Summary
It is increasingly acknowledged that plant–soil feedbacks may play an important role in driving the composition of plant communities and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. However, the ...mechanistic understanding of plant–soil feedbacks, as well as their roles in natural ecosystems in proportion to other possible drivers, is still in its infancy. Such knowledge will enhance our capacity to determine the contribution of plant–soil feedback to community and ecosystem responses under global environmental change.
Here, we review how plant–soil feedbacks may develop under extreme drought and precipitation events, CO2 and nitrogen enrichment, temperature increase, land use change and plant species loss vs. gain. We present a framework for opening the ‘black box of soil’ considering the responses of the various biotic components (enemies, symbionts and decomposers) of plant–soil feedback to the global environmental changes, and we discuss how to integrate these components to understand and predict the net effects of plant–soil feedbacks under the various scenarios of change.
To gain an understanding of how plant–soil feedback plays out in realistic settings, we also use the framework to discuss its interaction with other drivers of plant community composition, including competition, facilitation, herbivory, and soil physical and chemical properties.
We conclude that understanding the role that plant–soil feedback plays in shaping the responses of plant community composition and ecosystem processes to global environmental changes requires unravelling the individual contributions of enemies, symbionts and decomposers. These biotic factors may show different response rates and strengths, thereby resulting in different net magnitudes and directions of plant–soil feedbacks under various scenarios of global change. We also need tests of plant–soil feedback under more realistic conditions to determine its contribution to changes in patterns and processes in the field, both at ecologically and evolutionary relevant time‐scales.
Lay Summary
The highly variable solar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation is the major energy input to the Earth’s upper atmosphere, strongly impacting the geospace environment, affecting satellite operations, ...communications, and navigation. The
Extreme ultraviolet Variability Experiment
(EVE) onboard the NASA
Solar Dynamics Observatory
(SDO) will measure the solar EUV irradiance from 0.1 to 105 nm with unprecedented spectral resolution (0.1 nm), temporal cadence (ten seconds), and accuracy (20%). EVE includes several irradiance instruments: The
Multiple EUV Grating Spectrographs
(MEGS)-A is a grazing-incidence spectrograph that measures the solar EUV irradiance in the 5 to 37 nm range with 0.1-nm resolution, and the MEGS-B is a normal-incidence, dual-pass spectrograph that measures the solar EUV irradiance in the 35 to 105 nm range with 0.1-nm resolution. To provide MEGS in-flight calibration, the
EUV SpectroPhotometer
(ESP) measures the solar EUV irradiance in broadbands between 0.1 and 39 nm, and a
MEGS-Photometer
measures the Sun’s bright hydrogen emission at 121.6 nm. The EVE data products include a near real-time space-weather product (Level 0C), which provides the solar EUV irradiance in specific bands and also spectra in 0.1-nm intervals with a cadence of one minute and with a time delay of less than 15 minutes. The EVE higher-level products are Level 2 with the solar EUV irradiance at higher time cadence (0.25 seconds for photometers and ten seconds for spectrographs) and Level 3 with averages of the solar irradiance over a day and over each one-hour period. The EVE team also plans to advance existing models of solar EUV irradiance and to operationally use the EVE measurements in models of Earth’s ionosphere and thermosphere. Improved understanding of the evolution of solar flares and extending the various models to incorporate solar flare events are high priorities for the EVE team.
In The Civility of Indifference, Bailey documents a case of ethnic strife that threatened the village forty years ago but did not consume it in bloodshed.
The dissolution of Yugoslavia inspired F. G. Bailey to consider the relations among ethnic groups that had seemed reconciled to living together and then broke into murderous conflicts. For his ...exploration of the ancient, recurring problem of ethnic strife, Bailey considers the village of Bisipara in the state of Orissa, in eastern India. Bisipara was a community in which different ethnic groups were seen as distinct breeds of people, arranged in a hierarchy of worthiness. InThe Civility of Indifference, Bailey documents a case of ethnic strife that threatened the village forty years ago but did not consume it in bloodshed. The restraint, he suggests, reflected not compassion but a sense of inevitability. The people of Bisipara perceived the world in such a way that violence enacted as ethnic cleansing would have seemed to them a disastrous indulgence and a sure path to self-destruction. Their story serves as a parable of pragmatic indifference, in contrast to the fanaticism that justifies civil war. A seasoned ethnographer, the author considers the social structure of the community, examining the multiple castes with sensitivity and respect. His detailed description reveals the competing moral visions held by various groups and his conclusions open a new perspective on ethnic violence.
The dissolution of Yugoslavia inspired F. G. Bailey to consider the relations among ethnic groups that had seemed reconciled to living together and then broke into murderous conflicts. For his exploration of the ancient, recurring problem of ethnic strife, Bailey considers the village of Bisipara in the state of Orissa, in eastern India.
Bisipara was a community in which different ethnic groups were seen as distinct breeds of people, arranged in a hierarchy of worthiness. InThe Civility of Indifference, Bailey documents a case of ethnic strife that threatened the village forty years ago but did not consume it in bloodshed. The restraint, he suggests, reflected not compassion but a sense of inevitability. The people of Bisipara perceived the world in such a way that violence enacted as ethnic cleansing would have seemed to them a disastrous indulgence and a sure path to self-destruction. Their story serves as a parable of pragmatic indifference, in contrast to the fanaticism that justifies civil war.
A seasoned ethnographer, the author considers the social structure of the community, examining the multiple castes with sensitivity and respect. His detailed description reveals the competing moral visions held by various groups and his conclusions open a new perspective on ethnic violence.
To illuminate the moral and social limits of leadership around the world, F. G. Bailey draws on examples from his own research in Orissa, Europe, and elsewhere, from his work on bureaucracies, and ...from political and military biographies, novels, and historical accounts. He carries his controversial argument into two domains: that of the leader and his mass following and that of the leader in his entourage.
Background
Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programs are yet to be widely implemented in veterinary practice and medical programs are unlikely to be directly applicable to veterinary settings.
...Objective
To gain an in‐depth understanding of the factors that influence effective AMS in veterinary practices in Australia.
Methods
A concurrent explanatory mixed methods design was used. The quantitative phase of the study consisted of an online questionnaire to assess veterinarians’ attitudes to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and antimicrobial use in animals, and the extent to which AMS currently is implemented (knowingly or unknowingly). The qualitative phase used semi‐structured interviews to gain an understanding of the barriers to and enablers of AMS in veterinary practices. Data were collected and entered into NVivo v.11, openly coded and analyzed according to mixed methods data analysis principles.
Results
Companion animal, equine, and bovine veterinarians participated in the study. Veterinary practices rarely had antimicrobial prescribing policies. The key barriers were a lack of AMS governance structures, client expectations and competition between practices, cost of microbiological testing, and lack of access to education, training and AMS resources. The enablers were concern for the role of veterinary antimicrobial use in development of AMR in humans, a sense of pride in the service provided, and preparedness to change prescribing practices.
Conclusion and Clinical Importance
Our study can guide development and establishment of AMS programs in veterinary practices by defining the major issues that influence the prescribing behavior of veterinarians.
This paper explores the relationship between distance and the utilization of health care by a group of elderly residents in rural Vermont. By drawing on recent work on the geography of health we ...frame the decision to visit a primary care physician in the context of the experience of place. The paper devises a test of this broader reading of the role of distance for utilization, and operationalizes this test using a custom designed survey. Using a randomized mail survey of elderly residents of Vermont’s North East Kingdom we explore how grocery shopping, travel to work, home location relative to local services, access to private transportation, and living arrangements are associated with the number of doctor visits made to primary health care providers. Although the results confirm the idea that increased distance from provider does reduce utilization, they strongly suggest that distance to provider is a surrogate for location in a richer web of relations between residents and their local communities. We conclude by calling for further research that establishes links between place and the use of health facilities.
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