Replacing rubber plantations by rain forest in Southwest China - Who would gain and how much?

The cultivation of rubber trees in Xishuangbanna Prefecture in China’s Yunnan Province has triggered an unprecedented economic development but it is also associated with severe environmental problems. Rubber plantations are encroaching the indigenous rainforests at a large scale and a high speed in Xishuangbanna. Many rare plant and animal species are endangered by this development, the natural water management is disturbed and even the microclimate in this region has changed over the past years. The present study aims at an assessment of the environmental benefits accruing from a reforestation project partly reversing the deforestation that has taken place over the past years. To this end a Contingent Valuation survey has been conducted in Xishuangbanna to elicit local residents’ willingness to pay for this reforestation program that converts existing rubber plantations back into forest. It is shown that local people's awareness of the environmental problems caused by increasing rubber plantation is quite high and that in spite of the economic advantages of rubber plantation there is a positive willingness among the local population to contribute financially to a reduction of existing rubber plantations for the sake of a partial restoration of the local rainforest. These results could be used for the practical implementation of a PES (Payments for Eco-System Services) system for reforestation in Xishuangbanna.

High-precision radiocarbon measurements of contemporaneous tree-ring wood from the British Isles and New Zealand: AD 1850-950.

The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand and The Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland radiocarbon dating laboratories have undertaken a series of high-precision measurements on decadal samples of dendrochronologically dated oak (Quercus petraea) from Great Britain and cedar (Libocedrus bidwillii) and silver pine (Lagarostrobos colensoi) from New Zealand. The results show an average hemispheric offset over the 900 yr of measurement of 40±13 yr. This value is not constant but varies with a periodicity of about 130 yr. The Northern Hemisphere measurements confirm the validity of the Pearson et al. (1986) calibration dataset.

Correlating Additives to Deterioration and Assessing the Effectiveness of Acrylic Coatings for the Protection of Rubber

Conservators have long been aware of the problems associated with the preservation of rubber objects due to inherent instability that can be attributed, in part, to the presence of additives. Inorganic additives, such as fillers, accelerators, stabilizers, and special ingredients are necessary in manufacturing to alter the properties of natural rubber. These materials all have different interactions with the rubber, and each other, and differing effects on the ageing process. To date, the most effective and accepted methods to preserve rubber are cold, dark storage of objects, or the use of low oxygen environments. While these methods are effective, they greatly limit access. The application of coatings to the surface of rubber objects can slow deterioration and greatly increase the ability of an institution to handle and display rubber objects. While numerous coatings for preventive and interventive treatment have been tested, none have been so successful to warrant routine use. The first section of this research highlighted the relationship between the inclusion of certain additives in natural rubber objects and the accelerated or slowed down overall degradation. In the second part of this research, the acrylic varnishes Golden Polymer Varnish with UVLS, Lascaux Acrylic Transparent Varnish-UV, Sennelier Matte Lacquer with UV Protection, and Liquitex Soluvar Varnish containing ultraviolet light absorbers or stabilizers were tested as a preventative coating for rubber. Through testing the visual and physical properties of the samples, as well as compound analysis the results of this research suggest that acrylic varnishes do provide protection, each to varying degrees. The results also provided insight into the behavior of rubber and these varnishes with continuing light exposure.

Micromorphology of lamellae formed in an alluvial soil, Big Pine Tree Archeological Site, South Carolina

The formation of lamellae in soils is not clearly understood. The objectives of this study are to examine the microscopical characteristics of selected well developed lamellae inorder to identify the major processes involved in their formation at the Big Pine Tree Archaeological site on the Savannah River, South Carolina. Well developed lamellae have formed in a fine sandy alluvial soil that is about 11,000 to 12,000 years old. In the field, these lamellae are observed as 1 to 4.2 cm thick horizontal layers having a smooth upper and a wavy, sometimes irregular, lower boundary with adjacent interlamellae horizons. Soil thin sections reveal denser accumulations of brown fine silt and clay coatings in the upper and lower sections of the lamellae. The center of the lamellae has mainly orange highly oriented discontinuous clay coatings bridging quartz grains and some silt accumulations. Although, horizontal layering of denser areas (accumulations of fine silt and clay coatings) is also observed in the middle of the lamellae. The interlamellae horizons are mainly loose quartz grains. Low total carbon values (

Novel frenatins from the skin of the Australasian Giant White-lipped tree frog, Litoria infrafrenata: cloning of precursor cDNAs and identification in defensive skin secretion.

The Australasian anuran amphibian genus Litoria, contains many phenotypically-diverse species as a result of radial evolution of an ancestral species into different biotopes much in the manner of the indigenous marsupial mammals. In common with members of the Central/South American genus Phyllomedusa, their specialized skin granular glands are factories for the production of a plethora of biologically-active peptides. Here we report a more detailed study of those present in the defensive skin secretion of the Australasian giant white-lipped tree frog, Litoria infrafrenata, and, for the first time, we have identified three novel frenatins by deduction of primary structures from cDNAs that were cloned from a library constructed from lyophilized skin secretion using a recently-developed technique. All open-reading frames consisted of a putative signal peptide and an acidic pro-region followed by a single copy of a frenatin peptide. Processed peptides corresponding in molecular mass to the deduced molecular masses of frenatins (named 1.1, 3, 3.1 and 4.1) were identified in the same secretion sample using HPLC and mass spectroscopy. The application of this technique thus permits parallel peptidomic and transcriptomic analyzes on the same lyophilized skin secretion sample circumventing sacrifice of specimens from endangered herpetofauna.