Costless metabolic secretions as drivers of interspecies interactions in microbial ecosystems

Metabolic exchange mediates interactions among microbes, helping explain diversity in microbial communities. As these interactions often involve a fitness cost, it is unclear how stable cooperation can emerge. Here we use genome-scale metabolic models to investigate whether the release of “costless” metabolites (i.e. those that cause no fitness cost to the producer), can be a prominent driver of intermicrobial interactions. By performing over 2 million pairwise growth simulations of 24 species in a combinatorial assortment of environments, we identify a large space of metabolites that can be secreted without cost, thus generating ample cross-feeding opportunities. In addition to providing an atlas of putative interactions, we show that anoxic conditions can promote mutualisms by providing more opportunities for exchange of costless metabolites, resulting in an overrepresentation of stable ecological network motifs. These results may help identify interaction patterns in natural communities and inform the design of synthetic microbial consortia.We thank Dr. Niels Klitgord for pioneering ideas that inspired launch of this work. We are also grateful to David Bernstein, Joshua E. Goldford, Meghan Thommes, Demetrius DiMucci, and all members of the Segre Lab for helpful discussions. A.R.P. is supported by a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowship. This work was supported by funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (purchase request no. HR0011515303, contract no. HR0011-15-C-0091), the U.S. Department of Energy (grants DE-SC0004962 and DE-SC0012627), the NIH (grants 5R01DE024468, R01GM121950, and Sub_P30DK036836_P&F), the National Science Foundation (grants 1457695 and NSFOCE-BSF 1635070), MURI Grant W911NF-12-1-0390, the Human Frontiers Science Program (grant RGP0020/2016), and the Boston University Inter-disciplinary Biomedical Research Office. (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship; Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowship; HR0011515303 - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; HR0011-15-C-0091 - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; DE-SC0004962 - U.S. Department of Energy; DE-SC0012627 - U.S. Department of Energy; 5R01DE024468 - NIH; R01GM121950 - NIH; Sub_P30DK036836_PF - NIH; 1457695 - National Science Foundation; NSFOCE-BSF 1635070 - National Science Foundation; W911NF-12-1-0390 - MURI Grant; RGP0020/2016 - Human Frontiers Science Program; Boston University Inter-disciplinary Biomedical Research Office)Published versio

Selling Company Shares to Reluctant Employees: France Telecom's Experience

In 1997, France T‚l‚com, the state-owned French telephone company, went through a partial privatization. The government offered current and prior France T‚l‚com employees the opportunity to buy portfolios of shares with various combinations of discounts, required holding periods, leverage, tax treatment, and levels of downside protection. We adapt a neoclassical model of investment decision-making that takes into account firm-specific human capital and holding period restrictions to predict how employees might respond to the share offers. Using a database that tracks over 200,000 eligible participants, we analyze the employees' characteristics and their decisions whether to participate; how much to invest; and what form of stock alternatives they selected.

Selling company shares to reluctant employees: France Telecom's experience

In 1997, France Telecom, the state-owned French telephone company, went through a partial privatization. We adapt a standard neoclassical model to predict how employees might respond to the firm's offer to sell them various classes of shares. Using a database that tracks over 200,000 eligible participants, we analyze employees' decisions whether to participate; how much to invest; and what form of stock alternatives they selected. The results are broadly consistent with the neoclassical model. However, we report four anomalous findings: (1) The firm specificity of human capital has a negligible effect on employees' investment decisions; (2) the amount of funds invested in the stock plans seems driven by a different set of forces than the decision to participate, which we suspect reflects a "threshold effect" that we attempt to measure; (3) employees "left on the table" benefits equal to one to two month's salary by failing to participate; and (4) most participants underweighted the most valuable asset

Flood maps in Europe - methods, availability and use

To support the transition from traditional flood defence strategies to a flood risk management approach at the basin scale in Europe, the EU has adopted a new Directive (2007/60/EC) at the end of 2007. One of the major tasks which member states must carry out in order to comply with this Directive is to map flood hazards and risks in their territory, which will form the basis of future flood risk management plans. This paper gives an overview of existing flood mapping practices in 29 countries in Europe and shows what maps are already available and how such maps are used. Roughly half of the countries considered have maps covering as good as their entire territory, and another third have maps covering significant parts of their territory. Only five countries have very limited or no flood maps available yet. Of the different flood maps distinguished, it appears that flood extent maps are the most commonly produced floods maps (in 23 countries), but flood depth maps are also regularly created (in seven countries). Very few countries have developed flood risk maps that include information on the consequences of flooding. The available flood maps are mostly developed by governmental organizations and primarily used for emergency planning, spatial planning, and awareness raising. In spatial planning, flood zones delimited on flood maps mainly serve as guidelines and are not binding. Even in the few countries (e.g. France, Poland) where there is a legal basis to regulate floodplain developments using flood zones, practical problems are often faced which reduce the mitigating effect of such binding legislation. Flood maps, also mainly extent maps, are also created by the insurance industry in Europe and used to determine insurability, differentiate premiums, or to assess long-term financial solvency. Finally, flood maps are also produced by international river commissions. With respect to the EU Flood Directive, many countries already have a good starting point to map their flood hazards. A flood risk based map that includes consequences, however, has yet to be developed by most countries

Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of coastal flood damage estimates in the west of the Netherlands

Uncertainty analyses of flood damage assessments generally require a large amount of model evaluations. This is often hampered by the high computational costs necessary to calculate flood extents and depths using 2-dimensional flow models. In this paper we developed a new approach to estimate flood inundation depths that can be incorporated in a Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis. This allows estimation of the uncertainty in flood damage estimates and the determination of which parameters contribute the most to this uncertainty. The approach is applied on three breach locations on the west coast of the Netherlands. In total, uncertainties in 12 input parameters were considered in this study, related to the storm surge, breach growth and the damage calculation. We show that the uncertainty in flood damage estimates is substantial, with the bounds of the 95% confidence range being more than four times smaller or larger than the median. The most influential parameter is uncertainty in depth-damage curves, but five other parameters also contribute substantially. The contribution of uncertainty in parameters related to the damage calculation is about equal to the contribution of parameters related to the volume of the inflowing water. Given the emphasis of most risk assessments on the estimation of the hazard, this implies that the damage calculation aspect deserves more attention in flood risk research efforts. Given the large uncertainties found in this study, it is recommended to always perform multiple calculations in flood simulations and damage assessments to capture the full range of model outcomes

Global flood depth-damage functions: Methodology and the database with guidelines

Assessing potential damage of flood events is an important component in flood risk management. Determining direct flood damage is commonly done using depth-damage curves, which denote the flood damage that would occur at specific water depths per asset or per land-use class. Many countries have developed flood damage models using depth-damage curves based on analysis of past flood events and on expert judgement. However, the fact that such damage curves are not available for all regions hampers damage assessments in some areas. Moreover, due to different methodologies employed for various damage models in different countries, damage assessments cannot be directly compared with each other, obstructing also supra-national flood damage assessments. To address these problems a globally consistent database of depth-damage curves has been developed. This dataset contains damage curves depicting fractional damage function of water depth as well as maximum damage values for a variety of assets and land use classes. Based on an extensive literature survey concave damage curves have been developed for each continent, while differentiation in flood damage between countries is established by determining maximum damage values at the country scale. These maximum damage values are based on construction cost surveys from multinational construction companies, which provide a coherent set of detailed building cost data across dozens of countries. A consistent set of maximum flood damage values for all countries was computed using statistical regressions with socio-economic World Development Indicators. Further, based on insights from the literature survey, guidance is also given on how the damage curves and maximum damage values can be adjusted for specific local circumstances, such as urban vs. rural locations or use of specific building material. This dataset can be used for consistent supra-national scale flood damage assessments, and guide assessment in countries where no damage model is currently available.JRC.C.6-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

Sensitivity of global river discharges under Holocene and future climate conditions

A comparative analysis of global river basins shows that some river discharges are more sensitive to future climate change for the coming century than to natural climate variability over the last 9000 years. In these basins (Ganges, Mekong, Volta, Congo, Amazon, Murray-Darling, Rhine, Oder, Yukon) future discharges increase by 6-61%. These changes are of similar magnitude to changes over the last 9000 years. Some rivers (Nile, Syr Darya) experienced strong reductions in discharge over the last 9000 years (17-56%), but show much smaller responses to future warming. The simulation results for the last 9000 years are validated with independent proxy data

Van A tot Z : wat kunnen gemeenten doen om duurzaam voedsel te stimuleren?

Voedsel leeft en staat volop in de belangstelling. Op veel plaatsen in Nederland zijn er voedselinitiatieven. Streekmarkten worden georganiseerd, school- en moestuinen worden opgezet, de jeugd krijgt smaaklessen en gaat op boerderijbezoek. Voedsel bindt mensen en brengt mensen samen. Verandering van de huidige voedselconsumptie en productie is hard nodig, ondermeer omdat wereldwijd de bevolking toeneemt, voorraden van een aantal cruciale grondstoffen eindig zijn en voedselzekerheid lang niet voor iedereen een gegeven is. Aan de hand van 24 acties van A tot Z laten we zien wat gemeenten (kunnen) doen om de ambities uit de Nota Duurzaam Voedsel te realisere

Do flood risk perceptions provide useful insights for flood risk management? Findings from central Vietnam

Following the renewed attention for non-structural flood risk reduction measures implemented at the household level, there has been an increased interest in individual flood risk perceptions. The reason for this is the commonly-made assumption that flood risk perceptions drive the motivation of individuals to undertake flood risk mitigation measures, as well as the public's demand for flood protection, and therefore provide useful insights for flood risk management. This study empirically examines these assumptions by presenting data from a survey conducted among 300 households in central Vietnam. The main implications for flood risk communication and the stimulation of precautionary behaviour are that the current predominant focus on flood risk perceptions in the academic literature, and risk communication policy is not supported. Hence, the study provides an important contribution to the existing literature that mainly studies flood risk perceptions in developed countries. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM)