A qualitative systematic review of governance principles for mangrove conservation.

Management of mangrove ecosystems is complex, given that mangroves are both terrestrial and marine, often cross regional or national boundaries, and are valued by local stakeholders in different ways than they are valued on national and international scales. Thus, mangrove governance has had varying levels of success, analyzed through concepts such as principles of good governance and procedural justice in decision-making. Although there is substantial research on case studies of mangrove management, global comparisons of mangrove governance are lacking. This research aims to fill this gap by comparing relationships among qualities of governance across mangrove social-ecological systems worldwide. Through a systematic literature search and screening process, we identified 65 articles that discussed mangrove governance and conservation. Case studies in these articles, drawn from 39 countries, were categorized as top-down, bottom-up, or comanaged and thematically coded to assess the influence of eight principles of good governance in mangrove conservation success. Across all three governance systems, the principles of legitimacy, fairness, and integration were most important in determining conservation success or failure. These principles are closely related to the concept of procedural justice, highlighting the importance of stakeholder inclusion throughout all stages of mangrove management. Thus, we recommend clearly defined roles for all governance actors, transparent communication of policy development to stakeholders, fairness in both process and outcome, and careful consideration of sustainable access to conservation resources.

Una Revisión Cualitativa de los Principios de Gestión para la Conservación de los Manglares Resumen El manejo de los manglares es complejo dado que son terrestres y marinos, con frecuencia cruzan las fronteras regionales o nacionales y están valorados por los actores de diferentes maneras de cómo son valorados en las escalas nacionales e internacionales. Por lo tanto, la gestión de los manglares ha tenido diferentes niveles de éxito al ser analizados con medidas como los principios de buena gestión de Lockwood et al. (2010) y con conceptos como la justicia procesal (O'Beirne et al. 2020) en la toma de decisiones. Aunque existe una cantidad sustancial de información de estudios de caso del manejo de manglares, existen pocas comparaciones mundiales de la gestión de los manglares. Este trabajo busca cerrar esta brecha mediante la comparación de relaciones entre la calidad de las gestiones en los sistemas socio-ecológicos de manglares a nivel mundial. Identificamos 65 artículos que abordaban la conservación y gestión de los manglares mediante una búsqueda sistemática de la literatura y un proceso de análisis. Los estudios de caso en estos artículos, realizados en 39 países, fueron categorizados como gestión ascendiente, descendiente o de co-manejo y codificados por tema para analizar la influencia de los ocho principios de buena gestión de Lockwood et al. (2010) en el éxito de conservación de los manglares. En los tres sistemas de gestión, los principios de legitimidad, equidad e integración fueron los más importantes para determinar el éxito o fracaso de la conservación. Estos principios están fuertemente relacionados con el concepto de justicia procesal, resaltando la importancia de la inclusión de los actores durante todas las etapas del manejo de los manglares. Por lo tanto, recomendamos que todos los actores gestores tengan papeles claramente definidos, que exista una comunicación transparente del desarrollo de las políticas a los actores, equidad tanto en el proceso como en los resultados y la consideración meticulosa del acceso sustentable a los recursos de conservación.

Impacts of irrigated agriculture on food-energy-water-CO2 nexus across metacoupled systems.

Irrigated agriculture has important implications for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, there is a lack of systematic and quantitative analyses of its impacts on food-energy-water-CO2 nexus. Here we studied impacts of irrigated agriculture on food-energy-water-CO2 nexus across food sending systems (the North China Plain (NCP)), food receiving systems (the rest of China) and spillover systems (Hubei Province, affected by interactions between sending and receiving systems), using life cycle assessment, model scenarios, and the framework of metacoupling (socioeconomic-environmental interactions within and across borders). Results indicated that food supply from the NCP promoted food sustainability in the rest of China, but the NCP consumed over four times more water than its total annual renewable water, with large variations in food-energy-water-CO2 nexus across counties. Although Hubei Province was seldom directly involved in the food trade, it experienced substantial losses in water and land due to the construction of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project which aims to alleviate water shortages in the NCP. This study suggests the need to understand impacts of agriculture on food-energy-water-CO2 nexus in other parts of the world to achieve global sustainability.

Assessing progress towards sustainable development over space and time.

To address global challenges1-4, 193 countries have committed to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)5. Quantifying progress towards achieving the SDGs is essential to track global efforts towards sustainable development and guide policy development and implementation. However, systematic methods for assessing spatio-temporal progress towards achieving the SDGs are lacking. Here we develop and test systematic methods to quantify progress towards the 17 SDGs at national and subnational levels in China. Our analyses indicate that China's SDG Index score (an aggregate score representing the overall performance towards achieving all 17 SDGs) increased at the national level from 2000 to 2015. Every province also increased its SDG Index score over this period. There were large spatio-temporal variations across regions. For example, eastern China had a higher SDG Index score than western China in the 2000s, and southern China had a higher SDG Index score than northern China in 2015. At the national level, the scores of 13 of the 17 SDGs improved over time, but the scores of four SDGs declined. This study suggests the need to track the spatio-temporal dynamics of progress towards SDGs at the global level and in other nations.

Evolution of multiple global virtual material flows.

The world is connected through multiple flows of material, but a comprehensive assessment of their temporal dynamics and interactions is rare. To address this knowledge gap, we assessed the evolution and interactions of global flows of virtual water, energy, land, CO2, nitrogen as well as financial capital embodied in international trade from 1995 to 2008. We found that the volumes of all these flows, except for land flow, increased over time. Financial capital flows increased most (188.9%), followed by flows of CO2 (59.3%), energy (58.1%), water (50.7%) and nitrogen (10.5%), while land transfer decreased by 8.8%. Volumes of virtual material flows among distant countries were much higher than those among adjacent countries. The top five countries accounted for a surprisingly large proportion (47% to 80%) of total flow volumes. Different kinds of virtual material flows tended to enhance each other through synergistic effects, and CO2 and nitrogen flows tended to have stronger positive synergetic impacts on the other virtual material flows. Our results suggest that it is important to pay particular attention to such fast-growing material flows, promote cooperation between distant countries, and target countries with the largest flows to achieve global sustainable development goals.

The role of Raf-1 in radiation resistance of human hepatocellular carcinoma Hep G2 cells.

Development of radiation resistance is one of the major reasons that cancer cells do not respond to radiotherapy and the mechanism for resistance is still not clear. Two sublines of human hepatocellular carcinoma Hep G2 cells were established from cells that survived two different irradiation regimes, 2 Gy for 10 days or 10 Gy for 2 days, respectively. Using MTT assay, the radiation conditioned cells were found to be more resistant to gamma-irradiation and have a greater extent of potentially lethal damage repair (PLDR) for radiation than the parent cells. By Western blot analysis, the radiation-conditioned cells were found to overexpress Raf-1 which is known to regulate the radiation resistance of cells. Inhibition of Raf-1 expression by antisense oligonucleotides increased the radiation sensitivity of the radiation-conditioned cells while inhibitors of Ras (L744,832), PI3K (LY294002) and p38 (SB203580) had no effect. Moreover, antisense Raf-1 oligonucleotides also decreased the radiation induced PLDR capacity of the radiation conditioned cells. It is therefore suggested that Raf-1 may induce radiation resistance through an increase in radiation induced PLDR capacity in Hep G2 cells.

Reactive oxygen species mediate doxorubicin induced p53-independent apoptosis.

Doxorubicin (DOX) is a common anticancer drug. The mechanisms of DOX induced apoptosis and the involvement of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in apoptotic signaling were investigated in p53-null human osteosarcoma Saos-2 cells. Accumulation of pre-G1 phase cells and induction of DNA laddering, which are the hallmarks of apoptosis, were detected in cells at 48 h upon DOX treatment. Furthermore, DOX increased the intracellular hydrogen peroxide and superoxide levels, followed by mitochondrial membrane depolarization, cytochrome c release, caspase-3 activation, prior to DNA laddering in Saos-2 cells. In addition, DOX treatment also upregulated Bax and downregulated Bcl-2 levels in the cells. The role of ROS in DOX induced cell death was confirmed by the suppression effect of catalase on DOX induced ROS formation, mitochondrial cytochrome c release, procaspase-3 cleavage, and apoptosis in Saos-2 cells. The catalase treatment however only suppressed DOX induced Bax upregulation but had no effect on Bcl-2 downregulation. Results from the present study suggested that ROS might act as the signal molecules for DOX induced cell death and the process is still functional even in the absence of p53.

Modulation of multidrug resistance-associated protein 1 (MRP1) by p53 mutant in Saos-2 cells.

The p53 tumor suppressor gene is one of the most frequently mutated genes in human cancer and the mutation is correlated with a poor prognosis in cancer therapy. Upregulation of multidrug resistance-associated protein 1 (MRP1) and increase in drug resistance have been found to be induced by p53 mutation. Human osteosarcoma Saos-2 cells, a p53-null cell line, was transfected with p53 with mutations at codon 143 (V to A), 175 (R to H), 248 (R to W), 273 (R to H) and 281 (D to G). Among the different transfectants, overexpression (about 42-fold) of MRP1 was detected in p53-R175H cells. Furthermore, the p53-R175H cells were 2.5-fold more resistant to doxorubicin (DOX) and had a 4-fold greater DOX efflux rate than the control cells 1 h after DOX treatment. Transfection with antisense MRP1 oligonucleotides demonstrated a DOX sensitization effect (about 2-fold) in p53-R175H transfectants but not in control cells. In addition, transfection with antisense p53 oligonucleotides greatly suppressed MRP1 expression and reversed DOX resistance in p53-R175H cells but had no effect in control cells. The results suggested that p53-R175H might induce MRP1 expression and DOX resistance in cells.