Impact of shortened crop rotation of oilseed rape on soil and rhizosphere microbial diversity in relation to yield decline

Oilseed rape (OSR) grown in monoculture shows a decline in yield relative to virgin OSR of up to 25%, but the mechanisms responsible are unknown. A long term field experiment of OSR grown in a range of rotations with wheat was used to determine whether shifts in fungal and bacterial populations of the rhizosphere and bulk soil were associated with the development of OSR yield decline. The communities of fungi and bacteria in the rhizosphere and bulk soil from the field experiment were profiled using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP) and sequencing of cloned internal transcribed spacer regions and 16S rRNA genes, respectively. OSR cropping frequency had no effect on rhizosphere bacterial communities. However, the rhizosphere fungal communities from continuously grown OSR were significantly different to those from other rotations. This was due primarily to an increase in abundance of two fungi which showed 100% and 95% DNA identity to the plant pathogens Olpidium brassicae and Pyrenochaeta lycopersici, respectively. Real-time PCR confirmed that there was significantly more of these fungi in the continuously grown OSR than the other rotations. These two fungi were isolated from the field and used to inoculate OSR and Brassica oleracea grown under controlled conditions in a glasshouse to determine their effect on yield. At high doses, Olpidium brassicae reduced top growth and root biomass in seedlings and reduced branching and subsequent pod and seed production. Pyrenochaeta sp. formed lesions on the roots of seedlings, and at high doses delayed flowering and had a negative impact on seed quantity and quality

The role of feedback report characteristics and user professionalisation in using student monitoring systems for data-driven decision making

Various factors may influence the utilization and effects of feedback to teachers and schools on the progress of their students

Creativity and the cybernetics of self: Drama, embodied creation and feedback processes

Davis, SE ORCiD: 0000-0002-9455-3794What are the particular strengths and affordances for realising and cultivating creativity through drama and how do creativity processes work? This chapter investigates the creative system, feedback and interactions from a drama project involving young people in a performance-making program. The understandings that informed the work and analysis drew from systems theories of creativity as well as cybernetics. The understandings drawn from cybernetics included the importance of feedback processes, and how individually and collectively these might be understood as operating as what Bateson termed a ‘cybernetics of self.’ An examination of key vignettes from a dramatic playbuilding process highlights the importance of both flexibilities and constraints, and feedback interactions, including those that are individual and collective, fast and slow. The importance of immediate and embodied feedback as well as feedback that is more individual and reflective is characteristic of and integral to the development of dramatic work