Feature Article

The African lion has declined to <35,000 individuals occupying 25% of its historic range. The situation is most critical for the geographically isolated populations in West Africa, where the species is considered regionally endangered. Elevating their conservation significance, recent molecular studies establish the genetic distinctiveness of West and Central African lions from other extant African populations. Interventions to save West African lions are urgently required.

It is a major challenge to achieve the goal of increasing grain yield, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and irrigation water productivity (IWP) in cereals. This study investigated if progressive integrative crop management technology in rice (Oryza sativa L.) could improve agronomic and physiological performances, and consequently, increase grain yield, NUE and IWP.

The recent increase in nanoparticle (P25 TiO2 NPs) usage has led to concerns regarding their potential implications on environment and human health. The food chain is the central pathway for nanoparticle transfer from lower to high trophic level organisms. The current study relies on the investigation of toxicity and trophic transfer potential of TiO2 NPs from marine algae Dunaliella salina to marine crustacean Artemia salina.

The thermal suitability of riverine habitats for cold water adapted species may be reduced under climate change. Riparian tree planting is a practical climate change mitigation measure, but it is often unclear where to focus effort for maximum benefit. Recent developments in data collection, monitoring and statistical methods have facilitated the development of increasingly sophisticated river temperature models capable of predicting spatial variability at large scales appropriate to management.

While microfinance companies have been studied and there is a growing consensus that they exclude the poorest, the impact of government microfinance programmes is relatively less understood. The National Rural Livelihoods Mission, which aims to reduce rural poverty by organising women into self-help groups, building capacity and providing access to microcredit is evaluated through a survey of 2,615 households in five districts of Madhya Pradesh. The focus is on four key questions. Who benefits and who gets left out? What is the pattern of household investment priorities?

Limited data exists on emissions from agriculture-driven deforestation, and available data are typically uncertain. In this paper, we provide comparable estimates of emissions from both all deforestation and agriculture-driven deforestation, with uncertainties for 91 countries across the tropics between 1990 and 2015. Uncertainties associated with input datasets (activity data and emissions factors) were used to combine the datasets, where most certain datasets contribute the most. This method utilizes all the input data, while minimizing the uncertainty of the emissions estimate.

Alternative therapeutics for infectious diseases is a top priority, but what infections should be the primary targets? At present there is a focus on therapies for severe infections, for which effective treatment is most needed, but these infections are hard to manage, and progress has been limited. Here, we explore a different approach.

The rainfall pattern in North East (NE) India shows a large variation both spatially and temporally5 . Due to this, severe flood occurs frequently in the region. Therefore, it is important to study the variability of pre-monsoon and summer monsoon showers of the region in the geological past. The quantitative palaeomonsoonal record from NE India is poor.

Original Source

Trees impacted by the forces of natural processes such as flash floods, snow avalanches, landslides, rockfalls or earthquakes, record these events and exhibit growth disturbances in their growth-ring series. As a consequence, these disturbances provide an excellent signal for the spatio-temporal reconstruction of past natural hazard activity and a means to date and document past disasters.

Original Source

As an agro-food industry, sugar industry contributes to about 12% of the world’s sugar production with annual production capacity of 23 million tonnes. The sugar industry is a major water user and wastewater producer. According to Gunjal and Gunjal14, there are around 530 sugar industries in India having crushing capacity of 1.6 million tonnes per day utilizing 3.2 million m 3 of water, generating 0.6 million m 3 of effluent per day.

Original Source