Human Health Risk Assessment of 16 Priority Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Soils of Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA

South Chattanooga has been home to foundries, coke furnaces, chemical, wood preserving, tanning, and textile plants for over 100?years. Most of the industries were in place before any significant development of residential property in the area. During the 1950s and 1960s, however, the government purchased inexpensive property and constructed public housing projects in South Chattanooga. Many neighborhoods that surround the Chattanooga Creek were previous dumping grounds for industry. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) comprised the largest component of the dumping and airborne industrial emissions. To address human exposure to these PAHs, a broad study of South Chattanooga soil contaminant concentrations was conducted on 20 sites across the city. Sixteen priority pollutant PAHs were quantified at two depths (0?C10 and 10?C20?cm) and compared against reference site soils, as well as to soils from industrially impacted areas in Germany, China, and the USA. From these data, the probability that people would encounter levels exceeding the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) residential preliminary remediation goals (PRG) was calculated. Results indicate that South Chattanooga soils have relatively high concentrations of total PAHs, specifically benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P). These high concentrations of B[a]P were somewhat ubiquitous in South Chattanooga. Indeed, there is a high probability (88?%) of encountering soil in South Chattanooga that exceeds the USEPA PRG for B[a]P. However, there is a low probability (15?%) of encountering a site with ??PAHs exceeding USEPA PRG guidelines.     

Effects of temporal floral resource availability and non-crop habitats on broad bean pollination

Landscape Ecology - Flowering plants can enhance wild insect populations and their pollination services to crops in agricultural landscapes, especially when they flower before the focal crop....     

Grassland responses to global environmental changes suppressed by elevated CO2

Simulated global changes, including warming, increased precipitation, and nitrogen deposition, alone and in concert, increased net primary production (NPP) in the third year of ecosystem-scale manipulations in a California annual grassland. Elevated carbon dioxide also increased NPP, but only as a single-factor treatment. Across all multifactor manipulations, elevated carbon dioxide suppressed root allocation, decreasing the positive effects of increased temperature, precipitation, and nitrogen deposition on NPP. The NPP responses to interacting global changes differed greatly from simple combinations of single-factor responses. These findings indicate the importance of a multifactor experimental approach to understanding ecosystem responses to global change.     

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) plant protection using dual biological control and plant growth-promoting agents: Current scenarios and future prospects

Various microorganisms live in association with different parts of plants and can be harmful, neutral, or beneficial to plant health. Some microbial inhabitants of plants can control plant diseases by contesting with, predating on, or antagonizing plant pathogens and by inducing systems for plant defense. A range of methods, including plant growth-promoting microorganisms(PGPMs) as biological control agents(BCAs)(BCA-PGPMs) are used for the biological management and control of plant pathogens. S...     

Freshwater mollusc assemblages and habitat associations in the Danube River drainage,Hungary

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