CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

“Precipitationsheds” – a new concept for water science!

It is well known that precipitation derives in part from evaporation from oceans and in part from recycled moisture from terrestrial surfaces. In fact, a new model by van der Ent et al. (2010), which was highlighted in an International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) presentation demonstrates that up to 50% of rainfall in many areas is actually the recycling of water on land. Although external forcing and climatic parameters, such as solar radiation, aerosols and greenhouse gases affect sea surface temperature and, thus, determine oceans evaporation; terrestrial evaporation on the other hand is strongly influenced by vegetation and only in part by climate.

Jumping the red light – Do consumers pay attention to nutritional labels?

There have been many labelling schemes to make clearer to consumers the healthiness of foods, such as traffic light codes with green for healthy and red for less healthy. But do consumers actually make use of the labels and choose healthier foods?
In a paper in CAB Reviews, Sophie Hieke and Jo Wills of the European Food Information Council examine the recent evidence. A consistent finding is the “attitude-behaviour gap, meaning that consumers will say one thing and do another.” Some experiments suggest that people will try to avoid “red traffic-light” foods. However, a German study showed people could distinguish the healthiest drink using such a “traffic-light” coding system, but did not choose the healthy option when picking out their meal for the next day.

Where's my ball? How practical is it to give farm animals a better environment?

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that giving animals a better environment makes them less stressed, less likely to behave abnormally, and sometimes more productive. However, most of that evidence comes from small-scale trials, and scaling improvements up to the practicalities of large farms could prove costly and burdensome.  Is it environmental enrichment a realistic option for farmers?

In an article in CAB Reviews, Laura Dixon of the Scottish Agriculture College looks at the practicalities and how environments can be improved. She says that the main approaches are through providing foraging opportunities, structural complexity, sensory stimulation or novelty, and social stimulation from other animals or humans. The type of enrichment that helps differs from animal to animal – poultry benefit from perches, while ducks prefer water troughs. Allowing birds to forage or to use water troughs and dust baths has been shown to reduce abnormal behaviour, and often leads to better growth. However, the “wilder” environment can be difficult to clean and need more maintenance, with more risk of disease.

 

Towards an ecology of belief: The limits of science for preserving public parks

 The following guest article was written by Will La Page, author of the new book "Rethinking Park Protection: Treading the Uncommon Ground of Environmental Beliefs", which has just been published by CABI. It describes the inspiration for the book and for the thinking behind it.

A small group of park scientists friends were sitting around the dining table at our home in Fort Collins, Colorado, in the mid-1990's digesting dinner along with a comment my wife, Susan Cockrell a long-time wildlife activist, had made about the growing public outcry over the state's wildlife management policies. One of the scientists, obviously experiencing some discomfort with the meal or the topic or perhaps both, in an outburst of emotion revealed his frustration with the public's resources being managed by the subjective passions of poorly-informed citizens and their biased beliefs. No amount of cajoling this purely objective scientist could get him to reconsider; not the fact that the public owns the resources, and has a right to be involved in policy-making; not the fact that other biased belief systems have wildlife managers firmly in their grasp; nor even the fact that science is, itself, a human belief system, approaching if not exceeding that of the most dogmatic religion.

Why are we still in a drought during floods?

It has been the wettest April on record for England and Wales, yet in the past few weeks, I have often heard people asking the question: how can we be told we’re in a drought in the UK, when at the same time we’re being told many areas of the country are experiencing floods?  Since I have some water science expertise, I thought I should write this blog on the subject.