Soil organic carbon stocks potentially at risk of decline with organic farming expansion

Funding Information: We thank R. Girault and Y. Behara for help regarding carbon losses in manure management process; D. Angers, E. Ceschia and C. Poeplau for inputs on how to consider cover crops. This work was funded by ADEME, Bordeaux Sciences Agro (Univ. Bordeaux), INRAE’s committee on organic farming (MP Métabio) and Aberdeen University. M.K. and P.S. acknowledge support from the CIRCASA project, which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no 774378. Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.Peer reviewedPostprin

A Motivational Perspective on the Personalization of Gamification

The gamification of information systems has seen success in a variety of contexts. However, research has shown that the degree to which gamification is successful varies between individuals. The current paper evaluates the effectiveness of personalized gamification in a warehouse management context. Additionally, this paper explores why personalized gamification can be more successful than non-personalized gamification. Twenty-six subjects participated in a within-subject laboratory experiment in which goal setting and feedback game elements were integrated into a wearable management information system to examine their effect on user performance in a warehouse picking task. The effectiveness of personalized gamification was evaluated by categorizing participants into user types using the HEXAD model and examining performance across conditions and user types. Results show that user type significantly affects the relationship between game elements and user performance. This paper takes a step forward in exploring the motivational mechanisms that explain the efficacy of personalized gamification

Should Gamification be Personalized? A Self-deterministic Approach

Information system (IS) gamification has been successful in many contexts. Yet, research has shown gamification’s success to vary between individuals. In this paper, we compare personalized versus non-personalized gamification in a warehouse management setting. We devised a 26-participant within-subject experiment in which we programmed goal setting and feedback gamification elements into a wearable warehouse management system to evaluate the effectiveness of personalized gamification in terms of user performance. We examined the extent to which personalized gamification succeeded by categorizing participants into one of six user types through the HEXAD scale and then evaluating their performance time and errors across user types and conditions. We found that personalized gamification is more effective than non-personalized gamification. We present and discuss the motivational mechanisms through which personalized gamification can be more effective

Agriculture et ressources naturelles : de quoi parlons-nous ?

National audienceL'agriculture entretient des relations complexes avec les ressources naturelles, complexité due à la diversité des ressources qu'elle mobilise et à la diversité des modalités par lesquelles elle les utilise. Cette complexité est de nature à brouiller l'analyse des relations entre agriculture et gestion des ressources naturelles et à présenter un obstacle à la mise au point de systèmes agricoles protégeant ces ressources. Dans cet article, nous es-sayons de clarifier ce sujet en explorant la diversité des ressources qui peuvent être mobilisées ou impactées lors des processus de production agricole. En particulier, nous proposons une typologie en quatre classes des ressources naturelles selon que celles-ci sont renouvelables, recyclables ou dissipées lors des processus de production agricoles. Nous utilisons cette typologie pour mettre en évidence la diversité des leviers agronomiques et des niveaux d'organisation qu'il convient d'activer pour mieux protéger les ressources naturelles

Potential yield simulated by global gridded crop models: using a process-based emulator to explain their differences

How global gridded crop models (GGCMs) differ in their simulation of potential yield and reasons for those differences have never been assessed. The GGCM Intercomparison (GGCMI) offers a good framework for this assessment. Here, we built an emulator (called SMM for simple mechanistic model) of GGCMs based on generic and simplified formalism. The SMM equations describe crop phenology by a sum of growing degree days, canopy radiation absorption by the Beer–Lambert law, and its conversion into aboveground biomass by a radiation use efficiency (RUE). We fitted the parameters of this emulator against gridded aboveground maize biomass at the end of the growing season simulated by eight different GGCMs in a given year (2000). Our assumption is that the simple set of equations of SMM, after calibration, could reproduce the response of most GGCMs so that differences between GGCMs can be attributed to the parameters related to processes captured by the emulator. Despite huge differences between GGCMs, we show that if we fit both a parameter describing the thermal requirement for leaf emergence by adjusting its value to each grid-point in space, as done by GGCM modellers following the GGCMI protocol, and a GGCM-dependent globally uniform RUE, then the simple set of equations of the SMM emulator is sufficient to reproduce the spatial distribution of the original aboveground biomass simulated by most GGCMs. The grain filling is simulated in SMM by considering a fixed-in-time fraction of net primary productivity allocated to the grains (frac) once a threshold in leaves number (nthresh) is reached. Once calibrated, these two parameters allow for the capture of the relationship between potential yield and final aboveground biomass of each GGCM. It is particularly important as the divergence among GGCMs is larger for yield than for aboveground biomass. Thus, we showed that the divergence between GGCMs can be summarized by the differences in a few parameters. Our simple but mechanistic model could also be an interesting tool to test new developments in order to improve the simulation of potential yield at the global scale

Control of mitochondrial pH by uncoupling protein 4 in astrocytes promotes neuronal survival.

Brain activity is energetically costly and requires a steady and highly regulated flow of energy equivalents between neural cells. It is believed that a substantial share of cerebral glucose, the major source of energy of the brain, will preferentially be metabolized in astrocytes via aerobic glycolysis. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether uncoupling proteins (UCPs), located in the inner membrane of mitochondria, play a role in setting up the metabolic response pattern of astrocytes. UCPs are believed to mediate the transmembrane transfer of protons, resulting in the uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation from ATP production. UCPs are therefore potentially important regulators of energy fluxes. The main UCP isoforms expressed in the brain are UCP2, UCP4, and UCP5. We examined in particular the role of UCP4 in neuron-astrocyte metabolic coupling and measured a range of functional metabolic parameters including mitochondrial electrical potential and pH, reactive oxygen species production, NAD/NADH ratio, ATP/ADP ratio, CO2 and lactate production, and oxygen consumption rate. In brief, we found that UCP4 regulates the intramitochondrial pH of astrocytes, which acidifies as a consequence of glutamate uptake, with the main consequence of reducing efficiency of mitochondrial ATP production. The diminished ATP production is effectively compensated by enhancement of glycolysis. This nonoxidative production of energy is not associated with deleterious H2O2 production. We show that astrocytes expressing more UCP4 produced more lactate, which is used as an energy source by neurons, and had the ability to enhance neuronal survival

Identifying cost-competitive greenhouse gas mitigation potential of French agriculture

The agriculture, forestry and other land use sector are responsible for 24% (10–12 Pg CO2e per year) of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide, with concomitant opportunities for mitigation. A scientific panel used deliberative methods to identify ten technical measures comprising 26 sub-measures to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture in France. Their abatement potential and cost are compared. The proposed measures concern nitrogen (N) management, management practices that increase carbon stocks in soils and biomass, livestock diets, and energy production and consumption on farms. Results show that the total abatement potential can be divided into three parts. One third of the cumulated abatement potential corresponds to sub-measures that can be implemented at a negative technical cost. These sub-measures focus on increased efficiency in input use including N fertilisers, animal feed and energy. The second third are sub-measures with moderate cost (€25 per metric Mg of avoided CO2e). These require investment with no direct financial return, the purchase of particular inputs, dedicated labour time or involve production losses. Assuming additivity, the cumulated abatement is 32.3 Tg CO2e per year in 2030, but only 10 Tg (i.e. 10% of current agricultural emissions) when calculated under current inventory rules. This study confirms that a significant abatement potential exists in the agricultural sector, with two thirds of this potential at low or even negative cost. This is likely to be an underestimated as it is based on a status quo of the current agricultural system. Results also emphasise the need to upgrade inventory rules so that efforts to reduce emissions can be accounted for