Institution
Wageningen University and Research Centre
Education•Wageningen, Netherlands•
About: Wageningen University and Research Centre is a education organization based out in Wageningen, Netherlands. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Sustainability. The organization has 23474 authors who have published 54833 publications receiving 2608897 citations.
Topics: Population, Sustainability, Agriculture, Climate change, Gene
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
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TL;DR: It is suggested that global AMR gene diversity and abundance vary by region, and that improving sanitation and health could potentially limit the global burden of AMR.
Abstract: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious threat to global public health, but obtaining representative data on AMR for healthy human populations is difficult. Here, we use metagenomic analysis of untreated sewage to characterize the bacterial resistome from 79 sites in 60 countries. We find systematic differences in abundance and diversity of AMR genes between Europe/North-America/Oceania and Africa/Asia/South-America. Antimicrobial use data and bacterial taxonomy only explains a minor part of the AMR variation that we observe. We find no evidence for cross-selection between antimicrobial classes, or for effect of air travel between sites. However, AMR gene abundance strongly correlates with socio-economic, health and environmental factors, which we use to predict AMR gene abundances in all countries in the world. Our findings suggest that global AMR gene diversity and abundance vary by region, and that improving sanitation and health could potentially limit the global burden of AMR. We propose metagenomic analysis of sewage as an ethically acceptable and economically feasible approach for continuous global surveillance and prediction of AMR.
540 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a range of future, spatially explicit, land use change scenarios for the EU15, Norway and Switzerland based on an interpretation of the global storylines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that are presented in the special report on emissions scenarios (SRES).
540 citations
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TL;DR: The presence of mixtures of pesticide residues in soils are the rule rather than the exception, indicating that environmental risk assessment procedures should be adapted accordingly to minimize related risks to soil life and beyond.
540 citations
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Purdue University1, Wageningen University and Research Centre2, Murdoch University3, Joint Genome Institute4, Rothamsted Research5, University of Bristol6, University of Arkansas7, Syngenta8, Cornell University9, Centre national de la recherche scientifique10, Agricultural Research Service11, Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária12, Bayer13, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne14, Curtin University15
TL;DR: The genome of M. graminicola was sequenced completely and found that it contained very few genes for enzymes that break down plant cell walls, which was more similar to endophytes than to pathogens, which may have evolved from endophytic ancestors.
Abstract: The plant-pathogenic fungus Mycosphaerella graminicola (asexual stage: Septoria tritici) causes septoria tritici blotch, a disease that greatly reduces the yield and quality of wheat. This disease is economically important in most wheat-growing areas worldwide and threatens global food production. Control of the disease has been hampered by a limited understanding of the genetic and biochemical bases of pathogenicity, including mechanisms of infection and of resistance in the host. Unlike most other plant pathogens, M. graminicola has a long latent period during which it evades host defenses. Although this type of stealth pathogenicity occurs commonly in Mycosphaerella and other Dothideomycetes, the largest class of plant-pathogenic fungi, its genetic basis is not known. To address this problem, the genome of M. graminicola was sequenced completely. The finished genome contains 21 chromosomes, eight of which could be lost with no visible effect on the fungus and thus are dispensable. This eight-chromosome dispensome is dynamic in field and progeny isolates, is different from the core genome in gene and repeat content, and appears to have originated by ancient horizontal transfer from an unknown donor. Synteny plots of the M. graminicola chromosomes versus those of the only other sequenced Dothideomycete, Stagonospora nodorum, revealed conservation of gene content but not order or orientation, suggesting a high rate of intra-chromosomal rearrangement in one or both species. This observed “mesosynteny” is very different from synteny seen between other organisms. A surprising feature of the M. graminicola genome compared to other sequenced plant pathogens was that it contained very few genes for enzymes that break down plant cell walls, which was more similar to endophytes than to pathogens. The stealth pathogenesis of M. graminicola probably involves degradation of proteins rather than carbohydrates to evade host defenses during the biotrophic stage of infection and may have evolved from endophytic ancestors.
540 citations
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TL;DR: It is demonstrated theoretically and empirically that host-specific soil microbes can be major determinants of the diversity-productivity relationship in grasslands using an analytical model and a series of experiments.
Abstract: Ecosystem productivity commonly increases asymptotically with plant species diversity, and determining the mechanisms responsible for this well-known pattern is essential to predict potential changes in ecosystem productivity with ongoing species loss. Previous studies attributed the asymptotic diversity-productivity pattern to plant competition and differential resource use (e.g., niche complementarity). Using an analytical model and a series of experiments, we demonstrate theoretically and empirically that host-specific soil microbes can be major determinants of the diversity-productivity relationship in grasslands. In the presence of soil microbes, plant disease decreased with increasing diversity, and productivity increased nearly 500%, primarily because of the strong effect of density-dependent disease on productivity at low diversity. Correspondingly, disease was higher in plants grown in conspecific-trained soils than heterospecific-trained soils (demonstrating host-specificity), and productivity increased and host-specific disease decreased with increasing community diversity, suggesting that disease was the primary cause of reduced productivity in species- poor treatments. In sterilized, microbe-free soils, the increase in productivity with increasing plant species number was markedly lower than the increase measured in the presence of soil microbes, suggesting that niche complementarity was a weaker determinant of the diversity- productivity relationship. Our results demonstrate that soil microbes play an integral role as determinants of the diversity-productivity relationship.
540 citations
Authors
Showing all 23851 results
Name | H-index | Papers | Citations |
---|---|---|---|
Walter C. Willett | 334 | 2399 | 413322 |
Albert Hofman | 267 | 2530 | 321405 |
Frank B. Hu | 250 | 1675 | 253464 |
Willem M. de Vos | 148 | 670 | 88146 |
Willy Verstraete | 139 | 920 | 76659 |
Jonathan D. G. Jones | 129 | 417 | 80908 |
Bert Brunekreef | 124 | 806 | 81938 |
Pedro W. Crous | 115 | 809 | 51925 |
Marten Scheffer | 111 | 350 | 73789 |
Wim E. Hennink | 110 | 600 | 49940 |
Daan Kromhout | 108 | 453 | 55551 |
Peter H. Verburg | 107 | 464 | 34254 |
Marcel Dicke | 107 | 613 | 42959 |
Vincent W. V. Jaddoe | 106 | 1008 | 44269 |
Hao Wu | 105 | 669 | 42607 |