Traceability in low-level radioactivity measurements

Various suggested definitions of the term “traceability” are discussed from the standpoint of proposed adoption and use of the concept by the International Organization of Legal Metrology.     

Getting the ‘pulse’ of your employees: the use of cardiovascular research in better understanding behavior in organizations

Cardiovascular disease has severe consequences for both individual betterment and organizational health. Yet, organization‐based cardiovascular research remains quite limited. This commentary addresses this void by integrating research dating from the famous Hawthorne experiments with current medical science. It then suggests future organizational research on cardiovascular health and recommends use of specific composite cardiovascular measures to advance our understanding of the organizational implications of cardiovascular disease. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long-term effects of sustained beef feedlot manure application on soil nutrients, corn silage yield, and nutrient uptake

A field study was initiated in 1992 to investigate the long-term impacts of beef feedlot manure application (composted and uncomposted) on nutrient accumulation and movement in soil, corn silage yield, and nutrient uptake. Two application strategies were compared: providing the annual crop nitrogen (N) requirement (N-based rate) or crop phosphorus (P) removal (P-based rate), as well as a comparison to inorganic fertilizer. Additionally, effects of a winter cover crop were evaluated. Irrigated corn (Zea mays L.) was produced annually from 1993 through 2002. Average silage yield and crop nutrient removal were highest with N-based manure treatments, intermediate with P-based manure treatments, and least with inorganic N fertilizer. Use of a winter cover crop resulted in silage yield reductions in four of ten years, most likely due to soil moisture depletion in the spring by the cover crop. However, the cover crop did significantly reduce NO3-N accumulation in the shallow vadose zone, particularly in latter years of the study. The composted manure N-based treatment resulted in significantly greater soil profile NO3-N concentration and higher soil P concentration near the soil surface. The accounting procedure used to calculate N-based treatment application rates resulted in acceptable soil profile NO3-N concentrations over the short term. While repeated annual manure application to supply the total crop N requirement may be acceptable for this soil for several years, sustained application over many years carries the risk of unacceptable soil P concentrations.     

Trait space of rare plants in a fire‐dependent ecosystem

The causes of species rarity are of critical concern because of the high extinction risk associated with rarity. Studies examining individual rare species have limited generality, whereas trait‐based approaches offer a means to identify functional causes of rarity that can be applied to communities with disparate species pools. Differences in functional traits between rare and common species may be indicative of the functional causes of species rarity and may therefore be useful in crafting species conservation strategies. However, there is a conspicuous lack of studies comparing the functional traits of rare species and co‐occurring common species. We measured 18 important functional traits for 19 rare and 134 common understory plant species from North Carolina's Sandhills region and compared their trait distributions to determine whether there are significant functional differences that may explain species rarity. Flowering, fire, and tissue‐chemistry traits differed significantly between rare and common, co‐occurring species. Differences in specific traits suggest that fire suppression has driven rarity in this system and that changes to the timing and severity of prescribed fire may improve conservation success. Our method provides a useful tool to prioritize conservation efforts in other systems based on the likelihood that rare species are functionally capable of persisting.     

Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed an interconnected and tightly coupled globalized world in rapid change. This article sets the scientific stage for understanding and responding to such change for global sustainability and resilient societies. We provide a systemic overview of the current situation where people and nature are dynamically intertwined and embedded in the biosphere, placing shocks and extreme events as part of this dynamic; humanity has become the major force in shaping the future of the Earth system as a whole; and the scale and pace of the human dimension have caused climate change, rapid loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities, and loss of resilience to deal with uncertainty and surprise. Taken together, human actions are challenging the biosphere foundation for a prosperous development of civilizations. The Anthropocene reality—of rising system-wide turbulence—calls for transformative change towards sustainable futures. Emerging technologies, social innovations, broader shifts in cultural repertoires, as well as a diverse portfolio of active stewardship of human actions in support of a resilient biosphere are highlighted as essential parts of such transformations.     

NABat: A top-down,bottom-up solution to collaborative continental-scale monitoring

Collaborative monitoring over broad scales and levels of ecological organization can inform conservation efforts necessary to address the contemporary biodiversity crisis. An important challenge to collaborative monitoring is motivating local engagement with enough buy-in from stakeholders while providing adequate top-down direction for scientific rigor, quality control, and coordination. Collaborative monitoring must reconcile this inherent tension between top-down control and bottom-up engagement. Highly mobile and cryptic taxa, such as bats, present a particularly acute challenge. Given their scale of movement, complex life histories, and rapidly expanding threats, understanding population trends of bats requires coordinated broad-scale collaborative monitoring. The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) reconciles top-down, bottom-up tension with a hierarchical master sample survey design, integrated data analysis, dynamic data curation, regional monitoring hubs, and knowledge delivery through web-based infrastructure. NABat supports collaborative monitoring across spatial and organizational scales and the full annual lifecycle of bats.