EGS Seminar – Tuesday 20th March 2012

Tuesday 20th March, E0.05, John Dalton East Building, from 1.00-2.00pm.

Sandwiches, coffee and tea are available from 12.30 pm in room E402.


Invasive Plant Species: Impacts on Critical Ecosystem Processes
Dr Lindsay Banin, University of Ulster


Invasion by exotic species has been identified as one of the greatest agents of environmental change and threats to biodiversity loss. At small spatial scales in particular, invasive plant species often substantially alter the community and physical structure of vegetation. Riparian habitats are especially prone to plant invasions as they tend to be disturbed, nutrient-rich environments and the water provides a vector of transport for seeds and tissues capable of regeneration. In the British Isles, three herbaceous species, Fallopia japonica, Heracleum mantegazzium, and Impatiens glandulifera, have spread rapidly along water courses and posed a significant and costly management problem.


Considerable research effort has focussed on predicting which species might be invasive, which communities might be vulnerable, and the effects of invasion on diversity of plants and other taxa. The impacts of plant invasion on critical ecosystem processes, for example nutrient and carbon cycling, also warrant attention: to what extent do these community changes engender shifts in ecosystem functioning? There is also a lack of understanding of the mechanisms by which plants exclude their native counterparts in a given habitat, which impedes our ability to rehabilitate invaded communities. Our research, part of the EU-funded CIRB (Controlling Priority Invasive Species and Restoring Native Biodiversity) project, seeks to identify some of these impacts and mechanisms to enable better management of these systems, and in the talk I present our preliminary findings.

Exceptional Factors & Support - a reminder

Hi All,

If you think that you cannot make an assignment deadline date because of serious and/or unpredictable events in your life....you must apply for Exceptional Factors AS SOON AS POSSIBLE:

1) Form EF1 must be submitted for all claims. Submit the form, along with all necessary documentary evidence, to the appropriate Student Life Office or SIP for all units affected. Your nearest SIP is the one in John Dalton (sipnorth@mmu.ac.uk ). Your academic tutors cannot take the documentation from you. If you delay, you might miss the next available Exceptional Factors panel meeting - and this could affect the way we deal with you at upcoming Boards of Examiner meetings. The form EF1 and ALL guidance notes for this procedure are clearly presented at HERE

2) If you have any ongoing academic problems - and/or need to discuss these with somebody, then please contact Emma Taylor - the faculty Support Officer. Click HERE for more information.

3) If you have need to speak with a counsellor - if you have personal issues that are not strictly academic, please contact the MMU Counselling service. Click HERE for more information.


Mark

EGS Seminar – Tuesday 6th March 2012

Tuesday 06^th March, *E0.05, John Dalton East Building, from 1.00-2.00pm. Sandwiches, coffee and tea are available from 12.30 pm in room *E402.

Geochemical Mapping of Urban Soils and Road Dusts: Towards Improved Risk Assessments

Raquel Cardoso, MMU

Urban soil quality is of concern under current UK contaminated land legislation in terms of potential impacts on human health and the need for sustainable development. Another environmental media that is a likely source of potentially harmful substances (PHS), with possible deleterious human health effects due to close proximity to the receptors, is road dust sediment (RDS). Studies of PHS in RDS and soils of urban areas have been published; yet little is known about the spatial, geochemical and mineralogical linkages between these two different media - urban agglomerations tend to grow exponentially and so does the importance of RDS and soil characterization and monitoring. The aim of this research is to characterize PHS presence in these media, explore the spatial, geochemical and mineralogical linkages, and produce novel mineralogical data on the PHE/particulate relationships within and between soils and RDS.

Geochemical datasets are composed of 144 RDS and 300 soil samples, collected across 75 Km2 of Manchester urban centre. PHE maximum and average concentrations, determined by XRF, are generally higher in soils than in RDS. Geographic information systems (GIS) allowed the spatial detection of contamination hotspots for these media, where PHE concentrations (namely for Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Pb, As and Cd) were in excess of the regional 90th percentile. Spatial analysis pointed to localised contamination sources as main influences on RDS composition, which vary considerably over short distances. However, spatial distribution of PHE in soil highlighted broader areas with systematically high concentrations. Principal component analysis (PCA) has evidenced important PHE associations both for soils and RDS. PCA of grain size data obtained by laser diffractometry revealed that, in RDS, the 63-125µm fraction might act as hosts for PHE. SEM-EDS analysis supported this observation, but the source(s) of these grains still needs further investigation.

This detailed geochemical and mineralogical characterization of both soil and RDS, as well as their spatial associations, will allow a better understanding of PHE dynamics in urban systems and add vital knowledge on the risks posed to human populations by PHE exposure.