Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and modern ecology

Emperor Frederick II’s early thirteenth-century book on falconry, De arte venandi cum avibus, is probably the most famous single source for scholars who survey the state-of-the-art in natural sciences in medieval times. Most of the research on his book has focused on the marginal illustrations featuring about 80 bird species. However, the book contains a large amount of ethological, ecological, morphological and faunistic knowledge about bird fauna. Frederick was also one of the first to conduct experiments with birds. Here, we describe the ornithological experiments and observations of Frederick and evaluate them from the perspective of modern ecology. In many contexts, Frederick expressed criticism of Aristotle and his work Liber Animalium. Frederick’s observation upon the geographical variation of species was partially in contrast to the Aristotelian typological or essentialist species concept. This is an important finding from the point of view of the western history of biology. De arte venandi cum avibus demonstrates Frederick’s deep knowledge of the ecology, morphology and behaviour of birds. This knowledge he gained via his long practice with falconry. The love of falconry made Frederick an early proponent of empiricism, and De arte venandi cum avibus was actually the most important achievement of empirical zoology in the thirteenth century.

Socio-Ecological Effect of Public Management of Green Development in the Context of the Philosophy of Modern Ecology

In recent years, the idea of Green economy has been widely discussed by experts in environmental economics and in various political forums. Many countries use various tools and principles of Green economy in their national policies and growth strategies. However, some countries fear that the transition to a Green economy model may hamper their development in the context of the philosophy of modern ecology. That is why the formation of a clear methodology for the Green economy is essential today. The article discusses the prerequisites for implementation, the basic principles of Green economy into the pub- lic administration system, and provides a system for modelling ways to implement the principles of Green economy using the IDEF0 methodology in the context of the philosophy of modern modern philosophy ecology. This methodology allows seeing clearly the ways and means of achieving this goal.

Forest typological features of herb species abundance distributions of pine forests in the Ural Mountains

The problem of preserving biodiversity in the face of human influence and climate change is one of the most pressing problems of modern ecology. The aim of the study is to identify the characteristics of herb SAD for various mountain pine forest types in the Middle Urals. Studies conducted in various types of pine forests have shown that the SAD method is an effective method for analysing the species structure and biodiversity of forest vegetation. The results presented in the form of graphs are clear, intuitive and easy to interpret. The use of approximations by several functions and comparison with theoretical distributions allows a deeper understanding of the features of forest species diversity

The radiation balance of oak forest ecosystems of the Crimean Peninsula

Studying the response of forest ecosystems to climate change is one of the urgent tasks of modern ecology. Regional manifestations of global climate change lead to special reactions of forest ecosystems. The main source of energy for all processes in ecosystems is solar radiation. It starts all the processes of transformation of matter, energy and information in the ecosystem. A change in its income leads to a restructuring of the ecosystem functioning system. For the Crimean Peninsula today the response of forest ecosystems to climate change remains poorly studied. This determines the relevance and purpose of this work. On the base of the landscape-typological map of the Crimean Peninsula, open reanalysis databases, and GIS modeling, the elements of the radiation balance of the oak forest ecosystems of the Crimean peninsula are estimated under the conditions of modern climate changes. The basic laws of the radiation balance formation of oak forest ecosystems and the features of its interannual dynamics are shown.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae killer toxins: synthesis, mechanisms of action and practical use

Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a unique model for studying the molecular mechanisms of exotoxin-mediated antagonistic relationships between coexisting microorganisms. The synthesis of yeast toxins can be considered as an example of allelopathy and environmental competition. The elucidation of the role of allelopathy in the formation of microbial communities is of great interest for modern ecology. Yeast toxins are widely used in medicine, the food industry and biotechnology. The review examines the nature of exotoxins, the mechanisms of inheritance and interaction of the virus and yeast cells, as well as the prospects for their practical application.

Neutralization of sewage sediments by utilization of steel industry wastes

Utilization of sewage sediments as a soil modifier is one of effective ways of man-caused disturbed lands reclaiming. To meet modern ecology requirements to reclaimed territories, the sediments must be safe by sanitary indices, have good organoleptic and grain-size properties, apart from being correspondent to norms by heavy metals and other toxic substances content in them. Wastes of urban sewage treatment plants were studied, as follows: raw sediments; excessive active mud, a mixture of wastes. Wastes of JSC EVRAZ ZSMK operation were used as neutralizing additives, as follows: aspiration dust of limestone burning plant, blooming scale. Studies showed a significant decrease in the content of water-soluble compounds of zinc, lead, copper, fluorine due to their precipitation when reacting with the added additives. The effectiveness of the deposition depends on the type of additive, its content, mixing conditions. By simply mixing of the neutralizing additive with the sample under investigation, a decrease of concentration of water-soluble compounds of zinc, copper, and fluorine was achieved. The selective effect of additives on individual elements established. Lime dust provided an excellent effect on zinc – a decrease by 50%, but had no effect on copper. The addition of scale led to a 25% reduction in the content of water-soluble copper, but did not lead to zinc precipitation. Regarding fluorine, lime was significantly more effective (a decrease by 53%) comparing with scale (a decrease of 27%). The total reduction of water-soluble compounds of the elements under study was 32.2% for lime and 32.6% for scale. Mixing the raw sediment with a neutralizing additive under heating conditions contributed to a significant increasing effect regarding copper: the decrease of its water-soluble ions down to 77% was obtained.