Global and local concerns: What attitudes and beliefs motivate farmers to mitigate and adapt to climate change?

In response to agriculture\u27s vulnerability and contribution to climate change, many governments are developing initiatives that promote the adoption of mitigation and adaptation practices among farmers. Since most climate policies affecting agriculture rely on voluntary efforts by individual farmers, success requires a sound understanding of the factors that motivate farmers to change practices. Recent evidence suggests that past experience with the effects of climate change and the psychological distance associated with people\u27s concern for global and local impacts can influence environmental behavior. Here we surveyed farmers in a representative rural county in California\u27s Central Valley to examine how their intention to adopt mitigation and adaptation practices is influenced by previous climate experiences and their global and local concerns about climate change. Perceived changes in water availability had significant effects on farmers\u27 intention to adopt mitigation and adaptation strategies, which were mediated through global and local concerns respectively. This suggests that mitigation is largely motivated by psychologically distant concerns and beliefs about climate change, while adaptation is driven by psychologically proximate concerns for local impacts. This match between attitudes and behaviors according to the psychological distance at which they are cognitively construed indicates that policy and outreach initiatives may benefit by framing climate impacts and behavioral goals concordantly; either in a global context for mitigation or a local context for adaptation

Critical Period of Nonpromoter DNA Methylation Acquisition during Prenatal Male Germ Cell Development

The prenatal period of germ cell development is a key time of epigenetic programming in the male, a window of development that has been shown to be influenced by maternal factors such as dietary methyl donor supply. DNA methylation occurring outside of promoter regions differs significantly between sperm and somatic tissues and has recently been linked with the regulation of gene expression during development as well as successful germline development. We examined DNA methylation at nonpromoter, intergenic sequences in purified prenatal and postnatal germ cells isolated from wildtype mice and mice deficient in the DNA methyltransferase cofactor DNMT3L. Erasure of the parental DNA methylation pattern occurred by 13.5 days post coitum (dpc) with the exception of approximately 8% of loci demonstrating incomplete erasure. For most loci, DNA methylation acquisition occurred between embryonic day 13.5 to 16.5 indicating that the key phase of epigenetic pattern establishment for intergenic sequences in male germ cells occurs prior to birth. In DNMT3L-deficient germ cells at 16.5 dpc, average DNA methylation levels were low, about 30% of wildtype levels; however, by postnatal day 6, about half of the DNMT3L deficiency-specific hypomethylated loci had acquired normal methylation levels. Those loci normally methylated earliest in the prenatal period were the least affected in the DNMT3L-deficient mice, suggesting that some loci may be more susceptible than others to perturbations occurring prenatally. These results indicate that the critical period of DNA methylation programming of nonpromoter, intergenic sequences occurs in male germline progenitor cells in the prenatal period, a time when external perturbations of epigenetic patterns could result in diminished fertility