Study: Multiscale crop modeling effort required to assess climate change adaptation

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS BIN PENG, LEFT, AND KAIYU GUAN LED A LARGE, MULTI-INSTITUTIONAL STUDY THAT CALLS FOR A BETTER REPRESENTATION OF PLANT GENETICS DATA IN THE MODELS USED TO UNDERSTAND CROP ADAPTATION... view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY FRED ZWICKY

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Crop modeling is essential for understanding how to secure the food supply as the planet adapts to climate change. Many current crop models focus on simulating crop growth and yield at the field scale, but lack genetic and physiological data, which may hamper accurate production and environmental impact assessment at larger scales.

In a new paper published in the journal Nature Plants, researchers identify a series of multiscale and multidisciplinary components - from crop genetics up to global factors - that are critical for finding environmentally sustainable solutions to food security.

Many crop models focus on understanding how plant characteristics such as leaf size play into the crop yield at the field scale, the researchers said. "Modeling at this scale is critical, but we would like to incorporate information from gene-to-cell and regional-to-global scale data into our modeling framework," said Bin Peng, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign postdoctoral researcher and co-lead author.

The study identifies components that could help generate a more informative modeling framework. "Multiscale modeling is the key to linking the design of climate change adaptation strategies for crop and field management with a large-scale assessment of adaptation impact on crop production, environment, climate and economy," Peng said.

The study calls for a better representation of the physiological responses of crops to climate and environmental stressors - like drought, extreme rainfall and ozone damage. "Many physiological processes would be important to simulate the crop growth under stressed conditions accurately," Peng said. Examples include water moving from soil to plant to atmosphere driven by canopy energy balance, he said.

"We should also include a better representation of crop management," Peng said. "That would be extremely important for assessing both crop production and environmental sustainability, as well as their tradeoffs."

The researchers said there are opportunities to close a variety of data gaps, as well. "Integration of remote-sensing data, such as the work performed in our lab, will be extremely valuable for reducing data gaps and uncertainties," said natural resources and environmental sciences professor and project investigator Kaiyu Guan. "One of the advantages of remote sensing is its vast spatial coverage - we can use remote sensing to constrain crop models over every field on the planet."

The authors also propose a model-data integration pathway forward. "Doing the right simulation of crop responses to climate change factors is critically important," Guan said. "The most challenging part is whether crop models can capture those emergent relationships, which can be derived from empirical observations."

"No single scientist or research lab can produce these models on their own," said study co-author and plant biology professor Amy Marshall-Colón. "This type of effort will require patience and collaboration across many disciplines."

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Peng, Guan and Marshall-Colón also are affiliated with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the U. of I. Marshall-Colón also is affiliated with the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.

The National Science Foundation, NASA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and the National Center for Atmospheric Research supported this study.

Also contributing to this study were researchers from the U. of I.; the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; the University of Florida; the University of Queensland; the University of Chicago; the University of Bonn; the Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research; the University of Alberta; the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; the Center for Atmospheric Research; Beijing Normal University; Corteva AgriScience; the University of Nebraska, Lincoln; and Wageningen University and Research.

The paper "Towards a multiscale crop modelling framework for climate change adaptation assessment" is available online and from the U. of I. News Bureau. DOI: 10.1038/s41477-020-0625-3

Bike commuting accelerated when bike-share systems rolled into town

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

 

IMAGE: LIMEBIKE, SHOWN HERE, IS A BIKE-SHARE SYSTEM SERVING CYCLISTS IN SEATTLE. view more 

CREDIT: JACKSON HOLTZ/U. OF WASHINGTON

In the past couple of years, if you lived in a major, or even mid-sized city, you were likely familiar with bike-share bikes.

Whether propped against a tree, strewn along the sidewalk or standing "docked" at a station, the often brightly colored bikes with whimsical company names promised a ready means to get from Point A to Point B.

But one person's spontaneous ride is another person's commute to work. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, in cities where bike-share systems have been introduced, bike commuting increased by 20%, said Dafeng Xu, an assistant professor in the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. Xu studied U.S. cities with and without bike-share systems, using Census and company data to analyze how commuting patterns change when bike shares become available.

"This study shows that bike-share systems can drive a population to commute by bike," said Xu, whose study was published May 11 in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

Bike-share systems, common in cities in Europe and Asia, were launched in four U.S. cities in 2010 and as of 2016 had grown to more than 50. Not all systems have been successful: Convenience - how easy it is to find and rent a bike - is the key. In Seattle, for example, a city-owned bike-share program failed in 2017 due largely to a limited number of bikes and a lack of infrastructure, but private companies in the same market thrived prior to the pandemic.

[Around the world, cities have enacted mobility restrictions during the coronavirus outbreak. The responses of bike-share companies, and bike-share usage, have varied by community.]

Among other interests in transportation and immigration policy, Xu researches the effects of bicycling on the environment and human health, and on the ways bike-share systems can play a role by expanding access to cycling.

"In general, biking is good and healthy, and it means less pollution and traffic, but it can be expensive, and people worry about their bikes being stolen, things like that," Xu said. "Bike share solves some of these problems, because people don't need to worry about the cost and theft."

For this study, Xu sorted through nine years of demographic and commute statistics from the American Community Survey, a detailed, annual report by the Census Bureau. He then examined bike-share company data (through the National Association of City Transportation Officials) from 38 cities with systems, focusing on trips logged during morning and afternoon rush hours. By comparing the number, location and time of work-related bike commutes from Census data against bike-share company records of trips logged, both before and after the launch of bike shares, Xu was able to estimate the use of bike shares for commute trips.

Xu found that in both bike-share and non-bike-share cities, the rate of bike commuting increased, while car commuting decreased, from 2008-2016. However, the rate of bike commuting - and the use of public transportation - was significantly greater in bike-share cities.

For example, in bike-share cities in 2008, roughly 66% of commuters drove to work, about 1% biked, and 22% took transit. That compared to non-bike-share cities, where about 88% of commuters drove, fewer than 1% biked, and 4% took transit.

By 2016 - after many bike-share systems had launched — car commuting had fallen to 59% in bike-share cities, while bike commuting had climbed to 1.7% and transit to 26%. Commuting by car in non-bike-share cities had slipped to 83% in 2016, while bike commuting had grown to 1%, and transit to 6%.

Nationwide, 0.6% of commuters bike to work, according to an American Community Survey report in 2017.

In general, cities with larger bike-share systems also experienced sharper increases in bicycle commuting, Xu said.

"This is not surprising: A large bike-share system means a higher density of public bicycles and is thus more accessible by commuters," he said. "In contrast, sadly, Seattle’s Pronto struggled to attract commuters and was finally doomed only after three years of operation partially due to its relatively small size."

In his paper, Xu points to Chicago, which operates a municipally owned bike-share system called Divvy. Prior to Divvy's launch in 2013, 1.5% of commuters biked to work, Xu said, but afterward, that rate grew to 2%.

The trends held, he said, even when controlling for a city's expansion of protected bike lanes - another significant factor in whether people choose to bike to work, according to other research.

Overall, the numbers before COVID-19 were promising, Xu said. The numbers could grow, he said, if communities and bike-share companies make changes that can boost the appeal of bike commuting: adding bike lanes to city streets, expanding programs to outlying communities, or increasing the allowable rental time. Many bike shares, for instance, last only up to a half-hour before a user has to pay for a new trip.

Xu is also the author of a previous paper analyzed the impact of bike-share systems on obesity rates.

For more information, contact Xu at dafengxu@uw.edu.

Pollinator-friendly flowers planted along with crops aid bumblebees

UMass Amherst, NC State biologists study risks and benefits associated with floral strips

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

 

IMAGE: A NEW STUDY FROM UMASS AMHERST AND NC STATE SHOWS THAT SUNFLOWERS ARE ONE OF THE PLANTS THAT CAN BE PLANTED AMONG ROWS OF AGRICULTURAL CROPS IN FLOWER STRIPS --... view more 

CREDIT: BEN BARNHART

AMHERST, Mass. - A new study reported this week by evolutionary ecologist Lynn Adler at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Rebecca Irwin of North Carolina State University, with others, suggests that flower strips - rows of pollinator-friendly flowers planted with crops - offer benefits for common Eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) colony reproduction, but some plants do increase pathogen infection risk.

As Adler and colleagues point out, pollinator declines affect food security, and pollinators are threatened by such stressors as pathogens and inadequate food. Bumblebees feed on pollen and nectar they gather from such plants as sunflower and milkweed. But bumblebees are also likely to acquire a gut disease pathogen, Crithia bombi, from some of these plant species more than others, the authors note.

Until now, the effect of plant species composition on bee disease was unknown, they add. Study details appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In earlier work on flowers and bee infection, Adler explains, "We evaluated 15 plant species by putting the same amount of C. bombi on each, letting a bee forage, and then seeing whether and how bad an infection it developed. We used that to designate plant species as 'high- or low-infection' for this study." Low-infection plants include sunflower and thyme; high-infection plants include swamp milkweed and purple loosestrife.

For this study, the researchers placed bees in tents in three conditions - canola plants only and no flower strips (controls), canola and high-infection flower strips, or canola plus low-infection flower strips - to measure and compare effects on bee infection load and reproduction success. Though bees in the high-infection strips saw double the infection load compared to low-infection flower strips, bee reproduction was higher with any flower strips compared to canola only, no flower strips. "Thus, floral resources in flowering strips benefited bees," the authors state, despite the added disease risk.

Adler says, "The bees were all infected with the same amount of pathogen and then allowed to forage, so the plants could increase or decrease infection." The tradeoff - more bee reproduction but higher pathogen infection rates - may be acceptable, she adds. "It depends on how critical food versus the pathogen is for pollinators," she adds. Irwin, a professor of applied ecology, says, "Flowering strips are becoming more common as people look for ways to mitigate pollinator declines."

Further, Adler points out, "Crithidia is somewhat benign, but if these patterns hold for other pathogens like Nosema, a common honey bee disease, it may be more of a concern. Right now I would not recommend stopping our investment in flowering strips."

The researchers hope to continue investigating the flower strip effects on bee populations and health by including other bee species and pathogens. Adler says, "I think we need a much more comprehensive program to evaluate how pollinator habitat characteristics affect pathogen spread to make informed choices. In the meantime, providing flowering resources in pollinator habitat is still the best path forward."

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Other co-authors include Nicholas Barber at San Diego State University and Olivia Biller at Thomas Jefferson University. This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service.

Cornell research traces how farmlands affect bee disease spread

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: A SWEAT BEE FORAGES ON GOLDENROD. view more 

CREDIT: LAURA FIGUEROA, CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. - A new Cornell University study on bees, plants and landscapes in upstate New York sheds light on how bee pathogens spread, offering possible clues for what farmers could do to improve bee health.

The study, "Landscape Simplification Shapes Pathogen Prevalence in Plant-Pollinator Networks," which used empirical data and mathematical modeling, reveals how surrounding landscapes might affect the ways that bees and flowers interact, and how interconnected networks of plants and pollinators influence disease spread in bees. The findings are important because bee diseases have contributed to pollinator declines worldwide.

"Our results are telling us that we need to think about [bee, flower, pathogen and landscape] interactions," said Laura Figueroa, the paper's lead author and a doctoral student in the lab of Scott McArt, assistant professor of entomology.

The study found that 65% of bee species and 75% of flower species carried pathogens, and that pathogens are transmitted between bees and flowers.

Figueroa and colleagues began with an empirical study of the bee species present on wildflower strips in upstate New York. In 2012, the researchers began planting uniform plots of wildflowers on 11 sites with varying amounts of surrounding farmland. In 2015, the team observed, tracked and recorded which bee species visited which flowers, ultimately describing the interaction patterns of 46 bee species and 13 plant species. They found that the common eastern bumblebee, as the dominant bee species in upstate New York, has a greater influence than other species on disease transmission dynamics.

The researchers also collected bees and flowers from each site and screened them for pathogens in the lab.

"In more simplified landscapes [with more farmland], the dominant species visited more plant species," Figueroa said.

This study found the bumblebees' increased diet breadth spread pathogens across many more flowers, she said, which in turn reduced each individual bee's exposure to new pathogens.

The researchers then entered the data from their empirical study into a mathematical model. They found that on a community level, accounting for all bee and flower species, the likelihood of a communitywide outbreak of disease decreased when the network of flowers and bees was highly interconnected, again, because pathogens were diluted across more flowers.

This is especially important when farmers plant wildflower strips to improve pollinator health.

While simple farm landscapes might lower disease spread on a communitywide level, each individual species behaves differently, depending on which flowers they visit, and which pathogens affect them. Future studies will parse out how individual species fare in simplified landscapes, which has important conservation implications.

"Potentially," Figueroa said, "we could develop mixtures of wildflower species that can not only maximize food for the pollinators, but can shape interactions in a way that reduce the likelihood of disease spread."

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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Garden Club of America and the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.

Saving livestock by thinking like a predator

Preventing endangered carnivores from eating valuable livestock may require going back to Ecology 101

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELEY

IMAGE: A NEW STUDY BY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, RESEARCHERS, ARGUES THAT EFFECTIVELY REDUCING ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN DOMESTIC PREY AND WILD PREDATORS REQUIRES KNOWING THE PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE ECOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS AMONG THESE... view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY CHRISTINE WILKINSON, FUNDED BY THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

Berkeley -- For predators like wolves, cougars and snow leopards, a cow or sheep out to pasture may make for an easy and tasty meal. But when wild animals eat livestock, farmers face the traumatic loss of food or income, frequently sparking lethal conflicts between humans and their carnivorous neighbors.

Humans have struggled to reduce the loss of livestock to carnivores for thousands of years, and yet, solutions remain elusive. According to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, solving this ancient puzzle requires going back to Ecology 101.

Effectively reducing encounters between domestic prey and wild predators, the researchers argue, requires knowing the principles governing the ecological interactions among these players and their surrounding landscape. Simply put, getting in the mind of predators -- considering the ecology of how they hunt, how their prey behaves and how they interact with the landscape around them -- will help farmers and wildlife managers target interventions to discourage wild carnivores from preying on valuable livestock.

"There is no 'one-size-fits-all' solution for livestock predation, because the variables at play change, depending on the stakeholders, the landscape and the carnivores and livestock involved -- as well the scale and cost of management tools," said Christine Wilkinson, a graduate student in environmental science, policy and management at UC Berkeley and lead author on the study, which appeared this week in the journal Conservation Biology. "But at the core of the problem is an ecological act: predation."

In addition to lethal means of warding off potential predators, like poisoning or hunting, a variety of nonlethal deterrents are available. Guardian dogs, lights, electric fencing or bright-colored flags can all keep carnivores at bay while preserving the local ecology. Other strategies, like regularly moving livestock to different pastures or keeping them inside an enclosure at night, can make it harder for carnivores to locate and hunt them.

But the same techniques that prevent wolves from eating sheep in the rocky valleys of Idaho may not be as effective at preventing snow leopards from killing livestock in the high elevations of the Himalayas. Instead of focusing on the overall effectiveness of any one technique, the authors urge wildlife managers to approach the problem by considering a framework that includes the carnivore ecology, the livestock ecology and how the two species interact with the landscape around them.

"By knowing the full ecological story, we can tinker with the tools in our management toolkit to keep both predators and livestock safe," said Defenders of Wildlife senior scientist and co-author Jennie Miller.

For instance, wolves are known to be afraid of strings of red flags called fladry, and using fladry around a pasture might be a cost-effective method for keeping the predators away from sheep. But considering other aspects of the ecology, such as where the pastures are located, or where the sheep are kept at night, could yield even better results, depending on context.

These strategic combinations of deterrents have successfully kept predators at bay in a variety of settings, the paper points out. The authors highlight three case studies from around the world, demonstrating the success that can occur when ecology is the foundation of targeted interventions, and the failure that can occur when it is ignored.

The study's framework provides guidance for livestock managers to consider their management techniques as a component of livestock ecology. "Livestock have, in some sense, been bred to be an easy target for carnivores," Wilkinson said. "Humans have to recreate the defenses that we bred away."

The next step for

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the researchers is applying this framework to provide livestock managers with concrete tools to mitigate conflict as part of a larger, collaborative research and outreach effort based in the Brashares Group at UC Berkeley.

The interdisciplinary team of co-authors on the paper also included Alex McInturff, Veronica Yovovich, Kaitlyn Gaynor, Kendall Calhoun, Harshad Karandikar, Jeff Vance Martin, Phoebe Parker-Shames, Avery Shawler, Amy Van Scoyoc and, senior author, Justin Brashares of UC Berkeley.

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and National Geographic Society grant 466 WW-100C-17.

A new study by University of California, Berkeley, researchers, argues that effectively reducing encounters between domestic prey and wild predators requires knowing the principles governing the ecological interactions among these players and their surrounding landscape. In some cases, predator-proof enclosures, like this one in Soysambu Conservancy, Kenya, can be an effective element in a broader management strategy.

CREDIT Photo by Christine Wilkinson, funded by the National Geographic Society

Researchers reveal largest and hottest shield volcano on Earth

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA

 

IMAGE: THE ONLY REMNANTS OF PŪHĀHONU THAT ARE ABOVE SEA LEVEL (GARDNER PINNACLES). view more 

CREDIT: NOAA

In a recently published study, researchers from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology revealed the largest and hottest shield volcano on Earth. A team of volcanologists and ocean explorers used several lines of evidence to determine Pūhāhonu, a volcano within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument now holds this distinction.

Geoscientists and the public have long thought Mauna Loa, a culturally-significant and active shield volcano on the Big Island of Hawai'i, was the largest volcano in the world. However, after surveying the ocean floor along the mostly submarine Hawaiian leeward volcano chain, chemically analyzing rocks in the UH Mānoa rock collection, and modeling the results of these studies, the research team came to a new conclusion. Pūhāhonu, meaning 'turtle rising for breath' in Hawaiian, is nearly twice as big as Mauna Loa.

"It has been proposed that hotspots that produce volcano chains like Hawai'i undergo progressive cooling over 1-2 million years and then die," said Michael Garcia, lead author of the study and retired professor of Earth Sciences at SOEST. "However, we have learned from this study that hotspots can undergo pulses of melt production. A small pulse created the Midway cluster of now extinct volcanoes and another, much bigger one created Pūhāhonu. This will rewrite the textbooks on how mantle plumes work."  

In 1974, Pūhāhonu (then called Gardner Pinnacles) was suspected as the largest Hawaiian volcano based on very limited survey data. Subsequent studies of the Hawaiian Islands concluded that Mauna Loa was the largest volcano but they included the base of the volcano that is below sea level that was not considered in the 1974 study. The new comprehensive surveying and modeling, using methods similar to those used for Mauna Loa show that Pūhāhonu is the largest.

This study highlights Hawaiian volcanoes, not only now but for millions of years, have been erupting some of the hottest magma on Earth. This work also draws attention to an infrequently visited part of the state of Hawai'i that has ecological, historical and cultural importance.

"We are sharing with the science community and the public that we should be calling this volcano by the name the Hawaiians have given to it, rather than the western name for the two rocky small islands that are the only above sea level remnants of this once majestic volcano," said Garcia.

Shorelines of modern-day Hawai'i Island (5 volcanoes) compared to ancient P?hāhonu (1 volcano).

A lost world and extinct ecosystem

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

IMAGE: LOOKING OUT AT THE PALAEO-AGULHAS PLAIN FROM THE CAVE ENTRANCE AT THE PINNACLE POINT, SOUTH AFRICA, RESEARCH SITE--LEFT, 200,000 YEARS AGO DURING GLACIAL PHASES AND LOWER SEA LEVELS, AND RIGHT,... view more 

CREDIT: ERICH FISHER

Archaeological sites on the far southern shores of South Africa hold the world's richest records for the behavioral and cultural origins of our species. At this location, scientists have discovered the earliest evidence for symbolic behavior, complex pyrotechnology, projectile weapons and the first use of foods from the sea.

The Arizona State University Institute of Human Origins (IHO) field study site of Pinnacle Point sits at the center of this record, both geographically and scientifically, having contributed much of the evidence for these milestones on the evolutionary road to being a modern human.

The scientists working on these sites, led by IHO Associate Director Curtis Marean, have always faced a dilemma in understanding the context of these evolutionary milestones -- much of the landscape used by these ancient people is now submerged undersea and thus poorly known to us. Marean is a Foundation Professor with the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change and Honorary Professor with Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

The archaeological records come from caves and rockshelters that now look out on to the sea, and in fact, walking to many of the sites today involves dodging high tides and waves. However, through most of the last 200,000 years, lowered sea levels during glacial phases, when the ice sucks up the water, exposed a vast plain. The coast was sometimes as much as 90 km distant! Our archaeological data shows that this was the prime foraging habitat for these early modern humans, and until recently, we knew nothing about.

That has now changed with the publication of 22 articles in a special issue of Quaternary Science Reviews titled "The Palaeo-Agulhas Plain: A lost world and extinct ecosystem." About ten years ago, Marean began building a transdisciplinary international team to tackle the problem of building an ecology of this ancient landscape. ASU, Nelson Mandela University, the University of Cape Town, and the University of California, Riverside anchored the research team. Funded primarily by a $1 million National Science Foundation grant to Marean, with significant funding and resources from the Hyde Family Foundations, the John Templeton Foundation, ASU, IHO, and XSEDE, they developed an entirely new way to reconstruct "paleoecologies" or ancient ecosystems.

This began with using the high-resolution South African regional climate model -- running on U.S. and South African supercomputers -- to simulate glacial climate conditions. The researchers used this climate output to drive a new vegetation model developed by project scientists to recreate the vegetation on this paleoscape. They then used a wide variety of studies such as marine geophysics, deep-water diving for sample collection, isotopic studies of stalagmites and many other transdisciplinary avenues of research to validate and adjust this model output. They also created a human "agent-based model" through modern studies of human foraging of plants, animals, and seafoods, simulating how ancient people lived on this now extinct paleoscape.

"Pulling the threads of all this research into one special issue illustrates all of this science," said Curtis Marean. "It represents a unique example of a truly transdisciplinary paleoscience effort, and a new model for going forward with our search to recreate the nature of past ecosystems. Importantly, our results help us understand why the archaeological records from these South African sites consistently reveal early and complex levels of human behavior and culture. The Palaeo-Agulhas Plain, when exposed, was a 'Serengeti of the South"' positioned next to some of the richest coastlines in the world. This unique confluence of food from the land and sea cultivated the complex cultures revealed by the archaeology and provided safe harbor for humans during the glacial cycles that revealed that plain and made much of the rest of the world unwelcoming to human life."

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Access to the special issue can be found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/quaternary-science-reviews/vol/235/suppl/C

Washington Post's depictions of autism shift from 'cause and cure' to acceptance

Study reviews 315 articles published from 2007 to 2017

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA CRUZ

The Washington Post's depiction of autism has shifted over the years from a focus on "cause and cure" toward one of acceptance and accommodation, say the authors of a study that examined 315 articles published from 2007 to 2017.

The findings, which appear in the current online edition of Disability and Society, suggest that media representations are changing to reflect new public attitudes generated in part by the autistic rights movement, say co-authors Noa Lewin, a 2018 graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Nameera Akhtar, a professor of psychology at UCSC.

"There's less focus on cause and a bigger focus on accommodation," said Lewin, whose undergraduate senior thesis was the basis of the study. "Coverage has shifted more toward how to make life better for autistic people and less on what is causing autism."

The paper, "Neurodiversity and Deficit Perspectives in the Washington Post's Coverage of Autism," is based on a content analysis of coverage beginning in 2007, before the putative link between the MMR vaccine and autism had been completely debunked. It ends 10 years later, when the neurodiversity rights movement had advanced understanding and awareness about the range of ways brains function and that variations from "normal" are not necessarily deficits. The researchers chose to examine the influential Washington Post because it is widely read by legislators and policy makers.

Akhtar, the corresponding author of the paper, is at the forefront of paradigm-shifting scholarship about autism and has called for greater understanding of autism. "The autism self-advocacy movement has been around for a while, but the idea that autism is something that should be accommodated rather than 'cured' is new for people who haven't been exposed to it," she said.

In their analysis, Lewin and Akhtar found that the Post's articles over time were more likely to talk about "neurodiversity" and to acknowledge the strengths of autistic people. Articles also began to describe accommodations for autistic people, and a few began to feature the voices of autistic people themselves--a trend Lewin, who is autistic, particularly appreciated.

"I remember one article about autism-related legislation that quoted a member of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN)," said Lewin, who links the increased visibility of people with autism to the broader disability-rights movement. "We tend to think of a disability as a medical tragedy, and we don't think about how attitudes, systemic ableism, and barriers contribute to that."

Although the paper's coverage over time gradually placed more emphasis on autistic skills and strengths, coverage continued to use negative terms to describe autistic people. For example, the terms "high functioning" and "low functioning" continue to appear, despite autistic advocates' preference for more specific language, such as "speaking" and "non-speaking." And the emphasis on strengths was on autistic people who can do things like speak conversationally and hold jobs.

"The Post's coverage reflected a widespread belief that having a disability is okay if you're able to fit into a neurotypical world or if it offers a special talent or skill with social value, like being really good with computers," said Lewin.

Akhtar is pleased to see media representations of autism changing, and she was delighted to collaborate with Lewin on the paper. "Autistic people should be involved in research about autism," she said. "I was happy to work with Noa and to gain this insider's perspective. I learned a lot. You learn to broaden your way of thinking by interacting with people with different experiences."

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Social good creates economic boost

As governments around the globe move to prop up their ailing economies, a first-of-its-kind investigation could provide important input to employment policy

QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: QUT'S PROFESSOR PER DAVIDSSON AND PROFESSOR MARTIN OBSCHONKA view more 

CREDIT: QUT

As unemployment rates skyrocket around the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a world-first study has found social venture start-ups not only alleviate social problems but also are much more important for job creation than previously thought.

Written by Professor Martin Obschonka, Director of QUT's Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research, and its founding director, Professor Per Davidsson, along with collaborators from Sweden, the paper - The regional employment effects of new social firm entry - has just been published on Springer Open Access.

They contend the impact of social venture start-ups on regional job creation has been largely overlooked. They also argue the first-of-its-kind investigation could provide important input to employment policy, especially as global governments scramble to prop up ailing economies.

"It has long been acknowledged that the entry and growth of new firms contribute a large share of job creation in most countries. Social venture start-ups, however, are mostly celebrated for their worth in helping the disadvantaged or solving social concerns - their role in job creation has not really been considered," said Professor Obschonka.

"Yet using an established method for tracking direct and indirect job creation effects across 67 regions in Sweden over an eight-year period from start-up entry into the marketplace, our findings show the average job creation effect per firm was larger for social start-ups than for their commercial counterparts.

"Job creation is often a major focus of the social mission of these start-ups, especially for marginalised groups including people with disabilities and long-term unemployed individuals."

Professor Davidsson said the findings were contrary to the reliance on volunteers by many social endeavours.

"There appear to be a number of reasons social ventures create more jobs. First up, most 'commercial' start-ups represent individuals choosing self-employment which can mean they have no burning desire to grow and take on employees," Professor Davidsson said.

"Commercial start-ups also often operate in crowded markets with little room for growth. So even the high growth firms among the commercial category do not raise the average to high levels; partly because they outcompete or acquire some of their peers.

"By contrast, social ventures address underserved 'markets' of social problems, such as homelessness, substance abuse, domestic violence, refugees, environmental concerns, animal shelters, foodbanks, crisis centres, youth unemployment and so on.

"This creates room for growth without pushing out other social ventures. And being passionate about solving as much of 'their' social issue as they possibly can, social entrepreneurs are motivated to grow.

"They can also benefit from lower costs due to tax breaks and partial reliance on volunteers to have a growth advantage over commercial firms offering competing products or services."

The authors of the study acknowledge that as the commercial firm sector is much larger than the social sector, total job creation is greater overall.

The study compared regions in Sweden in terms of their social and commercial start-ups between 1990 to 2014 and their net job creation effects in each up to eight years after they entered the market.

"Similar comparisons for Australia or other countries do not yet exist," said Professor Obschonka.

"However, total employment in the social sector has grown recently in other countries, so our findings would most likely be valid in Australia and elsewhere along with Sweden."

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View the full paper online at Springer Open Access.

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Modern sea-level rise linked to human activities, Rutgers research reaffirms

Surprising glacial and nearly ice-free periods in last 66 million years

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

IMAGE: SCIENTISTS BOARDING THE D/V JOIDES RESOLUTION OFF NEW JERSEY IN 1993. THE SEA LEVEL IN AN ICE-FREE WORLD WOULD BE 66 METERS (216.5 FEET) HIGHER THAN NOW - SHOULDER-HIGH TO... view more 

CREDIT: KENNETH G. MILLER, JAMES V. BROWNING AND GREGORY S. MOUNTAIN

New research by Rutgers scientists reaffirms that modern sea-level rise is linked to human activities and not to changes in Earth's orbit.

Surprisingly, the Earth had nearly ice-free conditions with carbon dioxide levels not much higher than today and had glacial periods in times previously believed to be ice-free over the last 66 million years, according to a paper published in the journal Science Advances.

"Our team showed that the Earth's history of glaciation was more complex than previously thought," said lead author Kenneth G. Miller, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. "Although carbon dioxide levels had an important influence on ice-free periods, minor variations in the Earth's orbit were the dominant factor in terms of ice volume and sea-level changes - until modern times."

Sea-level rise, which has accelerated in recent decades, threatens to permanently inundate densely populated coastal cities and communities, other low-lying lands and costly infrastructure by 2100. It also poses a grave threat to many ecosystems and economies.

The paper reconstructed the history of sea levels and glaciation since the age of the dinosaurs ended. Scientists compared estimates of the global average sea level, based on deep-sea geochemistry data, with continental margin records. Continental margins, which include the relatively shallow ocean waters over a continental shelf, can extend hundreds of miles from the coast.

The study showed that periods of nearly ice-free conditions, such as 17 million to 13 million years ago, occurred when the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide - a key greenhouse gas driving climate change - was not much higher than today. However, glacial periods occurred when the Earth was previously thought to be ice-free, such as from 48 million to 34 million years ago.

"We demonstrate that although atmospheric carbon dioxide had an important influence on ice-free periods on Earth, ice volume and sea-level changes prior to human influences were linked primarily to minor variations in the Earth's orbit and distance from the sun," Miller said.

The largest sea-level decline took place during the last glacial period about 20,000 years ago, when the water level dropped by about 400 feet. That was followed by a foot per decade rise in sea level - a rapid pace that slowed from 10,000 to 2,000 years ago. Sea-level rise was then at a standstill until around 1900, when rates began rising as human activities began influencing the climate.

Future work reconstructing the history of sea-level changes before 48 million years ago is needed to determine the times when the Earth was entirely ice-free, the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide in glaciation and the cause of the natural fall in atmospheric carbon dioxide before humans.

Rutgers coauthors include Professor James V. Browning, doctoral student W. John Schmelz and professors Robert E. Kopp, Gregory S. Mountain and James D. Wright, the senior author of the study.

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