Making index insurance attractive to farmers

There are several factors that influence whether people will want to participate in index insurance programs. A number of these influence their attractiveness on economic grounds, including both the size and timing of the premium and potential payouts, and the degree of risk aversion of the potential customers. Other factors make programs attractive for reasons that are not economic, but no less valid. These have to do with the trust that people have in the insurance product and the organizations involved in selling and managing it. Indeed, data from India, Africa, and South America show that these factors may be more important than the economic ones in influencing demand. Index insurance pilot projects, in order to estimate demand for alternative products, have typically involved a great deal of interaction with potential customers. It is important to recognize that such interaction is crucial not just as a research tool, but also as a means to build understanding and trust in the products. When scaling up from isolated pilots to operational programs, it is vital to recognize this trust building function by replicating participation efforts in every community. In this paper, we examine the role of field games in establishing and building trust in three important aspects of these projects for participants: trust in the insurance product, trust in the participating organizations, and trust in their own ability to make good decisions. While games have previously been used as a way to gauge interest in the product and to identify design features, we argue that these games are also valuable tools for constructing these kinds of trust.     

Plant surface wax affects parasitoid’s response to host footprints

The plant surface is the substrate upon which herbivorous insects and natural enemies meet and thus represents the stage for interactions between the three trophic levels. Plant surfaces are covered by an epicuticular wax layer which is highly variable depending on species, cultivar or plant part. Differences in wax chemistry may modulate ecological interactions. We explored whether caterpillars of Spodoptera frugiperda, when walking over a plant surface, leave a chemical trail (kairomones) that can be detected by the parasitoid Cotesia marginiventris. Chemistry and micromorphology of cuticular waxes of two barley eceriferum wax mutants (cer-za.126, cer-yp.949) and wild-type cv. Bonus (wt) were assessed. The plants were then used to investigate potential surface effects on the detectability of caterpillar kairomones. Here we provide evidence that C. marginiventris responds to chemical footprints of its host. Parasitoids were able to detect the kairomone on wild-type plants and on both cer mutants but the response to cer-yp.949 (reduced wax, high aldehyde fraction) was less pronounced. Experiments with caterpillar-treated wt and mutant leaves offered simultaneously, confirmed this observation: no difference in wasp response was found when wt was tested against cer-za.126 (reduced wax, wt-like chemical composition) but wt was significantly more attractive than cer-yp.949. This demonstrates for the first time that the wax layer can modulate the detectability of host kairomones.     

The effect of protected areas on forest disturbance in the Carpathian Mountains 1985–2010

Protected areas are a cornerstone for forest protection, but they are not always effective during times of socioeconomic and institutional crises. The Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe are an ecologically outstanding region, with widespread seminatural and old‐growth forest. Since 1990, Carpathian countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine) have experienced economic hardship and institutional changes, including the breakdown of socialism, European Union accession, and a rapid expansion of protected areas. The question is how protected‐area effectiveness has varied during these times across the Carpathians given these changes. We analyzed a satellite‐based data set of forest disturbance (i.e., forest loss due to harvesting or natural disturbances) from 1985 to 2010 and used matching statistics and a fixed‐effects estimator to quantify the effect of protection on forest disturbance. Protected areas in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the Ukraine had significantly less deforestation inside protected areas than outside in some periods; the likelihood of disturbance was reduced by 1–5%. The effectiveness of protection increased over time in these countries, whereas the opposite was true in Romania. Older protected areas were most effective in Romania and Hungary, but newer protected areas were more effective in Czech Republic, and Poland. Strict protection (International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN] protection category Ia‐II) was not more effective than landscape‐level protection (IUCN III‐VI). We suggest that the strength of institutions, the differences in forest privatization, forest management, prior distribution of protected areas, and when countries joined the European Union may provide explanations for the strikingly heterogeneous effectiveness patterns among countries. Our results highlight how different the effects of protected areas can be at broad scales, indicating that the effectiveness of protected areas is transitory over time and space and suggesting that generalizations about the effectiveness of protected areas can be misleading.     

Prenatal detection of X-linked ichthyosis by maternal serum screening for down syndrome

Maternal serum unconjugated oestriol (uE3) was measured in 15 375 pregnancies during 2 years of second-trimester risk assessment for Down syndrome using biochemical markers. Very low levels of uE3 (<0·1 MOM) were detected in 22 serum samples (0·14 per cent). Very low uE3 was associated with an adverse outcome in 13 pregnancies including fetal death and miscarriage (N=11), anencephaly (N=1), and Meckel—Gruber syndrome (N=1). Dry scales on the skin appeared in the first year of life in four boys. From dermatological diagnosis, prenatal uE3 levels, and pedigree analysis, it is concluded that at least 5 in approximately 7500 male births in the study population are affected by steroid sulphatase deficiency, which is the biochemical defect in X-linked ichthyosis. Very low uE3 levels in the second trimester are indicative of this disease in pregnancies with normal ultrasound findings.