Especially during the last decades, the natural forests of Ethiopia have been heavily disturbed by human activities. Some forests have been totally cleared and converted into fields for agricultural use, other suffered from different influences, such as heavy grazing and selective logging. The ongoing research in the Shashemane-Munessa-study area (Gu 406/8-1,2) showed clearly that, in spite of interdiction and control, forests continue to be cleared and degraded. However, it is not yet sufficiently known, how and why these processes are still going on. Growing population pressure and economic constraints for the people living in and around the forests contribute to the actual situation but allow no final answers to the complex situation. Concerning a sustainable management of the forests there is to no solid basis for recommendations from the socioeconomic and socio-cultural view. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of the traditional needs and forms of forest use, including all forest products, is necessary. The objective of this project is, to achieve this basis by carrying out intensive field observations, the consultation of aerial photographs, satellite imagery and above all semi-structured interviews with the population in the study area in order to contribute to the recommendations for a sustainable use of the Munessa Shasemane forests.
The biogeochemical interface (BGI) in this project is defined as the organo-mineral surface of soil particles colonized by microorganisms. In the preceding project it was demonstrated that the different soil particle size fractions were associated with specifically structured microbial communities, a characteristic amount of soil organic carbon, and a specific capacity for adsorption of the organic chemicals phenol and 2,4-dichlorophenol, respectively. While the diversity of the microbial community was responsive to fertilization-determined additional organic soil carbon in the larger particle size fractions, it was unaffected in clay. Stable isotope probing with 13C-labelled phenol and 2,4-dichlorophenol revealed that the soil organic carbon in the BGIs also affected the diversity of microorganisms involved in the degradation of these chemicals. All these results are yet only based on studying one soil with three organic carbon variants (Bad Lauchstädt) and only two organic compounds. The objective of this 2nd phase project is to apply the innovative technology developed in the 1st phase for studying the BGI processes with soil organic carbon variants from another soil (Ultuna, SPP 1315 site) and with the chiralic anilide Fungicide metalaxyl as an additional compound. This 2nd phase SPP 1315 project will also, in a collaborative effort with two other SPP 1315 partners, investigate (1) the importance of BGIs for the entantio-selective degradation of metalaxyl and (2) the role of soil microorganisms in the formation of bound residues, respectively. Furthermore, the project will utilize stable isotope probing and next-generation DNA sequencing to link the structural and functional diversity of the microbial communities responsible for metabolism of organic chemicals in the different BGIs determined by particle size fractions and soil organic carbon variants.
Der Oberflächenfilm (SML) ist die oberste dünne Schicht des Ozeans und Teil jeglicher Wechselwirkung zwischen Luft und Meer, wie Gasaustausch, atmosphärische Deposition und Aerosolemission. Die Anreicherung von organischer Materie (OM) in der SML modifiziert die Luft-Meer-Austauschprozesse, aber welche OM-Komponenten selektiv angereichert werden, sowie warum und wann sie dies tun, ist weitgehend unbekannt (Engel et al., 2017). Unsere bisherige Forschung hat gezeigt, dass Biopolymere aus photoautotropher Produktion wichtige Komponenten der SML sind und den Luft-Meer-Austausch beeinflussen, indem sie als Biotenside (Galgani et al., 2016; Engel et al., 2018) und als Quelle primärer organischer Aerosole (Trueblood et al., 2021) wirken. Die Motivation unseres Projektes ist es daher, die dynamischen Anreicherungsprozesse von OM in der SML aufzuklären und zu beschreiben, wobei ein besonderer Schwerpunkt auf der Auflösung der OM-Quellen liegt. Mit unserem Modellierungsansatz ist es das Ziel, unser mechanistisches Verständnis der Zusammenhänge zwischen den Wachstumsbedingungen des Planktons, der Produktion und der Freisetzung von Biomolekülen, einschließlich potentieller Tenside, und der Akkumulation von OM in der SML zu konsolidieren. Eine solche Modellentwicklung wird in hohem Maße von den Ergebnissen und Erkenntnissen der verschiedenen Teilprojekte des BASS-Konsortiums profitieren. Umgekehrt ist es unsere Motivation, ein Modell zu etablieren, das als Synthesewerkzeug für die Interpretation und Integration von Feld-, Mesokosmen- und Labormessungen der OM-Anreicherung in der SML anwendbar wird.Relevanz für die Forschungsgruppe BASS - SP1.1 wird die Quellen, die Menge und die biochemische Zusammensetzung von OM in der SML entschlüsseln und damit wichtige Informationen für alle BASS-Teilprojekte liefern. Der primäre Ursprung von OM im Oberflächenozean ist die photosynthetische Produktion und die wichtigsten biochemischen Komponenten von frisch produzierter OM, d.h. Kohlenhydrate, Aminosäuren und Lipide, unterliegen der mikrobiellen Verarbeitung (SP1.2) und Photoreaktionen innerhalb der SML (SP1.3, SP1.4) und füllen auch den Pool der gelösten organischen Substanz (DOM) auf (SP1.5). Die Modellentwicklung in SP1.1 stellt eine Verbindung zwischen der Produktion von OM und ihrer Anreicherung innerhalb der SML her und zielt darauf ab, die entsprechenden Auswirkungen auf den Luft-Meer-Gasaustausch (SP2.1) zu bestimmen, indem Änderungen des Impulsflusses auf den Ozeanoberflächenschichten (SP2.2) sowie des Auftriebs (SP2.3) berücksichtigt werden. Das vorgeschlagene SML-Submodell wird auf der Grundlage der Ergebnisse aus SP1.4 und SP2.3 verfeinert. Ergebnisse aus den Modellsensitivitätsanalysen werden ergänzende Informationen über oberflächenaktive Eigenschaften verschiedener OM Komponenten und deren Auswirkungen auf Luft-Meer-Austauschprozesse liefern, die innerhalb von BASS ausgewertet werden.
Auf Grund des global ansteigenden Wasserbedarfs und den sinkenden zur Verfügung stehenden Süßwasserressourcen, besteht ein weltweites Interesse an effizienten Entsalzungsverfahren. Süßwasser, das vom Meer oder von geogenen Salzvorkommen beeinflusst wird, weist u. a. oft erhöhte Konzentrationen an Natrium und Chlorid auf. Hohe Nitrat- und Sulfatkonzentrationen resultieren hingegen meist aus landwirtschaftlichem Einfluss. Eine vollständige Entsalzung der Wässer ist nicht sinnvoll, sondern lediglich nur eine Verminderung der monovalenten Ionen nötig. Das Ziel dieses Forschungsvorhabens ist die Entwicklung eines energieeffizienten, selektiven, membranbasierten Entsalzungsverfahrens zur gezielten Entfernung monovalenter Ionen aus salzhaltigem Grund- und Oberflächenwasser sowie die Überprüfung potenzieller Anwendungen und Einsatzgebiete unter Berücksichtigung wasserchemischer, ökonomischer und ökologischer Aspekte. Es werden selektive Membranen für einen spezifischen Rückhalt monovalenter Salze entwickelt und in neukonstruierten Modulen für den Einsatz in einem elektrochemischen Verfahren in Labor- und Pilotanlagen verbaut. Mit den Anlagen werden Untersuchungen zur Identifikation optimierter Prozess- und Anlagenparameter in Abhängigkeit unterschiedlicher Rohwasserqualitäten und Aufbereitungsziele durchgeführt. Es wird geprüft, welche resultierenden Effekte und Herausforderungen bei der Grundwasseranreicherung und der Trinkwasseraufbereitung gegeben sind. Die entwickelte Technologie wird anhand einer ganzheitlichen ökonomisch-ökologischen Nachhaltigkeitsbewertung internationalen Zielgrößen wie den Nachhaltigkeitszielen gegenübergestellt, um Handlungsempfehlungen abzuleiten. Durch die Wahl der Partner aus Industrie, Wissenschaft und Praxis ist das Konsortium in der Lage, Anlagen zu bauen und die innovative Technologie bei Praxispartnern vor Ort zu testen und zu bewerten. Die Ergebnisse tragen somit maßgeblich zur Sicherung der Wasserressourcen, national wie international, bei.
The amount of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the EU28 reached 245 million tons in 2012. Nowadays, Europe directives for waste management are more restrictive each year (e.g Landfill Directive 1999/31/EC), but unfortunately, landfill disposal still represents 34% of total MSW generated. On the other hand, citizen awareness as well as the high fees operators pay for landfill disposal, have helped to greatly increase the percentage for recycling from 18% in 1995, to 42% in 2012. However, 40% of all the glass waste ends up in mixed MSW plants (which typically contain 7% of glass). Instead of being disposed of in selective-waste collection, it ends up in landfills or is composted/incinerated with the remnant waste. We have developed SEEGLASS, a high performance optical sorter based on computer vision and a pneumatic rejection system. Our aim is to solve this non-environmentally friendly problem, while also offering our end-users additional revenues with this recovered material, which is not being exploited now (49€/tn glass). In addition, extracting this glass, will allow the treatment plants to significantly reduce costs from waste disposal fees (50€/Tonne EU average and rising). Payback for customers is estimated in only 19 months. With this project we will (i) construct pre-conditioning process line, (ii) optimise our current SEEGLASS computer vision system as well as its mechanical and pneumatic design, to reach 80% glass recovery, with 99% purity, (iii) integrate both, the process line and the glass sorter solution into a demonstrator system, and (iv) validate its feasibility in-house with real MSW coming from different countries, as well as carry-out an 24/7 end-user validation. We, PICVISA, will be the first company to recover the glass fraction in refined MSW worldwide (the niche market exists worldwide) selling Turn-key installations or only SEEGLASS units, contributing to a disruptive change in the sector.
Subsurface flow and transport in uncertain heterogeneous porous media such as aquifers are poorly predictable for obvious reasons. In catchments of drinking water wells, this becomes even more complex, because it is even unknown when and where a contaminant might be released. Still, one needs to ensure the safety of supply with clean drinking water. This can be achieved with early warning systems, i.e., monitoring networks that pay special attention to the remaining time for action after a contamination has been detected somewhere in the aquifer. The goal of this project is to develop and establish a concept to assess, design and optimize early-warning systems within well catchments. Such optimal monitoring networks need to optimize and to balance three competing objectives: (1) a high detection probability, which can be reached by maximizing the field of vision of the monitoring network or by monitoring close to the drinking water well, (2) a long early-warning time such that there is enough time left to install counter measures after first detection, (3) the overall operating costs, which should ideally be reduced to a minimum. The early warning time describes the remaining travel time for contaminants to the drinking water well after they have been detected in a monitoring well. The detection probability of a contamination can only be assessed correctly, if the actual dilution, the spreading, and the large-scale uncertainty of the centroid position of the contaminant are not merged in the involved transport simulation. With this method, the safety level of existing monitoring systems can be assessed and set in relation to their operation costs. Also, selective improvements can be added to existing monitoring networks to increase the safety quality at minimal costs. Another application of this method is to design new optimal monitoring networks considering the different objective functions within multi-objective optimization. The method will be based on numerical simulation of flow and transport in heterogeneous porous media coupled with geostatistics and Monte-Carlo, wrapped up within the framework of an information-theoretic analysis and formal multi-objective optimization.
In addition to recognizing natural selection as a universal mechanism in evolution, Darwin also saw the importance of sexual selection, yet the two have been traditionally treated largely in isolation. Here I propose to apply experimental evolution (exposing experimental populations to controlled specific selective pressures over many generations in the laboratory) to the ideally suited model system Tribolium castaneum to explore how these evolutionary forces interact and impact on the key processes underlying biodiversity. Understanding how these fundamental forces, singly and in conjunction, influence species divergence remains a major challenge in evolutionary biology. Participation of sexual selection in driving speciation is supported by substantial theoretical evidence. Theory further suggests that evolutionary conflicts (such as between the sexes or between host and parasite) might also accelerate extinction. Additional complexity is introduced by including the environmental context, linking back to natural selection. Direct experimental tests of the above concepts are essentially lacking. I will explicitly target this gap by exploiting powerful experimental evolution, incorporating the interplay between sexual selection intensity, host-parasite conflict, and adaptation to increasing temperature. Projects will assess how selection under evolutionary conflict and environmental change affects both adaptation and extinction rates, aiming to elucidate underlying mechanisms. Additionally, building on clear phenotypic divergence in key traits across experimental evolution lines, I will significantly expand on previous work by assessing patterns of divergence in gene expression, concentrating on target genes associated with reproduction, immunity and heat shock. This research will be of particular interest to scientists working in the fields of evolutionary biology and behavioural ecology, but also to ecologists, reproductive biologists, and conservation biologists. As Tribolium beetles are widespread agricultural pests, results will also be relevant to more applied researchers.
Small molecule natural products are a prolific source of inspiration for the development of new drugs, and essential tools in basic biomedical research as probes of biological functions. The contribution of academic laboratories in natural products discovery has been essential. The limiting factor of traditional approaches in bioactivity-directed natural product research has been the tedious process of purification and identification of active molecules from a highly complex extract matrix. Recent technological advances enable substantial improvements in efficiency via a consequential miniaturization of the screening and discovery process, and automation of certain process steps. The aim of the project is to discover small molecule natural products leads from plants and fungi acting against clinically relevant and/or emerging targets in important disease areas. The targets have been selected on the basis of specific criteria, such as (i) novelty and importance of target; (ii) lack of specific/selective inhibitors; (iii) need for enhancement of structural diversity of ligands; (iv) difficulty/impossibility to use rational drug discovery approaches; (v) access to animal models. Indications include CNS (selective GABA-A receptor agonists), inflammation and cancer (modulation of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis, inhibition of PI3 kinases). In addition, a screening for hERG channel inhibition will be carried out as the currently most critical anti-target in drug discovery & development. An extract library and a technology platform for the miniaturized discovery of natural products will be used. The library consists of currently 1000 plant and fungal extracts. An ethnomedicine-based focussed sub-library will be specifically tested for GABAA receptor agonistic properties. All process steps in the screening and consecutive lead identification are miniaturized, in part automated, and based on the 96-well microtiter footprint. Most of the assays are via external collaborations, and some assays involving cell signalling are established in-house. Prioritized extracts are submitted to HPLC-based activity profiling with microtiter-based fractionation of column effluent, and simultaneous on-line spectroscopic (PDA, ion-trap ESI and APCI-MS, and ESI-TOF) analysis. Compound dereplication and identification is supported by off-line microprobe NMR spectroscopy. Around the active target molecules, structurally related compounds will be characterized to generate small 'virtual' libraries for preliminary structure activity relationships. Calculation of physico-chemical data and secondary bioassays will characterize leads, and shortlisted compounds will be tested in vivo for proof of concept. For this purpose, compounds of interest are isolated in a targeted manner in amounts of up to several hundred mg.
Based on the Ac/Ds two element transposition system from maize an activation tagging approach is suggested for the hybrid aspen (Populus tremula x tremuloides) line -Esch5-. The proposed approach is based on results obtained from our earlier work on the genetic transfer of the maize transposable element Ac and its functional analysis in hybrid and pure aspen lines. It was shown that the Ac element is active in aspen and reintegrates elsewhere in genomic regions in high frequency. However, a two element transposon tagging system where Ac and Ds are put together in crosses is not feasible in trees due to the in part long vegetative phases. To overcome this barrier, an inducible two element Ac/ATDs element system is suggested to induce activation tagged variants following two independent transformation steps. In combination with a 35S enhancer tetramer and outward facing two CaMV 35S promoter located near both ends of the ATDs element, expression of genes can be elevated which are located adjacent to the new integration site of the element. As selective marker for ATDs transposition, both knocking-out the expression of a phenotypic marker (rolC gene) and a negative selection marker gene (tms) are considered. Thus, the transposition can easily be screened in primary transgenic lines.
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