University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources

Earlier models of integrated pest management (IPM) focused on ecological aspects of pest management.With the recent developments in agricultural technology, modern communication tools, changing consumer trends, increased awareness for sustainably produced food systems, and globalization of trade and travel, there seems to be a need to revisit the IPM paradigm as appropriate for modern times.A new model, built on earlier models based on ecological and economic aspects, is expanded and reconfigured to include management, business, and sustainability aspects and emphasize the importance of research and outreach.The management aspect contains four components of IPM that address the pest management options, the knowledge and resources to develop management strategies, the management of information and making timely decisions, and the dissemination or sharing of information.With the business aspect that includes the producer, consumer, and seller, and the sustainability aspect that covers economic viability, environmental safety, and social acceptability, the new model presents the human, environmental, social, and economic factors that influence the food production.

California is a global leader in the agricultural sector and produces more than 400 types of commodities. The state produces over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts. Despite being highly productive, current and future climate change poses many challenges to the agricultural sector. This paper provides a summary of the current state of knowledge on historical and future trends in climate and their impacts on California agriculture. We present a synthesis of climate change impacts on California agriculture in the context of: (1) historic trends and projected changes in temperature, precipitation, snowpack, heat waves, drought, and flood events; and (2) consequent impacts on crop yields, chill hours, pests and diseases, and agricultural vulnerability to climate risks. Finally, we highlight important findings and directions for future research and implementation. The detailed review presented in this paper provides sufficient evidence that the climate in California has changed significantly and is expected to continue changing in the future, and justifies the urgency and importance of enhancing the adaptive capacity of agriculture and reducing vulnerability to climate change. Since agriculture in California is very diverse and each crop responds to climate differently, climate adaptation research should be locally focused along with effective stakeholder engagement and systematic outreach efforts for effective adoption and implementation. The expected readership of this paper includes local stakeholders, researchers, state and national agencies, and international communities interested in learning about climate change and California’s agriculture.

Agricultural drainage of organic soils has resulted in vast soil subsidence and contributed to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in California was drained over a century ago for agriculture and human settlement and has since experienced subsidence rates that are among the highest in the world. It is recognized that drained agriculture in the Delta is unsustainable in the long-term, and to help reverse subsidence and capture carbon (C) there is an interest in restoring drained agricultural land-use types to flooded conditions. However, flooding may increase methane (CH4) emissions. We conducted a full year of simultaneous eddy covariance measurements at two conventional drained agricultural peatlands (a pasture and a corn field) and three flooded land-use types (a rice paddy and two restored wetlands) to assess the impact of drained to flooded land-use change on CO2 and CH4 fluxes in the Delta. We found that the drained sites were net C and greenhouse gas (GHG) sources, releasing up to 341 g C m(-2) yr(-1) as CO2 and 11.4 g C m(-2) yr(-1) as CH4. Conversely, the restored wetlands were net sinks of atmospheric CO2, sequestering up to 397 g C m(-2) yr(-1). However, they were large sources of CH4, with emissions ranging from 39 to 53 g C m(-2) yr(-1). In terms of the full GHG budget, the restored wetlands could be either GHG sources or sinks. Although the rice paddy was a small atmospheric CO2 sink, when considering harvest and CH4 emissions, it acted as both a C and GHG source. Annual photosynthesis was similar between sites, but flooding at the restored sites inhibited ecosystem respiration, making them net CO2 sinks. This study suggests that converting drained agricultural peat soils to flooded land-use types can help reduce or reverse soil subsidence and reduce GHG emissions.

Suboptimal nutrition has been implicated in the underlying pathology of behavioral health disorders and may impede treatment and recovery. Thus, optimizing nutritional status should be a treatment for these disorders and is likely important for prevention. The purpose of this narrative review is to describe the global burden and features of depression and anxiety, and summarize recent evidence regarding the role of diet and nutrition in the prevention and management of depression and anxiety. Current evidence suggests that healthy eating patterns that meet food-based dietary recommendations and nutrient requirements may assist in the prevention and treatment of depression and anxiety. Randomized controlled trials are needed to better understand how diet and nutrition-related biological mechanisms affect behavioral health disorders, to assist with the development of effective evidence-based nutrition interventions, to reduce the impact of these disorders, and promote well-being for affected individuals.

Accumulating evidence suggests that food insecurity in US colleges and universities is higher than in US households, making this a new public health priority. We conducted a systematic review of food insecurity among US students attending higher education institutions. A total of eight studies met inclusion criteria, representing data from 52,085 students. Unweighted mean food insecurity prevalence among this sample was 43.5% (SD = 12.4), significantly higher than the 13% reported for US national households in 2015. Higher education institutions must critically examine the problem of food insecurity and take creative policy and programmatic steps to mitigate its consequences. Short-term emergency solutions, such as food pantries, may be useful, but upstream solutions to address basic needs are imperative.

ADVERTISEMENT RETURN TO ISSUEPREVArticleNEXTSpontaneous reaction for acid dissolution of biological tissues in closed vesselsRam N. Sah and Robert O. MillerCite this: Anal. Chem. 1992, 64, 2, 230–233Publication Date (Print):January 15, 1992Publication History Published online1 May 2002Published inissue 15 January 1992https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac00026a026https://doi.org/10.1021/ac00026a026research-articleACS PublicationsRequest reuse permissionsArticle Views524Altmetric-Citations185LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InRedditEmail Other access optionsGet e-Alertsclose Get e-Alerts

It has been estimated that one-third of global food is lost or wasted, entailing significant environmental, economic, and social costs. The scale and impact of food loss and waste (FLW) has attracted significant interest across sectors, leading to a relatively recent proliferation of publications. This article synthesizes existing knowledge in the literature with a focus on FLW measurement, drivers, and solutions. We apply the widely adopted DPSIR (Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response) framework to structure the review. Key takeaways include the following: Existing definitions of FLW are inconsistent and incomplete, significant data gaps remain (by food type, stage of supply chain, and region, especially for developing countries), FLW solutions focus more on proximate causes rather than larger systemic drivers, and effective responses to FLW will require complementary approaches and robust evaluation.

(L.) Moench] is a critical food, forage, and emerging bioenergy crop that is notably drought-tolerant. We conducted a large-scale field experiment, imposing preflowering and postflowering drought stress on 2 genotypes of sorghum across a tightly resolved time series, from plant emergence to postanthesis, resulting in a dataset of nearly 400 transcriptomes. We observed a fast and global transcriptomic response in leaf and root tissues with clear temporal patterns, including modulation of well-known drought pathways. We also identified genotypic differences in core photosynthesis and reactive oxygen species scavenging pathways, highlighting possible mechanisms of drought tolerance and of the delayed senescence, characteristic of the stay-green phenotype. Finally, we discovered a large-scale depletion in the expression of genes critical to arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis, with a corresponding drop in AM fungal mass in the plants' roots.

Summary Seeding native plants is a key management practice to counter land degradation across the globe, yet the majority of seeding efforts fail, limiting our ability to accelerate ecosystem recovery. Recruitment requires transitions through several seed and seedling stages, some of which may have overriding influences on restoration outcomes. We lack, however, a general framework to understand and predict differences in these critical demographic processes across species. Functional traits influence fitness, and consequently, trait variation could provide the basis for a framework to explain and predict variation in life stage transition probabilities. We used seed and seedling traits, and field probabilities of germination, emergence, seedling establishment, and survival for 47 varieties of drylands grasses under two watering treatments to identify critical life stage transitions and quantify the effect of traits on cumulative survival through the first growing season. Variation in germination and emergence probabilities explained over 90% of the variation in cumulative survival regardless of seedling survival probabilities or watering treatment, with emergence probability being the strongest predictor of cumulative survival. Coleoptile tissue density and seed mass had significant effects on emergence and germination, respectively, explaining 10–23% of the variation in transition probabilities. Synthesis and applications . While the majority of functional trait work has centred on linking leaf and root traits to resource acquisition and utilization, our study demonstrates that traits associated with germination and emergence may have prevailing influences on restoration outcomes. A portion of these traits have been examined, but there is substantial opportunity to identify other key traits driving these demographic processes. These advancements will underpin our ability to develop trait‐based frameworks for overcoming recruitment barriers and facilitating recovery of degraded systems across the globe.

Remote sensing is important to precision agriculture and the spatial resolution provided by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is revolutionizing precision agriculture workflows for measurement crop condition and yields over the growing season, for identifying and monitoring weeds and other applications. Monitoring of individual trees for growth, fruit production and pest and disease occurrence remains a high research priority and the delineation of each tree using automated means as an alternative to manual delineation would be useful for long-term farm management. In this paper, we detected citrus and other crop trees from UAV images using a simple convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm, followed by a classification refinement using superpixels derived from a Simple Linear Iterative Clustering (SLIC) algorithm. The workflow performed well in a relatively complex agricultural environment (multiple targets, multiple size trees and ages, etc.) achieving high accuracy (overall accuracy = 96.24%, Precision (positive predictive value) = 94.59%, Recall (sensitivity) = 97.94%). To our knowledge, this is the first time a CNN has been used with UAV multi-spectral imagery to focus on citrus trees. More of these individual cases are needed to develop standard automated workflows to help agricultural managers better incorporate large volumes of high resolution UAV imagery into agricultural management operations.

We present a methodology for conducting a site‐specific probabilistic analysis of fault displacement hazard. Two approaches are outlined. The first relates the occurrence of fault displacement at or near the ground surface to the occurrence of earthquakes in the same manner as is done in a standard probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) for ground shaking. The methodology for this approach is taken directly from PSHA methodology with the ground‐motion attenuation function replaced by a fault displacement attenuation function. In the second approach, the rate of displacement events and the distribution for fault displacement are derived directly from the characteristics of the faults or geologic features at the site of interest. The methodology for probabilistic fault displacement hazard analysis (PFDHA) was developed for a normal faulting environment and the probability distributions we present may have general application in similar tectonic regions. In addition, the general methodology is applicable to any region and we indicate the type of data needed to apply the methodology elsewhere.

It has been suggested that the ecological impact of crickets as a source of dietary protein is less than conventional forms of livestock due to their comparatively efficient feed conversion and ability to consume organic side-streams. This study measured the biomass output and feed conversion ratios of house crickets (Acheta domesticus) reared on diets that varied in quality, ranging from grain-based to highly cellulosic diets. The measurements were made at a much greater population scale and density than any previously reported in the scientific literature. The biomass accumulation was strongly influenced by the quality of the diet (p<0.001), with the nitrogen (N) content, the ratio of N to acid detergent fiber (ADF) content, and the crude fat (CF) content (y=N/ADF+CF) explaining most of the variability between feed treatments (p = 0.02; R2 = 0.96). In addition, for populations of crickets that were able to survive to a harvestable size, the feed conversion ratios measured were higher (less efficient) than those reported from studies conducted at smaller scales and lower population densities. Compared to the industrial-scale production of chickens, crickets fed a poultry feed diet showed little improvement in protein conversion efficiency, a key metric in determining the ecological footprint of grain-based livestock protein. Crickets fed the solid filtrate from food waste processed at an industrial scale via enzymatic digestion were able to reach a harvestable size and achieve feed and protein efficiencies similar to that of chickens. However, crickets fed minimally-processed, municipal-scale food waste and diets composed largely of straw experienced >99% mortality without reaching a harvestable size. Therefore, the potential for A. domesticus to sustainably supplement the global protein supply, beyond what is currently produced via grain-fed chickens, will depend on capturing regionally scalable organic side-streams of relatively high-quality that are not currently being used for livestock production.

BACKGROUND: Plant response mechanisms to heat and drought stresses have been considered in strategies for generating stress tolerant genotypes, but with limited success. Here, we analyzed the transcriptome and improved tolerance to heat stress and drought of maize plants over-expressing the OsMYB55 gene. RESULTS: Over-expression of OsMYB55 in maize decreased the negative effects of high temperature and drought resulting in improved plant growth and performance under these conditions. This was evidenced by the higher plant biomass and reduced leaf damage exhibited by the transgenic lines compared to wild type when plants were subjected to individual or combined stresses and during or after recovery from stress. A global transcriptomic analysis using RNA sequencing revealed that several genes induced by heat stress in wild type plants are constitutively up-regulated in OsMYB55 transgenic maize. In addition, a significant number of genes up-regulated in OsMYB55 transgenic maize under control or heat treatments have been associated with responses to abiotic stresses including high temperature, dehydration and oxidative stress. The latter is a common and major consequence of imposed heat and drought conditions, suggesting that this altered gene expression may be associated with the improved stress tolerance in these transgenic lines. Functional annotation and enrichment analysis of the transcriptome also pinpoint the relevance of specific biological processes for stress responses. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that expression of OsMYB55 can improve tolerance to heat stress and drought in maize plants. Enhanced expression of stress-associated genes may be involved in OsMYB55-mediated stress tolerance. Possible implications for the improved tolerance to heat stress and drought of OsMYB55 transgenic maize are discussed.

Summary Drylands support over 2 billion people and are major providers of critical ecosystem goods and services across the globe. Drylands, however, are one of the most susceptible biomes to degradation. International programmes widely recognize dryland restoration as key to combating global dryland degradation and ensuring future global sustainability. While the need to restore drylands is widely recognized and large amounts of resources are allocated to these activities, rates of restoration success remain overwhelmingly low. Advances in understanding the ecology of dryland systems have not yielded proportional advances in our ability to restore these systems. To accelerate progress in dryland restoration, we argue for moving the field of restoration ecology beyond conceptual frameworks of ecosystem dynamics and towards quantitative, predictive systems models that capture the probabilistic nature of ecosystem response to management. To do this, we first provide an overview of conceptual dryland restoration frameworks. We then describe how quantitative systems framework can advance and improve conceptual restoration frameworks, resulting in a greater ability to forecast restoration outcomes and evaluate economic efficiency and decision‐making. Lastly, using a case study from the western United States, we show how a systems approach can be integrated with and used to advance current conceptual frameworks of dryland restoration. Synthesis and applications . Systems models for restoration do not replace conceptual models but complement and extend these modelling approaches by enhancing our ability to solve restoration problems and forecast outcomes under changing conditions. Such forecasting of future outcomes is necessary to monetize restoration benefits and cost and to maximize economic benefit of limited restoration dollars.

Accurate and repeated forest inventory data are critical to understand forest ecosystem processes and manage forest resources. In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-borne light detection and ranging (lidar) systems have demonstrated effectiveness at deriving forest inventory attributes. However, their high cost has largely prevented them from being used in large-scale forest applications. Here, we developed a very low-cost UAV lidar system that integrates a recently emerged DJI Livox MID40 laser scanner (~$600 USD) and evaluated its capability in estimating both individual tree-level (i.e., tree height) and plot-level forest inventory attributes (i.e., canopy cover, gap fraction, and leaf area index (LAI)). Moreover, a comprehensive comparison was conducted between the developed DJI Livox system and four other UAV lidar systems equipped with high-end laser scanners (i.e., RIEGL VUX-1 UAV, RIEGL miniVUX-1 UAV, HESAI Pandar40, and Velodyne Puck LITE). Using these instruments, we surveyed a coniferous forest site and a broadleaved forest site, with tree densities ranging from 500 trees/ha to 3000 trees/ha, with 52 UAV flights at different flying height and speed combinations. The developed DJI Livox MID40 system effectively captured the upper canopy structure and terrain surface information at both forest sites. The estimated individual tree height was highly correlated with field measurements (coniferous site: R2 = 0.96, root mean squared error/RMSE = 0.59 m; broadleaved site: R2 = 0.70, RMSE = 1.63 m). The plot-level estimates of canopy cover, gap fraction, and LAI corresponded well with those derived from the high-end RIEGL VUX-1 UAV system but tended to have systematic biases in areas with medium to high canopy densities. Overall, the DJI Livox MID40 system performed comparably to the RIEGL miniVUX-1 UAV, HESAI Pandar40, and Velodyne Puck LITE systems in the coniferous site and to the Velodyne Puck LITE system in the broadleaved forest. Despite its apparent weaknesses of limited sensitivity to low-intensity returns and narrow field of view, we believe that the very low-cost system developed by this study can largely broaden the potential use of UAV lidar in forest inventory applications. This study also provides guidance for the selection of the appropriate UAV lidar system and flight specifications for forest research and management.

Abstract 1. The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile , tends honeydew‐excreting homopterans and can disrupt the activity of their natural enemies. This mutualism is often cited for increases in homopteran densities; however, the ant’s impact on natural enemies may be only one of several effects of ant tending that alters insect densities. To test for the variable impacts of ants, mealybug and natural enemy densities were monitored on ant‐tended and ant‐excluded vines in two California vineyard regions. 2. Ant tending increased densities of the obscure mealybug, Pseudococcus viburni , and lowered densities of its encyrtid parasitoids Pseudaphycus flavidulus and Leptomastix epona . Differences in parasitoid recovery rates suggest that P. flavidulus was better able to forage on ant‐tended vines than L. epona . 3. Densities of a coccinellid predator, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri , were higher on ant‐tended vines, where there were more mealybugs. Together with behavioural observations, the results showed that this predator can forage in patches of ant‐tended mealybugs, and that it effectively mimics mealybugs to avoid disturbance by ants. 4. Ant tending increased densities of the grape mealybug, Pseudococcus maritimus , by increasing the number of surviving first‐instar mealybugs. Parasitoids were nearly absent from the vineyard infested with P. maritimus . Therefore, ants improved either mealybug habitat or fitness. 5. There was no difference in mealybug distribution or seasonal development patterns on ant‐tended and ant‐excluded vines, indicating that ants did not move mealybugs to better feeding locations or create a spatial refuge from natural enemies. 6. Results showed that while Argentine ants were clearly associated with increased mealybug densities, it is not a simple matter of disrupting natural enemies. Instead, ant tending includes benefits independent of the effect on natural enemies. Moreover, the effects on different natural enemy species varied, as some species thrive in the presence of ants.

Food insecurity among college students has become a public health concern, yet few studies have examined the sample prevalence in a statewide public university system. We determined the sample prevalence of food insecurity and associated factors among students in a large California university system. In Spring 2015, a sample of graduate and undergraduate students (n = 8705) at 10 University of California campuses completed an online survey of demographic information and a range of student life–related factors, including food access and food security. The majority of participants were undergraduates age 18–24 years; 67% were female. Forty percent experienced food insecurity (42% when weighted). Age, race and ethnicity, childhood food insecurity, and receiving financial aid were risk factors for food insecurity. Food insecure students were more likely than food secure students to face difficulties including insufficient money to purchase food, eating unhealthy food, experiencing food access barriers, difficulty concentrating, and lower academic performance. Food insecurity was high among college students in a California public university system and was associated with factors that may be used to identify students at risk for food insecurity who may benefit from additional information and resources. These findings also provide empirical support to strengthen support systems.

OBJECTIVE: To characterize and contrast data from Thoroughbreds that incurred a fatal musculoskeletal injury (FMI; injury resulting in death or euthanasia) during racing or training and data from all California race entrants during a 9-month period in 1991. DESIGN: Case-control study. ANIMALS: Thoroughbreds that incurred a FMI during racing or training at a California race-meet and all California race entrants from January through June and October through December 1991. PROCEDURE: Age and sex were compared with chi 2 and Fisher's exact tests among horses fatally injured while racing and training. A log-linear model was fit to assess the relationship between race-meet and age and sex of California race entrants. Incidence risk of racing FMI was estimated per 1,000 race entrants, and the relationship between the occurrence of FMI during racing with race-meet, age, and sex was evaluated by logistic regression. RESULTS: Injury type and sex-specific age distributions differed among the horses fatally injured during racing and training. Age and sex distributions of the race entrants were not independent and varied among race-meets. Overall incidence risk of racing FMI was estimated at 1.7/1,000 race entrants. Risk of racing FMI in male horses was about twofold that in female horses, and in 4-year-olds was twofold that in 3-year-olds. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Age and sex-related differences in risk of incurring a FMI during racing should be considered when comparing fatal injury rates among race-meets.

Algal blooms have become major public health and ecosystem vitality concerns globally. The prevalence of blooms has increased due to warming water and additional nutrient inputs into aquatic systems. In response, various remotely-sensed methods of detection, analysis, and forecasting have been developed. Satellite imaging has proven successful in the identification of various inland and coastal blooms at large spatial and temporal scales, and airborne platforms offer higher spatial and often spectral resolution at targeted temporal frequencies. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently emerged as another tool for algal bloom detection, providing users with on-demand high spatial and temporal resolution at lower costs. However, due to the challenges of processing images of water, payload costs and limitations, and a lack of standardized methods, UAV-based algal bloom studies have not gained critical traction. This literature review explores the current state of this field, and highlights opportunities that could promote its growth. By understanding the technical parameters required to identify algal blooms with airborne platforms, and comparing these capabilities to current UAV technology, such knowledge will assist managers, researchers, and public health officials in utilizing UAVs to monitor and predict blooms at greater spatial and temporal precision, reducing exposure to potentially toxic events.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: In October 2009, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) food package was revised to include more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lower-fat milk. We examined the impact of the WIC food package revisions on the diet quality of children in households using WIC. METHODS: A total of 1197 children aged 2 to 4 years from low-income households were studied from before and after the policy implementation (using the 2003-2008 and 2011-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey). The Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010) was calculated using two 24-hour diet recalls. Linear regression was used to examine the difference in HEI-2010 score attributable to the food package change, adjusting for baseline and secular trends among WIC participants and nonparticipants, as well as child and household characteristics. Component scores of the HEI-2010 index were analyzed with generalized linear models. RESULTS: Average HEI-2010 scores for participants and nonparticipants were 52.4 and 50.0 at baseline, and 58.3 and 52.4 after the policy change, respectively. The WIC food package revisions were associated with an adjusted average of 3.7 additional HEI-2010 points (95% confidence interval, 0.6-6.9) for WIC participants compared with nonparticipants. In particular, the revisions were associated with a 3.4-fold relative increase (95% confidence interval, 1.3-9.4) in the Greens and Beans component score for WIC participants compared with nonparticipants. CONCLUSIONS: Results from this national sample indicate that the WIC food package revisions were associated with higher diet quality for children participating in WIC.