Management practices influence the competitive potential of weed communities and their value to biodiversity in South African vineyards.

Weeds have negative impacts on crop production but also play a role in sustaining biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. This trade‐off raises the question of whether it is possible to promote weed communities with low competitive potential but high value to biodiversity. Here, we explored how weed communities respond to different vineyard management practices in South Africa's Western Cape, aiming to identify whether any specific practices are associated with more beneficial weed communities. Eight weed community characteristics representative of abundance, diversity and functional composition were used as indicators of competitive potential and biodiversity value. We explored how these responded to farm management strategy (organic, low input or conventional) and weed management practices (herbicides, tillage, mowing or combinations of these) using ordination and mixed models. Mown sites were associated with weed communities of high biodiversity value, with higher weed cover in both winter and summer, higher diversity and more native weeds. Mowing also promoted shorter weeds than either tillage or herbicides, considered to be less competitive with grapevines. However, high summer weed cover may be problematic where competition for water is critical, in which case tillage offers a method to limit summer weed cover that did not adversely affect diversity or native weeds. In contrast, herbicide‐treated sites had characteristics indicative of a lower biodiversity value and higher potential for competitiveness with few native weeds, lower diversity and relatively tall, small‐seeded weeds. Mowing in winter combined with tillage in spring may thus optimise the biodiversity benefits and production costs of Western Cape vineyard weeds

Top Secrets: long-lived ALPs in top production

Abstract We investigate the discovery potential for long-lived particles produced in association with a top-antitop quark pair at the (High-Luminosity) LHC. Compared to inclusive searches for a displaced vertex, top-associated signals offer new trigger options and an extra handle to suppress background. We design a search strategy for a displaced di-muon vertex in the tracking detectors, in association with a reconstructed top-antitop pair. For axion-like particles with masses above the di-muon threshold, we find that the (High-Luminosity) LHC can probe effective top-quark couplings as small as |c tt |/f a = 0.03 (0.002)/TeV and proper decay lengths as long as 20 (300) m, assuming a cross section of 1 fb, with data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 150 fb −1 (3 ab −1). Our predictions suggest that searches for top-associated displaced di-muons will explore new terrain in the current sensitivity gap between searches for prompt di-muons and missing energy

Effects of the α₂-adrenergic agonist clonidine on the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine in healthy volunteers.

The mechanism of action of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; ecstasy) involves the carrier-mediated and potentially vesicular release of monoamines. We assessed the effects of the sympatholytic α₂-adrenergic receptor agonist clonidine (150 μg p.o.), which inhibits the neuronal vesicular release of norepinephrine, on the cardiovascular and psychotropic response to MDMA (125 mg p.o.) in 16 healthy subjects. The study used a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design with four experimental sessions. The administration of clonidine 1 h before MDMA reduced the MDMA-induced increases in plasma norepinephrine concentrations and blood pressure but only to the extent that clonidine lowered norepinephrine levels and blood pressure compared with placebo. Thus, no interaction was found between the cardiovascular effects of the two drugs. Clonidine did not affect the psychotropic effects or pharmacokinetics of MDMA. The lack of an interaction of the effects of clonidine and MDMA indicates that vesicular release of norepinephrine, which is inhibited by clonidine, does not critically contribute to the effects of MDMA in humans. Although clonidine may be used in the treatment of stimulant-induced hypertensive reactions, the present findings do not support a role for α₂-adrenergic receptor agonists in the prevention of psychostimulant dependence

Are phenological patterns of ballooning spiders linked to habitat characteristics?

We describe here the phenological patterns of the 25 most common ballooning species of spiders caught by a 12.2 m suction trap during an eleven year survey in Switzerland. We aimed at identifying and quantifying the number, position, spread, and relative weight of activity periods for the whole community. Further, we explored the possible link between phenological patterns and habitat use. For this purpose, we used bump-hunting approaches and fitted mixtures of normal distributions to the abundance data. The phenologies can be grouped in four categories, from uni- to quadrimodal. The specific peaks in the timing of ballooning were found between February and November, with most ballooning activity occurring in summer and autumn. For some taxa, it was possible to analyze the data for young instars and adults. For the majority of taxa, the adults’ peak appeared between the early and late peaks of immature individuals. Species inhabiting the ground level of open areas, often disturbed by agricultural practices, were clearly dominant in the multimodal categories; spiders living in more closed and stable habitats, such as tree-shrub and herb layers, typically had a single peak of adult dispersal. This discrepancy in phenology may simply reflect different numbers of generations, but may also result from an adaptation to maximize the persistence of populations in unstable habitats.Peer reviewe