We do not want to “cure plant blindness” we want to grow plant love

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150580/1/ppp310062_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150580/2/ppp310062.pd

Resilience in the Limpopo Basin : The potential role of the transboundary Raotswa aquifer - Final draft

As complementary report of the baseline report, this report focus on the hydrogeological assessment of the Ramotswa Transboundary Aquifer and covers only aspects related to the biophysical conditions of the aquifer which is a karstic dolomit aquife straddling the international border between Botswana and South Africa. The assessment is based on existing data and field data collected (including Airborne Electro-Magnetic survey) during the period September 2015 –November 2016. The technical knowledge developed in the report will be used as based for developing tools for harmonized management and fostering crossborder dialogue in order to help building the joint Strategic Action Programme which will provide, not exclusively, guidelines for better monitoring and future assessment of the aquifer

Words are monuments: Patterns in US national park place names perpetuate settler colonial mythologies including white supremacy

1. Ecologists, outdoor professionals and the public work and play in lands with complex histories. Part of decolonizing our professional and recreational practices is to expose settler colonial biases and recognize the histories of colonized lands and the peoples who have stewarded these lands for millennia prior to colonization. 2. To provide a quantitative example of settler colonial biases in a familiar context, we examined the origins of over 2,200 place names in 16 national parks in the United States (US; 26% of the parks). Through iterative thematic analysis of place name origins and meanings, we constructed a decision tree for classifying place names according to emergent categories, which enabled the quantification and spatial analysis of place name meanings. 3. All national parks examined have place names that tacitly endorse racist or, more specifically, anti-Indigenous ideologies, thus perpetuating settler colonialism and white supremacy at the system scale for future generations. 4. Looking east to west across the US, the proportion of place names per national park that appropriated Indigenous names increased in parallel with the westward expansion and evolution of US settler colonialism. 5. This examination of place names, name origins and their consequences is an opportunity to make everyday complicity in systemic oppression more visible and to more actively advance decolonizing practices for land and language

Low Concentrations of Silver Nanoparticles in Biosolids Cause Adverse Ecosystem Responses under Realistic Field Scenario

A large fraction of engineered nanomaterials in consumer and commercial products will reach natural ecosystems. To date, research on the biological impacts of environmental nanomaterial exposures has largely focused on high-concentration exposures in mechanistic lab studies with single strains of model organisms. These results are difficult to extrapolate to ecosystems, where exposures will likely be at low-concentrations and which are inhabited by a diversity of organisms. Here we show adverse responses of plants and microorganisms in a replicated long-term terrestrial mesocosm field experiment following a single low dose of silver nanoparticles (0.14 mg Ag kg−1 soil) applied via a likely route of exposure, sewage biosolid application. While total aboveground plant biomass did not differ between treatments receiving biosolids, one plant species, Microstegium vimeneum, had 32 % less biomass in the Slurry+AgNP treatment relative to the Slurry only treatment. Microorganisms were also affected by AgNP treatment, which gave a significantly different community composition of bacteria in the Slurry+AgNPs as opposed to the Slurry treatment one day after addition as analyzed by T-RFLP analysis of 16S-rRNA genes. After eight days, N2O flux was 4.5 fold higher in the Slurry+AgNPs treatment than the Slurry treatment. After fifty days, community composition and N2O flux of the Slurry+AgNPs treatment converged with the Slurry. However, the soil microbial extracellular enzymes leucine amino peptidase and phosphatase had 52 and 27% lower activities, respectively, while microbial biomass was 35% lower than the Slurry. We also show that the magnitude of these responses was in all cases as large as or larger than the positive control, AgNO3, added at 4-fold the Ag concentration of the silver nanoparticles

Plant Trait Diversity Buffers Variability in Denitrification Potential over Changes in Season and Soil Conditions

BACKGROUND: Denitrification is an important ecosystem service that removes nitrogen (N) from N-polluted watersheds, buffering soil, stream, and river water quality from excess N by returning N to the atmosphere before it reaches lakes or oceans and leads to eutrophication. The denitrification enzyme activity (DEA) assay is widely used for measuring denitrification potential. Because DEA is a function of enzyme levels in soils, most ecologists studying denitrification have assumed that DEA is less sensitive to ambient levels of nitrate (NO(3)(-)) and soil carbon and thus, less variable over time than field measurements. In addition, plant diversity has been shown to have strong effects on microbial communities and belowground processes and could potentially alter the functional capacity of denitrifiers. Here, we examined three questions: (1) Does DEA vary through the growing season? (2) If so, can we predict DEA variability with environmental variables? (3) Does plant functional diversity affect DEA variability? METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The study site is a restored wetland in North Carolina, US with native wetland herbs planted in monocultures or mixes of four or eight species. We found that denitrification potentials for soils collected in July 2006 were significantly greater than for soils collected in May and late August 2006 (p<0.0001). Similarly, microbial biomass standardized DEA rates were significantly greater in July than May and August (p<0.0001). Of the soil variables measured--soil moisture, organic matter, total inorganic nitrogen, and microbial biomass--none consistently explained the pattern observed in DEA through time. There was no significant relationship between DEA and plant species richness or functional diversity. However, the seasonal variance in microbial biomass standardized DEA rates was significantly inversely related to plant species functional diversity (p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These findings suggest that higher plant functional diversity may support a more constant level of DEA through time, buffering the ecosystem from changes in season and soil conditions

Reading a formula(ting) of space(,)time and quantum mechanics

If I could to do this properly, and know this as what is proper (to, of, the thesis), I could say that this is to have balanced the (energy) books – in sum. That a framework of being (multiple) books, I could say text, I could say space, is already in place to have then the balance. Overall – in sum, average, to conserve. I could say, what is already in place? I could say, the atom, rather than the (text)book, if I did not know better, that is, that I can add to the atom in its division: it could (also) be a particle or a wave. So it might be that I adumbrate how it is that de Broglie first thought matter waves, and by so doing, I might observe that the velocity of the phase wave associated to a particle is excessive to the system which produces it. Or rather that to carry energy requires a modification of this phase wave; no specifics, but rather a group (velocity). And in observing this, think through what is at stake in the claims to observers observing that which can(not) be seen. I could say, that this is key (words); how to (re)order the infinite to (re)produce itself? And this in relation to energy. I might (probably) be questioning frames, the mathematics, mechanics; how and why this is invested in as supplement and proof of what is. What would be unity? What is proper (for there to (probably) be unity)? This in relation to eigenvalues, and Schrödinger’s Wave Equation – what is properly characteristic of the being particle, wave? I can only gesture towards this, the field

Environmental Conditions Influence the Plant Functional Diversity Effect on Potential Denitrification

Global biodiversity loss has prompted research on the relationship between species diversity and ecosystem functioning. Few studies have examined how plant diversity impacts belowground processes; even fewer have examined how varying resource levels can influence the effect of plant diversity on microbial activity. In a field experiment in a restored wetland, we examined the role of plant trait diversity (or functional diversity, (FD)) and its interactions with natural levels of variability of soil properties, on a microbial process, denitrification potential (DNP). We demonstrated that FD significantly affected microbial DNP through its interactions with soil conditions; increasing FD led to increased DNP but mainly at higher levels of soil resources. Our results suggest that the effect of species diversity on ecosystem functioning may depend on environmental factors such as resource availability. Future biodiversity experiments should examine how natural levels of environmental variability impact the importance of biodiversity to ecosystem functioning

sj-docx-8-scx-10.1177_10755470241227443 – Supplemental material for Shifting Climate Communication Narratives Toward Actions and Futures in a Rural Area of Appalachia

Supplemental material, sj-docx-8-scx-10.1177_10755470241227443 for Shifting Climate Communication Narratives Toward Actions and Futures in a Rural Area of Appalachia by Bonnie M. McGill, Taiji Nelson, Mary Ann Steiner and Nicole E. Heller in Science Communication</p