Marketing System of Shrimp in Some Selected Areas of Bangladesh

A study was undertaken to examine the marketing system value chin analysis of shrimp in selected areas of Khulna district of Bangladesh during the month of March-April 2012. The objectives of the study were to estimate costs and margins, seasonal price variation and to test market integration of shrimp. Primary were used for this study. The higher marketing cost was incurred by aratdars and the lowest by retailer. On the other hand, retailers earned the highest net marketing margins.T he findings of the study revealed that the marketing of shrimp was a profitable business and some recommendations were provided for the improvement of shrimp marketing in the country. Keywords: Engle Granger co-integration, Market integration, marketing system, price behavio

Measuring flammability of crops, pastures, fruit trees, and weeds: A novel tool to fight wildfires in agricultural landscapes

Fires on agricultural land account for 8–11 % of the total number of fires that occur globally. These fires burn through various crops, pastures, and native vegetation on farms, causing economic and environmental losses. Fire management on farms will be aided by understanding the flammability of plant species as this would allow the design of low-flammability agricultural landscapes, but flammability data on large numbers of agricultural species are lacking. Many crop and vegetable species are assumed to be low in flammability, but this has rarely been tested. Therefore, we examined the shoot and whole-plant flammability of 47 plant taxa commonly grown on farms in Canterbury, New Zealand, which included many globally common temperate agricultural crops. We demonstrated that most of the agricultural species were low to very low in flammability, with many of them (24 taxa; 51 %) not igniting in the experimental burning. Among different crop types, fruit crops and cereals had significantly higher flammability, while taxa categorized as vegetable crops, grazing herbs, pasture grasses, pasture legumes, and weeds were lower in flammability. We further showed that taxa with lower moisture content, higher retention of dead material and faster moisture loss rates were higher in flammability. The strong variation of flammability between the studied taxa suggests that the selection of suitable low flammability species and strategic redesign of agricultural landscapes with fire-retardant planting can be a useful tool to reduce fire hazards and impacts of wildfires in agricultural landscapes

Analysis of Marketing Efficiency, Value Addition and Spatial Co-Integration of Mozambique Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) Fish in Some Selected Areas of Bangladesh

A study was undertaken to examine the value chain, value addition, marketing cost & margin, marketing efficiency and market integration of tilapia fish in selected areas of Bangladesh during the month of June-July 2013. The objectives of the study were to estimate costs and margins and to test market integration of tilapia fish. Primary and secondary data were used for this study. The higher marketing cost was incurred by paiker and the lowest by retailer. On the other hand, retailers earned the highest net marketing margins. Chain II was found the most efficient chain. Analysis of market integration shows that tilapia fish market in Bangladesh was well integrated. The findings of the study revealed that the marketing of tilapia was a profitable business and some recommendations were provided for the improvement of tilapia marketing in the country. Keywords: Value addition, marketing cost & margin, marketing efficiency and spatial co-integratio

Salinity reduces site quality and mangrove forest functions. From monitoring to understanding

Mangroves continue to be threatened across their range by a mix of anthropogenic and climate change-related stress. Climate change-induced salinity is likely to alter the structure and functions of highly productive mangrove systems. However, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of how rising salinity affects forest structure and functions because of the limited availability of mangrove field data. Therefore, based on extensive spatiotemporal mangrove data covering a large-scale salinity gradient, collected from the world's largest single tract mangrove ecosystem – the Bangladesh Sundarbans, we, aimed to examine (QI) how rising salinity influences forest structure (e.g., stand density, diversity, leaf area index (LAI), etc.), functions (e.g., carbon stocks, forest growth), nutrients availability, and functional traits (e.g., specific leaf area, wood density). We also wanted to know (QII) how forest functions interact (direct vs. indirect) with biotic (i.e., stand structure, species richness, etc.) and abiotic factors (salinity, nutrients, light availability, etc.). We also asked (QIII) whether the functional variable decreases disproportionately with salinity and applied the power-law (i.e., Y = a Xᵇ) to the salinity and functional variable relationships. In this study, we found that rises in salinity significantly impede forest growth and produce less productive ecosystems dominated by dwarf species while reducing stand structural properties (i.e., tree height, basal area, dominant tree height, LAI), soil carbon (organic and root carbon), and macronutrient availability in the soil (e.g., NH4+, P, and K). Besides, species-specific leaf area (related to resource acquisition) also decreased with salinity, whereas wood density (related to resource conservation) increased. We observed a declining abundance of the salt-intolerant climax species (Heritiera fomes) and dominance of the salt-tolerant species (Excoecaria agallocha, Ceriops decandra) in the high saline areas. In the case of biotic and abiotic factors, salinity and salinity-driven gap fraction (high transmission of light) had a strong negative impact on functional variables, while nutrients and LAI had a positive impact. In addition, the power-law explained the consistent decline of functional variables with salinity. Our study disentangles the negative effects of salinity on site quality in the Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem, and we recognize that nutrient availability and LAI are likely to buffer the less salt-tolerant species to maintain the ability to sequester carbon with sea-level rise. These novel findings advance our understanding of how a single stressor—salinity—can shape mangrove structure, functions, and productivity and offer decision makers a much-needed scientific basis for developing pragmatic ecosystem management and conservation plans in highly stressed coastal ecosystems across the globe

Intraspecific variation in shoot flammability in Dracophyllum rosmarinifolium is not predicted by habitat environmental conditions

Background: Flammability is a compound plant trait that can vary significantly across natural populations within species. Investigating intraspecific variation in flammability provides insights into the evolution of plant flammability and inform understanding of wildfire risk and behaviour in different habitats. Methods: We measured four flammability variables, representing ignitibility (time to ignition), sustainability (total burning time), combustibility (maximum temperature during burning) and consumability (percentage of biomass consumed by fire) to assess the shoot-level flammability of Dracophyllum rosmarinifolium (G. Forst.) (Ericaceae), a polymorphic endemic species distributed throughout New Zealand. We examined the relationship between flammability components and a suite of climatic and geographic variables (elevation, latitude, mean annual temperature (MAT), mean annual rainfall (MAR) of the sample locations, etc.). Results: We measured shoot-level flammability components of 62 individuals across eight populations. Burning time, maximum temperature and burnt biomass were positively correlated with each other, while ignition score was independent of other flammability components. All flammability components varied significantly across the eight populations. The habitat conditions we considered were not related to any of the shoot-level flammability components of D. rosmarinifolium. Conclusions: Intraspecific variation in flammability in D. rosmarinifolium may be a byproduct of selection on other functional traits, such as leaf size, shoot lipid content, indicating that plant flammability is an incidental result, rather than selected for, at least in ecosystems without fire as a selective force

Termite sensitivity to temperature affects global wood decay rates.

Deadwood is a large global carbon store with its store size partially determined by biotic decay. Microbial wood decay rates are known to respond to changing temperature and precipitation. Termites are also important decomposers in the tropics but are less well studied. An understanding of their climate sensitivities is needed to estimate climate change effects on wood carbon pools. Using data from 133 sites spanning six continents, we found that termite wood discovery and consumption were highly sensitive to temperature (with decay increasing >6.8 times per 10°C increase in temperature)-even more so than microbes. Termite decay effects were greatest in tropical seasonal forests, tropical savannas, and subtropical deserts. With tropicalization (i.e., warming shifts to tropical climates), termite wood decay will likely increase as termites access more of Earth's surface

Night time temperature and day time irradiance on photosynthesis and growth of cucumber: Potential and possibilities for energy saving

Growth chamber experiments were conducted with seedless cucumber cv. Odeon to examine the effect of night temperature on photosynthesis and growth with compensation possibilities of daytime irradiance level. Further, the effects of night temperature and the level of daytime irradiance on carbohydrate composition in different plant parts were also assessed with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Daily average temperature was mainly responsible for the growth of cucumber seedling by increasing the height, leaf number, total leaf area and total dry weight. It enhances the potential of lowering night temperature in combination with high day temperature. Lowering night temperature from 22 °C to 14 °C reduced almost 34% growth as dry matter production. As long as the daily mean temperature is equal, the split night temperature had no effect on daily net photosynthesis, height; leaf area and plant dry weight. Increasing level of irradiance increased the plant’s daily net photosynthesis and the magnitude of increment was significantly high at low night temperature than at high night temperature. At low night temperature (14 °C), net photosynthesis was doubled when light intensity was increased from 200 to 400 μmol m-2 s-1. This was reflected in the total dry weight of the plants as well. The dry matter production of cucumber seedling increased almost 30% at low night temperature (14 °C) and 7% at high night temperature (22 °C) when light intensity was doubled. This indicated the potential of irradiance on compensation of losses caused by low temperature although, it will be extra energy costs related to increased light level if that has to be done by artificial lighting. Carbohydrate profiling revealed that the total carbohydrate content was significantly affected by irradiance level than temperature. Total carbohydrate concentration was increased by 8% at low night temperature (14 °C) and 20% at high light intensity (400 μmol m-2 s-1). Among the different plant parts analyzed, the total carbohydrate content was significantly high in stem in all temperature and irradiance combinations. However, night temperature or daytime irradiance did not affect the proportion of total carbohydrate partitioned between plant parts.M-P

Growth chamber experiments on lichens : temperature and humidity regimes rapidly shape growth rates and carbohydrate contents

This study assesses relative growth rates and carbohydrate contents of three lichen species under different temperature and humidity regimes in a short-term growth chamber experiment. Representatives from three functional groups: chlorolichens (Parmelia sulcata; green algal), cyanolichens (Peltigera canina; cyanobacterial) and cephalolichens (Peltigera aphthosa; green alga + cyanobacteria) were cultivated for 14 days (150 µmol photon m-2 s-1; 12 h photoperiod) at four temperature regimes (28/23 °C, 20/15 °C, 13/8 °C, and 6/1 °C; day/night temperatures) and two hydration regimes (12 h day-time hydration; 12 h day-time + 12 h night-time hydration). These lichens showed much higher growth than earlier reported, particularly at 13/8 °C. A two-way ANOVA with temperature, humidity regimes as factors and specific thallus mass as a co-variate explained 57.8, 53.2 and 38.1 % of the variation in RGR for P. aphthosa, P. canina and P. sulcata, respectively. Significantly higher relative biomass (RGR) as well as thallus area growth rates (RTAGR) were recorded when the thalli were hydrated day and night compared to hydration in day-time only in all species. Chronic photoinhibition was substantial in P. apthosa and P. canina when kept at lowest temperature regimes and also for the thalli kept dry at night, whereas P. sulcata was photoinhibited at the highest temperature for thalli kept dry at night. Strong, positive linear regressions occurred between RGR and maximal PSII efficiency (Fv/Fm) in all species. Metabolic activity at night improved recovery of photoinhibition and/or may enhance the conversion rate of photosynthates into thallus growth. Moreover, the carbohydrate pools in all the species were measured through HPLC. Unlike the dynamic growth patterns, carbohydrate concentrations varied little with temperature and humidity regimes. After 14 days cultivation, total carbohydrate pool decreased in P. aphthosa and P. canina, but slightly increased in P. sulcata. Mannitol occurred in all the species. Quantitatively, the largest carbohydrate pool was mannitol, glucose and arabitol for P. aphthosa, P. canina and P. sulcata, respectively. The RGR was significantly correlated with photobiont carbohydrate in all species