Monitoring Grazing Lands: How, Why, When, What?

Monitoring is the orderly collection, analysis and interpretation of information and data used to make short- and long-term management decisions (Wyoming Range Service Team 2001). Therefore, monitoring is an evaluation process used by animal and natural resource managers to help determine how rangeland or pasture systems respond to management (Holechek et al. 2004). The identification of monitoring as a process is crucial and suggests a number of important considerations. Monitoring has multiple components. This process includes not just collection, but also analysis and interpretation of information and data. Simply collecting information and data (for example taking lots of pictures) does not necessarily meet the definition of monitoring. The information and data collected as part of a monitoring effort must be put to use. The primary use of monitoring data and information is to support management decisions, and this requires analysis and interpretation of the information and data relative to management objectives, inputs and decisions. Analysis and interpretation are difficult or perhaps impossible in the absence of management objectives. Objectives facilitate evaluation by defining success. Natural resource objectives on grazing lands might describe the desired characteristics of vegetation, soil or water resources. Livestock or wildlife production objectives are often included in monitoring efforts as well. Finally, because monitoring is an ongoing process, organization and repeatability are important. Conducting monitoring efforts in an orderly manner ensures organization and repeatability. Evaluation of management decisions and actions relative to objectives depends on the ability to establish some relationship between management choices and responses observed on the land. The lack of organization and repeatability will likely lead to erroneous conclusions regarding the adequacy of management choices because differences (or lack there of) might be a result of different methods, timing or location of data / information collection. Monitoring is a tool that must be used properly. Tools have utility for particular tasks but may be useless if they don’t fit the application. When a piece of machinery breaks down, it is rarely productive to grab a 5/8” end wrench and start looking for something to tighten or loosen with it. It is much more effective to troubleshoot the problem, identify what needs to be done and then find the appropriate tool. Monitoring is very similar, so before addressing the what, when and how of monitoring grazing lands, it is important to establish why one would implement a monitoring program

Riparian Shrub Metal Concentrations and Growth in Amended Fluvial Mine Tailings

Fluvial mine tailing deposition has caused extensive riparian damage throughout the western United States. Willows are often used for fluvial mine tailing revegetation, but some species accumulate excessive metal concentrations which could be detrimental to browsers. In a greenhouse experiment, growth and metal accumulation of Geyer willow, Drummond’s willow, diamondleaf willow, Bebb willow, thinleaf alder, water birch, red-osier dogwood, and shrubby cinquefoil were evaluated for potential revegetation use. Bare-root shrubs were grown in tailings collected from three acidic, metal-contaminated (i.e. cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc) fluvial deposits near Leadville, Colorado, USA. Tailings were amended with only lime to raise the soil pH to 7, or with lime and composted biosolids (100 tons/acre). All shrubs survived in the amended tailings; composted biosolids had little effect on plant biomass. Aboveground and belowground biomass increased during the 2 month greenhouse study by 3 – 9 and 1.5 – 5 times initial values, respectively. Most shrubs accumulated lead and copper in roots, and belowground lead concentrations in all shrubs were significantly reduced by the addition of composted biosolids. Compared to other species, alder and cinquefoil accumulated lead in aboveground growth and concentrations exceeded animal toxicity thresholds. Dogwood, alder, and cinquefoil contained low cadmium concentrations in aboveground new growth, whereas Bebb and Geyer willow contained zootoxic concentrations. Dogwood, alder, and cinquefoil are three good candidates for mine tailing revegetation, especially in fluvial deposits with elevated cadmium concentrations

Revegetation of Fluvial Mine Tailing Deposits: The Use of Five Riparian Shrub Species

Fluvial deposition of mine tailings has caused extensive damage to riparian ecosystems throughout the West. Willows are often used for revegetation of fluvial mine tailing deposits but some species accumulate toxic concentrations of metals in leaves and stems. A greenhouse experiment was conducted to determine the value of thinleaf alder [Alnus incana (L.) Moench spp. tinuifolia (Nutt.) Breitung], water birch (Betula occidentalis Hook.), red osier dogwood (Cornus sericea L. spp. sericea), and shrubby cinquefoil [Dasiphora fruticosa (L.) Rybd.] compared to Geyer willow (Salix geyeriana Andersson) for revegetation of fluvial tailing deposits along the Upper Arkansas River. Bare root shrubs were grown in tailings amended with lime and composted biosolids. Tailings were collected from three acidic and metal contaminated deposits along the Arkansas River south of Leadville, Colorado. All shrubs survived the two month experiment. Averaged across source deposits, total biomass during the experiment increased for alder, birch, dogwood, cinquefoil, and willow by 831, 689, 579, 525, and 683%, respectively. All species concentrated Pb and Zn belowground. Dogwood assimilated little Zn (44.0 mg kg-1) into its leaves and stems, but showed signs of nutrient deficiency which could have been induced by metal stress. Alder and cinquefoil partitioned Pb aboveground, 30.3 and 26.1 mg kg-1, respectively, which is unusual, but concentrations were below toxicity thresholds for humans and animals. All species evaluated did not exhibit greater growth when compared to Geyer willow, but the other four riparian species had metal partitioning characteristics valuable for managers planning for in situ restoration of mine tailing deposits

Crossover recombination and synapsis are linked by adjacent regions within the N terminus of the Zip1 synaptonemal complex protein

Accurate chromosome segregation during meiosis relies on the prior establishment of at least one crossover recombination event between homologous chromosomes. Most meiotic recombination intermediates that give rise to interhomolog crossovers are embedded within a hallmark chromosomal structure called the synaptonemal complex (SC), but the mechanisms that coordinate the processes of SC assembly (synapsis) and crossover recombination remain poorly understood. Among known structural components of the budding yeast SC, the Zip1 protein is unique for its independent role in promoting crossover recombination; Zip1 is specifically required for the large subset of crossovers that also rely on the meiosis-specific MutSgamma complex. Here we report that adjacent regions within Zip1\u27s N terminus encompass its crossover and synapsis functions. We previously showed that deletion of Zip1 residues 21-163 abolishes tripartite SC assembly and prevents robust SUMOylation of the SC central element component, Ecm11, but allows excess MutSgamma crossover recombination. We find the reciprocal phenotype when Zip1 residues 2-9 or 10-14 are deleted; in these mutants SC assembles and Ecm11 is hyperSUMOylated, but MutSgamma crossovers are strongly diminished. Interestingly, Zip1 residues 2-9 or 2-14 are required for the normal localization of Zip3, a putative E3 SUMO ligase and pro-MutSgamma crossover factor, to Zip1 polycomplex structures and to recombination initiation sites. By contrast, deletion of Zip1 residues 15-20 does not detectably prevent Zip3\u27s localization at Zip1 polycomplex and supports some MutSgamma crossing over but prevents normal SC assembly and Ecm11 SUMOylation. Our results highlight distinct N terminal regions that are differentially critical for Zip1\u27s roles in crossing over and SC assembly; we speculate that the adjacency of these regions enables Zip1 to serve as a liaison, facilitating crosstalk between the two processes by bringing crossover recombination and synapsis factors within close proximity of one another

Model-Independent Semileptonic Form Factors Using Dispersion Relations

We present a method for parametrizing heavy meson semileptonic form factors using dispersion relations, and from it produce a two-parameter description of the B -> B elastic form factor. We use heavy quark symmetry to relate this function to B -> D* l nu form factors, and extract |V_cb|=0.0355^{+0.0029}_{-0.0025} from experimental data with a least squares fit. Our method eliminates model-dependent uncertainties inherent in choosing a parametrization for the extrapolation of the differential decay rate to threshold.Comment: uses lanlmac(harvmac) and epsf, 12 pages, 1 eps figure included (Talk by BG at the 6-th International Symposium on Heavy Flavour Physics, Pisa, Italy, 6--10 June, 1995

New Constraints on Dispersive Form Factor Parameterizations from the Timelike Region

We generalize a recent model-independent form factor parameterization derived from rigorous dispersion relations to include constraints from data in the timelike region. These constraints dictate the convergence properties of the parameterization and appear as sum rules on the parameters. We further develop a new parameterization that takes into account finiteness and asymptotic conditions on the form factor, and use it to fit to the elastic \pi electromagnetic form factor. We find that the existing world sample of timelike data gives only loose bounds on the form factor in the spacelike region, but explain how the acquisition of additional timelike data or fits to other form factors are expected to give much better results. The same parameterization is seen to fit spacelike data extremely well.Comment: 24 pages, latex (revtex), 3 eps figure

Non-Localizability and Asymptotic Commutativity

The mathematical formalism commonly used in treating nonlocal highly singular interactions is revised. The notion of support cone is introduced which replaces that of support for nonlocalizable distributions. Such support cones are proven to exist for distributions defined on the Gelfand-Shilov spaces $S^\beta$, where $0<\beta <1$ . This result leads to a refinement of previous generalizations of the local commutativity condition to nonlocal quantum fields. For string propagators, a new derivation of a representation similar to that of K\"{a}llen-Lehmann is proposed. It is applicable to any initial and final string configurations and manifests exponential growth of spectral densities intrinsic in nonlocalizable theories.Comment: This version is identical to the initial one whose ps and pdf files were unavailable, with few corrections of misprint

Relativistic Restrictions on the Distinguishability of Orthogonal Quantum States

We analyze the restrictions on the distinguishability of quantum states imposed by special relativity. An explicit expression relating the error probability for distinguishing between two orthogonal single-photon states with the time $T$ elapsed from the start of the measurement procedure until the measurement result is obtained by the observer.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure (misprints in formulas corrected

Theory of unitarity bounds and low energy form factors

We present a general formalism for deriving bounds on the shape parameters of the weak and electromagnetic form factors using as input correlators calculated from perturbative QCD, and exploiting analyticity and unitarity. The values resulting from the symmetries of QCD at low energies or from lattice calculations at special points inside the analyticity domain can beincluded in an exact way. We write down the general solution of the corresponding Meiman problem for an arbitrary number of interior constraints and the integral equations that allow one to include the phase of the form factor along a part of the unitarity cut. A formalism that includes the phase and some information on the modulus along a part of the cut is also given. For illustration we present constraints on the slope and curvature of the K_l3 scalar form factor and discuss our findings in some detail. The techniques are useful for checking the consistency of various inputs and for controlling the parameterizations of the form factors entering precision predictions in flavor physics.Comment: 11 pages latex using EPJ style files, 5 figures; v2 is version accepted by EPJA in Tools section; sentences and figures improve

Analyticity, Shapes of Semileptonic Form Factors, and B to pi l nu

We give a pedagogical discussion of the physics underlying dispersion relation-derived parameterizations of form factors describing B -> pi l nu and B -> D l nu. Moments of the dispersion relations are shown to provide substantially tighter constraints on the f_+ (t) form factor describing B -> pi l nu than the unweighted dispersion relation alone. Heavy quark spin symmetry relations between the B -> pi l nu and B^* -> pi l nu form factors enables such constraints to be tightened even further.Comment: 18 pages, Latex, three eps figures include