Accelerated farmland bird population declines in European countries after their recent EU accession.

Agricultural intensification is a major driver of global biodiversity loss. In Europe, intensification progressed over the 20th century and was accelerated by instruments of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries standing outside the EU until the beginning of the 21st century employed less intensive farming and are considered one of the continent's farmland biodiversity strongholds. Their recent EU accession might be either viewed as a threat to farmland biodiversity due to the availability of funds to increase agricultural production or as an opportunity to implement conservation measures aimed to preserve biodiversity. Here we assessed these possibilities using long-term monitoring data on farmland bird populations in seven CEE countries. We tested whether mean relative abundance and population trends changed after countries' EU accession, and whether such changes also occurred in agricultural management and conservation measures. Both agricultural intensity and spending for agri-environmental and climatic schemes increased when the CEE countries joined the EU. At the same time, farmland bird populations started to decline and their relative abundance was lower after than before EU accession. In addition, increases in fertilizer application were negatively associated with annual changes in relative farmland bird population sizes, indicating a negative impact of intensive agriculture. Taken together, these results indicate that despite the great power of the EU's environmental legislation to improve the population status of species at risk, this does not apply to farmland birds. In their case, the adverse impacts of agricultural intensification most likely overrode the possible benefits of conservation measures. To secure this region as one of the continent's farmland biodiversity strongholds, policy and management actions are urgently needed.

Long-term and large-scale multispecies dataset tracking population changes of common European breeding birds.

Around fifteen thousand fieldworkers annually count breeding birds using standardized protocols in 28 European countries. The observations are collected by using country-specific and standardized protocols, validated, summarized and finally used for the production of continent-wide annual and long-term indices of population size changes of 170 species. Here, we present the database and provide a detailed summary of the methodology used for fieldwork and calculation of the relative population size change estimates. We also provide a brief overview of how the data are used in research, conservation and policy. We believe this unique database, based on decades of bird monitoring alongside the comprehensive summary of its methodology, will facilitate and encourage further use of the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme results.

Correct virial formulation in the isotropic periodic sum method.

The original formulation of the virial in the isotropic periodic sum (IPS) method assumes that the sphere defining the local region has a constant radius (the cutoff) independent of the system size. This assumption neglects a virial term originating from the separation between the local sphere and its periodic images. When comparing the IPS virial with that calculated from the cutoff plus long range correction method, the difference observed can be erroneously attributed to the representation of the infinite region. We show that when the two virials are calculated consistently the observed difference is significantly reduced. Additionally, the correct virial that includes the previously missing term is much simpler to calculate. We prove that in the IPS method the virial can be obtained as n/3 times the potential energy for the case of 1/r(n) type potentials.

Molecular modeling of proton transport in the short-side-chain perfluorosulfonic acid ionomer.

An explanation for the superior proton conductivity of low equivalent weight (EW) short-side-chain (SSC) perfluorosulfonic acid membranes is pursued through the determination of hydrated morphology and hydronium ion diffusion coefficients using classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. A unique force field set for the SSC ionomer was derived from torsion profiles determined from ab initio electronic structure calculations of an oligomeric fragment consisting of two side chains. MD simulations were performed on a system consisting of a single macromolecule of the polymer (EW of 580) with the general formula F3C-[CF(OCF2CF2SO3H)-(CF2)7]40-CF3 at hydration levels corresponding to 3, 6, and 13 water molecules per sulfonic acid group. Examination of the hydrated morphology indicates the formation of hydrogen bond "bridges" between distant sulfonate groups without significant bending of the polytetrafluoroethylene backbone. Pair correlation functions of the system identify the presence of ion cages consisting of hydronium ions hydrogen-bonded to three sulfonate groups at the lowest water content. Such structures exhibit very low S-OH3+ separations, well below 4 A and severely inhibit vehicular diffusion of the protons. The number of sulfonate groups in the first solvation shell of a given hydronium ion correlates well with the differences between Nafion and the SSC polymer (Hyflon). The calculated hydronium ion diffusion coefficients of 2.84 x 10-7, 1.36 x 10-6, and 3.47 x 10-6 cm2/s for water contents of 3, 6, and 13, respectively, show only good agreement to experimentally measured values at the lowest water content, underscoring the increasing contribution of proton shuttling or hopping at the higher hydration levels. At the highest water content, the vehicular diffusion accounts for only about 1/5 of the total proton transport similar to that observed in Nafion.

Possible side reactions due to water in emulsion polymerization by late transition metal complexes. 1. Water complexation and hydrolysis of the growing chain.

The transition metal catalyzed ethylene polymerization in aqueous emulsion has been increasingly successful in the last couple of years. Water however adversely affects the polymerization process by (a) competing with ethylene for the binding site at the metal and (b) hydrolyzing the growing chain. Neutral salicylaldiminato and cationic diimine complexes of Ni and Pd with different substituent patterns are studied here by density functional theory to determine their propensity toward water complexation and hydrolysis of the growing chain. Experimental NMR studies have also been carried out on the protonolysis of the Ni(II)-based Grubbs catalyst. It is found that in general that (a) ethylene coordination is preferred over water coordination for both Ni and Pd catalysts and (b) hydrolysis of the metal alkyl bond is competitive to ethylene insertion.

Optimizing the structures of minimum and transition state on the free energy surface.

Presented here is the application of a scheme for optimizing the structures of minima and transition states on the free energy surface (FES) for a path along a fixed reaction coordinate with the aid of ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulation. In the direction of the reaction coordinate, the values corresponding to the stationary points were optimized using the quasi-Newton method, in which the gradient of the free energy along the reaction coordinate was obtained by a constraint AIMD method, and the Bofill Hessian update scheme was used. The equilibrium values for the other directions were taken as the corresponding averages in the dynamic simulation. This scheme was applied to several elementary bimolecular addition reactions: (A) BH(3) + H(2)O --> H(2)O.BH(3); (B) BF(3) + NH(3) --> FB(3).NH(3); (C) SO(3) + NH(3) --> O(3)S.NH(3); (D) C(2)H(4) + CCl(2) --> H(4)C(2).CCl(2); (E) Ni(NH(2))(2) + PH(3) --> (NH(2))(2)Ni.PH(3); (F) W(CO)(5) + CO --> W(CO)(6). For reactions A, B, C, and F, no transition state (TS) exists on the potential energy surface (PES). However there is a TS on the FES. This stems from the curvature difference of the PES and -TDeltaS as a function of the reaction coordinate. For all reactions, it is found that the TS shifts toward the complexation product with increasing temperature because of the curvature increase of -TDeltaS. The equilibrium bond distances for the inactive coordinates perpendicular to the reaction coordinate always increase with temperature, which is due to the thermal excitation and anharmonicity of the PES.