Seedling Production Systems for Smallholder Forestry Development: Local Practices versus National Policies in the Philippines

The tree seedling nursery sector in the Philippines is influenced by a number of national level policies affecting the number and type of species produced. Policies favour high-volume production of a limited range of mostly exotic species, and research indicates that seedlings are often of low physical and genetic quality. Local knowledge on best species for sites is not being communicated to people planting. A project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research is investigating measures to improve the performance and effectiveness of the forestry seedling production system in Leyte and Mindanao in the Philippines. Seedlings are produced by government agencies, in community forestry projects and by individual private operators; the main customers are smallholder tree farmers. Communities and private individuals quickly set up nurseries when there is a demand for seedlings, but these nurseries tend to be ephemeral and lack financial sustainability. While large nurseries offer opportunities for economies of scale, small nurseries operate on a low cost basis, and are more widely distributed, and their seedlings are more accessible to smallholders, who lack transport facilities. Small private nurseries, while having limited access to new technology, often produce seedlings of quality similar to government and community nurseries. However, they require assistance in access to high-quality germplasm and training in improved seed production technology, to play a greater role in expansion of plantation forestry. This paper reports survey findings on seedling production systems, and examines the link between national level policies and local level practices

Studying the impact of biomass burning aerosol radiative and climate effects on the Amazon rainforest productivity with an Earth system model

Diffuse light conditions can increase the efficiency of photosynthesis and carbon uptake by vegetation canopies. The diffuse fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) can be affected by either a change in the atmospheric aerosol burden and/or a change in cloudiness. During the dry season, a hotspot of biomass burning on the edges of the Amazon rainforest emits a complex mixture of aerosols and their precursors and climate-active trace gases (e.g. CO2, CH4, NOx). This creates potential for significant interactions between chemistry, aerosol, cloud, radiation and the biosphere across the Amazon region. The combined effects of biomass burning on the terrestrial carbon cycle for the present day are potentially large, yet poorly quantified. Here, we quantify such effects using the Met Office Hadley Centre Earth system model HadGEM2-ES, which provides a fully coupled framework with interactive aerosol, radiative transfer, dynamic vegetation, atmospheric chemistry and biogenic volatile organic compound emission components. Results show that for present day, defined as year 2000 climate, the overall net impact of biomass burning aerosols is to increase net primary productivity (NPP) by +80 to +105 TgC yr−1, or 1.9 % to 2.7 %, over the central Amazon Basin on annual mean. For the first time we show that this enhancement is the net result of multiple competing effects: an increase in diffuse light which stimulates photosynthetic activity in the shaded part of the canopy (+65 to +110 TgC yr−1), a reduction in the total amount of radiation (−52 to −105 TgC yr−1) which reduces photosynthesis and feedback from climate adjustments in response to the aerosol forcing which increases the efficiency of biochemical processes (+67 to +100 TgC yr−1). These results illustrate that despite a modest direct aerosol effect (the sum of the first two counteracting mechanisms), the overall net impact of biomass burning aerosols on vegetation is sizeable when indirect climate feedbacks are considered. We demonstrate that capturing the net impact of aerosols on vegetation should be assessed considering the system-wide behaviour

Estrogens promote misfolded proinsulin degradation to protect insulin production and delay diabetes

Summary: Conjugated estrogens (CE) delay the onset of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in postmenopausal women, but the mechanism is unclear. In T2D, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) fails to promote proinsulin folding and, in failing to do so, promotes ER stress and β cell dysfunction. We show that CE prevent insulin-deficient diabetes in male and in female Akita mice using a model of misfolded proinsulin. CE stabilize the ER-associated protein degradation (ERAD) system and promote misfolded proinsulin proteasomal degradation. This involves activation of nuclear and membrane estrogen receptor-α (ERα), promoting transcriptional repression and proteasomal degradation of the ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme and ERAD degrader, UBC6e. The selective ERα modulator bazedoxifene mimics CE protection of β cells in females but not in males. : Estrogens prevent diabetes in women, but the mechanism is poorly understood. Xu et al. report that estrogens activate the endoplasmic-reticulum-associated protein degradation pathway, which promotes misfolded proinsulin degradation, suppresses endoplasmic reticulum stress, and protects insulin secretion in mice and in human pancreatic β cells. Keywords: estrogens, beta cell, islet, endoplasmic reticulum stress, proinsulin misfolding, diabetes, bazedoxifene, sex dimorphism, ERAD, SER

Feature extraction based on bio-inspired model for robust emotion recognition

Emotional state identification is an important issue to achieve more natural speech interactive systems. Ideally, these systems should also be able to work in real environments in which generally exist some kind of noise. Several bio-inspired representations have been applied to artificial systems for speech processing under noise conditions. In this work, an auditory signal representation is used to obtain a novel bio-inspired set of features for emotional speech signals. These characteristics, together with other spectral and prosodic features, are used for emotion recognition under noise conditions. Neural models were trained as classifiers and results were compared to the well-known mel-frequency cepstral coefficients. Results show that using the proposed representations, it is possible to significantly improve the robustness of an emotion recognition system. The results were also validated in a speaker independent scheme and with two emotional speech corpora.Fil: Albornoz, Enrique Marcelo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Milone, Diego Humberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Rufiner, Hugo Leonardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; Argentin

Transformación genética de olivo con el gen OeHPL para el análisis funcional del papel de la enzima 13-hidroperóxido liasa (13-HPL) en la producción de compuestos volátiles.

La 13-hidroperóxido liasa es una enzima implicada en la biosíntesis de compues- tos volátiles y tiene un papel fundamental sobre la composición y propiedades del aceite de oliva virgen. La expresión del gen OeHPL muestra una regulación temporal durante la maduración y desarrollo del fruto; además, la expresión es alta en hojas y tejido de mesocarpo y baja en semillas. En este trabajo se aborda el análisis funcional de este gen mediante su sobreexpresión y silenciamiento en plantas transgénicas de olivo. La transformación se llevó a cabo vía Agrobac- terium. Se utilizó la cepa AGL-1 con tres construcciones distintas: pHPLs para sobreexpresión (orientación sentido), pHPLas (orientación antisentido) y pHPLi (ARN-interferente) para silenciamiento. Se recuperaron plantas procedentes de 27 líneas transgénicas independientes, 6 HPLs, 10 HPLas y 11 HPLi. El análisis de la expresión del gen OeHPL en hojas de estas líneas mostró los siguientes resultados, a) líneas sentido: en una de ellas aumentó la expresión 24 veces mien- tras que en otras tres, aumentó en el rango 4-7X; b) líneas antisentido: sólo en dos de ellas disminuyó su expresión un 20% y c) líneas RNAi: en tres de ellas, se redujo la expresión entre 25-35% mientras que en otras dos, disminuyó un 50%. Estas líneas RNAi muestran un crecimiento ralentizado y, en general, presen- tan menor vigor que las controles. Próximamente, se iniciarán los trabajos para cuantificar la actividad enzimática 13-HPL y el contenido de volátiles en hojas con diferentes perfiles de expresión del gen. Asimismo, dado el papel que los vo- látiles de hoja verde, formados vía HPL, juegan en la resistencia a estrés también se evaluará la tolerancia a verticilosis en las plantas de las líneas seleccionadas.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucia Tech

Valoración naturalística del Corredor Verde del Río Guadiamar Andalucía, España)

En este trabajo aplicamos un método de valoración naturalística, concretamente el índice de interés para la conservación, a cada una de las unidades de un mapa de vegetación previamente realizado a escala 1:10.000. Para el cálculo de los distintos criterios de valoración se tienen en cuenta las comunidades vegetales (asociaciones) presentes en cada unidad, en vez de las especies como suele ser habitual. Las unidades del mapa están agrupadas en series de vegetación, por lo que también pueden extraerse conclusiones sobre el grado de conservación de cada una de ellas. Los resultados se plasman en un mapa de interés para la conservación. El escenario en el que se realizó el trabajo es el corredor verde del río Guadiamar, situado en el sur de España. La zona fue afectada por un vertido tóxico y lo que aquí mostramos son los resultados obtenidos tras una primera limpieza. Después se han iniciado trabajos de restauración, al cabo de los cuales podremos realizar un estudio comparativo con los resultados de este trabajo.In this paper we have applied a naturalistic evaluation strategy, more precisely, the conservation importance index, to each unit of a preplanned 1:10.000scale vegetation map. The estimation of the different evaluation criteria is based on the plant communities (associations) found in each unit rather than on species, as is usual. Since the map units are grouped in vegetation series, the conservation degree of each of them can also be assessed. The results are presented in a conservation interest map. The survey was undertaken in the Green Corridor of the Guadiamar River, in the south of Spain. The area was affected by a toxic spill and our data refl ect the results obtained after the fi rst stage of cleaning work. Subsequently, restoration work has been undertaken after which we will be able to carry out a comparative analysis with the results of this work.Junta de Andalucía. Consejería de Medio Ambiente