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Urinary glucocorticoids in harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) pups during rehabilitation
No full textPublication history: Accepted - 8 February 2023; Published online - 10 February 2023The glucocorticoid (GC) hormone cortisol is often measured in seals to indicate their stress levels, although other endogenous GCs are usually overlooked. We investigated concentrations of four endogenous GCs in the urine of “orphan” harbour seal pups in rehabilitation. We hypothesised that the GC levels would be elevated if pups were socially isolated, without water access, and with low body mass. Ninety-six samples were collected from 32 pups at four different rehabilitation centres and were analysed by Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography and Tandem Mass Spectrometry. Median urinary creatinine (Cr) concentrations of endogenous prednisolone (31.6 ng/mg/Cr) and prednisone (31.1 ng/mg/Cr) occurred in similar magnitude to cortisol (37.0 ng/mg/Cr), while median cortisone concentrations were higher (390 ng/mg/Cr). Prednisolone and prednisone concentrations were more strongly inversely related to pup growth rate and pup mass than cortisol and cortisone. Concentrations of all four GCs decreased with mass gain for pups with water access but did not decrease for pups without water; linear mixed models indicated the interaction between these trends was significant for cortisol and cortisone, but not for prednisolone or prednisone. These results indicate the potential value of measuring all four of these endogenous GC hormones in phocid seal pups.This study has not received any grant from any funding agency
Toward a Resilient Future: The Promise of Microbial Bioeconomy
Get PDFPublication history: Accepted - 19 April 2023; Published - 27 April 2023.Naturally occurring resources, such as water, energy, minerals, and rare earth elements, are limited in availability, yet they are essential components for the survival and development of all life. The pressure on these finite resources is anthropogenic, arising from misuse, overuse, and overdependence, which causes a loss of biodiversity and climate change and poses great challenges to sustainable development. The focal points and principles of the bioeconomy border around ensuring the constant availability of these natural resources for both present and future generations. The rapid growth of the microbial bioeconomy is promising for the purpose of fostering a resilient and sustainable future. This highlights the economic opportunity of using microbial-based resources to substitute fossil fuels in novel products, processes, and services. The subsequent discussion delves into the essential principles required for implementing the microbial bioeconomy. There is a further exploration into the latest developments and innovations in this sub-field. The multi-sectoral applications include use in bio-based food and feed products, energy recovery, waste management, recycling, and cascading. In multi-output production chains, enhanced microbes can simultaneously produce multiple valuable and sustainable products. The review also examines the barriers and facilitators of bio-based approaches for a sustainable economy. Despite limited resources, microbial-based strategies demonstrate human ingenuity for sustaining the planet and economy. This review highlights the existing research and knowledge and paves the way for a further exploration of advancements in microbial knowledge and its potential applications in manufacturing, energy production, reduction in waste, hastened degradation of waste, and environmental conservation.This research received no external funding
Mitigation of Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Rice–Wheat Cropping Systems with Sub-Surface Application of Nitrogen Fertilizer and Water-Saving Irrigation
Get PDFPublication history: Accepted - 26 April 2023; Published - 4 May 2023.Management of nitrogen (N) fertilizer and irrigation can play a critical role to increase nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). However, the impacts of N application at the root zone via urea briquette deep placement (UDP) and water-saving irrigation alternate wetting and drying (AWD) on N2O emissions are not well-understood. A greenhouse study was conducted to investigate the impacts of UDP on N2O emissions, NUE, and grain yields of rice and wheat compared with broadcast prilled urea (PU). For rice, the effect of UDP was evaluated under continuous flooding (CF) and AWD, while the control (no N) and PU were tested only under CF. In rice, UDP under CF irrigation produced similar emissions to PU-CF, but UDP under AWD irrigation increased emissions by 4.5-fold compared with UDP under CF. UDP under CF irrigation increased (p 0.05) on emissions compared with PU. However, it produced higher wheat grain yields (9%) and RE (35%) over PU. In conclusion, UDP under CF irrigation increases the RE and grain yields of rice without increasing N2O emissions, but the yield may reduce and N2O emissions may increase under AWD.This research was funded by Feed the Future Sustainable Opportunities for Improving Livelihoods with Soils (SOILS) Consortium (Cooperative Agreement No. AID-FRS-IO-15-00001)
Editorial: Evolution and genomics of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex
Get PDFPublication history: Accepted - 10 February 2023; Published - 3 March 2023.AG acknowledges funding from the São Paulo Research
Foundation (FAPESP, 2016/26108-0)
Assessing the impact of a test and vaccinate or remove badger intervention project on bovine tuberculosis levels in cattle herds
No full textPublication history: Accepted - 21 June 2023; Published - 4 July 2023.Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic, zoonotic infection of domestic and wild animals caused mainly by Mycobacterium bovis. The Test and Vaccinate or Remove (TVR) project was a 5-year intervention (2014–2018) applied to Eurasian badgers (Meles meles) in a 100 km2 area of County Down, Northern Ireland. This observational study used routine bTB surveillance data of cattle to determine if the TVR intervention had any effect in reducing the infection at a herd level. The study design included the TVR treatment area (Banbridge) compared to the three adjacent 100 km2 areas (Dromore, Ballynahinch, and Castlewellan) which did not receive any badger intervention. Results showed that there were statistically lower bTB herd incidence rate ratios in the Banbridge TVR area compared to two of the other three comparison areas, but with bTB herd history and number of bTB infected cattle being the main explanatory variables along with Year. This finding is consistent with other study results conducted as part of the TVR project that suggested that the main transmission route for bTB in the area was cattle-to-cattle spread. This potentially makes any wildlife intervention in the TVR area of less relevance to bTB levels in cattle. It must also be noted that the scientific power of the TVR study (76%) was below the recommended 80%, meaning that results must be interpreted with caution. Even though statistical significance was achieved in two cattle-related risk factors, other potential risk factors may have also demonstrated significance in a larger study.This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors
Are single global warming potential impact assessments adequate for carbon footprints of agri-food systems?
No full textPublication history: Accepted - 27 June 2023; Published - 18 July 2023.The vast majority of agri-food climate-based sustainability analyses use global warming potential (GWP100) as an impact assessment, usually in isolation; however, in recent years, discussions have criticised the 'across-the-board' application of GWP100 in Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs), particularly of food systems which generate large amounts of methane (CH4) and considered whether reporting additional and/or alternative metrics may be more applicable to certain circumstances or research questions (e.g. Global Temperature Change Potential (GTP)). This paper reports a largescale sensitivity analysis using a pasture-based beef production system (a high producer of CH4 emissions) as an exemplar to compare various climatatic impact assessments: CO2-equivalents using GWP100 and GTP100, and 'CO2-warming-equivalents' using 'GWP Star', or GWP*. The inventory for this system was compiled using data from the UK Research and Innovation National Capability, the North Wyke Farm Platform, in Devon, SW England. LCAs can have an important bearing on: (i) policymakers' decisions; (ii) farmer management decisions; (iii) consumers' purchasing habits; and (iv) wider perceptions of whether certain activities can be considered 'sustainable' or not; it is, therefore, the responsibility of LCA practitioners and scientists to ensure that subjective decisions are tested as robustly as possible through appropriate sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. We demonstrate herein that the choice of climate impact assessment has dramatic effects on interpretation, with GWP100 and GTP100 producing substantially different results due to their different treatments of CH4 in the context of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents. Given its dynamic nature and previously proven strong correspondence with climate models, out of the three assessments covered, GWP* provides the most complete coverage of the temporal evolution of temperature change for different greenhouse gas emissions. We extend previous discussions on the limitations of static emission metrics and encourage LCA practitioners to consider due care and attention where additional information or dynamic approaches may prove superior, scientifically speaking, particularly in cases of decision support.G A M, A L C, M R F L and T T were funded by Soil to Nutrition (S2N), Rothamsted Research's Institute Strategic Programme (ISP) supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) (BBS/E/C/000I0320 and BBS/E/C/000I0330). G A M and A L C also received support from UKRI & BBSRC's new ISP, Resilient Farming Futures (RFF) towards the end of the manuscript's development (BB/X010961/1). J L and R P acknowledge funding from the Wellcome Trust, Our Planet Our Health (Livestock, Environment and People—LEAP), award number 205212/Z/16/Z S B and R M R were supported with funding from the Scottish Government Strategic Research Programme (2022-2027, C2-1 SRUC)
Measuring the shape of mortality across animals and plants: Alternatives to H entropy metrics reveal hidden type IV survivorship curves and associations with parental care at macro-ecological scales
Get PDFPublication history: Accepted - 25 April 2023; Published - 17 May 2023.The shape of mortality, or how mortality is spread across an organism's life course, is fundamental to a range of biological processes, with attempts to quantify it rooted in ecology, evolution, and demography. One approach to quantify the distribution of mortality over an organism's life is the use of entropy metrics whose values are interpreted within the classical framework of survivorship curves ranging from type I distributions, with mortality concentrated in late life stages, to type III survivorship curves associated with high early stage mortality. However, entropy metrics were originally developed using restricted taxonomic groups and the behavior of entropy metrics over larger scales of variation may make them unsuitable for wider-ranging contemporary comparative studies. Here, we revisit the classic survivorship framework and, using a combination of simulations and comparative analysis of demography data spanning the animal and plant kingdoms, we show that commonly used entropy metrics cannot distinguish between the most extreme survivorship curves, which in turn can mask important macroecological patterns. We show how using H entropy masks a macroecological pattern of how parental care is associated with type I and type II species and for macroecological studies recommend the use of metrics, such as measures of area under the curve. Using frameworks and metrics that capture the full range of variation of survivorship curves will aid in our understanding of the links between the shape of mortality, population dynamics, and life history traits.Irish Research Council. Grant Number: COALESCE/2021/117
Irish Research Council postdoctoral fellowship scheme. Grant Number: GOIPD/2016/324
Science Foundation Ireland. Grant Number: 15/ERCD/280
Implications of Organic Dairy Management on Herd Performance and Milk Fatty Acid Profiles and Interactions with Season
Get PDFPublication history: Accepted - 30 March 2023; Published - 8 April 2023.Interest in organic cows’ milk has increased due to the perceived superior nutritional quality and improved sustainability and animal welfare. However, there is a lack of simultaneous assessments on the influence of organic dairy practices and dietary and breed drivers on productivity, feed efficiency, health parameters, and nutritional milk quality at the herd level. This work aimed to assess the impact of organic vs. conventional management and month on milk yield and basic composition, herd feed efficiency, health parameters, and milk fatty acid (FA) composition. Milk samples (n = 800) were collected monthly from the bulk tanks of 67 dairy farms (26 organic and 41 conventional) between January and December 2019. Data on breed and feeding practices were gathered via farm questionnaires. The samples were analyzed for their basic composition and FA profile using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and gas chromatography (GC), respectively. The data were analyzed using a linear mixed model, repeated measures design and multivariate redundancy analysis (RDA). The conventional farms had higher yields (kg/cow per day) of milk (+7.3 kg), fat (+0.27 kg), and protein (+0.25 kg) and higher contents (g/kg milk) of protein, casein, lactose, and urea. The conventional farms produced more milk (+0.22 kg), fat (+8.6 g), and protein (+8.1 g) per kg offered dry matter (DM). The organic farms produced more milk per kg of offered non-grazing and concentrate DM offered, respectively (+0.5 kg and +1.23 kg), and fat (+20.1 g and +51 g) and protein (+17 g and +42 g). The organic milk had a higher concentration of saturated fatty acid (SFA; +14 g/kg total FA), polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA; +2.4 g/kg total FA), and nutritionally beneficial FA alpha linolenic acid (ALNA; +14 g/kg total FA), rumenic acid (RA; +14 g/kg total FA), and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA; +14 g/kg total FA); the conventional milk had higher concentrations of monounsaturated FA (MUFA; +16 g/kg total FA). Although the conventional farms were more efficient in converting the overall diet into milk, fat, and protein, the organic farms showed better efficiency in converting conserved forages and concentrates into milk, fat, and protein as a result of reduced concentrate feeding. Considering the relatively small differences in the FA profiles between the systems, increased pasture intake can benefit farm sustainability without negatively impacting consumer nutrition and health.Financial support for this work has been provided by (i) EIT Food, the innovation community
on Food of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the EU, under
the Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Program for Research and Innovation; via the NMR MIRACLE
(NMR-based metabolomics for organic milk authentication; No 19118 and 19118-20), and (ii) the
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) [grant number BB/T008776/1] as
part of the Doctoral Training Partnership FoodBioSystems: biological processes across the Agri-Food
system from pre-farm to post-fork. Gergely Faludi was in receipt of a fellowship via EIT Food’s
Regional Innovation Scheme Talents
Individual variation in field metabolic rates of wild living fish have phenotypic and ontogenetic underpinnings: insights from stable isotope compositions of otoliths
Get PDFPublication history: Accepted - 17 May 2023; Published -13 June 2023.Introduction: Individual metabolism has been identified as a key variable for predicting responses of individuals and populations to climate change, particularly for aquatic ectotherms such as fishes. Predictions of organism standard metabolic rate (SMR), and the thermal sensitivity of metabolic rate are typically based on allometric scaling rules and respirometry-based measures of respiratory potential under laboratory conditions. The relevance of laboratory-based measurement and theoretical allometric rules to predict performance of free-ranging animals in complex natural settings has been questioned, but determining time averaged metabolic rate in wild aquatic animals is challenging.
Methods: Here we draw on stable isotope compositions of aragonite in fish otoliths to estimate time averaged experienced temperature and expressed field metabolic rate (FMR) simultaneously and retrospectively at an individual level. We apply the otolith FMR proxy to a population of European plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) from the North Sea during a period of rapid warming between the 1980s to the mid-2000s, sampling otolith tissue grown in both juvenile and adult stages.
Results: Among-individual variations in realized mass-specific FMR were large and independent of temperature and scaled positively with body size in adult life stages, contradicting simplistic assumptions that FMR follows scaling relationships inferred for standard metabolic rates (SMR). In the same individuals, FMR in the first summer of life co-varied positively with temperature.
Discussion: We find strong evidence for the presence of consistent metabolic phenotypes within the sampled population, as FMR in the first year of life was the strongest single predictor for among individual variation in FMR at the point of sampling. Nonetheless, best fitting models explained only 20% of the observed variation, pointing to large among-individual variation in FMR that is unexplained by body mass, temperature or metabolic phenotype. Stable isotope-derived estimates of field metabolic rate have great potential to expand our understanding of ecophysiology in general and especially mechanisms underpinning the relationships between animal performance and changing environmental and ecological conditions.This work was funded from NERC Case award NE/P009700/1
Decision support tool for the construction and seasonal operation of farm-scale anaerobic digestion plants
Get PDFPublication history: Accepted - 12 April 2023; Published online - 15 April 2023.Optimal plant design and management are critical components for the successful operation of farm-scale anaerobic digestion (AD) plants. However, this often proves challenging due to difficulties in designing and sizing the plant based on specific site conditions. The current investigation aims to address these difficulties by developing a universal decision support tool to assist in the optimal design and management of agriculture-based AD plants, accounting for site-specific practicalities and implications. The tool consists of various mathematical functions, which enable numerous simulations to be created and run. The developed tool was applied to a case study, located in Ireland, to test its usefulness, where the analysis showed the optimal, site-specific, plant design with key assessment indicators. For this case study, the feedstock availability assessment determined that the lignocellulose and non-lignocellulose biomass within a 10 km distance of the site. Based on the local energy demand of the area, the tool modelled an optimal AD plant design, including feedstock storage, digester volume, engine capacity, and digestate storage. The tool applied various technical, economic, and ecological assessment indicators to the plant to gauge its viability. Therefore, demonstrating the tool's usefulness in assisting stakeholders to make informed decisions and reducing costs by optimising plant design and performance.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's INTERREG VA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB), with match funding provided by the Department for the Economy (Northern Ireland) and Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Republic of Ireland), grant number IVA5033. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission or the Special EU Programme