Is the meiofauna a good indicator for climate change and anthropogenic impacts?

Our planet is changing, and one of the most pressing challenges facing the scientific community revolves around understanding how ecological communities respond to global changes. From coastal to deep-sea ecosystems, ecologists are exploring new areas of research to find model organisms that help predict the future of life on our planet. Among the different categories of organisms, meiofauna offer several advantages for the study of marine benthic ecosystems. This paper reviews the advances in the study of meiofauna with regard to climate change and anthropogenic impacts. Four taxonomic groups are valuable for predicting global changes: foraminifers (especially calcareous forms), nematodes, copepods and ostracods. Environmental variables are fundamental in the interpretation of meiofaunal patterns and multistressor experiments are more informative than single stressor ones, revealing complex ecological and biological interactions. Global change has a general negative effect on meiofauna, with important consequences on benthic food webs. However, some meiofaunal species can be favoured by the extreme conditions induced by global change, as they can exhibit remarkable physiological adaptations. This review highlights the need to incorporate studies on taxonomy, genetics and function of meiofaunal taxa into global change impact research

Lost trophies: Hunting animals and the imperial souvenir in Walton Ford’s Pancha Tantra

This article argues that the work of contemporary American artist Walton Ford stages the paradoxical role that trophy hunting played in both establishing and undermining the strict racial, biological and ecological hierarchization of colonial environments. American Flamingo (1992) and Lost Trophy (2005), from the 2009 collection Pancha Tantra, foreground how the tradition of nineteenth-century naturalist art, characterized by John James Audubon, and popular narratives of trophy hunting expeditions, such as Ernest Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa (1935), are complicit in colonialist domination. In doing so, Ford’s watercolours of hunted animals, which adopt many of the tropes popularized by Audubon, point to the Spivakian notion of “epistemic violence” behind an ostensibly innocuous, taxonomic art form. At the same time, the painting Lost Trophy recalls the writings of Joseph Conrad and George Orwell, investing animals with the power to unsettle the assumed superiority of the colonial hunter. My interdisciplinary analysis adopts literary strategies for reading artistic works, allowing for a broader understanding of the growing relationship between postcolonial studies and ecocriticism

Is the meiofauna a good indicator for climate change and anthropogenic impacts?

Our planet is changing, and one of the most pressing challenges facing the scientific community revolves around understanding how ecological communities respond to global changes. From coastal to deep-sea ecosystems, ecologists are exploring new areas of research to find model organisms that help predict the future of life on our planet. Among the different categories of organisms, meiofauna offer several advantages for the study of marine benthic ecosystems. This paper reviews the advances in the study of meiofauna with regard to climate change and anthropogenic impacts. Four taxonomic groups are valuable for predicting global changes: foraminifers (especially calcareous forms), nematodes, copepods and ostracods. Environmental variables are fundamental in the interpretation of meiofaunal patterns and multistressor experiments are more informative than single stressor ones, revealing complex ecological and biological interactions. Global change has a general negative effect on meiofauna, with important consequences on benthic food webs. However, some meiofaunal species can be favoured by the extreme conditions induced by global change, as they can exhibit remarkable physiological adaptations. This review highlights the need to incorporate studies on taxonomy, genetics and function of meiofaunal taxa into global change impact research

Habitat Facteur 4, Etude d'une réduction des émissions de CO2 liées au confort thermique dans l'Habitat à l'horizon 2050

L'étude, publiée dans les Cahiers du CLIP n°20, présente des scénarios de réduction par 4 des émissions de CO2 liées au confort thermique dans l'habitat en France à l'horizon 2050. Elle évalue de manière approfondie les gains d'efficacité énergétique pouvant être obtenus par la rénovation du parc bâti en fonction de ses caractéristiques, des gestes de réhabilitation envisageables, du rythme nécessaire, par la généralisation des normes BBC et BEPOS (bâtiment à énergie positive) dans le neuf et enfin par le choix des énergies mobilisées pour atteindre le facteur 4. [...] Quelque soit le scénario, l'étude souligne l'ampleur de la mutation nécessaire du parc pour parvenir à une réduction par 4 des émissions de CO2 et l'importance du recours à des politiques publiques ambitieuses pour assurer un rythme de réhabilitation soutenu

New 1H-pyrrole-2,5-dione derivatives as efficient organic inhibitors of carbon steel corrosion in hydrochloric acid medium: Electrochemical, XPS and DFT studies

New 1H-pyrrole-2,5-dione derivatives, namely 1-phenyl-1H-pyrrole-2,5-dione (PPD) and 1-(4-methylphenyl)-1H-pyrrole-2,5-dione (MPPD) were synthesised and their inhibitive action against the corrosion of carbon steel in 1 M HCl solution were investigated at 308 K by weight loss, potentiodynamic polarization curves, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) methods. The results showed that the investigated 1H-pyrrole-2,5-dione derivatives are good corrosion inhibitors for carbon steel in 1 M HCl medium, their inhibition efficiency increased with inhibitor concentration, and MPPD is slightly more effective than PPD. Potentiostatic polarization study showed that PPD and MPPD are mixed-type inhibitors in 1 M HCl. Impedance experimental data revealed a frequency distribution of the capacitance, simulated as constant phase element. The results obtained from electrochemical and weight loss studies were in reasonable agreement. The adsorption of MPPD and PPD on steel surface obeyed Langmuir’s adsorption isotherm. Thermodynamic data and XPS analysis clearly indicated that the adsorption mechanism of 1H-pyrrole-2,5-dione derivatives on carbon steel surface in 1 M HCl solution is mainly controlled by a chemisorption process. Quantum chemical calculations using the Density Functional Theory (DFT) were performed on 1H-pyrrole-2,5-dione derivatives to determine the relationship between molecular structures and their inhibition efficiencies

The influence of some new 2,5-disubstituted 1,3,4-thiadiazoles on the corrosion behaviour of mild steel in 1M HCl solution: AC impedance study and theoretical approach

International audienceThe new 2,5-disubstituted 1,3,4-thiadiazoles were investigated as corrosion inhibitors of mild steel in 1 M HCl using AC impedance technique. Four of these compounds exhibit good inhibition properties, while two of them, 2,5-bis(4-nitrophenyl)-1,3,4-thiadiazole and 2,5-bis(4-chlorophenyl)-1,3,4-thiadiazole, stimulate the corrosion process especially at low concentrations. The experimental data obtained from this method show a frequency distribution and therefore a modelling element with frequency dispersion behaviour, a constant phase element (CPE) has been used. Possible correlations between experimental inhibition efficiencies and quantum chemical parameters such as dipole moment (μ), highest occupied (EHOMO) and lowest unoccupied (ELUMO) molecular orbitals were investigated. The models of the inhibitors were optimised with the Density Functional Theory formalism (DFT) using hybrid B3LYP/6-31G (2d,2p) as a higher level of theory. The Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship (QSAR) approach has been used and composite index of some quantum chemical parameters were constructed in order to characterize the inhibition performance of the tested molecules

Habitat Facteur 4. Etude d'une réduction des émissions de CO2 liées au confort thermique dans l'habitat à l'horizon 2050

Consultable sur internet : http://www.iddri.org/Publications/Les-cahiers-du-CLIP/Clip20_fr.pdfL'exercice consiste à identifier différentes trajectoires d'une division par 4 des émissions de dioxyde de carbone dues à la consommation énergétique des résidences principales, pour les deux postes du chauffage et de la production d'eau chaude sanitaire, en s'appuyant sur les meilleures technologies disponibles ou susceptibles de se généraliser avant 2050. (Extrait