Defining common criteria for harmonizing life cycle assessments of livestock systems

Animal production intensification puts pressure on resources, leads to environmental impacts, animal welfare and biodiversity issues. Livestock products provide key components of the human diet and contribute to rural territories through ecosystem services such as nutrient and biomass recycling. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is key to assess environmental impacts in livestock systems and products. A harmonization of LCA methods is necessary to improve evaluations in these areas as LCA still lacks accuracy and robustness in addressing sustainability across livestock systems and products. Here, a participatory harmonization approach was applied to provide a framework to evaluate LCAs of current and future livestock systems. A total of 29 workshops with targeted discussions among 21 LCA experts were organised, together with two anonymous surveys to harmonise evaluation criteria. First, key research topics for improving LCAs of livestock systems were identified as follows: i) Food, feed, fuel and biomaterial competition, crop-livestock interaction and the circular economy; ii) Biodiversity; iii) Animal welfare; iv) Nutrition; v) GHG emissions. Next, general evaluation criteria were identified for livestock focussed LCA methods, considering livestock systems characteristics: Transparency and Reproducibility, Completeness, Fairness and Acceptance, Robustness and Accuracy. Evaluation criteria specific to each key topic were also identified. This participatory method was successful in narrowing down general and specific evaluation criteria through targeted discussion. Moreover, this study provided a holistic participatory framework for the evaluation of LCA methods addressing the impacts of livestock systems across a range of key topics which can be further used for other sectors

Learning from innovative practitioners: Evidence for the sustainability and resilience of pasture fed livestock systems

There is an urgent need for transformational change in agriculture to address current and future issues caused by climate change, biodiversity loss and socio-ecological disruption. But change is slow to come and is hindered by a lack of transdisciplinary evidence on potential approaches which take a systems approach. The research described here was co-developed with the Pasture Fed Livestock Association in the UK to objectively evidence their practices. These include producing pasture-based meat from livestock fed on pasture and pasture-based forages alone. This approach sits alongside wider aims of fitting their practices with the ecological conditions on each individual farm to facilitate optimal production and working collaboratively through a forum for sharing knowledge. The research provides strong indications that the PFLA approach to livestock production is resilient and viable, as well as contributing to wider public goods delivery, despite variability within and between farms. It also reveals that learning and adaption of practice (through farmer experience) is central to farming using agro-ecological approaches. This fluidity of practice presents challenges for reductionist approaches to "measuring" agricultural innovations

Meeting tree planting targets on the UK's path to net-zero: A review of lessons learnt from 100 years of land use policies

The UK government has pledged to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Ambitious targets have been set to plant nearly a million hectares of new woodland in the UK by 2050 to meet these net-zero commitments. More than 70% of UK’s land is used for agricultural production and to meet these targets the Climate Change Committee has estimated that by 2050 approximately 21% of agricultural land will be required for tree planting, agroforestry and the extension of farm hedges. Achieving this creates a potential conflict between land for food production and land for carbon sequestration. However, trees and woodlands, when integrated into farming systems, can be multifunctional and play a significant role in helping farmers adapt and become more resilient in the face of climate change. Over the last 100 years numerous government policies and incentive schemes have endeavoured to encourage more tree planting activities amongst farmers and landowners with varying degrees of success. This paper reviews the role of policy in determining the presence of trees in the UK’s agricultural landscape over the past 100 years. We quantify the current extent of woodland and tree cover and aim to put the UK’s net-zero tree planting targets in the context of historical agricultural land use patterns. We evaluate drivers behind the current extent of trees, woodland and agroforestry on UK farms and identify key elements of success in current and previous policies and incentive schemes to help inform future policy mechanisms for the UK to meet its tree planting targets. Farmers are increasingly under pressure to deliver a wide range of environmental goals as well as producing food. The effectiveness of financial incentives to influence tree planting is dependent on the pre-existing interest and values of the farmer or landowner and grants alone may not be sufficient to encourage farmers to plant trees. Scheme complexity, bureaucracy and insufficient payment rates are barriers to the success of woodland grants and agri-environment schemes. Simplicity is important to encourage uptake, however oversimplification of schemes can lead to unintended consequences. Advice and guidance are key elements in the successful adoption of any new land management methods. A key to future progress will be scheme flexibility to enable farmers to choose to plant trees where it best suits local conditions, to align policy tools with farmer values and to ensure that farmers and landowners have the knowledge and support to make these decisions

Learning from innovative practitioners: evidence for the sustainability and resilience of pasture fed livestock systems

There is an urgent need for transformational change in agriculture to address current and future issues caused by climate change, biodiversity loss and socio-ecological disruption. But change is slow to come and is hindered by a lack of transdisciplinary evidence on potential approaches which take a systems approach. The research described here was co-developed with the Pasture Fed Livestock Association in the UK to objectively evidence their practices. These include producing pasture-based meat from livestock fed on pasture and pasture-based forages alone. This approach sits alongside wider aims of fitting their practices with the ecological conditions on each individual farm to facilitate optimal production and working collaboratively through a forum for sharing knowledge. The research provides strong indications that the PFLA approach to livestock production is resilient and viable, as well as contributing to wider public goods delivery, despite variability within and between farms. It also reveals that learning and adaption of practice (through farmer experience) is central to farming using agro-ecological approaches. This fluidity of practice presents challenges for reductionist approaches to “measuring” agricultural innovations

Inverse dynamics modelling of upper-limb tremor, with cross-correlation analysis

A method to characterise upper-limb tremor using inverse dynamics modelling in combination with cross-correlation analyses is presented. A 15 degree-of-freedom inverse dynamics model is used to estimate the joint torques required to produce the measured limb motion, given a set of estimated inertial properties for the body segments. The magnitudes of the estimated torques are useful when assessing patients or evaluating possible intervention methods. The cross-correlation of the estimated joint torques is proposed to gain insight into how tremor in one limb segment interacts with tremor in another. The method is demonstrated using data from a single patient presenting intention tremor because of multiple sclerosis. It is shown that the inertial properties of the body segments can be estimated with sufficient accuracy using only the patient's height and weight as a priori knowledge, which ensures the method's practicality and transferability to clinical use. By providing a more detailed, objective characterisation of patient-specific tremor properties, the method is expected to improve the selection, design and assessment of treatment options on an individual basis

The importance of including soil carbon changes, ecotoxicity and biodiversity impacts in environmental life cycle assessments of organic and conventional milk in Western Europe

Estimates of soil carbon changes, biodiversity and ecotoxicity have often been missing from life cycle assessment based studies of organic dairy products, despite evidence that the impacts of organic and conventional management may differ greatly within these areas. The aim of the present work was therefore to investigate the magnitude of including these impact categories within a comprehensive environmental impact assessment of organic and conventional dairy systems differing in basic production conditions. Three basic systems representative of a range of European approaches to dairy production were selected for the analysis, i.e. (i) low-land mixed crop-livestock systems, (ii) lowland grassland-based systems, (iii) and mountainous systems. As in previous publications, this study showed that when assessing climate change, eutrophication and acidification impact organic milk has similar or slightly lower impact than conventional, although land-use is higher under organic management. Including soil carbon changes reduced the global warming potential by 5–18%, mostly in organic systems with a high share of grass in the ration. The impacts of organic milk production on freshwater ecotoxicity, biodiversity and resource depletion were 2, 33 and 20% of the impacts of conventional management, respectively, across the basic systems considered. The study highlights the importance of including biodiversity, ecotoxicity and soil carbon changes in life cycle assessments when comparing organic and conventional agricultural products. Furthermore, the study shows that including more grass in the ration of dairy cows increases soil carbon sequestration and decreases the negative impact on biodiversity.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

A High-Resolution Airborne Color-Infrared Camera Water Mask for the NASA ABoVE Campaign

The airborne AirSWOT instrument suite, consisting of an interferometric Ka-band synthetic aperture radar and color-infrared (CIR) camera, was deployed to northern North America in July and August 2017 as part of the NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE). We present validated, open (i.e., vegetation-free) surface water masks produced from high-resolution (1 m), co-registered AirSWOT CIR imagery using a semi-automated, object-based water classification. The imagery and resulting high-resolution water masks are available as open-access datasets and support interpretation of AirSWOT radar and other coincident ABoVE image products, including LVIS, UAVSAR, AIRMOSS, AVIRIS-NG, and CFIS. These synergies offer promising potential for multi-sensor analysis of Arctic-Boreal surface water bodies. In total, 3167 km2 of open surface water were mapped from 23,380 km2 of flight lines spanning 23 degrees of latitude and broad environmental gradients. Detected water body sizes range from 0.00004 km2 (40 m2) to 15 km2. Power-law extrapolations are commonly used to estimate the abundance of small lakes from coarser resolution imagery, and our mapped water bodies followed power-law distributions, but only for water bodies greater than 0.34 (±0.13) km2 in area. For water bodies exceeding this size threshold, the coefficients of power-law fits vary for different Arctic-Boreal physiographic terrains (wetland, prairie pothole, lowland river valley, thermokarst, and Canadian Shield). Thus, direct mapping using high-resolution imagery remains the most accurate way to estimate the abundance of small surface water bodies. We conclude that empirical scaling relationships, useful for estimating total trace gas exchange and aquatic habitats on Arctic-Boreal landscapes, are uniquely enabled by high-resolution AirSWOT-like mappings and automated detection methods such as those developed here

A mechanism for the inhibition of DNA-PK-mediated DNA sensing by a virus

The innate immune system is critical in the response to infection by pathogens and it is activated by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) binding to pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). During viral infection, the direct recognition of the viral nucleic acids, such as the genomes of DNA viruses, is very important for activation of innate immunity. Recently, DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK), a heterotrimeric complex consisting of the Ku70/Ku80 heterodimer and the catalytic subunit DNA-PKcs was identified as a cytoplasmic PRR for DNA that is important for the innate immune response to intracellular DNA and DNA virus infection. Here we show that vaccinia virus (VACV) has evolved to inhibit this function of DNA-PK by expression of a highly conserved protein called C16, which was known to contribute to virulence but by an unknown mechanism. Data presented show that C16 binds directly to the Ku heterodimer and thereby inhibits the innate immune response to DNA in fibroblasts, characterised by the decreased production of cytokines and chemokines. Mechanistically, C16 acts by blocking DNA-PK binding to DNA, which correlates with reduced DNA-PK-dependent DNA sensing. The C-terminal region of C16 is sufficient for binding Ku and this activity is conserved in the variola virus (VARV) orthologue of C16. In contrast, deletion of 5 amino acids in this domain is enough to knockout this function from the attenuated vaccine strain modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA). In vivo a VACV mutant lacking C16 induced higher levels of cytokines and chemokines early after infection compared to control viruses, confirming the role of this virulence factor in attenuating the innate immune response. Overall this study describes the inhibition of DNA-PK-dependent DNA sensing by a poxvirus protein, adding to the evidence that DNA-PK is a critical component of innate immunity to DNA viruses

Bridging Alone: Religious Conservatism, Marital Homogamy, and Voluntary Association Membership

This study characterizes social insularity of religiously conservative American married couples by examining patterns of voluntary associationmembership. Constructing a dataset of 3938 marital dyads from the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Households, the author investigates whether conservative religious homogamy encourages membership in religious voluntary groups and discourages membership in secular voluntary groups. Results indicate that couples’ shared affiliation with conservative denominations, paired with beliefs in biblical authority and inerrancy, increases the likelihood of religious group membership for husbands and wives and reduces the likelihood of secular group membership for wives, but not for husbands. The social insularity of conservative religious groups appears to be reinforced by homogamy—particularly by wives who share faith with husbands