Guidelines for small ruminant production systems under climate emergency in Europe

Projected climate change will involve an additional threat for the sustainability of small ruminant production systems in Europe. Aiming to understand its implications, we conducted a literature review on climate change interactions with sheep and goat systems. The review first identifies the main potential impacts on productivity at the animal level (heat stress effects) and at the forage level (quantity and quality). Results from analysed studies suggest that heat stress thresholds for small ruminants could be higher than previously indicated, although they still will be affected during projected heatwaves. At the forage level, the potential positive effect of CO2 fertilisation will probably be counteracted in most of the cases due to extreme weather events and other limitations. Based on that findings, the review analyses the most suitable adaptation strategies on animal heat stress and pasture production. Particular attention is paid to integrated approaches, providing co-benefits at different levels. Finally, structural and practical challenges affecting small ruminants’ sustainability in a climate change context are discussed, together with potential synergies and trade-offs among different policies and/or strategies. According to the information reviewed, small ruminant systems could be particularly vulnerable to environmental changes, as they are often produced in harsh areas under already severe circumstances. At the same time, they have particular features that could involve advantages against other livestock systems to cope with –and fight against- future climatic conditions. Consequently, they should play a important role for the climate change adaptation and mitigation options within the livestock sector.This research is supported by the Spanish Government through María de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2018-2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714) and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021 programme. This work was also supported by the Horizon2020 SFS-01c-2015 project entitled “Innovation of sustainable sheep and goat production in Europe (iSAGE)” (grant number 679302 ). Agustin del Prado is financed by the programme Ramon y Cajal from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness ( RYC-2017-22143 )

A simple model for the effect of thermal stress on the productivity of small ruminants

Projected climatic changes are expected to change temperature and precipitation patterns and to increase the frequency of extreme events in many regions of the world. This will affect livestock systems through direct effects on animal performance as a result of thermal stress. The purpose of this work is to develop a model that is able to estimate the potential impact of thermal stress on the productivity of small ruminants. To do so, a semi-mechanistic model is proposed, based on an energy balance perspective and the application of the temperature-humidity index (THI) as an indicator of the heat stress severity level. The effect of thermal stress on animal's energy balance is captured by two main mechanisms: i) an increase in energy maintenance requirements and ii) a modification on feed intake. As a result of energy imbalance, the decline on animal productivity is estimated (i.e. milk yield, tissue growth). The different components of the model have been tested against available experimental data, showing that it is able to capture non-linear productivity losses across a range of heat stress conditions and systems. Finally, the applicability of the model is tested with dfifferent examples, and limitations and strengths are discussed. Despite some constraints, we highlight its relative simplicity and flexibility, so it would be feasible to be integrated into whole farm modelling approaches and/or feed requirement systems for small ruminants. This will help to predict the potential consequences of climate change on productivity, and to explore appropriate adaptation strategies. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.This research is supported by the Spanish Government through María de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2018-2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714 ) and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021 programme. This work was also supported by the Horizon2020 SFS-01c-2015 project entitled “Innovation of sustainable sheep and goat production in Europe (iSAGE)” (grant number 679302 ). Agustin del Prado is financed by the programme Ramon y Cajal from the Spanish Ministry of Economy , Industry and Competitiveness ( RYC-2017-22143 )

Towards a Multimodal Time-Based Empathy Prediction System

We describe our system for empathic emotion recognition. It is based on deep learning on multiple modalities in a late fusion architecture. We describe the modules of our system and discuss the evaluation results. Our code is also available for the research community

Estimating soil organic carbon changes in managed temperate moist grasslands with RothC

Temperate grassland soils store significant amounts of carbon (C). Estimating how much livestock grazing and manuring can influence grassland soil organic carbon (SOC) is key to improve greenhouse gas grassland budgets. The Rothamsted Carbon (RothC) model, although originally developed and parameterized to model the turnover of organic C in arable topsoil, has been widely used, with varied success, to estimate SOC changes in grassland under different climates, soils, and management conditions. In this paper, we hypothesise that RothC-based SOC predictions in managed grasslands under temperate moist climatic conditions can be improved by incorporating small modifications to the model based on existing field data from diverse experimental locations in Europe. For this, we described and evaluated changes at the level of: (1) the soil water function of RothC, (2) entry pools accounting for the degradability of the exogenous organic matter (EOM) applied (e.g., ruminant excreta), (3) the month-on-month change in the quality of C inputs coming from plant residues (i.e above-, below-ground plant residue and rhizodeposits), and (4) the livestock trampling effect (i.e., poaching damage) as a common problem in areas with higher annual precipitation. In order to evaluate the potential utility of these changes, we performed a simple sensitivity analysis and tested the model predictions against averaged data from four grassland experiments in Europe. Our evaluation showed that the default model''s performance was 78% and whereas some of the modifications seemed to improve RothC SOC predictions (model performance of 95% and 86% for soil water function and plant residues, respectively), others did not lead to any/or almost any improvement (model performance of 80 and 46% for the change in the C input quality and livestock trampling, respectively). We concluded that, whereas adding more complexity to the RothC model by adding the livestock trampling would actually not improve the model, adding the modified soil water function and plant residue components, and at a lesser extent residues quality, could improve predictability of the RothC in managed grasslands under temperate moist climatic conditions. © 2021 Jebari et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Workshop kassenteelt in Suriname

Van 15 tot en met 17 november 2011 is in Paramaribo op het Ministerie van Landbouw, Veeteelt & Visserij een eerste workshop gehouden voor telers en adviseurs, die nauw betrokken zijn bij teelten onder beschermde omstandigheden. Tijdens de workshop zijn de volgende onderwerpen aan de orde gekomen: kassenteelt in de tropen, sla op NFT, de teelten van paprika en tomaat en telen op substraat. Tijdens het onderwerp kassenteelt in de tropen werd inzage gegeven in de verschillende kastypen en ervaring daarmee in Indonesië en Maleisië. Ook werd stilgestaan bij het integraal kasontwerp

Animal board invited review: Opportunities and challenges in using GWP* to report the impact of ruminant livestock on global temperature change

Ruminant livestock is a large contributor of CH4 emissions globally. Assessing how this CH4 and other greenhouse gases (GHG) from livestock contribute to anthropogenic climate change is key to understanding their role in achieving any temperature targets. The climate impacts of livestock, as well as other sectors or products/services, are generally expressed as CO2-equivalents using 100-year Global Warming Potentials (GWP100). However, the GWP100 cannot be used to translate emission pathways of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) emissions to their temperature outcomes. A key limitation of handling long- and short-lived gases in the same manner is revealed in the context of any potential temperature stabilisation goals: to achieve this outcome, emissions of long-lived gases must decline to net-zero, but this is not the case for SLCPs. A recent alternative metric, GWP* (so-called ‘GWP-star’), has been proposed to overcome these concerns. GWP* allows for simple appraisals of warming over time for emission series of different GHGs that may not be obvious if using pulse-emission metrics (i.e. GWP100). In this article, we explore some of the strengths and limitations of GWP* for reporting the contribution of ruminant livestock systems to global temperature change. A number of case studies are used to illustrate the potential use of the GWP* metric to, for example, understand the current contribution of different ruminant livestock production systems to global warming, appraise how different production systems or mitigations compare (having a temporal element), and seeing how possible emission pathways driven by changes in production, emissions intensity and gas composition show different impacts over time. We suggest that for some contexts, particularly if trying to directly infer contributions to additional warming, GWP* or similar approaches can provide important insight that would not be gained from conventional GWP100 reporting. © 2023This research is supported by María de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2018-2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/; and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2022-2025 program. Agustin del Prado is financed by the programme Ramon y Cajal from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (RYC-2017-22143) and Ikerbasque. JL acknowledges funding from Wellcome Trust, Our Planet Our Health (Livestock, Environment and People—LEAP), award number 205212/Z/16/Z. FM and SH are funded by the California Air Resources Board (CARB35C10_18ISD025

Listening to the Voices of Teacher Candidates to Design Content Area Literacy Courses

While teacher candidates take courses which prepare them to deliver content in secondary content area classrooms, they often lack the knowledge necessary to help their future students learn discipline-specific information through the use of literacy strategies. In many cases, content area teacher candidates do not view themselves as literacy educators, believing instead that English teachers or elementary level educators are responsible for developing the reading and writing skills of students. However, development as teachers of literacy is possible. Through a content area literacy course taken as part of a teacher preparation program, secondary content area teacher candidates reported changes in their perceptions of and willingness to use literacy strategies to improve the learning outcomes of their students. Through pre-course and post-course surveys, teacher candidates reported an expanded understanding of the importance of literacy in the development of content knowledge

Sub-bandgap spectral photo-response analysis of Ti supersaturated Si

We have analyzed the increase of the sheet conductance (ΔG□) under spectral illumination in high dose Ti implanted Si samples subsequently processed by pulsed-laser melting. Samples with Ti concentration clearly above the insulator-metal transition limit show a remarkably high ΔG□, even higher than that measured in a silicon reference sample. This increase in the ΔG□ magnitude is contrary to the classic understanding of recombination centers action and supports the lifetime recovery predicted for concentrations of deep levels above the insulator-metal transition

Systematic review of fatty acid composition of human milk from mothers of preterm compared to full-term infants

Background: Fatty acid composition of human milk serves as guidance for the composition of infant formulae. The aim of the study was to systematically review data on the fatty acid composition of human milk of mothers of preterm compared to full-term infants. Methods: An electronic literature search was performed in English (Medline and Medscape) and German (SpringerLink) databases and via the Google utility. Fatty acid compositional data for preterm and fullterm human milk were converted to differences between means and 95% confidence intervals. Results: We identified five relevant studies publishing direct comparison of fatty acid composition of preterm versus full-term human milk. There were no significant differences between the values of the principal saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. In three independent studies covering three different time points of lactation, however, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) values were significantly higher in milk of mothers of preterm as compared to those of full-term infants, with an extent of difference considered nutritionally relevant. Conclusion: Higher DHA values in preterm than in full-term human milk underlines the importance of using own mother's milk for feeding preterm babies and raises the question whether DHA contents in preterm formulae should be higher than in formulae for full-term infants. Copyright (c) 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel

Ruling out the impact of defects on the below band gap photoconductivity of Ti supersaturated Si

In this study, we present a structural and optoelectronic characterization of high dose Ti implanted Si subsequently pulsed-laser melted (Ti supersaturated Si). Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry analysis reveals that the theoretical Mott limit has been surpassed after the laser process and transmission electron microscopy images show a good lattice reconstruction. Optical characterization shows strong sub-band gap absorption related to the high Ti concentration. Photoconductivity measurements show that Ti supersaturated Si presents spectral response orders of magnitude higher than unimplanted Si at energies below the band gap. We conclude that the observed below band gap photoconductivity cannot be attributed to structural defects produced by the fabrication processes and suggest that both absorption coefficient of the new material and lifetime of photoexcited carriers have been enhanced due to the presence of a high Ti concentration. This remarkable result proves that Ti supersaturated Si is a promising material for both infrared detectors and high efficiency photovoltaic devices