Biotechnology, environmental forcing, and unintended trophic cascades

A long ongoing discussion between scientists and policy decision-makers seems to have entered recently into a new phase. The consequences of release of transgenic crops into the environment are being discussed not only by scientists but also by farmers, environmental groups and politicians, while an increasing amount of data is becoming available at all biological scales, including the field level. However, data still rely on experiments designed to capture direct consumer¿resource interactions. Here we argue that we should attempt to concentrate on the ecosystem functioning of soil biota under genetically-modified (GM) plants, because functional and mechanistic analysis of the multitrophic effects of GM plants on soil biota is still lacking. It is our opinion that we should avoid addressing taxa and soil communities separately, but link them at their functional level. We shall explain why, using examples from ecosystem services, allometric scaling, and soil food webs. The energy flow of any food web under stress incorporates several factors and pooled information on ecosystem services and on the different responses of soil invertebrates to induced perturbations in other trophic levels. Therefore, we will systematically focus on the complementarities of these approache

Asymmetry measures for QSOs and companions

An asymmetry index is derived from ellipse-fitting to galaxy images, that gives weight to faint outer features and is not strongly redshift-dependent. These measures are made on a sample of 13 2MASS QSOs and their neighbour galaxies, and a control sample of field galaxies from the same wide-field imaging data. The QSO host galaxy asymmetries correlate well with visual tidal interaction indices previously published. The companion galaxies have somewhat higher asymmetry than the control galaxy sample, and their asymmetry is inversely correlated with distance from the QSO. The distribution of QSO-companion asymmetry indices is different from that for matched control field galaxies at the $\sim95$ significance level. We present the data and discuss this evidence for tidal and other disturbances in the vicinity of QSOs.Comment: 13 pages, 2 tables, 4 figures; to appear in A

The Specific Globular Cluster Frequencies of Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies from the Hubble Space Telescope

The specific globular cluster frequencies (S_N) for 24 dwarf elliptical (dE) galaxies in the Virgo and Fornax Clusters and the Leo Group imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope are presented. Combining all available data, we find that for nucleated dEs --- which are spatially distributed like giant ellipticals in galaxy clusters --- S_N(dE,N)=6.5 +- 1.2 and S_N increases with M_V, while for non-nucleated dEs --- which are distributed like late-type galaxies --- S_N(dE,noN)=3.1 +- 0.5 and there is little or no trend with M_V. The S_N values for dE galaxies are thus on average significantly higher than those for late-type galaxies, which have S_N < 1. This suggests that dE galaxies are more akin to giant Es than to late-type galaxies. If there are dormant or stripped irregulars hiding among the dE population, they are likely to be among the non-nucleated dEs. Furthermore, the similarities in the properties of the globular clusters and in the spatial distributions of dE,Ns and giant Es suggest that neither galaxy mass or galaxy metallicity is responsible for high values of S_N. Instead, most metal-poor GCs may have formed in dwarf-sized fragments that merged into larger galaxies.Comment: 12 pages (uses aaspp4.sty), 2 figures, 1 table, to appear in the Astrophysical Journa

Deskstudie biologische bestrijding van invasieve exotische oever- en wateronkruiden in Nederland

In dit rapport wordt een overzicht gegeven van biologische onkruidbestrijding in het algemeen, en ontwikkelingen op het gebied van biologische bestrijding van elf belangrijke exotische oever- en wateronkruiden in Nederland in het bijzonder. Twee relevante casussen worden nader belicht: de graskarper en de waterhyacin