Functional agrobiodievrsity - a novel approach to optimize pest control in fruit production

Functional agrobiodiversity was implemented in organic apple orchards in Denmark, by perennial flower strips. Two techniques were tested with the purpose of enhancing natural enemies and reducing damage of the rosy apple aphid

Functional agrobiodiversity –a novel approach to optimize pest control in fruit production

Fruit growers suffer great economic losses each year due to pest damage. The demand for organic produce is increasing along with the interest from growers to develop sustainable and more resilient production systems and over 20% of the apple production in Denmark is now organic. Available pest management options are limited and prevention is important for resilience. In the project PROTECFRUIT we test the use of functional agrobiodiversity, by promoting the abundance and diversity of natural enemies in ecological infrastructures using perennial, wild flower strips in organic orchards. Rosy apple aphid, Dysaphis plantaginea, infestation and damage, and predator abundance and diversity were assessed in organic orchards with flower strips and compared to organic orchards without flower strips. In orchards with flower strips these parameters were also assessed as a function of distance to flower strip. The methodology includes visual observations, beating samples and sentinel prey to estimate predation activity. Field trials were conducted in 2016 and will be repeated again in 2017. Preliminary results show that aphid infestation and fruit damage were less in orchards with flower strips than in control orchards

PRÆSENTATIONSHÅNDBOG MED ENKLE METODER TIL OPGØRELSE AF FUNKTIONEL BIODIVERSITET I ØKOLOGISKE FRUGTPLANTAGER

Purpose of the monitoring methods: Familiarize producers with the simplified observation of beneficials Raise the awareness of producers to the natural regulations that are occurring in their orchards Engage the adaptation of plant protection practices in order to optimize these regulations When possible, observe the effect on biological control of agroecological infrastructures implemented in the orchard over space and time The state of the art does not provide threshold values of natural enemies as decision support for immediate pest management measures as pesticide application Purpose of evaluation of monitoring techniques - Co-define the criteria that have to be met so that the methods can be used by the farmers and advisors - Refine the proposed protocols for the different methods : Determine the respective advantages and the flaws of monitoring methods and their protocols and refine the protocols accordingly - Bring out and build on the assessment of the farmers about the methods Method : Four monitoring methods have been selected by the EcoOrchard project after literature review and initial testing. Each producer in the EBIONET network is offered to choose one or more monitoring method among the four presented in this booklet and additional methods suggested by the stakeholders during the national workshops. The list with the additional methods are in the report of the workshop, the organizers should be available to provide protocols for these methods (for that purpose, it is possible to contact [put the name and contact of the national coordinator]). The producers and advisors will apply the method(s) in the orchards they work in. The purpose is to familiarize with the monitoring of the main beneficials and to evaluate how user-friendly the methods and instructions are. The method can be tested in several ways : By comparing the results of a monitoring nearby an agroecological infrastructure (AEI - e.g. a composite hedge, a flower strip, a water body, nest boxes etc) with the results of a control monitoring distant from any AEI (cf. figure below), In an orchard which is managed with an agroecological practice, like reduced mowing, In order to follow the temporal evolution of arthropods at key moments of the season, like the arrival or the peak of abundance of an insect (according to the life cycles of the aimed populations, cf. protocoles), To monitor the impact of a treatment on arthropods (observation before and after the treatment) The chosen method will be used according to a sampling plan described in the sheets below. If the methods are used to compare the presence of beneficials between two treatments (two separate zones of the same orchard or two different orchards), one being agroecological and the other being a control, it is important to make sure that the control is distant enough from any agroecological infrastructure that could confuse the result. Ideally the control should be at 50m distance of any AEI. Many factors impact the presence of insects in a plot (e.g. farming practices, landscape, variety and age of the trees), it is important to take this into account when comparing the results of monitoring that have been performed in different orchards

The effect of turbidity and prey fish density on consumption rates of piscivorous Eurasian perch Perca fluviatilis

Predator-prey interaction strengths in variable environments constitute a fundamental link to the understanding of aquatic ecosystem responses to environmental change. The present study investigates the effects of visibility conditions and prey fish density on predation rates of visually oriented piscivorous Eurasian perch Perca fluviatilis L. This was done in outdoor mesocosm (16 m2) experiments with clear water and two levels of turbidity (25 and 105 NTU) and two prey fish densities [3.1 and 12.5 roach Rutilus rutilus (L.) individuals m–2]. Perch consumption rates were affected by visibility less than expected, while they were highly affected by increased prey fish density. Perch responded to high prey density in all visibility conditions, indicating that prey density is more crucial for consumption than visibility in turbid lake

Analyzing age-specific genetic effects on human extreme age survival in cohort-based longitudinal studies

The analysis of age-specific genetic effects on human survival over extreme ages is confronted with a deceleration pattern in mortality that deviates from traditional survival models and sparse genetic data available. As human late life is a distinct phase of life history, exploring the genetic effects on extreme age survival can be of special interest to evolutionary biology and health science. We introduce a non-parametric survival analysis approach that combines population survival information with individual genotype data in assessing the genetic effects in cohort-based longitudinal studies. Our approach is characterized by non-parametric analysis of late age survival to capture the observed pattern of mortality deceleration and frailty modeling to account for individual heterogeneity in unobserved frailty. The method is applied to ApoE genotype data in the Danish 1905 birth cohort to estimate effect of the e4 allele. Our results revealed an age-specific relative risk of the allele that increases nonlinearly with age and non-proportional patterns in hazard of death for carriers and non-carriers of the allele, suggesting that the e4 mutation preserves its deleterious effect that progressively affect human survival even at extreme ages

High risk of ischemic heart disease in patients with lupus nephritis

Objective.To investigate the occurrence of ischemic heart disease (IHD) in a cohort of 104 Danish patients with biopsy-proven lupus nephritis (LN).Methods.Information on all hospitalizations in Denmark for IHD between 1977 and 2006 was obtained from the Danish National Hospital Register. Occurrence of IHD after date of first renal biopsy in the LN cohort was compared to the occurrence of IHD in the general population by calculation of standardized ratios of observed to expected events (O:E ratios) for different manifestations of IHD registered during inpatient and outpatient hospital visits.Results.The median duration of followup was 14.7 (range 0.1–30.0) years. Thirty-one first-time hospitalizations for IHD occurred in the cohort, yielding an overall O:E ratio for IHD of 6.8 (95% CI 4.6–9.7). Increased risks were found for angina pectoris (O:E ratio 6.0, 95% CI 3.0–11), myocardial infarction (O:E ratio 7.9, 95% CI 3.8–15), and other IHD-related diagnoses combined (O:E ratio 6.9, 95% CI 3.3–13). A high IHD risk was observed for patients aged &lt; 31 years at time of first renal biopsy (O:E ratio 17.1, 95% CI 9.1–29) and for patients aged 30–39 years during followup (O:E ratio 42.3, 95% CI 21–76). Patients undergoing chronic renal replacement therapy also had a pronounced risk of IHD (O:E ratio 19.4, 95% CI 7.8–40).Conclusion.LN is associated with markedly increased morbidity from IHD. Our findings indicate that patients with early-onset LN have a disturbingly high risk of IHD compared to the general population.</jats:sec