Climate change factors such as elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and ozone (O3) can exert significant impacts on soil microbes and the ecosystem level processes they mediate. However, the underlying mechanisms by which soil microbes respond to these environmental changes remain poorly understood.
Deforestation is rapidly transforming primary forests across the tropics into human-dominated landscapes. Consequently, conservationists need to understand how different taxa respond and adapt to these changes in order to develop appropriate management strategies.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, 40% of children under five years in age are chronically undernourished. As new investments and attention galvanize action on African agriculture to reduce hunger, there is an urgent need for metrics that monitor agricultural progress beyond calories produced per capita and address nutritional diversity essential for human health.
Acid soils comprise up to 50% of the world's arable lands and in these areas aluminum (Al) toxicity impairs root growth, strongly limiting crop yield. Food security is thereby compromised in many developing countries located in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide.
Changes in forest carbon stocks are a determinant of the regional carbon budget. In the past several decades, China has experienced a pronounced increase in forest area and density. However, few comprehensive analyses have been conducted.
Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has adverse effects on the health of asthmatics, however the harmful consequences of ETS in relation to asthma severity are unknown.
Risk factors such as blood pressure and serum cholesterol are used, with age, in screening for future cardiovascular disease (CVD) events. The value of using these risk factors with age compared with using age alone is not known. We compared screening for future CVD events using age alone with screening using age and multiple risk factors based on regular Framingham risk assessments.
Contamination of their carrion food supply with the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac has caused rapid population declines across the Indian subcontinent of three species of Gyps vultures endemic to South Asia. The governments of India, Pakistan and Nepal took action in 2006 to prevent the veterinary use of diclofenac on domesticated livestock, the route by which contamination occurs.
Climate changes will have an impact on food production and will require costly adaptive responses. Adapting to a changing environment will be particularly challenging in sub-Saharan Africa where climate change is expected to have a major impact.
