Intercropping cereals and grain legumes: a farmer’s perspective

Intercropping cereals and grain legumes show potential for organic agriculture in many ways. However, the use of land equivalent ratio (LER) as a measure for calculating the cropping advantage of intercrops over sole crops is too simple: neglecting weed suppression, yield reliability, grain quality, and minimum profitable yield, which are all relevant fac-tors from a farmer’s perspective. Only when the crop selection for the mixtures is carefully done, and crops are grown on the right soil in the right rotation, can intercropping be made to profit

Adaptive Harmonic Analysis

In this paper we describe a new approach to the harmonic analysis of the tide. For a number of reasons the harmonic constants are not really constant but vary slowly in time. Therefore, we introduce a narrow-band noise process to model the time-varying behaviour of these harmonic parameters. Furthermore, since the measurements available are not perfect, we also introduce a, possibly time-varying, measurement noise process to model the errors associated with the measurement process. By employing a Kalman filter to estimate the harmonic parameters recursively, the estimates can be adapted contineously to chaning conditions. The adaptive harmonic analysis can be used for the on-line prediction of the astronomical tide or, since the Kalman filter also produces the covariance of the estimation error, to gain quantitative insight into the resolution of tidal constituents

Why regionality is an important value in organic agriculture: the case of the Netherlands

Organic agriculture is a system of production and consumption in which values play a prominent role. The new IFOAM principles reflect the current worldwide consensus on the most important values of organic agriculture. Regionality or proximity is not explicitly mentioned in these principles. Also in the present EU-regulation on organic agriculture hardly any standards are formulated concerning this issue. On the other hand, some private organic labels do have extra standards - concerning for instance the origin of organic feed - while both producers and consumers of organic products often mention regional production as an important value. The question is whether, and if so why regionality is an important issue to be dealt with in the upcoming reformed EU-regulation on organic agriculture. To answer this question, the consequences are evaluated of the de-velopment of intensive, large-scale organic animal production in the Netherlands in the light of the value of regionality

Sustainable Soesterkwartier

The municipality of Amersfoort wants to construct an endurable and sustainable eco-town in the Soesterkwartier neighbourhood, by taking future climate change into account. The impact of climate change at the location of the proposed eco-town was studied by a literature review

Lepidoptera Collection Curation and Data Management

The collections of Lepidoptera often serve as foundational basis for a wide range of biological, ecological, and climate science disciplines. Species identification and higher taxa delimitation based on collection specimens and especially, on types test scientific hypotheses, provide multiple types of evidence for a broad range of users. Curation and data management approaches applied in Lepidoptera collections benefit greatly from many newly developed information techniques, which link and integrate data. Mostly attention is focused on clean verified collection and taxonomic literature mining data to obtain correct species-group and higher taxa names, as well as reliable data on the distribution of Lepidoptera and their trophic interactions. Collection creation and management became a subject of natural sciences itself. The chapter provides a historic overview on collection creation and curation together with a short discussion on collection goals and purposes. The creation of a virtual collection based on interlinked data is emphasized. Information science and data management tools became very important in Lepidoptera collection curation. The complexity of techniques and computing tools used in taxonomy and the increase in the amount of data that can be obtained by collection-based disciplines make it necessary to automate data gathering, manipulation, analysis, and visualization processes

Resource partitioning among African savanna herbivores in North Cameroon: the importance of diet composition, food quality and body mass

The relationship between herbivore diet quality, and diet composition (the range of food plants consumed) and body mass on resource partitioning of herbivores remains the subject of an ongoing scientific debate. In this study we investigated the importance of diet composition and diet quality on resource partitioning among eight species of savanna herbivore in north Cameroon, with different body mass. Dung samples of four to seven wild herbivore and one domesticated species were collected in the field during the dry and wet period. Diet composition was based on microhistological examination of herbivore droppings, epidermis fragments were identified to genus or family level. In addition, the quality of the faecal droppings was determined in terms of phosphorus, nitrogen and fibre concentrations. The results showed that there was no significant correlation between body mass and (differences in) diet composition for wet and dry season. When all species are considered, only significant relationships are found by the Spearman rank correlation analyses during the wet season between body mass and phosphorus and nitrogen, but this relationship did not exist during the dry season. When the analyses focuses on ruminants only (thus leaving out hippo), none of the relationships between body mass and diet quality was significant in either season. During the dry season the proportion of graminoids ranged between 10% (small unidentified herbivore species) to 90% (hippopotamus), during the wet season this proportion ranged from 60% (zebu) to 90% (hippopotamus). All species but zebu had more graminoids in their dung during wet season compared with dry season. However all species but hartebeest had more graminoids old stems in their dung during the dry season, compared with the wet season. The niche breadth for food categories consumed by kob (0.300), hippo (0.090), hartebeest (0.350), roan (0.510) and zebu (0.300) was much greater in the dry season than in the wet season for kob (0.120), hippo (0.020), hartebeest (0.190), roan (0.090) and zebu (0.200). When looking at grass taxa consumed, the niche breadth of kob (0.220), hartebeest (0.140), and roan (0.250) was also greater in the dry season when compared with the wet season for kob (0.050), hartebeest (0.120) and roan (0.120). The opposite was found for zebu and hippo. Comparison of the species’ diet compositions with randomized data showed that dietary overlap between different herbivore species was much higher than what would be expected on the basis of chance, demonstrating surprisingly limited niche separation between species. This offers potential for competition, but it is more likely that the high niche overlap indicates absence of competition, due to low herbivore densities and abundant food resources, permitting species to share non-limiting resources. With increasing herbivore densities and subsequent increasing scarcity of resources, the relationship between diet quality and body mass in combination with increased niche separation is expected to become more visibl

Environmental factors influencing the spread of the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus in wild birds in Europe

A large number of occurrences of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus in wild birds were reported in Europe. The relationship between the occurrence pattern and environmental factors has, however, not yet been explored. This research uses logistic regression to quantify the relationships between anthropogenic or physical environmental factors and HPAI H5N1 occurrences. Our results indicate that HPAI H5N1 occurrences are highly correlated with the following: the increased normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in December; intermediate NDVI in March; lower elevations; increased minimum temperatures in January; and reduced precipitation in January. A predictive risk map of HPAI H5N1 occurrences in wild birds in Europe was generated on the basis of five key environmental factors. Independent validation of the risk map showed the predictive model to be of high accuracy (79%). The analysis suggests that HPAI H5N1 occurrences in wild birds are strongly influenced by the availability of food resources and are facilitated by increased temperatures and reduced precipitation. We therefore deduced that HPAI H5N1 occurrences in wild birds in Europe are probably caused by contact with other wild birds and not by contact with domestic poultry. These findings are important considerations for the global surveillance of HPAI H5N1 occurrences in wild birds

Will the Three Gorges Dam affect the underwater light climate of Vallisneria spiralis L. and food habitat of Siberian crane in Poyang Lake?

Almost 95% of the entire population of the Siberian crane (Grus leucogeranus) winter in Poyang Lake, China, where they forage on the tubers of the submerged aquatic macrophyte Vallisneria spiralis. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River may possibly affect this food source of the Siberian crane by affecting the light intensity reaching the top of the V. spiralis canopy. In this study, the photosynthetically active radiation at the top of the V. spiralis canopy (PARtc) in Lake Dahuchi was modeled from 1998 to 2006, and the potential impacts of changes in water level and turbidity on the underwater light climate of V. spiralis were analyzed. PARtc was calculated from incident irradiance while the losses due to reflection at the water surface, absorption, and scattering within the water column were taken into consideration. The results indicated significant differences in PARtc between years. Six years of water level and Secchi disk depth records revealed a seasonal switching of the lake from a turbid state at low water levels in autumn, winter, and spring to a clear state at high water levels during the monsoon in summer. The highest PARtc occurred at intermediate water levels, which were reached when the Yangtze River forces Lake Dahuchi out of its turbid state in early summer and the water becomes clear. The intended operation of the Three Gorges Dam, which will increase water levels in May and June, may advance the moment when Lake Dahuchi switches from turbid to clear. We suggest that this might increase production of V. spiralis and possibly improve the food habitat conditions for wintering Siberian crane in Poyang Lake