North and Central America

The exploration, evaluation, and development of zinc and lead ore bodies in North and Central America are discussed in Ref. 12. A survey of world zinc production in Ref. 13 gives all operating mines and mills, and their methods, production, and chemical analysis of the products zinc smelters are included. 

Over the past decade, plastic debris has become a common feature of beaches and coastal waters adjoining populated areas of Europe (36-38), the Mediterranean (39-41), North and Central America (42-44) and New Zealand (45). Plastics are also present in the open ocean both near the major shipping lanes and in the most remote regions of the world (the Arctic (46), the Benguela Current (47), the Cape Basin area of the South Atlantic (48), the Humboldt Current in the South Pacific (49), and the Antarctic (50, 51). 

In this chapter we are focusing on two different plants which appear to express allelopathy in quite different fashions. The first, Parthenium hysterophorus Linn, is recognized in many parts of theworld as causing serious agricultural problems due principally to its invasion of crop lands and the subsequent lowering of crop yields (1). Although this plant is native to the North and Central Americas, it has now been spread to many other... 

It is normally found in North and Central America and northern South America. The natural reservoir is unknown. Black flies and sandflies remain infected for life. Infection is also transferred directly to their eggs. This is a biosafety level 2 agent. Capable of surviving for long periods of time at low temperatures. 

World coffee production varies from year to year. In the 53 coffee-growing countries mentioned in the 1952 yearbook of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (16), 2,269,900 metric tons of coffee were produced in 1951. In the Western Hemisphere, North and Central America and the Caribbean Islands produced 366,600 and South America 1,500,600 tons. In the Eastern Hemisphere, Asia produced 82,300, Africa 315,400, and Oceania 5000 tons. 

Parthenium hysterophorus L. (parthenium weed), native to North and Central America and introduced into Queensland as recently as I960 (39), is a contemporary example. It is aggressive, persistent and lowers crop yield through interference, a component of which is allelopathic ( ). 

Spooner, D M., van den Berg, R.G., Rodriguez, A., Bamberg, J., Hijmans, R.J., Cabrera, S.I.L., (2004). Wild Potatoes (Solanum section Petota Solanaceae) of North and Central America. Systematic Botany Monographs Volume 68. 

This is a family of western North and Central America with one species in Jamaica. A few are used as ornamentals. 

Cook T. D. and Bally A. W. (1975) Shell Atlas Stratigraphic Atlas of North and Central America. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 

Rendering is a global industry with markets throughout the world. Table 1 outlines the global import and export of meat meal by continent for the period 1992-2002. The data is taken from the FAO database and is only available through 2002 (2). As the United States dominates the North and Central American region, U.S. data has been shown separately from the rest of North and Central America. Table 2 shows similar data for rendered animal fats over the same period of time (2). 

The part of the potato plant, Solammi tuberosum, that is eaten is called a tuber. A tuber is a bud at the end of an underground stem, not a root, that becomes enlarged. Native to Pern and Chile, the potato had been eaten by the people living in that region for 7,000 years. The people of the Andes ate cooked tubers, and they also dried potatoes andground them into flour. After the Americas were discovered by Europeans, potatoes were introduced into Europe and then later into North and Central America, where they had not been previously known by the native Americans who lived there. Many of the types that are common today were known by the Andean people, who also had blue, purple, and yellow varieties. 

Main growing areas are located in North and Central America (Florida, California, Mexico and Cuba) as well as in Israel... 

In 1988, there were about 500 million vehicles on the road, of which about 400 million were in North and Central America and Europe alone. The annual worldwide production of vehicles amounted in 1990 about 50 million, the historical evolution of which is shown in Fig. 3. The extrapolation shown in Fig. 4 predicts a vehicle population of about 800 million by the year 2000 [2], Also, their increasing use, expressed as average distance driven per vehicle and per year, should he noted]. 

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