Modelling is key to adapting agriculture to climate change (CC), facilitating evaluation of the impacts and efficacy of adaptation measures, and the design of optimal strategies. Although there are ...many challenges to modelling agricultural CC adaptation, it is unclear whether these are novel or, whether adaptation merely adds new motivations to old challenges. Here, qualitative analysis of modellers’ views revealed three categories of challenge: Content, Use, and Capacity. Triangulation of findings with reviews of agricultural modelling and Climate Change Risk Assessment was then used to highlight challenges specific to modelling adaptation. These were refined through literature review, focussing attention on how the progressive nature of CC affects the role and impact of modelling. Specific challenges identified were: Scope of adaptations modelled, Information on future adaptation, Collaboration to tackle novel challenges, Optimisation under progressive change with thresholds, and Responsibility given the sensitivity of future outcomes to initial choices under progressive change.
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•Modelling plays a key role in adapting agriculture to climate change.•Modellers' views and literature were analysed to identify adaptation-specific issues.•Novel challenges to modelling climate change adaptation were explored.•Challenges related to Responsibility, Scope, Optimisation, Information, Collaboration.•Adaptation to progressive climate change highlights social impacts of model use.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Reactive nitrogen (Nr) is not only an important nutrient for plant growth, thereby safeguarding human alimentation, but it also heavily disturbs natural systems. To mitigate air, land, aquatic, and ...atmospheric pollution caused by the excessive availability of Nr, it is crucial to understand the long-term development of the global agricultural Nr cycle. For our analysis, we combine a material flow model with a land-use optimization model. In a first step we estimate the state of the Nr cycle in 1995. In a second step we create four scenarios for the 21st century in line with the SRES storylines. Our results indicate that in 1995 only half of the Nr applied to croplands was incorporated into plant biomass. Moreover, less than 10 per cent of all Nr in cropland plant biomass and grazed pasture was consumed by humans. In our scenarios a strong surge of the Nr cycle occurs in the first half of the 21st century, even in the environmentally oriented scenarios. Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions rise from 3 Tg N2O-N in 1995 to 7–9 in 2045 and 5–12 Tg in 2095. Reinforced Nr pollution mitigation efforts are therefore required.
► The study analyses the impact of increased trade on economic and environmental indicators. ► Global costs of food production decrease and the food scarcity index increases with a lower rate. ► ...Deforestation, mainly in Latin America, leads to significant amounts of additional carbon emissions. ► Non-CO2 emissions will increase most in China due to comparative advantages in livestock production. ► With the generated economic benefits it is possible to compensate for increased emissions and deforestation.
The volume of agricultural trade increased by more than ten times throughout the past six decades and is likely to continue with high rates in the future. Thereby, it largely affects environment and climate. We analyse future trade scenarios covering the period of 2005–2045 by evaluating economic and environmental effects using the global land-use model MAgPIE (“Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment”). This is the first trade study using spatially explicit mapping of land use patterns and greenhouse gas emissions. We focus on three scenarios: the reference scenario fixes current trade patterns, the policy scenario follows a historically derived liberalisation pathway, and the liberalisation scenario assumes a path, which ends with full trade liberalisation in 2045.
Further trade liberalisation leads to lower global costs of food. Regions with comparative advantages like Latin America for cereals and oil crops and China for livestock products will export more. In contrast, regions like the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia face the highest increases of imports. Deforestation, mainly in Latin America, leads to significant amounts of additional carbon emissions due to trade liberalisation. Non-CO2 emissions will mostly shift to China due to comparative advantages in livestock production and rising livestock demand in the region. Overall, further trade liberalisation leads to higher economic benefits at the expense of environment and climate, if no other regulations are put in place.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Soil organic carbon (SOC), one of the largest terrestrial carbon (C) stocks on Earth, has been depleted by anthropogenic land cover change and agricultural management. However, the latter has so far ...not been well represented in global C stock assessments. While SOC models often simulate detailed biochemical processes that lead to the accumulation and decay of SOC, the management decisions driving these biophysical processes are still little investigated at the global scale. Here we develop a spatially explicit data set for agricultural management on cropland, considering crop production levels, residue returning rates, manure application, and the adoption of irrigation and tillage practices. We combine it with a reduced-complexity model based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tier 2 method to create a half-degree resolution data set of SOC stocks and SOC stock changes for the first 30 cm of mineral soils. We estimate that, due to arable farming, soils have lost around 34.6 GtC relative to a counterfactual hypothetical natural state in 1975. Within the period 1975–2010, this SOC debt continued to expand by 5 GtC (0.14 GtC yr−1) to around 39.6 GtC. However, accounting for historical management led to 2.1 GtC fewer (0.06 GtC yr−1) emissions than under the assumption of constant management. We also find that management decisions have influenced the historical SOC trajectory most strongly by residue returning, indicating that SOC enhancement by biomass retention may be a promising negative emissions technique. The reduced-complexity SOC model may allow us to simulate management-induced SOC enhancement – also within computationally demanding integrated (land use) assessment modeling.
The open-source modeling framework MAgPIE (Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment) combines economic and biophysical approaches to simulate spatially explicit global ...scenarios of land use within the 21st century and the respective interactions with the environment. Besides various other projects, it was used to simulate marker scenarios of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and contributed substantially to multiple IPCC assessments. However, with growing scope and detail, the non-linear model has become increasingly complex, computationally intensive and non-transparent, requiring structured approaches to improve the development and evaluation of the model.Here, we provide an overview on version 4 of MAgPIE and how it addresses these issues of increasing complexity using new technical features: modular structure with exchangeable module implementations, flexible spatial resolution, in-code documentation, automatized code checking, model/output evaluation and open accessibility. Application examples provide insights into model evaluation, modular flexibility and region-specific analysis approaches. While this paper is focused on the general framework as such, the publication is accompanied by a detailed model documentation describing contents and equations, and by model evaluation documents giving insights into model performance for a broad range of variables.With the open-source release of the MAgPIE 4 framework, we hope to contribute to more transparent, reproducible and collaborative research in the field. Due to its modularity and spatial flexibility, it should provide a basis for a broad range of land-related research with economic or biophysical, global or regional focus.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Grassland management affects the carbon fluxes of one-third of the global land area and is thus an important factor for the global carbon budget. Nonetheless, this aspect has been largely neglected ...or underrepresented in global carbon cycle models. We investigate four harvesting schemes for the managed grassland implementation of the dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) Lund–Potsdam–Jena managed Land (LPJmL) that facilitate a better representation of actual management systems globally. We describe the model implementation and analyze simulation results with respect to harvest, net primary productivity and soil carbon content and by evaluating them against reported grass yields in Europe. We demonstrate the importance of accounting for differences in grassland management by assessing potential livestock grazing densities as well as the impacts of grazing, grazing intensities and mowing systems on soil carbon stocks. Grazing leads to soil carbon losses in polar or arid regions even at moderate livestock densities (< 0.4 livestock units per hectare – LSU ha−1) but not in temperate regions even at much higher densities (0.4 to 1.2 LSU ha−1). Applying LPJmL with the new grassland management options enables assessments of the global grassland production and its impact on the terrestrial biogeochemical cycles but requires a global data set on current grassland management.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Reactive nitrogen (N.sub.r) is not only an important nutrient for plant growth, thereby safeguarding human alimentation, but it also heavily disturbs natural systems. To mitigate air, land, aquatic, ...and atmospheric pollution caused by the excessive availability of N.sub.r, it is crucial to understand the long-term development of the global agricultural N.sub.r cycle. For our analysis, we combine a material flow model with a land-use optimization model. In a first step we estimate the state of the N.sub.r cycle in 1995. In a second step we create four scenarios for the 21st century in line with the SRES storylines. Our results indicate that in 1995 only half of the N.sub.r applied to croplands was incorporated into plant biomass. Moreover, less than 10 per cent of all N.sub.r in cropland plant biomass and grazed pasture was consumed by humans. In our scenarios a strong surge of the N.sub.r cycle occurs in the first half of the 21st century, even in the environmentally oriented scenarios. Nitrous oxide (N.sub.2 O) emissions rise from 3 Tg N.sub.2 O-N in 1995 to 7-9 in 2045 and 5-12 Tg in 2095. Reinforced N.sub.r pollution mitigation efforts are therefore required.
Reactive nitrogen (N sub(r)) is not only an important nutrient for plant growth, thereby safeguarding human alimentation, but it also heavily disturbs natural systems. To mitigate air, land, aquatic, ...and atmospheric pollution caused by the excessive availability of N sub(r), it is crucial to understand the long-term development of the global agricultural N sub(r) cycle. For our analysis, we combine a material flow model with a land-use optimization model. In a first step we estimate the state of the N sub(r) cycle in 1995. In a second step we create four scenarios for the 21st century in line with the SRES storylines. Our results indicate that in 1995 only half of the N sub(r) applied to croplands was incorporated into plant biomass. Moreover, less than 10 per cent of all N sub(r) in cropland plant biomass and grazed pasture was consumed by humans. In our scenarios a strong surge of the N sub(r) cycle occurs in the first half of the 21st century, even in the environmentally oriented scenarios. Nitrous oxide (N sub(2)O) emissions rise from 3 Tg N sub(2)O-N in 1995 to 7-9 in 2045 and 5-12 Tg in 2095. Reinforced N sub(r) pollution mitigation efforts are therefore required.
Alarming data about increasing resistance to conventional antibiotics are reported, while at the same time the development of new antibiotics is stagnating. Skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) ...are mainly caused by the so called ESKAPE pathogens (
, and
species) which belong to the most recalcitrant bacteria and are resistant to almost all common antibiotics.
and
are the most frequent pathogens isolated from chronic wounds and increasing resistance to topical antibiotics has become a major issue. Therefore, new treatment options are urgently needed. In recent years, research focused on the development of synthetic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) with lower toxicity and improved activity compared to their endogenous counterparts. AMPs appear to be promising therapeutic options for the treatment of SSTIs and wounds as they show a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity, low resistance rates and display pivotal immunomodulatory as well as wound healing promoting activities such as induction of cell migration and proliferation and angiogenesis. In this review, we evaluate the potential of AMPs for the treatment of bacterial SSTIs and wounds and provide an overview of the mechanisms of actions of AMPs that contribute to combat skin infections and to improve wound healing. Bacteria growing in biofilms are more resistant to conventional antibiotics than their planktonic counterparts due to limited biofilm penetration and distinct metabolic and physiological functions, and often result in chronification of infections and wounds. Thus, we further discuss the feasibility of AMPs as anti-biofilm agents. Finally, we highlight perspectives for future therapies and which issues remain to bring AMPs successfully to the market.
Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) sensing in the cytosol by the noncanonical inflammasome leads to pyroptosis and NLRP3 inflammasome activation. This mechanism may be more critical for sepsis development than ...recognition of LPS by Toll-like receptor 4. LPS is directly binding to its intracellular receptor caspase-4/5/11, mediated by outer membrane vesicles and guanylate-binding proteins that deliver LPS to the cytosol and mediate access of caspases to LPS. Caspase-11-dependent cleavage of gasdermin D is discussed as a link between LPS-induced activation of caspases and pyroptosis or NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Finally, we highlight recently described inhibitors of cytosolic LPS-triggered noncanonical inflammasome activation that might be considered as potential drugs for the treatment of sepsis.
Mouse caspase-11 and human caspase-4/5 recognize Gram-negative bacterial infections and trigger pyroptosis and subsequently NLRP3 inflammasome activation.
Cytosolic LPS-mediated pyroptosis, which is triggered by caspase-11 activation independently of TLR4, is a major driver for septic shock.
Outer membrane vesicles and host guanylate binding proteins mediate or promote LPS access to the cytosol to activate caspases.
Caspase-11-dependent cleavage of gasdermin D and subsequent pore formation link LPS-induced activation of caspases to pyroptosis and NLRP3 inflammasome activation.
Targeting noncanonical inflammasome activation by cytosolic LPS may be effective for the clinical treatment of sepsis and septic shock.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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