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The contamination and potential ecological risk posed by heavy metals from thirteen (13) sediment samples from different sampling sites along the lower portion of Agusan River were analyzed and assessed using different pollution indices. The results obtained shows that the total digest concentrations of different heavy metals under investigation have the following order: Cd < Pb < Zn < Mn, for both first sampling periods. The speciation and distribution pattern have shown that significant amounts of all metals are present in the residual fraction. Similarly, oxide-bound and organic-bound fractions were found to be highly important for Zn and Mn while Cd and Pb were significantly associated in the residual and exchangeable fractions. The results of different pollution indices moreover, showed that among all the heavy metals being studied, Cd posed the highest environmental risk across all sampling stations in both sampling periods and Mn metal was highly enriched and abundant in all of the sampling stations. Importantly, PCA results suggest that Zn, Mn and Pb may have the same origin while Cd might be coming from different sources, and this is corroborated well with the cluster analysis results. The results obtained from this work provide baseline data on the assessment of heavy metal pollution in the lower portion of Agusan River. Importantly, the acquired environmental indices will certainly help safety managers in assessing and interpreting the potential risk of the sediment associated chemical status that might adversely affect aquatic organisms in the selected sampling sites.

"Everybody likes a simple cause and effect - something we can point to and say (ommitting a few choice words to the perpetrators), 'Fix this and the bees will be right again.' Reality is rarely so straightforward. As the bee decline has progressed I've lost count of the simple 'causes' that have been presented. Among the more memorable are: * mobile 'phones (the absolute 'definite cause' of choice a couple of years ago) * mobile base stations, power lines and other strong electromagnetic sources (a perennial favourite for any malaise) * alien abduction (hopefully they have smaller probes for abducted bees...) * God's punishment (pro gay-marriage states in the USA have more cases of CCD) Leo's article shows neonicotinoids are at least a plausible candidate and they are surely not good for bees, but the argument for these being the explicit 'cause' of global bee decline is still not particularly strong. The risk here is that the media and vocal lobbyists are going off on a righteous crusade to the detriment of more diligent, and maybe less newsworthy, efforts to get to the root of a complex problem. Rather than reviewing the evidence here, I recommend a visit to Randy Oliver's website where his two recent articles from the American Bee Journalon this topic can be found, along with some further commentary on his home page. Interested readers can also directly access the study by Henry et. al. (2012a), the commentry on this study by Creswell and Thompson (2012), the response to the comment (Henry et. al. 2012b) and to the meta-analysis of toxicological studies on imidacloprid by Creswell (2010). An example of one such study is Cutler and Scott-Dupree (2007). Links to all are included below. These are original material rather than reportage and demonstrate the complexity of the issue. As food for thought, I'll leave you with the following: * Neonicotinoids are widely used in Australia and our bees are not (yet) in decline."