Chemicals must be bioavailable for there to be a potential for exposure and consequent risk to human or environmental health. Passive sampling devices (PSDs) are used to quantify the time-integrated concentration of bioavailable contaminants. We demonstrate that PSDs can be paired with the zebrafish developmental toxicity bioassay to produce site-specific,...
Arctic soils are warming, making vast stores of organic carbon available for conversion to CO₂. This could create a positive feedback loop and accelerate global warming, but the processes that convert this carbon into CO₂ are not well understood. We investigated how the combined activities of sunlight and microbes degrade...
In west Eugene (Oregon), community research indicates residents are disproportionately exposed to industrial air pollution and exhibit increased asthma incidence. In Carroll County (Ohio), recent increases in unconventional natural gas drilling sparked air quality concerns. These community concerns led to the development of a prototype mobile device to measure personal...
Natural gas extraction, often referred to as “fracking,” has increased rapidly in the U.S. in recent years. To address potential health impacts, passive air samplers were deployed in a rural community heavily affected by the natural gas boom. Samplers were analyzed for 62 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Results were grouped...
Full Text:
. B., Donald, C. E., Smith, B. W., Tidwell, L. G., Hobbie, K. A., Kincl, L., ...
& Anderson, K. A
Based on regional-scale studies, aboveground production and litter decomposition are thought to positively covary, because they are driven by shared biotic and climatic factors. Until now we have been unable to test whether production and decomposition are generally coupled across climatically dissimilar regions, because we lacked replicated data collected within...
Mat-forming “ground layers” of mosses and lichens often have functional impacts disproportionate to their biomass, and are responsible for sequestering one-third of the world's terrestrial carbon as they regulate water tables, cool soils and inhibit microbial decomposition. Without reliable assessment tools, the potential effects of climate and land use changes...
Full Text:
, Juan C. Benavides2, Sarah Jovan3, Michael Amacher4 and Bruce McCune1
1 Department of Botany and Plant
Sequestering semi-polar compounds can be difficult with low-density polyethylene (LDPE), but those pollutants may be more efficiently absorbed using silicone. In this work, optimized methods for cleaning, infusing reference standards, and polymer extraction are reported along with field comparisons of several silicone materials for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and pesticides....
Postfire logging recoups the economic value of timber killed by wildfire, but whether such forest management activity supports or impedes forest recovery in stands differing in structure from historic conditions remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of mechanical logging after wildfire on soil bacterial...
Predatorprey interactions are a primary structuring force vital to the resilience of marine communities and sustainability of the worlds oceans. Human influences on marine ecosystems mediate changes in species interactions. This generality is evinced by the cascading effects of overharvesting top predators on the structure and function of marine ecosystems....
Decomposition of woody roots in Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis (Bong.) Carrière), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco), and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa P. Laws. ex C. Laws.) dominated forests in Oregon, U.S.A. was studied using a chronosequence. Roots of five coniferous species were excavated from stumps with ages up to 46...