Search results for "method."
showing 10 items of 13043 documents
Pedotransfer functions for estimating soil water retention curve of Sicilian soils
2019
Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) make use of routinely surveyed soil data to estimate soil properties but their application to soils different from those used for their development can yield inaccurate estimates. This investigation aimed at evaluating the water retention prediction accuracy of eight existing PTFs using a database of 217 Sicilian soils exploring 11 USDA textural classes. PTFs performance was assessed by root mean square differences (RMSD) and average differences (AD) between estimated and measured data. Extended Nonlinear Regression (ENR) technique was adopted to recalibrate or develop four new PTFs and Wind’s evaporation method was applied to validate the effectiveness of the …
Weak effects of geolocators on small birds: A meta-analysis controlled for phylogeny and publication bias
2020
Abstract Currently, the deployment of tracking devices is one of the most frequently used approaches to study movement ecology of birds. Recent miniaturization of light‐level geolocators enabled studying small bird species whose migratory patterns were widely unknown. However, geolocators may reduce vital rates in tagged birds and may bias obtained movement data. There is a need for a thorough assessment of the potential tag effects on small birds, as previous meta‐analyses did not evaluate unpublished data and impact of multiple life‐history traits, focused mainly on large species and the number of published studies tagging small birds has increased substantially. We quantitatively reviewe…
Use of chlorophyll fluorescence induction kinetics to study translocation and detoxication of DCMU-type herbicides in plant leaves
1984
Transient levels of the fluorescence induction rise were used to quantify partial photosynthesis inhibition by DCMU -type herbicides in whole leaves. Assays in different crop or weed species showed a good accuracy in measurements (generally, variation was lower than 5%). This technique was applied to the problem of varietal selectivity of wheat towards chlortoluron.
Priorities for research in soil ecology
2017
The ecological interactions that occur in and with soil are of consequence in many ecosystems on the planet. These interactions provide numerous essential ecosystem services, and the sustainable management of soils has attracted increasing scientific and public attention. Although soil ecology emerged as an independent field of research many decades ago, and we have gained important insights into the functioning of soils, there still are fundamental aspects that need to be better understood to ensure that the ecosystem services that soils provide are not lost and that soils can be used in a sustainable way. In this perspectives paper, we highlight some of the major knowledge gaps that shoul…
Towards sustainable and multifunctional agriculture in farmland landscapes: Lessons from the integrative approach of a French LTSER platform
2018
International audience; Agriculture is currently facing unprecedented challenges: ensuring food, fiber and energy production in the face of global change, maintaining the economic performance of farmers and preserving natural resources such as biodiversity and associated key ecosystem services for sustainable agriculture. Addressing these challenges requires innovative landscape scale farming systems that account for changing economic and environmental targets. These novel agricultural systems need to be recognized, accepted and promoted by all stakeholders, including local residents, and supported by public policies. Agroecosystems should be considered as socio-ecological systems and alter…
Evolutionary Changes after Translational Challenges Imposed by Horizontal Gene Transfer
2019
International audience; Genes acquired by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) may provide the recipient organism with potentially new functions, but proper expression level and integration of the transferred genes in the novel environment are not granted. Notably, transferred genes can differ from the receiving genome in codon usage preferences, leading to impaired translation and reduced functionality. Here, we characterize the genomic and proteomic changes undergone during experimental evolution of Escherichia coli after HGT of three synonymous versions, presenting very different codon usage preference, of an antibiotic resistance gene. The experimental evolution was conducted with and without…
A comparative analysis of patch-leaving decision rules in a parasitoid family
2003
The proximate behavioural rules adopted by parasitoid females to manage their foraging time on patches of hosts were studied, under standardized laboratory conditions, in different species (and populations) of the Trichogrammatidae (Hymenoptera) family. Seventeen species/populations were compared and the behavioural mechanisms adopted by the females were identified by means of a Cox's proportional hazards model. On average, females increased their patch-leaving tendency each time a healthy host was attacked and each time a parasitized host was rejected. Strong variation was observed in these patch-leaving mechanisms among the different species. Moreover, the interspecific variation in these…
Influence of pulsed electric field processing on the quality of fruit juice beverages sweetened with Stevia rebaudiana
2017
Abstract A fruit juice-stevia beverage was processed using pulsed electric fields (PEF), a non-thermal preservation technology, with the purpose of investigating the feasibility of PEF for bioactive compounds and steviol glycosides enhancement and its impact on physicochemical properties. Variable ranges of response surface methodology were 20–40 kV/cm (electric field strength), 100–360 μs (treatment time) and 0–2.5% (w/v) stevia. After PEF, ascorbic acid was retained by more than 74%. Some of the analyzed PEF treatments resulted in an enhancement of total anthocyanins and carotenoids. The best results for rebaudioside A/stevioside ratio were obtained when PEF was applied at 30 kV/cm for 23…
Fruit body based inventories in wood-inhabiting fungi: Should we replicate in space or time?
2016
We assessed the effect of survey design on the results when conducting fruit body surveys of wood-inhabiting fungi. Our results demonstrate that the optimal design depends on the ecological question to be addressed, as well as the group of fungal species under research. If the aim is to record the total species richness in a dead wood unit or to estimate the population size of a species, repeating the survey over time is generally necessary. However, if the aim is to estimate the total species richness in the forest or to assess how environmental covariates influence species richness or community composition, it is generally more efficient to increase the number of dead wood units than to r…
Drosophila Evolution over Space and Time (DEST) : A New Population Genomics Resource
2021
Drosophila melanogaster is a leading model in population genetics and genomics, and a growing number of whole-genome datasets from natural populations of this species have been published over the last years. A major challenge is the integration of disparate datasets, often generated using different sequencing technologies and bioinformatic pipelines, which hampers our ability to address questions about the evolution of this species. Here we address these issues by developing a bioinformatics pipeline that maps pooled sequencing (Pool-Seq) reads from D. melanogaster to a hologenome consisting of fly and symbiont genomes and estimates allele frequencies using either a heuristic (PoolSNP) or a…