The Potential of Termite Mound Spreading for Soil Fertility Management under Low Input Subsistence Agriculture

Termites can play a localized prominent role in soil nutrient availability and cycling because mound materials are often enriched in nutrients relative to surrounding soil. Mound materials may thus prove to be useful amendments, though evidently mound spatial arrangement needs to be considered as well. Furthermore, it is not known if gradients of soil properties exist from termite mound to interspace sites. Studying both aspects would be required to decide whether spreading of mounds or spatially differentiated management of surrounding crop to accommodate soil fertility gradients would be valid nutrient-management strategies. Mound abundance and mass were estimated at 9 and 4 mounds ha−1, representing 38.9 and 6.3 t ha−1 on Nitisols and Vertisols, respectively. Soil physical and chemical properties were measured on samples collected from internal and external parts of mounds and adjacent soils at 0.5, 1 and 10 m away from mounds. In general, termite mounds were enriched in plant nutrients and SOC on Vertisols but not on Nitisols. Termite mounds constituted only 0.3 to 1.3% of the 0–15 cm SOM stock on a per ha basis but nevertheless the immediate vicinity of termite mounds was a relative fertile hotspot. Hence, under the studied condition, we suggest spatial arrangement of crop around termite mounds according to soil fertility gradient and spatially differentiated nutrient management strategies. Our result suggests recommendation of termite mound spreading for soil nutrient amendment has to consider plant nutrient stock in termite mounds on per ha basis besides their nutrient enrichment. Interesting topics for future investigation would be growth experiment for different crops with mound materials treatment. It would also be interesting to study the effect mound building termite on soil properties under different soil conditions, slope class and land use.

How Hercules cleans up the Augean stables: differentiated implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive

Realising the goals of the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive is difficult. The differentiation of water policies according to local conditions enjoys increasing attention and may be necessary to achieve good ecological status in all European waters. This paper seeks to explore to what extent and how local water quality determines the degree of coercion, i.e. the extent to which differentiated policies are voluntary or rather imposed upon policy addressees, of spatially differentiated water policies. It does so on the basis of seven cases in five EU Member States. For highly polluted waters, spatially differentiated policies tend either to make the use of authoritative policy instruments, i.e. coercion by way of formal regulation, or to rely on the threat to introduce such regulation. For preventing the deterioration of relatively ‘clean’ waters, voluntary instruments based on information and persuasion dominate, often supported by subsidies and/or the direct input of public resources. In relation to the spatial differentiation of water policies, issues of data demand, equality and legitimacy have to be taken into account.

Retail Trade Restructuring Paths on the Fringes of a Strong Region: the Case of Lower Lombardy, Italy (2001-2019)

The “commercial revolution” driven by the spread of large-scale retail is always spatially differentiated. Even within an economically developed region, such as Lombardy, significant differences can be seen between territories with regard to the structure and evolution of the distribution network. The paper considers the case of Lower Lombardy, a vast rural area which includes 424 municipalities split into 4 provinces (Pavia, Lodi, Cremona and Mantua). An eccentric outlook is adopted compared to trade geography studies, which are usually focused on large urban areas, overlooking what occurs in peripheral contexts. The restructuring of the distribution network between 2001 and 2019 is investigated, highlighting how the municipalities of the southern part of Lombardy witnessed different evolutionary trajectories in relation to their demographic size and their position in the urban network. The image of trade decline, often associated with rural areas, is too simplistic and conceals different processes, which restructure the relationships internal to those areas. The paper also highlights a concerning process of weakening of the proximity commercial supply: are we moving towards the formation of food deserts?

Which City? Grounding Contemporary Urban Theory

It remains common for the city to be treated as an undifferentiated unit in urban theory. This review of literature reveals that extant urban theory has been or can be inflected with a greater sense of intra- and interurban difference registering in implications for planning policy and practice pertaining to different substantive concerns and at different geographical scales. The article argues that we need to continue to pay attention to the spatially differentiated character of the urban if we are to advance urban planning thought and practice under contemporary conditions of extended urbanization.

Population structure, gene flow and relatedness of Natterer’s bats in Northern England

There have been significant declines in population numbers of many bat species in the United Kingdom, including Natterer’s bats Myotis nattereri, over the last century, largely due to anthropogenic changes. The philopatry, which temperate-zone bats often exhibit to their natal landscapes, in combination with anthropogenic threats, can lead to fragmentation, isolation and sub-division of populations. This may result in bottlenecks and declines in genetic diversity. Multi-scaled research is required to disentangle how the variation in the physical traits of bat species (e.g. affecting flight), as well as their social and behavioural traits (e.g. community size, migration, breeding systems), may affect the genetic health of populations and provide a potential buffer against fragmentation. We used microsatellite markers to characterise the genetic diversity and population structure present in Natterer’s bat colonies to determine whether summer roosting bat colonies were spatially differentiated or part of a meta-population. Analyses of population structure and measures of genetic relatedness suggest spatially differentiated populations of bats exhibit long term site fidelity to summer roosting sites, whilst high genetic diversity at sites indicates gene exchange occurs via swarming sites. Natterer’s bats in northern England may travel greater distances to swarming sites than has been previously documented.

Intercellular communication induces glycolytic synchronization waves between individually oscillating cells

Many organs have internal structures with spatially differentiated and sometimes temporally synchronized groups of cells. The mechanisms leading to such differentiation and coordination are not well understood. Here we design a diffusion-limited microfluidic system to mimic a multicellular organ structure with peripheral blood flow and test whether a group of individually oscillating yeast cells could form subpopulations of spatially differentiated and temporally synchronized cells. Upon substrate addition, the dynamic response at single-cell level shows glycolytic oscillations, leading to wave fronts traveling through the monolayered population and to synchronized communities at well-defined positions in the cell chamber. A detailed mechanistic model with the architectural structure of the flow chamber incorporated successfully predicts the spatial-temporal experimental data, and allows for a molecular understanding of the observed phenomena. The intricate interplay of intracellular biochemical reaction networks leading to the oscillations, combined with intercellular communication via metabolic intermediates and fluid dynamics of the reaction chamber, is responsible for the generation of the subpopulations of synchronized cells. This mechanism, as analyzed from the model simulations, is experimentally tested using different concentrations of cyanide stress solutions. The results are reproducible and stable, despite cellular heterogeneity, and the spontaneous community development is reminiscent of a zoned cell differentiation often observed in multicellular organs.

Labyrinths of neoliberalism: A brief review of the history of the term and the diversity of concepts

The paper analyzes one of the most used and most common terms today. Because of that ?familiarity? and general ?comprehensibility?, it often happens that the term neoliberalism as a commonplace argues a lot of things, while its meaning is tacitly implied. Therefore, it is necessary to return to the beginning - to the analysis of the concept through the prism of its historical development, gradually moving towards the definition of its contemporary meaning. It becomes clear how much the concept in question has changed and how much its meaning has taken on different connotations at different stages of its historical development and in the historical transformations of its intellectual and ideological existence already in this endeavor. At the same time, the contextuality of neoliberalism, in addition to being necessarily conditioned by its temporal, is also conditioned by its spatially differentiated varieties. Neoliberalism manifests itself differently in different places, leading to the inequality of its geographical development. Labyrinths are further complicated by the diversity of conceptualizations of neoliberalism as economic policy, as ideology and as governmentality. Understanding neoliberalism in its multiple manifestations, however, also includes a correct understanding of all three of these views.