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    Publisher Correction: Rapid and low-cost insect detection for analysing species trapped on yellow sticky traps
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2021) Böckmann, Elias; Pfaff, Alexander; Schirrmann, Michael; Pflanz, Michael
    Correction to: Scientific Reports https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89930-w, published online 17 May 2021
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    Trade-off for survival: Microbiome response to chemical exposure combines activation of intrinsic resistances and adapted metabolic activity
    (New York, NY [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2022) Adi Wicaksono, Wisnu; Braun, Maria; Bernhardt, Jörg; Riedel, Katharina; Cernava, Tomislav; Berg, Gabriele
    The environmental microbiota is increasingly exposed to chemical pollution. While the emergence of multi-resistant pathogens is recognized as a global challenge, our understanding of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) development from native microbiomes and the risks associated with chemical exposure is limited. By implementing a lichen as a bioindicator organism and model for a native microbiome, we systematically examined responses towards antimicrobials (colistin, tetracycline, glyphosate, and alkylpyrazine). Despite an unexpectedly high resilience, we identified potential evolutionary consequences of chemical exposure in terms of composition and functioning of native bacterial communities. Major shifts in bacterial composition were observed due to replacement of naturally abundant taxa; e.g. Chthoniobacterales by Pseudomonadales. A general response, which comprised activation of intrinsic resistance and parallel reduction of metabolic activity at RNA and protein levels was deciphered by a multi-omics approach. Targeted analyses of key taxa based on metagenome-assembled genomes reflected these responses but also revealed diversified strategies of their players. Chemical-specific responses were also observed, e.g., glyphosate enriched bacterial r-strategists and activated distinct ARGs. Our work demonstrates that the high resilience of the native microbiota toward antimicrobial exposure is not only explained by the presence of antibiotic resistance genes but also adapted metabolic activity as a trade-off for survival. Moreover, our results highlight the importance of native microbiomes as important but so far neglected AMR reservoirs. We expect that this phenomenon is representative for a wide range of environmental microbiota exposed to chemicals that potentially contribute to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria from natural environments.
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    Solar energy policy implementation in Ghana: A LEAP model analysis
    ([Amsterdam] : Elsevier B.V., 2022) Amo-Aidoo, A.; Kumi, E.N.; Hensel, O.; Korese, J.K.; Sturm, B.
    Current global climate change mitigation programs have been unable to meet the Paris Agreement's targets, and Ghana's situation is no exception. There is, therefore, an increased need for intensification of renewable energy deployment programs with an emphasis on solar energy as it constitutes about 90% of Ghana's installed renewable energy generation capacity. The study demonstrates how appropriate renewable energy policy can drive solar energy development in Ghana. Electricity demand scenarios were developed using historical data from 2000 to 2018, after which projections were made up to 2030 based on the average year-on-year electricity growth rate. Of the three electricity demand categories, residential demand experienced a steeper growth rate in comparison with the special load tariff, non-residential, and street lighting sectors. On the supply side, low, moderate, and visionary supply scenarios had increased solar penetration of 5 %, 10 %, and 15 % of the installed generation capacity respectively. While appreciable gains were made in the low and moderate supply scenarios, the visionary supply scenario could meet the renewable energy target with solar energy by 2030; leading to universal access to electricity while offsetting over 13 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide in the process.
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    Functional relationship of particulate matter (PM) emissions, animal species, and moisture content during manure application
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier Science, 2020) Kabelitz, Tina; Ammon, Christian; Funk, Roger; Münch, Steffen; Biniasch, Oliver; Nübel, Ulrich; Thiel, Nadine; Rösler, Uwe; Siller, Paul; Amon, Barbara; Aarnink, André 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 3 kg t−1 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 55–70% DM for poultry manure and 75–85% 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.
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    Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism is an “old school” reliable technique for swift microbial community screening in anaerobic digestion
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2018-11-14) De Vrieze, Jo; Ijaz, Umer Z.; Saunders, Aaron M.; Theuerl, Susanne
    The microbial community in anaerobic digestion has been analysed through microbial fingerprinting techniques, such as terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP), for decades. In the last decade, high-throughput 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing has replaced these techniques, but the time-consuming and complex nature of high-throughput techniques is a potential bottleneck for full-scale anaerobic digestion application, when monitoring community dynamics. Here, the bacterial and archaeal TRFLP profiles were compared with 16S rRNA gene amplicon profiles (Illumina platform) of 25 full-scale anaerobic digestion plants. The α-diversity analysis revealed a higher richness based on Illumina data, compared with the TRFLP data. This coincided with a clear difference in community organisation, Pareto distribution, and co-occurrence network statistics, i.e., betweenness centrality and normalised degree. The β-diversity analysis showed a similar clustering profile for the Illumina, bacterial TRFLP and archaeal TRFLP data, based on different distance measures and independent of phylogenetic identification, with pH and temperature as the two key operational parameters determining microbial community composition. The combined knowledge of temporal dynamics and projected clustering in the β-diversity profile, based on the TRFLP data, distinctly showed that TRFLP is a reliable technique for swift microbial community dynamics screening in full-scale anaerobic digestion plants. © 2018, The Author(s).
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    Rapid and low-cost insect detection for analysing species trapped on yellow sticky traps
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2021) Böckmann, Elias; Pfaff, Alexander; Schirrmann, Michael; Pflanz, Michael
    While insect monitoring is a prerequisite for precise decision-making regarding integrated pest management (IPM), it is time- and cost-intensive. Low-cost, time-saving and easy-to-operate tools for automated monitoring will therefore play a key role in increased acceptance and application of IPM in practice. In this study, we tested the differentiation of two whitefly species and their natural enemies trapped on yellow sticky traps (YSTs) via image processing approaches under practical conditions. Using the bag of visual words (BoVW) algorithm, accurate differentiation between both natural enemies and the Trialeurodes vaporariorum and Bemisia tabaci species was possible, whereas the procedure for B. tabaci could not be used to differentiate this species from T. vaporariorum. The decay of species was considered using fresh and aged catches of all the species on the YSTs, and different pooling scenarios were applied to enhance model performance. The best performance was reached when fresh and aged individuals were used together and the whitefly species were pooled into one category for model training. With an independent dataset consisting of photos from the YSTs that were placed in greenhouses and consequently with a naturally occurring species mixture as the background, a differentiation rate of more than 85% was reached for natural enemies and whiteflies.