scholarly journals Shifting Stoichiometry: Long‐term trends in stream dissolved organic matter reveal altered C:N ratios due to history of atmospheric acid deposition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bianca M. Rodríguez‐Cardona ◽  
Adam S. Wymore ◽  
Alba Argerich ◽  
Rebecca T. Barnes ◽  
Susana Bernal ◽  
...  
2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Matthew Gardner Kelly

Background/Context Dealing mostly in aggregate statistics that mask important regional variations, scholars often assume that district property taxation and the resource disparities this approach to school funding creates are deeply rooted in the history of American education. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article explores the history of district property taxation and school funding disparities in California during the 19th and 20th centuries. First, the article documents the limited use of district property taxation for school funding in California and several other Western states during the 19th century, showing that the development of school finance was more complicated than standard accounts suggest. Then, the article examines how a coalition of experts, activists, and politicians worked together during the early 20th century to promote district property taxation and institutionalize the idea that the wealth of local communities, rather than the wealth of the entire state, should determine the resources available for public schooling. Research Design This article draws on primary source documents from state and regional archives, including district-level funding data from nine Northern California counties, to complete a historical analysis. Conclusions/Recommendations The history of California's district property tax suggests the need for continued research on long-term trends in school finance and educational inequality. Popular accounts minimizing the historical role of state governments in school funding obscure how public policies, not just market forces shaping property values, create funding inequalities. In turn, these accounts communicate powerful messages about the supposed inevitability of funding disparities and the responsibility of state governments to correct them. Through increased attention to long-term trends in school funding, scholars can help popular commentators and policymakers avoid assumptions that naturalize inequality and narrow the possibilities for future funding reforms.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel P. Martineac ◽  
Alexey V. Vorobev ◽  
Mary Ann Moran ◽  
Patricia M. Medeiros

Uncovering which biogeochemical processes have a critical role controlling dissolved organic matter (DOM) compositional changes in complex estuarine environments remains a challenge. In this context, the aim of this study is to characterize the dominant patterns of variability modifying the DOM composition in an estuary off the Southeastern U.S. We collected water samples during three seasons (July and October 2014 and April 2015) at both high and low tides and conducted short- (1 day) and long-term (60 days) dark incubations. Samples were analyzed for bulk DOC concentration, and optical (CDOM) and molecular (FT-ICR MS) compositions and bacterial cells were collected for metatranscriptomics. Results show that the dominant pattern of variability in DOM composition occurs at seasonal scales, likely associated with the seasonality of river discharge. After seasonal variations, long-term biodegradation was found to be comparatively more important in the fall, while tidal variability was the second most important factor correlated to DOM composition in spring, when the freshwater content in the estuary was high. Over shorter time scales, however, the influence of microbial processing was small. Microbial data revealed a similar pattern, with variability in gene expression occurring primarily at the seasonal scale and tidal influence being of secondary importance. Our analyses suggest that future changes in the seasonal delivery of freshwater to this system have the potential to significantly impact DOM composition. Changes in residence time may also be important, helping control the relative contribution of tides and long-term biodegradation to DOM compositional changes in the estuary.


Author(s):  
Anand Menon ◽  
Luigi Scazzieri

This chapter examines the history of the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European integration process. The chapter dissects the long-term trends in public opinion and the more contingent, short-term factors that led to the referendum vote to leave the European Union. The UK was a late joiner and therefore unable to shape the early institutional development of the EEC. British political parties and public opinion were always ambiguous about membership and increasingly Eurosceptic from the early 1990s. Yet the UK had a significant impact on the EU’s development, in the development of the single market programme and eastward enlargement. If Brexit goes through, Britain will nevertheless maintain relations with the EU in all policy areas from agriculture to energy and foreign policy. Europeanization will remain a useful theoretical tool to analyse EU–UK relations even if the UK leaves the Union.


1992 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 298-298
Author(s):  
Geerat J. Vermeij

Individual organisms compete for resources. Among competitive dominants, per-capita energy use has generally increased through time. This increase has had a ripple effect on all other species by increasing the number of competitive and predatory encounters among individuals. Species unable to cope with such biological rigors have become restricted to environments where resource supply is low and where encounters with enemies are few. Among species that hold their own in biologically rigorous habitats, construction materials that are cheap to produce and that enable individuals to grow and respond quickly have generally been favored over those that exact a high cost in energy and time. Extinction interrupts but does not reverse or fundamentally alter these long-term between-clade evolutionary trends. The availability of resources to organisms, as well as the opportunity for evolutionary change, depends on extrinsic events and factors as well as on the competitive abilities of organisms.Those who have raised methodological and theoretical objections against this economic interpretation of the history of life deny the overriding importance of organisms as agents of natural selection, emphasize the random nature of extinction, deny the existence of long-term trends, favor a larger role for mutualistic as opposed to antagonistic interactions, or accord a larger role to species-level attributes in evolution that are not reducible to the properties of individual organisms. These arguments are either unpersuasive or incorrect. The long-term economics of life may have important lessons for our own use of resources.


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