Sustainability Education as a Catalyst for University and Community Partnerships

Universities are uniquely positioned to lead society toward sustainability and their collaborations with community organizations are essential to this transition. The Biodiesel Program at Loyola University Chicago Center for Urban Environmental Research and Policy provides a case study of course-based service-learning projects facilitating synergies between the university and the community while concomitantly fostering urban sustainability. This article discusses the program’s design andstructure, and describes specific examples of community partnerships that havebenefited the university, the community, and the environmen

Biomass harvest of invasive Typha promotes plant diversity in a Great Lakes coastal wetland

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111287/1/rec12167.pd

Sustainability Education as a Catalyst for University and Community Partnerships

Universities are uniquely positioned to lead society toward sustainability and their collaborations with community organizations are essential to this transition. The Biodiesel Program at Loyola University Chicago Center for Urban Environmental Research and Policy provides a case study of course-based service-learning projects facilitating synergies between the university and the community while concomitantly fostering urban sustainability. This article discusses the program\u27s design and structure, and describes specific examples of community partnerships that have benefited the university, the community, and the environment

The roles of charge exchange and dissociation in spreading Saturn's neutral clouds

Neutrals sourced directly from Enceladus's plumes are initially confined to a dense neutral torus in Enceladus's orbit around Saturn. This neutral torus is redistributed by charge exchange, impact/photodissociation, and neutral-neutral collisions to produce Saturn's neutral clouds. Here we consider the former processes in greater detail than in previous studies. In the case of dissociation, models have assumed that OH is produced with a single speed of 1 km/s, whereas laboratory measurements suggest a range of speeds between 1 and 1.6 km/s. We show that the high-speed case increases dissociation's range of influence from 9 to 15 Rs. For charge exchange, we present a new modeling approach, where the ions are followed within a neutral background, whereas neutral cloud models are conventionally constructed from the neutrals' point of view. This approach allows us to comment on the significance of the ions' gyrophase at the moment charge exchange occurs. Accounting for gyrophase: (1) has no consequence on the H2O cloud; (2) doubles the local density of OH at the orbit of Enceladus; and (3) decreases the oxygen densities at Enceladus's orbit by less than 10%. Finally, we consider velocity-dependent, as well as species-dependent cross sections and find that the oxygen cloud produced from charge exchange is spread out more than H2O, whereas the OH cloud is the most confined.Comment: Accepted to the Journal of Geophysical Research, 49 pages, 10 figure

Typha (Cattail) Invasion in North American Wetlands: Biology, Regional Problems, Impacts, Ecosystem Services, and Management

Typha is an iconic wetland plant found worldwide. Hybridization and anthropogenic disturbances have resulted in large increases in Typha abundance in wetland ecosystems throughout North America at a cost to native floral and faunal biodiversity. As demonstrated by three regional case studies, Typha is capable of rapidly colonizing habitats and forming monodominant vegetation stands due to traits such as robust size, rapid growth rate, and rhizomatic expansion. Increased nutrient inputs into wetlands and altered hydrologic regimes are among the principal anthropogenic drivers of Typha invasion. Typha is associated with a wide range of negative ecological impacts to wetland and agricultural systems, but also is linked with a variety of ecosystem services such as bioremediation and provisioning of biomass, as well as an assortment of traditional cultural uses. Numerous physical, chemical, and hydrologic control methods are used to manage invasive Typha, but results are inconsistent and multiple methods and repeated treatments often are required. While this review focuses on invasive Typha in North America, the literature cited comes from research on Typha and other invasive species from around the world. As such, many of the underlying concepts in this review are relevant to invasive species in other wetland ecosystems worldwide.SUNY BrockportEnvironmental Science and Ecology Faculty Publication

Examining the Effect of Biochar on Invasive Typha x glauca in a Greenhouse Experiment

Invasive species in the Great Lakes pose ecological, economic, and social dilemmas as they alter and diminish the quality of ecosystems. By dominating native plant communities through efficient uptake of excess nutrients, the hybrid cattail, Typha × glauca, reduces the plant diversity of Great Lakes coastal wetlands, homogenizing habitat for many species of fish, animals, and insects. This study investigated how biochar, a charcoal-like substance, affected biomass accumulation in hybrid cattails and native wetland plants. I conducted a greenhouse experiment by growing assemblages of native wetland plants, Typha × glauca, and a combination of both native species and hybrid cattails in separate buckets with a homogenized, sand-compost mixture containing 0%, 2.5%, and 5% biochar by weight for approximately fifty days. I found that biochar reduced the overall biomass of Typha × glauca when comparing the 2.5% and 5% biochar applications to the 0% application. Biochar was also found to change the phosphorus content in Typha × glauca, a nutrient which is often found in excess in wetlands due to agricultural pollution. This preliminary study provides evidence that biochar has the potential to reduce the biomass of Typha × glauca, therefore impeding its dominance in Great Lakes coastal wetlands

Typha (Cattail) Invasion in North American Wetlands: Biology, Regional Problems, Impacts, Ecosystem Services, and Management

Typha is an iconic wetland plant found worldwide. Hybridization and anthropogenic disturbances have resulted in large increases in Typha abundance in wetland ecosystems throughout North America at a cost to native floral and faunal biodiversity. As demonstrated by three regional case studies, Typha is capable of rapidly colonizing habitats and forming monodominant vegetation stands due to traits such as robust size, rapid growth rate, and rhizomatic expansion. Increased nutrient inputs into wetlands and altered hydrologic regimes are among the principal anthropogenic drivers of Typha invasion. Typha is associated with a wide range of negative ecological impacts to wetland and agricultural systems, but also is linked with a variety of ecosystem services such as bioremediation and provisioning of biomass, as well as an assortment of traditional cultural uses. Numerous physical, chemical, and hydrologic control methods are used to manage invasive Typha, but results are inconsistent and multiple methods and repeated treatments often are required. While this review focuses on invasive Typha in North America, the literature cited comes from research on Typha and other invasive species from around the world. As such, many of the underlying concepts in this review are relevant to invasive species in other wetland ecosystems worldwide

UV continuum emission and diagnostics of hydrogen-containing non-equilibrium plasmas

For the first time the emission of the radiative dissociation continuum of the hydrogen molecule ($a^{3}\Sigma_{g}^{+} \to b^{3}\Sigma_{u}^{+}$ electronic transition) is proposed to be used as a source of information for the spectroscopic diagnostics of non-equilibrium plasmas. The detailed analysis of excitation-deactivation kinetics, rate constants of various collisional and radiative transitions and fitting procedures made it possible to develop two new methods of diagnostics of: (1) the ground $X^{1}\Sigma_{g}^{+}$ state vibrational temperature $T_{\text{vib}}$ from the relative intensity distribution, and (2) the rate of electron impact dissociation (d[\mbox{H_{2}}]/dt)_{\text{diss}} from the absolute intensity of the continuum. A known method of determination of $T_{\text{vib}}$ from relative intensities of Fulcher-$\alpha$ bands was seriously corrected and simplified due to the revision of $d \to a$ transition probabilities and cross sections of $d \gets X$ electron impact excitation. General considerations are illustrated with examples of experiments in pure hydrogen capillary-arc and H$_{2}$+Ar microwave discharges.Comment: REVTeX, 25 pages + 12 figures + 9 tables. Phys. Rev. E, eprint replaced because of resubmission to journal after referee's 2nd repor

Harvesting Invasive Plants to Reduce Nutrient Loads and Produce Bioenergy: An Assessment of Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands

In Laurentian Great Lakes coastal wetlands (GLCWs), dominant emergent invasive plants are expanding their ranges and compromising the unique habitat and ecosystem service values that these ecosystems provide. Herbiciding and burning to control invasive plants have not been effective in part because neither strategy addresses the most common root cause of invasion, nutrient enrichment. Mechanical harvesting is an alternative approach that removes tissue‐bound phosphorus and nitrogen and can increase wetland plant diversity and aquatic connectivity between wetland and lacustrine systems. In this study, we used data from three years of Great Lakes‐wide wetland plant surveys, published literature, and bioenergy analyses to quantify the overall areal extent of GLCWs, the extent and biomass of the three most dominant invasive plants, the pools of nitrogen and phosphorus contained within their biomass, and the potential for harvesting this biomass to remediate nutrient runoff and produce renewable energy. Of the approximately 212,000 ha of GLCWs, three invasive plants (invasive cattail, common reed, and reed canary grass) dominated 76,825 ha (36%). The coastal wetlands of Lake Ontario exhibited the highest proportion of invasive dominance (57%) of any of the Great Lakes, primarily from cattail. A single growing season\u27s biomass of these invasive plants across all GLCWs was estimated at 659,545 metric tons: 163,228 metric tons of reed canary grass, 270,474 metric tons of common reed, and 225,843 metric tons of invasive cattail, and estimated to contain 10,805 and 1144 metric tons of nitrogen and phosphorus, respectively. A one‐time harvest and utilization for energy of this biomass would provide the gross equivalent of 1.8 million barrels of oil if combusted, or 0.9 million barrels of oil if converted to biogas in an anaerobic digester. We discuss the potential for mitigating non‐point source nutrient pollution with invasive wetland plant removal, and other potential uses for the harvested biomass, including compost and direct application to agricultural soils. Finally, we describe the research and adaptive management program we have built around this concept, and point to current limitations to the implementation of large‐scale invasive plant harvesting

Biomass harvest of invasive Typha promotes plant diversity in a Great Lakes coastal wetland

Ecological and financial constraints limit restoration efforts, preventing the achievement of desired ecological outcomes. Harvesting invasive plant biomass for bioenergy has the potential to reduce feedback mechanisms that sustain invasion, while alleviating financial limitations. Typha × glauca is a highly productive invasive wetland plant that reduces plant diversity, alters ecological functioning, its impacts increase with time, and is a suitable feedstock for bioenergy. We sought to determine ecological effects of Typha utilization for bioenergy in a Great Lakes coastal wetland by testing plant community responses to harvest-restoration treatments in stands of two age classes and assessing community resilience through a seed bank study. Belowground harvesting increased light penetration, diversity, and richness, and decreased Typha dominance and biomass in both years post-treatment. Aboveground harvesting increased light and reduced Typha biomass in post-year 1 and in post-year 2, increased diversity and richness and decreased Typha dominance. Seed bank analysis revealed that young stands (30 years). In the field, stand-age did not affect diversity or Typha dominance, but old stands had greater Typha biomass and slightly higher richness following harvest. Harvesting Typha achieved at least two desirable ecological outcomes: reducing Typha dominance and increasing native plant diversity. Younger stands had greater potential for native recovery, indicated by more diverse seed banks. In similar degraded wetlands, a single harvest of Typha biomass would likely result in significant biodiversity and habitat improvements, with the potential to double plant species richness