2 pp. / Originally published: 2002 / If drinking milk or eating foods made from milk, like cheese, yogurt, or ice cream, upsets your stomach then you may be lactose intolerant. Some people make too little lactase, so lactose from milk is not absorbed. There are alternatives to obtain the daily calcium if you are lactose intolerant.

2 pp. / Of all the nutrients in the food supply, fat and cholesterol probably receive the most attention from health professionals and the public alike. The scientific evidence is clear that a high-fat diet relates to chronic health problems such as heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes, and obesity. But both fat and cholesterol are natural components of the body that are vital to good health, and too little fat in your diet is just as unhealthy as too much. This article reviews dietary fats and provides guidelines for choosing foods to balance the type and amount of fat in your diet.

6 pp. / Guidelines for nitrogen fertilization of small grains are presented using crop need, calendar dates, or tissue testing. Relationship between grain protein and nitrogen fertilization is presented. Phosphorus, potassium, and other nutrients are also discussed.

Lietuvoje upių vandens kokybės tyrimai atliekami vadovaujantis Aplinkos monitoringo įstatymu, Vyriausybės pritarta valstybine aplinkos monitoringo programa, atsižvelgiama į ES direktyvas ir Helsinkio komisijos (HELCOM) rekomendacijas. Bendrosios vandenų politikos direktyvos 2000/60/EB tikslas – užtikrinti, kad iki 2015 metų visuose vandens telkiniuose būtų pasiekta gera paviršinio ir požeminio vandens ir nuo jų priklausomų sausumos ekosistemų būklė, ir apsaugoti nuo būklės blogėjimo. Darbe nagrinėjama fizinių-geografinių sąlygų įtaka Vilnios upės nuotėkiui bei vandens kokybei. Tyrimo metu pasirinkti 4 mėginių ėmimo taškai, juose nustatytos biogeninių medžiagų koncentracijos ir vandens lygiai. Nuotėkiui vertinti pagal nustatytus vandens lygius apskaičiuoti koeficientai ir perskaičiuoti vidutiniai mėnesiniai debitai 1992–2009 metų sekai. Darbą sudaro 6 dalys: įvadas, literatūros apžvalga, tyrimų objektas ir metodika, tyrimų rezultatai, išvados, literatūros sąrašas. Darbo apimtis ─ 74 p. teksto be priedų, 37 iliustr., 15 lent., 115 literatūros šaltiniai. / Ranges of rivers water quality are conducted in accordance with the Environmental Monitoring Act, the Government approved a national environmental monitoring program and will take into account the EU directives and the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) recommendations in Lithuania. General water policy directive 2000/60/EC aim - to ensure that all water bodies to achieve good surface water and groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems, and protect against deterioration by 2015. The work deals with the physical-geographical conditions on the river runoff outpatient and water quality. The study of sampling to select 4 points out the nutrient concentrations and water levels. Leakage is seen under the water levels to calculate conversion rates and average monthly flow rates the 1992–2009 series. Structure: introduction, scientific literature review, research and methodology, conclusions, references. Thesis consist of: 74 p. text without appendixes, 37 pictures, 15 tables, 115 bibliographical entries.

Flow variability plays an important role in structuring lotic communities, yet comparatively little is known about processes governing assemblage dynamics in stream ecosystems with stable environmental conditions, such as spring-fed rivers. Volcanic spring-fed rivers (hereafter spring-fed rivers) occur in geologically active landscapes of the western USA and around the globe. We sampled invertebrate assemblages and quantified primary productivity and habitat characteristics of spring-fed and runoff rivers in northern California over 4 seasons. We predicted that abiotic factors would be more stable and nutrient availability greater and that invertebrate density would be greater and diversity lower in spring-fed than in runoff rivers. Runoff rivers exhibited high variability in discharge and temperature, whereas spring-fed rivers were relatively stable with high naturally occurring nutrient levels. On average, NO3- and PO43- concentrations were 40x greater in spring-fed than in runoff rivers. Spring-fed rivers supported nearly 7 to 16x greater densities of invertebrates than runoff systems, depending on season. However, invertebrate species richness was greater in runoff rivers in all seasons. Spring-fed river invertebrate assemblages were strongly correlated with elevated nutrient concentrations and basal C sources, whereas runoff assemblages were associated with discharge variability and median substrate size. We suggest that strong differences in abiotic variability between spring-fed and runoff rivers play an important role in determining invertebrate assemblage structure. Because spring-fed rivers exhibit more stable temperatures throughout the year and lower temperatures during the summer than runoff rivers, they may provide essential refugia for coldwater taxa in a warming climate.

This study was undertaken in order to determine whether the extracts of common garden vegetables could be incorporated into simple, economical culture media which might be used for the growth and cultivation of at least some of the more commonly used microorganisms.

This study examined the effects of replicating woodland soil surface horizonation on the nutrient status of underlying soils and the initial establishment and growth of trees. A total of 283 container grown trees were planted in a bufferzone around a future landfill site. Control amendments consisted of an 8 cm layer (0.5 m3) of wood chips applied in a circular area of 4.6 m2 around the trees' planting pit. For the treatment, a 2.5 cm layer of composted biosolids (0.15 m3 or 80 Mg/ha) was applied in a circular area of 4.6 m2 around the trees' planting pit followed by an 8 cm layer (0.5 m3) of wood chips. The results indicate that the replication of woodland soil surface attributes using composted biosolids can significantly improve the nutrient status of underlying soil. Some significant effects were seen under control conditions, too. However, the effects on tree establishment and growth parameters were, for the most part, not statistically significant.

Stormwater runoff is one of the leading causes of water quality impairment in the U.S. Bioretention systems are ecologically engineered to treat stormwater pollution and offer exciting opportunities to provide local climate change resiliency by reducing peak runoff rates, and retaining/detaining storm volumes, yet implementation is outpacing our understanding of the underlying physical, biological, and chemical mechanisms involved in pollutant removal. Further, we do not know how performance will be affected by increases in precipitation, which are projected to occur in the northeastern U.S. as a result of climate change, or if these systems could act as a source or sink for greenhouse gas emissions. This research examines the design, construction, and development of monitoring methods for bioretention research, using the University of Vermont (UVM) Bioretention Laboratory as a case study. In addition, this research evaluates mobilization patterns and pollutant loads from road surfaces during the "first flush" of runoff, or the earlier part of a storm event. Finally, this research analyzes the comparative pollutant removal performance of bioretention systems on a treatment by treatment basis. At the UVM Bioretention Laboratory, eight lined bioretention cells were constructed with monitoring infrastructure installed at the entrance and at the subterranean effluent. A conventional, sand and compost based, bioretention soil media was compared to a proprietary media engineered to remove phosphorus, called Sorbtive Media™, under simulated increases in precipitation. Two drought tolerant vegetation mixes, native to the northeast, were compared for sediment and nutrient retention. Each treatment was sampled for soil gas emissions to determine if it was a source or a sink. The monitoring infrastructure designs used in this research allowed for the effective characterization of pollutant mass loads entering and exiting bioretention. Cumulative mass loads from stormwater were found to be highest for total suspended solids, followed by total Kjeldahl nitrogen, nitrate, non-labile phosphorus and soluble reactive phosphorus, in descending order by mass. Total suspended solids, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, and non-labile phosphorus mass were well retained by all bioretention treatments. However, the compost amendment in the conventional soil media was found to release labile nitrogen and phosphorus, far surpassing the mass loads in stormwater. When compared with conventional media, Sorbtive Media™ was highly effective at removing labile phosphorus and was also found to enhance nitrate removal. Systems containing deep-rooted vegetation (Panicum virgatum) were found to be particularly effective at retaining both labile and non-labile constituents. Overall, none of the bioretention treatments were found to be a significant source of N2O and were small sinks for CH4 in most treatments.

Rivers deliver significant macronutrients and sediments to lakes that can vary substantially throughout the year. These nutrient and sediment loadings, exacerbated by winter and spring runoff, impact aquatic ecosystem productivity and drive the formation of harmful algae blooms. The source, extent and magnitude of nutrient and sediment loading can vary drastically due to extreme weather events and hydrologic processes, such as snowmelt or high flow storm events, that dominate during a particular time period, making the temporal component (i.e., time over which the loading is estimated) critical for accurate forecasts. In this work, we developed a data-driven framework that leverages the temporal variability embedded in these complex hydrologic regimes to improve loading estimates. Identifying the "correct" time scale is an important first step for providing accurate estimates of seasonal nutrient and sediment loadings. We use water quality concentration and associated 15-minute discharge data from nine watersheds in Vermont's Lake Champlain Basin to test our proposed framework. Optimal time periods were selected using a hierarchical cluster analysis that uses the slope and intercept coefficients from individual load-discharge regressions to derive improved linear models. These optimized linear models were used to improve estimates of annual and "spring" loadings for total phosphorus, dissolved phosphorus, total nitrogen, and total suspended loads for each of the nine study watersheds. The optimized annual regression model performed ~20% better on average than traditional annual regression models in terms of Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, and resulted in ~50% higher cumulative load estimates with the largest difference occurring in the "spring". In addition, the largest nutrient and sediment loadings occurred during the "spring" unit of time and were typically more than 40% of the total annual estimated load in a given year. The framework developed here is robust and may be used to analyze other units of time associated with hydrologic regimes of interest provided adequate water quality data exist. This, in turn, may be used to create more targeted and cost-effective management strategies for improved aquatic health in rivers and lakes.

Algae are important components of stream food webs and often used in biomonitoring assessments. Little is known regarding the factors that limit their abundance in streams of the VA Coastal Plain. The surficial geology of the Coastal Plain is predominately sandy deposits which comprise the dominant substrate in streams of this region. In a comparative study of five streams located near the VCU Rice Center, we quantified substrate composition, light availability, and nutrient concentrations to assess their relative importance in determining benthic algal abundance. The proportion of stream area comprised of hard substrates was a significant predictor of variation in benthic algal abundance (r²=0.66). An experimental component comparing algal colonization on artificial hard substrates (tile) to the natural substrate reinforced the importance of substrate stability. Hard substrates which included gravel and aggregated clay likely provided greater stability for algal colonization relative to sand and silt deposits, resulting in lower mortality from scouring and sedimentation. Incident solar radiation was a secondary factor affecting algal abundance with shaded streams exhibiting lower benthic chlorophyll. Where substrate and light conditions were favorable, relationships between benthic algal abundance and dissolved phosphorus concentrations were observed. Seasonal fluctuations were ameliorated by high light conditions and constant disturbances at sites lacking hard substrates which kept CHLa at consistently low levels. The mean proportion of FBOM C derived from benthic algae ranged from 10 to 24%. In spite of the consistently low observed benthic algal abundance at sandy unstable Coastal Plain streams, benthic algae are an important source of benthic organic matter.