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Conservative vs traditional agriculture: how do they affect soil fauna and eco system services?
No full textS11.03-P -6
CONSERVATIVE VS TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURE: HOW DO THEY AFFECT SOIL FAUNA
AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES?
Conti Federica D.*[1], Gardi Ciro[2], Menta Cristina[1]
[1]University of Parma ~ Evolutionary and Functional Biology ~ Parma ~ Italy [2]European Commission - DG JRC ~
Institute for Environment & Sustainability (IES) -Land Management & Natural Hazards Unit ~ Ispra (VA) ~ Italy
Agriculture production relies on several functions provided by the soil fauna, including organic
matter decomposition, nutrient cycling and dispersal, maintenance of soil structure and fertility.
Traditional agriculture management practices have affected soil biodiversity in negative ways
mainly due to tillage. Preserving environmental and soil “health” has become a priority in
conservation programs in the last years. In order to realize the benefits of ecosystem services and
to maintain and enhance crop productivity, conservation agriculture may represent an alternative to
traditional techniques, seeing that it optimize the use of resources during the production cycle and
it tend to reduce soil degradation. The targets of this study are to characterize and compare soil
microarthropod communities in traditional and conservative agriculture fields cultivated principally
with maize. Three sites in Lombardia Region (Northern Italy) were investigated in late 2010 and
2011: in provinces of Pavia, Lodi and Mantova. Soil fauna sampling consisted in three top soil
cores (10x10x10 cm); microarthropods were extracted by using Berlese-Tüllgren funnels, identified
to order level and counted, then biodiversity index and soil biological index (QBS-ar and QBS-c)
were calculated. The results seemed to confirm that conservative agricultural practices allow to
protect soil ecosystems. Soil cover and the highest amount of organic matter in conservative
management fields consent to increase soil stability. Furthermore the low mechanical disturbance,
in particular tillage absence, promote the presence of groups with morphologic characters strictly
associated to edaphic life. Acknowledgements: Research supported by ERSAF Lombardi
Agriculture Management and Soil Fauna Monitoring: The Case of Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy)
Full text linksoil quality. Here we analyzed soil arthropods community in several agricultural managements (arable land, grassland, vineyard and orchard) located in the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy), whose land was especially exploited for intensive agriculture, in order to state soil health and soil quality, in relation to crop types and management. The computation of the biological soil quality index QBS-ar revealed lower values in arable lands, easily due to management practices applied, in particular ploughing. On the other hand, the QBS-ar values associated to orchards and vineyards were higher: the grassy cover on soil and the reduced farming practices support soil microarthropod communities. Meadows were generally characterized by high index values, related to their age. The application of QBS-ar index as a tool to identify soil quality and, thus, soil functionality, was then confirmed. Starting with this type of approach, further analyses could be crucial to highlight differen
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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