The impacts of agricultural payments on groundwater quality: Spatial analysis on the case of Slovenia

The European Common Agricultural Policy still follows its primary goals, i.e. quality food at affordable prices and a decent standard of living for farmers, fifty years after its adoption. Moreover, this policy adapts to the changing needs of society and the new challenges, mostly preservation of the environment, nature and biodiversity in rural areas. Although the Common Agricultural Policy receives the largest share of European budget, the funds are decreasing over time, especially direct payments, which aim to provide basic income support to farmers in the European Union. On the other hand, agri-environmental payments are gaining importance. Policy decision-makers should be interested in the question of impacts of growing eco-conditionality of agricultural spending. New insights would help them to be successful in achieving the goals of sustainable agriculture. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the impacts of production support payments and rural development payments on the quality of groundwater. We use the small EU country Slovenia as an example. The baseline indicators are the level of nitrates and pesticides in groundwater, while the impacts were estimated using spatial error model. The results show that direct payments, coupled subsidies and investment grants raise the level of pesticides in groundwater, but do not have any statistically significant impact on the level of nitrates in groundwater. Furthermore, we did not find any statistically significant effects of agri-environmental payments on decrease of groundwater pollution with nitrates. However, our findings revealed that agri-environmental payments are effective in reducing pesticides in groundwater, although only to a limited extent. These results imply a problem of insufficient targeting of agri-environmental measures on the one hand, and suggest that greening of direct payments is necessary and entirely justified.     

Analyses of landuse change impacts on catchment runoff using different time indicators based on SWAT model

Previous researches mainly focused on the runoff responses to landuse change based on annual, seasonal or monthly time scales, there are few studies based on daily scale. We conducted a comprehensive investigation into runoff responses on the daily scale as well as annual and monthly time scales using SWAT, and compared the impacts of time scales with different time indicators quantitatively. Jinjiang, a coastal catchment of southeast China with a humid sub-tropical climate, was used for simulations. A calibrated SWAT model produced satisfactory reproduction of annual, monthly and daily runoff processes over a nine-year (2002–2010) period at three gauging stations. Runoff was then simulated and compared using the same meteorological input but two different landuse scenarios (1985 and 2006, with reduced forest and increased cropland and urbanized area). The results showed varying change in runoff among three time scales and three catchments. The annual runoff had the smallest increase between two scenarios, monthly runoffs had medium rates (increasing in all months except October–November), and daily runoff had the largest rates with the increase in flood peaks but decrease in drought flows, because of the variable influence on interception/evapotranspiration loss, percolation and antecedent soil water storage. Indicators of different time scales (annual runoff, monthly runoff, maximum 1-day and 5-day flood runoff, minimum 1-day and 7-day runoff) proved appropriate for analysing landuse change impacts.     

Numerical exploration of the parameter plane in a discrete predator–prey model

We propose a variant of the discrete Lotka–Volterra model for predator–prey interactions. A detailed stability and numerical analysis of the model are presented to explore the long time behaviour as each of the control parameter is varied independently. We show how the condition for survival of the predator depends on the natural death rate of predator and the efficiency of predation. The model is found to support different dynamical regimes asymptotically including predator extinction, stable fixed point and limit cycle attractors for co-existence of predator and prey and more complex dynamics involving chaotic attractors. We are able to locate exactly the domain of chaos in the parameter plane using a dimensional analysis.     

Isolation,Culture and Long-Term Maintenance of Primary Mesencephalic Dopaminergic Neurons From Embryonic Rodent Brains

Degeneration of mesencephalic dopaminergic (mesDA) neurons is the pathological hallmark of Parkinson’s diseae. Study of the biological processes involved in physiological functions and vulnerability and death of these neurons is imparative to understanding the underlying causes and unraveling the cure for this common neurodegenerative disorder. Primary cultures of mesDA neurons provide a tool for investigation of the molecular, biochemical and electrophysiological properties, in order to understand the development, long-term survival and degeneration of these neurons during the course of disease. Here we present a detailed method for the isolation, culturing and maintenance of midbrain dopaminergic neurons from E12.5 mouse (or E14.5 rat) embryos. Optimized cell culture conditions in this protocol result in presence of axonal and dendritic projections, synaptic connections and other neuronal morphological properties, which make the cultures suitable for study of the physiological, cell biological and molecular characteristics of this neuronal population.