Chemical attributes of an Argisoil of the Vale do São Francisco after melon growth with phosphate and potash rocks biofertilizers.

A aplicação de fertilizantes pode promover mudanças na reação do solo e na disponibilidade de nutrientes importantes para as plantas. A produção de biofertilizantes a partir de rochas é um processo prático que reduz o consumo de energia e aumenta a disponibilidade de nutrientes no solo. Em experimento de campo foram avaliados os efeitos de biofertilizantes produzidos com rochas, além do enxofre elementar inoculado com Acidithiobacillus , em atributos químicos de um Argissolo do Vale do São Francisco após cultivo do melão, em comparação com fertilizantes minerais solúveis. Usou-se o fatorial 3 2+2, em blocos casualizados, com biofertilizante fosfatado (PB) e potássico (KB), em quantidades correspondentes à adição de superfosfato simples (SS) e cloreto de potássio (KCl), o dobro e o triplo da recomendação. Foram usados tratamentos adicionais com SS+KCl na quantidade recomendada e o controle sem adição de P e K (P0K0). Os biofertilizantes reduziram o pH do solo, e os teores mais elevados de P e K disponíveis foram obtidos com aplicação de PB e KB nas doses mais elevadas. Os maiores teores de Mg foram obtidos com o biofertilizante KB na dose 240 kg ha -1, em função da liberação de Mg da biotita. Os biofertilizantes de rochas com P e K podem ser usados como alternativa a fertilizantes solúveis, devido ao maior efeito residual para P, Ca e Mg do solo, especialmente em solos alcalinos ou para solos ácidos após a calagem

Marine plastics threaten giant Atlantic Marine Protected Areas.

There has been a recent shift in global perception of plastics in the environment, resulting in a call for greater action. Science and the popular media have highlighted plastic as an increasing stressor [1,2]. Efforts have been made to confer protected status to some remote locations, forming some of the world's largest Marine Protected Areas, including several UK overseas territories. We assessed plastic at these remote Atlantic Marine Protected Areas, surveying the shore, sea surface, water column and seabed, and found drastic changes from 2013-2018. Working from the RRS James Clark Ross at Ascension, St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha, Gough and the Falkland Islands (Figure 1A), we showed that marine debris on beaches has increased more than 10 fold in the past decade. Sea surface plastics have also increased, with in-water plastics occurring at densities of 0.1 items m-3; plastics on seabeds were observed at ≤ 0.01 items m-2. For the first time, beach densities of plastics at remote South Atlantic sites approached those at industrialised North Atlantic sites. This increase even occurs hundreds of meters down on seamounts. We also investigated plastic incidence in 2,243 animals (comprising 26 species) across remote South Atlantic oceanic food webs, ranging from plankton to seabirds. We found that plastics had been ingested by primary consumers (zooplankton) to top predators (seabirds) at high rates. These findings suggest that MPA status will not mitigate the threat of plastic proliferation to this rich, unique and threatened biodiversity

Estudos sobre a nutrição mineral do milho. II. Efeito de doses crescentes de N, P e K no crescimento, produção e composição mineral da variedade Piranão em condições controladas.

O milho, var. Piranao, foi cultivado em solucao nutritiva com niveis crescentes de N, P e K. Houve resposta linear a adicao de N e assintotica as doses de P e de K. A determinacao a atividade da reductase de nitrato se correlacionou melhor com a producao total nas folhas, por sua vez refletiu melhor o estado nutricional que a determinacao de putrescina nas folhas

Asteroseismology and Interferometry

Asteroseismology provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of stellar structure and evolution. Recent developments, including the first systematic studies of solar-like pulsators, have boosted the impact of this field of research within Astrophysics and have led to a significant increase in the size of the research community. In the present paper we start by reviewing the basic observational and theoretical properties of classical and solar-like pulsators and present results from some of the most recent and outstanding studies of these stars. We centre our review on those classes of pulsators for which interferometric studies are expected to provide a significant input. We discuss current limitations to asteroseismic studies, including difficulties in mode identification and in the accurate determination of global parameters of pulsating stars, and, after a brief review of those aspects of interferometry that are most relevant in this context, anticipate how interferometric observations may contribute to overcome these limitations. Moreover, we present results of recent pilot studies of pulsating stars involving both asteroseismic and interferometric constraints and look into the future, summarizing ongoing efforts concerning the development of future instruments and satellite missions which are expected to have an impact in this field of research.Comment: Version as published in The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review, Volume 14, Issue 3-4, pp. 217-36

Interaction Between Convection and Pulsation

This article reviews our current understanding of modelling convection dynamics in stars. Several semi-analytical time-dependent convection models have been proposed for pulsating one-dimensional stellar structures with different formulations for how the convective turbulent velocity field couples with the global stellar oscillations. In this review we put emphasis on two, widely used, time-dependent convection formulations for estimating pulsation properties in one-dimensional stellar models. Applications to pulsating stars are presented with results for oscillation properties, such as the effects of convection dynamics on the oscillation frequencies, or the stability of pulsation modes, in classical pulsators and in stars supporting solar-type oscillations.Comment: Invited review article for Living Reviews in Solar Physics. 88 pages, 14 figure