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Editoria

Potential for wind erosion in alternative cropping systems

Non-Peer ReviewedThe potential for wind erosion in agricultural soils is a function of the distribution of aggregates at the surface, soil structure and moisture, and crop residue. These properties were measured in a cropping systems study designed to determine the effect of input level and crop diversity on sustainability and the potential for wind erosion. The experiment was established on a sandy loam soil in the Dark Brown Soil Zone at Scott Saskatchewan. Input levels were organic, reduced and high, while cropping-diversity levels were low diversity, diverse annual and diverse annual perennial. Differences in residue were attributed to the effect of tillage and the relative levels of productivity in the systems. Spring and fall tillage in organic systems reduced the amount of residue compared to reduced input systems. Levels of crop residue were low at the beginning of this study, and crop residue cover should be measured in future years to determine potential for erosion. Crop residue levels may not reflect the system's potential for soil erosion until two rotation cycles are complete. Relative treatment differences observed in the study, were similar to those calculated with of the Douglas-Rickman decomposition equation and tillage coefficients

Allometry and growth of eight tree taxa in United Kingdom woodlands.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0As part of a project to develop predictive ecosystem models of United Kingdom woodlands we have collated data from two United Kingdom woodlands - Wytham Woods and Alice Holt. Here we present data from 582 individual trees of eight taxa in the form of summary variables relating to the allometric relationships between trunk diameter, height, crown height, crown radius and trunk radial growth rate to the tree's light environment and diameter at breast height. In addition the raw data files containing the variables from which the summary data were obtained. Large sample sizes with longitudinal data spanning 22 years make these datasets useful for future studies concerned with the way trees change in size and shape over their life-span

Increasing biomass in Amazonian forest plots

A previous study by Phillips et al. of changes in the biomass of permanent sample plots in Amazonian forests was used to infer the presence of a regional carbon sink. However, these results generated a vigorous debate about sampling and methodological issues. Therefore we present a new analysis of biomass change in old-growth Amazonian forest plots using updated inventory data. We find that across 59 sites, the above-ground dry biomass in trees that are more than 10 cm in diameter (AGB) has increased since plot establishment by 1.22 ± 0.43 Mg per hectare per year (ha-1 yr-1), where 1 ha = 104 m2), or 0.98 ± 0.38 Mg ha-1 yr-1 if individual plot values are weighted by the number of hectare years of monitoring. This significant increase is neither confounded by spatial or temporal variation in wood specific gravity, nor dependent on the allometric equation used to estimate AGB. The conclusion is also robust to uncertainty about diameter measurements for problematic trees: for 34 plots in western Amazon forests a significant increase in AGB is found even with a conservative assumption of zero growth for all trees where diameter measurements were made using optical methods and/or growth rates needed to be estimated following fieldwork. Overall, our results suggest a slightly greater rate of net stand-level change than was reported by Phillips et al. Considering the spatial and temporal scale of sampling and associated studies showing increases in forest growth and stem turnover, the results presented here suggest that the total biomass of these plots has on average increased and that there has been a regional-scale carbon sink in old-growth Amazonian forests during the previous two decades

Storm-triggered landslides in the Peruvian Andes and implications for topography, carbon cycles, and biodiversity

In this study, we assess the geomorphic role of a rare, large-magnitude landslide-triggering event and consider its effect on mountain forest ecosystems and the erosion of organic carbon in an Andean river catchment. Proximal triggers such as large rain storms are known to cause large numbers of landslides, but the relative effects of such low-frequency, high-magnitude events are not well known in the context of more regular, smaller events. We develop a 25-year duration, annual-resolution landslide inventory by mapping landslide occurrence in the Kosñipata Valley, Peru, from 1988 to 2012 using Landsat, QuickBird, and WorldView satellite images. Catchment-wide landslide rates were high, averaging 0.076 % yr−1 by area. As a result, landslides on average completely turn over hillslopes every  ∼  1320 years, although our data suggest that landslide occurrence varies spatially and temporally, such that turnover times are likely to be non-uniform. In total, landslides stripped 26 ± 4 tC km−2 yr−1 of organic carbon from soil (80 %) and vegetation (20 %) during the study period. A single rain storm in March 2010 accounted for 27 % of all landslide area observed during the 25-year study and accounted for 26 % of the landslide-associated organic carbon flux. An approximately linear magnitude–frequency relationship for annual landslide areas suggests that large storms contribute an equivalent landslide failure area to the sum of lower-frequency landslide events occurring over the same period. However, the spatial distribution of landslides associated with the 2010 storm is distinct. On the basis of precipitation statistics and landscape morphology, we hypothesise that focusing of storm-triggered landslide erosion at lower elevations in the Kosñipata catchment may be characteristic of longer-term patterns. These patterns may have implications for the source and composition of sediments and organic material supplied to river systems of the Amazon Basin, and, through focusing of regular ecological disturbance, for the species composition of forested ecosystems in the region

In an open publishing house not so far, far away….

EditorialSUMMARY: As BJPsych Open completes its first circle around the sun and marks its first anniversary, we share with you its strengths and advantages that underpin its success as a new journal. First and foremost, the editorial team has maintained rigorous scientific standards while pursuing an open access publishing model that, by design, accommodates a broad range of clinical and scientific topics. Fundamental to BJPsych Open's mission has been our policy of accepting papers that are both methodologically sound and intellectually stimulating. The calibre of the journal has already been recognised, with recent notification of indexing all its content in PubMed Central. This reflects the quality of submissions and is the result of concerted efforts by the authors, the editorial board, the many selfless reviewers and our dedicated staff in the journal office. We urge you to join us on this exciting journey and look to your input as authors, readers and reviewers to help shape this fledgling enterprise, destined to become a force to be reckoned with. DECLARATION OF INTERESTS: None. COPYRIGHT AND USAGE: © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2016. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license

The future of the Amazon: new perspectives from climate, ecosystem and social sciences

The potential loss or large-scale degradation of the tropical rainforests has become one of the iconic images of the impacts of twenty-first century environmental change and may be one of our century's most profound legacies. In the Amazon region, the direct threat of deforestation and degradation is now strongly intertwined with an indirect challenge we are just beginning to understand: the possibility of substantial regional drought driven by global climate change. The Amazon region hosts more than half of the world's remaining tropical forests, and some parts have among the greatest concentrations of biodiversity found anywhere on Earth. Overall, the region is estimated to host about a quarter of all global biodiversity. It acts as one of the major ‘flywheels’ of global climate, transpiring water and generating clouds, affecting atmospheric circulation across continents and hemispheres, and storing substantial reserves of biomass and soil carbon. Hence, the ongoing degradation of Amazonia is a threat to local climate stability and a contributor to the global atmospheric climate change crisis. Conversely, the stabilization of Amazonian deforestation and degradation would be an opportunity for local adaptation to climate change, as well as a potential global contributor towards mitigation of climate change. However, addressing deforestation in the Amazon raises substantial challenges in policy, governance, sustainability and economic science. This paper introduces a theme issue dedicated to a multidisciplinary analysis of these challenges

Effect of oat and barley cover crop seeding rate on greenfeed and forage yield in northeast Saskatchewan

Non-Peer Reviewe

Forage yield of unfertilized perennial crops in simple and complex mixtures under two management strategies in northeastern Saskatchewan

Non-Peer ReviewedA field experiment was sown on May 27, 2008 at Melfort, Saskatchewan (52O44’N 104O47’W) on a thick Black Chernozem (Udic Boroll) silty clay soil to compare the effects of perennial forage crop monocultures and mixtures on dry matter yield (DMY) under two-cut and three-cut management systems in 2009, 2010 and 2011. The 11 treatments were consisted of monocultures of alfalfa, crested wheatgrass, hybrid bromegrass, intermediate wheatgrass, smooth bromegrass and in mixtures with alfalfa; a more complex mixture of smooth and hybrid bromegrass, intermediate and crested wheatgrass and alfalfa, and finally a very complex mixture consisting of the complex mixture plus orchardgrass, tall fescue, timothy, meadow bromegrass and slender wheatgrass. The alfalfa was inoculated with rhizobium, and no fertilizer was added to any treatment during the course of this study. In 2009, the first cutting year, all treatments produced similar forage DMY, with the monoculture grasses yielding almost as much as that of their mixture with alfalfa. In 2010 and 2011, monoculture alfalfa was the highest yielding treatment under both two and three cut methods. The two cut system yielded higher in all years for both treatments, except alfalfa in 2010. The complex and very complex mixtures yielded higher than the monoculture grass treatments, but did not yield higher than the simple alfalfa grass mixtures or the monoculture alfalfa treatment. In conclusion, the inclusion of alfalfa in unfertilized grass mixtures increased forage yield, especially after the first year

Influence of seeding date on forage dry matter yield and quality of four annual crops cut for greenfeed in northeastern Saskatchewan

Non-Peer Reviewe