ReportWire

Tag: College of Agricultural

  • Illinois expert available for Bat Week

    Illinois expert available for Bat Week

    BYLINE: Lauren Quinn

    Newswise — URBANA, Ill. — Bats come out of the shadows during Bat Week (Oct. 24-31, 2023), an international awareness campaign that aims to educate the public about bat conservation in the week leading up to Halloween. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign bat expert Joy O’Keefe explains the threats to bats and how we can help.

    On environmental threats to bats:

    “Habitat loss is a big problem for bats. Most bats in the U.S. depend on forests for some portion of their lifecycle, as forests provide crucial foraging and roosting habitat. So, the loss of forests is a challenge bats have been contending with for a long time,” said O’Keefe, assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences and Illinois Extension, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at U. of I. 

    O’Keefe also mentioned losses of migratory bats (and birds) due to wind turbines; declining insect populations that make up the diets of most North American bats; severe weather effects on bats due to climate change; and, of course, the devastating impacts of white-nose syndrome.

    On why we should care:

    “There’s not another mammalian group that comes close to being as cool as bats. They’re completely unique; they’re the only mammals capable of true powered flight and perform all sorts of cool feats like echolocation and navigating in the dark,” O’Keefe said. “Bats are just so diverse in form and function: the types of echolocation calls they use, the structures on their faces, their coloration, where they roost, and what they eat. The list just goes on and on.”

    O’Keefe noted bats perform essential ecosystem functions that benefit humans, including consuming hundreds of insects every night, many of which negatively impact crops, forest regeneration, and human health. Bats are also key pollinators and seed dispersers in some parts of the world and are important prey for many wild animals. 

    On how we can help:

    “Start by appreciating bats where you live. Ironically, Bat Week isn’t a good time to see bats in much of North America, as many have started their hibernation or are migrating south. But you should make plans to go out on a warm summer night next June, July, or August. You will surely see bats flying around your neighborhood,” O’Keefe said. “Make note of where they’re foraging and what features they’re attracted to and try to improve the availability of those types of habitats, like big trees, in your neighborhood. And then tell people about how awesome bats are.” 

    She said homeowners can plant native species to support the insect populations that feed bats. Turning lights off at night, offering sources of clean water, and advocating to protect local trees and forest habitats are additional beneficial steps, according to O’Keefe. Thinking of installing an artificial roost? Her research says homeowners should think twice.

    On bat appreciation:

    “People tend to be scared of bats because we fear what we don’t understand. For most people, they’re out of sight, out of mind until they are personified as a scary villain,” O’Keefe said. “But, by and large, bats are just doing us favors left and right, so we should appreciate them and not be scared of them.”

    O’Keefe said Bat Week and other awareness efforts appear to be making a dent in public sentiment around the misunderstood creatures. 

    “In the past 15 years, I’ve noticed that bat decorations have become decidedly more friendly. You used to see mostly scary bats with fangs, but now it’s more smiling, friendly bats,” she said. “Let’s be sure to depict how varied and wonderful they are this Halloween.”

    O’Keefe does research to understand bats’ biology, their roles in ecosystems, and how our conservation efforts may help or harm the unique creatures. To arrange an interview, contact [email protected]. 

    College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    Source link

  • Illinois Researchers Prove That New Method Can Be Used to Measure Ozone Stress in Soybeans

    Illinois Researchers Prove That New Method Can Be Used to Measure Ozone Stress in Soybeans

    BYLINE: Mike Koon

    Newswise — As the world focuses on not only solving the climate crisis but also sustaining the world’s food supply, researchers need tools to evaluate how atmospheric pollutants affect crops. Over the past decade, the agriculture community has turned to solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) measurements to detect stresses on plants.

    Plants absorb light from the sun to power photosynthesis, and the unused energy is emitted as heat and a tiny glow invisible to human eyes, termed fluorescence. Ever since the first global SIF map was generated in 2011, SIF has been used by researchers to investigate photosynthesis dynamics. For instance, it has been used to determine how high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) or elevated temperature affect a plant’s properties.

    Now a team from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the USDA Agricultural Research Service has used SIF to measure the effects of elevated ozone (O3) on soybean plants. The team published its findings in the Journal of Experimental Botany (https://academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jxb/erad356/7272702).

    “Researchers have found SIF to be a faster, safer, and noninvasive way to study photosynthesis,” noted Genghong Wu, the work’s first author and the former PhD student at the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, under the supervision of Prof. Kaiyu Guan, the senior author of the work. “That is why it has become so popular. The novelty of this study is that for the first time, SIF was used to measure elevated ozone stress on soybeans in the field.”

    Ozone is a damaging air pollutant that is costly to farmers. The SoyFACE facility provides a testbed for studying the effects of ozone pollution in the field. It is managed by USDA ARS scientist and Prof. Lisa Ainsworth. For the current study, she designed the elevated O3 experiment with four plots as a control, and other four plots with higher amounts of O3. The team used a portable spectroscopic system placed about half meter above the plant canopy to take its measurements on both control and elevated O3 plots.They found that increased O3 levels resulted in a decrease in SIF, by as much as 36 percent during the late growing season.

    Other processes associated with photosynthesis, such as electron transport and leaf-gas exchange, were simultaneously measured along with SIF. “As we observed those levels decrease with higher ozone levels, it confirmed to us that a decrease in SIF is a sign of stress,” Ainsworth said.

    Although SIF is directly related to photosynthesis — the process by which plants absorb light and turn it into chemical energy — it isn’t the only factor to influence SIF. But Wu notes that plant photosynthesis, combined with measures of the size of the plants[MAD3], can give farmers a good estimate of yield.

    One of the advantages of SIF is that it is scalable. Wu is currently studying in Germany with colleagues, who use aircraft flying 1 kilometer off the ground to evaluate SIF’s effects on an entire field. Alongside Prof. Kaiyu Guan, the Founding Director of the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center and a fellow investigator on this study, Wu hopes to use the method to track photosynthesis in regions around the world from a satellite orbiting the Earth.

    “We want to use SIF to estimate or to monitor the dynamics of photosynthesis on a regional or global scale,” Wu reiterated. “To do that, we need to also further understand the mechanistic relationship between SIF and photosynthesis.”

    The experiments that these colleagues did at SoyFACE to link SIF to air pollution are helping build that mechanistic understanding.

    College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    Source link

  • New Grant to Optimize Gut Microbes, Boost Health Benefits of Broccoli

    New Grant to Optimize Gut Microbes, Boost Health Benefits of Broccoli

    BYLINE: Lauren Quinn

    Newswise — URBANA, Ill. — Love it or hate it, broccoli is chock-full of health-promoting chemicals linked to heart health, cancer prevention, immune function, weight management, and more. However,  some people are less efficient than others at unlocking those chemical benefits. A research team at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests gut microbe communities may be responsible for the variation. With a new grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the team plans to identify which microbes maximize the benefits of broccoli and other brassica vegetables. 

    Gut microbes only factor in when we eat cooked broccoli. When eating the vegetable raw, healthy compounds — and a bitter taste — are unleashed with every gnash of our teeth, the result of a chemical reaction activated by physical damage. Eliminating the bitterness is easy; we just have to cook it. But cooking inactivates the enzyme involved in the reaction, myrosinase. Thankfully, some microbes manufacture their own version of myrosinase, making it possible for them to complete the reaction in the gut with varying levels of efficiency. 

    “Gut bacteria can metabolize glucosinolates in broccoli to isothiocyanates (ITCs), the bioactive compounds with known health benefits, but they can also break glucosinolates into other inactive materials that do nothing for us. We’re focusing on the flux between these metabolic outcomes and how we can potentially steer that flux towards ITCs and away from the non-bioactive products,” said Michael Miller, principal investigator of the grant and professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at U. of I.

    The first step is identifying which bacteria are involved and how efficiently they produce ITCs versus non-beneficial compounds. Miller’s team has a study underway in mice, a model system that can provide clues for future human studies. He is feeding the mice broccoli and kale, both cooked and uncooked, to understand the chemical and microbial dynamics of the system. 

    Once ITCs are unlocked — whether in the mouth or the gut — they trigger bitter-taste receptors in cell membranes, starting a series of reactions that produce hormones affecting glucose homeostasis and the perception of fullness.

    “We actually have bitter taste receptors all the way down, not just in our mouths, but in our colon and small intestine, too,” Miller said. “The goal of our work is to show that the bitter compounds (ITCs) made by gut bacteria from metabolizing broccoli trigger bitter taste receptors in the gut and impact satiety, causing mice to eat less.”

    Once he identifies bacterial superstars that maximize ITC production for anti-cancer and weight management benefits, Miller says custom probiotics could be developed to help level the playing field for people with lower-efficiency microbial communities. He also predicts his research will inform recommendations about whether raw or cooked broccoli (or kale) might be more useful for weight loss.

    College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    Source link

  • Could microplastics in soil introduce drug-resistant superbugs to the food supply?

    Could microplastics in soil introduce drug-resistant superbugs to the food supply?

    BYLINE: Lauren Quinn

    Newswise — URBANA, Ill. — Like every industry, modern farming relies heavily on plastics. Think plastic mulch lining vegetable beds, PVC pipes draining water from fields, polyethylene covering high tunnels, and plastic seed, fertilizer, and herbicide packaging, to name a few. In a new review article, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers say these plastics are now widely dispersed in agricultural soils in the form of microplastics and nanoplastics. 

    That’s not necessarily new; microplastics have been found in nearly every ecosystem and organism on Earth. The twist, according to the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) researchers, is that micro- and nanoplastics in agricultural soil could contribute to antibiotic resistant bacteria with a ready route into our food supply.

    “Plastic itself may not be very toxic, but it can act as a vector for transmitting pathogenic and antimicrobial resistant bacteria into the food chain,” said study author Jayashree Nath, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition in ACES. “This phenomenon is not very well known to people, so we wanted to raise awareness.”

    If the link between microplastics and antibiotic resistance is less than obvious, here’s how it works. First, plastics are an excellent adsorbent. That means chemical substances and microscopic organisms love to stick to plastic. Chemicals that would ordinarily move through soil quickly — things like pesticides and heavy metals — instead stick around and are concentrated when they encounter plastics. Similarly, bacteria and other microorganisms that occur naturally in soil preferentially congregate on the stable surfaces of microplastics, forming what are known as biofilms. 

    When bacteria encounter unusual chemical substances in their new home base, they activate stress response genes that incidentally help them resist other chemicals too, including, sometimes, antibiotics. And when groups of bacteria attach to the same surface, they have a habit of sharing these genes through a process called horizontal gene transfer. Nanoplastics, which can enter bacterial cells, present a different kind of stress, but that stress can have the same outcome. 

    “Bacteria have been evolving genetic mechanisms to cope with stress for millions of years. Plastic is a new material bacteria have never seen in nature, so they are now evoking these genetic tool sets to deal with that stress,” said co-author Pratik Banerjee, associate professor in FSHN and Illinois Extension specialist. “We have also shown bacteria may become more virulent in the presence of plastics, in addition to becoming more resistant to antimicrobials.”

    Gene transfer between bacteria on microplastics has been documented in other environments, particularly water. So far, the phenomenon is only hypothetical in agricultural soil, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Nath and Banerjee are currently running laboratory studies to document gene transfer.

    “Soil is an under-researched area in this field,” Banerjee said. “We have an obligation to understand what’s going on in soil, because what we suspect and what we fear is that the situation in soil could be even worse than in water. 

    “One of the technical problems is that soil is a very difficult medium to handle when it comes to fishing out microplastics. Water is so easy, because you can simply filter the microplastic out,” Banerjee added. “But we have made some good headway thanks to Jayashree and our collaboration with the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center.”

    The authors point out many foodborne pathogens make it onto produce from their native home in the soil, but nanoplastics and antibiotic resistant bacteria could be small enough to enter roots and plant tissues — where they are impossible to wash away. While nanoplastics have been documented in and on crops, the field of study is still new and it’s not well known how often this occurs. Banerjee’s research group plans to tackle that question as well.

    Ultimately, microplastics are here to stay. After all, they persist in the environment for centuries or longer. The authors say it’s time to understand their impacts in the soil and our food system, raise awareness, and push toward biodegradable plastic alternatives. 

    The study, “Interaction of microbes with microplastics and nanoplastics in the agroecosystems—impact on antimicrobial resistance,” is published in Pathogens [DOI: 10.3390/pathogens12070888]. Authors include Jayashree Nath, Jayita De, Shantanu Sur, and Pratik Banerjee. The research was supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture of the USDA.

    College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    Source link

  • For Father’s Day: Role of fathers in families and their effects on children

    For Father’s Day: Role of fathers in families and their effects on children

    BYLINE: Lauren Quinn

    Experts in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign recently published an article showing children whose fathers engage in constructive conflict resolution with mothers have greater socioemotional skills in preschool than kids whose dads engage in destructive conflict. The paper, published in the Journal of Family Psychology [DOI: 10.1037/fam0001102], is part of a greater body of work by authors Karen Kramer, Qiujie Gong, and Kelly Tu, part of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) in ACES.   

    On their recent paper: 

    “Fathers who reported using more constructive conflict resolution – like open communication and reaching compromise, as opposed to hitting, criticizing, or throwing things – showed more involvement and warmth toward their kids, compared to their counterparts,” said lead author and HDFS doctoral student Qiujie Gong.

    Co-author and HDFS associate professor Karen Kramer, added, “Fathers using constructive conflict resolution led to more parental involvement, which led to more positive child development. Destructive conflict has the opposite effect on kids.”

    On fathers more generally:

    “Fathers are key to gender equality. If we are to truly achieve gender equality, fathers would have to step up and get involved in taking care of children, family members, and household chores as much as women. Equality should not only be a part of paid work – it should also be in unpaid work,” Kramer said.

    Kramer’s previous studies have touched on paternity leave, including paid parental leave, as well as at-home father families and other aspects of family life.   

    Gong added, “Fathers are just as important as mothers in shaping children’s life. Their unique role in child development should not be underestimated. At the same time, it is also essential to recognize the challenges fathers may face and provide them with the necessary support. By supporting both parents and promoting positive interparental relationship, children would be able to thrive and flourish in a healthy family environment.”

    Gong’s previous studies have touched on the effects of parenting programs, relationship quality among African American couples, and more. Kramer and Gong also collaborated on a study looking at parental involvement among first- and second-generation Latin Americans.

    College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    Source link