Historical Irrigated Meadows at the River Queich, Rhineland-Palatinate

For centuries the meadows at the river Queich in southern Rhineland-Palatinate were irrigated to enhance the quantity and quality of hay. With the introduction of fertili-zers irrigation was stopped in most areas but partly reactivated within the last few years. Today we find a small-scaled mosaic of (non-) irrigated and (un-) fertilized meadows. The Institute for Environmental Sciences Landau at the University of Koblenz - Landau conducts interdisciplinary research on the meadows to investigate the effects of irrigation and the interactions between the involved terrestrial and aquatic systems

Discutindo a educação ambiental no cotidiano escolar: desenvolvimento de projetos na escola formação inicial e continuada de professores

A presente pesquisa buscou discutir como a Educação Ambiental (EA) vem sendo trabalhada, no Ensino Fundamental e como os docentes desta escola compreendem e vem inserindo a EA no cotidiano escolar., em uma escola estadual do município de Tangará da Serra/MT, Brasil. Para tanto, realizou-se entrevistas com os professores que fazem parte de um projeto interdisciplinar de EA na escola pesquisada. Verificou-se que o projeto da escola não vem conseguindo alcançar os objetivos propostos por: desconhecimento do mesmo, pelos professores; formação deficiente dos professores, não entendimento da EA como processo de ensino-aprendizagem, falta de recursos didáticos, planejamento inadequado das atividades. A partir dessa constatação, procurou-se debater a impossibilidade de tratar do tema fora do trabalho interdisciplinar, bem como, e principalmente, a importância de um estudo mais aprofundado de EA, vinculando teoria e prática, tanto na formação docente, como em projetos escolares, a fim de fugir do tradicional vínculo “EA e ecologia, lixo e horta”.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Time Perspective and Emotion Regulation as Predictors of Age-Related Subjective Passage of Time

Hardly any empirical work exists concerning the relationship between the intra-individually stable time perspective relating to the past, present, and future and the subjective speed of time passing in everyday life. Moreover, studies consistently show that the subjective passage of time over the period of the last ten years speeds up as we get older. Modulating variables influencing this phenomenon are still unknown. To investigate these two unresolved issues, we conducted an online survey with n = 423 participants ranging in age between 17 and 81 assessing trait time perspective of the past, present, and future, and relating these subscales with a battery of measures pertaining to the subjective passage of time. Moreover, the subjective passage of time as an age-dependent variable was probed in relationship to emotion awareness, appraisal and regulation. Results show how present hedonism is linked with having fewer routines in life and a faster passage of the last week; the past negative perspective is related to time pressure, time expansion and more routine; a pronounced future perspective is related to a general faster passage of time. Importantly, increased emotion regulation and a balanced time perspective are related to a slower passage of the last ten years. These novel findings are discussed within models of time perception and the time perspective

On the usefulness of memory skills in social interactions: modifying the iterated prisoner's dilemma

The present experiment introduces a modification of the iterated prisoner's dilemma (PD). In contrast to classical dilemma situations with only one interaction partner, participants (N = 120) interacted with five fictitious interaction partners within one game, either in a random order (change condition) or against each of the interaction partners in succession (block condition). The authors assume that the change condition simulates the social interactions of a real environment more accurately and that individual memory skills are more important in the change condition as compared to the block condition. As dependent variables, the participants' score in the game was recorded, as well as the participants' memory performance concerning information about their interaction partners. Results show that good memory performance with respect to biographical information leads to higher scores only in the condition with changing interaction partners, but not in the block condition

Effects of Traditional Flood Irrigation on Invertebrates in Lowland Meadows

<div><p>Lowland meadow irrigation used to be widespread in Central Europe, but has largely been abandoned during the 20^th century. As a result of agri-environment schemes and nature conservation efforts, meadow irrigation is now being re-established in some European regions. In the absence of natural flood events, irrigation is expected to favour fauna typical of lowland wet meadows. We analysed the effects of traditional flood irrigation on diversity, densities and species composition of three invertebrate indicator taxa in lowland meadows in Germany. Unexpectedly, alpha diversity (species richness and Simpson diversity) and beta diversity (multivariate homogeneity of group dispersions) of orthopterans, carabids, and spiders were not significantly different between irrigated and non-irrigated meadows. However, spider densities were significantly higher in irrigated meadows. Furthermore, irrigation and elevated humidity affected species composition and shifted assemblages towards moisture-dependent species. The number of species of conservation concern, however, did not differ between irrigated and non-irrigated meadows. More variable and intensive (higher duration and/or frequency) flooding regimes might provide stronger conservation benefits, additional species and enhance habitat heterogeneity on a landscape scale.</p></div

Globally Abundant “ Candidatus Udaeobacter” Benefits from Release of Antibiotics in Soil and Potentially Performs Trace Gas Scavenging

Verrucomicrobia affiliated with “Candidatus Udaeobacter” belong to the most abundant soil bacteria worldwide. Although the synthesis of antibiotics presumably evolved in soil, and environmental pollution with antimicrobials increases, the impact of these complex molecules on “Ca. Udaeobacter” remains to be elucidated. In this study, we demonstrate that “Ca. Udaeobacter” representatives residing in grassland as well as forest soil ecosystems show multidrug resistance and even take advantage of antibiotics release. Soils treated with up to six different antibiotics exhibited a higher “Ca. Udaeobacter” abundance than corresponding controls after 3, 8, and 20 days of incubation. In this context, we provide evidence that “Ca. Udaeobacter” representatives may utilize nutrients which are released due to antibiotic-driven lysis of other soil microbes and thereby reduce energetically expensive synthesis of required biomolecules. Moreover, genomic analysis revealed the presence of genes conferring resistance to multiple classes of antibiotics and indicated that “Ca. Udaeobacter” representatives most likely oxidize the trace gas H2 to generate energy. This energy might be required for long-term persistence in terrestrial habitats, as already suggested for other dominant soil bacteria. Our study illustrates, for the first time, that globally abundant “Ca. Udaeobacter” benefits from release of antibiotics, which confers advantages over other soil bacteria and represents a so-far overlooked fundamental lifestyle feature of this poorly characterized verrucomicrobial genus. Furthermore, our study suggests that “Ca. Udaeobacter” representatives can utilize H2 as an alternative electron donor

Effects of management and environmental variables on species composition of orthopterans, carabids, and spiders in irrigated and non-irrigated meadows in the Queichtal, Germany.

<p>Significance was tested by permutational multivariate ANOVA (command ‘adonis’ in R package vegan). Significant results (P<0.05) are shown in bold.</p><p>Effects of management and environmental variables on species composition of orthopterans, carabids, and spiders in irrigated and non-irrigated meadows in the Queichtal, Germany.</p

Beta diversity (multivariate homogeneity of dispersions) of a) orthopterans, b) carabid and c) spider assemblages of irrigated and non-irrigated meadows.

<p>Distances (Sørensen similarity) are reduced to principal coordinates and distances to group centroids (irrigated or non-irrigated) are shown. Differences of mean distances between meadow types were tested by ANOVA.</p

NMDS ordinations of a) orthopterans, b) carabid and c) spider species composition of irrigated and non-irrigated meadows.

<p>Only significant environmental variables are shown (permutational multivariate ANOVA, for statistics see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0110854#pone-0110854-t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a>).</p