Breeding for reduced methane emissions in livestock

This project examined the potential reductions in livestock methane emissions through breeding, and the policy levers that could motivate these changes. We explored the technologies that detect and measure methane, manage data and are used in the breeding process and examined their potential availability in Scotland in 2030 and 2045. We also identified the relevant policy levers and behaviour changes and considered what Government, the post-farm market, pre-farm gate actors and farmers can do differently to encourage methane reductions through breeding

Biological Earth observation with animal sensors

Space-based tracking technology using low-cost miniature tags is now delivering data on fine-scale animal movement at near-global scale. Linked with remotely sensed environmental data, this offers a biological lens on habitat integrity and connectivity for conservation and human health; a global network of animal sentinels of environmen-tal change

A cloud-based toolbox for the versatile environmental annotation of biodiversity data

A vast range of research applications in biodiversity sciences requires integrating primary species, genetic, or ecosystem data with other environmental data. This integration requires a consideration of the spatial and temporal scale appropriate for the data and processes in question. But a versatile and scale flexible environmental annotation of biodiversity data remains constrained by technical hurdles. Existing tools have streamlined the intersection of occurrence records with gridded environmental data but have remained limited in their ability to address a range of spatial and temporal grains, especially for large datasets. We present the Spatiotemporal Observation Annotation Tool (STOAT), a cloud-based toolbox for flexible biodiversity–environment annotations. STOAT is optimized for large biodiversity datasets and allows user-specified spatial and temporal resolution and buffering in support of environmental characterizations that account for the uncertainty and scale of data and of relevant processes. The tool offers these services for a growing set of near global, remotely sensed, or modeled environmental data, including Landsat, MODIS, EarthEnv, and CHELSA. STOAT includes a user-friendly, web-based dashboard that provides tools for annotation task management and result visualization, linked to Map of Life, and a dedicated R package (rstoat) for programmatic access. We demonstrate STOAT functionality with several examples that illustrate phenological variation and spatial and temporal scale dependence of environmental characteristics of birds at a continental scale. We expect STOAT to facilitate broader exploration and assessment of the scale dependence of observations and processes in ecology.</jats:p

Comparing the relative reactivities of structurally varied alcohols toward electrochemically generated superoxide

Superoxide (O2.−) is a free‐radical anion of the reactive oxygen species (ROS) family. In the present study, the relative reactivities of 14 structurally varied aliphatic alcohols toward electrochemically generated O2.− were investigated in solutions of N,N‐dimethylformamide by using cyclic voltammetry (CV). Upon the stepwise addition of each substrate, the chemical reversibility of the one‐electron voltammetric reduction of the dioxygen (O2) to O2.− was found to decrease, which enabled the extent of radical inhibition to be determined by measuring the resultant oxidative peak current (Ipa) magnitudes on the reverse scan of the CV. Based on the electrochemical responses gathered, best fit plots of the percentage decrease in the anodic peak current (%ΔIpa) against the concentration of substrate added were obtained and compared according to the different classes of alcohols that were examined (linear, fluorinated, branched, and poly‐hydroxylated). In addition, different parameters, such as electronic effects, steric effects, degree of hydroxylation, and kinetic effects that affect the O2.− scavenging abilities of the alcohols, are also discussed.MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore