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Land use intensity is a major driver of soil microbial and carbon cycling across an agricultural landscape
Get PDFSoil carbon (C) storage is a critical ecosystem function that underpins human health and well-being. The acceleration of human-driven land use change, such as agricultural intensification, is a major driver of soil C loss globally. Developing sustainable land use practices that enhance agricultural productivity whilst protecting essential ecosystem functions such as soil C storage is vital. The soil microbiome has a critical role in regulating soil biogeochemical cycling processes, including soil C cycling. Examining the impacts of land use intensity on the soil microbiome enables us to assess the potential effects on long-term soil C stocks. Using metagenomic DNA sequencing and phospholipid fatty acid analysis, we investigated differences in the activity, diversity, and function of the soil microbiome associated with five contrasting land uses across an agricultural landscape. The land uses covered a gradient of disturbance intensities and included remnant native forest, regenerating native bush, exotic plantation forest, dryland pasture, and irrigated pasture. We identified pronounced differences in the soil microbiome associated with each land use, including the diversity and abundance of microbial C and nitrogen (N) cycling genes. Notably, intensive agricultural land uses had a significantly higher diversity and abundance of microbial C-degrading genes, whilst land uses of remnant native forest had the lowest diversity and abundance of microbial C-degrading genes. Our findings suggest that intensive agricultural land use may increase the functional potential of the soil microbiome to mineralize soil C, potentially resulting in a greater loss of soil C as respired CO2 into the atmosphere. This research may be used to support the development of sustainable management practices that promote the persistence of soil C across agricultural landscapes, such as the protection of remnant native forest fragments and greater incorporation of regenerating native vegetatio
Green innovation as a strategic imperative for sustainable business performance: Evidence from Malaysian industries during the COVID-19 pandemic
No full textThis study explores how green innovations in organization, process, and marketing have impacted the environmental, social, and financial performance of major Malaysian industries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the resource-based view, the research delves into how these green innovations help companies gain a competitive edge and achieve success. By examining data from 93 companies, the study finds that green organizational innovations significantly boost both environmental and social performance, while green process innovations mainly enhance social performance. Green marketing innovations indirectly improve environmental and social performance by positively influencing organizational and process innovations. Importantly, the study uncovers a strong positive link between environmental and financial performance, indicating that being environmentally responsible can also be financially rewarding. These findings provide valuable insights for policymakers and business leaders, underscoring the importance of promoting green innovation to achieve sustainable business practices and protect the environment, especially during times of global disruption
Navigating the future of property professionals: An AI-enabled paradigm
No full textPurpose: The technological disruption from artificial intelligence (AI) within the economy requires intelligent property professionals for tomorrow. This paper proposes that the direction of interaction between AI and tomorrow's property professional, the property graduate, should be AI-empowered rather than AI-directed. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reflects on the growing influence of AI in property combined with literature on technological adoption in the workplace. It proposes a way forward in navigating future decision-making.
Findings: An AI-empowered paradigm promotes the importance of industry-specific knowledge to determine factual information in decision-making. In contrast, an AI-directed paradigm leads to over-dominance of the user on pre-specified knowledge available through AI tools that could lead to AI-directed output that carries significant risk for the property industry.
Practical implications: Navigating the future requires a paradigm that moves from a computational focus driven predominantly by technological tools to one where tomorrow's professionals have a cognitive focus that leads to AI-enabled property graduates that can apply the correct tools in the right circumstances.
Originality/value: This paper reflects on the increasing role that technology and AI have within the property profession and brings to light the importance of learning through experience and the transparent use of AI tools in property
Climate change impacts on Aotearoa New Zealand: A horizon scan approach
Get PDFMany of the implications of climate change for Aotearoa (New Zealand) remain unclear. To identify so-far unseen or understudied threats and opportunities related to climate change we applied a horizon-scanning process. First, we collated 171 threats and opportunities across our diverse fields of research. We then scored each item for novelty and potential impact and finally reduced the list to ten threats and ten opportunities through a prioritisation process. Within the 20 items presented in this paper, we uncover a range of climate-related costs and benefits. Unexpected opportunities evolve from economic reorganisation and changes to perspectives. The threats we highlight include the overall failure to interconnect siloed policy responses, as well as those relating to extreme events and feedbacks, as well as pressures that undermine the coherence of society. A major theme of our work is that climate change effects in Aotearoa are likely to transgress the boundaries of research disciplines, industry sectors and policy systems, emphasising the importance of developing transdisciplinary methods and approaches. We use this insight to connect potential responses to climate change with Aotearoa’s culture and geography
Climate policy uncertainty and the U.S. stock markets: The predictability using particle swarm optimization with eXtreme gradient boosting
No full textClimate policy uncertainty is assuming an increasingly pivotal role in the global financial markets, presenting systemic risks to the financial sectors. The relationship between the uncertainty surrounding climate policies in the United States (U.S.) and its repercussions on the U.S. financial markets clearly play a role towards a more ecologically sustainable economy. This study aims to examine the intricate relationship between the U.S. climate policy uncertainty and stock markets, concurrently identifying the more robust machine learning model for predicting the U.S. stock market grounded in climate policy uncertainty.
The results obtained from the quantile regression method show that the U.S. stock indexes are affected by the climate policy uncertainty more pronounced at the right tails which means the climate policy uncertainty is more likely to affect the boom stock markets. The XGBoost and PSO-XGBoost models outperform other machine learning models in terms of predictability for the U.S. stock markets using the US climate policy uncertainty while the PSO-XGBoost outperforms XGBoost. The findings shed light on the relationship between the U.S. climate policy uncertainty and stock markets. It also provides valuable insights to policymakers and investors when dealing with the effects of climate policies on the stock markets and making investment decisions using different machine learning algorithms, respectively
Indigenous peoples
No full textThe Key Citations series was developed to provide a starting point for persons new to the various fields of impact assessment. The references provided are an indicative overview of the field and establish what might be regarded as the core literature. They include a selection of currently available textbooks published by commercial publishers, a selection of journal articles from the last 10 or so years, and key official documents. Some historically significant articles are also included. The means of determining key citations generally include consulting Scopus and Google Scholar and expert practitioners in the field. IAIA members contributing to this series acknowledge possible personal and regional bias and much difficulty in selecting only a few from among many excellent references in their fields
Modifying the epigenetic profile of probiotics: Exploring its potential in fermentation applications
No full textThe global probiotics market, currently valued at NZD 150 billion by 2027, driven by growing consumer demand for gut health solutions. However, despite this market growth, technological limitations persist. Traditional approaches for enhancing probiotic functionality—such as genetic modification via CRISPR-Cas—are time-intensive, technically challenging, and misaligned with consumer preference for naturally enhanced, minimally processed food products.
Our research introduces a novel, non-GMO strategy for modulating probiotic traits through dietary compounds. We discovered that specific bioactive molecules, including genistein and resveratrol, can significantly influence gene expression in probiotic strains. These compounds upregulate genes associated with epithelial adhesion, prebiotic synthesis, bacteriocin production, and resistance to bacteriophages—traits critical for probiotic efficacy and stability.
This dietary modulation approach offers a scalable, consumer-aligned alternative to conventional genetic engineering, paving the way for next-generation probiotics with enhanced functionality and clean-label appeal
Small rural farm-support agribusiness: Strategies to survive and thrive. Case studies from New Zealand
Get PDFThis research explored the characteristics of small, rural, farm-support agribusinesses (SRFSAs) using 12 case studies in Canterbury, New Zealand. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 SRFSA owner-managers to determine their important industry characteristics, the challenges they face, and the resilience strategies they deploy for survival. Findings were that the important industry characteristics were community relationships, community infrastructure, the supply of suitable labour, and the surrounding land-use. SRFSAs face challenges with seasonality, specialised assets, labour, finances, and regulation. Crucial for survival is the owner-manager, their background and skillset, their focus on operational excellence, and their ability to develop robust strategy
Portfolio's weighted political risk and mutual fund performance: a text-based approach
No full textUsing text-based measures of firm-level political risk, we find a negative impact of the portfolio's weighted political risk on U.S. mutual fund performance. This relationship is robust to a wide range of topic-specific political risks at the firm level. We, however, find that national geopolitical risk, the U.S. state-level economic policy uncertainty, and Brexit-induced risk do not affect mutual fund performance. Our results suggest that even though mutual funds are immune from political risk at the macro level, they are significantly exposed to idiosyncratic political risk. We also demonstrate that partisanship matters to mutual fund performance
Protecting and restoring freshwater biodiversity across urban areas in Aotearoa New Zealand — Motivating urban residents to volunteer for waterway restoration
No full textThis synthesis was prepared by New Zealand’s Biological Heritage National Science Challenge | Ngā Koiora Tuku Iho, Empowering Kaitiakitanga & Environmental Stewardship research team. Unless New Zealanders are inspired to act and work together for a common goal, the response to our biodiversity crisis will be disjointed, ad-hoc, and potentially counterproductive. Our research focuses on addressing this dilemma. It is about helping New Zealanders take charge of caring for the environment by understanding the values and motivations that drive some people to actively protect our natural heritage. It is also about understanding the reciprocal relationships between people in the landscape – some of whom actively intervene on behalf of the environment – and the ecosystems in which they live