VOI analysis to the more realistic context where additional information does not result in perfect, but rather in imperfect information on the true state of the environment. Therefore, we analytically derive the value of perfect information in the case of two alternative decisions and two states of uncertainty. Second, we describe a Monte Carlo type of approach to evaluate the value of imperfect information about a continuous classification variable. Third, we determine confidence intervals for the VOI with a percentile bootstrap method. Results for our case study on 144 Finnish lakes suggest that generally, the value of monitoring exceeds the cost. It is particularly profitable to monitor lakes that meet the quality standards a priori, to ascertain that expensive and unnecessary management can be avoided. The VOI analysis provides a novel tool for lake and other environmental managers to estimate the value of additional monitoring data for a particular, single case, e.g. a lake, when an additional benefit is attainable through remedial management actions.As an important environmental reservoir of phthalate esters (PAEs), soil-plant system constitutes a key exposure pathway to human health. In this study, agricultural soil and vegetable samples were collected from the Yangtze River Delta (approximately 211,700 km2), one of the most developed regions in China, to determine the contamination characteristics of priority PAEs. The total concentrations of six PAEs ranged from 5.42 to 1580 ng·g-1 dry weight in soils and from 10.9 to 16,400 ng·g-1 dry weight in vegetables. Di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) accounted for 88.3% and 61.9% of the total PAEs in soils and vegetables, respectively. The spatial distribution of PAEs in the soils was as follows Shanghai city (70.8-1583 ng·g-1 dw) > Anhui province (46.8-1530 ng·g-1 dw) > Jiangsu province (14.4-558 ng·g-1 dw) > Zhejiang province (5.40-488 ng·g-1 dw). Non-cancer risks exist for adults and children in 6.5% and 7.8% of the sites, respectively. Carcinogenic risks were regarded unacceptable in 5.6% and 1.3% of the sites for adults and children, respectively. The bioconcentration factor (BCF) of PAEs showed positive correlation with lipid content of vegetables. A basic reference of the lipid-content threshold to guarantee the safety of leafy vegetables was proposed based on partition-limited model. We suggested to cultivate vegetables with lipid content less then 0.21% in most heavily contaminated area in the region. This study provides information for effectively controlling PAEs contamination in soil-plant system in developed districts.One century after their introduction to Europe, eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) represent a natural experiment to determine the relative contributions of adaptive plasticity and rapid evolutionary change in creating large-scale geographic variation in phenotypes. We evaluated the population-genetic structure and invasion history based on allele length polymorphisms of 15 nuclear microsatellites, which we quantified for N = 660 individuals from 23 populations sampled in 2013 across the invasive range of G. holbrooki in Europe. We analysed body-shape and life-history variation in N = 1331 individuals from 36 populations, sampled in 2013 and 2017, and tested heritability of phenotypic differences in a subset of four populations using a common-garden experiment. check details The genetic structure of wild-caught individuals suggested a single introduction for all European mosquitofish, which were genetically impoverished compared to their native counterparts. We found some convergent patterns of phenotypic divergence across native and invasive climatic gradients (e.