Spatial assessment of the distribution and potential of bioenergy resources in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is naturally rich in fossil fuels and its economy is strongly linked to oil and gas exports. Significant coal reserves have led to an energy mix that is dominated by aging and polluting thermal power plants. Yet Kazakhstan comprises mainly grassland steppe where agriculture and livestock pastoralism dominate offering the potential for cleaner, renewable energy production from a range of agricultural and forestry wastes. Here we analyse the spatial distribution and bioenergy generation potential of different feedstocks using an ArcGIS platform and demonstrate a significant opportunity for a range of bioenergy technologies. We recommend a number of policy interventions to enable Kazakhstan to make a transition to cleaner, more accessible and locally generated supply which is also sustainable and provide a waste management solution

Establishing and comparing energy security trends in resource-rich exporting nations (Russia and the Caspian Sea region)

In the international arena, it is often the case that in countries which largely depend on foreign resources, energy security, and its key components i.e. security of energy supply, environment, technology, geopolitical and economic factors, is a subject of concern. However, due to the abundance of fossil fuel resources in resource-rich exporting nations, there is a lack of understanding of the risks around energy security and accordingly often a policy vacuum. Conceptualising energy security from different geopolitical vantage points will allow future concerns around energy supply security, climate change, and regional economic crises to be evaluated. By using policy documents and developing a time series approach and normalized z-scores for a range of comparable metrics this article compares the energy security performance in six Caspian Sea countries individually and collectively. The article results show that Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan made significant progress in energy security since 1990, while energy security indicators in Russia, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan regressed. Iran has a leading position in energy security performance, while Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have the lowest level of the energy security indicators compare to other region countries. This article both contributes a replicable definition of energy security that can be undertaken for other global regions, and begins to incorporate diversification and renewables development to enhance domestic energy security assessment

Modeling Habitat of Freshwater Mussels (Bivalvia:Unionidae) in the Lower Great Lakes 25 Years after the Dreissena Invasion

Finding remnant populations of species that are of conservation concern can be difficult, particularly in aquatic habitats. Models of ecological niches can aid in the discovery of refuges. Remnant populations of native freshwater mussels (unionids) have been found in Lakes Erie and St Clair. Our goals were to predict undiscovered refuges in Lake Ontario based on habitat analysis from Lake Erie and to conduct surveys to test those predictions. We built a presence-only model on environmental data including attributes of the benthic zone and shoreline where mussels occurred in Lake Erie. We found a link between small- and large-scale variables related to unionid persistence. Bathymetry, fetch, and shoreline geomorphology contributed most to the model. These variables correspond to local-scale environmental factors important for unionid survival, including presence of vegetation and substrate composition, which explained ∼22% of the variance in presence, abundance, and richness. The model predicted that 0.8% of the near-shore area of Lake Ontario should be habitat for unionids. In surveys at 34 locations on the USA shore of Lake Ontario, we found 1800 unionids of 11 species and showed that areasOntario, a result signifying generality of our model for conservation approaches to freshwater mussels

Differences in the macrozoobenthic fauna colonising empty bivalve shells before and after invasion by Corbicula fluminea

Bivalve shells can potentially alter the structure of aquatic benthic communities. However, little is known about the effect that different shell morphologies have on their associated fauna. This study aimed to understand how empty shells, from four different freshwater bivalve species, affect macrozoobenthic communities, using the River Minho (Iberian Peninsula) as a study area. Three native (Anodonta anatina, Potomida littoralis, Unio delphinus) and one non-indigenous (Corbicula fluminea) species were used for this research. Comparisons among species and between scenarios (i.e. before and after invasion by C. fluminea) were performed. Our results suggest that macrozoobenthic community structure did not vary among treatments, with the exception of species richness, which was higher on shells of native species. Furthermore, little difference was detected when comparing scenarios with and without C. fluminea shells, despite dissimilarities in size and morphology between species. The empty shells of C. fluminea partially (in terms of density and biomass, but not in species richness) replaced the role of empty shells of native species as a physical substratum for the associated macrozoobenthic community.Martina Ilarri is supported by a Post-doc grant (SFRH/BPD/90088/2012) from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT through POPH/FSE funds. This study was conducted within the scope of the project ECO-IAS: Ecosystem-level impacts of an invasive alien species, supported by FCT and COMPETE funds (contract: PTDC/AAC-AMB/116685/2010) and was also partially supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through COMPETE funds (PEst-C/MAR/LA0015/2011) and by FCT/MEC through Portuguese funds (PIDDAC – PEst-OE/BIA/UI4050/2014).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Density data for Lake Ontario benthic invertebrate assemblages from 1964 to 2018

Benthic invertebrates are important trophic links in aquatic food webs and serve as useful bioindicators of environmental conditions because their responses integrate the effects of both water and sediment qualities. However, long-term data sets for benthic invertebrate assemblages across broad geographic areas are rare and, even if collected, historic data sets are often not readily accessible. This data set provides densities of benthic macroinvertebrates for all taxa collected during lake-wide surveys in Lake Ontario, a Laurentian Great Lake, from 1964 to 2018. This information resulted from surveys funded by the governments of the United States and Canada to investigate the status and changes of Lake Ontario benthic community. Of the 13 lake-wide benthic surveys conducted in Lake Ontario over the course of 54 yr, we were able to acquire taxonomic data to the species level for 11 of the surveys and data to the group level for the other two surveys. Density data are provided for taxa representing the Annelida, Arthropoda, Mollusca, Cnidaria, Nemertea, and Platyhelminthes phyla. Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed that the compositional structure of Lake Ontario invertebrate assemblages differed markedly by depth and were also significantly altered by the Dreissena spp. invasion in early 1990s. The introduction of invasive dreissenids has changed the community historically dominated by Diporeia, Oligochaeta, and Sphaeriidae, to a community dominated by quagga mussels and Oligochaeta. Considering the rarity of long-term benthic data of high taxonomic resolution in lake ecosystems, this data set could be useful to explore broader aspects of ecological theory, including effects of different environmental factors and invasive species on community organization, functional and phylogenetic diversity, and spatial scale of variation in community structure. The data set could also be useful for studies on individual species including abundance and distribution, species co-occurrence, and how the patterns of dominance and rarity change over space and time. Use of this data set for academic or educational purposes is encouraged as long as the data source is properly cited using the title of this Data Paper, the names of the authors, the year of publication, the journal name, and the article number

A Spatial Survey of Environmental Indicators for Kazakhstan: An Examination of Current Conditions and Future Needs

The Republic of Kazakhstan, located in Central Asia, has experienced many years of environmental degradation, largely as a result of the poor management of its significant natural resources. In this survey, data relating to different environmental factors are critically analysed in order to understand the state of the environment. It was found that: warming trends are seen in sensitive areas (e.g. the steppe and near glaciers); drying trends are seen where there is already water stress (e.g. the Aral Sea); air quality has been declining recently (following improvements on the decadal timescale) in major urban centres, particularly Almaty; water quality appears to be improving in some areas (e.g. important lakes in the Aktobe and Zhambyl regions); and levels of exposure to radioactivity are below internationally recommended levels (where data have been found). More generally, there is an issue with data availability and quality, which requires attention if Kazakhstan is going to make the best use of its increasing investment in environmental actions. Current policies are reviewed and recommendations are made for future interventions

Conservation of freshwater bivalves at the global scale: diversity, threats and research needs

Bivalves are ubiquitous members of freshwater ecosystems and responsible for important functions and services. The present paper revises freshwater bivalve diversity, conservation status and threats at the global scale and discusses future research needs and management actions. The diversity patterns are uneven across the globe with hotspots in the interior basin in the United States of America (USA), Central America, Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Freshwater bivalves are affected by multiple threats that vary across the globe; however, pollution and natural system (habitat) modifications being consistently found as the most impacting. Freshwater bivalves are among the most threatened groups in the world with 40% of the species being near threatened, threatened or extinct, and among them the order Unionida is the most endangered. We suggest that global cooperation between scientists, managers, politicians and general public, and application of new technologies (new generation sequencing and remote sensing, among others) will strengthen the quality of studies on the natural history and conservation of freshwater bivalves. Finally, we introduce the articles published in this special issue of Hydrobiologia under the scope of the Second International Meeting on Biology and Conservation of Freshwater Bivalves held in 2015 in Buffalo, New York, USA.This work was supported by FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology, Project 3599—Promote the Scientific Production and Technological Development and Thematic 3599-PPCDT by FEDER as part of the project FRESHCO: multiple implications of invasive species on Freshwater Mussel co-extinction processes (Contract: PTDC/AGRFOR/1627/2014). FCT also supported MLL under Grant (SFRH/BD/115728/2016)

Impact of Dreissena fouling on the physiological condition of native and invasive bivalves : interspecific and temporal variations

The impact of Dreissena fouling on unionids has hardly been studied in Europe, despite the fact that in some ecosystems (e.g. Lake Balaton, Hungary) infestations of several hundreds to a thousand individuals per unionid have been observed. At present, the zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha is a dominant species in Lake Balaton and in the last decade three other invasive bivalves were introduced, potentially increasing the pressure on native unionid survival. We examined whether the fouling of dreissenids (zebra and quagga (D. rostriformis bugensis) mussels) has a negative impact on native (Anodonta anatina, Unio pictorum and U. tumidus) and invasive (Corbicula fluminea and Sinanodonta woodiana) bivalves and whether there are any interspecific and temporal variations in fouling intensity and physiological condition measured by standard condition index and glycogen content. A significant negative impact was detected on native unionids only in July and September (no impact was detected in May), when the fouling rate was high. For invasive species, a significant negative impact was detected on S. woodiana with a high level of dressenid infestation; whereas no significant impact was detected on C. fluminea. Overall, this study confirms that Dreissena may threaten unionid species including the invasive S. woodiana, although high interspecific and temporal variations were observed. This situation should be taken into account in future ecological and conservational assessments because species respond differently to Dreissena fouling and effects seem to be more pronounced in late summer/early autumn. In addition, this study provides the first evidence that the invasive C. fluminea appear to be less vulnerable to dressenid fouling.The study was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Fund (KTIA-OTKA) under the contract No. CNK80140

Flexible prey handling, preference and a novel capture technique in invasive, sub-adult Chinese mitten crabs

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