A scalable and modular reservoir implementation for large-scale integrated hydrologic simulations

<jats:p>Abstract. Recent advancements in integrated hydrologic modeling have enabled increasingly high-fidelity models of the complete terrestrial hydrologic cycle. These advances are critical for our ability to understand and predict watershed dynamics, especially in a changing climate. However, many of the most physically rigorous models have been designed to focus on natural processes and do not incorporate the effect of human-built structures such as dams. By not accounting for these impacts, our models are limited both in their accuracy and in the scope of the topics they are able to investigate. Here, we present the first implementation of dams and reservoirs in ParFlow, an integrated hydrologic model. Through a series of idealized and real-world test cases, we demonstrate that our implementation (1) functions as intended, (2) maintains important qualities such as mass conservation, (3) works in a real domain, and (4) is computationally efficient and can be scaled to large domains with thousands of reservoirs. Our results have the potential to improve the accuracy of current ParFlow models and enable us to ask new questions regarding conjunctive management of ground and surface water in systems with reservoirs. </jats:p&gt

Institutional Design of Forest Landscape Restoration in Central Togo: Informing Policy-making through Q Methodology Analysis

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is a promising tool for restoring ecological functionality and improving human well-being in degraded landscapes. The success of FLR efforts depends on the interests, perceptions, and actions of local communities, extension services, Non-Governmental Organizations, and policymakers. While much research focuses on the direct ecological and economic impacts of FLR, limited attention has been given to how stakeholder perceptions influence the design and implementation of restoration efforts. Understanding these perspectives is crucial for shaping effective policy interventions and ensuring long-term FLR success. This study uses Q methodology to examine stakeholder viewpoints on key considerations and priorities for designing and implementing FLR in Tchamba Prefecture, Togo. The analysis reveals three distinct perspectives: (1) Incentive-Driven Restoration, emphasizing financial incentives and private-sector partnerships as essential for FLR success; (2) Comprehensive and Collaborative Restoration, advocating for an inclusive, multidisciplinary approach that integrates community participation and long-term monitoring; and (3) Incentive-Driven Community Restoration, highlighting the importance of economic incentives in fostering local engagement. Across all perspectives, stakeholders strongly agreed on the importance of biodiversity conservation, stakeholder involvement, and conflict resolution in land use. The findings underscore the need to tailor FLR policies to local contexts and stakeholder preferences, suggesting that flexible, participatory approaches can enhance sustainability and effectiveness. This study contributes to developing inclusive, adaptive restoration policies and highlights the need to integrate behavioural insights into policy-making to foster long-term stakeholder engagement

Mission Gesundheitsdatenkompetenz

Eine umfangreiche Nutzung von Gesundheitsdaten für die Forschung und die öffentliche Gesundheitsvorsorge braucht Vertrauen und Akzeptanz in der gesamten Bevölkerung. Umfragen zeigen, dass die Bereitschaft, Gesundheitsdaten zu teilen, hoch ist. Doch darauf sollte sich niemand ausruhen. Vertrauen und Akzeptanz wollen gepflegt und erhalten werden. Und spezifische Vorbehalte, etwa gegenüber der privatwirtschaftlichen Forschung, gilt es, klug zu adressieren

Agricultural diversification across spatial levels - a contribution to resilience and sustainability?

Decades of efficiency-oriented agricultural intensification have raised sustainability and resilience concerns. Diversification aims to address these issues but varies across time, space and system levels, which hinders an assessment of success of diversification and makes transfer to other regions difficult. We classified diversification measures from field to landscape through a systematic review of 142 papers on intensive agricultural systems in temperate climates. Most measures were at field and farm levels, with fewer at landscape level. Since biodiversity requires provision and maintenance at the landscape level rather than just at the field or farm level, the limited emphasis on landscape-level diversification measures highlights a significant knowledge gap. We further analyzed the impact of diversification on sustainability (integration of environmental, economic, social targets) and resilience capacities (robustness, adaptation, transformation). We show that specific diversification levels were linked to specific sustainability targets and resilience capacities. Environmental aspects are mainly addressed at the field level, economic aspects at the farm level, and social aspects, which are less frequently addressed, are also primarily tackled at the farm level. Resilience is often equated with robustness towards economic (farm) stability. Adaptation relates to climate change and economic instability, while transformation, though rarely addressed directly, emphasizes societal change. Our findings suggest that the concepts of resilience and sustainability are interconnected: resilience can be understood as a property of a system, while sustainability is the overarching target. In literature, transformation relates to societal changes for better integrating social, economic and environmental targets. In contrast, robustness and adaptation address environmental or economic aspects with less linkage to integration of sustainability as a whole. While agricultural diversification is often associated with improved resilience and sustainability, most studies on diversification remain vague about the causal linkage to those concepts. Literature on diversification often focuses only on individual aspects of sustainability or resilience, which undermines both concepts, as it is the holistic consideration of all aspects together that makes a system sustainable or resilient. Our research highlights that diversification at all spatial levels is necessary to achieve resilient and sustainable systems, as each level of diversification addresses distinct sustainability goals or resilience capacities

Effectiveness and tolerability of lactic acid vaginal gel compared to oral metronidazole in the treatment of acute symptomatic bacterial vaginosis: a multicenter, randomized-controlled, head-to-head pilot study

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec> <jats:title>Background</jats:title> <jats:p>Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a prevalent vaginal condition among reproductive-age women, characterized by off-white, thin vaginal discharge with a fishy odor. It increases susceptibility to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). BV involves a shift in vaginal microbiota, with reduced lactobacilli and increased anaerobic bacteria. Standard treatment with oral metronidazole has been shown to have a limited long-term efficacy, possibly due to biofilm persistence. Alternative treatments, such as lactic acid vaginal gel, aim to restore vaginal pH and lactobacilli. This pilot study compares the efficacy and tolerability of lactic acid gel to standard oral metronidazole for acute BV treatment in non-pregnant women.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p>A total of 32 women with acute BV were recruited and assigned to either the treatment group (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 16) where they applied a lactic acid vaginal gel for 12 days, or the control group (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 16) which received 500 mg oral metronidazole twice daily for seven days. A number of objective and subjective parameters including the Amsel score, the Nugent score and a subjective symptom score were recorded at day 0, three weeks, three months, and six months after the study start.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p>In the short-term, lactic acid vaginal gel showed inferior clinical (Amsel criteria) and microbiological (Nugent score) cure rates compared to metronidazole. However, it performed equally well regarding subjective symptom improvement and BV recurrence prevention after up to six months.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title> <jats:p>Lactic acid vaginal gel was generally very well tolerated and showed mixed but promising results as a stand-alone treatment for acute BV.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Trial registration number</jats:title> <jats:p>NCT02042287 (22.01.2014).</jats:p> </jats:sec&gt

The German Federal Ex Situ Genebank for Agricultural and Horticultural Crops – Conservation, exploitation and steps towards a bio-digital resource centre

Over more than 80 years, the collections of the German Federal Ex Situ Genebank for Agricultural and Horticultural Crops have grown to around 152,000 accessions of 3,000 species preserved at three locations: Gatersleben, Groß Lüsewitz and Malchow/Poel. More than 96% of the material is stored as desiccation-tolerant orthodox seeds according to the active–base–safety (A-B-S) replicate approach at -18°C. Almost 70,000 freshly regenerated safety replicates are stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. However, 4% of the material (2,000 field, 3,000 in vitro and 2,500 cryopreserved accessions) can only be maintained vegetatively, as no or few seeds or no true-breeding seeds are available. Most of the accessions are provided via the standard material transfer agreement (SMTA) and more than 1.2 million samples have been distributed since the genebank was founded. To guarantee the identity of the living plant material, reference samples comprising about 450,000 voucher specimens, 110,000 seed and fruit samples and 57,000 cereal spikes are used for comparisons. Genebank workflows are supported by the Genebank Information System (GBIS), which also manages workflow-independent data to describe the genebank accessions by passport, phenotypic and taxonomic data, thus allowing users to make targeted selections of material. The genebank-related processes, including acquisition, preservation, regeneration, documentation and material distribution, are certified for quality management in accordance with ISO 9001. Nowadays, the genebank is undergoing a transformation process to become a bio-digital resource centre to improve utilization of the genetic resources in research and breeding to address future challenges

Neuronal autophagy in the control of synapse function

Neurons are long-lived postmitotic cells that capitalize on autophagy to remove toxic or defective proteins and organelles to maintain neurotransmission and the integrity of their functional proteome. Mutations in autophagy genes cause congenital diseases, sharing prominent brain dysfunctions including epilepsy, intellectual disability, and neurodegeneration. Ablation of core autophagy genes in neurons or glia disrupts normal behavior, leading to motor deficits, memory impairment, altered sociability, and epilepsy, which are associated with defects in synapse maturation, plasticity, and neurotransmitter release. In spite of the importance of autophagy for brain physiology, the substrates of neuronal autophagy and the mechanisms by which defects in autophagy affect synaptic function in health and disease remain controversial. Here, we summarize the current state of knowledge on neuronal autophagy, address the existing controversies and inconsistencies in the field, and provide a roadmap for future research on the role of autophagy in the control of synaptic function

Diversification strategies to improve cocoa farmers’ household income: the case of Côte d’Ivoire

Diversification is a strategy adopted by farming households to meet several challenges. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to support these positions. We contribute to filling this research gap by providing quantitative evidence of the impact of diversification on the additional income of cocoa-producing households. This study aims to analyze income from the diversification strategies of cocoa producers by building the typology of the most common systems and assessing their impacts on household income. A survey of 303 households across five Côte d’Ivoire regions reveals that cocoa producers have four distinct types of production systems, namely: (1) simple cocoa production systems; (2) cocoa production systems with crops in association; (3) cocoa production systems combined with income generating diversification on the additional plot; and (4) cocoa production systems, and food cropland. Of the four systems, type 3 is the most widely adopted by cocoa producers, generating higher income per household than the other types due to the large part of perennial income that requires a larger area. Furthermore, type 2 presents the best cocoa yield. We also assessed differences per population group. Thus, the results show that women adopt type 2 and type 4 systems with less surface area and are more devoted to the production of subsistence crops. Non-Ivorian producers have systems with higher cocoa yields and income from diversification than Ivorian producers. However, only 7% of producers have access to financing enabling them to invest in diversification crops. The findings demonstrate that crop diversification strategies can successfully improve households’ living income and ensure the sustainability of cocoa production

A synthesis of Sphagnum litterbag experiments: initial leaching losses bias decomposition rate estimates

<jats:p>Abstract. Our knowledge of the magnitude and controls of Sphagnum decomposition rates is derived to a large extent from litterbag experiments that do not explicitly consider initial leaching losses. Previous research on vascular plants suggests that decomposition rate (k0) estimates from litterbag experiments are biased when initial leaching losses (l0) are ignored. In contrast, the magnitude and variability of l0 for Sphagnum litterbag experiments are not well known, and it is therefore also not known how much Sphagnum k0 estimates are biased. As Sphagnum is the main peat-forming species in many northern peatlands, and biases in k0 estimates can propagate and amplify in long-term peatland models, minimizing such bias is necessary for accurate predictions of peat accumulation. We present a meta-analysis of 15 Sphagnum litterbag studies to estimate initial leaching losses (l0), to analyze how much Sphagnum k0 estimates are biased when the decomposition model ignores initial leaching losses and to analyze how much the variance in k0 estimates increases due to initial leaching losses even when they are estimated by the decomposition model. Average l0 estimates range between 3 mass-% to 18 mass-%, and average k0 estimates range between 0.01 to 1.16 yr−1. Simulations and models fitted to empirical data indicate that ignoring initial leaching losses leads to an overestimation of k0. An error analysis suggests that k0 and l0 can be estimated only with relatively large errors because of limitations in the design of most available litterbag experiments. Sampling the first litterbags shortly after the start of the experiments allows more accurate estimation of l0 and k0. We also estimated large l0 (>5 mass-%) for only air-dried samples, which could imply that Sphagnum litterbag experiments with dried litter are unrepresentative for natural decomposition processes in which l0 may be smaller according to leaching experiments with fresh litter. We conclude that comparing results of litterbag experiments between experimental treatments and between studies and accurately estimating decomposition rates may only be possible if initial leaching losses are explicitly considered. </jats:p&gt

Deep phenotyping platform for microscopic plant-pathogen interactions

The increasing availability of genetic and genomic resources has underscored the need for automated microscopic phenotyping in plant-pathogen interactions to identify genes involved in disease resistance. Building on accumulated experience and leveraging automated microscopy and software, we developed BluVision Micro, a modular, machine learning-aided system designed for high-throughput microscopic phenotyping. This system is adaptable to various image data types and extendable with modules for additional phenotypes and pathogens. BluVision Micro was applied to screen 196 genetically diverse barley genotypes for interactions with powdery mildew fungi, delivering accurate, sensitive, and reproducible results. This enabled the identification of novel genetic loci and marker-trait associations in the barley genome. The system also facilitated high-throughput studies of labor-intensive phenotypes, such as precise colony area measurement. Additionally, BluVision’s open-source software supports the development of specific modules for various microscopic phenotypes, including high-throughput transfection assays for disease resistance-related genes