Plantation forests and biodiversity conservation

There are five key reasons why biodiversity conservation should be considered a part of plantation management. (1) The plantation estate is large, and balancing various land management values with wood and pulp production is important when extensive areas of land are involved. (2) The locations and management of new plantations will affect the biota that currently exist in such landscapes. (3) Maintaining some elements of biodiversity within plantations can have benefits for stand productivity and the maintenance of key ecosystem processes such as pest control. (4) The retention (or loss) of biota in plantations is relevant to the formulation of ecological standards and the certification of plantations in many parts of the world. (5) Plantation forestry has a narrow and intensive management focus on producing a forest crop for a limited array of purposes. It will not meet future societal demands for a range of outputs from plantations (in addition to wood and pulp supply), and will not be congruent with the principles of ecological sustainability. This paper briefly reviews the biodiversity conservation values of Australian plantation s. It shows that almost all work in Australian plantations, whether conifer or eucalypt, highlights the importance of landscape heterogeneity and stand structural complexity for enhancing biodiversity. Management of plantations to promote landscape heterogeneity and stand structural complexity and enhance the conservation of biodiversity will, in many cases, involve tradeoffs that will affect wood and pulp production. The extent to which this occurs will depend on the objectives of plantation management and how far they extend towards the more complex plantation forestry models that incorporate social and environmental values. We argue that the widespread adoption of plantation forestry that leads to homogenous stands of extensive monocultures will risk re-creating the array of negative environmental outcomes that have been associated with agriculture in many parts of Australia

β-Ionone Derivatives as Antifungal Agent

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Borrowed alleles and convergence in serpentine adaptation

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank members of the L.Y. and K.B. laboratories for helpful discussions. This work was supported through the European Research Council Grant StG CA629F04E (to L.Y.); a Harvard University Milton Fund Award (to K.B.); Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award 1 F32 GM096699 from the NIH (to L.Y.); National Science Foundation Grant IOS-1146465 (to K.B.); NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences Grant 2R01GM078536 (to D.E.S.); and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Grant BB/L000113/1 (to D.E.S.)Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The evolution of gregariousness in parasitoid wasps

Data are assembled on the clutch-size strategies adopted by extant species of parasitoid wasp. These data are used to reconstruct the history of clutch-size evolution in the group using a series of plausible evolutionary assumptions. Extant families are either entirely solitary, both solitary and gregarious, or else clutch size is unknown. Parsimony analysis suggests that the ancestors of most families were solitary, a result which is robust to different phylogenetic relationships and likely data inadequacies. This implies that solitariness was ubiquitous throughout the initial radiation of the group, and that transitions to gregariousness have subsequently occurred a minimum of 43 times in several, but not all lineages. Current data suggest that species-rich and small-bodied lineages are more likely to have evolved gregariousness, and contain more species with small gregarious brood sizes. I discuss the implications of these data for clutch-size theory

Vegetarianism

Ethical vegetarians maintain that vegetarianism is morally required. The principal reasons offered in support of ethical vegetarianism are: (i) concern for the welfare and well-being of the animals being eaten, (ii) concern for the environment, (iii) concern over global food scarcity and the just distribution of resources, and (iv) concern for future generations. Each of these reasons is explored in turn, starting with a historical look at ethical vegetarianism and the moral status of animals

Losses in the Post-Collision Extraction Line

The CLIC beam delivery system focuses 1.5 TeV electron and positron beams to a nanometre-sized cross section when colliding them at the interaction point (IP). The intense focusing leads to large beam-beam effects, causing the production of beamstrahlung photons, coherent and incoherent e+e− pairs, as well as a significant disruption of the main beam. The transport of the post-collision beams requires a minimal loss extraction line, with high acceptance for energy deviation and divergence. The current design includes vertical bends close to the IP in order to separate the charged particles with a sign opposite to the main beam into a diagnostic-equipped intermediate dump, whilst transporting the photons and the main beam to the final dump. Photon and charged particle losses on magnet masks and dumps result in a complex radiation field and IP background particle fluxes. In this paper, the electromagnetic backgrounds at the IP arising from the losses occurring closest to the collision point are calculated

Photon backgrounds at the CLIC interaction point due to losses in the post-collision extraction line

The CLIC beam delivery system focuses 1.5~TeV electron and positron beams to a nanometre-sized cross section when colliding them at the interaction point (IP). The intense focusing leads to large beam-beam effects, causing the production of beamstrahlung photons, coherent and incoherent $e^+e^-$ pairs, as well as a significant disruption of the main beam. The transport of the post-collision beams requires a minimal loss extraction line, with high acceptance for energy deviation and divergence. The current design includes vertical bends close to the IP in order to separate the charged particles with a sign opposite to the main beam into a diagnostic-equipped intermediate dump, whilst transporting the photons and the main beam to the final dump. Photon and charged particle losses on magnet masks and dumps result in a complex radiation field and IP background particle fluxes. In this paper, the electromagnetic backgrounds at the IP arising from the losses occurring closest to the collision point are calculated

Who Trusts in the Smart City? Transparency, Governance and the Internet of Things

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank the community of Tillydrone in Aberdeen for giving their time to this project. A version of this work was previously made available for the Data for Policy conference 2019 (Jacobs et al, 2019) Data availability statement: The qualitative data collected as part of this research is not openly available, but may be accessed for research purposes by contacting the authors. This is for ethical reasons, due to the nature of the consent given by participants who contributed to the research. Funding statement: This research was funded through the TrustLens project, supported by the award made by the RCUK Digital Economy programme to the University of Aberdeen; award reference: EP/N028074/1. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

High fat diet attenuates the anticontractile activity of aortic PVAT via a mechanism involving AMPK and reduced adiponectin secretion

Background and aim: Perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT) positively regulates vascular function through production of factors such as adiponectin but this effect is attenuated in obesity. The enzyme AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is present in PVAT and is implicated in mediating the vascular effects of adiponectin. In this study, we investigated the effect of an obesogenic high fat diet (HFD) on aortic PVAT and whether any changes involved AMPK. Methods: Wild type Sv129 (WT) and AMPKα1 knockout (KO) mice aged 8 weeks were fed normal diet (ND) or HFD (42% kcal fat) for 12 weeks. Adiponectin production by PVAT was assessed by ELISA and AMPK expression studied using immunoblotting. Macrophages in PVAT were identified using immunohistochemistry and markers of M1 and M2 macrophage subtypes evaluated using real time-qPCR. Vascular responses were measured in endothelium-denuded aortic rings with or without attached PVAT. Carotid wire injury was performed and PVAT inflammation studied 7 days later. Key results: Aortic PVAT from KO and WT mice was morphologically indistinct but KO PVAT had more infiltrating macrophages. HFD caused an increased infiltration of macrophages in WT mice with increased expression of the M1 macrophage markers Nos2 and Il1b and the M2 marker Chil3. In WT mice, HFD reduced the anticontractile effect of PVAT as well as reducing adiponectin secretion and AMPK phosphorylation. PVAT from KO mice on ND had significantly reduced adiponectin secretion and no anticontractile effect and feeding HFD did not alter this. Wire injury induced macrophage infiltration of PVAT but did not cause further infiltration in KO mice. Conclusions: High-fat diet causes an inflammatory infiltrate, reduced AMPK phosphorylation and attenuates the anticontractile effect of murine aortic PVAT. Mice lacking AMPKα1 phenocopy many of the changes in wild-type aortic PVAT after HFD, suggesting that AMPK may protect the vessel against deleterious changes in response to HFD