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- Downey, Harriet, et al.
(författare)
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Training future generations to deliver evidence-based conservation and ecosystem management
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecological Solutions and Evidence. - : Wiley. - 2688-8319. ; 2:1
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1. To be effective, the next generation of conservation practitioners and managers need to be critical thinkers with a deep understanding of how to make evidence-based decisions and of the value of evidence synthesis.2. If, as educators, we do not make these priorities a core part of what we teach, we are failing to prepare our students to make an effective contribution to conservation practice.3. To help overcome this problem we have created open access online teaching materials in multiple languages that are stored in Applied Ecology Resources. So far, 117 educators from 23 countries have acknowledged the importance of this and are already teaching or about to teach skills in appraising or using evidence in conservation decision-making. This includes 145 undergraduate, postgraduate or professional development courses.4. We call for wider teaching of the tools and skills that facilitate evidence-based conservation and also suggest that providing online teaching materials in multiple languages could be beneficial for improving global understanding of other subject areas.
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- Blösch, Günter, et al.
(författare)
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Twenty-three unsolved problems in hydrology (UPH) - a community perspective
- 2019
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Ingår i: Hydrological Sciences Journal. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0262-6667 .- 2150-3435. ; 64:10, s. 1141-1158
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper is the outcome of a community initiative to identify major unsolved scientific problems in hydrology motivated by a need for stronger harmonisation of research efforts. The procedure involved a public consultation through online media, followed by two workshops through which a large number of potential science questions were collated, prioritised, and synthesised. In spite of the diversity of the participants (230 scientists in total), the process revealed much about community priorities and the state of our science: a preference for continuity in research questions rather than radical departures or redirections from past and current work. Questions remain focused on the process-based understanding of hydrological variability and causality at all space and time scales. Increased attention to environmental change drives a new emphasis on understanding how change propagates across interfaces within the hydrological system and across disciplinary boundaries. In particular, the expansion of the human footprint raises a new set of questions related to human interactions with nature and water cycle feedbacks in the context of complex water management problems. We hope that this reflection and synthesis of the 23 unsolved problems in hydrology will help guide research efforts for some years to come.
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- Keogan, Katharine, et al.
(författare)
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Global phenological insensitivity to shifting ocean temperatures among seabirds
- 2018
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Ingår i: Nature Climate Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1758-678X .- 1758-6798. ; 8:4, s. 313-318
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reproductive timing in many taxa plays a key role in determining breeding productivity(1), and is often sensitive to climatic conditions(2). Current climate change may alter the timing of breeding at different rates across trophic levels, potentially resulting in temporal mismatch between the resource requirements of predators and their prey(3). This is of particular concern for higher-trophic-level organisms, whose longer generation times confer a lower rate of evolutionary rescue than primary producers or consumers(4). However, the disconnection between studies of ecological change in marine systems makes it difficult to detect general changes in the timing of reproduction(5). Here, we use a comprehensive meta-analysis of 209 phenological time series from 145 breeding populations to show that, on average, seabird populations worldwide have not adjusted their breeding seasons over time (-0.020 days yr(-1)) or in response to sea surface temperature (SST) (-0.272 days degrees C-1) between 1952 and 2015. However, marked between-year variation in timing observed in resident species and some Pelecaniformes and Suliformes (cormorants, gannets and boobies) may imply that timing, in some cases, is affected by unmeasured environmental conditions. This limited temperature-mediated plasticity of reproductive timing in seabirds potentially makes these top predators highly vulnerable to future mismatch with lower-trophic-level resources(2).
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- Lichtenberg, Elinor M., et al.
(författare)
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A global synthesis of the effects of diversified farming systems on arthropod diversity within fields and across agricultural landscapes
- 2017
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 23:11, s. 4946-4957
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Agricultural intensification is a leading cause of global biodiversity loss, which can reduce the provisioning of ecosystem services in managed ecosystems. Organic farming and plant diversification are farm management schemes that may mitigate potential ecological harm by increasing species richness and boosting related ecosystem services to agroecosystems. What remains unclear is the extent to which farm management schemes affect biodiversity components other than species richness, and whether impacts differ across spatial scales and landscape contexts. Using a global metadataset, we quantified the effects of organic farming and plant diversification on abundance, local diversity (communities within fields), and regional diversity (communities across fields) of arthropod pollinators, predators, herbivores, and detritivores. Both organic farming and higher in-field plant diversity enhanced arthropod abundance, particularly for rare taxa. This resulted in increased richness but decreased evenness. While these responses were stronger at local relative to regional scales, richness and abundance increased at both scales, and richness on farms embedded in complex relative to simple landscapes. Overall, both organic farming and in-field plant diversification exerted the strongest effects on pollinators and predators, suggesting these management schemes can facilitate ecosystem service providers without augmenting herbivore (pest) populations. Our results suggest that organic farming and plant diversification promote diverse arthropod metacommunities that may provide temporal and spatial stability of ecosystem service provisioning. Conserving diverse plant and arthropod communities in farming systems therefore requires sustainable practices that operate both within fields and across landscapes.
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- Rodriguez-Martinez, Heriberto, et al.
(författare)
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Spermadhesin PSP-I/PSP-II heterodimer induces migration of polymorphonuclear neutrophils into the uterine cavity of the sow
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Reproductive Immunology. - : Elsevier. - 0165-0378 .- 1872-7603. ; 84:1, s. 57-65
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Seminal plasma (SP) is a complex fluid which exerts biological actions in the female reproductive tract. In pigs, SP elicits endometrial inflammation and consequent immune changes after mating. This study tested whether heparin-binding spermadhesins (HBPs) and the heterodimer of porcine sperm adhesions I and II (PSP-I/PSP-II) in SP recruit different lymphocyte subsets (CD2(+), CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells) or polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) to the superficial endometrium or luminal epithelium and lumen, respectively, of oestrous sows. In Experiment 1, endometrial biopsies were taken between 2 and 120 min after infusion of uterine horns with HBPs, PSP-I/PSP-II or saline and evaluated by immunohistochemistry or histology. In Experiment 2, the uterus of oestrous sows was infused with PSP-I/PSP-II or saline to assess PMN numbers in the uterine lumen 3 h later. PSP-I/PSP-II elicited CD2(+) T cell recruitment from 10 min, and CD8(+) T cells from 60 min after infusion, while HBPs increased CD4(+) T cell recruitment by 120 min. PSP-I/PSP-II but not HBPs induced PMN migration to the surface epithelium by 10 min. PMN numbers were elevated 5-fold by 30 min and 7-fold from 60 min. with PMNs detectable in the lumen from 30 min after infusion. Six-fold more PMNs were collected from the uterine lumen of PSP-I/PSP-II-infused sows compared to controls at 3 h after infusion. These data show that PSP-I/PSP-II heterodimer in seminal plasma has a predominant role in triggering the recruitment of uterine PMNs and T cells after mating, initiating a cascade of transient and long-lasting immunological events. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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- Saravia-Ramos, Fernando, et al.
(författare)
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Exposure to the seminal plasma of different portions of the boar ejaculate modulates the survival of spermatozoa cryopreserved in MiniFlatPacks
- 2009
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Ingår i: Theriogenology. - : Elsevier. - 0093-691X .- 1879-3231. ; 71:4, s. 662-675
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Spermatozoa present in the first collectable 10 mL of the sperm-rich fraction (SRF) of the boar ejaculate (portion 1, PI I have higher documented viability during and after cryopreservation than spermatozoa in the rest of the ejaculate (portion 2, P2). probably in relation to different features of the surrounding seminal plasma (SP). In the present study. We investigated whether the SP from these ejaculate portions (SP1 or SP2) was able to differently influence sperm viability and chromatin structure of the P1- or P2-contained spermatozoa from individual boars primarily or secondarily exposed (e.g., following cleansing and re-exposure) to pooled SP1 or SP2 from the same males during 60 min. Spermatozoa were subjected to controlled cooling and thawing in MiniFlatPacks (MFPs) and examined for motility (using computer-assisted sperm analysis, CASA) at selected stages of processing Moreover, sperm plasma membrane intactness (investigated using, SYBR-14/propidium iodide, PI), plasma membrane architecture (examined using Annexin-V-PI staining), and chromatin (deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA) integrity (tested using sperm chromatin structure assay, SCSA) were assessed post-thaw (PT). A higher proportion of PI spermatozoa than of P2 spermatozoa incubated in their native SP portion were confirmed to be motile from collection to PT. When P1 spermatozoa were cleansed from their original SP and re-exposed to pooled P2-SP. sperm kinematics deteriorated from extension to PT. By contrast, cleansed P2 spermatozoa increased motility to P1 levels, especially PT when re-exposed to pooled P1-SP. Such differential effects on motility were not clearly accompanied by biologically related modifications of sperm membrane or chromatin structure. This influence of the SP on sperm kinematics was not sire-dependent and it Was presumably related to different concentrations or either SP proteins or bicarbonate in the different ejaculate portions. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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| 9. |
- Siefert, Andrew, et al.
(författare)
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A global meta-analysis of the relative extent of intraspecific trait variation in plant communities
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecology Letters. - : Wiley. - 1461-023X .- 1461-0248. ; 18:12, s. 1406-1419
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent studies have shown that accounting for intraspecific trait variation (ITV) may better address major questions in community ecology. However, a general picture of the relative extent of ITV compared to interspecific trait variation in plant communities is still missing. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relative extent of ITV within and among plant communities worldwide, using a data set encompassing 629 communities (plots) and 36 functional traits. Overall, ITV accounted for 25% of the total trait variation within communities and 32% of the total trait variation among communities on average. The relative extent of ITV tended to be greater for whole-plant (e.g. plant height) vs. organ-level traits and for leaf chemical (e.g. leaf N and P concentration) vs. leaf morphological (e.g. leaf area and thickness) traits. The relative amount of ITV decreased with increasing species richness and spatial extent, but did not vary with plant growth form or climate. These results highlight global patterns in the relative importance of ITV in plant communities, providing practical guidelines for when researchers should include ITV in trait-based community and ecosystem studies.
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