Understanding the drivers and consequences of diversity and productivity in plant communities remains a central challenge in ecological research (Thompson et al. 2001, Mittelbach 2012). Interest in how the diversity and composition of plant communities regulate ecological processes and ecosystem services that different ecosystems provide has expanded over the past two decades (Loreau et al. 200...

Understanding of the timing, orientation and transmission mode of crop disease spread is very important in prevention and treatment of crop diseases, especially for crossborder crop diseases. In this paper, we introduced the complex network approach to model trans-boundary spread of diseases. In the model, the process of crop disease spread is characterized as a network, where patches of crop p...

Indiahas the largest area under onion (Allium cepa) crop but its average productivity (14.21 t ha-1) is considerably lower than the world’s average of 19.4 t ha-1. Besides low productivity, irrigation efficiencies are also very low i.e. 30-35% in India. Managing onion crop with less than adequate irrigation water availability is a challenge in several parts of the country. Options of i) deficit...

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector comprises establishments primarily engaged in growing crops, raising animals, harvesting timber, and harvesting fish and other animals on a farm, ranch, or from their natural habitats (Executive Office of the President, 2002). About 2.1 million workers were employed in agriculture, forestry, and fishing in the United States in 2004, making it one of ...

The increase in agricultural production over the past 40 y has greatly altered land-use patterns, often resulting in simplified landscapes composed of large swaths of monocultures separated by small fragments of natural lands. These simplified landscapes may be more susceptible to insect pest pressure because of the loss of natural enemies and the increased size and connectivity of crop resourc...

Wheat is one of the major cereal crops with annual global production over 600 MT from about 200 M hectares (FAO 2012). The cultivation of wheat started about 10,000 years ago as part of the Neolithic revolution which state a transition from hunting and gathering of food to settle agriculture. Earlier cultivated forms of wheat were diploid (einkorn) and tetraploid (emmer) with known initial orig...

OBJECTIVE To describe the behavior of mortality in Mexico through four indicators from 1990 to 2012. MATERIAL AND METHODS The official mortality and population records of Mexico were used. RESULTS An advance was achieved for children under five years of age, with a decrease in mortality, although there was an increase in the years of potential life lost (YPLL) from 2008 for this age group. ...