Salute To Beloit

Song title and composer\u27s name with flowers and vineshttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/11252/thumbnail.jp

Effects of Livestock Grazing and Cultural Treatments on Regeneration of Green Ash Woodlands on the Northern Great Plains: An Update

Many green ash woodlands (Fraxinus pennsylvanica ) have become decadent with broken stems and limited regeneration of both trees and shrubs on the northern Great Plains. The purpose of this study was to determine the response of woodland regeneration of shrubs, trees and planting woody species over 25 post-treatment years (1) to livestock grazing with thinning low vigor trees, (40% reduction) in woodlands with transplanting woody plants, (2) livestock grazing with un-thinned woodlands-no transplanting of woody plants, (3) no livestock grazing with thinning low vigor trees, (40% reduction) in woodlands with transplanting woody plants, and (4) no livestock grazing with un-thinned woodlands-no transplanting of woody plants. Initial treatment response for trees and shrubs occurred during the first 6 years of post-treatment. After 25 years of post-treatment, trees and shrubs were not different between livestock grazing and no grazing treatments. American elm (Ulmus americana ) decreased in stem density and may have been influenced by disease. Stem density of snowberry (Symphoricarpos occidentalis ) decreased in the unthinned treatment. Common chokecherry (Prunus virginiana ) stem densities remained relatively constant over 25 years of post-treatments. Planted shrub and tree species had greater than 50% survival in ungrazed versus grazed treatments. Survival of bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa ), Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum ) and American plum (Prunus americana ) was greater when livestock grazing was excluded. Herbaceous standing crop of the grasses, forbs, and total was variable throughout all years among treatments

Ecological Model for Classifying and Monitoring of Green Needlegrass/Western Wheatgrass/Blue Gramma/Buffalograss Ecological Type

A multivariate statistical model was developed to classify plant seral stages and to monitor succession of the green needlegrass (Nassella viridula (Trin.) Barkworth), western wheatgrass (Pascopyrum smithii (Rydb.) Á Löve), blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis (Willd. ex Kunth) Lag. ex Griffiths), buffalograss (Bouteloua dactyloides (Nutt.) J.T. Columbus) ecological type on grasslands of North and South Dakota, eastern Montana and Wyoming. Seral stages are objectively derived groupings of vegetation composition based on the range of natural variability within the current grassland ecological type. The model developed in this paper can be used by range and wildlife managers to evaluate management objectives by monitoring changes in plant species cover and composition within and among seral stages and community phases.  Four ecological seral stages representing early to late succession were quantitatively identified with an estimated 98 percent accuracy. Three common perennial grasses provide the information to assign seral stages and monitor trends based on index values (canopy cover (%) x frequency of occurrence (%)) for western wheatgrass, buffalo grass and green needlegrass.  Estimates of canopy cover and frequency of occurrence of these three plant species are all that is required for the model. The four defined seral stages provide resource managers with options to quantitatively evaluate management alternatives and objectives associated with state and transition community phases. The developed model for this ecological type is simple to use, reliable, repeatable, accurate and cost effective to meet management objectives and monitoring plans

Exercise training and detraining process affects plasma adiponectin level in healthy and spontaneously hypertensive rats

BACKGROUND: Adiponectin levels with long-term swimming exercise have been never investigated in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). OBJECTIVE: This study was aimed to investigate the effects of exercise and detraining process on the adiponectin plasma levels of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and healthy Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY). MATERIAL AND METHODS: The rats in the exercise groups were swimming for 10 weeks, 5 days/week, one hour in a day. The detraining rats were left to be sedentary in their cages for 5 weeks after 10 weeks of exercise period. RESULTS: The plasma adiponectin levels decreased in E and SHRE groups compared to the SC and the SHR groups, respectively. In addition, blood pressure was decreased in the exercise groups vs their controls. The adiponectin level was not found to be significantly different in ED and SHRED groups compared to their controls. The blood pressure did not differ between SDC and ED groups, although in the SHRED group it was found to be lower than in SHRSD group rats. CONCLUSION: The results of this study showed that exercise reduced plasma levels of adiponectin in healthy and spontaneously hypertensive rats. However, this difference disappeared at the end of the training processes. Our results suggest, that changes in plasma adiponectin levels are not responsible for changes in blood pressure

Ecological Model for Seral Stage Classification and Monitoring with Key Plants on Sandy Ecological Sites in Nebraska and South Dakota

The objectives were to develop a multivariate model (state and transition) to define and classify seral stages with capabilities that enable us to monitor vegetation changes with three key plant species within a sandy ecological site located in the Sand Hills of Nebraska and South Dakota.  Three key plant species, prairie sandreed (Calamovilfa longifolia) /little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)/sun sedge (Carex inops) provided inputs for the model to classify seral stages and to monitor vegetation transitions based on index values (canopy cover (%) x frequency of occurrence (%)) from field measurements within the full range of natural variability.  The model does not require a straight progression through all seral stages or plant phases but may go through multiple stages or remain at a steady state.  Four seral stages that represent early to late succession provided an assignment accuracy of 90 percent.  Seral stages were significantly different (P<0.05) from each other.  Application of the model to predict seral stages and vegetation monitoring is accurate, quantitative and free of subjective judgments

The roles and contributions of Biodiversity Observation Networks (BONs) in better tracking progress to 2020 biodiversity targets: a European case study

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets of the United Nations’ Strategic Plan for Biodiversity set ambitious goals for protecting biodiversity from further decline. Increased efforts are urgently needed to achieve these targets by 2020. The availability of comprehensive, sound and up-to-date biodiversity data is a key requirement to implement policies, strategies and actions to address biodiversity loss, monitor progress towards biodiversity targets, as well as to assess the current status and future trends of biodiversity. Key gaps, however, remain in our knowledge of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. These are mostly a result of barriers preventing existing data from being discoverable, accessible and digestible. In this paper, we describe what regional Biodiversity Observation Networks (BONs) can do to address these barriers using the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) as an example. We conclude that there is an urgent need for a paradigm shift in how biodiversity data are collected, stored, shared and streamlined in order to tackle the many sustainable development challenges ahead. We need a shift towards an integrative biodiversity information framework, starting from collection to the final interpretation and packaging of data. This is a major objective of the EU BON project, towards which progress is being made

SYNTHESYS+ Virtual Access - Report on the Ideas Call (October to November 2019)

The SYNTHESYS consortium has been operational since 2004, and has facilitated physical access by individual researchers to European natural history collections through its Transnational Access programme (TA). For the first time, SYNTHESYS+ will be offering virtual access to collections through digitisation, with two calls for the programme, the first in 2020 and the second in 2021. The Virtual Access (VA) programme is not a direct digital parallel of Transnational Access - proposals for collections digitisation will be prioritised and carried out based on community demand, and data must be made openly available immediately. A key feature of Virtual Access is that, unlike TA, it does not select the researchers to whom access is provided. Because Virtual Access in this way is new to the community and to the collections-holding institutions, the SYNTHESYS+ consortium invited ideas through an Ideas Call, that opened on 7th October 2019 and closed on 22nd November 2019, in order to assess interest and to trial procedures. This report is intended to provide feedback to those who participated in the Ideas Call and to help all applicants to the first SYNTHESYS+Virtual Access Call that will be launched on 20th of February 2020.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published pdf