Seed availability in hay meadows: Land-use intensification promotes seed rain but not the persistent seed bank

Intensification of land use in semi-natural hay meadows has resulted in a decrease in species diversity. This is often thought to be caused by the reduced establishment of plant species due to high competition for light under conditions of increased productivity. Sowing experiments in grasslands have found reliable evidence that diversity can also be constrained by seed availability, implying that processes influencing the production and persistence of seeds may be important for the functioning of ecosystems. So far, the effects of land-use intensification on the seed rain and the persistence of seeds in the soil have been unclear. We selected six pairs of extensively managed (Festuco-Brometea) and intensively managed (Arrhenatheretalia) grassland with traditional late cutting regimes across Switzerland and covering an annual productivity gradient in the range 176–1211 gm−2. In each grassland community, we estimated seed rain and seed bank using eight pooled seed-trap or topsoil samples of 89 cm2 in each of six plots representing an area of c. 150 m2. The seed traps were established in spring 2010 and collected simultaneously with soil cores after an exposure of c. three months. We applied the emergence method in a cold frame over eight months to estimate density of viable seeds. With community productivity reflecting land-use intensification, the density and species richness in the seed rain increased, while mean seed size diminished and the proportions of persistent seeds and of species with persistent seeds in the topsoil declined. Stronger limitation of seeds in extensively managed semi-natural grasslands can explain the fact that such grasslands are not always richer in species than more intensively managed ones.

When Shareholders choose not to Maximize Value: The Union Bank of Switzerland's 1994 Proxy Fight

The staid Union Bank of Switzerland, in a very close vote, won the support of its shareholders in its battle against an attempt by dissidents to guide the way the nation's biggest bank is run. The special shareholder vote, held in a packed Zurich sports hall, was one of the most keenly awaited events in recent Swiss financial histroy. The Wall Street Journal, November 23, 1994

Unconventional Monetary Policy and the Great Recession: Estimating the Macroeconomic Effects of a Spread Compression at the Zero Lower Bound

We explore the macroeconomic effects of a compression in the long-term bond yield spread within the context of the Great Recession of 2007–09 via a time-varying parameter structural VAR model. We identify a “pure” spread shock defined as a shock that leaves the policy rate unchanged, which allows us to characterize the macroeconomic consequences of a decline in the yield spread induced by central banks’ asset purchases within an environment in which the policy rate is constrained by the effective zero lower bound. Two key findings stand out. First, compressions in the long-term yield spread exert a powerful effect on both output growth and inflation. Second, conditional on available estimates of the impact of the Federal Reserve’s and the Bank of England’s asset purchase programs on long-term yield spreads, our counterfactual simulations suggest that U.S. and U.K. unconventional monetary policy actions have averted significant risks both of deflation and of output collapses comparable to those that took place during the Great Depression.

Adaptive evolution during an ongoing range expansion: the invasive bank vole (Myodes glareolus) in Ireland

Range expansions are extremely common, but have only recently begun to attract attention in terms of their genetic consequences. As populations expand, demes at the wave front experience strong genetic drift, which is expected to reduce genetic diversity and potentially cause ‘allele surfing’, where alleles may become fixed over a wide geographical area even if their effects are deleterious. Previous simulation models show that range expansions can generate very strong selective gradients on dispersal, reproduction, competition and immunity. To investigate the effects of range expansion on genetic diversity and adaptation, we studied the population genomics of the bank vole (Myodes glareolus) in Ireland. The bank vole was likely introduced in the late 1920s and is expanding its range at a rate of ~2.5 km/year. Using genotyping-by-sequencing, we genotyped 281 bank voles at 5979 SNP loci. Fourteen sample sites were arranged in three transects running from the introduction site to the wave front of the expansion. We found significant declines in genetic diversity along all three transects. However, there was no evidence that sites at the wave front had accumulated more deleterious mutations. We looked for outlier loci with strong correlations between allele frequency and distance from the introduction site, where the direction of correlation was the same in all three transects. Amongst these outliers, we found significant enrichment for genic SNPs, suggesting the action of selection. Candidates for selection included several genes with immunological functions and several genes that could influence behaviour.