Analyzing who is relevant to engage in environmental decision-making processes by interests, influence and impact:The 3i framework

Outcomes in participatory environmental processes are strongly affected by choices about who is engaged. Inclusive engagement diversifies the range of interests and perspectives represented, including those from vulnerable and marginalized groups, ultimately contributing to more socially and environmentally sustainable and equitable outcomes. However, existing “stakeholder analysis” methods often bias participant identification away from disenfranchised groups with limited pre-existing interest or influence, instead favoring the most easily accessed and influential stakeholders. This paper draws on research impact theory and practice to propose a new, more inclusive approach, adding impact to the existing interest and influence criteria (which each begin with the letter “i", hence the 3i framework) that are typically used to identify, categorize and prioritize those who are relevant to be included or excluded from engagement processes. As part of this proposed 3i analysis approach, we articulate a new typology of relevant parties to engage in environmental decision-making processes, including: uninterested; uninterested and impacted; uninterested influencers; disinterested, influential and impacted; only interested; interested and impacted; interested influencers; and interested, influential and impacted. Except for the first group, all types of relevant parties should be considered for engagement wherever possible, with participation strategies tailored to their specific 3i profile. The approach was developed and refined through a series of workshops before developing it into a survey instrument that was piloted to gather 3i data efficiently across several national contexts. Survey findings are presented for a case study identifying those relevant to wetland and peatland restoration in a Scottish catchment. If widely adopted, the 3i framework would be the most consequential change in stakeholder analysis methods since the introduction of interest-influence matrices in the 1980s.</p

Advanced supercapacitor electrodes:Lignin-derived carbonaceous materials and graphene composites with inorganic additives for enhanced energy storage

Recently, sustainable supercapacitors have received much more attention as potential energy storage devices than fossil fuel-derived one because of their high power density, long life cycle, broad range of operating temperatures and environmentally friendly nature. However, developing environmentally friendly supercapacitors with impressive electrochemical stability at low cost is a significant challenge. Lignin, a readily accessible noncarbohydrate, is an interesting and promising electrode material for supercapacitor applications because of its low cost, high carbon content, and multifunctionality. This review article explores the recent progress of lignin/lignin-derived graphene or carbon-inorganic additive-based electrodes for supercapacitor applications. Initially, a brief overview of lignin categorisation, synthesis techniques, and properties is provided. Then, the most recent advancements in the synthesis methodologies and potential of lignin-derived graphene-like sheet electrodes and lignin-derived carbon/graphene-metal oxide or hydroxides/graphene oxide-based composite electrodes for supercapacitors are thoroughly discussed. Finally, the study is summarised, and the future challenges of lignin-based supercapacitors are addressed.</p

Local businesses as boundary actors shaping sustainable tourism futures in Biosphere Reserves

Biosphere Reserves have attracted significant attention from tourism scholars, not least for the management challenges they pose. As ‘bounded spaces’, they are defined by their shared natural and cultural heritage assets which form the basis for collective identification and distinct offers to visitors. Although ‘boundary actors’ have been recognised for their potential to induce beneficial change in tourism, little is known about how small businesses function in this capacity, towards the goal of fostering sustainable tourism development, and in the particular setting of Biosphere Reserves. This paper examines tourism businesses as boundary actors in the development of sustainable tourism in protected landscapes and in so doing adds to recent critical discussion of ‘Living Labs’ in shaping tourism futures. Specifically, it investigates the experiences of small nature-based businesses in ‘The Living Coast’ (Brighton and Lewes Downs) Biosphere Reserve in the United Kingdom (UK) to innovate their product offers in the period from November 2019 to May 2020 as part of wider project work (2018–2021). From a detailed Thematic Analysis of rich qualitative data, the paper highlights how local micro and small businesses translate, reframe and adapt sustainability and Biosphere Reserve values; how they can communicate them to visitors and residents; and how they can actively participate in place-making and place-keeping activities, becoming key boundary actors. Of the four analytical themes, the innovation and learning mechanisms utilised by local businesses, particularly those related to coordination, followed by discursive boundaries, were found to be the most important. These speak to new ways of positioning Biosphere Reserves as ‘living labs’ for tourism businesses emphasising dynamic sustainable tourism potential rather than stasis. As boundary actors, local businesses can absorb, (re)produce, adapt, co-produce and communicate the sustainability agendas of Biosphere Reserves through innovation and collaborative learning if structures and processes enable them to do so.</p

Natural capital approaches to decision-making for collaborative landscape governance

This study explores if and how natural capital approaches can support collaborative landscape governance. We selected six initiatives across the UK that have taken varied approaches to working with natural capital. We assessed how they have articulated, described and valued their landscapes and natural systems, and the consequences of doing so. We found that processes of systematically describing natural assets and their benefits can stimulate local investment in ecosystem markets and bring people together to co-produce plans. However, efforts to monetarily value natural capital assets were not always necessary: in some cases, new partners and resources were enroled without monetary valuations. These findings challenge the current emphasis on valuation framings in natural capital approaches. They show how natural capital approaches can help address the simultaneous challenges of connecting disparate priorities and securing new funding sources. This offers insights for international efforts to support collaborative landscape governance that delivers multiple benefits for people and nature.</p

Assessing progress in monitoring and implementing the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030

The aim of this science for policy report is twofold. First, it presents the state of play and the next steps in developing a monitoring framework for the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (EU BDS). Second, it provides an overview of progress made in implementing the EU BDS to date, as well as an assessment of the likelihood of reaching its targets by 2030. It mobilises various data sources – the official EU BDS and other policy-relevant progress monitoring tools, scientific literature and expert opinions – to provide a state of play of key achievements and remaining gaps in both monitoring and implementing the EU BDS as we approach its mid-term mark. Almost half of the actions are completed; the remaining half are mostly in progress, and a few are delayed. Indicators are published to track progress towards more than 40 % of the EU BDS targets and, with the notable exception of those on the state of biodiversity, the EU is showing progress in the right direction towards most of the evaluated targets; however, the pace of progress needs to accelerate massively to reach the 2030 targets. Further effort and engagement with the scientific community is needed to fill the remaining monitoring gaps, while a better implementation of the environmental policies would be necessary to meet the maximum of targets by 2030

The use of ruminal metabolic information to select microbial genes for microbiome-driven breeding to mitigate methane emissions from beef cattle

ApplicationThe identified animal genetic effects on ruminal metabolites concentrations and on theabundances of microbial genes together with their genetic correlations with methaneemissions are expected to improve the accuracy of microbiome-driven breeding to reducethis highly potent greenhouse gas efficiently and cost-effectively by reliable selection of lowemitting cattle.IntroductionVolatile fatty acids (VFAs) in the rumen are the primary energy source for cattle and areknown to be phenotypically related to CH4 emissions. Our research aimed to investigate howthese ruminal metabolites are animal genomically influenced and genetically correlated withCH4 emissions. Additionally, we were interested in identifying microbial genes that are closelygenetically correlated with both metabolites and CH4 emissions. The identification of the mostinformative biomarkers (VFAs, microbial genes) is essential for the microbiome-drivenbreeding strategy (Roehe et al., 2016; Martinez-Alvaro et al., 2022) and for improving ourunderstanding of the functional regulation of the ruminal metabolite metabolism and CH4production.Materials and MethodsThe animal trials were conducted following the UK Animals Act 1986 and were approved bythe Animal Experiment Committee of SRUC. The data comprised of 363 steers that weredeeply phenotyped (including CH4 emissions measured using respiration chambers) andgenotyped using a 50k SNP chip. The animals were tested at SRUC’s Beef Research Centreacross five trials and represented four breed types, with two basal diets (480:520 and 920:80forage:concentrate ratios). In two of the trials, the feed additives nitrate and rapeseed oilwere investigated. In addition, whole metagenome sequencing data of microbial DNA fromrumen fluid samples taken at slaughter were available. Aligning the ruminal metagenomicsequence reads to the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database resultedin the identification of 3362 microbial genes. For a subset of these animals (n = 137), VFAconcentrations in the rumen fluid, collected at slaughter, were determined using HPLC.Bayesian genomic analyses were applied to estimate the heritabilities of the ruminalmetabolites and their genetic correlations with CH4 emissions as well as with functionalmicrobial KEGG genes. The genomic model included fixed environmental effects and theanimal’s random genomic effects, considering 36780 SNPs. Fixed effects in the model formetabolites included trial, breed, basal diet, feed additives and as a covariable age atslaughter, whereas for CH4 emissions and microbial KEGG genes, fixed effects were thecombined trial-breed-diet effects with additional consideration of a covariable, either the ageentering the respiration chambers or age at slaughter, respectively.ResultsEstimated heritabilities of molar proportion of (iso)butyrate were at high magnitude, whereasthose of acetate, propionate and (iso)valerate were at moderate level, indicating a hostgenomic influence on the ruminal microbial metabolism of VFAs (Table 1). The geneticcorrelations of the main VFAs with daily CH4 emissions (CH4d) were moderate in magnitudeand associated with probabilities (P0) of more than 80% to be different from zero. Thedirection of the correlations indicates that higher molar proportions of acetate and butyratein the rumen were genetically associated with increased CH4d. In contrast, higher proportionsof propionate and valerate were genetically correlated with decreased CH4d. The geneticcorrelations of isobutyrate and isovalerate were close to zero, indicating that they did notrelate to CH4 metabolism. The magnitude of the genetic correlations between VFAs and CH4emissions per kg dry matter intake (CH4y) were similar to those emissions obtained on a dailybasis.One interesting microbial gene group that was moderately to highly genetically correlatedwith the concentration of the main ruminal metabolites was anaerobic sulphite reductase(asr) subunits. The abundance of the microbial KEGG gene asrC showed genetic correlationswith acetate, propionate, butyrate, and valerate of -0.74, 0.87, -0.67 and 0.77, respectively,which were associated with P0 in the range of 0.95 to 0.98. Genetic correlations of equaldirection and similar magnitude were also found for asr subunits A and B. The abundance ofthe asr genes were negatively genetically correlated with CH4d between -0.23 to -0.41 withP0 ranging from 0.77 to 0.90. These results indicate that selection for increased abundancesof the asr genes will decrease CH4 emissions by favouring ruminal propionate and valeratemetabolism compared to acetate and butyrate production.Table 1.Heritabilities (h2) of ruminal metabolites and their genetic correlations (rg) with daily CH4emissions and CH4 yieldTrait h2 SD1 rg withCH4d2P0 rg withCH4drg withCH4y3P0 rg withCH4y4Acetate 0.22 0.18 0.51 0.84 0.37 0.75Propionate 0.34 0.24 -0.57 0.88 -0.62 0.89Butyrate 0.51 0.26 0.43 0.82 0.52 0.87Isobutyrate 0.46 0.27 -0.09 0.58 0.24 0.67Valerate 0.36 0.26 -0.50 0.83 -0.41 0.77Isovalerate 0.32 0.24 -0.01 0.50 0.26 0.681Standard deviation of the posterior distribution of h2 (SD); 2daily methane emissions (g/d)(CH4d); 3methane yield (g/kg dry matter intake) (CH4y); 4probability that the geneticcorrelation is different from zero (P0). Heritabilities of CH4d and CH4y were 0.46 (±0.19) and0.43 (±0.20), respectively.ConclusionsThe molar proportions of ruminal VFAs were found to be heritable and genetically correlatedwith CH4 emissions. These VFAs could be combined with the microbial gene-basedmicrobiome-driven breeding strategy to improve its accuracy to estimate breeding values forCH4 emissions. In addition, key microbial genes (asrsubunits), genetically correlated with bothVFAs and CH4 emissions were identified, which are of high value to be directly included intomicrobiome driven breeding to mitigate CH4 emissions. The asr genes are involved in thereduction of sulphite to sulphide and might compete with methanogenic archaea formolecular hydrogen (H2).AcknowledgmentsThis research was funded by the Scottish Government and based on data generated fromexperiments funded by the Scottish Government, BBSRC (BB/N01720X/1, BB/N016742/1,BB/S006567/1, and BB/S006680/1), AHDB, and QMS.ReferencesMartínez-Álvaro, M., Auffret, M.D., Duthie, C.-A., Dewhurst, R.J., Cleveland, M.A., Watson,M., and Roehe, R. 2022. Communications Biology 5, 350.Roehe, R., Dewhurst, R.J., Duthie, C.A., Rooke, J.A., McKain, N., Ross, D.W., Hyslop, J.J.,Waterhouse, A., Freeman, T.C., Watson, M. and Wallace, R.J. 2016. PLOS Genetics 12,e1005846

Organic amendments for improving nickel phytomining with Odontarrhena serpyllifolia

Phytomining is an environmentally friendly, cost-effective plant-based technique to recover valuable metals from mineralised or polluted soils. Nickel phytomining has garnered much attention due to the vast number of Ni hyperaccumulator species identified in ultramafic areas worldwide and their promising metal extraction yields. Over the last few decades, the need to optimise phytomining yields through agronomic and crop management practices has been emphasised. Hence, this study evaluated the effects of organic amendments on phytomining yields using the Ni hyperaccumulator species Odontarrhena serpyllifolia, which is endemic to the Bragança and Morais ultramafic massifs in Portugal. The primary objective was to determine if the organic amendments biochar, and a combination of biochar with industrial sludge, and biochar with pig slurry, were appropriate for improving Ni harvestable amounts (governed by plant biomass and Ni accumulation in shoots) with O. serpyllifolia in the Morais massif. Plant seeds and soils were collected from the Morais massif. Organic amendments were added to the collected soil, including 1.5 % and 3 % biochar (w/w), and the same biochar rates were tested in combination with 1 % dried industrial sludge or 1 % pelletized pig slurry. Plants were cultivated in a laboratory greenhouse under controlled conditions. Soil treatments containing both biochar and sludge yielded the most promising results, particularly when the highest biochar rate was applied. This can be attributed to the significant improvement in soil properties and nutrient levels. The application of 1.5 % and 3 % biochar alone had no significant effect. Pig slurry mixed with biochar had a pronounced negative impact on plants, which can be explained by its high salinity levels. This study confirms that certain types of organic waste can be valorised and incorporated into phytomining systems.</p

Employing AI-assisted automated monitoring system and social network analysis for quantifying social structure and detecting harmful behaviors in pigs

Negative social behaviors represent a welfare and economic problem for farm animals worldwide. The time-consuming nature of observing behavior on a large scale means that social problems are not visible until their negative physical effects are advanced. However, identifying the key initiators or propagators of fighting and/or biting may not be possible by observing injury alone. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the possibility of constructing and analyzing social networks from AI-assisted automated monitoring data in pigs and the feasibility of using spatial proximity association as an indicator of harmful social interactions. Data were collected using automated recording systems that captured 2D camera images and videos of 6 pens of pigs (16-19 per pen) on a PIC breeding farm (USA). The system records continuous video footage with the associated real-time ear-tag ID, elapsed time, posture (standing, lying, sitting) and XY coordinates of the shoulder and rump for each pig. The validation of automated identity, posture and location records show 97-100% agreement with human observations (Agha et al., 2024). Pig movements were recorded from 10:00 to 19:00h for 6 days; 3 days immediately after regrouping and 3 days, 60 days after regrouping. Proximity data was used to create weighted social networks. Group level metrics (degree, betweenness, and closeness centralization) significantly increased from the early to late growing periods (p&amp;lt; 0.02), highlighting that inequality in proximity between pigs increased over time. Largest clique size remained unchanged (p=0.28), but the number of maximal cliques (fully connected subgroups) significantly decreased from the early to late growing period (p=0.007). Individual SNA traits were mostly stable over these periods. Measuring the behavior of prominent individuals during the time they are in proximity will allow targeting of management interventions to improve welfare outcomes. We tested an initial dataset as proof of concept that proximity signatures can be used to identify aggression. Video footage of two pens of 19 pigs were observed and 37 mutual fighting bouts were identified. Proximity matrices were calculated for each pen using shoulder XY location, for the duration of the bout, lasting 2-42 s (median 5.0s). 81% of fighting dyads were identified as in proximity (&amp;lt; 0.5m) compared with 7% (468/6290) of non-fighting dyads, χ2=7.0, p=0.008. Of the dyads in proximity, fighting dyads were in proximity for over twice as much of the interval (median: Q1-Q3); (92: 31.4-96.1%) as non-fighting dyads (44.3: 16.8- 86.1%), p&amp;lt; 0.001 Refinements to improve sensitivity and specificity to diagnose and characterize aggressive behavior from larger samples of proximity data are ongoing. This study demonstrates that integrating SNA with automated data reveals novel insights into pigs’ social interactions and identifies a signature of aggressive encounters using proximity. That could offer promising applications in breeding and management of farmed animals

Exercise as a welfare strategy? Insights from horse (Equus caballus) owners in the UK

Obesity and its comorbidities (e.g. laminitis) are identified as major welfare issues among domestic equids in the United Kingdom (UK) and abroad. Weight-management typically focuses on restricting consumption (e.g. limiting pasture grazing), often facilitated through stabling. This leads to social isolation, prompting other welfare issues. Increased exercise may be a preferable solution for equine obesity, if viable. The aims of this study were to explore horse (Equus caballus) owner perceptions regarding the importance of exercise, and to investigate how exercise provision related to welfare outcomes. Data obtained via an online survey from 804 UK horse owners indicated that most respondents’ horses were managed in obesogenic conditions, and 40% were owner-reported as overweight/obese. Exercise-related variables (e.g. if a horse was ridden) correlated with physical health problems, including decreased reports of laminitis and Equine Metabolic Syndrome. Approximately 90% of respondents reported that barriers outside of their control substantially limited opportunities to provide human-led exercise (e.g. riding, lunging). Analysis of a hypothetical weight-management scenario found owners with horses at livery yards felt significantly less able to increase horses’ self-directed exercise (e.g. free movement in fields/pastures) than owners keeping horses on their own properties. These findings indicate that while increased exercise may improve welfare, owner knowledge is not the only barrier that must be overcome to implement this prospective solution. Both human-led and self-directed exercise appear limited by a lack of opportunities available to horses and humans. These results justify future investigations into alternative management strategies as potentially viable methods of increasing exercise to improve welfare.</p

Genetic regulation of gene expression across multiple tissues in chickens

The chicken is a valuable model for understanding fundamental biology and vertebrate evolution and is a major global source of nutrient-dense and lean protein. Despite being the first non-mammalian amniote to have its genome sequenced, a systematic characterization of functional variation on the chicken genome remains lacking. Here, we integrated bulk RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data from 7,015 samples, single-cell RNA-seq data from 127,598 cells and 2,869 whole-genome sequences to present a pilot atlas of regulatory variants across 28 chicken tissues. This atlas reveals millions of regulatory effects on primary expression (protein-coding genes, long non-coding RNA and exons) and post-transcriptional modifications (alternative splicing and 3′-untranslated region alternative polyadenylation). We highlighted distinct molecular mechanisms underlying these regulatory variants, their context-dependent behavior and their utility in interpreting genome-wide associations for 39 chicken complex traits. Finally, our comparative analyses of gene regulation between chickens and mammals demonstrate how this resource can facilitate cross-species gene mapping of complex traits.</p