Wageningen University and Research Centre

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.

An ancestral oomycete locus contains late blight avirulence gene Avr3a, encoding a protein that is recognized in the host cytoplasm

Abstract: The oomycete Phytophthora infestans causes late blight, the potato disease that precipitated the Irish famines in 1846 and 1847. It represents a reemerging threat to potato production and is one of >70 species that are arguably the most devastating pathogens of dicotyledonous plants. Nevertheless, little is known about the molecular bases of pathogenicity in these algae-like organisms or of avirulence molecules that are perceived by host defenses. Disease resistance alleles, products of which recognize corresponding avirulence molecules in the pathogen, have been introgressed into the cultivated potato from a wild species, Solanum demissum, and R1 and R3a have been identified. We used association genetics to identify Avr3a and show that it encodes a protein that is recognized in the host cytoplasm, where it triggers R3a-dependent cell death. Avr3a resides in a region of the P. infestans genome that is colinear with the locus containing avirulence gene ATR1NdWsB in Hyaloperonospora parasitica, an oomycete pathogen of Arabidopsis. Remarkably, distances between conserved genes in these avirulence loci were often similar, despite intervening genomic variation. We suggest that Avr3a has undergone gene duplication and that an allele evading recognition by R3a arose under positive selection.

Integrating Agricultural Landscapes with Biodiversity Conservation in the Mesoamerican Hotspot

Abstract: CELIA A. HARVEY,∗‡‡‡ OLIVER KOMAR,† ROBIN CHAZDON,‡ BRUCE G. FERGUSON,§ BRYAN FINEGAN,∗∗ DANIEL M. GRIFFITH,†† MIGUEL MARTINEZ-RAMOS,‡‡ HELDA MORALES,§ RONALD NIGH,§§ LORENA SOTO-PINTO,§ MICHIEL VAN BREUGEL,∗∗∗ AND MARK WISHNIE††† ∗Department of Agriculture and Agroforestry, CATIE, Apdo 7170, Turrialba, Costa Rica †Programa de Ciencias para la Conservacion, SalvaNATURA, Colonia Flor Blanca, 33 Avenida Sur #640, San Salvador, El Salvador ‡Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06268-3043, U.S.A. §Departamento de Agroecoloǵia, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Carretera Panamericana y Periferico Sur s-n, San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico ∗∗Department of Natural Resources and Environment, CATIE, Apdo 7170, Turrialba, Costa Rica ††Biodiversity of BOSAWAS Biosphere Reserve, Saint Louis Zoo, Managua, Nicaragua ‡‡Centro de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas, UNAM, AP 27-3 Santa Maŕia de Guido, CP 58089, Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico §§Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropoloǵia Social, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico ∗∗∗Centre for Ecosystem Studies, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands †††Equator Environmental, LLC, 250 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003, U.S.A.

Energy recovery from controlled mixing salt and fresh water with a reverse electrodialysis system.

Abstract: The global potential to obtain clean energy from mixing river water with seawater is considerable. Reverse electrodialysis is a membrane-based technique for direct production of sustainable electricity from controlled mixing of river water and seawater. It has been investigated generally with a focus on obtained power, without taking care of the energy recovery. Optimizing the technology to power output only, would generally give a low energetic efficiency. In the present work, therefore, we emphasized the aspect of energy recovery. No fundamental obstacle exists to achieve an energy recovery of > 80%. This number was obtained with taking into account no more than the energetic losses for ionic transport. Regarding the feasibility, it was assumed to be a necessary but not sufficient condition that these internal losses are limited. The internal losses could be minimized by reducing the intermembrane distance, especially from the compartments filled with the low-conducting river water. It was found that a reduction from 0.5 to 0.2 mm indeed could be beneficial, although not to the expected extent. From an evaluation of the internal losses, it was supposed that besides the compartment thickness, also the geometry of the spacer affects the internal resistance.

The WULCA consensus characterization model for water scarcity footprints: assessing impacts of water consumption based on available water remaining (AWARE)

Abstract: Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used to assess freshwater-related impacts according to a new water footprint framework formalized in the ISO 14046 standard. To date, no consensus-based approach exists for applying this standard and results are not always comparable when different scarcity or stress indicators are used for characterization of impacts. This paper presents the outcome of a 2-year consensus building process by the Water Use in Life Cycle Assessment (WULCA), a working group of the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, on a water scarcity midpoint method for use in LCA and for water scarcity footprint assessments. In the previous work, the question to be answered was identified and different expert workshops around the world led to three different proposals. After eliminating one proposal showing low relevance for the question to be answered, the remaining two were evaluated against four criteria: stakeholder acceptance, robustness with closed basins, main normative choice, and physical meaning. The recommended method, AWARE, is based on the quantification of the relative available water remaining per area once the demand of humans and aquatic ecosystems has been met, answering the question “What is the potential to deprive another user (human or ecosystem) when consuming water in this area?” The resulting characterization factor (CF) ranges between 0.1 and 100 and can be used to calculate water scarcity footprints as defined in the ISO standard. After 8 years of development on water use impact assessment methods, and 2 years of consensus building, this method represents the state of the art of the current knowledge on how to assess potential impacts from water use in LCA, assessing both human and ecosystem users’ potential deprivation, at the midpoint level, and provides a consensus-based methodology for the calculation of a water scarcity footprint as per ISO 14046.