Burial and seed survival in Brassica napus subsp. oleifera and Sinapis arvensis including a comparison of transgenic and non-transgenic lines of the crop

The creation of transgenic plants through genetic engineering has focused interest on how the fitness of a plant species may be altered by small changes in its genome. This study concentrates on a key component of fitness: persistence of seeds overwinter. Seeds of three lines of oilseed rape (Brassica napus subsp. oleifera DC Metzger) and of charlock (Sinapis arvensis L.) were buried in nylon mesh bags at two depths in four habitats in each of three geographically separated sites: Cornwall, Berkshire and Sutherland. Seeds were recovered after 12 and 24 months. Charlock exhibited much greater seed survival (average 60 per cent surviving the first year and 32.5 per cent surviving the second year) than oilseed rape (1.5 per cent surviving the first year and 0.2 per cent surviving the second) at all sites. Charlock showed higher survival at 15 cm burial than 2 cm burial at certain sites, but oilseed rape showed no depth effect. Different genetic lines of oilseed rape displayed different rates of seed survival; non-transgenic rape showed greater survival (2 per cent) than the two transgenic lines, one developed for tolerance to the antibiotic kanamycin (0.3 per cent) and one for tolerance to both kanamycin and the herbicide glufosinate (0.25 per cent). The absolute and relative performances of the different genetic lines of oilseed rape were context specific, illustrating the need to test hypotheses in a wide range of ecological settings

Composition portfolio

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Ecological science for ecosystem services and the stewardship of Natural Capital

1. National and international assessments are increasingly highlighting the unsustainable use of earth's natural resources in the face of population increase, growing material affluence and global change. In all likelihood, the use and degradation of natural resources will continue. 2. In contrast to resource depletion, the concept of natural capital emphasises how the environment is an asset to be managed, to ensure that the benefits which flow from it are sustained for future generations. These benefits are the ecosystem goods and services upon which all people rely for their continued survival and well-being both now and, ideally, in perpetuity. 3. Despite their importance, the evidence-base and quantitative understanding of links between biodiversity, ecosystem function and ecosystem services are insufficient to allow informed use and management. Moreover, the concepts of natural capital and ecosystem services are insufficiently mainstream to influence decisions that currently favour the production of food and fibre rather than less tangible services such as climate regulation, air and water purification, pollination or the contributions of environment to health. 4. There are specific challenges to ecological science in this interdisciplinary endeavour: specifically, to develop frameworks for identifying and monitoring natural capital; to parameterise factors affecting ecosystem services and their resilience to change; to integrate the complexity of ecological systems into ecosystem service valuation; and to characterise the synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services in different management and policy scenarios. 5. Synthesis and applications. The five papers in this Special Profile exemplify just some of the leading work through which ecologists in the UK are contributing nationally and internationally to these needs, stemming from the UK National Ecosystem Assessment - the first national scale exercise of its type in the world. We expect a major, worldwide increase in work on ecosystem services and natural capital in future as decisions on ecosystem use of management are squeezed increasingly between the needs of exploitation and protection

Sh

Sh is a work for solo guitar that lasts around three minutes

Child, Family, and Neighborhood Predictors of Children’s Body Mass Index: A Longitudinal Study of Moderated Mediation

Childhood obesity is a widely prevalent public health concern that disproportionately affects children from low-income families (Cameron et al., 2015). The causes of child obesity and socioeconomic disparities in its prevalence are not well understood, but are likely because of co-occurring and interacting risk factors at multiple levels of influence on children (Harrison et al., 2011). In particular, aspects of children’s early neighborhood environment, including food retailers and parks, may affect children’s weight directly by influencing health behaviors (e.g., eating habits, physical activity). A neighborhood’s social attributes (e.g., poverty levels, perceived danger) could also indirectly affect child weight by compromising self-regulation (SR), which could then influence eating behaviors. Additionally, parents may provide a buffering effect for children in the context of high levels of neighborhood risk (Supplee et al., 2007). The aims of the current study were to assess longitudinal relationships between the neighborhood environment in early childhood (the “built” environment and neighborhood social context) and growth in child body mass index (BMI) from age 5 to 10.5, to test child SR as a mediator of associations between neighborhood context and child BMI growth, and to test supportive parenting as a moderator of relationships between neighborhood and child SR and between child SR and child BMI growth. Study data came from the Early Steps Multisite Study, a sample of 731 predominantly low-income families from Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia assessed when children were age 2 to 10.5. Overall, the current study provided little evidence for the proposed model. Neighborhood variables and SR at preschool-age were both unrelated to growth in child BMI over time. Census-based neighborhood social disadvantage was found to interact with supportive parenting in relation to preschool-age SR, such that the relationship between supportive parenting and child SR was stronger in the context of lower levels of neighborhood disadvantage. Variability in neighborhood context and urbanicity across the three sites may have hindered the ability to detect associations. As child obesity is complex and influenced by many factors both proximal and distal, future research should continue to evaluate interactions and mediating mechanisms among variables at multiple levels of children’s ecology

A GENETICALLY INFORMED STUDY OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN PRENATAL ALCOHOL EXPOSURE AND PARENTAL DEPRESSION IN RISK FOR CHILDREN’S EMERGING EXTERNALIZING PROBLEMS

Prenatal Alcohol Exposure (PAE) has been associated with children’s externalizing problems (e.g., D’Onofrio et al.,2007); however, it remains unclear whether low/moderate PAE has a meaningful effect on children’s outcomes. Perhaps low/moderate PAE increases children’s vulnerability to externalizing but only in the context of postnatal adversity, such as parental depression. An adoption study is advantageous for addressing questions about the independent influence of PAE, as genetic and postnatal contextual risk can be disentangled from one another and their interactive associations may be assessed. Primary aims of the current study were to examine independent and interactive associations between PAE and postnatal exposure to parental depressive symptoms in relation to child externalizing problems at early school-age, after accounting for inherited risk. The role of inhibitory control (IC) as a possible mediator of the relationship between PAE and externalizing was also examined. Study data came from the Early Growth and Development Study, a multi-site prospective longitudinal adoption study. Reported alcohol consumption was lower than expected. There was no evidence for an association between PAE and children’s externalizing, independently or in interaction with adoptive parent depression. There was also no effect of PAE on children’s IC. Adoptive mother and father depressive symptoms were independently associated with children’s externalizing. IC at 27 months was negatively related to child externalizing. Findings did not support the hypothesis that low/moderate PAE would be associated with children’s externalizing, regardless of the presence of postnatal contextual adversity. Study findings are novel because of the adoption design, in which the parents providing the postnatal environment were genetically unrelated to the child and did not provide the prenatal environment. However, adoptive families were relatively low-risk, thus findings may not generalize to families facing higher levels of postnatal contextual adversity

BE GOOD.

Work for solo horn, dedicated to Elliott Carter on the occasion of his 100th birthday. First performed by Fergus Kerr on 28th September 2008

EMG

Work for solo piano requested and first performed by Nicholas Ashton.This work samples vertical chord structures from an earlier piece for piano (EVEN MORE GEESE), which itself was derived from an ensemble piece (More Geese).These samples are presented embedded in a durational structure as if preserved in amber, separated by silences.The work employs all three pedals in various combinations to heighten the harmonic content