Search Results
Draft Genome Sequence of a New Oscillospiraceae Bacterium Isolated from Anaerobic Digestion of Biomass
2020, Pascual, Javier, Hahnke, Sarah, Abendroth, Christian, Langer, Thomas, Ramm, Patrice, Klocke, Michael, Luschnig, Olaf, Porcar, Manuel
Here, we present the genome sequence and annotation of the novel bacterial strain HV4-5-C5C, which may represent a new genus within the family Oscillospiraceae (order Eubacteriales). This strain is a potential keystone species in the hydrolysis of complex polymers during anaerobic digestion of biomass. Ā© 2020 Pascual et al.
Proximal Soil Sensing - A Contribution for Species Habitat Distribution Modelling of Earthworms in Agricultural Soils?
2016, Schirrmann, Michael, Joschko, Monika, Gebbers, Robin, Kramer, Eckart, Zƶrner, Mirjam, Barkusky, Dietmar, Timmer, Jens
Background: Earthworms are important for maintaining soil ecosystem functioning and serve as indicators of soil fertility. However, detection of earthworms is time-consuming, which hinders the assessment of earthworm abundances with high sampling density over entire fields. Recent developments of mobile terrestrial sensor platforms for proximal soil sensing (PSS) provided new tools for collecting dense spatial information of soils using various sensing principles. Yet, the potential of PSS for assessing earthworm habitats is largely unexplored. This study investigates whether PSS data contribute to the spatial prediction of earthworm abundances in species distribution models of agricultural soils. Methodology/Principal Findings: Proximal soil sensing data, e.g., soil electrical conductivity (EC), pH, and near infrared absorbance (NIR), were collected in real-time in a field with two management strategies (reduced tillage / conventional tillage) and sandy to loam soils. PSS was related to observations from a long-term (11 years) earthworm observation study conducted at 42 plots. Earthworms were sampled from 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.2 mĀ³ soil blocks and identified to species level. Sensor data were highly correlated with earthworm abundances observed in reduced tillage but less correlated with earthworm abundances observed in conventional tillage. This may indicate that management influences the sensor-earthworm relationship. Generalized additive models and state-space models showed that modelling based on data fusion from EC, pH, and NIR sensors produced better results than modelling without sensor data or data from just a single sensor. Regarding the individual earthworm species, particular sensor combinations were more appropriate than others due to the different habitat requirements of the earthworms. Earthworm species with soil-specific habitat preferences were spatially predicted with higher accuracy by PSS than more ubiquitous species. Conclusions/Significance: Our findings suggest that PSS contributes to the spatial modelling of earthworm abundances at field scale and that it will support species distribution modelling in the attempt to understand the soil-earthworm relationships in agroecosystems.
Complete Genome Sequence of a New Ruminococcaceae Bacterium Isolated from Anaerobic Biomass Hydrolysis
2018, Hahnke, Sarah, Abendroth, Christian, Langer, Thomas, CodoƱer, Francisco M., Ramm, Patrice, Porcar, Manuel, Luschnig, Olaf, Klocke, Michael
A new Ruminococcaceae bacterium, strain HV4-5-B5C, participating in the anaerobic digestion of grass, was isolated from a mesophilic two-stage laboratoryscale leach bed biogas system. The draft annotated genome sequence presented in this study and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated the affiliation of HV4-5- B5C with the family Ruminococcaceae outside recently described genera. Ā© 2018 Hahnke et al.
Complete genome sequence of a new Bacteroidaceae bacterium isolated from anaerobic biomass digestion
2020, Hahnke, Sarah, Abendroth, Christian, Pascual, Javier, Langer, Thomas, CodoƱer, Francisco M., Ramm, Patrice, Klocke, Michael, Luschnig, Olaf, Porcare, Manuel
Here, we present the genome sequence and annotation of HV4-6-C5C, a bacterial strain isolated from a mesophilic two-stage laboratory-scale leach bed biogas reactor system. Strain HV4-6-C5C may represent a new genus of the family Bacteroidaceae and may have a key role in acidogenesis and acetogenesis steps during anaerobic biomass digestion. Ā© 2019 Hahnke et al.
Airborne bacterial emission fluxes from manure-fertilized agricultural soil
2020, Thiel, Nadine, MĆ¼nch, Steffen, Behrens, Wiebke, Junker, Vera, Faust, Matthias, Biniasch, Oliver, Kabelitz, Tina, Siller, Paul, Boedeker, Christian, Schumann, Peter, Roesler, Uwe, Amon, Thomas, Schepanski, Kerstin, Funk, Roger, NĆ¼bel, Ulrich
This is the first study to quantify the dependence on wind velocity of airborne bacterial emission fluxes from soil. It demonstrates that manure bacteria get aerosolized from fertilized soil more easily than soil bacteria, and it applies bacterial genomic sequencing for the first time to trace environmental faecal contamination back to its source in the chicken barn. We report quantitative, airborne emission fluxes of bacteria during and following the fertilization of agricultural soil with manure from broiler chickens. During the fertilization process, the concentration of airborne bacteria culturable on blood agar medium increased more than 600 000-fold, and 1 m3 of air carried 2.9 Ć 105 viable enterococci, i.e. indicators of faecal contamination which had been undetectable in background air samples. Trajectory modelling suggested that atmospheric residence times and dispersion pathways were dependent on the time of day at which fertilization was performed. Measurements in a wind tunnel indicated that airborne bacterial emission fluxes from freshly fertilized soil under local climatic conditions on average were 100-fold higher than a previous estimate of average emissions from land. Faecal bacteria collected from soil and dust up to seven weeks after fertilization could be traced to their origins in the poultry barn by genomic sequencing. Comparative analyses of 16S rRNA gene sequences from manure, soil and dust showed that manure bacteria got aerosolized preferably, likely due to their attachment to low-density manure particles. Our data show that fertilization with manure may cause substantial increases of bacterial emissions from agricultural land. After mechanical incorporation of manure into soil, however, the associated risk of airborne infection is low.
Occupational health and safety in agriculture ā a brief report on organization, legislation and support in selected European countries
2021, Jakob, Martina Carola, Santa, Dushica, Holte, Kari Anne, Sikkeland, Inger Johanne, Hilt, Bjorn, Lundqvist, Peter
Introduction and objective: Agriculture and forestry are among the most dangerous professions in Europe, with a high level of accidents affecting the sustainability and viability of the sector. International conventions, EU directives and national legislation build the fundamental basis for prevention. The aim of the study is to describe and categorize national mechanisms of occupational safety and health (OSH) for agricultural workers in Europe, to assess the extent of implementing safety regulation, the body in charge, and to give examples of health and safety initiatives. Material and methods: Results of a questionnaire-survey on basic safety regulations on farms sent by e-mail to the representatives of 30 participating European countries in the context of the Sacurima COST action network (CA 16123) are presented. Due to the complexity, only selected countries are described in this study highlighting the regulative bodies, occupational health services or specific training offers, as well as the complexity of the mechanisms. Results: One of the most serious issues and deficits of EU OSH regulation is the exclusion of self-employed farmers who compose nearly 90% of the farming population. This leads to serious under-reporting of accidents, and because one of the most common measures for the performance of health and safety initiatives are the injury and ill health statistics, better registration systems are urgently needed in almost all countries as a basis for preventive efforts. Conclusions: The results of the study provide a basis for raising awareness about the current OSH systems in Europe, and the importance of developing sector specific OSH strategies. The proposed activities should assist in tackling high accident rates and poor occupational health for self-employed farmers.
Complete Genome Sequence of a New Firmicutes Species Isolated from Anaerobic Biomass Hydrolysis
2017, Abendroth, Christian, Hahnke, Sarah, CodoƱer, Francisco M., Klocke, Michael, Luschnig, Olaf, Porcar, Manuel
A new Firmicutes isolate, strain HV4-6-A5C, was obtained from the hydrolysis stage of a mesophilic and anaerobic two-stage lab-scale leach-bed system for biomethanation of fresh grass. It is assumed that the bacterial isolate contributes to plant biomass degradation. Here, we report a draft annotated genome sequence of this organism. Ā© 2017 Abendroth et al.
Complete genome sequence of a new clostridium sp. isolated from anaerobic digestion and biomethanation
2020, Hahnke, Sarah, Abendroth, Christian, Pascual, Javier, Langer, Thomas, Ramm, Patrice, Klocke, Michael, Luschnig, Olaf, Porcar, Manuel
Here, we present the genome sequence and annotation of the bacterial strain HV4-5-A1G, a potentially new Clostridium species. Based on its genomic data, this strain may act as a keystone microorganism in the hydrolysis of complex polymers, as well as in the different acidogenesis and acetogenesis steps during anaerobic digestion. Ā© 2020 Hahnke et al.
Functional relationship of particulate matter (PM) emissions, animal species, and moisture content during manure application
2020, Kabelitz, Tina, Ammon, Christian, Funk, Roger, MĆ¼nch, Steffen, Biniasch, Oliver, NĆ¼bel, Ulrich, Thiel, Nadine, Rƶsler, Uwe, Siller, Paul, Amon, Barbara, Aarnink, AndrĆ© J.A., Amon, Thomas
Livestock manure is recycled to agricultural land as organic fertilizer. Due to the extensive usage of antibiotics in conventional animal farming, antibiotic-resistant bacteria are highly prevalent in feces and manure. The spread of wind-driven particulate matter (PM) with potentially associated harmful bacteria through manure application may pose a threat to environmental and human health. We studied whether PM was aerosolized during the application of solid and dried livestock manure and the functional relationship between PM release, manure dry matter content (DM), treatment and animal species. In parallel, manure and resulting PM were investigated for the survival of pathogenic and antibiotic-resistant bacterial species. The results showed that from manure with a higher DM smaller particles were generated and more PM was emitted. A positive correlation between manure DM and PM aerosolization rate was observed. There was a species-dependent critical dryness level (poultry: 60% DM, pig: 80% DM) where manure began to release PM into the environment. The maximum PM emission potentials were 1 and 3āÆkgāÆtā1 of applied poultry and pig manure, respectively. Dried manure and resulting PM contained strongly reduced amounts of investigated pathogenic and antibiotic-resistant microorganisms compared to fresh samples. An optimal manure DM regarding low PM emissions and reduced pathogen viability was defined from our results, which was 55ā70% DM for poultry manure and 75ā85% DM for pig manure. The novel findings of this study increase our detailed understanding and basic knowledge on manure PM emissions and enable optimization of manure management, aiming a manure DM that reduces PM emissions and pathogenic release into the environment.
Towards the automatic detection of social biomarkers in autism spectrum disorder: introducing the simulated interaction task (SIT)
2020, Drimalla, Hanna, Scheffer, Tobias, Landwehr, Niels, Baskow, Irina, Roepke, Stefan, Behnia, Behnoush, Dziobek, Isabel
Social interaction deficits are evident in many psychiatric conditions and specifically in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but hard to assess objectively. We present a digital tool to automatically quantify biomarkers of social interaction deficits: the simulated interaction task (SIT), which entails a standardized 7-min simulated dialog via video and the automated analysis of facial expressions, gaze behavior, and voice characteristics. In a study with 37 adults with ASD without intellectual disability and 43 healthy controls, we show the potential of the tool as a diagnostic instrument and for better description of ASD-associated social phenotypes. Using machine-learning tools, we detected individuals with ASD with an accuracy of 73%, sensitivity of 67%, and specificity of 79%, based on their facial expressions and vocal characteristics alone. Especially reduced social smiling and facial mimicry as well as a higher voice fundamental frequency and harmony-to-noise-ratio were characteristic for individuals with ASD. The time-effective and cost-effective computer-based analysis outperformed a majority vote and performed equal to clinical expert ratings. Ā© 2020, The Author(s).