Methanotrophs play a crucial role in mitigating methane (CH4) emission by oxidizing produced CH4 in paddy soils; however, ecological drivers of methanotrophic community in the soils around heavy metal contaminated areas remain unclear. In this study, we evaluated the effects of heavy metal pollution and soil properties on the abundance, diversity and composition of methanotrophic community in paddy soils from two typical mercury (Hg) mining regions in southwest China. The results of random forest and structure equation models suggest that both heavy metal content and soil nutrients greatly influenced the attributes of methanotrophic community. In general, the abundance and diversity of methanotrophs were negatively related to soil Hg content, but showed positive correlation with soil organic carbon content. However, the other metals (cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), arsenic (As), zinc (Zn)) had inconsistent associations with the microbial indexes of methanotrophic community in the soil. Elevated levels of heavy metal and nutrients in the soils shifted the community composition of methanotrophs. For example, Pb, As and Zn contents had negative associations with the relative abundance of Methylocaldum. In addition, changes in the relative abundance of ecological clusters within the co-occurrence network of methanotrophs were related to metal contents and soil properties. Together, our findings provide novel insights into understanding ecological drivers of methanotrophic community in paddy soils around Hg mining regions, with important implications for mitigating CH4 emissions in terrestrial ecosystems. V.Food and beverage packaging represent a relevant fraction of municipal solid waste, and its adequate management is critical.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/oprozomib-onx-0912.html  Selective waste collection by an authorized organization according to an Extended Producer Responsibility System (EPRS) is the current option implemented in Spain for packaging. Other European countries have selected an alternative or a complement a Deposit-Refund System (DRS) for certain type of beverage packaging. The selection of an EPRS or a DRS is a complex task and this work developed a universal methodology for the evaluation of optimal waste packaging management systems, focused on food and beverage. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach was applied to compare the current EPRS vs the implementation of a new system, with the coexistence of a DRS and a reduced EPRS. Although the environmental savings of the new system are superior to its impacts, even if the DRS would reach a value of 90% for the package return index, the current EPRS obtains significantly better environmental results. All impact categories are favorable to the current EPRS, except ADP, where the potentially higher DRS recycling rate is manifested. The impact associated to the flow of specific DRS packages in the new system is clearly higher than that linked to the flow of DRS excluded packages and it is even higher that the impact of the total joint flow in the current EPRS for all categories except ADP. The fundamental cause of this high impact is the backhauling stage to transport the recovered packages to the counting plants without compacting. A sensitivity analysis confirmed the robustness of the preference of the current EPRS over the combination of a DRS and a reduced EPRS. The developed approach supposes a methodological advance that can be extended to previously realized studies about the implementation of waste management systems in other contexts. The climate and Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) changes evince the considerable impact on water balance components by altering the hydrological processes. So, the present work focuses on the evaluation of the combined impact of both the climate and LULC changes along with and without water storage structures on water balance components of the Krishna river basin, India under present and future scenarios with the help of Soil Water and Assessment Tool (SWAT). Sequential Uncertainty Fitting algorithm (SUFI-2) was used for the model calibration and validation, which were carried out at the Vijayawada gauge station. The coefficient of determination (R2) and Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) values obtained during the calibration period were 0.63 and 0.61, respectively, whereas, in validation, these values were found to be 0.61 and 0.56, indicates satisfactory results. The results showed that the model simulations and performance were significantly influenced by the presence of water storage structures, whereas the LULC changes were effective at the sub-watershed level. Future LULC maps of 2025, 2055, and 2085 were simulated from the Cellular Automata (CA) Markov Chain model, and they were used along with future climate projections to investigate its impact on water balance components. The climate model projects an increase of water balance components specifically, surface runoff, streamflow, and water yield, except for evapotranspiration in the future. Whereas, the future LULC changes may influence in offsetting the streamflow 20 to 30% reference to the observed flow. Thus, LULC changes were significantly influenced the model simulations; therefore, it is essential to consider the LULC changes along with climate scenarios in climate change studies. Overall, the surface runoff, water yield, and streamflow may increase by 50% under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5, and they may double under the RCP 8.5 scenario by the end of the century. Lower-brominated diphenyl ethers (LBDEs) occur ubiquitously in soil, however their fate there has not been well evaluated, mainly owing to that the unavailability of commercial radioactively labelled LBDE congeners hampers the investigation on fate of LBDEs in the environment with complex matrixes, such as soil and sediment. Here, we successfully synthesized three congeners of LBDEs, i.e., 4-bromodiphenyl ether (BDE3), 4,4'-dibromodiphenyl ether (BDE15), and 2,2',4,4'-tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE47), with 14C-labelling on one aromatic ring, starting from commercially available 14C-labelled phenol in two steps with high yields and high radiochemical purities. Using the 14C-labelled congeners, we studied the fate of LBDEs in a red soil under oxic conditions, where LBDEs have been frequently detected in high levels. The major fate of the LBDE congeners in the soil was formation of NERs, followed by mineralization to CO2, while no transformation product was detected in the soil after incubation for 105 days. The mineralization strongly decreased with increasing number of the bromine atom on the congener molecule, amounting to 10.