Search results for "Food chain"
showing 7 items of 197 documents
Increasing temperature and productivity change biomass, trophic pyramids and community‐level omega‐3 fatty acid content in subarctic lake food webs
2021
Climate change in the Arctic is outpacing the global average and land-use is intensifying due to exploitation of previously inaccessible or unprofitable natural resources. A comprehensive understanding of how the joint effects of changing climate and productivity modify lake food web structure, biomass, trophic pyramid shape and abundance of physiologically essential biomolecules (omega-3 fatty acids) in the biotic community is lacking. We conducted a space-for-time study in 20 subarctic lakes spanning a climatic (+3.2 degrees C and precipitation: +30%) and chemical (dissolved organic carbon: +10 mg/L, total phosphorus: +45 mu g/L and total nitrogen: +1,000 mu g/L) gradient to test how temp…
Natural acidification changes the timing and rate of succession, alters community structure, and increases homogeneity in marine biofouling communiti…
2017
Ocean acidification may have far-reaching consequences for marine community and ecosystem dynamics, but its full impacts remain poorly understood due to the difficulty of manipulating pCO2 at the ecosystem level to mimic realistic fluctuations that occur on a number of different timescales. It is especially unclear how quickly communities at various stages of development respond to intermediate-scale pCO2 change and, if high pCO2 is relieved mid-succession, whether past acidification effects persist, are reversed by alleviation of pCO2 stress, or are worsened by departures from prior high pCO2 conditions to which organisms had acclimatized. Here, we used reciprocal transplant experiments al…
Caffeine increases the expression of cystatin SN in human submandibular acinar-like HSG cells
2013
The study aimed at evaluating in vitro the effect of caffeine on expression of cystatin SN, a potential marker of sensitivity to bitterness in humans.Differentiation of human submandibular gland (HSG) cells was induced by culturing cells on Matrigel. Caffeine cytotoxicity was assessed over 3 days by the Resazurin test. Finally, effects of 5, 50 and 100μM caffeine exposure on cystatin SN expression were explored over 3 days by ELISA.At concentrations relevant to human adult plasma levels (5, 50 and 100μM), caffeine did not affect cell viability whether cells were differentiated or not. Cystatin SN levels were overall higher in differentiated cells and increased with time in both conditions. …
From Scarcity to Abundance : Food Waste Themes and Virtues in Agrarian and Mature Consumer Society
2019
Uusitalo and Takala address the food waste problem as a societal phenomenon and examine ethical virtues, values linked to them and food practices in two different time periods: agrarian society (1885–1917) and mature consumer society (2008–2017), in Finland. They use data from newspapers to uncover how ethical principles can underpin understanding of the food waste phenomenon. The study shows how the virtues adopted by food chain actors guide their practices towards sustainable ways of handling excess food. While societal themes of food waste are changing, virtues and food practices are changing as well, but some deep-rooted societal virtues and values persist. The chapter concludes with re…
Corporate responsibility in the food chain: The criteria and indicators
2012
Corporate responsibility (CR) is becoming a key issue in the food chain. In order to make sense of this phenomenon, a seminal aper by Maloni and Brown (2006) called for further empirical investigation on the criteria of responsibility in the food supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to answer the call by identifying the criteria for defining CR and develop indicators for measuring the responsibility performance of the food chain. The study was based on interactive and participatory stakeholder dialogues with diverse experts, corporate representatives and other stakeholders, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental bodies. Through an iterative research process w…
Towards a framework for assessment and management of cumulative human impacts on marine food webs
2015
Effective ecosystem-based management requires understanding ecosystem responses to multiple human threats, rather than focusing on single threats. To understand ecosystem responses to anthropogenic threats holistically, it is necessary to know how threats affect different components within ecosystems and ultimately alter ecosystem functioning. We used a case study of a Mediterranean seagrass (Posidonia oceanica) food web and expert knowledge elicitation in an application of the initial steps of a framework for assessment of cumulative human impacts on food webs. We produced a conceptual seagrass food web model, determined the main trophic relationships, identified the main threats to the fo…
Terrestrial carbohydrates support freshwater zooplankton during phytoplankton deficiency
2016
Article