Quantifying the value of ecosystem services: a case study of honeybee pollination in the UK

There is concern that insect pollinators, such as honey bees, are currently declining in abundance, and are under serious threat from environmental changes such as habitat loss and climate change; the use of pesticides in intensive agriculture, and emerging diseases. This paper aims to evaluate how much public support there would be in preventing further decline to maintain the current number of bee colonies in the UK. The contingent valuation method (CVM) was used to obtain the willingness to pay (WTP) for a theoretical pollinator protection policy. Respondents were asked whether they would be WTP to support such a policy and how much would they pay? Results show that the mean WTP to support the bee protection policy was £1.37/week/household. Based on there being 24.9 million households in the UK, this is equivalent to £1.77 billion per year. This total value can show the importance of maintaining the overall pollination service to policy makers. We compare this total with estimates obtained using a simple market valuation of pollination for the UK

Maternal HIV status and infant feeding practices among Ugandan women

To describe the infant feeding practices in the general population in Uganda, and to assess the impact of maternal HIV status on these practices, a questionnaire was administered to women attending the follow-up clinics for child vaccination. Among the mothers who were still breastfeeding at the time of interview (N=838), 61.4% of the HIV-infected women had planned to breastfeed for a maximum of 6 months, compared with 12.1% of the HIV-uninfected women (

Evaluation of cultural control and resistance‐breeding strategies for suppression of whitefly infestation of cassava at the landscape scale: a simulation modeling approach

Background: The whitefly Bemisia tabaci is an important vector of virus diseases, impacting cassava production in East Africa. To date, breeding efforts in this region have focused on disease resistance. Here we use a spatially‐explicit simulation model to explore how breeding strategies for whitefly resistance will influence the population dynamics of whitefly in the context of regional variation in cassava crop management practices. Results: Simulations indicated that regions with a short cropping cycle and two cropping seasons per year were associated with high whitefly abundance. Nymph mortality and antixenosis resistance mechanisms were more effective than mechanisms that lead to longer whitefly development times. When spatial variation was introduced in heterogeneous landscapes, however, negative consequences of the antixenosis effect were observed in fields containing whitefly susceptible varieties, unless the proportion of whitefly resistant variety in the landscape was low (~10%) or the amount of matrix in the landscape was high (~75%). Conclusion: We show the importance of considering cropping regime and landscape management context when developing and deploying whitefly‐resistant cassava varieties. Recommendations differ significantly between regions. There may also be unintended negative consequences of higher whitefly densities for whitefly susceptible varieties if uptake of the new variety in a landscape is high, depending on the mechanism of resistance and the landscape context. Furthermore, we show that in some cases, such as where there is substantial fallow combined with a short single‐season crop, the management characteristics of the existing cropping regime alone may be effective at controlling whitefly populations

First discoveries of z similar to 6 quasars with the Kilo-Degree Survey and VISTA Kilo-Degree Infrared Galaxy survey

This work is financially supported by the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) and Target. Target is supported by Samenwerkingsverband Noord Nederland, European fund for regional development, Dutch Ministry of economic affairs, Pieken in de Delta, Provinces of Groningen and Drenthe

Mapping the medical outcomes study HIV health survey (MOS-HIV) to the EuroQoL 5 Dimension (EQ-5D-3L) utility index

10.1186/s12955-019-1135-8Health and Quality of Life Outcomes1718

The Impact of EU Pesticide Residue standards on African Fresh Produce Exports to the UK

This paper estimates the impacts of pesticide maximum residue level (MRL) standards imposed by the European Union (EU) on trade-flows from African exporting countries to the United Kingdom (UK) using a fixed-effects gravity model specification with corrections for the zero trade-flows. We employ the Poison Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimation method to estimate the gravity model. Most variables have the expected signs and were statistically significant, consistent with the trade literature. The volume of trade increases with the GDP of the exporting countries and the UK. The volume of trade decreases with geographical distance. The variables describing cultural and economic proximity of countries, such as colonial relationships positively affect the volume of trade. Regarding the impact of MLRs on trade flows, the results were not completely consistent between the product groups. However, some commodities do exhibit sensitivity to changes in pesticide MRL standards imposed by the EU and hence applied in the UK

Global establishment threat from a major forest pest via international shipping: Lymantria dispar

The global shipping network is widely recognised as a pathway for vectoring invasive species. One species of particular concern is Lymantria dispar (gypsy moth). Two subspecies, L. d. asiatica and L. d. japonica (herein referred to as Asian Gypsy Moth - AGM) are of considerable concern as ships arriving to a number of countries have been found carrying AGM egg masses. However, ships carrying AGM eggs can only threaten a country at ports located in a climatically suitable region. We present a CLIMEX model of climate suitability and combine this with international shipping to estimate the global threat from AGM. We find that for the USA more than half of international ships (approximately 18,000 ships) arrive to climatically suitable ports. Other countries with a large number of ships arriving to ports with suitable climates include Canada and Brazil. This is the first global analysis of the invasion threat from AGM, and we recommend countries focus AGM-inspection programs towards ships arriving at ports found within climatically suitable regions

Divergence based Learning Vector Quantization

Mwebaze E, Schneider P, Schleif F-M, Haase S, Villmann T, Biehl M. Divergence based Learning Vector Quantization. In: Proceedings of ESANN 2010. In Press