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Many species are too slow to track their poleward moving climate niche under global warming. Pesticide exposure may contribute to this by reducing population growth and impairing flight ability. Moreover, edge populations at the moving range front may be more vulnerable to pesticides because of the rapid evolution of traits to enhance their rate of spread that shunt energy away from detoxification and repair. We exposed replicated edge and core populations of the poleward moving damselfly Coenagrion scitulum to the pesticide esfenvalerate at low and high densities. Exposure to esfenvalerate had strong negative effects on survival, growth rate and development time in the larval stage and negatively affected flight-related adult traits (mass at emergence, flight muscle mass and fat content) across metamorphosis. Pesticide effects did not differ between edge and core populations, except that at the high concentration the pesticide-induced mortality was 17% stronger in edge populations. Pesticide exposure may therefore slow down the range expansion by lowering population growth rates, especially because edge populations suffered a higher mortality, and by negatively affecting dispersal ability by impairing flight-related traits. These results emphasize the need for direct conservation efforts toward leading-edge populations for facilitating future range shifts under global warming. MAIN DATAEVA-2015-167-OA DATA.xlsSUPPLEMENTARY DATA FOR APPENDICES (BIOTIC AND ABIOTIC PARAMETERS)EVA-2015-167-OA DATA FOR APPENDICES (BIOTIC AND ABIOTIC PARAMETERS).xls

Analyses of ancient food webs reveal important paleoecological processes and responses to a range of perturbations throughout Earth’s history, such as climate change. These responses can inform our forecasts of future biotic responses to similar perturbations. However, previous analyses of ancient food webs rarely accounted for key differences between modern and ancient community data, particularly selective loss of soft-bodied taxa during fossilization. To consider how fossilization impacts inferences of ancient community structure we (1) analyzed node-level attributes to identify correlations between ecological roles and fossilization potential and (2) applied selective information loss procedures to food web data for extant systems. We found that selective loss of soft-bodied organisms has predictable effects on the trophic structure of “artificially fossilized” food webs, because these organisms occupy unique, consistent food web positions. Fossilized food webs misleadingly appear less stable (i.e., more prone to trophic cascades), with less predation and an overrepresentation of generalist consumers. We also found that ecological differences between soft- and hard-bodied taxa—indicated by distinct positions in modern food webs—are recorded in an Early Eocene web, but not in Cambrian webs. This suggests that ecological differences between the groups have existed for ≥ 48 million years. Our results indicate that accounting for soft-bodied taxa is vital for accurate depictions of ancient food webs. However, the consistency of information loss trends across the analyzed food webs means it is possible to predict how the selective loss of soft-bodied taxa affects food web metrics, which can permit better modeling of ancient communities. Repository Contents: Supplementary Information: Containing Supplementary Text, Figures, Tables, and Data descriptions. Supplementary Data 1: Food web data (adjacency matrices and metadata; see publication; see Related Works). Supplementary Data 2: Additional references consulted for preservation group assignments. Supplementary Data 3: Data and R scripts to recreate analyses from this study. S3_AllWebTaxonomy_updated_200903.csv: Taxonomy data for all food web nodes. S3_AnalysisOfTaxonomicRanks.csv: Lowest taxonomic rank for each node. S3_MainFigures_CaimanComparison.R: Compare the three food webs contained in (Roopnarine and Hertog 2013). S3_MainFigures_ComparisonFunctions.R: Functions for calculating metrics and generating trophic species webs. S3_MainFigures_FossilizationFunctions.R: Functions for artificially fossilizing networks. S3_MainFigures_Setup_200826.R: Setup to import food webs. S3_MainFigures_Code.R: Code to apply functions. S3_pbdb_data_200504.csv: Data from the Paleobiology Database, excluding Lagerstätten (see publication). S3_PresGrAssignments_updated_200902.csv: Preservation group assignments for all nodes. Fossil faunal lists were downloaded from the PBDB on 17th January 2020. Any data processing steps are shown in R Scripts and described in publication. Paleobiology Database is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. We analyzed food webs for four modern marine systems, one modern freshwater system, two ancient marine systems, and one ancient lake system from previous publications. All webs have similar, broad higher-rank taxonomic compositions and contain at least 85 nodes (the size of the smallest ancient network considered). For comparisons with ancient diversity, we downloaded fossil occurrences from the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) on 17th January 2020. 

The European Union is currently in the process of transformation toward a circular economy model in which different areas of activity should be integrated for more efficient management of raw materials and waste. The wastewater sector has a great potential in this regard and therefore is an important element of the transformation process to the circular economy model. The targets of the circular economy policy framework such as resource recovery are tightly connected with the wastewater treatment processes and sewage sludge management. With this in view, the present study aims to review existing indicators on resource recovery that can enable efficient monitoring of the sustainable and circular solutions implemented in the wastewater sector. Within the reviewed indicators, most of them were focused on technological aspects of resource recovery processes such as nutrient removal efficiency, sewage sludge processing methods and environmental aspects as the pollutant share in the sewage sludge or its ashes. Moreover, other wide-scope indicators such as the wastewater service coverage or the production of bio-based fertilizers and hydrochar within the wastewater sector were analyzed. The results were used for the development of recommendations for improving the resources recovery monitoring framework in the wastewater sector and a proposal of a circularity indicator for a wastewater treatment plant highlighting new challenges for further researches and wastewater professionals.

The steel industry is the largest consumer of energy in the world among industrial sectors. It is generally acknowledged that energy and environment are intimately related. Steel production is an energy intensive process that has a significant environmental impact. This paper reviews the progress made on energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and water consumption in the steel industry worldwide. The reduction in the availability of fresh water resources combined with the effects of global warming and climate change have increased pressure on industries, especially steel, to reduce its overall pollution, and specifically its water and carbon footprint. The implications of these effects on the value chain is discussed in this review. The contribution of new emerging technologies of iron and steelmaking is also reviewed. Finally, the important issues that contribute to define a sustainable industrial activity such as the recycling of steel and of by-products of steel production are studied. The history of steel industry is full of lessons, one of which is the need to keep the dreams alive. There are indeed expectations to solve problems created by technical progress.

Abstract In addition to CO2 released by the combustion of fossil fuel and leading to climate change, large steelworks emit pollutants that have other environmental impacts. ArcelorMittal Gent, an integrated steelwork producing ca. 5 × 106 tons of steel per year, not only decreased its specific energy consumption and CO2-emissions, but also reduced the environmental impact of its other emissions. This is illustrated by means of the evolution of 6 partial eco-efficiency indicators for the impact categories acidification, photo-oxidant formation, human toxicity, freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity, eutrophication and water use. The partial eco-efficiency indicators are eco-intensities, defined as the environmental impact in the respective impact category, divided by the amount of liquid steel produced. In the period 1995 – 2005 these indicators decreased by 45, 4, 52, 9, 11 and 33% respectively, whereas the steel production increased by 17%. The net impact of discharges of wastewater is negligible for human toxicity and is negative (concentrations lower than in the canal water used) for freshwater aquatic toxicity and eutrophication. For acidification, human toxicity (only emissions to air) and water use, the decoupling between environmental impact and production was absolute; for photo-oxidant formation, freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity (only emissions to air) and eutrophication, it was relative.

The impact of urban water fluxes on the river system outflow of the Grote Nete catchment (Belgium) was studied. First the impact of the Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) and the Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) outflows on the river system for the current climatic conditions was determined by simulating the urban fluxes as point sources in a detailed, hydrodynamic river model. Comparison was made of the simulation results on peak flow extremes with and without the urban point sources. In a second step, the impact of climate change scenarios on the urban fluxes and the consequent impacts on the river flow extremes were studied. It is shown that the change in the 10-year return period hourly peak flow discharge due to climate change (−14% to +45%) was in the same order of magnitude as the change due to the urban fluxes (+5%) in current climate conditions. Different climate change scenarios do not change the impact of the urban fluxes much except for the climate scenario that involves a strong increase in rainfall extremes in summer. This scenario leads to a strong increase of the impact of the urban fluxes on the river system.

Earthworm distribution in global soils Earthworms are key components of soil ecological communities, performing vital functions in decomposition and nutrient cycling through ecosystems. Using data from more than 7000 sites, Phillips et al. developed global maps of the distribution of earthworm diversity, abundance, and biomass (see the Perspective by Fierer). The patterns differ from those typically found in aboveground taxa; there are peaks of diversity and abundance in the mid-latitude regions and peaks of biomass in the tropics. Climate variables strongly influence these patterns, and changes are likely to have cascading effects on other soil organisms and wider ecosystem functions. Science , this issue p. 480 ; see also p. 425