It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, August 29, 2022
Endangered Māui dolphins have changed their diet
New Zealand’s Māui dolphin, the world’s most endangered marine dolphin, changed its diet during the past 30 years, research shows.
New Zealand’s Māui dolphin, the world’s most endangered marine dolphin, changed its diet during the past 30 years, research shows. Scientists checked tiny skin samples collected from the dolphins between 1993 and 2020 for microchemical markers revealing diet. Turns out the dolphins’ meals became less diverse from 2008, when a marine sanctuary restricted fishing in their habitat, which stretches along 40 kilometres of Tamaki Makaurau’s west coast. “We think that the sanctuary increased the amount of food available to the dolphins,” says the lead author of the paper, Courtney Ogilvy, who’s a PhD student at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland. “That meant they were able to get more of their preferred prey, and not work so hard to get many different types of food.” The scientists’ analysis doesn’t reveal exactly which types of fish were consumed, just the breadth of diet. (Māui dolphins typically eat fish smaller than 10 centimetres in length, dining on species such as ahuru, red cod and sprats.) A temporary change in diet occurred during the El Niño weather event in 2015 and 2016. “Dramatic climate events like El Niño can change water temperatures and currents, meaning that fish from different regions can move into the dolphins’ habitat,” says co-author Professor Rochelle Constantine. “As you really are what you eat, this change is reflected in the microchemical markers in the dolphin’s skin.” The microchemical markers are called stable isotopes. “Overall this is good news for the Māui dolphin,” says co-author Associate Professor Emma Carroll. “They are able to find their preferred prey and so far they are adapting when conditions change.”
Now, the scientists plan to investigate how climate change will alter the dolphins’ habitat. “We know they are likely to be at their maximum thermal limit, so increasing ocean temperatures may eventually shift the distribution of the dolphins and their preferred prey,” says Professor Constantine. Located only in Aotearoa, the number of Māui dolphins aged a year or older may be as few as 54, according to the latest estimate.
The Marine Mammal Sanctuary, on the west coast of the North Island, Te Ika-a-Māui was established in 2008 and expanded in 2020.
Diet variation in a critically endangered marine predator revealed with stable isotope analysis
Study finds circular utilization of urban tree waste can help mitigate climate change
A multi-scale lifecycle assessment conducted by Prof. Yuan Yao and researchers from the Yale Center for Industrial Ecology explains how eco-friendly uses for urban tree waste could substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. cities.
Cities are defined, by most, by their built environment: towering buildings, miles of roads and sidewalks, modes of transportation, and public utilities. But with the threats of climate change looming, researchers are looking for ways to turn vast swaths of natural areas in urban environments into tools to help offset the significant greenhouse gas emissions that cities produce.
In a recent study published in the journal One Earth, researchers from the Yale Center for Industrial Ecology conducted a multi-scale lifecycle assessment that explored methods for utilizing urban tree waste. Wide-scale adoption of more eco-friendly uses of urban tree waste could significantly reduce global warming potential in the United States, according to the researchers' findings.
“Cities have lots of trees and they will not live forever,” says co-author Yuan Yao, assistant professor of industrial ecology and sustainable systems. “You also have leaves and other tree waste. We wanted to investigate different ways we could use this waste, the potential pathways and benefits, to create something of value.”
According to Kai Lan, a postdoctoral researcher in Yao’s lab and the lead author of the study, there are roughly 50 million hectares of urban forest in the United States. As a result, more than 45 million dry tons of urban tree waste are generated every year in the United States — waste that usually ends up in landfills to be disposed of, contributing greatly to greenhouse gas emissions.
The study outlines several different methods for creating value from urban tree waste, including turning tree trunks into wood chips or lumber for wood products, composting leaves, and turning tree residue into biochar, a carbon-rich material made from biomass. Yao specifically highlighted the numerous applications for biochar, which include agriculture, energy, wastewater treatment, and carbon storage.
The researchers caution that the environmental benefits of new uses for urban tree waste will vary across states and cities. Bingquan Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher in Yao’s lab and an author of the study, says that several major U.S. cities have developed urban tree management strategies and that those efforts should be expanded.
“I hope this paper can provide some quantitative evidence that programs like these are working in climate mitigation efforts,” says Yao, who added that she also hopes this study lays the foundation for global collaboration on the topic.
“This all aligns with the circular economy concept — turning waste into something of value,” says Lan. “But it’s not just traditional waste, like plastic or paper. Tree waste is very important, too.”
NASA and Boeing are targeting an early February 2023 launch for the first CST-100 Starliner flight with astronauts to the International Space Station.
Preparations are underway for the launch of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) as teams work to ready the hardware, crew, and mission support teams for flight as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
Two NASA astronaut test pilots, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, will fly on CFT to the space station, where they will live and work for approximately eight days. Mission and crew support teams and the CFT astronauts are continuing with preparations and training. NASA and Boeing teams recently conducted an integrated crew exercise to rehearse the prelaunch timeline and responses to various launch event scenarios. In the coming weeks, Wilmore and Williams will don their spacesuits and climb aboard their crew module to check out the vehicle systems and interfaces that support their health and safety.
Refurbishment of the CFT crew module following the first Orbital Flight Test in December 2019 is progressing. Its external shell and thermal protection system will be completed next, followed by preflight checks to finalize the crew module build and test phase. Production of a new service module also is progressing, with teams wrapping up acceptance testing of the thermal control system, installing the pressurant system and integrating the propulsion system. This service module incorporates the same valve mitigations as the OFT-2 spacecraft. That purge system performed as needed during OFT-2 and a similar system has been implemented into the service module for CFT as a preventative measure. Once both the crew module and service module are completed, the two will be mated for flight.
During OFT-2, which launched May 19, Starliner spent six days in space, orbited the Earth 94 times and covered a total distance of 2,467,406 miles. Starliner achieved all flight test objectives and mission operations demonstrations, including rendezvous and docking maneuvers and the ability to execute an abort if needed once in the vicinity of the space station. Additionally, Starliner had a normal launch, trajectory, orbital insertion, and approach, rendezvous and docking with space station.
Throughout the OFT-2 data reviews, the team has verified Starliner’s subsystems performed as needed during the flight. This included environmental control and life support, landing, power, guidance navigation and control, docking and ascent abort emergency detection system validation, and atmospheric entry with aero-deceleration.
NASA and Boeing also are working to close out the OFT-2 in-flight anomalies prior to Starliner’s next flight with astronauts. Those include the early shutoff of some thrusters and a cooling loop anomaly. System enhancements to improve crew interfaces and streamline spacecraft operations are also planned.
For the crewed flight, Boeing’s Starliner will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Following a successful CFT mission, NASA will begin the final process of certifying the Starliner spacecraft and systems for crew missions to the space station. Regular commercial crew rotation missions enable NASA to continue the important research and technology investigations taking place aboard the orbiting laboratory. Such research benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future exploration. As part of Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars. Inspiring the next generation of explorers – the Artemis Generation – ensures America will continue to lead in space exploration and discovery.
ITHACA, N.Y. – Calls for a boycott of Goya Foods products in 2020 actually caused the company’s nationwide sales to rise for a few weeks before subsiding to previous levels, according to new Cornell University research.
Even in geographic areas where customers did forgo Goya products, which include packaged foods and spice mixes, sales revived after a few weeks, according to a new paper co-authored by by Jūra Liaukonytė, the Dake Family Associate Professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.
The study was co-authored by Anna Tuchman, associate professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and Xinrong Zhu, assistant professor of marketing at Imperial College Business School in London.
With instances of so-called political consumerism (think recent protests against Disney, Spotify, McDonald’s, and others) continually hitting the headlines in today’s politically polarized environment, Liaukonytė and her colleagues sought to understand the actual sales effect of social media posts targeting specific brands.
In Goya’s case, protests favoring a boycott emerged in the summer of 2020 after company chief executive Robert Unanue publicly praised then-President Donald Trump. Twitter posts favoring a boycott were 75% higher than calls for a “buycott” urging buying more Goya products, the researchers estimate.
Analyzing purchasing data from market research company Numerator, they found that Goya’s net sales rose by about 22% during the two weeks after the controversy erupted. The researchers also examined county-level election results from the 2020 presidential season and saw that sales rose far more in Republican-dominated counties than in Democratic counties.
While the sales jump in Republican areas may have reflected the general publicity surrounding Goya, it more likely showed purchases by politically motivated first-time Goya buyers supporting Unanue’s pro-Republican message, Liaukonytė said.
In Democratic-dominated counties, where the Goya brand has traditionally been more popular than in Republican areas, sales also temporarily increased despite the push to boycott, the researchers found. Boycotters in heavily Democratic counties were overshadowed by buycotters, who drove a slight short-term increase in spending on Goya products.
One possible reason: Because only a relatively small proportion of households nationwide are regular Goya customers in the first place, few households could forgo Goya products compared with the number that could become first-time Goya buyers, the researchers note.
Even the company’s core Latino customers largely continued to buy, perhaps because they felt especially loyal to the brand or couldn’t easily find adequate substitutions. Indeed, data showed that sales of certain Goya items such as canned beans temporarily declined in some Democratic areas, likely reflecting shoppers’ ability to switch easily to any of dozens of competing bean brands. But Goya’s adobo seasoning has far fewer competitors, leading Goya shoppers to stick with the company’s adobo spice mix and keeping sales of that product steady even in the most Democratic areas, the researchers said.
Sales data showed that about three weeks after the protests began, Goya’s overall sales reverted to pre-boycott levels, likely indicating that the media had moved on or consumers had tired of the controversy.
“Political consumerism campaigns on social media and their portrayal in the press are not always reflected in sales, and the risk of damage to their companies during a boycott may be overblown,” Liaukonytė said. Nevertheless, she said, more research needs to be done to understand these results, and whether executives need to worry about fallout from contentious political statements. A company’s size, profile, market dominance, and other characteristics all affect its fate amid controversy.
Irvine, Calif., Aug. 23, 2022 — The passage of time was altered for many people during the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from difficulty in keeping track of days of the week to feeling that the hours themselves rushed by or slowed down. In prior work, these distortions have been associated with persistent negative mental outcomes such as depression and anxiety following trauma, making them an important risk factor to target with early interventions, according to a study by University of California, Irvine researchers.
The study, recently published online in the journalPsychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, documents how pervasive the experience, known as “temporal disintegration” in psychiatric literature, was in the first six months of the pandemic. The team also found that pandemic-related secondary stresses such as daily COVID-19-related media exposure, school closures, lockdowns and financial difficulties were predictors of distortions in perceived time.
“Continuity between past experiences, present life and future hopes is critical to one’s well-being, and disruption of that synergy presents mental health challenges,” said corresponding author E. Alison Holman, UCI professor of nursing. “We were able to measure this in a nationally representative sample of Americans as they were experiencing a protracted collective trauma, which has never been done before. This study is the first to document the prevalence and early predictors of these time distortions. There are relatively new therapies that can be used to help people regain a more balanced sense of time, but if we don’t know who is in need of those services, we can’t provide that support.”
Researchers assessed results of responses regarding distorted time perceptions and other pandemic related experiences from a probability-based national sample of 5,661 participants from the National Opinion Online Research Center AmericaSpeak panel. Surveys were conducted during March 18-April 18, 2020 and Sept. 26-Oct. 26, 2020 with respondents who had completed a mental and physical health survey prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Given that distortions in time perception are a risk factor for mental health problems, our findings have potential implications for public health. We are now looking at temporal disintegration, loneliness, and mental health outcomes over 18 months into the pandemic,” Holman said. “This will help us gain insight into how these common experiences during the pandemic work together, so we can better understand how to help people struggling with these challenges.”
The UCI team included Nickolas M. Jones, psychological sciences postdoctoral researcher; Roxane Cohen Silver, Distinguished Professor of psychological science, medicine and health; and Dana Rose Garfin, assistant adjunct professor of nursing and public health, who is now with the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Funding for this work was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grant numbers SES 2026337 and SES 2049932; and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Award K01 MD013910.
About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu.
Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists
JOURNAL
Psychological Trauma Theory Research Practice and Policy
ARTICLE TITLE
Distortions in Time Perception During Collective Trauma: Insights From a National Longitudinal Study During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Nitrous oxide emissions from Corn Belt soils spike when soils freeze, thaw
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
URBANA, Ill. – Nitrous oxide may be much less abundant in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but as a greenhouse gas, it’s a doozy. With a potency 300 times greater than CO2, nitrous oxide’s warming potential, especially via agriculture, demands attention.
University of Illinois and University of Minnesota researchers are answering the call. In a new study, they document an overlooked but crucial timeframe for nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in U.S. Midwest agricultural systems: the non-growing season.
“Nitrous oxide emissions from agricultural soils have mostly been studied during the growing season. Previous research shows non-growing season N2O emissions can contribute up to 70–90% of annual emissions in some years, but it’s not clear how accurate that range is for the Midwest or what processes and management practices contribute to those emissions in the fall and winter,” says Yufeng Yang, the study’s lead author and doctoral student at U of M.
Yang and his co-authors used a computer simulation model known as ecosys to determine the hotspots and ‘hot moments’ for N2O emissions across the Midwest. Specifically, they teased out the climate and environmental factors contributing to N2O emissions on a county-by-county basis during non-growing seasons between 2001 and 2020. They also looked at the effects of fertilizer application timing and nitrification inhibitors.
“This validation study demonstrates the ecosys model can realistically simulate N2O emissions from agricultural soils in the non-growing season. It means we now have a robust way to quantify the contributions of environmental variables and nitrogen application timing to this important greenhouse gas,” says study co-author Kaiyu Guan, associate professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences and founding director of the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center at U of I.
First, the researchers found the non-growing season in the Midwest accounted for a wide range of annual N2O emissions: 6 to 60%. The variation could be traced back to differences at the county level, with emission levels diverging for counties in the southeastern and northwestern extremes of the region.
For context, soil N2O emissions are the result of microbial processes converting nitrogen from one form to another. Environmental conditions, such as the amount of moisture and oxygen in the soil, soil temperature, or the amount of snowpack on the soil surface, affect how much and how quickly microbes can metabolize nitrogen, as well as the ability of gaseous nitrogen products to be released into the atmosphere.
The ecosys model detected these environmental drivers across the region, highlighting greater emissions in counties with more than 12 inches of non-growing season precipitation. But the researchers looked for even more detail to explain the pattern.
“More intensive freezing caused by decreased air temperature was the dominant driver leading to increased non-growing season N2O emissions in the southeastern Midwest. In the northwest, increased precipitation and increased air temperature during thawing cycles were the key drivers enhancing non-growing season N2O production,” Yang says.
The long-term outlook for these regional differences may shift under a changing climate, however. Yang simulated future climate scenarios and found less freezing and thawing, potentially dampening the spikes that currently occur under these conditions.
The team also found the effects of nitrogen fertilizer application timing also varied by county. Generally, emissions were greater under fall application than spring application.
“Results suggest that shifting fall application to spring application and applying nitrification inhibitors at either time point can greatly reduce annual N2O emissions at the regional scale, and can reduce nitrogen leaching as well,” says study co-author Ziyi Li, doctoral researcher studying under Guan at U of I.
But that effect wasn’t universal. Fields in the west of the study area saw fewer emissions with fall application.
“Scientists always suggest switching to spring fertilizer application, but it's not a black and white story. Our model enables farmers to receive targeted recommendations specific to their fields,” says Zhenong Jin, corresponding author, project leader, and assistant professor in the Digital Agriculture Group at U of M.
The researchers say the model could be used to evaluate the effects of additional management strategies, such as cover cropping and no-till, on N2O emissions.
“The bottom line is we now have a highly accurate method for estimating N2O emissions at the county scale in the Corn Belt. We have underestimated the non-growing-season, but it turns out to be a pretty significant portion of annual N2O emissions,” Jin says.
The article, “Distinct driving mechanisms of non-growing season N2O emissions call for spatial-specific mitigation strategies in the US Midwest,” is published in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology [DOI: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.109108]. Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).
IMAGE: A PREDATOR-PREY INTERACTION BETWEEN CHEETAHS AND AN IMPALA IN KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, SOUTH AFRICA IN JUNE 2015.view more
CREDIT: EVAN FRICKE
HOUSTON – (Aug. 25, 2022) – Research published this week in Science offers the clearest picture yet of the reverberating consequences of land mammal declines on food webs over the past 130,000 years.
It’s not a pretty picture.
“While about 6% of land mammals have gone extinct in that time, we estimate that more than 50% of mammal food web links have disappeared,” said ecologist Evan Fricke, lead author of the study. “And the mammals most likely to decline, both in the past and now, are key for mammal food web complexity.”
A food web contains all of the links between predators and their prey in a geographic area. Complex food webs are important for regulating populations in ways that allow more species to coexist, supporting ecosystem biodiversity and stability. But animal declines can degrade this complexity, undermining ecosystem resilience.
Although declines of mammals are a well-documented feature of the biodiversity crisis — with many mammals now extinct or persisting in a small portion of their historic geographic ranges — it hasn’t been clear how much those losses have degraded the world’s food webs.
To understand what has been lost from food webs linking land mammals, Fricke led a team of scientists from the United States, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Spain in using the latest techniques from machine learning to determine “who ate who” from 130,000 years ago to today. Fricke conducted the research during a faculty fellowship at Rice University and is currently a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Using data on modern-day observations of predator-prey interactions, Fricke and colleagues trained their machine learning algorithm to recognize how the traits of species influenced the likelihood that one species would prey on another. Once trained, the model could predict predator-prey interactions among pairs of species that haven’t been directly observed.
“This approach can tell us who eats whom today with 90% accuracy,” said Rice ecologist Lydia Beaudrot, the study’s senior author. “That is better than previous approaches have been able to do, and it enabled us to model predator-prey interactions for extinct species.”
The research offers an unprecedented global view into the food web that linked ice age mammals, Fricke said, as well as what food webs would look like today if saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, marsupial lions and wooly rhinos still roamed alongside surviving mammals.
“Although fossils can tell us where and when certain species lived, this modeling gives us a richer picture of how those species interacted with each other,” Beaudrot said.
By charting change in food webs over time, the analysis revealed that food webs worldwide are collapsing because of animal declines.
“The modeling showed that land mammal food webs have degraded much more than would be expected if random species had gone extinct,” Fricke said. “Rather than resilience under extinction pressure, these results show a slow-motion food web collapse caused by selective loss of species with central food web roles.”
The study also showed all is not lost. While extinctions caused about half of the reported food web declines, the rest stemmed from contractions in the geographic ranges of existing species.
“Restoring those species to their historic ranges holds great potential to reverse these declines,” Fricke said.
He said efforts to recover native predator or prey species, such as the reintroduction of lynx in Colorado, European bison in Romania and fishers in Washington state, are important for restoring food web complexity.
“When an animal disappears from an ecosystem, its loss reverberates across the web of connections that link all species in that ecosystem,” Fricke said. “Our work presents new tools for measuring what’s been lost, what more we stand to lose if endangered species go extinct and the ecological complexity we can restore through species recovery.”
The research was funded by Rice University, the Villum Foundation (16549) and the Independent Research Fund Denmark (0135-00225B).
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Evan C. Fricke, Chia Hsieh, Owen Middleton, Daniel Gorczynski, Caroline D. Cappello, Oscar Sanisidro, John Rowan, Jens-Christian Svenning and Lydia Beaudrot
https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2022/08/0825_FOODWEB-aniH-lg.jpg CAPTION: Illustration depicting all mammal species that would inhabit central Colombia (left), Southern California (middle) and New South Wales, Australia, (right) today if not for human-linked range reductions and extinctions from the Late Pleistocene to present. (Illustrations courtesy of Oscar Sanisidro/University of Alcalá)
https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2022/08/0825_FOODWEB-aniV-lg.jpg CAPTION: Illustration depicting all mammal species that would inhabit Southern California (top), New South Wales, Australia, (middle) and central Colombia (left) today if not for human-linked range reductions and extinctions from the Late Pleistocene to present. (Illustrations courtesy of Oscar Sanisidro/University of Alcalá)
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 4,240 undergraduates and 3,972 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 1 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.
For dogs older than ten years, each extra year of life increases the relative risk of developing the neurodegenerative condition Canine Cognitive Dysfunction (CCD) by more than 50% and the risk of developing CCD is almost 6.5 times greater in inactive dogs compared to those who are very active. The new findings, published in Scientific Reports, suggest that lifespan estimates could inform veterinarians whether to screen dogs for CCD.
As with humans, cognitive function declines as dogs age and animals affected by CCD may show signs such as memory deficits, loss of spatial awareness, altered social interactions, and sleep disruption. Previous estimates of CCD rates in dogs have varied from 28% in 11- to 12-year-old dogs to 68% in 15- to 16-year-old dogs.
Sarah Yarborough and colleagues investigated the prevalence of CCD in a large sample of companion dogs participating in the Dog Aging Project, a longitudinal study of ageing in pet dogs in the USA. A total of 15,019 dogs were included in the sample. Between December 2019 and 2020, owners completed two surveys called the Health and Life Experience Survey (with information about health status and physical activity), and the Canine Social and Learned Behavior survey, which included questions to test for CCD such as whether the dog failed to recognise familiar people. Dogs’ lifespans were classified into quartiles, with 19.5% being in the last quartile of their life, 24.4% in the third quartile, and 27% and 29.1% in the second and first quartiles. 1.4% of dogs were classified as having CCD.
The authors report that when considering age alone among dogs aged more than ten years, the odds of being diagnosed with CCD increased by 68% for each additional year of age. When controlling for other factors such as health problems, sterilisation, activity levels, and breed type, the odds of a dog developing CCD increased by 52% for each additional year of life.
The authors also note that for dogs of the same breed, age, and health and sterilisation status, the odds of CCD were 6.47 times higher in dogs whose owners reported were not active compared to those whose owners reported were very active. However, the authors caution that their study does not show a causal relationship between inactivity and CCD due to its cross-sectional nature, and cognitive decline may in fact lead to reduced activity. They conclude that further research is needed to better understand CCD.
Evaluation of cognitive function in the Dog Aging Project: associations with baseline canine characteristics
CARROT GENE'S
The complex origins of Apiaceae and the current state of research
NANJING AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE
Molecular structures of the main bioactive compounds of Apiaceae plants view more
Credit: None
Recently, scientists from Nanjing Agricultural University summarized the current state of Apiaceae research, including traditional and molecular breeding practices, bioactive compounds, medicinal applications, nanotechnology, and omics research. Current trends in Apiaceae application and research were also described, including the mining of new functional genes and metabolites using omics research, the identification of new genetic variants associated with important agronomic traits by population genetics analysis and genome-wide association studies, and the use of genetic transformation, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, and nanotechnology.
According to previous studies, the main nutraceuticals in Apiaceae plants include polyphenolic compounds, polyacetylenes, and terpenoids. Phenolic compounds contribute to the nutritional qualities of vegetables and medicinal plants, and the antioxidant activity of many Apiaceae plants has also been attributed primarily to phenolic compounds. Several polyacetylenes isolated from Apiaceae plants have high toxicity to bacteria, fungi, and mammalian cells, as well as neurotoxicity, inhibitory effects on platelet aggregation, and potential to cause allergic skin reactions. Some terpenoids are specifically distributed in Apiaceae plants. The antioxidant effects of terpenoids have led to their use in treating some diseases. Vegetables in the Apiaceae family can also produce many secondary metabolites such as carotenoids, anthocyanins, terpenes, and dietary fiber. Carotenoids are natural pigments that are widely distributed in photosynthetic organisms and may provide health benefits. Anthocyanins protect plants from UV radiation, contribute to plant adaptation to abiotic and biotic stresses, and delay plant senescence. Terpenes are an important group of secondary metabolites and are widely distributed in many plants. The plant cell wall, which contains lignin and cellulose, is the source of most dietary fiber in plants. Hormones play important roles in lignin biosynthesis in celery and carrot, and transcription factors are important regulators of lignin biosynthesis in these species. Hypoxia caused by elevated CO2 concentration can also affect their lignin content.
Many diseases can cause fatal damage to Apiaceae vegetable crops; these include powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis f. sp. hordei), Alternaria radicina, early blight, late blight, and fusarium yellows disease. The selection of disease-resistant germplasm resources has been the most effective method of reducing disease occurrence in vegetables and other food crops. Some arthropod pests can also cause major economic losses in vegetable crops; examples include carrot fly (Chamaepsila rosae), carrot weevil (Listronotus oregonensis), celery fly (Euleia heraclei), aphids, cutworms, and beet armyworm. Modern molecular markers have been widely used in breeding members of the Apiaceae family. Many molecular markers have been used alone or in combination to explore genetic diversity. Agricultural biotechnologies use different techniques to produce genetically modified plants. Transgenic technology can be used to improve plant traits and solve agricultural problems. The CRISPR/Cas9 system has been used in plants for targeted mutagenesis, including gene knockout, multiplex gene editing, and insertion and deletion of large fragments. Based on previous studies, nanotechnology plays a vital role in agricultural production, especially for gene modification and pest control. It is necessary to reduce nutrient waste and increase crop yield through the use of nanomaterials.
Although members of Apiaceae have a wide geographic distribution and rich nutritional and medicinal value, little research has been performed on their genomes. Many studies have revealed that plant genomes contain abundant repetitive sequences. Genomic sequences and annotation have provided important information for studies on the functions of genes involved in regulating yield and quality traits of horticultural crops. Further study of important gene functions and breeding, as well as comparative genomic analysis of Apiaceae, will provide new methods for genetic and breeding research on Apiaceae vegetable crops and medicinal plants. The use of transcriptomics also allows researchers to explore phenotypic characteristics of Apiaceae vegetables and medicinal plants and physiological functions of Apiaceae genes. Transcriptome technology has been used in research on stress responses, root development, and lignin biosynthesis in carrot. Proteomics is now considered one of the most important ‘post-genomic’ approaches for better understanding gene function. Proteomics is widely used to study Apiaceae plants, and comparative proteomic analysis has provided new insights into gene mining in carrot. Metabolomics encompasses all chemical reactions occurring in cells, and plant metabolites have been used as chemical markers to distinguish differences among vegetables and medicinal plants in the Apiaceae family. Metabolomics analysis revealed that wild and cultivated carrots showed differences in metabolites that were consistent with their genotypes.
“Vegetables and medicinal plants are essential foods for human health and can provide various necessary nutrients and nutraceuticals. With the strengthening of people’s health consciousness, the diversification, quality, nutritional value, and medicinal value of vegetables and medicinal plants are increasing. Vegetable and medicinal plant research has become increasingly important,” Prof. Xiong said. This research provides a reference for basic and applied research on Apiaceae vegetable and medicinal plants.
1 Key Laboratory of Plant Resource Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Regions (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guizhou 550025, China
2 Institute of Horticulture, Guizhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guizhou 550006, China
3 State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Key Laboratory of Biology and Germplasm Enhancement of Horticultural Crops in East China, College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
4 College of Agronomy, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun 210095, China
About Professor Ai-Sheng Xiong
Professor Ai-Sheng Xiong works as a high-level talent at Nanjing Agricultural University and is mainly engaged in research on vegetable developmental biology, functional genomics, and genetic engineering.
