I evaluated solar oven usage and wood consumption in northern Nicaragua during both the rainy and dry seasons using surveys, temperature dataloggers placed in solar ovens, and direct measurements of wood consumption. Solar oven owners surveyed reported usage on 79% of days during the dry season, and 41% of days during the rainy season. I compared these results with oven temperature records, and...

Ten metals were analyzed in samples collected in three seasons (the dry season, the early rainy season, and the late rainy season) from two rivers in China. No observed toxic effect concentrations were used to estimate the risks. The possible sources of the metals in each season, and the dominant source(s) at each site, were assessed using principal components analysis. The metal concentrations...

Phenotypic plasticity refers to the environmental control of phenotypes. Cues experienced during development (developmental plasticity) or during adulthood (acclimatization) can both affect adult phenotypes. Phenotypic plasticity has been described in many traits but examples of developmental plasticity in physiological traits, in particular, remain scarce. We examined developmental plasticity ...

In this work, two field campaigns were performed in July 2008 (wet season) and March 2009 (dry season) to produce original data on the concentration, partition and distribution of mercury and butyltin compounds along the tropical Bach Dang Estuary located in North Vietnam (Haiphong, Red River Delta). The results demonstrate that mercury and butyltin speciation in the surface waters of this type...

The relative contribution of gross primary production and ecosystem respiration to seasonal changes in the net carbon flux of tropical forests remains poorly quantified by both modelling and field studies. We use data assimilation to combine nine ecological time series from an eastern Amazonian forest, with mass balance constraints from an ecosystem carbon cycle model. The resulting analysis qu...

This study aimed to estimate the occurrence of Aedes aegypti adults at distinct climatic seasons at neighborhoods from the municipality of São Luís, Maranhão State, Brazil, as well as to verify the presence of Dengue virus (DENV) in the specimens collected. A total of 320 properties were visited in eight neighborhoods that were previously randomly chosen. Samplings were made at three periods: d...

[1] We use a synoptic sampling of stream water to quantify the effect of soil type, rock type, deforestation extent determined by Landsat TM imagery, and urban population density on stream solute concentrations for 60 different watersheds in the dry season and 49 in the wet season in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon basin. Catchment areas range between 18 and 12,500 km. Soil exchangeable catio...

In this study, we investigated the feasibility of using the C-band European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS-1) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data to estimate surface soil roughness in a semiarid rangeland. Radar backscattering coefficients were extracted from a dry and a wet season SAR image and were compared with 47 in situ soil roughness measurements obtained in the rocky soils of the Walnut G...

BACKGROUND Research has shown that the classical Stegomyia indices (or "larval indices") of the dengue vector Aedes aegypti reflect the absence or presence of the vector but do not provide accurate measures of adult mosquito density. In contrast, pupal indices as collected in pupal productivity surveys are a much better proxy indicator for adult vector abundance. However, it is unknown when it...