HEAVY METALS INFLUENCE ON THE CTENOPHORES MNEMIOPSIS LEIDYI AND BEROE OVATA BIOLUMINESCENCE

Investigations were conducted in the Department of biophysical ecology of Kovalevsky IMBR of RAS in September - October of 2013 and 2015. The body length of the gathered for experiments ctenophores was 35 – 40 mm. Characteristics of the ctenophores light emission were studied under the mechanical and chemical stimulations, with the usage of laboratory complex “Svet”. The following HM salts: Cu2S04, ZnCl2, PbCl2 and HgCl2 in different concentrations were used in our experiments. The just-caught samples, contained in the clean marine water were used as a control. The exposition time was 1, 3 and 24 hours under the temperature of 21 ± 2°C. The investigations results have shown considerable variability of the ctenophore luminosity characteristics in dependence of metal concentration and exposition duration. It was stated that minimal concentrations of cooper, zinc and mercury stimulates ctenophores bioluminescence and the high ones inhibit. The alien ctenophore luminescence inhibition was registered under the lead activity under all investigated concentrations. We can place investigated metals as following: Zn < Cu < Hg < Pb, according to the force of the toxic influence on the ctenophore bioluminescence. Thus, alien ctenophore bioluminescence parameters can serve as a sensitive express-indicator of the resistance degree to the heavy metals impact and be the expressive index of the marine environment regional pollution.

Lessons and Legacies

This chapter discusses how the Human Ecosystem Model (HEM) consolidates and restructures some of the systematic thought and action on human–nature transactions. Specifically, it outlines a framework for decisions that are effective, efficient, and equitable in sustaining human and biophysical ecology. Not surprisingly, professionals and concerned citizens have generated many differing perspectives on the nature of the problems, the theories about cause and consequence, and the methods for resolving the perceived issues. The HEM seeks to fit this scientific and experiential information into a more manageable and cumulative organizational frame. This frame reduces much of the information “noise” to some key variables and relations that guide crucial questions about patterns and processes of the human ecosystem.

How Does Nutrition Structure Ecosystems?

This chapter assesses the consequences of individual nutrition for populations and the assemblages of species that comprise ecological communities. However, the ecological consequences of nutrition are not restricted to the effects of diet on individual organisms but include as well the direct and indirect interactions occurring among individuals within populations and between species. Understanding the complex network of interactions that produce food webs and structure ecosystem dynamics requires the understanding of the participants' differing nutritional requirements, priorities, and regulatory capacities. Geometric Framework analyses have shown that these features differ between species and across trophic levels. Nutritional space is one part of the fundamental niche of an organism, and there is a need to integrate nutrition with the biophysical ecology of organisms. Evolutionary processes also need to be taken into account, and agent-based models offer promise toward development of a new understanding of the evolutionary ecology of nutrition.

Architectural Continuity Towards Cultural Sustainability in Bodrum

Mediterranean architecture is considered the predecessor of the modern concept of “bioclimatic” sustainable design due to its climate reactive attitude (Coch H. 1996, Vissilia, A.M. 2009). Another aspect which renders it to be associated with the notion of modern sustainability is the employment of recyclable materials such as natural stone and wood. The vernacular architecture of Bodrum peninsula located in southwestern Turkey bears the typical characteristics of Mediterranean architecture. Since the 1970s, Bodrum has been attracting the attention of local and foreign tourists. The “architectural pollution” created by tourism facilities paradoxically devastates the natural and unique architectural characteristics of Bodrum which attract the attention of tourists. In this article, the primary focus will be the residential architecture in Bodrum due to its quite dominant typology among tourism facilities. However, the local building regulations aiming to protect natural values and architectural identity and the sensitive attitudes of some architects about preserving architectural identity and visual ecology can be considered positive aspects with regards to the harmonious architectural development of the region. Visual ecology seems generally more vital than biophysical ecology in terms of sustainable tourism economy, and tourism, is the most important sector in Bodrum. In a touristic region such as Bodrum, cultural and economic sustainability are interrelated. Today, research related to sustainability focuses primarily on energy saving and relevant technological inventions and as a result, issues such as cultural expression, contextual connection, identity formation, local differences and changes do not get their deserved places in the sustainability value setting. This paper aims to detect some clues about the outline of the residential architecture within the context of cultural sustainability in Bodrum in the light of residential architecture samples.

Ecosemiotics and the sustainability transition

The emerging epistemic community of ecosemioticians and the multidisciplinary field of inquiry known as ecosemiotics offer a radical and relevant approach to so-called global environmental crisis. There are no environmental fixes within the dominant code, since that code overdetermines the future, thereby perpetuating ecologically untenable cultural forms. The possibility of a sustainability transition (the attempt to overcome destitution and avoid ecocatastrophe) becomes real when mediated by and through ecosemiotics. In short, reflexive awareness of humankind's linguisticality is a necessary condition for transforming ecologically maladaptive cultural forms. As a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary research program integrating the human and natural sciences, ecosemiotic inquiry closes the gap between biophysical ecology and human ecology. A provisional outline of a pragmatic theory of ecoserniotics attempts to describe the processes by which adaptive cultural changes might be facilitated and points toward substantive content areas that constitute sites for further research. Ecosemiotic inquiry frames cultural codes as these shape and reproduce the ongoing stream of individual and societal choices that shape distinctively human existence in a larger context of biophysical realities that drive natural selection. However, while ecosemiotics is a necessary condition for the sustainability transition, it is not a sufficient condition.