Urban areas often contain large numbers of migratory bird species during seasonal migration, many of which are nocturnal migrants. How artificial light at night (ALAN) and urban landcover are associated with the diurnal occurrence of nocturnal migrants within urban areas across seasons has not been explored. Here, we use eBird bird occurrence information to estimate the seasonal species richness of nocturnally migrating passerines (NMP) within 333 well surveyed urban areas within the contiguous USA. We model the relationship between seasonal NMP species richness and ALAN, proportion of tree canopy cover, and proportion of impervious surface. NMP species richness reached its highest levels during spring and autumn migration and lowest during the winter and summer. Greater tree canopy cover was associated with higher NMP species richness during spring and autumn migration and the summer. A 10% increase in the proportion of tree canopy cover was associated with a 2.0% increase in NMP species richness during spring migration, a 1.8% increase during autumn migration, and a 0.9% increase during the summer. More impervious surface was associated with higher NMP species richness during the winter. A 10% increase in the proportion of impervious surface was associated with a 6.1–9.8% increase in NMP species richness. Higher ALAN was associated with lower NMP species richness during the winter and summer, and higher NMP species richness during spring and autumn migration. A 50% increase in ALAN was associated with a 3.0–3.6% decrease in NMP species richness during the winter, a 1.7% increase during spring migration, a 2.1% decrease during the summer, and a 5.0% increase during autumn migration. These findings highlight the variable effects of ALAN and urban landcover on the seasonal occurrence of NMP species in urban areas, the value of tree canopy cover during migration and the breeding season, and the importance of reducing ALAN during migration.

Based on the concentrations of ten heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn, Fe) in 144 road dust samples collected from 36 sites across 4 seasons from 2016 to 2017 in Beijing, this study systematically analyzed the levels and main sources of health risks in terms of their temporal and spatial variations. A combination of receptor models (positive matrix factorization and multilinear engine-2), human health risk assessment models, and Monte Carlo simulations were used to apportion the seasonal variation of the health risks associated with these heavy metals. While non-carcinogenic risks were generally acceptable, Cr and Ni induced cautionary carcinogenic risks (CR) to children (confidence levels was approximately 80% and 95%, respectively).. Additionally, fuel combustion posed cautionary CR to children in all seasons, while the level of CR from other sources varied, depending on the seasons. Heavy metal concentrations were the most influential variables for uncertainties, followed by ingestion rate and skin adherence factor. The values and spatial patterns of health risks were influenced by the spatial pattern of risks from each source.

Although liquid products derived from the pyrolysis of biomass are promising for the production of petroleum-like hydrocarbon fuels, the catalytic burden of hydrodeoxygenation must be reduced to achieve feasible upgrading processes. Herein, mild hydrotreating of an acid-rich biomass pyrolysis oil (bio-oil) with an unusually high total acid number (588 mg KOH/g bio-oil) was performed to stabilize the low-quality bio-oil. Ru-added TiO₂-supported transition metal catalysts stabilized the bio-oil by reducing its acidity more compared to what could be achieved by Ru-free catalysts; this process also leads to lower loss of organic compounds compared to when using a Ru/TiO₂ catalyst. Based on the performance of transition metal catalysts, including Ni, Co, and Cu, supported on TiO₂, tungstate-zirconia, or SiO₂, supported bimetallic catalysts were prepared by adding Ru to the TiO₂-supported metal catalysts. The bimetallic catalysts Ru/Ni/TiO₂ and Ru/Co/TiO₂ exhibited good decarboxylation activity for the removal of carboxylic acids and a higher yield of organic compounds compared to that provided by Ru, which can be deemed appropriate for feedstocks when hydrodeoxygenation needs to suppress the loss of organic reactants. Using these catalysts, the carboxylic acid concentration was reduced to 319–323 mg KOH/g bio-oil with organic yields of 62–63 wt% at reaction temperatures 150–170 °C lower than the temperature required for direct conversion of carboxylic acids to alcohols or deoxygenates. The improved catalytic hydrotreating activity of Ru-added transition metals can be attributed to the high acid site densities of these catalysts along with their improved hydrogenation activities.

Raphidiopsis raciborskii is a diazotrophic and potentially toxic cyanobacterium. To date, this species has successfully invaded many regions from the tropics to sub-tropical and temperate regions, typically forming blooms at temperatures greater than 25 °C. However, there have been a few cases in which R. raciborskii blooms have occurred at low temperatures (below 15 °C), but its cause and mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, field investigations revealed that R. raciborskii blooms occurred at 10–15 °C in Lake Xihu, Yunnan, China. The biomass of R. raciborskii was found to be positively related to nitrate concentrations in this lake. Three strains of R. raciborskii, two isolated from Lake Xihu (CHAB 6611 and CHAB 6612) and one from Lushui Reservoir in central China (CHAB 3409), were used for growth experiments at 15 °C. The three strains exhibited genotypic (16S rRNA and ITS-L genes) and physiological differences in response to nitrogen concentrations at low temperature. The growth rates of strains CHAB 6611 and CHAB 6612 increased with nitrogen concentration while CHAB 3409 could not grow at 15 °C. Furthermore, the growth and phenotypic responses of CHAB 6611 and CHAB 6612 to nitrogen concentrations were different, despite the closer genetic relationship shared by these two strains. Thus, increased nitrogen concentration in water may enhance the biological availability and utilization of nitrogen by R. raciborskii, which is the external promoter, leading to improving the resistance of R. raciborskii to low temperature. The internal cause is the presence of ecotypes in R. raciborskii populations with adaptation to low temperature. With increasing global eutrophication, the distribution range of R. raciborskii as well as the scale of its blooms will increase. As such, the risk of exposure of aquatic biota and humans to cylindrospermopsin is also expected to increase.

Photodegradation is a major elimination route of many pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) in natural surface waters, yet their photolytic behavior in estuarine waters with salinity gradient change is largely unknown. Herein, sulfamethazine and carbamazepine were taken as representative PhACs to explore the photolytic kinetic differences in Qinzhou Bay estuarine water samples collected from upper to lower reaches. Rapid photodegradation of sulfamethazine was found in lower estuarine water relative to upstream estuarine water; whereas for carbamazepine, photolytic rate was inversely proportional to the salinity of estuarine waters. Experiments with extracted estuarine dissolved organic matter (E-DOM) imply that the multivariate effects of triplet-excited E-DOM (³E-DOM∗) and halide ions are responsible for the enhancement photolysis of sulfamethazine. Radical scavenging experiments suggest that the photolysis enhancement can be ascribed to the contribution of reactive halogen species (RHS), while their contribution to carbamazepine is negligible and ³E-DOM∗ is the dominant reactive species for its photodegradation. This indicates that the reactivity differences with RHS and ³DOM∗ affect the photolytic kinetics of PhACs from upper estuarine waters to lower reaches, which is also supported by a good linear relationship between the ratios of photolytic rates for ten PhACs in E-DOM solution with/without halides and the ratios of the reactivity of these pollutants with RHS and ³DOM∗. These findings show that the different reactivity of PhACs with ³E-DOM∗ and RHS influences the photolytic kinetics in estuarine waters with different salinity, and highlights the photochemical behavior of organic micropollutants from upstream to downstream estuarine waters.

This study explored biochar (BC) amendment effects on microcystin-LR (MCLR) concentration-dependent sorption and sequential desorption (SDE) by diverse soils to assess MCLR-trapping by BC-amended soils. Soil properties varied with rising BC dose and aging time. As aging proceeded, BC-amended soils shared a generally similar ‘firstly increase and then decrease’ trend of MCLR sorption and ‘firstly decrease and then increase’ trend of desorption at most cases. It appeared that MCLR sorption by BC-amended soils was most positively correlated with mesoporosity and surface basic functionality. BC-amendment increased MCLR-trapping for most soils, especially 4% BC at 3 month-aging maximized trapping ratio of GZ, SY and SX to 86.59%–95.43%, 80.01%–87.20% and 78.73%–90.85%, respectively, at 50–500 μg/L MCLR by largely increasing sorption and decreasing desorption. BC-amendment best matched GZ soil because MCLR-trapping of BC-amended GZ exceeded other amended soils at the same BC dose and aging time, but failed to obviously increase MCLR-trapping of HS soil at most cases, except only case with 2% BC at 3 month-aging. Site energy distribution verified that maximally enhanced MCLR-trapping of most soils was due to greatly enhanced sorption affinity during sorption and 1st desorption cycle, making closer MCLR-binding that more resistant to desorption. Contrarily, BC-amendment did not enhance sorption affinity of HS along sorption-SDE to compromise MCLR-trapping increase at most cases. This study validated 3 months as suitable BC-aging time to maximize MCLR-trapping in diverse soils, and elucidated influencing factors and mechanisms from view of site energy distribution, which shed novel insights on MCLR sorption-desorption by BC-amended soils, and guided to optimize BC-amendment strategy for efficient MCLR-immobilization and eco-risk elimination in diverse soils.

Triclocarban (TCC), an antibacterial agent widely used in personal care products, can affect embryonic development. However, the specific molecular mechanism of TCC-induced embryonic developmental damage remains unclear. In this study, TCC exposure was found to increase the expression of tmbim4 gene in zebrafish embryos. The tmbim4 mutant embryos are more susceptible to TCC exposure than wild-type (WT) embryos, with tmbim4 overexpression reducing TCC-induced embryonic death in the former. Exposure of tmbim4 mutant larvae to 400 μg/L TCC substantially increased apoptosis in the hindbrain and eyes. RNA-sequencing of WT and tmbim4 mutant larvae indicated that knockout of the tmbim4 gene in zebrafish affects the autophagy pathway. Abnormalities in autophagy can increase apoptosis and TCC exposure caused abnormal accumulation of autophagosomes in the hindbrain of tmbim4 mutant zebrafish embryos. Pretreatment of TCC-exposed tmbim4 mutant zebrafish embryos with autophagosome formation inhibitors, substantially reduced the mortality of embryos and apoptosis levels. These results indicate that defects in the tmbim4 gene can reduce zebrafish embryo resistance to TCC. Additionally, apoptosis induced by abnormal accumulation of autophagosomes is involved in this process.

Converting biowaste into value-added products has raised the researchers’ interests. In this study, bioconversion was applied to produce chain acids from food waste by anaerobic fermentation. To improve the caproic acid production, different pretreatments (i.e., ultrasonic, hydrothermal, and alkaline-thermal) were used for investigating their effects on the acidogenic production and microbial communities. The results showed that ultrasonic and hydrothermal pretreatments (207.8 and 210.1 mg COD/g VS, respectively) were very efficient for enhancing the caproic acid production, compared to the alkaline-thermal pretreated samples and control samples (72.6 and 97.5 mg COD/g VS, respectively). The ultrasonic pretreatment was beneficial for reducing volatile fatty acids (VFAs) during the caproic acid production, resulting in converting more lactic acid to caproic acid by adding the hydrothermal pretreatment. The microbial community analysis showed that the acidogenic bacteria Caproiciproducens dominated the fermentation in this bioconversion process of food waste into chain acids. The Caproiciproducens mainly degraded the proteins and carbohydrates from the saccharified residues of food waste to produce caproic acids through chain elongation procedure. The investigation and optimized method may help develop the bioconversion technology for producing VFAs products from food wastes.

In this study, we evaluated the effects of geo-climatic parameters and other potential risk factors on the prevalence of chronic toxoplasmosis (CT) in pregnant women. We searched PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, EMBASE, Scopus, and SciELO databases for seroepidemiological studies published between January 1988, and February 2021. We performed meta-analysis and meta-regression by using a random effect model to synthesize data. A total of 360 eligible datasets, including 1,289,605 pregnant women from 94 countries, were included in this study. The highest and lowest prevalence rates were estimated for latitudes of 0–10° (49.4%) and ≥50° (26.8%); and for the longitude of 80–90° (44.2%) and 110–120° (7.8%), respectively. Concerning climatic parameters, the highest and lowest prevalence rates were estimated in regions with the mean relative humidities of >80% (46.6%) and <40% (27.0); annual precipitation between 1000 and 1500 mm (39.2%) and 250–500 mm (26.8%); and mean annual temperature of 20–30 °C (36.5%), and <7 °C (24.9%), respectively. Meta-regression analyses indicated significant increasing trends in prevalence of CT in pregnant women with decrease in geographical latitude (coefficient, = −0.0035), and geographical longitudes (C = −0.0017). While it was positively associated (P < 0.01) with the mean environmental temperature (C = 0.0047), annual precipitation (C = 0.000064), and mean relative humidity (C = 0.002). Our results highlighted various effects of environmental parameters on the prevalence of CT. Therefore, different regions in the world may benefit from different types of interventions, and thus, novel preventive measures in a region should be developed according to local climate, agricultural activities and people culture.