Selection of social traits in juvenile Japanese quail affects adults’ behaviour

The inability of animals to cope with their social environment in husbandry systems could be a major source of problems for both animal welfare management and economy. In this context, previous studies selected lines of domestic Japanese quail diverging for their level of social reinstatement, hypothesizing that quail with high levels of social motivation would adapt better to crowded social situations than quail with low levels of social motivation. However, these selections were based only on social motivation evaluated in young birds. As behavioural traits can vary with age, this study analysed the persistence of selected social traits into adulthood. With this in mind, we used several behavioural tests to estimate social motivation of adult females from selected lines for high social reinstatement (HSR, n = 24) and for low social reinstatement (LSR, n = 24). The tests were: open-field tests, emergence tests, separation tests, runway tests and confrontation tests. As birds’ behaviour in these tests can be influenced by the emotive characteristics of the subjects, we measured the emotional reactivity of quail not only during these tests but also in specific emotive tests: tonic immobility tests. Our results showed that the social motivation characteristics of birds persist in adulthood. Adult HSR females still presented a higher social motivation than adult LRS females: their response to social isolation was stronger and their motivation to reach conspecifics and to stay close to them was higher. However, the behavioural expression of social motivation appeared to be modified during development. Whereas vocal behaviour reflected the social motivation of chicks, in isolated contexts, this characteristic was not observed in adult quail.     

The Utility of Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Analyses to Trace Contributions from Fish Farms to the Receiving Communities of Freshwater Lakes: a Pilot Study in Esthwaite Water,UK

A pilot study was conducted to assess the potential for stable isotope analyses to reveal the fate of waste pelleted food material from fish farms in freshwater food webs. Esthwaite Water (Cumbria, UK) was selected as the study site, as it hosts an established salmonid farm, and a wealth of complementary limnological data exists. Salmonid pellet feed consists of primarily marine-derived material and thus exhibits carbon and nitrogen stable isotopic compositions distinct to most freshwater organic material. Comparison of the isotopic ratios of organisms at the cage site with an unaffected control site, supports incorporation of pellet-derived material to the diet of planktonic and benthic communities. Moreover, after allowing for a number of trophic transfers, stable isotope analyses revealed the predatory cladoceran Leptodora kindti also utilised pellet material, while roach were probably short-circuiting the food chain by directly consuming particulate pellet material, as well as via ingestion of their zooplankton prey. Isotope data substituted into a simple two-source mixing model suggested that approximately 65% of Daphnia, and >80% of roach body carbon may be derived from pellet material in the plankton, and that chironomid larvae may incorporate >50% in the sediment environs. However, contributions calculated from both ¹³C and ¹⁵N values were inconsistent, which may simply be due to the constraints of the model and parameters used, but may also reflect different routing of isotopes from the original pellet source, via soluble or particulate routes.     

Failure costs associated with mastitis in smallholder dairy farms keeping Holstein Friesian × Zebu crossbreed cows

Mastitis is a costly disease and in many areas of the world, these costs have been quantified to support farmers in their decision making with regard to prevention of mastitis. Although for subsaharan circumstances estimates have been made for the costs of subclinical mastitis (SCM), farm-specific cost estimations comprising both clinical mastitis (CM) and SCM are lacking. In this paper, we quantified failure costs of both CM and SCM on 150 Ethiopian market-oriented dairy farms keeping Holstein Friesian × Zebu breed cows. Data about CM were collected by face-to-face interviews and the prevalence of SCM was estimated for each farm using the California mastitis test. All other relevant information needed to calculate the failure costs, such as the consequences of mastitis and price levels, was collected during the farm visits, except for the parameter for milk production losses due to SCM, which was based on literature estimates and subjected to sensitivity analyses. The average total failure costs of mastitis was estimated to be 4 765 Ethiopian Birr (ETB) (1 ETB = 0.0449 USD) per farm per year of which SCM contributed 54% of the costs. The average total failure costs per lactating cow per farm per year were 1 961 ETB, with a large variation between farms (range 0 to 35 084 ETB). This large variation in failure costs between farms was mainly driven by variation in incidence of CM and prevalence of SCM. Milk production losses made the largest contribution (80%), whereas culling contributed 13% to 17% to the total failure costs. In our estimates, costs of veterinary services, drugs, discarded milk and labour made a minor contribution to the total failure costs of mastitis. Relative to the income of dairy farmers in North Western Ethiopia; the total failure costs of mastitis are high. In general, Ethiopian farmers are aware of the negative consequences of CM, but creating awareness of the high costs of SCM and showing large variation between farmers may be instrumental in motivating farmers to also take preventive measures for SCM.     

城郊有机农场生态系统服务评估——以北京市为例

快速城市化对周边农业区域造成巨大影响。都市农业能够提供世界上20%的食品,为粮食安全做出了重要贡献。在全球环境危机的背景下,农业生态保护问题得到了越来越多的关注。有机农场在生产过程中遵循自然规律,不使用化学合成的农药、化肥和生长调节剂等物质,是实现生态农业的有效模式之一。城郊有机农场得益于临近都市的地理位置,常常同时提供参观、采摘等休闲服务,加深了游客对农业的理解和与自然的连结。目前,国内研究大多关注有机食品健康、有机农业政策和环境效益,但往往忽视其提供的经济和文化价值。基于生态系统服务与人类福祉关系的概念框架,以北京市为例,从供给、调节、文化三个方面全面评估城郊有机农场的生态系统服务。结果显示,截至2019年北京市城郊共有271家有机农场,种植面积1.09万hm²,占北京市耕地面积的5.1%。供给服务价值为16.12亿元。调节服务方面,提供了2140万元的土壤碳固存价值,并且比相同面积的常规农场减少了16.4万GJ能量、2639tCO₂、202tSO₂和29tPO₄^3-的排放。文化服务方面,提供了1.189亿元的采摘服务,并促成了120余次农夫市集和50余次讲座、沙龙的宣传教育活动,积累了社会资本。本研究尝试通过直观的数据全面反映城郊有机农场对收益者的多种惠益,凸显了在有限的供给服务之外,城郊有机农场在休闲游憩和教育宣传等文化服务的贡献,为深入理解城郊有机农场生态系统服务提供基础,有助于进一步提高农业管理的精细程度和城市的可持续性。     

Enhancement of resistance by poultry manure and plant hormones (salicylic acid & citric acid) against tobacco mosaic virus

Virus is the most menacing factor for plant, which causes enormous economic losses in agriculture worldwide. Tobacco mosaic virus is most hazardous virus among the plants that can spread through biological and non-biological sources. TMV is ancient virus that causes huge economic losses to pepper cucumber ornamental crops and tobacco. It can be controlled by reducing the population of vector through pesticide application. However, the rapid usage of synthetic chemicals causes environmental pollution and destroys our ecosystem. Consequently, different approaches just like natural derivatives should be adopted for the environmental friendly management for TMV. This in vitro study demonstrated the potential role of natural metabolites such as poultry manure and plant extracts such as salicylic acid and citric acid for the control of TMV. Two different concentrations of poultry manure 60G and 30G were used. Poultry manure was mixed with the soil at the time of sowing. Disease severity was minimum at maximum concentration as compared to the control. Meanwhile, two different concentrations of salicylic acid and citric acid 60% and 90% were applied by foliar sprayer after three-leaf stages. Disease severity was observed after 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 days after disease inoculation. Here also maximum concentration showed the minimum disease severity and higher concentration of both animal and plants extracts were used for following experiment. Quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) results demonstrated that different plant defense-related genes such as PR1a, PAL, PR5, NPR1, PRIb, and PDF1.2 were up-regulated. Furthermore, applications of each treatment-induced systemic resistance against a wide range of pathogen including TMV and fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea.     

Wind farm and solar park effects on plant–soil carbon cycling: uncertain impacts of changes in ground‐level microclimate

Global energy demand is increasing as greenhouse gas driven climate change progresses, making renewable energy sources critical to future sustainable power provision. Land‐based wind and solar electricity generation technologies are rapidly expanding, yet our understanding of their operational effects on biological carbon cycling in hosting ecosystems is limited. Wind turbines and photovoltaic panels can significantly change local ground‐level climate by a magnitude that could affect the fundamental plant–soil processes that govern carbon dynamics. We believe that understanding the possible effects of changes in ground‐level microclimates on these phenomena is crucial to reducing uncertainty of the true renewable energy carbon cost and to maximize beneficial effects. In this Opinions article, we examine the potential for the microclimatic effects of these land‐based renewable energy sources to alter plant–soil carbon cycling, hypothesize likely effects and identify critical knowledge gaps for future carbon research.     

盐城海滨湿地盐沼植被及农作物下土壤酶活性特征

在盐城海滨湿地盐沼植被和农田内采集土壤样品,测定了4种土壤酶(脲酶、转化酶、过氧化氢酶和碱性磷酸酶)的活性,分析了盐沼植被、农作物及土壤理化因子对土壤酶活性的影响。结果表明:由海滨湿地滩涂围垦形成的各类农田其土壤酶活性较高,且均高于湿地盐沼植被;湿地盐沼植被下4种土壤酶活性均高于无植被生长的光滩,且不同类型植被间土壤酶活性差异显著;4种酶的活性大小总体表现为大豆(Glycine max)地棉花(Gossypium hirsutum)地玉米(Zea mays)地互花米草(Spartina alterniflora)滩白茅(Imperata cylindrica var.major)滩碱蓬(Suaeda salsa)滩光滩。相关分析表明,4种土壤酶之间及其与土壤有机碳、全氮均表现出显著正相关,而与土壤盐分、pH值之间存在显著负相关。海滨湿地盐沼植被的发育扩展不仅增加了土壤中的养分含量,也提高了土壤酶活性。     

Quality evaluation of co-composted wheat straw, poultry droppings and oil seed cakes

Poultry droppings, neem cake, castor cake, jatropha cake and grass clippings were used separately as organic nitrogen additives to decrease the high C:N ratio of wheat straw. Composting was carried out aerobically in presence of fungal consortium developed by including Aspergillus awamori, Aspergillus nidulans, Trichoderma viride and Phanerochaete chrysosporium. The degraded product was characterized to assess the technical viability of organic nitrogen supplements as well as fungal consortium in improving the quality of compost and hastening the process of decomposition of high lignocellulolytic waste. Evaluation of maturity showed that mixture of wheat straw, poultry dropping and jatropha cake had the lowest C:N ratio of 10:1, the highest humic acid fraction of 3.15%, the lowest dehydrogenase activity and a germination index exceeding 80% in 60 days of decomposition. Inoculated and grass clipping amended wheat straw–poultry dropping mixture resulted in compost with highest humus content of 11.8% and C:N ratio of 13.5, humic acid fraction of 2.84% and germination index of 59.66%. Fungal consortium was effective in improving the humus content of all the composted mixtures. In some treatments, germination index could not be correlated with C:N ratio. Non edible oil seed cake supplemented substrate mixtures did not respond to fungal inoculation as far as C:N ratio was concerned.