Is eco-efficiency in greenhouse gas emissions converging among European Union countries?

Eco-efficiency refers to the ability to produce more goods and services with less impact on the environment and less consumption of natural resources. This issue has become a matter of concern that is receiving increasing attention from politicians, scientists and researchers. Furthermore, greenhouse gases emitted as a result of production processes have a marked impact on the environment and are also the foremost culprit of global warming and climate change. This paper assesses convergence in eco-efficiency in greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union. Eco-efficiency is assessed at both country and greenhouse-gas-specific levels using Data Envelopment Analysis techniques and directional distance functions, as recently proposed by Picazo-Tadeo et al. (Eur J Oper Res, 220:798–809, 2012). Convergence is then evaluated using the Phillips and Sul (Econometrica, 75:1771–1855, 2007) approach that allows testing for the existence of convergence groups. Although the results point to the existence of different convergence clubs depending on the specific pollutant considered, they signal the existence of at least four clear groups of countries. The first two groups are core European Union high-income countries (Benelux, Germany, Italy, Austria, the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries). A third club is made up of peripheral countries (Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece) together with some Eastern countries (Latvia and Slovenia), while the remaining clubs consist of groups containing Eastern European countries

Spatio-temporal distribution of pyrethroids in soil in Mediterranean paddy fields

[EN] The demand of rice by the increase in population in many countries has intensified the application of pesticides and the use of poor quality water to irrigate fields. The terrestrial environment is one compartment affected by these situations, where soil is working as a reservoir, retaining organic pollutants. Therefore, it is necessary to develop methods to determine insecticides in soil and monitor susceptible areas to be contaminated, applying adequate techniques to remediate them. Materials and methods This study investigates the occurrence of ten pyrethroid insecticides (PYs) and its spatio-temporal variance in soil at two different depths collected in two periods (before plow and during rice production), in a paddy field area located in the Mediterranean coast. Pyrethroids were quantified using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC MS) after ultrasound-assisted extraction with ethyl acetate. The results obtained were assessed statistically using non-parametric methods, and significant statistical differences (p&#8201;<&#8201;0.05) in pyrethroids content with soil depth and proximity to wastewater treatment plants were evaluated. Moreover, a geographic information system (GIS) was used to monitor the occurrence of PYs in paddy fields and detect risk areas. Results and discussion Pyrethroids were detected at concentrations &#8804;57.0 ng g&#8722;1 before plow and &#8804;62.3 ng g&#8722;1 during rice production, being resmethrin and cyfluthrin the compounds found at higher concentrations in soil. Pyrethroids were detected mainly at the top soil, and a GIS program was used to depict the obtained results, showing that effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) were the main sources of soil contamination. No toxic effects were expected to soil organisms, but it is of concern that PYs may affect aquatic organisms, which represents the worst case scenario. Conclusions A methodology to determine pyrethroids in soil was developed to monitor a paddy field area. The use of water from WWTPs to irrigate rice fields is one of the main pollution sources of pyrethroids. It is a matter of concern that PYs may present toxic effects on aquatic organisms, as they can be desorbed from soil. Phytoremediation may play an important role in this area, reducing the possible risk associated to PYs levels in soil.Authors wish to thank INIA for the predoctoral fellowship (R. Aznar) and Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness RTA2014-00012-C03-01 for financial support and Jonathan Villanueva Martin for his contribution to this work.Aznar, R.; Moreno-Ramón, H.; Albero, B.; Sánchez Brunete, C.; Tadeo, JL. (2016). Spatio-temporal distribution of pyrethroids in soil in Mediterranean paddy fields. 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J Hydrol 393(3-4):156–162Fojut TL, Palumbo AJ, Tjeerdema RS (2012) Aquatic life water quality criteria derived via the UC Davis method: II. Pyrethroid insecticides. Rev Environ Contam Toxicol 216:51–103Gan J, Lee SJ, Liu WP, Haver DL, KAbashima JN (2005) Distribution and persistence of pyrethroids in runoff sediments. J Environ Qual 34:836–841Hill IR (1985) Aquatic organisms and pyrethroids. Pestic Sci 27:429–465Huang LM, Thompson A, Zhang GL, Chen LM, Han GZ, Gong ZT (2015) The use of chronosequences in studies of paddy soil evolution: a review. Geoderma 237:199–210Katagi T (2004) Photodegradation of pesticides on plant and soil surfaces. Rev Environ Contam Toxicol 182:1–189Laskowski DA (2002) Physical and chemical properties of pyrethroids. Rev Environ Contam Toxicol 174:49–170Mahabali S, Spagnoghe P (2014) Mitigation of two insecticides by wetlands plants: feasibility study for the treatment of agricultural runoff in Suriname (South America). 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Sequencing of diverse mandarin, pummelo and orange genomes reveals complex history of admixture during citrus domestication

Cultivated citrus are selections from, or hybrids of, wild progenitor species whose identities and contributions to citrus domestication remain controversial. Here we sequence and compare citrus genomes-a high-quality reference haploid clementine genome and mandarin, pummelo, sweet-orange and sour-orange genomes-and show that cultivated types derive from two progenitor species. Although cultivated pummelos represent selections from one progenitor species, Citrus maxima, cultivated mandarins are introgressions of C. maxima into the ancestral mandarin species Citrus reticulata. The most widely cultivated citrus, sweet orange, is the offspring of previously admixed individuals, but sour orange is an F1 hybrid of pure C. maxima and C. reticulata parents, thus implying that wild mandarins were part of the early breeding germplasm. A Chinese wild 'mandarin' diverges substantially from C. reticulata, thus suggesting the possibility of other unrecognized wild citrus species. Understanding citrus phylogeny through genome analysis clarifies taxonomic relationships and facilitates sequence-directed genetic improvement. (Résumé d'auteur