ECOLOGY: Crops for a Salinized World

Ecology of hantavirus in a changing world.

Hantavirus is a genus of virus represented by 45 different species and is hosted by small mammals, predominantly rats and mice. Roughly, half of all hantaviruses cause diseases in humans that vary in morbidity from mild to severe. The natural and anthropogenic changes occurring in the environment appear to be impacting the ecology of hantaviruses and their natural hosts as well as the incidence...

The Science of Ecology for a Sustainable World

Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops.

The extent of our reliance on animal pollination for world crop production for human food has not previously been evaluated and the previous estimates for countries or continents have seldom used primary data. In this review, we expand the previous estimates using novel primary data from 200 countries and found that fruit, vegetable or seed production from 87 of the leading global food crops is...

Transgenic Crops to Address Third World Hunger? A Critical Analysis

Industry and mainstream research and policy institutions often suggest that transgenic crop varieties can raise the productivity of poor third world farmers, feed the hungry, and reduce poverty. These claims are critically evaluated by examining global-hunger data, the constraints that affect the productivity of small farmers in the third world, and the factors that explain their poverty. No si...

A World without Hunger: Organic or GM Crops?

It has been estimated that the world population will increase to 9.2 billion by 2050; supplying the growing population with food will require a significant increase in agricultural production. A number of agricultural and ecological scientists believe that a large-scale shift to organic farming (OF) would not only increase the world’s food supply, but might be the only way to eradicate hunger s...