scholarly journals Termites mitigate the effects of drought in tropical rainforest

Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 363 (6423) ◽  
pp. 174-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. A. Ashton ◽  
H. M. Griffiths ◽  
C. L. Parr ◽  
T. A. Evans ◽  
R. K. Didham ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Tropical Rainforest ◽  
Seedling Survival ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Soil Nutrient ◽  
Tropical Rainforests ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Ecological Functions ◽  
Soil Nutrient Heterogeneity ◽  
Effects Of Drought

Termites perform key ecological functions in tropical ecosystems, are strongly affected by variation in rainfall, and respond negatively to habitat disturbance. However, it is not known how the projected increase in frequency and severity of droughts in tropical rainforests will alter termite communities and the maintenance of ecosystem processes. Using a large-scale termite suppression experiment, we found that termite activity and abundance increased during drought in a Bornean forest. This increase resulted in accelerated litter decomposition, elevated soil moisture, greater soil nutrient heterogeneity, and higher seedling survival rates during the extreme El Niño drought of 2015–2016. Our work shows how an invertebrate group enhances ecosystem resistance to drought, providing evidence that the dual stressors of climate change and anthropogenic shifts in biotic communities will have various negative consequences for the maintenance of rainforest ecosystems.

scholarly journals Disentangling chronic regeneration failure in endangered woodland ecosystems

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ami Bennett ◽  
David Hugh Duncan ◽  
Libby Rumpff ◽  
Peter Anton Vesk
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Seedling Survival ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Survey Period ◽  
Regeneration Failure ◽  
Browsing Damage ◽  
One Year ◽  
Degraded Ecosystems ◽  
Revegetation Strategies

Ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems requires the facilitation of natural regeneration by plants, often augmented by large-scale active revegetation. The success of such projects is highly variable. Risk factors may be readily identifiable in a general sense, but it is rarely clear how they play out individually, or in combination. We addressed this problem with a field experiment on the survival of, and browsing damage to, 1275 hand-planted buloke (Allocasuarina luehmannii) seedlings in a nationally endangered, semi-arid woodland community. Buloke seedlings were planted in 17 sites representing four landscape contexts and with three levels of protection from kangaroo and lagomorph browsing. We censused seedlings and measured herbivore activity four times during the first 400 days post-planting, and fitted models of mortality and browse hazard to these data using survival analysis. Increasing lagomorph activity was associated with higher mortality risk, while kangaroo activity was not. Seedling survival was lowest for each treatment within extant buloke woodland, and the highest survival rates for guarded seedlings were in locations favoured by lagomorphs. Damage from browsing was nearly ubiquitous after one year for surviving unguarded seedlings, despite moderate browser activity. On average, unguarded seedlings showed a decline in height, whereas fully guarded seedlings grew 2.3 cm across the survey period. This study demonstrates buloke seedlings should be protected from browsers, even with browsers maintained at moderate to low density, and the location that maximizes survival, and possibly growth rates, is adjacent to dunes. Further work will test this heuristic in an analysis of cost-effective revegetation strategies for this endangered community.

The Necessity and Ways of Legitimation of Large-scale Private Property in Russia: Raising a Problem

2007 ◽  
pp. 4-26
Author(s):  
G. Yavlinsky
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Considerable Part ◽  
Russian People ◽  
National Importance ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
Special Rules ◽  
Economic Assets

Results of privatization campaign in 1990’s continue to meet strong opposition from a very considerable part of Russian people and authorities actually refuse to consider the rights of private owners legitimate and not subject to violation. One of the reasons for this, besides historical tradition, is a specific nature of Russian privatization of 1990’s. The article brings to discussion a set of measures aimed at overcoming its negative consequences. While insisting on the need to honor all previous government obligations and commitments, the paper proposes a one-time special tax (windfall tax) to be levied on those who benefited most from privatization deals that were not just and fair, and special rules to be set for the use and sale of economic assets of national importance. The author also considers possible ways to legitimize private property, as well as chances to achieve а broad public consensus on this issue in Russia.

“Community Interests” and the Role of International Law in the Creation of a Global Market for Agricultural Land

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jochen von Bernstorff
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Land Grab ◽  
Large Scale Land ◽  
The One

The chapter explores the notion of “community interests” with regard to the global “land-grab” phenomenon. Over the last decade, a dramatic increase of foreign investment in agricultural land could be observed. Bilateral investment treaties protect around 75 per cent of these large-scale land acquisitions, many of which came with associated social problems, such as displaced local populations and negative consequences for food security in Third World countries receiving these large-scale foreign investments. Hence, two potentially conflicting areas of international law are relevant in this context: Economic, social, and cultural rights and the principles of permanent sovereignty over natural resources and “food sovereignty” challenging large-scale investments on the one hand, and specific norms of international economic law stabilizing them on the other. The contribution discusses the usefulness of the concept of “community interests” in cases where the two colliding sets of norms are both considered to protect such interests.

scholarly journals The influence of cactus spine surface structure on puncture performance and anchoring ability is tuned for ecology

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1891) ◽  
pp. 20182280 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. B. Crofts ◽  
P. S. L. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Surface Structure ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Biological Materials ◽  
Morphological Features ◽  
Ecological Functions ◽  
Defensive Mechanisms ◽  
Evolutionary Convergence ◽  
Almost All

Spines are common morphological features found in almost all major biological groups offering an opportunity to explore large-scale evolutionary convergence across disparate clades. As an example, opuntioid cacti have spines with barbed ornamentation that is remarkably similar in form and scale to that found on porcupine quills, suggesting specific biomechanical convergence across the animal and plant kingdoms. While the mechanics of porcupine quills as defensive mechanisms has been previously tested, the mechanics of cactus spines (which have evolved to fill a number of functions including defence, climbing and dispersal) has not been characterized. Here we study the puncturing and anchoring ability of six species of cactus, including both barbed and non-barbed spines. We found that barbed spines require less work to puncture a variety of targets than non-barbed spines. Barbed spines also require more work than non-barbed spines to withdraw from biological materials, owing to their barbs engaging with tissue fibres. These results closely match those found previously for barbed versus non-barbed porcupine quills, implying biomechanical convergence. The variation in performance of barbed versus non-barbed spines, as well as between barbed spines from different species, is probably tied to the diversity of ecological functions of cactus spines.

scholarly journals Why 20 Years of the Great Agreement did not Save Ukraine from Russian Military Aggression?

2018 ◽  
pp. 641-655
Author(s):  
Hryhorii Perepelytsia
Keyword(s):  
Russian Federation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Strategic Partnership ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Implementation Period ◽  
Partnership Status ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Russian Military

The article analyses significance of the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. The author outlines the statement of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko about the termination of the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, analyses the reasons for delaying the breakdown of diplomatic relations with the aggressor country, and studies the trade-economic and financial reasons for such a delay. Fear of large-scale armed invasion in Ukraine, the existence of certain arrangements with negative consequences for the ownership of Ukrainian oligarchs in Russia and so on are distinguished among the reasons for the delay of denouncing this treaty. Therefore, Ukraine legally preserved strategic partnership relations with Russia and continued to develop trade and economic relations. The domestic policy of both states was characterized within the context of Russian-Ukrainian war; the main content of the analysis of the Great Agreement and its 20-year implementation period was revealed. Fundamental changes in relations between the West and Russia were formulated. The analysis of the interpretation of the main points and theses of the Agreement were carried out. After analyzing the Great Agreement the author considers it obvious that Ukraine and Russia have different conceptual views on the role of the Treaty in their development as well as in development of their interstate bilateral relations. The article analyses Russia’s ignoring of the main points and norms of the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership and describes the reasons for radicalization of relations both in political and social dimensions that have been provoked by the Russian-Ukrainian war. The author concludes that Russia under cover of the Great Agreement, created all conditions necessary for committing its military aggression against Ukraine and gives examples of war crimes. Keywords: Great Agreement, Ukraine, Russian Federation, diplomatic relations, partnership, status.

scholarly journals Knockdown of 60S ribosomal protein L14-2 reveals their potential regulatory roles to enhance drought and salt tolerance in cotton

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Linyerera SHIRAKU ◽  
Richard Odongo MAGWANGA ◽  
Xiaoyan CAI ◽  
Joy Nyangasi KIRUNGU ◽  
Yanchao XU ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Salt Stress ◽  
Ribosomal Protein ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Natural Fiber ◽  
Substantial Reduction ◽  
Regulatory Elements ◽  
Scale Production ◽  
Drought And Salt Tolerance ◽  
Drought And Salt Stress ◽  
Effects Of Drought

Abstract Background Cotton is a valuable economic crop and the main significant source of natural fiber for textile industries globally. The effects of drought and salt stress pose a challenge to strong fiber and large-scale production due to the ever-changing climatic conditions. However, plants have evolved a number of survival strategies, among them is the induction of various stress-responsive genes such as the ribosomal protein large (RPL) gene. The RPL gene families encode critical proteins, which alleviate the effects of drought and salt stress in plants. In this study, comprehensive and functional analysis of the cotton RPL genes was carried out under drought and salt stresses. Results Based on the genome-wide evaluation, 26, 8, and 5 proteins containing the RPL14B domain were identified in Gossypium hirsutum, G. raimondii, and G. arboreum, respectively. Furthermore, through bioinformatics analysis, key cis-regulatory elements related to RPL14B genes were discovered. The Myb binding sites (MBS), abscisic acid-responsive element (ABRE), CAAT-box, TATA box, TGACG-motif, and CGTCA-motif responsive to methyl jasmonate, as well as the TCA-motif responsive to salicylic acid, were identified. Expression analysis revealed a key gene, Gh_D01G0234 (RPL14B), with significantly higher induction levels was further evaluated through a reverse genetic approach. The knockdown of Gh_D01G0234 (RPL14B) significantly affected the performance of cotton seedlings under drought/salt stress conditions, as evidenced by a substantial reduction in various morphological and physiological traits. Moreover, the level of the antioxidant enzyme was significantly reduced in VIGS-plants, while oxidant enzyme levels increased significantly, as demonstrated by the higher malondialdehyde concentration level. Conclusion The results revealed the potential role of the RPL14B gene in promoting the induction of antioxidant enzymes, which are key in oxidizing the various oxidants. The key pathways need to be investigated and even as we exploit these genes in the developing of more stress-resilient cotton germplasms.

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