Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Petr Kohout, Markéta Charvátová, Martina Štursová et al. · 2018 · The ISME Journal
Forest management practices often severely affect forest ecosystem functioning. Tree removal by clearcutting is one such practice, producing severe impacts due to the total reduction of primary productivity. Here, we assessed changes to…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Abayineh Amare, Belay Simane · 2017 · Agriculture & Food Security
Smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt adaptation options in response to climate change and variability are influenced by socioeconomic, institutional, and environmental factors, indicating that decision patterns can be very specific to a given locality. The prime objective of this research is to identify factors affecting smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt adaptation options to climate change and variability in the Muger River sub-basin of the Blue Nile basin of Ethiopia. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire, focused group discussio
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Valeria Fochi, Walter Chitarra, Annegret Kohler et al. · 2016 · New Phytologist
Orchids are highly dependent on their mycorrhizal fungal partners for nutrient supply, especially during early developmental stages. In addition to organic carbon, nitrogen (N) is probably a major nutrient transferred to the plant because…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Julie M. Cridland, Stuart J. Macdonald, Anthony D. Long et al. · 2013 · Molecular Biology and Evolution
Here we present computational machinery to efficiently and accurately identify transposable element (TE) insertions in 146 next-generation sequenced inbred strains of Drosophila melanogaster. The panel of lines we use in our study is…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Kazushi Takahashi, Christopher B. Barrett · 2013 · American Journal of Agricultural Economics
Abstract The yield potential of a set of improved rice management practices, known as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), has attracted much attention. Yet we know surprisingly little about SRI's socio‐economic impact. Using data…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Ahmed Bouteska, Taimur Sharif, Faruk Bhuiyan et al. · 2024 · Journal of Cleaner Production
This study investigates the influence of climate change on agriculture productivity and food security in the context of Ethiopia. We use 2011–2020 state level data set of four major seasonal crops of Cash and Food in Ethiopia, namely, barley, wheat, maize, and sorghum. Methodologically, we apply the productivity function and the Ricardian approaches in the modelling for simulating the association of climate change with agriculture productivity. This study documents the interconnectedness among changes in climate, security of food and agriculture, indicating how the prior changes bring the latt
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Muhammad Fahim Raza, Yichen Wang, Zhaohui Cai et al. · 2020 · PLoS Pathogens
Gut symbiotic bacteria have a substantial impact on host physiology and ecology. However, the contribution of gut microbes to host fitness during long-term low-temperature stress is still unclear. This study examined the role of gut microbiota in host low-temperature stress resistance at molecular and biochemical levels in the oriental fruit fly Bactrocera dorsalis. The results showed that after the gut bacteria of flies were removed via antibiotic treatment, the median survival time was significantly decreased to approximately 68% of that in conventional flies following exposure to a temperat
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Geir H. Bolstad, Thomas F. Hansen, Christophe Pélabon et al. · 2014 · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
If genetic constraints are important, then rates and direction of evolution should be related to trait evolvability. Here we use recently developed measures of evolvability to test the genetic constraint hypothesis with quantitative…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Kabir Peay, Sabrina E. Russo, Krista L. McGuire et al. · 2015 · Ecology Letters
Plants interact with a diversity of microorganisms, and there is often concordance in their community structures. Because most community-level studies are observational, it is unclear if such concordance arises because of host specificity,…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Heidi Edmonds, Julie Lovell, C. A. Knox Lovell · 2020 · Ecological Indicators
The earth’s climate is changing, with global warming attributable to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions driven by economic and population growth. Human systems and ecosystems vary in their exposure, mitigation and adaptive capacity,…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Tariq M. Butt, Bethany P. J. Greenfield, Carolyn Greig et al. · 2013 · PLoS ONE
Metarhizium anisopliae, a fungal pathogen of terrestrial arthropods, kills the aquatic larvae of Aedes aegypti, the vector of dengue and yellow fever. The fungus kills without adhering to the host cuticle. Ingested conidia also fail to germinate and are expelled in fecal pellets. This study investigates the mechanism by which this fungus adapted to terrestrial hosts kills aquatic mosquito larvae. Genes associated with the M. anisopliae early pathogenic response (proteinases Pr1 and Pr2, and adhesins, Mad1 and Mad2) are upregulated in the presence of larvae, but the established infection proces
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Clelia Gasparini, Leigh W. Simmons, Maxine Beveridge et al. · 2010 · PLoS ONE
Sperm competition is expected to favour the evolution of traits that influence the performance of sperm when they compete to fertilize a female's eggs. While there is considerable evidence that selection favours increases in sperm numbers, much less is known about how sperm quality contributes towards competitive fertilization success. Here, we determine whether variation in sperm quality influences competitive fertilization success in the green swordtail Xiphophorus helleri, a highly promiscuous livebearing fish. We use artificial insemination as a method of controlled sperm delivery and show
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Casper Nyamukondiwa, Elsje Kleynhans, John S. Terblanche · 2010 · Ecological Entomology
1. The invasion success of Ceratitis capitata probably stems from physiological, morphological, and behavioural adaptations that enable them to survive in different habitats. However, it is generally poorly understood if variation in acute…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Dana A. Opulente, Abigail L. LaBella, Marie‐Claire Harrison et al. · 2024 · Science
Organisms exhibit extensive variation in ecological niche breadth, from very narrow (specialists) to very broad (generalists). Two general paradigms have been proposed to explain this variation: (i) trade-offs between performance efficiency and breadth and (ii) the joint influence of extrinsic (environmental) and intrinsic (genomic) factors. We assembled genomic, metabolic, and ecological data from nearly all known species of the ancient fungal subphylum Saccharomycotina (1154 yeast strains from 1051 species), grown in 24 different environmental conditions, to examine niche breadth evolution.
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Carol Shennan, Timothy J. Krupnik, Graeme Baird et al. · 2017 · Annual Review of Environment and Resources
In this review, we examine the debate surrounding the role for organic agriculture in future food production systems. Typically represented as a binary organic–conventional question, this debate perpetuates an either/or mentality. We…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Javier Palma‐Guerrero, Xin Ma, Stefano F. F. Torriani et al. · 2017 · Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions
Zymoseptoria tritici is an ascomycete fungus that causes Septoria tritici blotch, a globally distributed foliar disease on wheat. Z. tritici populations are highly polymorphic and exhibit significant quantitative variation for virulence.…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Philip T. Leftwich, Naomi V. E. Clarke, Matthew I. Hutchings et al. · 2017 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Significance The evolutionary significance of assortative mating by diet, mediated by gut bacteria is a puzzle, but it has had a huge impact and has provided a keystone to support increasing interest in the “holobiome.” However, in species…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Haftu Etsay, Teklay Negash, Metkel Aregay · 2019 · Ecological Processes
Sustainable land management is considered as one of the useful approaches to combat the threat of various forms of land degradation in Ethiopia. Despite this, there is scant information regarding households’ decision towards the implementation of sustainable land management practices. This paper, therefore, looks into the determinants for the continued use and choice of the sustainable land management practices by smallholder farmers and its productivity effect in three randomly chosen districts in Tigrai region, Ethiopia. The study uses data from household survey and key informant interviews.
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
J. Castro, Andrés Gómez, Bryan A. White et al. · 2016 · Journal of Dairy Science
The objective of this work was to assess the effects of age and gastrointestinal location (rumen vs. colon) on bacterial community diversity and composition, as well as short-chain fatty acid profiles of preruminant male Holstein calves on…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Albert B. Phillimore, Sandra Stålhandske, R. Smithers et al. · 2012 · The American Naturalist
Phenology affects the abiotic and biotic conditions that an organism encounters and, consequently, its fitness. For populations of high-latitude species, spring phenology often occurs earlier in warmer years and regions. Here we apply a…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Nancy McCarthy, Talip Kilic, Josh Brubaker et al. · 2021 · Environment and Development Economics
Abstract Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of extreme weather events, increasing the vulnerability of smallholder farmers dependent on rain-fed agriculture. We evaluate the extent to which farmers in Malawi suffer crop production losses due to extreme weather, and whether sustainable land management (SLM) practices help shield crop production losses from extreme events. We use a three period panel dataset where widespread floods and droughts occurred in separate periods, offering a unique opportunity to evaluate impacts using data collected immediately following these event
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Daniel Garrido‐Sanz, Senka Čaušević, Jordan Vacheron et al. · 2023 · Microbiome
BACKGROUND: Plant-beneficial bacterial inoculants are of great interest in agriculture as they have the potential to promote plant growth and health. However, the inoculation of the rhizosphere microbiome often results in a suboptimal or transient colonization, which is due to a variety of factors that influence the fate of the inoculant. To better understand the fate of plant-beneficial inoculants in complex rhizosphere microbiomes, composed by hundreds of genotypes and multifactorial selection mechanisms, controlled studies with high-complexity soil microbiomes are needed. RESULTS: We analys
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Yishak Gecho · 2014 · Social Sciences
Due to sever land scarcity, high population pressure and recurrent drought, farm households in the study area widely engage in and pursue diverse activities as livelihood strategies. The carrying capacity of agriculture to attain food and…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
François Renoz, Christine Noël, Abdelmounaim Errachid et al. · 2015 · PLoS ONE
In addition to its obligatory symbiont Buchnera aphidicola, the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum can harbor several facultative bacterial symbionts which can be mutualistic in the context of various ecological interactions. Belonging to a genus where many members have been described as pathogen in invertebrates, Serratia symbiotica is one of the most common facultative partners found in aphids. The recent discovery of strains able to grow outside their host allowed us to simulate environmental acquisition of symbiotic bacteria by aphids. Here, we performed an experiment to characterize the A. pis
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Lydia K. Greene, Kathleen E. Grogan, Kendra Smyth et al. · 2016 · Royal Society Open Science
Animals communicating via scent often deposit composite signals that incorporate odorants from multiple sources; however, the function of mixing chemical signals remains understudied. We tested both a 'multiple-messages' and a 'fixative' hypothesis of composite olfactory signalling, which, respectively, posit that mixing scents functions to increase information content or prolong signal longevity. Our subjects-adult, male ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta)-have a complex scent-marking repertoire, involving volatile antebrachial (A) secretions, deposited pure or after being mixed with a squalene-
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Maria Azrad, Robin T. Vollmer, John F. Madden et al. · 2013 · Journal of Medicinal Food
Enterolactone and enterodiol, mammalian lignans derived from dietary sources such as flaxseed, sesame seeds, kale, broccoli, and apricots, may impede tumor proliferation by inhibiting activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NFκB) and…
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Martha Cárdenas, Alejandro Grajales, Roberto Sierra et al. · 2011 · BMC Genetics
BACKGROUND: Phytophthora infestans (Mont.) de Bary, the causal agent of potato late blight, is responsible for tremendous crop losses worldwide. Countries in the northern part of the Andes dedicate a large proportion of the highlands to the production of potato, and more recently, solanaceous fruits such as cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana) and tree tomato (Solanum betaceum), all of which are hosts of this oomycete. In the Andean region, P. infestans populations have been well characterized in Ecuador and Peru, but are poorly understood in Colombia and Venezuela. To understand the P. infest
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Jessica D. Petersen, Stephen Reiners, Brian A. Nault · 2013 · PLoS ONE
Pollinators provide an important service in many crops. Managed honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) are used to supplement pollination services provided by wild bees with the assumption that they will enhance pollination, fruit set and crop yield beyond the levels provided by the wild bees. Recent declines in managed honey bee populations have stimulated interest in finding alternative managed pollinators to service crops. In the eastern U.S., managed hives of the native common eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens Cresson) may be an excellent choice. To examine this issue, a comprehensive 2-yr stud
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Duncan Murdock, Sarah E. Gabbott, Georg Mayer et al. · 2014 · BMC Evolutionary Biology
BACKGROUND: Fossil lobopodians, including animals proposed to have close affinity to modern onychophorans, are crucial to understanding the evolution of the panarthropod body plan and the phylum-level relationships between the ecdysozoan groups. Unfortunately, the key features of their anatomy are un-mineralized and subject to biases introduced during death, decay and preservation, yet the extent to which these fossils have been affected by the processes of post-mortem decay is entirely untested. Recent experimental work on chordates has highlighted a profound bias caused by decay, resulting i
View details →Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Xiao Fan, Wentao Han, Linhong Teng et al. · 2019 · New Phytologist
Brown algae have convergently evolved plant-like body plans and reproductive cycles, which in plants are controlled by differential DNA methylation. This contribution provides the first single-base methylome profiles of haploid gametophytes and diploid sporophytes of a multicellular alga. Although only c. 1.4% of cytosines in Saccharina japonica were methylated mainly at CHH sites and characterized by 5-methylcytosine (5mC), there were significant differences between life-cycle stages. DNA methyltransferase 2 (DNMT2), known to efficiently catalyze tRNA methylation, is assumed to methylate the
View details →