Tuesday, September 02, 2025

Farming strategies to protect biodiversity

PNAS Nexus

flower stip — image:
A flower strip as an element of "land sharing" on a farm in north-western Switzerland.
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Credit: Eva Augustiny et al.

To protect biodiversity, a meta-analysis finds that agriculture should use a combination of biodiversity-friendly approaches and protected areas. For decades, scientists have debated how agriculture can both feed the world and safegaurd biodiversity. Should farms be managed in a way that allows non-food species to thrive alongside crops and livestock, an approach known as “land sharing?” Or should agriculture be maximized to produce the highest yield achievable in the smallest space possible, enabling other lands to be set aside for conservation, in what is known as “land sparing?” Eva Augustiny and colleagues conducted a systematic review of 57 empirical peer-reviewed studies on this question and found that neither land sparing nor land sharing strategies alone can effectively balance agricultural production with biodiversity conservation. Data is scarce and only 17 of the studies included assessment of agricultural production, clear specification of the biodiversity metrics used, and clear definitions for the production systems, allowing comparisons between the approaches. These studies included 27 comparisons in total. Over half of these comparisons show that context-specific combinations of both approaches performed best. Many other studies relied on oversimplified methods and all studies measured biodiversity through a limited lens, such as just forest birds. According to the authors, the findings challenge the polarized debate between the two conservation strategies and highlight the need for integrated, location-specific solutions rather than one-size-fits-all approaches.

Journal

PNAS Nexus

Article Title

Empirical evidence supports neither land sparing nor land sharing as the main strategy to manage agriculture–biodiversity tradeoffs

Article Publication Date

2-Sep-2025

FAU Engineering awarded USDA grant for smart farming breakthrough

Florida Atlantic University

Arslan Munir, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science within the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University, has received an $827,533 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

This award will support Munir’s leadership of a groundbreaking, multi-institutional research project with FAU, Kansas State University and Purdue University, aimed at revolutionizing the future of precision agriculture through the development of an advanced edge/fog computing-based framework – called “FogAg” – to enable real-time, multi-layer sensing and analysis of how water and nitrogen levels together affect crop growth and yield.

Agriculture faces mounting pressure to feed a growing population while protecting natural resources. Managing water and nitrogen – two vital yet often limiting crop inputs – is one of the greatest challenges. When mismanaged, they can reduce yields and harm the environment through runoff and waste. Existing smart agriculture tools often fall short in capturing and responding to these complex interactions in real time with the precision farmers need.

Munir’s FogAg framework is designed to fill this technological and scientific gap. By integrating cutting-edge developments in edge/fog computing, cyber-physical systems, and multi-modal sensing, the project offers a scalable solution that can provide actionable insights into plant-soil dynamics. The research will explore new innovations across multiple domains – including architecture, sensing, machine learning and predictive modeling – to deliver a next-generation agricultural system that can interpret and respond to field data in near real-time.

“Receiving this USDA grant is an important milestone in our pursuit of transformative agricultural technologies,” said Munir. “Our goal with FogAg is to create an intelligent, adaptable and energy-efficient framework that empowers farmers with the data they need to make timely, site-specific decisions. By capturing and analyzing the nuanced interactions between water and nitrogen stressors, we aim to not only increase crop yield and quality but also reduce the environmental impact of modern agriculture. This project represents our deep commitment to leveraging advanced computing systems in service of sustainable food production.”

At the heart of FogAg is a novel, three-tiered cyber-physical architecture that spans IoT devices, fog computing nodes and cloud servers, enabling distributed processing and near real-time analytics. Supporting this architecture is Neuro-Sense, a reconfigurable system that facilitates energy-efficient signal and image processing for dynamically changing workloads in the field.

The team will develop and deploy a multi-modal sensing platform that includes an economical and flexible LED-based multispectral imaging system, an innovative near-infrared point measurement sensor, and a novel frequency response-based dielectric soil sensor.

“These tools will enable sensing above, below and within the plant canopy, capturing a comprehensive picture of crop and soil health,” said Munir.

On the data processing front, the project will leverage advanced machine learning techniques, including a highly efficient convolutional neural network accelerator capable of analyzing complex image and sensor data streams. These insights will feed into tree-based predictive models that integrate real-time and historical data to generate site-specific, variable-rate prescriptions for fertilizer and irrigation – maximizing productivity while minimizing input waste.

Beyond its scientific and technical contributions, the FogAg project is poised to make significant societal and environmental impacts. The integration of real-time water and nitrogen management strategies will not only enhance resource-use efficiency and reduce production costs but also help lower agriculture’s nitrogen footprint and associated environmental pollution. With both spatial and temporal scalability, the framework has potential applications ranging from large-scale industrial farms to urban and peri-urban agricultural systems.

“This research epitomizes the kind of forward-thinking, impact-driven innovation at Florida Atlantic University,” said Stella Batalama, Ph.D., dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science. “Professor Munir’s work is a great example of how engineering can lead transformative change in critical sectors like agriculture. The integration of smart technologies into farming practices not only addresses urgent global challenges around food security and sustainability but also reinforces our role as a leader in cross-disciplinary research with real-world impact.”

In addition to its research agenda, the project will incorporate its findings into both undergraduate and graduate curricula, training the next generation of engineers and scientists in the practical application of smart agriculture technologies. This educational component ensures that the knowledge generated through the FogAg project will have lasting influence, seeding innovation well beyond the duration of the grant.

Munir will be working closely with co-investigators Michell L. Neilsen, Ph.D.; Naiqian Zhang, Ph.D.; Paul Armstrong, Ph.D.; and Rachel L.V. Cott, Ph.D.; representing the departments of computer science, biological and agricultural engineering and agronomy at Kansas State University; as well as Ignacio Ciampitti, Ph.D., Department of Agronomy from Purdue University. This collaboration ensures that the FogAg framework will be designed with both technological sophistication and agronomic practicality.

- FAU -

Why small business owners are more likely to be right wing

MARX & ENGELS EXPLAINED THAT

Cambridge University Press

Small business owners are more likely to identify with and vote for right-wing parties, a new study in the British Journal of Political Science, published by Cambridge University Press reveals. The research suggests it is the experience of being a small business owner that leads people to adopt conservative views on government regulation.

The study, which analysed the political leanings of small business owners in the United States, also found that current business owners, but not past owners of businesses, vote more to the right than people who never owned a business; that people who inherited a business, more than those who started a new business, are more right-leaning; and that even within a narrow professional subset such as physicians with their own practices, business ownership aligns with a disproportionate right lean.

Neil Malhotra, Professor of Political Economy in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, said the findings indicate that the appeal of right-wing parties derives from experiences associated with running a business, rather than from background characteristics that lead people to open or run a business.

“The heightened need to deal with the regulatory state especially can lead small business owners to lean further to the right,” said Malhotra.

The study used a wide range of data sources: an original, first-of-its-kind bespoke survey of small business owners based on a unique administrative sampling frame of the recipients of the US Paycheck Protection Program; a comparable survey of a general sample of the US adult population; a cross-national survey data; and data on the partisan registration and donations of a targeted set of occupations.

The gig economy could benefit right-wing parties

Malhotra highlighted how the gig economy is familiarising more people with the pressures experienced by small business owners.

“As the labour market veers toward gig platforms and gig jobs, more people will become, in many ways, a new form of small business owners: they will have no boss and enjoy more flexibility in their work schedules, while also experiencing the burden of heightened responsibility for key aspects of work as compared to waged staff,” said Malhotra.

“At the same time, gig workers face economic precarity and instability. As a growing number of people have daily experiences akin to those of a business owner, it will be interesting to see if parties and candidates on the right are likely to benefit, or if this is an opportunity for the left to build the social safety net.”

The politics of wealthy small business owners

The study found that small business owners are significantly overrepresented among individuals without college degrees but who earn higher-than-median incomes – also known as ‘High Income Low Education’, or HILEs. Indeed, one of the main ways a person can make a high income without a college degree is by running a successful small business.

HILEs comprise approximately 20.2 percent of Americans that are not small business owners. This figure, however, is substantially higher among small business owners: 33.1 percent of employer small business owners and 26.6 percent of non-employer small business owners fall into this category

The study found that 59.2 percent of HILEs identify with the Republican Party, and 50.3 per cent would vote for Trump. Among other respondents, these figures are 47.6 percent and 36.2 percent respectively.

Political differences by sector

The study also found that many of the small business owner occupation types that are Democratic-leaning are creative functions done mainly by sole proprietors – for example, therapy, massage, and graphic design. On the other hand, Republican-leaning small business owners are more involved in complex industries such as construction, healthcare, and manufacturing, which have more of an interface with regulations involving labour laws, health and safety, and compliance.

Journal

British Journal of Political Science

DOI

10.1017/S0007123425000274

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The Politics of Small Business Owners

Immigrant CEOs linked to significant reduction in corporate irresponsibility in their home countries

Strategic Management Society

A recent study published in the Strategic Management Journal finds that appointing an immigrant CEO can dramatically reduce the incidence of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) in their home countries. The research, led by Juan Bu, Associate Professor of International Business and Strategy at Indiana University Bloomington, highlights how a leader’s personal ties and social networks abroad can influence where—and how often—multinational enterprises (MNEs) engage in harmful practices such as environmental pollution or human rights violations.

CSI incidents vary widely by region, and past research has focused primarily on macro-level factors, such as national regulations or cultural norms, to explain these differences. This new study takes a micro-level approach, examining how individual leadership characteristics—specifically, whether a CEO is an immigrant—affect corporate behavior across countries.

“CEOs are central drivers of corporate social performance,” explains Bu. “With globalization and the rising number of immigrant CEOs, like Elon Musk of Tesla and Sundar Pichai of Google, it’s critical to understand how their backgrounds influence corporate conduct internationally. Yet until now, we’ve known very little about this connection.”

Bu and co-authors Stephanie Lu Wang, Yejee Lee, and Dan Li proposed that immigrant CEOs often have deeper emotional ties, cultural familiarity, and personal networks in their countries of origin. These connections, they argued, could reduce both the likelihood of irresponsible actions by the company and the related negative media coverage in those home countries.

To test this theory, the researchers analyzed data from U.S.-based multinational firms listed in the S&P 500 between 2007 and 2020. CEO biographical information was gathered from public sources such as Wikipedia and corporate websites, while data on CSI incidents came from RepRisk, a global database tracking corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks.

Using a rigorous statistical matching technique, the team compared 76 firms led by immigrant CEOs to 220 similar firms led by non-immigrant CEOs. The results were striking:

In the four years following the appointment of an immigrant CEO, the number of CSI incidents in their home country dropped by 54.25%.
By contrast, comparable firms without immigrant CEOs saw a 6.36% increase in incidents over the same period.

“The reduction was especially pronounced when the CEO immigrated as an adult, the firm had a high sustainability rating, and the home country had lower press freedom,” notes co-author Yejee Lee, now an Assistant Professor at Auburn University.

These findings have important implications for both corporate strategy and public policy. For companies, the research suggests that CEO selection can be an effective lever for improving reputation and social responsibility in key markets. For policymakers, the results underscore the importance of transparency and press freedom in reducing corporate misconduct.

“Firms can use these insights to strategically select leaders who bring not only business expertise but also valuable cross-border social capital,” says Wang, Associate Professor of International Business and Strategy at Indiana University Bloomington. “Meanwhile, governments can enact policies to increase media transparency and create opportunities for executives to maintain strong ties to their home countries.”

Co-author Dan Li, Professor of International Business, adds: “Local governments can also foster conditions that deepen CEOs’ emotional connections to their countries, helping prevent harmful business activities before they occur.”

The study provides a fresh, nuanced understanding of how personal leadership characteristics shape global corporate conduct, moving beyond broad structural explanations to highlight the role of individual agency. As Bu concludes, “Our work shows that who leads a multinational company matters—not just for profits, but for the company’s footprint across the world.”

About the Strategic Management Society

The Strategic Management Society (SMS) is the leading global member organization fostering and supporting rigorous and practice-engaged strategic management research. SMS enjoys the support of 3,000 members, representing more than 1,100 institutions and companies in more than 70 countries. SMS publishes three leading academic journals in partnership with Wiley: Strategic Management Journal, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and Global Strategy Journal. These journals publish top-quality work applicable to researchers and practitioners with complementary access for all SMS Members. The SMS Explorer offers the latest insights and takeaways from the SMS Journals for business practitioners, consultants, and academics.

Click here to subscribe to the monthly SMS Explorer newsletter.

Click here to learn more about the programs and opportunities SMS has to offer.

Journal

Strategic Management Journal

DOI

10.1002/smj.3702

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

Not in my homeland: Immigrant CEOs and the geography of corporate social irresponsibility

Study: Cellophane bees are built for chill temperatures, more so than honeybees

University of Kansas

LAWRENCE — The cellophane bee might be the ultimate spring breaker. A solitary bee that nests in the ground, it’s one of the very first pollinators to emerge every year — often before the snowmelt.

Now, scholarship from the University of Kansas shows the bee is specially equipped by evolution to handle the harsh shocks and cold temperatures of early spring.

Like any spring breaker, it knows how to bounce back. Compared to honeybees, cellophane bees recover from “chill coma” about twice as quickly and can handle much lower temperatures.

The study, relying on bee collection and research carried out by faculty, graduate and undergraduate researchers on KU’s Lawrence campus, appears in Ecology and Evolution.

“Over 75% of bees are solitary, but most of what we know about bees comes from studies on social bees like honeybees and bumblebees,” said Victor Gonzalez, research associate with the KU Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum and lead author of the new study. “The cellophane bee is native to North America — a solitary bee that nests in the ground. Most solitary bees have very short lives as adults. The species we study lives only four or five weeks. It’s called a cellophane bee because when it makes a nest, it creates cells that look like clear paper, similar to cellophane.”

Gonzalez, who also serves as a courtesy researcher in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at KU, said while the cellophane bee starts emerging around spring break, by mid-May the adults die.

“The larvae hatch quickly and become adults, but they remain in the ground until the following year,” he said.

The KU researchers collected wild bees on campus, measured their size, exposed them to controlled temperature conditions, tracked recovery and gauged results between bee sexes and species.

A few key findings:

Colletes inaequalis (the cellophane bee’s scientific name) can handle cold a lot better than honeybees, an adaptation tied to emerging in early spring.
But honeybees tolerate heat better, perhaps a danger sign that cellophane bees are particularly threatened from warming temperatures tied to manmade activity.
Sex and body size don’t seem to affect thermal tolerance in cellophane bees. The males are smaller, but they’re just as hardy as females when the mercury drops.
Repeated exposure to cold makes recovery slower.

Gonzalez’s KU co-authors are Deborah Smith, professor of ecology & evolutionary biology, and graduate students Natalie Herbison and Andres Herrera. They are joined by Kennan Oyen of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

According to Gonzalez, the cellophane bees are vital pollinators in the ecosystem with importance to some agricultural producers.

“These early spring bees pollinate early spring crops and flowers, such as apples and blueberries,” he said. “However, they are harder to be commercialized like honeybees because they’re solitary and ground nesters. They need areas to nest, and, unlike honeybees, which have colonies of thousands, solitary bees exist in much smaller numbers. Even so, they’re important for local plants.”

This study of bees on the KU campus sheds light on how species will fare during climate change more broadly. The team also built on KU’s long history of bee research, including studies of campus bee species by the late KU professor and world-expert on bees, Charles Michener.

“What we wanted to see is how these bees are coping with changes in temperature during the spring,” Gonzalez said. “Sometimes, when they’re flying, it still snows. But spring is coming earlier and becoming warmer. Weather patterns are changing, and we want to know how bees adapt. There are records from the 1980s from some of Michener’s students showing that males emerge first from the ground about two weeks before females.”

Building on this earlier KU research, the team found these early emerging males must find food. When they can’t, males have far lower rates of survival after exposure to cold.

“Food impacts survival, while repeated exposures to cold affect their ability to function normally,” Gonzalez said. “Being exposed to multiple snow days impairs them behaviorally. They can’t recover from these cold events if they’re exposed more than once. This is important because males are emerging from the nests, and if there are several snow days after that with no food, they’re going to die. If they do recover and survive, they may not be able to fly properly. Survival is hard work, and with more erratic changes in climate we’re experiencing, this might be impacting these populations. There is further work we can do to assess this.”

Journal

Ecology and Evolution

DOI

10.1002/ece3.71983

Altmetric adds Sentiment Analysis to social media tracking

AI-powered Sentiment Analysis to provide deeper insights into how research is being received

Digital Science

Altmetric Sentiment Analysis - graphic — image:
Altmetric has introduced a new AI-powered sentiment analysis feature, providing research teams with deeper insights into the public response and impact of their work on selected social media platforms.
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Credit: Digital Science / Altmetric.

Digital Science is pleased to announce that Altmetric, which captures the online attention of research, has introduced a new AI-powered sentiment analysis feature, to provide research teams with deeper insights into the public response and impact of their work on selected social media platforms.

Now available in Altmetric Explorer, Altmetric’s AI-powered Sentiment Analysis has been robustly refined to explore the sentiment towards the use of research, thanks to the work of Digital Science Senior Data Scientist Dr Carlos Areia and Head of Data Insights Mike Taylor, in consultation with the research community.

Mike Taylor said: “Impactful research deserves the best possible insights. Our new Sentiment Analysis feature gives some meaning to numbers, leveraging advanced technology to interpret and visualize the sentiment behind mentions on key social media platforms, and brings the potential to turn raw data into actionable insights for members of the research community.”

Using AI to assign scores to mentions, it was possible to create a spectrum of sentiment for given research outputs. By capturing a whole range of reactions and discourse on social media, sentiment analysis supports research teams to better understand how their work is being received and engaged online across different audiences.

“There are many potential benefits from these new insights, including the opportunity for research teams to refine their approach to research publication, communication and dissemination plans,” Taylor said.

Key Features of Altmetric Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment Scoring: Automatically assigns a sentiment score to individual social media mentions (ranging from strong negative to strong positive).
Sentiment Breakdown Charts: Visualize sentiment trends with clear and concise graphical representations. Research teams can quickly identify changes in perception and respond accordingly.
Filtering by Sentiment: Narrow down results in the Altmetric Explorer by sentiment type, allowing users to focus on specific aspects of discussions most relevant to their strategy or goals.

Amye Kenall, Chief Product Officer, Digital Science, said: “The inclusion of Sentiment Analysis into Altmetric data is an important step in helping users get real insight from Altmetric data, enabling researchers and organizations to understand how their publications are being received, discussed and used. Digital Science is committed to using AI responsibly and ethically in ways that drive more value to our users but also protect the community we serve. We’re pleased to bring this feature to our Altmetric Explorer users.

“Medical affairs professionals, academic researchers, scholarly publishers, and R&D specialists alike can fully explore the ‘how and why’ behind their impact, leveraging these insights to maximize the visibility and effectiveness of their published research.”

Altmetric Explorer users can explore Sentiment Analysis now. See the Altmetric website for more details.

Contact our team today.

About Altmetric

Altmetric is a leading provider of alternative research metrics, helping everyone involved in research gauge the impact of their work. We serve diverse markets including universities, institutions, government, publishers, corporations, and those who fund research. Our powerful technology searches thousands of online sources, revealing where research is being shared and discussed. Teams can use our powerful Altmetric Explorer application to interrogate the data themselves, embed our dynamic ‘badges’ into their webpages, or get expert insights from Altmetric’s consultants. Altmetric is part of the Digital Science group, dedicated to making the research experience simpler and more productive by applying pioneering technology solutions. Find out more at altmetric.com and follow @altmetric on X and @altmetric.com on Bluesky.

About Digital Science

Digital Science is an AI-focused technology company providing innovative solutions to complex challenges faced by researchers, universities, funders, industry and publishers. We work in partnership to advance global research for the benefit of society. Through our brands – Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, metaphacts, OntoChem, Overleaf, ReadCube, Symplectic, and Writefull – we believe when we solve problems together, we drive progress for all. Visit digital-science.com and follow Digital Science on Bluesky, on X or on LinkedIn.

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Tuesday, September 02, 2025

Farming strategies to protect biodiversity

Journal

Article Title

Article Publication Date

FAU Engineering awarded USDA grant for smart farming breakthrough

Journal

DOI

Method of Research

Subject of Research

Article Title

Immigrant CEOs linked to significant reduction in corporate irresponsibility in their home countries

Journal

DOI

Method of Research

Article Title

Study: Cellophane bees are built for chill temperatures, more so than honeybees

Journal

DOI

Altmetric adds Sentiment Analysis to social media tracking

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