Are livestock a troublesome commodity?     

Benjamin Gardner 《Geoforum》2009,40(5):781-783

Rather than making a uniform case for understanding the neoliberalization of ranching and pastoralism, the articles in this volume show how everyday practices are made through historically and geographically specific struggles over the characteristics of production, exchange and rule, in which livestock play a particularly important role. Collectively, I believe the articles in this volume highlight the significant relationship between cattle and capitalism, and make a compelling argument that to understand the material implications of neoliberalism we need to pay more attention to livestock as an important and rapidly changing medium of livelihood production and accumulation strategy around the world.  相似文献   

Carbon isotope fractionation in phospholipid fatty acid biomarkers of bacteria and fungi native to an acid mine drainage lake   总被引：3，自引：0，他引：3  

Benjamin R. Cowie  Gregory F. Slater  Luc Bernier  Lesley A. Warren   《Organic Geochemistry》2009,40(9):956-962

This study identifies isotope signatures associated with autotrophic and heterotrophic microbial communities that may provide a means to determine carbon cycling relationships in situ for acid mine drainage (AMD) sites. Stable carbon isotope ratios (δ¹³C) of carbon sources, bulk cells, and membrane phospholipids (PLFA) were measured for autotrophic and heterotrophic microbial enrichment cultures from a mine tailings impoundment in northern Ontario, Canada, and for pure strains of the sulfur oxidizing bacteria Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans and Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans. The autotrophic enrichments had indistinguishable PLFA distributions from the pure cultures, and the PLFA cyc-C_19:0 was determined to be a unique biomarker in this system for these sulfur oxidizing bacteria. The PLFA distributions produced by the heterotrophic enrichments were distinct from the autotrophic distributions and the C_18:2 PLFA was identified as a biomarker for these heterotrophic enrichments. Genetic analysis (16S, 18S rRNA) of the heterotrophic cultures indicated that these communities were primarily composed of Acremonium fungi.Stable carbon isotope analysis revealed that bulk cellular material in all autotrophic cultures was depleted in δ¹³C by 5.6–10.9‰ relative to their atmospheric CO₂ derived carbon source, suggesting that inorganic carbon fixation in these cultures is carbon limited. Individual PLFA from these autotrophs were further depleted by 8.2–14.6‰ compared to the bulk cell δ¹³C, which are among the largest biosynthetic isotope fractionation factors between bulk cell and PLFA reported in the literature. In contrast, the heterotrophic bulk cells were not significantly fractionated in δ¹³C relative to their carbon source and heterotrophic PLFA ranged from 3‰ enriched to 4‰ depleted relative to the isotopic composition of their total biomass. These distinct PLFA biomarkers and isotopic fractionations associated with autotrophic and heterotrophic activity in this laboratory study provide potential biomarkers for delineating autotrophic and heterotrophic carbon cycling in AMD environments.  相似文献   

Trapped Ar isotopes in meteorite ALH 84001 indicate Mars did not have a thick ancient atmosphere     

William S. Cassata  David L. Shuster  Paul R. Renne  Benjamin P. Weiss 《Icarus》2012,221(1):461-465

Water is not currently stable in liquid form on the martian surface due to the present mean atmospheric pressure of ～7 mbar and mean global temperature of ～220 K. However, geomorphic features and hydrated mineral assemblages suggest that Mars’ climate was once warmer and liquid water flowed on the surface. These observations may indicate a substantially more massive atmosphere in the past, but there have been few observational constraints on paleoatmospheric pressures. Here we show how the ⁴⁰Ar/³⁶Ar ratios of trapped gases within martian meteorite ALH 84001 constrain paleoatmospheric pressure on Mars during the Noachian era [～4.56–3.8 billion years (Ga)]. Our model indicates that atmospheric pressures did not exceed ～1.5 bar during the first 400 million years (Ma) of the Noachian era, and were <400 mbar by 4.16 Ga. Such pressures of CO₂ are only sufficient to stabilize liquid water on Mars’ surface at low latitudes during seasonally warm periods. Other greenhouse gases like SO₂ and water vapor may have played an important role in intermittently stabilizing liquid water at higher latitudes following major volcanic eruptions or impact events.  相似文献   

Radio-continuum study of the Nearby sculptor group galaxies. Part 1: NGC 300 at λ=20 cm     

Timothy J. Galvin  Miroslav D. Filipović  Evan J. Crawford  Graeme Wong  Jeff L. Payne  Ain De Horta  Graeme L. White  Nick Tothill  Danica Drašković  Thomas G. Pannuti  Caleb K. Grimes  Benjamin J. Cahall  William C. Millar  Seppo Laine 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2012,340(1):133-142

A series of new radio-continuum (λ=20 cm) mosaic images focused on the NGC?300 galactic system were produced using archived observational data from the VLA and/or ATCA. These new images are both very sensitive (rms?=60 μJy) and feature high angular resolution (<10?″). The most prominent new feature is the galaxy’s extended radio-continuum emission, which does not match its optical appearance. Using these newly created images a number of previously unidentified discrete sources have been discovered. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a joint deconvolution approach to imaging this complete data-set is inferior when compared to an immerge approach.  相似文献   

Relating millimeter-scale turbulence to meter-scale subtidal erosion and accretion across the fringe of a coastal mangrove forest     

Benjamin K. Norris  Julia C. Mullarney  Karin R. Bryan  Stephen M. Henderson 《地球表面变化过程与地形》2021,46(3):573-592

Within a wave-exposed mangrove forest, novel field observations are presented, comparing millimeter-scale turbulent water velocity fluctuations with contemporaneous subtidal bed elevation changes. High-resolution velocity and bed level measurements were collected from the unvegetated mudflat, at the mangrove forest fringe, and within the forest interior over multiple tidal cycles (flood–ebb) during a 2-week period. Measurements demonstrated that the spatial variability in vegetation density is a control on sediment transport at sub-meter scales. Scour around single and dense clusters of pneumatophores was predicted by a standard hydraulic engineering equation for wave-induced scour around regular cylinders, when the cylinder diameter in the equations was replaced with the representative diameter of the dense pneumatophore clusters. Waves were dissipated as they propagated into the forest, but dissipation at infragravity periods (> 30 s) was observed to be less than dissipation at shorter periods (< 30 s), consistent with the predictions of a simple model. Cross-wavelet analysis revealed that infragravity-frequency fluctuations in the bed level were occasionally coherent with velocity, possibly indicating scour upstream of dense pneumatophore patches when infragravity waves reinforced tidal currents. Consequently, infragravity waves were a likely driver of sediment transport within the mangrove forest. Near-bed turbulent kinetic energy, estimated from the turbulent dissipation rate, was also correlated with bed level changes. Specifically, within the mangrove forest and over the unvegetated mudflat, high-energy events were associated with erosion or near-zero bed level change, whereas low-energy events were associated with accretion. In contrast, no single relationship between bed level changes and mean current velocity was applicable across both vegetated and unvegetated regions. These observations support the theory that sediment mobilization scales with turbulent energy, rather than mean velocity, a distinction that becomes important when vegetation controls the development of turbulence.  相似文献   

Is the soil moisture precipitation feedback enhanced by heterogeneity and dry soils? A comparative study     

Maximilian Graf  Joël Arnault  Benjamin Fersch  Harald Kunstmann 《水文研究》2021,35(9):e14332

The interaction between the land surface and the atmosphere is a crucial driver of atmospheric processes. Soil moisture and precipitation are key components in this feedback. Both variables are intertwined in a cycle, that is, the soil moisture – precipitation feedback for which involved processes and interactions are still discussed. In this study the soil moisture – precipitation feedback is compared for the sempiternal humid Ammer catchment in Southern Germany and for the semiarid to subhumid Sissili catchment in West Africa during the warm season, using precipitation datasets from the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS), from the German Weather Service (REGNIE) and simulation datasets from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and the hydrologically enhanced WRF-Hydro model. WRF and WRF-Hydro differ by their representation of terrestrial water flow. With this setup we want to investigate the strength, sign and variables involved in the soil moisture – precipitation feedback for these two regions. The normalized model spread between the two simulation results shows linkages between precipitation variability and diagnostic variables surface fluxes, moisture flux convergence above the surface and convective available potential energy in both study regions. The soil moisture – precipitation feedback is evaluated with a classification of soil moisture spatial heterogeneity based on the strength of the soil moisture gradients. This allows us to assess the impact of soil moisture anomalies on surface fluxes, moisture flux convergence, convective available potential energy and precipitation. In both regions the amount of precipitation generally increases with soil moisture spatial heterogeneity. For the Ammer region the soil moisture – precipitation feedback has a weak negative sign with more rain near drier patches while it has a positive signal for the Sissili region with more rain over wetter patches. At least for the observed moderate soil moisture values and the spatial scale of the Ammer region, the spatial variability of soil moisture is more important for surface-atmosphere interactions than the actual soil moisture content. Overall, we found that soil moisture heterogeneity can greatly affect the soil moisture – precipitation feedback.  相似文献   

Role of reservoir regulation and groundwater feedback in a simulated ground-soil-vegetation continuum: A long-term regional scale analysis     

Jianhui Wei  Ningpeng Dong  Benjamin Fersch  Joël Arnault  Sven Wagner  Patrick Laux  Zhenyu Zhang  Qianya Yang  Chuanguo Yang  Shasha Shang  Lu Gao  Zhongbo Yu  Harald Kunstmann 《水文研究》2021,35(8):e14341

The regional terrestrial water cycle is strongly altered by human activities. Among them, reservoir regulation is a way to spatially and temporally allocate water resources in a basin for multi-purposes. However, it is still not sufficiently understood how reservoir regulation modifies the regional terrestrial- and subsequently, the atmospheric water cycle. To address this question, the representation of reservoir regulation into the terrestrial component of fully coupled regional Earth system models is required. In this study, an existing process-based reservoir network module is implemented into NOAH-HMS, that is, the terrestrial component of an atmospheric–hydrologic modelling system, namely, the WRF-HMS. It allows to quantitatively differentiate role of reservoir regulation and of groundwater feedback in a simulated ground-soil-vegetation continuum. Our study focuses on the Poyang Lake basin, where the largest freshwater lake of China and reservoirs of different sizes are located. As compared to streamflow observations, the newly extended NOAH-HMS slightly improves the streamflow and streamflow duration curves simulation for the Poyang Lake basin for the period 1979–1986. The inclusion of reservoir regulation leads to major changes in the simulated groundwater recharges and evaporation from reservoirs at local scale, but has minor effects on the simulated soil moisture and surface runoff at basin scale. The performed groundwater feedback sensitivity analysis shows that the strength of the groundwater feedback is not altered by the consideration of reservoir regulation. Furthermore, both reservoir regulation and groundwater feedback modify the partitioning of the simulated evapotranspiration, thus affecting the atmospheric water cycle in the Poyang Lake region. This finding motivates future research with our extended fully coupled atmospheric–hydrologic modelling system by the community.  相似文献   

Dependence of the Characteristics of Solar Wind Discontinuities and Shocks with Heliolatitude and Radial Distance     

A. Dickson Benjamin  S. R. Prabhakaran Nayar 《Solar physics》2008,252(1):195-207

The distribution of the shocks in the heliosphere and their characteristic variations are investigated using Ulysses observations. The jumps in solar wind velocity, IMF magnitude, and proton density across the shocks and discontinuities are evaluated and used to characterize them. The distribution of these discontinuities with respect to heliolatitude ± 80° and with radial distance 1 to 5 AU are analyzed during solar minimum and solar maximum to understand their global behavior. It is noticed that the jumps in solar wind parameters associated with shocks and discontinuities are more prominent during the second orbit of Ulysses, which coincided with the maximum phase of solar activity.  相似文献   

Generation and performance of automated jarosite mineral detectors for visible/near-infrared spectrometers at Mars   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Martha S. Gilmore  Benjamin Bornstein  Rebecca Castaño 《Icarus》2008,195(1):169-183

We have developed two automated detectors that can recognize the sulfate mineral jarosite in unknown visible to near-infrared spectra (350-2500 nm). The two detectors are optimized for use within the terrestrial and martian atmospheres. The detectors are built from Support Vector Machines trained using a generative model to create linear mixtures of library mineral spectra. Both detectors performed with an average ∼90% accuracy on laboratory spectra of single minerals and the laboratory and field spectra of rocks collected in a hydrothermal environment. This type of algorithm will contribute to the efficiency of onboard data analysis of landed and orbital visible/near-infrared spectrometers at Mars.  相似文献   

Development and Evaluation of Geostatistical Methods for Non-Euclidean-Based Spatial Covariance Matrices     

Davis  Benjamin J. K.  Curriero  Frank C. 《Mathematical Geosciences》2019,51(6):767-791

Mathematical Geosciences - Customary and routine practice of geostatistical modeling assumes that inter-point distances are a Euclidean metric (i.e., as the crow flies) when characterizing spatial...  相似文献