considering the importance of agriculture sector for production, employment and establishing food security, different countries include developed and developing ones, support mentioned sectors in various ways. present study investigates the effects on government support policies on iran's food security using vecm and time series data of 1990-2010. results revealed that government support p...

C hronic hunger persists in most African countries even as crop production reaches peak levels on other continents (Johns Hopkins 2000). In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 600 million people live on small farms measuring no more than a few hectares each. Low productivity due to biotic and abiotic factors is responsible for food insufficiency and malnutrition. The rapid increase in population (nea...

OBJECTIVE Here, we compare food availability and relate this to differences in energy intake rates, time spent feeding, and daily travel distance of gorillas in the two populations. Comparative intraspecific studies investigating spatiotemporal variation in food availability can help us understand the complex relationships between ecology, behavior, and life history in primates and are relevant...

This paper presents an assessment of the potential impact of the EUs biofuel directive on European land use and biodiversity. In a spatially explicit analysis, it is determined which ecologically valuable land use types are likely to be directly replaced by biofuel crops. In addition, it is determined which land use types may be indirectly replaced by biofuel crops through competition over land...

Since 1980, mosquito breeding habitats in the Upper Rhine Valley were routinely treated with Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (Bti). Bti is considered to significantly reduce the number of mosquitoes, and - especially when used in higher dosages - to be toxic to other Nematocera species, e.g. Chironomidae, which could be food sources for aerial feeding predators. To investigate direct an...

Present-day ecosystems host a huge variety of organisms that interact and transfer mass and energy via a cascade of trophic levels. When and how this complex machinery was established remains largely unknown. Although exceptionally preserved biotas clearly show that Early Cambrian animals had already acquired functionalities that enabled them to exploit a wide range of food resources, there is ...

Growing crops for bioenergy or biofuels is increasingly viewed as conflicting with food production. However, energy use continues to rise and food production requires fuel inputs, which have increased with intensification. Focussing on the question of food or fuel is thus not helpful. The bigger, more pertinent, challenge is how the increasing demands for food and energy can be met in the futur...

The ISU Crop Bioengineering Consortium (CBC) was organized to address the urgent, grand challenge to provide sufficient food, feed, biofuels and biorenewable chemicals for the world’s burgeoning population, through basic and applied research, to enable the bioengineering of valuable traits in a variety of crops. Importantly, the novel technologies employed can produce bioengineered crops that c...

Caenorhabditis elegans has emerged as a powerful model to study the genetics of feeding, food-related behaviors, and metabolism. Despite the many advantages of C. elegans as a model organism, direct measurement of its bacterial food intake remains challenging. Here, we describe two complementary methods that measure the food intake of C. elegans. The first method is a microtiter plate-based bac...

The organisms of the soil food web, dependent on resources from plants or on amendment from other sources, respond characteristically to enrichment of their environment by organic matter. Primary consumers of the incoming substrate, including bacteria, fungi, plant-feeding nematodes, annelids, and some microarthropods, are entry-level indicators of enrichment. However, the quantification of abu...