Little research has been done on managing soil health for large-scale, outdoor hemp production, contributing to the possible overuse of black plastic for weed suppression. Our experiment aimed to ...understand the performance of alternative ground covers including forage crops and hay as well as a less disruptive tilling method called strip-tilling compared to black plastic. Yield and soil health data were taken from three experimental plantings from two different outdoor CBD hemp farms in Vermont, USA. We find that hay may be a competitive alternative to black plastic in terms of producing heavier plants. Our research also found that clover seed and hay are both more cost-effective options than black plastic which may sway some farmers to adopt these alternative ground cover options.
The foreign body reaction (FBR) develops in response to the implantation of almost all biomaterials and can be detrimental to their function. The formation of foreign body giant cells (FBGC), which ...damage the surface of biomaterials, is considered a hallmark of this reaction. FBGC derive from blood-borne monocytes that enter the implantation site after surgery in response to the release of chemotactic signals. In this study, we implanted biomaterials subcutaneous (s.c.) in mice that lack the monocyte chemoattractant CC chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2) and found that biomaterials were encapsulated despite reduced FBGC formation. The latter was due to compromised macrophage fusion rather than migration. Consistent with the reduction in FBGC formation, biodegradable biomaterials sustained reduced damage in CCL2-null mice. Furthermore, blockade of CCL2 function by localized gene delivery in wild-type mice hindered FBGC formation, despite normal monocyte recruitment. The requirement for CCL2 in fusion was confirmed by the ability of both a CCL2 inhibitory peptide and an anti-CCL2 Ab to reduce FBGC formation from peripheral blood monocytes in an
in vitro
assay. Our findings demonstrate a previously unreported involvement of CCL2 in FBGC formation, and suggest that FBGC are not the primary determinants of capsule formation in the FBR.
Habitat restoration will prove critical if we are to reverse current population declines and extinction rates of Threatened species. This is particularly the case for forest restoration, given that ...>80% of Threatened species live in forests and they are habitat for 80% of amphibians, 75% of birds, 68% of mammals and approximately 60% of all tropical vascular plants. While the UN General Assembly has declared 2021 to 2030 as the Decade of Ecosystem Restoration and the Bonn Challenge aims to place at least 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes under restoration, to date there remains little guidance on where to target restoration efforts to support Threatened species. We conduct a global analysis of terrestrial vertebrate species listed as Threatened and Near Threatened in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species that occur in forests and have Habitat and Natural Processes Restoration as a recommended conservation action. The analysis identifies critical restoration regions that host Threatened species whose recovery could benefit from effective forest or landscape restoration strategies. With habitat restoration as an important solution to reversing declining population trends and extinctions of Threatened forest species, identification of these critical landscapes should help guide future forest restoration efforts towards locations where they may benefit the maximum number of Threatened species.
•Eight percent of threatened mammals, birds, and amphibians need reforestation to improve their populations.•Reforestation opportunities to conserve the most species together in one region occurred most often in the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil and, Cuba.•Key site selection for reforestation efforts of roughly 2,000 km2 would benefit more than 200 species.
More species in the world are threatened with extinction today than at any other time in recent history. In 2005, the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE; https://zeroextinction.org/) released its ...first inventory of highly threatened species (i.e., those listed as Critically Endangered or Endangered on the IUCN Red List) that are effectively confined to a single site. Updates were released in 2010 and 2018. Here we identify the species removed from the list in these updates, determine the reasons for these removals, identify species that no longer qualify as AZE species as a result of conservation actions, and examine which conservation actions produced these recoveries. In total, 360 species that qualified as AZE species in 2005 no longer qualified by 2018 (45% of those listed in 2005) due to improved knowledge of distribution or taxonomy (83%), genuine improvements resulting in species being downlisted to lower categories of extinction risk (12%), genuine range expansion of species such that they are no longer restricted to single sites (4%), or deterioration to extinction (1%). Our results show that while protected areas and site management are important to the successful conservation of AZE species, other conservation actions, such as species‐level management or improved laws and policies, are also essential to safeguard these species from extinction. Sixty‐eight percent of the original 2005 AZE sites are now fully or partially covered by protected areas, an increase of almost 20% in 15 years. Yet today, only 64% of current (2018) AZE sites are fully or partially covered by protected areas, with 36% lacking any formal protection. Continued efforts to safeguard and manage AZE sites would benefit not only the 1,483 AZE species but also potentially another 1,359 Critically Endangered and Endangered amphibian, bird, and mammal species whose distributions overlap with AZE sites.
By 2018 Alliance for Zero Extinction 360 species that qualified as AZE species in 2005 no longer qualified (45% of those listed in 2005) due to improved knowledge of distribution or taxonomy (81%), genuine improvements resulting lower categories of extinction risk (12%), genuine range expansion of species (6%), or deterioration to extinction (1%). While protected areas and site management are important to the successful conservation of AZE species, other conservation actions, such as species‐level management or improved laws and policies, are also essential to safeguard these species from extinction. Sixty‐eight percent of the original 2005 AZE sites are now fully or partially covered by protected areas, an increase of almost 20% in 15 years. Yet today, only 64% of current (2018) AZE sites are fully or partially covered by protected areas, with 36% lacking any formal protection.
Males of many fish species exhibit alternative reproductive tactics, which can influence the maturation schedules, fishery productivity, and resilience to harvest of exploited populations. While ...alternative mating phenotypes can persist in stable equilibria through frequency‐dependent selection, shifts in tactic frequencies have been observed and can have substantial consequences for fisheries. Here, we examine the dynamics of precocious sneaker males called “jacks” in a population of sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) from Frazer Lake, Alaska. Jacks, which are of little commercial value due to their small body sizes, have recently been observed at unusually high levels in this stock, degrading the value of regional fisheries. To inform future strategies for managing the prevalence of jacks, we used long‐term monitoring data to identify what regulates the frequencies of alternative male phenotypes in the population over time. Expression of the jack life history could not be explained by environmental factors expected to influence juvenile body condition and maturation probability. Instead, we found a strong positive association between the proportion of individuals maturing as jacks within a cohort and the prevalence of jacks among the males that sired that cohort. Moreover, due to differences in age‐at‐maturity between male phenotypes, and large interannual variability in recruitment strength, jacks from strong year‐classes often spawn among older males from the weaker recruitments of earlier cohorts. Through such “cohort mismatches,” which are amplified by size‐selective harvest on older males, jacks frequently achieve substantial representation in the breeding population, and likely high total fertilizations. The repeated occurrence of these cohort mismatches appears to disrupt the stabilizing influence of frequency‐dependent selection, allowing the prevalence of jacks to exceed what might be expected under equilibrium conditions. These results emphasize that the dynamics of alternative life histories can profoundly influence fishery performance and should be explicitly considered in the management of exploited populations.
The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite‐R series of weather satellites provides point geolocations of lightning flashes that are further ...comprised of a hierarchy of geolocated groups and events. This study describes an open‐source method for reconstruction of imagery from those point detections that retains the quantitative physical measurements made by GLM, restores the spatial footprint of the events, and connects that spatial footprint to the groups and flashes. Meteorological signals are demonstrated to be more apparent in the gridded imagery than in the point detections, leading to their adoption by the United States National Weather Service as the first GLM product available in their real‐time displays. Analysis of a mesoscale convective system over Argentina confirms that there is a class of propagating lightning observed by GLM (distinct from that in storm cores) that can be visualized and quantified using our imagery‐based approach.
Plain Language Summary
This paper describes a method for creating imagery from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper instrument on the new geostationary weather satellites launched by the United States. The imagery overlays directly on and can be animated like other weather satellite images, making it more suitable for diagnosing thunderstorm behavior than the simple lightning location plots easily made from the publicly available data. The imagery can be summed to create analyses of lightning on climate time scales. The imagery illustrates that extensive lightning discharges exist in some storm systems and that distant ground strike points are joined by a single extensive lightning channel in the cloud.
Key Points
An algorithm restores the shapes of Geostationary Lightning Mapper event detections and resamples them on a target grid to make imagery
Imagery capitalizes on GLM's improved sensitivity, resulting in improved display of meteorological processes compared to point displays
Statistics from imagery support prior work distinguishing a second class of extensive, propagating lightning
Overcoming the funder’s dilemma Lamoreux, John; Chatwin, Anthony; Foster, Matt ...
Biological conservation,
07/2014, Letnik:
175
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Display omitted
•CMP’s Open Standards can be adapted to improve conservation investments.•NGOs and donors might benefit from using scorecards and risk assessments.•Internal program evaluations are ...cost-effective.•Measuring progress requires sound data, which can be difficult to obtain.•We suggest ways funders can improve data acquisition and overall performance.
For the past decade, the Conservation Measures Partnership’s Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation have helped NGOs improve the design and implementation of projects, and measure results. We show how the Open Standards can be used to make better conservation investments as well. We introduce a risk assessment tool that serves to identify issues that inhibit success if not sufficiently addressed and a scorecard for tracking progress towards goals. We report on 25 of the 28 programs managed by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) that had metrics in place to assess performance. 76% of these programs were on track or further along than expected, while 24% were behind expectations. We argue that scorecards and internal assessments are useful components of a monitoring and evaluation framework, which allows for the early detection of problems. Programs that are behind should not be confused with failures; indeed, there are benefits for the conservation community to move beyond the labels of success and failure. We discuss real-world trade-offs in conservation science due to limited resources. Finally, we suggest ways to avoid what we call the funder’s dilemma—where donors feel they either have to adopt monitoring protocols that are too expensive or rely on potentially biased data.
Site conservation is among the most effective means to reduce global biodiversity loss. Therefore, it is critical to identify those sites where unique biodiversity must be conserved immediately. To ...this end, the concept of key biodiversity areas (KBAs) has been developed, seeking to identify and, ultimately, ensure that networks of globally important sites are safeguarded. This methodology builds up from the identification of species conservation targets (through the IUCN Red List) and nests within larger-scale conservation approaches. Sites are selected using standardized, globally applicable, threshold-based criteria, driven by the distribution and population of species that require site-level conservation. The criteria address the two key issues for setting site conservation priorities: vulnerability and irreplaceability. We also propose quantitative thresholds for the identification of KBAs meeting each criterion, based on a review of existing approaches and ecological theory to date. However, these thresholds require extensive testing, especially in aquatic systems.
Given the importance of math in today’s society, it is critical that children who are at risk for math difficulty are identified early. We developed and validated a prekindergarten math subtest ...(i.e., CIRCLE Progress Monitoring CPM Math Subtest). This teacher-completed measure evaluates domains considered important for later math development. Evaluation of validity was undertaken in a longitudinal sample of 383 children (Mage = 4.9 years), and a follow-up sample of 3,691 children (Mage = 4.4 years). The measure demonstrated adequate psychometric properties, including strong internal consistency reliability (α = .94) and test–retest reliability (r = .78). Evaluation of concurrent and predictive validity demonstrated scores on the CPM Math Subtest were correlated with scores on other assessments at high levels (rs from .55–.65). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the subtest conforms to a well-defined five-factor model that parallels areas considered to be important in the math literature.
Gonorrhoea is a common sexually transmitted infection that can cause pain and discomfort, affect fertility in women and lead to epididymo-orchitis in men. Current treatment is with ceftriaxone, but ...there is increasing evidence of antimicrobial resistance reducing its effectiveness. Gentamicin is a potential alternative treatment requiring further evaluation.
To assess the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of gentamicin as an alternative treatment to ceftriaxone in the treatment of gonorrhoea.
A multicentre, parallel-group, blinded, non-inferiority randomised controlled trial.
Fourteen sexual health clinics in England.
Adults aged 16-70 years with a diagnosis of uncomplicated, untreated genital, pharyngeal or rectal gonorrhoea based on a positive Gram-stained smear on microscopy or a positive nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT).
Participants were randomised using a secure web-based system, stratified by clinic. Participants, investigators and research staff assessing participants were blinded to treatment allocation.
Allocation was to either 240 mg of gentamicin (intervention) or 500 mg of ceftriaxone (standard treatment), both administered as a single intramuscular injection. All participants also received 1 g of oral azithromycin.
The primary outcome measure was clearance of
at all infected sites, confirmed by a negative Aptima Combo 2® (Hologic Inc., Marlborough, MA, USA) NAAT, at 2 weeks post treatment.
We randomised 720 participants, of whom 81% were men. There were 358 participants in the gentamicin group and 362 in the ceftriaxone group; 292 (82%) and 306 (85%) participants, respectively, were included in the primary analysis. Non-inferiority of gentamicin to ceftriaxone could not be demonstrated adjusted risk difference for microbiological clearance -6.4%, 95% confidence interval (CI) -10.4% to -2.4%. Clearance of genital infection was similar in the two groups, at 94% in the gentamicin group and 98% in the ceftriaxone group, but clearance of pharyngeal infection and rectal infection was lower in the gentamicin group (80% vs. 96% and 90% vs. 98%, respectively). Reported pain at the injection site was higher for gentamicin than for ceftriaxone. The side-effect profiles were comparable between the groups. Only one serious adverse event was reported and this was deemed not to be related to the trial medication. The economic analysis found that treatment with gentamicin is not cost neutral compared with standard care, with average patient treatment costs higher for those allocated to gentamicin (£13.90, 95% CI £2.47 to £37.34) than to ceftriaxone (£6.72, 95% CI £1.36 to £17.84).
Loss to follow-up was 17% but was similar in both treatment arms. Twelve per cent of participants had a negative NAAT for gonorrhoea at their baseline visit but this was balanced between treatment groups and unlikely to have biased the trial results.
The trial was unable to demonstrate non-inferiority of gentamicin compared with ceftriaxone in the clearance of gonorrhoea at all infected sites. Clearance at pharyngeal and rectal sites was lower for participants allocated to gentamicin than for those allocated to ceftriaxone, but was similar for genital sites in both groups. Gentamicin was associated with more severe injection site pain. However, both gentamicin and ceftriaxone appeared to be well tolerated.
Exploration of the genetic determinants of antibiotic resistance in
will help to identify accurate markers of decreased susceptibility. Greater understanding of the immune response to infection can assist gonococcal vaccine development.
Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN51783227.
This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in
; Vol. 23, No. 20. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.
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