Wild Bee Conservation within Urban Gardens and Nurseries: Effects of Local and Landscape Management

Across urban environments, vegetated habitats provide refuge for biodiversity. Gardens (designed for food crop production) and nurseries (designed for ornamental plant production) are both urban agricultural habitats characterized by high plant species richness but may vary in their ability to support wild pollinators, particularly bees. In gardens, pollinators are valued for crop production. In nurseries, ornamental plants rarely require pollination; thus, the potential of nurseries to support pollinators has not been examined. We asked how these habitats vary in their ability to support wild bees, and what habitat features relate to this variability. In 19 gardens and 11 nurseries in California, USA, we compared how local habitat and landscape features affected wild bee species abundance and richness. To assess local features, we estimated floral richness and measured ground cover as proxies for food and nesting resources, respectively. To assess landscape features, we measured impervious land cover surrounding each site. Our analyses showed that differences in floral richness, local habitat size, and the amount of urban land cover impacted garden wild bee species richness. In nurseries, floral richness and the proportion of native plant species impacted wild bee abundance and richness. We suggest management guidelines for supporting wild pollinators in both habitats.DFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2019 - 2020 / Technische Universität Berli

National evaluation of the neighbourhood nurseries: integrated report

Report description: The NNI was launched in 2001 to provide high quality childcare in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods of England, to help parents into employment, reduce child poverty and boost children’s development. By 2005 45,000 new childcare places had been created in approximately 1,400 neighbourhood nurseries. This report brings together the findings of the four individual strands of the National Evaluation of Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative as shown above and makes a number of recommendations. The report shows the rationale for the government’s strategy in targeting disadvantaged neighbourhoods and in focusing on high quality childcare to provide the link between raising parental employment and income and improving children’s life chances

Galaxy Nurseries: Crowdsourced analysis of slitless spectroscopic data

We present the results of Galaxy Nurseries project, which was designed to enable crowdsourced analysis of slitless spectroscopic data by volunteer citizen scientists using the Zooniverse online interface. The dataset was obtained by the WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallel (WISP) Survey collaboration and comprises NIR grism (G102 and G141) and direct imaging. Volunteers were instructed to evaluate indicated spectral features and decide whether it was a genuine emission line or more likely an artifact. Galaxy Nurseries was completed in only 40 days, gathering 414,360 classifications from 3003 volunteers for 27,333 putative emission lines. The results of Galaxy Nurseries demonstrate the feasibility of identifying genuine emission lines in slitless spectra by citizen scientists. Volunteer responses for each subject were aggregated to compute $f_{\mathrm{Real}}$, the fraction of volunteers who classified the corresponding emission line as "Real". To evaluate the accuracy of volunteer classifications, their aggregated responses were compared with independent assessments provided by members of the WISP Survey Science Team (WSST). Overall, there is a broad agreement between the WSST and volunteers' classifications, although we recognize that robust scientific analyses typically require samples with higher purity and completeness than raw volunteer classifications provide. Nonetheless, choosing optimal threshold values for $f_{\mathrm{Real}}$ allows a large fraction of spurious lines to be vetoed, substantially reducing the timescale for subsequent professional analysis of the remaining potential lines.Comment: Accepted for publication in Research Notes of the AA

Spatial and temporal variation in otolith chemistry for tautog (Tautoga onitis) in Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island coastal ponds

The elemental composition of otoliths may provide valuable information for establishing connectivity between fish nursery grounds and adult fish populations. Concentrations of Rb, Mg, Ca, Mn, Sr, Na, K, Sr, Pb, and Ba were determined by using solution-based inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry in otoliths of young-of-the year tautog (Tautoga onitis) captured in nursery areas along the Rhode Island coast during two consecutive years. Stable oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotopic ratios in young-of-the year otoliths were also analyzed with isotope ratio mass spectrometry. Chemical signatures differed significantly among the distinct nurseries within Narragansett Bay and the coastal ponds across years. Significant differences were also observed within nurseries from year to year. Classification accuracy to each of the five tautog nursery areas ranged from 85% to 92% across years. Because accurate classification of juvenile tautog nursery sites was achieved, otolith chemistry can potentially be used as a natural habitat tag

Hevea rootstock clones development. Building-up new verietal type : a multi-faceted challenge

With rubber trees occupying about 3.2 million hectares in Indonesia in 2006, the need for planting material from nurseries is rapidly increasing: more than 30 million plants for 2007. Nurseries can hardly manage to provide recommended seedling progenies as rootstocks. Propagation of clonal rootstocks through in vitro microcuttings could be an alternative way. The development of rootstock clones is a multi-faceted challenge. (Résumé d'auteur

Identification and characterization of nursery areas of red mullet Mullus barbatus in the Central Tyrrhenian Sea

Red Mullet Mullus barbatus is an important target of fishing activities in the central Tyrrhenian Sea, so it is essential to identify its critical habitats in order to manage this resource efficiently. Our research specifically focused on the identification and characterization of nursery areas. The use of spatial interpolation techniques enabled us to identify five nurseries that were highly persistent through time. Moreover, the estimate of juvenile density confirmed the strong aggregation effect of these nursery grounds, as a great portion of young individuals were concentrated in a relatively small surface of the study area. The environmental characterization of these areas showed that juveniles were mainly distributed on bottoms with a relatively high percentage of sand (>70%; P <0.05). Shannon biodiversity index analysis indicated that the southern nurseries reached the highest values of habitat quality (P < 0.0001). Multivariate analysis showed that nursery grounds were divided into three main groups, and analysis of spatial dynamics showed that two different strategies characterized Red Mullet juveniles when density changes over time. In particular, in some areas young individuals selected habitats in a density-dependent way following the basin model scheme, while in other zones they selected habitats in a density-independent way according to the proportional density model. Results also showed that juveniles followed the proportional density model strategy into nursery areas with the highest Shannon biodiversity index values

Healthy early years settings: a scoping study

This briefing paper considers the diversity in early years provision. It was produced for the Healthy Early Years study, which was funded by the Department of Health, to help inform decisions about extending the Healthy Schools Programme approach to early years settings. The paper focuses on childcare and early education provision for children aged from birth to five years: maintained and private nursery schools, Sure Start local programmes, children's centres, day nurseries, pre-school playgroups and childminders. An overview of the relevant issues and of the distinguishing features of each type of setting is provided

Organic tree propagation under Welsh nursery conditions

The demand for organically raised tree and hedging plants had been reported from organic farmers in Tir Gofal, as well as within the landscaping industry. Although there are a number of plant raising nurseries producing organically raised plants for vegetable and fruit production, there are no tree nurseries producing to organic standards. Nursery tree growers were concerned that there was currently too little known about the performance of tree seedlings in organic substrates (e.g. in root-trainers), nor about the nutrient supply to seedlings under organic regimes, nor about diseases control (especially fungal diseases such as mildew). Therefore, the development of three hedging species; Hawthorn, Hazel, Blackthorn, were tested for two growing systems in five different composts types; Ystwyth nursery mix, Peat based, Peat free based, Wood chip based, Organically certified green waste based. The results of these trials are reported here

Local links, local knowledge : choosing care settings and schools

This paper draws on data from two recently completed ESRC-funded projects in order to examine class differences and similarities around choice of school and choice of childcare. We argue here that there is every reason to believe that in many circumstances, within its particular mechanisms and practices, choice produces specific and pervasive forms of inequity.The processes by which working class parents in one study chose care settings and schools could be seen as less skilled, less informed, less careful than the decision-making of many of the middle class respondents. However, this is not an argument we advance, noting instead that the practices and meanings of choice are subject to significant social, cultural and economic variations in terms who gets to choose, who gets their choices, and what, how and why people choose when they are able to. We argue here that there are alternative sets of priorities in play for our working class respondents, involving attachments to the communal and the local