Greenwashing the Organic Label: Abusive Green Marketing in an Increasingly Eco-Friendly Marketplace

The green wave of environmental advertising among organic food producers, distributors, and retailers begun during the 1990s has become an all-out green tsunami. The organic food market is the fastest growing segment of the American food industry. Consumers are increasingly becoming aware of the impact their purchases have on several environmental issues. As a result, those consumers are becoming more aware of their spending power and are willingly altering their buying practices to purchase from companies that emphasize environmental responsibility. In fact, some retailers\u27 inventory is already being scanned for alternative green products by their customers\u27 iPhones because, guess what, there\u27s an app for that

Characteristics of Wetting-Induced Bacteriophage Blooms in Biological Soil Crust.

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are photosynthetic "hot spots" in deserts and cover ∼12% of the Earth's terrestrial surface, and yet they face an uncertain future given expected shifts in rainfall events. Laboratory wetting of biocrust communities is known to cause a bloom of Firmicutes which rapidly become dominant community members within 2 days after emerging from a sporulated state. We hypothesized that their bacteriophages (phages) would respond to such a dramatic increase in their host's abundance. In our experiment, wetting caused Firmicutes to bloom and triggered a significant depletion of cyanobacterial diversity. We used genome-resolved metagenomics to link phage to their hosts and found that the bloom of the genus Bacillus correlated with a dramatic increase in the number of Caudovirales phages targeting these diverse spore-formers (r = 0.762). After 2 days, we observed dramatic reductions in the relative abundances of Bacillus, while the number of Bacillus phages continued to increase, suggestive of a predator-prey relationship. We found predicted auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) associated with sporulation in several Caudovirales genomes, suggesting that phages may influence and even benefit from sporulation dynamics in biocrusts. Prophage elements and CRISPR-Cas repeats in Firmicutes metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) provide evidence of recent infection events by phages, which were corroborated by mapping viral contigs to their host MAGs. Combined, these findings suggest that the blooming Firmicutes become primary targets for biocrust Caudovirales phages, consistent with the classical "kill-the-winner" hypothesis.IMPORTANCE This work forms part of an overarching research theme studying the effects of a changing climate on biological soil crust (biocrust) in the Southwestern United States. To our knowledge, this study was the first to characterize bacteriophages in biocrust and offers a view into the ecology of phages in response to a laboratory wetting experiment. The phages identified here represent lineages of Caudovirales, and we found that the dynamics of their interactions with their Firmicutes hosts explain the collapse of a bacterial bloom that was induced by wetting. Moreover, we show that phages carried host-altering metabolic genes and found evidence of proviral infection and CRISPR-Cas repeats within host genomes. Our results suggest that phages exert controls on population density by lysing dominant bacterial hosts and that they further impact biocrust by acquiring host genes for sporulation. Future research should explore how dominant these phages are in other biocrust communities and quantify how much the control and lysis of blooming populations contributes to nutrient cycling in biocrusts

Green Fabric: An Urban Center for Virginia's Wine Culture

While the state of Virginia has maintained its vinicultural heritage from the time of the Colonists, several factors have proven insurmountable obstacles until recent decades. The state now supports nearly 90 wineries, yet lacks any focus within the industry, and marketing rarely stems beyond the fields of production. This unique project will examine the bridging of a typically agricultural typology into the realm of an urban environment, thus encouraging the dynamism of the regional industry. By doing so the thesis presents opportunities for practices in ecological, social, and cultural sustainability. The structure will function not only as an educational facility in the vinicultural sense, but as a demonstration of sustainable design in an urban context, melding contemporary technology with a with a historic city fabric, thus dispelling the myth that "green" buildings need to stand alone as icons

A Life-course Analysis of Gene-Environment Interplay in Schizophrenia and Major Depression

Background: Although genetic and environmental risk factors for schizophrenia (SCZ) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are well established, it is not clear whether the exposure to these environmental risks is genetically confounded through a mechanism known as gene- environment correlation (rGE). Identifying whether rGE is implicated in the aetiology of these two psychiatric disorders may help our understanding of how to treat or prevent psychopathologies. Objective: This thesis aimed to investigate whether known environmental risk factors are correlated with the genetic susceptibilities to SCZ/MDD across three British community cohorts in childhood, adulthood and across the different developmental periods over time. We also wished to compare findings from a systematic literature review of empirical rGE studies for SCZ and depression to our own results. Methods: Polygenic risk scores (PRS), which were derived from existing genome-wide associations studies (GWAS), were utilised to investigate the correlation between known environmental risk factors and the genetic liability to SCZ/MDD. For the systematic literature review we searched seven databases for publications reporting rGE for either psychopathology in participants of any age. Results: We found associations between the genetic risk for SCZ and several psychosocial risk factors, such as marital status, whilst the genetic susceptibility to MDD was more strongly correlated with indicators of adverse socio-economic status across childhood and adulthood. Overall, the majority of rGE correlations remained stable across the investigated developmental periods. In contrast to our own results, rGE associations for SCZ and depression which were identified in the systematic literature review were largely the same across the included articles. Conclusion: In summary, our findings propose that several known psychosocial and environmental risk factors for either SCZ or MDD are at least partially correlated with the genetic liability for these psychopathologies in childhood as well as adulthood

The core metabolome and root exudation dynamics of three phylogenetically distinct plant species

Root exudates are plant-derived, exported metabolites likely shaping root-associated microbiomes by acting as nutrients and signals. However, root exudation dynamics are unclear and thus also, if changes in exudation are reflected in changes in microbiome structure. Here, we assess commonalities and differences between exudates of different plant species, diurnal exudation dynamics, as well as the accompanying methodological aspects of exudate sampling. We find that exudates should be collected for hours rather than days as many metabolite abundances saturate over time. Plant growth in sterile, nonsterile, or sugar-supplemented environments significantly alters exudate profiles. A comparison of Arabidopsis thaliana, Brachypodium distachyon, and Medicago truncatula shoot, root, and root exudate metabolite profiles reveals clear differences between these species, but also a core metabolome for tissues and exudates. Exudate profiles also exhibit a diurnal signature. These findings add to the methodological and conceptual groundwork for future exudate studies to improve understanding of plant-microbe interactions

Polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia and major depression are associated with socio-economic indicators of adversity in two British community samples

Schizophrenia (SCZ) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are complex psychiatric disorders which contribute substantially to the global burden of disease. Both psychopathologies are heritable with some genetic overlap between them. Importantly, SCZ and MDD have also been found to be associated with environmental risk factors. However, rather than being independent of genetic influences, exposure to environmental risk factors may be under genetic control, known as gene-environment correlation (rGE). In this study we investigated rGE in relation to polygenic risk scores for SCZ and MDD in adults, derived from large genome-wide association studies, across two different British community samples: Understanding Society (USoc) and the National Child Development Study (NCDS). We tested whether established environmental risk factors for SCZ and/or MDD are correlated with polygenic scores in adults and whether these associations differ between the two disorders and cohorts. Findings partially overlapped between disorders and cohorts. In NCDS, we identified a significant correlation between the genetic risk for MDD and an indicator of low socio-economic status, but no significant findings emerged for SCZ. In USoc, we replicated associations between indicators of low socio-economic status and the genetic propensity for MDD. In addition, we identified associations between the genetic susceptibility for SCZ and being single or divorced. Results across both studies provide further evidence that the genetic risk for SCZ and MDD were associated with common environmental risk factors, specifically MDD’s association with lower socio-economic status

Impacts of Maize Domestication and Breeding on Rhizosphere Microbial Community Recruitment from a Nutrient Depleted Agricultural Soil.

Maize domestication and breeding have resulted in drastic and well documented changes in aboveground traits, but belowground effects on root system functioning and rhizosphere microbial communities remain poorly understood, despite their critical importance for nutrient and water acquisition. We investigated the rhizosphere microbial community composition and structure of ten Zea mays accessions along an evolutionary transect (two teosinte, three inbred maize lines, and five modern maize hybrids) grown in nutrient depleted soil from a low input agricultural system. Microbial community analysis revealed significant differences in community composition between soil compartments (proximal vs. distal rhizosphere) and between plant genetic groups (teosinte, inbred, and modern hybrid). Only a small portion of the microbial community was differentially selected across plant genetic groups: 3.7% of prokaryotic community members and 4.9% of fungal community members were significantly associated with a specific plant genetic group. Indicator species analysis showed the greatest differentiation between modern hybrids and the other two plant genetic groups. Co-occurrence network analysis revealed that microbial co-occurrence patterns of the inbred maize lines' rhizosphere were significantly more similar to those of the teosintes than to the modern hybrids. Our results suggest that advances in hybrid development significantly impacted rhizosphere microbial communities and network assembly

Improved genome annotation through untargeted detection of pathway-specific metabolites

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mass spectrometry-based metabolomics analyses have the potential to complement sequence-based methods of genome annotation, but only if raw mass spectral data can be linked to specific metabolic pathways. In untargeted metabolomics, the measured mass of a detected compound is used to define the location of the compound in chemical space, but uncertainties in mass measurements lead to "degeneracies" in chemical space since multiple chemical formulae correspond to the same measured mass. We compare two methods to eliminate these degeneracies. One method relies on natural isotopic abundances, and the other relies on the use of stable-isotope labeling (SIL) to directly determine C and N atom counts. Both depend on combinatorial explorations of the "chemical space" comprised of all possible chemical formulae comprised of biologically relevant chemical elements.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 1532 metabolic pathways curated in the MetaCyc database, 412 contain a metabolite having a chemical formula unique to that metabolic pathway. Thus, chemical formulae alone can suffice to infer the presence of some metabolic pathways. Of 248,928 unique chemical formulae selected from the PubChem database, more than 95% had at least one degeneracy on the basis of accurate mass information alone. Consideration of natural isotopic abundance reduced degeneracy to 64%, but mainly for formulae less than 500 Da in molecular weight, and only if the error in the relative isotopic peak intensity was less than 10%. Knowledge of exact C and N atom counts as determined by SIL enabled reduced degeneracy, allowing for determination of unique chemical formula for 55% of the PubChem formulae.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>To facilitate the assignment of chemical formulae to unknown mass-spectral features, profiling can be performed on cultures uniformly labeled with stable isotopes of nitrogen (¹⁵N) or carbon (¹³C). This makes it possible to accurately count the number of carbon and nitrogen atoms in each molecule, providing a robust means for reducing the degeneracy of chemical space and thus obtaining unique chemical formulae for features measured in untargeted metabolomics having a mass greater than 500 Da, with relative errors in measured isotopic peak intensity greater than 10%, and without the use of a chemical formula generator dependent on heuristic filtering. These chemical formulae can serve as indicators for the presence of particular metabolic pathways.</p