Digging deeper : Assessing the predictive power of common greenhouse gas accounting tools for soil carbon sequestration under organic amendment

Funding Information: The work that led to this publication was supported by the Washington State Legislature , the USDA-NIFA Organic Research and Extension Initiative Program (project nos. 2014-38421-22002 and 2019-51300-30476 ), and the CAHNRS Office of Research at Washington State University (Hatch project 1017286 ). For the Puyallup field trials, we thank Emma Rast for her assistance in field and laboratory analysis and Liz Myhre for technical assistance, and Craig Cogger and Andy Bary for their efforts to initiate and operate a long-term organic farming research experiment at WSU Puyallup from 2003 to 2016. These trials were funded by the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (project no. SW-03-040), the USDA NIFA Integrated Organic Program (project no. WNP07725), and the Agricultural Research Center at Washington State University (Hatch Project 0722). For the Davenport (Wilke Farm) field trials, we thank Rachel Zuger, Nicole Tautges, and Holly Lane. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The AuthorsPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Promoting Rangeland Restoration and Climate Resilience through Grazing Case Studies

Cow-calf beef operations are the primary users of the 8.75 million hectares of rangelands in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and will have to adapt to ongoing and future climate change. Management directed toward current rangeland stressors which may be amplified under a changing climate—including fire risk, invasive plants, and droughts—is likely to improve future resilience. And although climate change discussions have become highly politicized, our experience suggests that Pacific Northwest ranchers support no-regrets” strategies that provide ecological and economic benefits under a variety of future conditions. Our goal is to foster adoption of these strategies by sharing individual success stories. A similar case study approach focused on crop producers has been used effectively in the Pacific Northwest, with over 20,000 views of 13 videos from 2016-2019, and more than 1600 views of case study documents. Our multi-media case studies profile successful ranchers who are using practices that increase resilience to climate change alongside economic, production, environmental, and other risks. By detailing their experience and insights the case studies encourage other ranchers to consider similar changes. Each case study consists of a brief video and a peer-reviewed written factsheet with descriptions of the rancher’s personal context and motivations; process of innovation; benefits, challenges and solutions to adopting practices. This narrative is paired with easy-to-read sidebars providing key science findings relevant to the practices being discussed. By connecting these insights with key science findings we give ranchers tools to adjust these practices to their particular operational context

Pharmacological Evidence Suggests That the Lysozyme/PACAP Receptor of \u3cem\u3eTetrahymena thermophila\u3c/em\u3e is a Polycation Receptor

Pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP) is a peptide hormone that exists in two biologically active forms: PACAP-38 and PACAP-27. Several types of PACAP receptors have been characterized, and these have been classified into three families: the VPAC1, the VPAC2, and the PAC1 receptors. In this study, we used in vivo behavioral assays along with pharmacological inhibitors to investigate the behavior of the lysozyme/PACAP receptor in Tetrahymena. This receptor behaves like a PAC1 receptor in some respects; however, PACAP 6-38 serves as an agonist, rather than an antagonist, for this receptor. These results are consistent with the existence of a generalized polycation receptor rather than a PACAP-specific receptor

Farmers\u27 Trust in Sources of Production and Climate Information and Their Use of Technology

A regionally representative survey of 900 Inland Pacific Northwest farmers showed that farmers trust other farmers and agribusiness most for production management decisions but trust university Extension most for climate change information. Additionally, in responding to questions about use of the Internet and mobile applications for making farm management decisions, many farmers indicated that they use the Internet daily but mobile applications much less regularly to access farm-related information. These results suggest that university Extension personnel have an important role to play in informing farmers about climate change and can do so effectively by using certain digital tools alongside other more traditional avenues for information delivery

The HERMIT in the Tree

This paper describes our experience using the HERMIT tool- kit to apply well-known transformations to the internal core language of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler. HERMIT provides several mechanisms to support writing general-purpose transformations: a domain-specific language for strategic programming specialized to GHC's core language, a library of primitive rewrites, and a shell-style{based scripting language for interactive and batch usage. There are many program transformation techniques that have been described in the literature but have not been mechanized and made available inside GHC - either because they are too specialized to include in a general-purpose compiler, or because the developers' interest is in theory rather than implementation. The mechanization process can often reveal pragmatic obstacles that are glossed over in pen-and-paper proofs; understanding and removing these obstacles is our concern. Using HERMIT, we implement eleven examples of three program transformations, report on our experience, and describe improvements made in the process

Exploiting bacterial DNA gyrase as a drug target: current state and perspectives

DNA gyrase is a type II topoisomerase that can introduce negative supercoils into DNA at the expense of ATP hydrolysis. It is essential in all bacteria but absent from higher eukaryotes, making it an attractive target for antibacterials. The fluoroquinolones are examples of very successful gyrase-targeted drugs, but the rise in bacterial resistance to these agents means that we not only need to seek new compounds, but also new modes of inhibition of this enzyme. We review known gyrase-specific drugs and toxins and assess the prospects for developing new antibacterials targeted to this enzyme

BioEarth: Envisioning and developing a new regional earth system model to inform natural and agricultural resource management

As managers of agricultural and natural resources are confronted with uncertainties in global change impacts, the complexities associated with the interconnected cycling of nitrogen, carbon, and water present daunting management challenges. Existing models provide detailed information on specific sub-systems (e.g., land, air, water, and economics). An increasing awareness of the unintended consequences of management decisions resulting from interconnectedness of these sub-systems, however, necessitates coupled regional earth system models (EaSMs). Decision makers’ needs and priorities can be integrated into the model design and development processes to enhance decision-making relevance and “usability” of EaSMs. BioEarth is a research initiative currently under development with a focus on the U.S. Pacific Northwest region that explores the coupling of multiple stand-alone EaSMs to generate usable information for resource decision-making. Direct engagement between model developers and non-academic stakeholders involved in resource and environmental management decisions throughout the model development process is a critical component of this effort. BioEarth utilizes a bottom-up approach for its land surface model that preserves fine spatial-scale sensitivities and lateral hydrologic connectivity, which makes it unique among many regional EaSMs. This paper describes the BioEarth initiative and highlights opportunities and challenges associated with coupling multiple stand-alone models to generate usable information for agricultural and natural resource decision-making

Nitrogen availability and native plants' nutrient responses in the heath barrens and surrounding forests of the Pocono Plateau, Pennsylvania

The species-rich Pocono heath barrens unexpectedly persist on a similar soil type and moisture\ud regime as adjacent forests. Field and greenhouse experiments evaluated the hypothesis that barrens\ud fragments have persisted despite forty years of fire suppression because the barrens plants alter nitrogen\ud cycling, lowering mineral nitrogen levels and inhibiting invasion by most forest species. A greenhouse\ud test using Carex pensylvanica suggests that there may be less available nitrogen in barrens soil than in\ud forest soil. The difference in available nitrogen seems to be large enough to cause a physiological\ud response in Carex pensylvanica growth, indicating that the difference is biologically significant.\ud However, a bioassay of nitrogen uptake by fine roots of Acer rubrum and Amelanchier spp. suggests that i\ud the few trees growing in the barrens are no more nitrogen stressed than those in the forest. It seems\ud likely that these trees are able to invade the barrens because they are able to tolerate low nitrogen conditions. Because of this trait, Acer rubrum may be a key species in transitions from barrens to forest

Nitrogen availability and native plants\u27 nutrient responses in the heath barrens and surrounding forests of the Pocono Plateau, Pennsylvania

The species-rich Pocono heath barrens unexpectedly persist on a similar soil type and moisture regime as adjacent forests. Field and greenhouse experiments evaluated the hypothesis that barrens fragments have persisted despite forty years of fire suppression because the barrens plants alter nitrogen cycling, lowering mineral nitrogen levels and inhibiting invasion by most forest species. A greenhouse test using Carex pensylvanica suggests that there may be less available nitrogen in barrens soil than in forest soil. The difference in available nitrogen seems to be large enough to cause a physiological response in Carex pensylvanica growth, indicating that the difference is biologically significant. However, a bioassay of nitrogen uptake by fine roots of Acer rubrum and Amelanchier spp. suggests that i the few trees growing in the barrens are no more nitrogen stressed than those in the forest. It seems likely that these trees are able to invade the barrens because they are able to tolerate low nitrogen conditions. Because of this trait, Acer rubrum may be a key species in transitions from barrens to forest