Agronomic and economic viability of Miscanthus x giganteus as a novel biofuel in the Maryland climate

Gemstone Team Biofuels

The evolutionary history of ferns inferred from 25 low-copy nuclear genes.

UNLABELLED: • PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Understanding fern (monilophyte) phylogeny and its evolutionary timescale is critical for broad investigations of the evolution of land plants, and for providing the point of comparison necessary for studying the evolution of the fern sister group, seed plants. Molecular phylogenetic investigations have revolutionized our understanding of fern phylogeny, however, to date, these studies have relied almost exclusively on plastid data.• METHODS: Here we take a curated phylogenomics approach to infer the first broad fern phylogeny from multiple nuclear loci, by combining broad taxon sampling (73 ferns and 12 outgroup species) with focused character sampling (25 loci comprising 35877 bp), along with rigorous alignment, orthology inference and model selection.• KEY RESULTS: Our phylogeny corroborates some earlier inferences and provides novel insights; in particular, we find strong support for Equisetales as sister to the rest of ferns, Marattiales as sister to leptosporangiate ferns, and Dennstaedtiaceae as sister to the eupolypods. Our divergence-time analyses reveal that divergences among the extant fern orders all occurred prior to ∼200 MYA. Finally, our species-tree inferences are congruent with analyses of concatenated data, but generally with lower support. Those cases where species-tree support values are higher than expected involve relationships that have been supported by smaller plastid datasets, suggesting that deep coalescence may be reducing support from the concatenated nuclear data.• CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates the utility of a curated phylogenomics approach to inferring fern phylogeny, and highlights the need to consider underlying data characteristics, along with data quantity, in phylogenetic studies.

FARM-Africa South Africa Northern Cape land reform and advocacy programme 2004-2008: final evaluation

FARM-Africa South Africa has played a crucial and important role in filling the gap that existed after the return of land to communities by government in the Northern Cape. Their support to farmer communities during the post-settlement phase has been critical for making productive use of land. During 2004-2008, FARM-SA has worked in 20 community projects in the Northern Cape, benefiting 745 poor households.

Integrating Land Use Planning and Transportation: Policy formulation in the Belfast Metropolitan Area

Much of the interest in sustainable cities relates to the inexorable rise in the demand for car travel and the contribution that certain urban forms and land-use relationships can make to reducing energy consumption. Indeed, this demand is fuelled more by increased spatial separation of homes and workplaces, shops and schools than by any rise in trip making. This paper evaluates recent efforts to integrate land-use planning and transportation policy in the Belfast Metropolitan Area by reviewing the policy formulation process at both a regional and city scale. The paper suggests that considerable progress has been made in integrating these two areas of public policy, both institutionally and conceptually. However, concerns are expressed that the rhetoric of sustainability may prove difficult to translate into implementation, leading to a further dislocation of land-use and transportation.

Integrating Land-use Planning and Transportation in Belfast: A New Policy Agenda for Sustainable Development

Much of the interest in promoting sustainable development in planning for the city-region focuses on the apparently inexorable rise in the demand for car travel and the contribution that certain urban forms and land-use relationships can make to reducing energy consumption. Within this context, policy prescription has increasingly favoured a compact city approach with increasing urban residential densities to address the physical separation of daily activities and the resultant dependency on the private car. This paper aims to outline and evaluate recent efforts to integrate land use and transport policy in the Belfast Metropolitan Area in Northern Ireland. Although considerable progress has been made, this paper underlines the extent of existing car dependency in the metropolitan area and prevailing negative attitudes to public transport, and argues that although there is a rhetorical support for the principles of sustainability and the practice of land-use/transportation integration, this is combined with a selective reluctance to embrace local changes in residential environment or in lifestyle preferences which might facilitate such principles.

Can we characterise ‘openness’ in the Holocene palaeoenvironmental record? Modern analogue studies of insect faunas and pollen spectra from Dunham Massey deer park and Epping Forest, England

This paper examines the degree to which tree-associated Coleoptera (beetles) and pollen could be used to predict the degree of ‘openness’ in woodland. The results from two modern insect and pollen analogue studies from ponds at Dunham Massey, Cheshire and Epping Forest, Greater London are presented. We explore the reliability of modern pollen rain and sub-fossil beetle assemblages to represent varying degrees of canopy cover for up to 1000m from a sampling site. Modern woodland canopy structure around the study sites has been assessed using GIS-based mapping at increasing radial distances as an independent check on the modern insect and pollen data sets. These preliminary results suggest that it is possible to use tree-associated Coleoptera to assess the degree of local vegetation openness. Additionally, it appears that insect remains may indicate the relative intensity of land use by grazing animals. Our results also suggest most insects are collected from within a 100m to 200m radius of the sampling site. The pollen results suggest that local vegetation and density of woodland in the immediate area of the sampling site can have a strong role in determining the pollen signal.

Factor markets in England before the Black Death

Modern English factor markets originated during the two centuries of active commercialization that preceded the Black Death. An active labour market was established by the late twelfth century. Evolution of a land market followed the legal reforms of the 1170s and 1180s, which created legally secure and defensible property rights in land. These rights stimulated growth of a capital market, since land became a security against which credit could be obtained. Nevertheless, none of these nascent factor markets functioned unconstrained and each became embedded in legal, tenurial, and institutional complexities and rigidities which it took later generations centuries to reform.

Estimating the Density of Honeybee Colonies across Their Natural Range to Fill the Gap in Pollinator Decline Censuses

Although pollinator declines are a global biodiversity threat, the demography of the western honeybee (Apis mellifera) has not been considered by conservationists because it is biased by the activity of beekeepers. To fill this gap in pollinator decline censuses and to provide a broad picture of the current status of honeybees across their natural range, we used microsatellite genetic markers to estimate colony densities and genetic diversity at different locations in Europe, Africa, and central Asia that had different patterns of land use. Genetic diversity and colony densities were highest in South Africa and lowest in Northern Europe and were correlated with mean annual temperature. Confounding factors not related to climate, however, are also likely to influence genetic diversity and colony densities in honeybee populations. Land use showed a significantly negative influence over genetic diversity and the density of honeybee colonies over all sampling locations. In Europe honeybees sampled in nature reserves had genetic diversity and colony densities similar to those sampled in agricultural landscapes, which suggests that the former are not wild but may have come from managed hives. Other results also support this idea: putative wild bees were rare in our European samples, and the mean estimated density of honeybee colonies on the continent closely resembled the reported mean number of managed hives. Current densities of European honeybee populations are in the same range as those found in the adverse climatic conditions of the Kalahari and Saharan deserts, which suggests that beekeeping activities do not compensate for the loss of wild colonies. Our findings highlight the importance of reconsidering the conservation status of honeybees in Europe and of regarding beekeeping not only as a profitable business for producing honey, but also as an essential component of biodiversity conservation.

Climate change and the cost of conserving species in Madagascar

We examined the cost of conserving species as climate changes using Madagascar as an example. We used a Maxent species distribution model to predict the ranges of 74 plant species endemic to the forests of Madagascar from 2000-2080 in three climate scenarios. We set a conservation target of achieving 10,000 hectares of forest cover for each species, and calculated the cost of achieving this target under each climate scenario. We interviewed natural forest restoration project managers and conducted a literature review to obtain the net present cost per hectare of management actions to maintain or establish forest cover. For each species we added hectares of land from lowest to highest cost per additional year of forest cover until the conservation target was achieved throughout the time period. Climate change was predicted to reduce the size of species’ ranges, the overlap between species’ ranges and existing or planned protected areas, and the overlap between species’ ranges and existing forest. As a result, climate change increased the cost of achieving the conservation target by necessitating successively more costly management actions: additional management within existing protected areas (US$0-60/ha), avoidance of forest degradation (loss of biomass) in community-managed areas ($160-576/ha), avoidance of deforestation in unprotected areas ($252-1069/ha), and establishment of forest on non-forested land within protected areas ($802-2710/ha), in community-managed areas ($962-3226/ha), and in unprotected areas ($1054-3719/ha). Our results suggest that though forest restoration may be required for the conservation of some species as climate changes, it is more cost-effective to maintain existing forest wherever possible.

THE DISTRIBUTION AND POPULATION REGULATION OF THE WOOD MOUSE APODEMUS-SYLVATICUS ON FIELD BOUNDARIES OF PASTORAL FARMLAND

1. The population characteristics and distribution of wood mice Apodemus sylvaticus (L.) were investigated along field margins of farmland dominated by grass production. 2. Turnover, sex ratio, breeding season, spatial density dependence and density dependence in reproductive activity indicated that the population ecology of A. sylvaticus is consistent in different habitats in the same geographical region. 3. Spatial variation in the abundance of A.sylvaticus was related negatively to percentage of land under pasture and distance from woodland and positively related to variables associated with food supply and cover. 4. Variation in numbers of overwintered mice at the start of the breeding season was related more closely to breeding opportunity than to environmental factors. This was particularly so in males. 5. The association of overwintered male and female A. sylvaticus remained evident in the later half of the breeding season. Young males and females of the year, however, were distributed more with respect to physical and biological features than towards adults or reproductive opportunity. 6. A. sylvaticus is an important species of field margins, even where these are poorly developed and agriculture is pastoral rather than arable. Further studies of this species in a wider range of agricultural systems are desirable.

The Emotional Paradoxes of Adverse Possession

Property lawyers are generally viewed as a serious lot, not prone to feverish bursts of excitement as we seek comfort and solace in established legal rules and precepts. In the same way, property law disputes tend to have a fairly low profile and fail to capture the public imagination in the same way as, for example, those involving criminal or human rights law. Such apparent indifference might seem a little strange, given the centrality of property in everyday human life and the significance which legal systems and individuals attach to property rights. However, there is one issue which always inflames passions amongst lawyers and non-lawyers alike: the acquisition of land through the doctrine of adverse possession, often described as ‘squatter’s rights’. No property-related topic is likely to light up a radio show phone-in switchboard quite like squatting

Farmer perception of suitable conditions for slurry application compared with decision support system recommendations

The application of slurry nutrients to land can be associated with unintended losses to the environment depending on soil and weather conditions. Correct timing of slurry application, however, can increase plant nutrient uptake and reduce losses. A decision support system (DSS), which predicts optimum conditions for slurry spreading based on the Hybrid Soil Moisture Deficit (HSMD) model, was investigated for use as a policy tool. The DSS recommendations were compared to farmer perception of suitable conditions for slurry spreading for three soil drainage classes (well, moderate and poorly drained) to better understand on farm slurry management practices and to identify potential conflict with farmer opinion. Six farmers participated in a survey over two and a half years, during which they completed a daily diary, and their responses were compared to Soil Moisture Deficit (SMD) calculations and weather data recorded by on farm meteorological stations. The perception of land drainage quality differed between farmers and was related to their local knowledge and experience. It was found that the allocation of grass fields to HSMD drainage classes using a visual assessment method aligned farmer perception of drainage at the national scale. Farmer opinion corresponded to the theoretical understanding that slurry should not be applied when the soil is wetter than field capacity, i.e. when drainage can occur. While weather and soil conditions (especially trafficability) were the principal reasons given by farmers not to spread slurry, farm management practices (grazing and silage) and current Nitrates Directive policies (closed winter period for spreading) combined with limited storage capacities were obstacles to utilisation of slurry nutrients. Despite the slightly more restrictive advice of the DSS regarding the number of suitable spreading opportunities, the system has potential to address an information deficit that would help farmers to reduce nutrient losses and optimise plant nutrient uptake by improved slurry management. The DSS advice was in general agreement with the farmers and, therefore, they should not be resistant to adopting the tool for day to day management.

Predicting critical source areas of sediment in headwater catchments

Mitigation of diffuse nutrient and sediment delivery to streams requires successful identification andmanagement of critical source areas within catchments. Approaches to predicting high risk areas forsediment loss have typically relied on structural drivers of connectivity and risk, with little considera-tion given to process driven water quality responses. To assess the applicability of structural metrics topredict critical source areas, geochemical tracing of land use sources was conducted in three headwateragricultural catchments in Co. Down and Co. Louth, Ireland, within a Monte Carlo framework. Outputswere applied to the inverse optimisation of a connectivity model, based on LiDAR DEM data, to assess theefficacy of land use risk weightings to predict sediment source contributions over the 18 month studyperiod in the Louth Upper, Louth Lower and Down catchments. Results of the study indicated sedimentproportions over the study period varied from 6 to 10%, 84 to 87%, 4%, and 2 to 3% for the Down Catch-ment, 79 to 85%, 9 to 17%, 1 to 3% and 2 to 3% in the Louth Upper and 2 to 3%, 79 to 85%, 10 to 17%and 2 to 3% in the Louth Lower for arable, channel bank, grassland, and woodland sources, respectively.Optimised land use risk weightings for each sampling period showed that at the larger catchment scale,no variation in median land use weightings were required to predict land use contributions. However,for the two smaller study catchments, variation in median risk weightings was considerable, which mayindicate the importance of functional connectivity processes at this spatial scale. In all instances, arableland consistently generated the highest risk of sediment loss across all catchments and sampling times.This study documents some of the first data on sediment provenance in Ireland and indicates the needfor cautious consideration of land use as a tool to predict critical source areas at the headwater scale

Determinants of WTP for Prosecco wine: A latent class regression with attitudinal responses

Purpose – Under investigation is Prosecco wine, a sparkling white wine from North-East Italy.
Information collection on consumer perceptions is particularly relevant when developing market
strategies for wine, especially so when local production and certification of origin play an important
role in the wine market of a given district, as in the case at hand. Investigating and characterizing the
structure of preference heterogeneity become crucial steps in every successful marketing strategy. The
purpose of this paper is to investigate the sources of systematic differences in consumer preferences.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores the effect of inclusion of answers to
attitudinal questions in a latent class regression model of stated willingness to pay (WTP) for this
specialty wine. These additional variables were included in the membership equations to investigate
whether they could be of help in the identification of latent classes. The individual specific WTPs from
the sampled respondents were then derived from the best fitting model and examined for consistency.
Findings – The use of answers to attitudinal question in the latent class regression model is found to
improve model fit, thereby helping in the identification of latent classes. The best performing model
obtained makes use of both attitudinal scores and socio-economic covariates identifying five latent
classes. A reasonable pattern of differences in WTP for Prosecco between CDO and TGI types were
derived from this model.
Originality/value – The approach appears informative and promising: attitudes emerge as
important ancillary indicators of taste differences for specialty wines. This might be of interest per se
and of practical use in market segmentation. If future research shows that these variables can be of use
in other contexts, it is quite possible that more attitudinal questions will be routinely incorporated in
structural latent class hedonic models.

Assessing the distribution of social-ecological resilience and risk: Ireland as a case study of the uneven impact of famine

Explanations for the causes of famine and food insecurity often reside at a high level of aggregation or abstraction. Popular models within famine studies have often emphasised the role of prime movers such as population stress, or the political-economic structure of access channels, as key determinants of food security. Explanation typically resides at the macro level, obscuring the presence of substantial within-country differences in the manner in which such stressors operate. This study offers an alternative approach to analyse the uneven nature of food security, drawing on the Great Irish famine of 1845–1852. Ireland is often viewed as a classical case of Malthusian stress, whereby population outstripped food supply under a pre-famine demographic regime of expanded fertility. Many have also pointed to Ireland's integration with capitalist markets through its colonial relationship with the British state, and country-wide system of landlordism, as key determinants of local agricultural activity. Such models are misguided, ignoring both substantial complexities in regional demography, and the continuity of non-capitalistic, communal modes of land management long into the nineteenth century. Drawing on resilience ecology and complexity theory, this paper subjects a set of aggregate data on pre-famine Ireland to an optimisation clustering procedure, in order to discern the potential presence of distinctive social–ecological regimes. Based on measures of demography, social structure, geography, and land tenure, this typology reveals substantial internal variation in regional social–ecological structure, and vastly differing levels of distress during the peak famine months. This exercise calls into question the validity of accounts which emphasise uniformity of structure, by revealing a variety of regional regimes, which profoundly mediated local conditions of food security. Future research should therefore consider the potential presence of internal variations in resilience and risk exposure, rather than seeking to characterise cases based on singular macro-dynamics and stressors alone.