Limited spatial and temporal variability in meiofauna and nematode communities at distant but environmentally similar sites in an area of interest for deep-sea mining

To be able to adequately assess potential environmental impacts of deep-sea polymetallic nodule mining, the establishment of a proper environmental baseline, incorporating both spatial and temporal variability, is essential. The aim of the present study was to evaluate both spatial and intra-annual variability in meiofauna (higher taxa) and nematode communities (families and genera, and Halalaimus species) within the license area of Global Sea mineral Resources (GSR) in the northeastern Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCFZ), and to determine the efficiency of the current sampling of meiofauna and nematode diversity. In October 2015, three polymetallic nodule-bearing sites, about 60–270 km apart, located at similar depths (ca. 4,500 m) were sampled, of which one site was sampled in April in that same year. Despite the relatively large geographical distances and the statistically significant, but small, differences in sedimentary characteristics between sites, meiofauna and nematode communities were largely similar in terms of abundance, composition and diversity. Between-site differences in community composition were mainly driven by a set of rare and less abundant taxa. Moreover, although surface primary productivity in April exceeded that in October, no significant changes were observed in sedimentary characteristics or in meiofauna and nematode communities. At all sites and in both periods, Nematoda were the prevailing meiofaunal phylum, which was in turn dominated by Monhysterid genera and Acantholaimus. Our findings support the earlier purported notion of a low degree of endemism for nematode genera and meiofauna taxa in the deep sea, and hint at the possibility of large distribution ranges for at least some Halalaimus species. Taxon richness estimators revealed that the current sampling design was able to characterize the majority of the meiofauna and nematode taxa present. To conclude, implications of the present findings for environmental management and future research needs are provided

Previsão da capacidade de remoção de cianobactérias e cianotoxinas na ETA de Alcantarilha

Os blooms de cianobactérias em reservatórios de água destinada à produção de água para consumo humano originam muitos problemas, sendo o mais preocupante o facto de uma proporção significativa de cianobactérias produzirem uma ou mais toxinas. Num programa de prevenção da saúde pública, relativamente ao consumo de água com cianotoxinas, é essencial avaliar a eficiência de remoção destes compostos nas Estações de Tratamento de Água (ETA). Neste âmbito, o presente trabalho tem como objectivo efectuar uma previsão, com base em informação bibliográfica, da eficiência de remoção de cianobactérias e cianotoxinas pelo processo de tratamento instalado na ETA de Alcantarilha (Águas do Algarve, S.A.), face a um eventual bloom na água de origem. Prevê-se que a ETA de Alcantarilha (tratamento convencional com pré-ozonização) possibilite a remoção de cianobactérias e cianotoxinas intracelulares se forem utilizadas as doses de reagentes e residuais de ozono e cloro apropriados e com a utilização de carvão activado em pó (PAC) em doses relativamente elevadas. A principal incerteza prende-se com o desempenho da ETA na remoção de toxinas solúveis, uma vez que este está dependente da qualidade da água na origem e das condições de funcionamento da ozonização, da adsorção com PAC e da cloragem

Stones, demons, medicinal herbs, and the market: Ethnic medicine and industrial aspirations among the Qiang of Western Sichuan

In global health it is commonly assumed that governments orchestrate a benevolent integration of “traditional medicine” into health systems and markets, through national policies and regulation, as in WHO’s “Traditional Medicine Strategy”. In China, rather than state orchestration, it is a healthcare market of products and services, operating within a nation-building framework, that shape “traditional medicine”. Furthermore, it is the country’s interests in developing materia medica for its domestic and export markets that are behind their long-lasting steering of the WHO’s strategy. In this thesis, I draw on my multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork to document how this development is unfolding among people of the Qiang (Ch’iang) minority in China. I show the attempts of city and town dwelling Qiang practitioners, academics, government officials and members of the pharmaceutical industry to standardise medicinal herbs and compound medicines, as well as to systematise disputed medical theories and practices. I argue that they do this, in order to articulate “Qiang medicine” as a discipline and “Qiang medicines” as products. I then contrast these efforts with the afflictions and choices of care among Qiang villagers, for whom “Qiang medicine” emerges as a foreign concept. What becomes evident is that differences in the desire and legitimacy to articulate “Qiang medicine” relate to diverging personal aspirations, professional connections and living milieus. Thus, I argue that the WHO “Traditional Medicine Strategy” and China’s “Chinese Medicine Law” predominantly favour the agendas of urban dwelling actors. These attempt to articulate “traditional” ethnic medicine and medicines by mirroring a scientised and state-sponsored contemporary Chinese medicine, for markets that are ultimately destined to cater for an ethnic Han majority. Ethnicity and medicine thus converge to serve a particular market dynamic. Such healthcare marketisation is embedded in a socio-political context that is specific to China, but relevant worldwide