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© 2020 by the authors. ; The effect of initial pH on bacterial cell-growth and its change over time was studied under aerobic heterotrophic conditions by using three bacterial strains: Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Pseudomonas putida KT2440, and Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes CECT 5344. In Luria-Bertani (LB) media, pH evolved by converging to a certain value that is specific for each bacterium. By contrast, in the buffered Minimal Medium (MM), pH was generally more stable along the growth curve. In MM with glucose as carbon source, a slight acidification of the medium was observed for all strains. In the case of E. coli, a sudden drop in pH was observed during exponential cell growth that was later recovered at initial pH 7 or 8, but was irreversible below pH 6, thus arresting further cell-growth. When using other carbon sources in MM at a fixed initial pH, pH changes depended mainly on the carbon source itself. While glucose, glycerol, or octanoate slightly decreased extracellular pH, more oxidized carbon sources, such as citrate, 2-furoate, 2-oxoglutarate, and fumarate, ended up with the alkalinization of the medium. These observations are in accordance with pH change predictions using genome-scale metabolic models for the three strains, thus revealing the metabolic reasons behind pH change. Therefore, we conclude that the composition of the medium, specifically the carbon source, determines pH change during bacterial growth to a great extent and unravel the main molecular mechanism behind this phenotype. These findings pave the way for predicting pH changes in a given bacterial culture and may anticipate the interspecies interactions and fitness of bacteria in their environment. ; This research was funded by IB16062, Junta de Extremadura (Consejería de Economía e Infraestructuras), GR18031, Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), European Union and "RobExplode" PID2019-108458RB-I00", (AEI/10.13039/501100011033).

Recent studies have highlighted alarming rates of declines in bird populations across the country. The State of California is home to over 650 resident and migrant avian species. Legislation for protecting these species has existed for over a century now, yet tools for identifying populations and understanding seasonal movement remain limited. Recently, genetic and genomic tools have provided a method for understanding population structure, allowing for more informed delineation of management units. The goal of this project was to create a genetic toolkit for identifying breeding populations and assigning individuals to those populations. Ultimately, such tools could be used to assess population-level impacts when there are conflicts with birds at infrastructure construction sites. As a test case, we sequenced entire genomes for 40 individual Anna's hummingbirds (Calypte anna) from across the state. Based on this initial data, we found low levels of differentiation between sampled locations, suggesting that C. anna in California are not subdivided into different population units. However, there was a weak signal of geography suggesting there may be localized genetic differences in a small proportion of the genome. Follow-up work will focus on a broader sampling across the state of California to clarify any possible population subdivision or geographical patterns of differentiation.View the NCST Project Webpage

Over the past decade land has again moved to the centre of resource conflicts, agrarian struggles, and competing visions over the future of food and farming. This renewed interest in land necessitates asking the seemingly simple, but pertinent, question 'what is land?' To reach a more profound understanding of the uniqueness of land, and what distinguishes land from other resources, this symposium suggests the notion of 'land imaginaries' as a crucial lens in the study of current land transformations. Political-economy, and the particular economic, financial, or political interests of various actors involved in land projects do not directly result in, or translate into, outcomes, such as dispossession and enclosure, increased commodification, financialization, and assetization, or mobilization and resistance. All these processes are informed by different imaginaries of land—the underlying understandings, views, and visions of what land is, can, and should be—and associated visions, hopes, and dreams regarding land. Drawing on a variety of case studies from across the world, crossing Global North/ South and East/West, and including contemporary and historical instances of land transformation, this symposium addresses the multifaceted ways in which implicit, explicit, and emergent understandings of land shape current land transformations.

Encountering. the. "Anthropocene": Setting. the. Scene. FRANK BIERMANN AND EVA LÖVBRAND There are few concepts that have made such a rapid career as the "Anthropocene." Coined barely two decades ago by Paul J. Crutzen and.

For this Special Issue which confronts the ways in which the question of pluralism represents both haunting and promise within modern political theology, I explore the presence of pluralism in the context of the environmental crisis and religious responses to issues such as climate change. Following Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm, I suggest that models of disenchantment are misleading&mdash ; to quote Latour, &ldquo ; we have never been modern.&rdquo ; In engagement with a range of neo-vitalist scholars of enchantment including Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad, Isabelle Stengers, Jane Bennett and William Connolly, I explore the possibility of a kind of critical-theory cosmopolitics around the concept of &ldquo ; enchantment&rdquo ; as a possible site for multi-religious political theology collaborations and argue that this is a promising post-secular frame for the establishment of cosmopolitical collaborations across quite profound kinds of difference.

Recent actions to mitigate biodiversity loss in agricultural environments appear insufficient despite the considerable efforts channeled via the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy. One likely reason for this failure is the limited attention paid to the regional and landscape level ecological characteristics in farmland conservation planning. We demonstrate how to obtain conservation prioritization solutions that would address simultaneously three goals, including two landscape level targets: minimizing local habitat quality loss, maximizing habitat connectivity, and incorporating landscape heterogeneity. As these goals may be contradictory, we investigate the potential trade-offs between them. We used the Zonation prioritization tool to examine how our three goals could be implemented in the agricultural landscapes of southwest Finland. We used measures of (i) biodiversity value of grasslands, (ii) connectivity between grasslands, and (iii) landscape heterogeneity which comprised of (land cover type based) compositional heterogeneity and (field margin based) configurational heterogeneity. Integration of landscape heterogeneity measures and habitat connectivity resulted in some tradeoffs with local habitat quality, the most prominent observation being that landscape heterogeneity co-varied with grassland connectivity. Among the two landscape heterogeneity parameters, inclusion of compositional heterogeneity resulted in more clustered prioritization solutions than configurational heterogeneity, which had a spatially more balanced impact. Concordance among landscape scale factors implies high potential for reconstruction of a functioning network of semi-natural grasslands in areas under intensive agricultural use. Broader scale multi-objective planning approaches can thus importantly support targeting biodiversity conservation planning and mediating the implementation of Common Agricultural Policy objectives. ; Peer reviewed

Mangrove forest in the coastal area in the Suli subdistrict is one of the sources of livelihood for the local people. The objective of this research is to analyze the public perception of the coastal community towards mangrove forests. The analysis was carried out using a questionnaire-multilevel scale with the level of assessment that refers to the Likert scale. The questionnaires, which were disseminated to 100 respondents, contained questions about the public perception in the coastal mangrove area. The questions were divided into 5 part questions, namely: 4 questions for the public perception towards ecological functions, 7 questions for community participation, 5 questions for economic benefit, 5 questions for social and culture, and 5 questions for government regulation. The results revealed that the average of public perception towards the ecological functions of mangrove was good, with a value of 4.11 (in category 4). The public perception towards public participation was also good, with a value of 3.69 (in category 4). Moreover, the public perception about the economic benefits of mangrove was quite good, with a value of 3.37 (in category 3). The social and culture was quite good, with a value of 3.32 (in category 3). Finally, the public perception towards government regulation (law enforcement) was good, with a value of 3.57 (in category 4). Based on the results, the average value was 3.61, which means that mangroves management is good (in category 4) based on the perceptions of a coastal community in the Suli Subdistrict. The level of education does not affect the perception of the importance of mangrove management. This was caused by the existence of local wisdom, which considers that mangroves are the nails of the earth that can prevent coastal abrasion. This local wisdom is maintained up to now, where the local community formed a group of mangrove lovers that aims to plant and conserve mangroves.

Circadian regulation is an endogenous self-sustaining mechanism that drives temporal gene expression and, amongst others, affects the diurnal patterns of photosynthesis (A) and stomatal conductance (gs). Here we review current knowledge on how circadian regulation drives diurnal gas exchange from genes to ecosystems in the field. Molecular mechanisms underlying the structure of circadian clocks and how they regulate A and gs in a few model species are starting to be elucidated but additional data are required to understand regulation across phylogenies, especially within the gymnosperms, and across environments and scales. Circadian rhythms were responsible for 15–25% and for 30–35% of the daytime oscillations in A and gs, respectively, across the C3 and C4 species for which data are available. Consequently, circadian effects over diurnal gas exchange are of similar magnitude to the effects of temperature or vapor pressure deficit. Moreover, recent findings indicate how circadian rhythms could exert significant impacts on ecosystem patterns of gas exchange, which would challenge conventional approaches to derive the environmental flux dependences. Progress in transferring laboratory findings to the field is being hampered by lack of suitable experimental and modeling facilities that can disentangle circadian effects from environmental responses in the field and in ecosystems, and methodological recommendations are offered. The effects of environmental stressors on circadian regulation of gas exchange are also poorly understood. We document how circadian control of gas exchange may be adaptive by allowing plants to anticipate highly predictable environmental cues, but also by increasing the diversity of potential gas exchange responses to environmental variation in plant populations. ; VRD is funded by the Spanish Government (RYC-2012-10970). We acknowledge useful discussions with many colleagues over the years, including A Hall, J Hartwell, M Goulden, DT Tissue, J Roy and many others.

Under hösten/vintern 2014/2015 genomförde sekretariatet för selektivt fiske, vid institutionen för akvatiska resurser (SLU Aqua) tillsammans med svenskt yrkesfiske, åtta projekt inom ramen för regeringsuppdraget selektivt fiske. Den övergripande målsättningen för alla projekt inom selektivt fiske är att underlätta införandet av den landningsskyldighet som beslutats i och med reformen av EU:s gemensamma fiskeripolitik. Projekten syftade därför till att minska oönskad fångst i svenskt fiske antingen genom att utveckla befintliga fiskemetoder (framförallt inom trålfiske) eller genom att utveckla alternativa fiskemetoder (främst passiva redskap såsom fällor och burar). • "Selektivitet i räktrålar" (HaV Dnr 2167-14), kapitel 1 • "Räkfiske Norden" (HaV Dnr 2363-14), kapitel 2 • "Utveckling av ristfiske efter kräfta Althea" (HaV Dnr 2363-14), kapitel 3 • "Utveckling av ristfiske efter kräfta Palermo" (HaV Dnr 2363-14), kapitel 3 • "Demersalt fiske Halland" (HaV Dnr 2363-14), kapitel 4 • "Vittjanpåse på konventionell Push Up (HaV Dnr 1491-14), kapitel 5 • "Selektiv vittjning av push up fälla" (HaV Dnr 1491-14), kapitel 5 • "Utveckling av ett selektivt torskredskap" (HaV Dnr 2167-14), kapitel 6 Projekten genomfördes genom att förslag togs fram gemensamt av SLU-Aqua och näringen utifrån fiskets uttryckliga behov och idéer. Projektförslagen prioriterades och beslutades av en särskild styrgrupp på Havs- och vattenmyndigheten (HaV), varefter SLU Aqua upphandlade utförare och agerade projektledare. Vinnande part ansvarade sedan för att anskaffa och utveckla respektive projektidé enligt projektplanen med stöd från sekretariatet. Projekten avslutades genom en vetenskaplig utvärdering där personal från SLU Aqua deltog i ett experimentellt fiske där det nyutvecklade redskapets fångstegenskaper dokumenterades och analyserades under kommersiella fiskeförhållanden.

This study investigated what kind of diversities of cropping patterns observed in home gardens distributed on the eastern slopes of the Uluguru Mountains in central Tanzania, and how the diversity come into occurred. The major focus included the differences in ecological environment due to elevation, the impacts of the Ujamaa policy, and the characteristics of household members. Participatory observation with a one year stay in the study village was conducted to collect comprehensive information and to detect specific factors about formation of diversity cropping patterns of homegardens. The features of cropping patterns of the homegardens were assessed in an area distributed at altitudes of 650&ndash ; 1200 m. Many of the tree crops in this village originated from outside regions around the period of Tanzanian independence, and their cultivation spread throughout the village after the implementation of the Ujamaa policy. At present, village districts with many distributed homegardens with numerous tree crops are those that were confiscated from clans by the village government at the time of the Ujamaa policy and then redistributed to individuals. Cultivation of trees crops was very few at altitude of 900 m or more, because of cultivation characteristics of tree crops in this village were suitable for low altitude. In addition, since homegardens are considered to be abandoned for one generation only, their cropping patterns tended to easily reflect the ages and preferences of the members of the households living on them. The cropping patterns of the homegardens differed remarkably even between neighboring households owing to the cumulative effects of these multiple factors. Analysis using an inductive method&mdash ; considering the background against which the phenomenon becomes evident after collecting the information from the target area in this manner&mdash ; is thought to lead to an essential understanding.

Young people are increasingly called upon to invest in educational qualifications, experience opportunities and other character forming activities in order to stand out from the crowd. This fetishizing of generic distinctiveness is promoted throughout education in England, and particularly Higher Education. This paper considers the policy and theoretical implications of the quest to enfranchise distinctiveness in English HE. From a policy perspective the universal promotion of distinction reflects how recent neoliberal reforms in HE have been moderated by a commitment to a liberal ethos of equality of opportunity. Theoretically the mantra of standing out from the crowd is emblematic of the entrepreneurial self as a tool of governmentality. The expectation of compulsory distinction encapsulates the duality of individualisation and regulation that is central to the project of governmentality. This duality is also implicit in the activity of enterprise and how it is calibrated by competition. Being entrepreneurial stimulates innovation but the uncertainty of competition may simultaneously stimulate isomorphic behaviours. The paper concludes by reviewing what the promotion of generic distinctiveness infers for young people and how the promotion of distinction is also bound up with the mantra of confidence.

The following pages summarize the analysis of agrarian and environmental discourses and social representations in the Ebro Delta and the Albufera of Valencia. The first part of the article tries to synthesize in a theoretical way the evolution and perspectives of family agriculture. We intend to analyze the essential changes that have taken place in agriculture and have made it survive, despite the theoretical prognosis that announced the end of the familiar agriculture. The second part addresses the methodological question of our research. We have conducted 58 interviews and two discussion groups in which different social profiles have participated. The analysis of social discourses was complemented by the exploitation of data from agrarian censuses, as well as from databases related to the rice market. The conclusions summarize how the discourses of the peasantry point out the impossibility of shying away from the subalternity of agricultural activity that has been ostracized by economic development and bound to be polluting if it wants to be economically viable. ; En las páginas que siguen, se resume el análisis de los discursos agrarios y medioambientales y las representaciones sociales en el Delta del Ebro y la Albufera de Valencia. La primera parte del artículo trata de sintetizar de manera teórica la evolución y perspectivas de la agricultura familiar. Pretendemos analizar los cambios esenciales acaecidos en la agricultura y que, pese a todo pronóstico teórico, la han hecho sobrevivir. La segunda parte aborda la cuestión metodológica de la investigación. Hemos realizado 58 entrevistas y dos grupos de discusión en los que han participado perfiles sociales muy variados. El análisis de los discursos se complementó con la explotación de datos del INE (censos agrarios y macromagnitudes agrarias), así como bases de datos relacionadas con el mercado del arroz. Las conclusiones sintetizan cómo los discursos del campesinado señalan la imposibilidad de rehuir la subalternidad de la actividad agrícola que ha quedado condenada al ostracismo por el desarrollo económico y abocada a ser contaminante si quiere ser económicamente viable