69 research outputs found
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Purification and Characterization of Aldolase From Ambystoma Tigrinum
The muscle aldolase from Ambystoma tigrinum has been purified 73-fold to a final specific activity of 13.2 units per mg. The purified enzyme appeared to be homogenous by ultracentrifugation and electrophoretic criteria. A molecular weight of 159,000 + 1000 was determined by gel filtration on Sephadex G-200 and high speed sedimentation equilibrium ultracentrifugation. The enzyme migrated identically with rabbit muscle aldolase when subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and is apparently a tetramer of nearly identical subunits of approximately 40,000 MW. The catalytic constants of the salamander enzyme were similar to those reported for other muscle aldolases with the exception of the unusually low Fru-P2/FlP ratio
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Systematic mapping shows the need for increased socio-ecological research on oil palm
Abstract
In the past century, oil palm has developed from a sustenance crop in West Africa to a major global agricultural commodity, with substantial impacts on biodiversity, the environment, society, and livelihoods. Although the oil palm industry contributes to local and national economies across the tropics, there are significant concerns about the negative effects of oil palm cultivation on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, as well on local communities and farmers. There is a growing awareness of the need for managing agricultural landscapes more sustainably, and the importance of ecological, social, and also interdisciplinary research to inform this. To understand the current status of research across these areas for oil palm, we carried out a systematic mapping exercise to quantify social, ecological, and interdisciplinary socio-ecological research on oil palm cultivation, assess trends in the research, and to identify priority knowledge gaps in the literature. Literature was searched using adapted preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses and Collaboration for Environmental Evidence protocols. We reviewed 4959 publications on the ecological, social, and socioecological effects of oil palm cultivation. Each publication was classified according to study context (the study site location and type), comparators (the type of comparison the study makes), intervention (the potential action or decision being studied), and outcome (the effects of the intervention on the population). This resulted in 443 classified papers, which we then analyzed in more detail, to identify co-occurrence of different research foci between the disciplines and in socio-ecological research. We found a global increase in oil palm research over the past three decades, with a clear bias to Malaysia and Indonesia, mirroring global production trends. Over 70% of the research was focused on ecological outcomes, 19% on social, and less than 10% interdisciplinary. The majority of studies were conducted within industrial plantations, with comparisons to non-modified habitats, such as forests. Research has focused most on the effects of cultivation on yield, invertebrate biodiversity, and livelihood. To place our findings in context of production of palm oil and sustainability priorities, we used information on regional oil palm production in Tonnes, priorities of sustainable certification bodies, and recognized causes of yield gaps. The most pressing knowledge gaps included a lack of studies on the effects of plantation inputs on pollination and herbivory, the relationship between ecological factors and human health and wellbeing, and comparisons of different management practices within oil palm plantations. We advocate that these gaps become the focus of future research attention, as they lie in identified priority research areas and outcomes are likely to be critical to informing the development of more sustainable palm oil production.Gates Cambridge Trus
Recommended from our members
Systematic mapping shows the need for increased socio-ecological research on oil palm
Abstract
In the past century, oil palm has developed from a sustenance crop in West Africa to a major global agricultural commodity, with substantial impacts on biodiversity, the environment, society, and livelihoods. Although the oil palm industry contributes to local and national economies across the tropics, there are significant concerns about the negative effects of oil palm cultivation on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, as well on local communities and farmers. There is a growing awareness of the need for managing agricultural landscapes more sustainably, and the importance of ecological, social, and also interdisciplinary research to inform this. To understand the current status of research across these areas for oil palm, we carried out a systematic mapping exercise to quantify social, ecological, and interdisciplinary socio-ecological research on oil palm cultivation, assess trends in the research, and to identify priority knowledge gaps in the literature. Literature was searched using adapted preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses and Collaboration for Environmental Evidence protocols. We reviewed 4959 publications on the ecological, social, and socioecological effects of oil palm cultivation. Each publication was classified according to study context (the study site location and type), comparators (the type of comparison the study makes), intervention (the potential action or decision being studied), and outcome (the effects of the intervention on the population). This resulted in 443 classified papers, which we then analyzed in more detail, to identify co-occurrence of different research foci between the disciplines and in socio-ecological research. We found a global increase in oil palm research over the past three decades, with a clear bias to Malaysia and Indonesia, mirroring global production trends. Over 70% of the research was focused on ecological outcomes, 19% on social, and less than 10% interdisciplinary. The majority of studies were conducted within industrial plantations, with comparisons to non-modified habitats, such as forests. Research has focused most on the effects of cultivation on yield, invertebrate biodiversity, and livelihood. To place our findings in context of production of palm oil and sustainability priorities, we used information on regional oil palm production in Tonnes, priorities of sustainable certification bodies, and recognized causes of yield gaps. The most pressing knowledge gaps included a lack of studies on the effects of plantation inputs on pollination and herbivory, the relationship between ecological factors and human health and wellbeing, and comparisons of different management practices within oil palm plantations. We advocate that these gaps become the focus of future research attention, as they lie in identified priority research areas and outcomes are likely to be critical to informing the development of more sustainable palm oil production.Gates Cambridge Trus
The socioecological benefits and consequences of oil palm cultivation in its native range: the sustainable oil palm in West Africa (SOPWA) project
Agriculture is expanding rapidly across the tropics. While cultivation can boost socioeconomic conditions and food security, it also threatens native ecosystems. Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), which is grown pantropically, is the most productive vegetable oil crop worldwide. The impacts of oil palm cultivation have been studied extensively in Southeast Asia and – to a lesser extent – in Latin America but, in comparison, very little is known about its impacts in Africa: oil palm's native range, and where cultivation is expanding rapidly. In this paper, we introduce a large-scale research programme – the Sustainable Oil Palm in West Africa (SOPWA) Project – that is evaluating the relative ecological impacts of oil palm cultivation under traditional (i.e., by local people) and industrial (i.e., by a large-scale corporation) management in Liberia. Our paper is twofold in focus. First, we use systematic mapping to appraise the literature on oil palm research in an African context, assessing the geographic and disciplinary focus of existing research. We found 757 publications occurring in 36 African countries. Studies tended to focus on the impacts of palm oil consumption on human health and wellbeing. We found no research that has evaluated the whole-ecosystem (i.e., multiple taxa and ecosystem functions) impacts of oil palm cultivation in Africa, a knowledge gap which the SOPWA Project directly addresses. Second, we describe the SOPWA Project's study design and—using canopy cover, ground vegetation cover, and soil temperature data as a case study—demonstrate its utility for assessing differences between areas of rainforest and oil palm agriculture. We outline the socioecological data collected by the SOPWA Project to date and describe the potential for future research, to encourage new collaborations and additional similar projects of its kind in West Africa. Increased research in Africa is needed urgently to understand the combined ecological and sociocultural impacts of oil palm and other agriculture in this unique region. This will help to ensure long-term sustainability of the oil palm industry—and, indeed, all tropical agricultural activity—in Africa
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