New Entries to RM December 2015.Pdf
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International Plant Nutrition Institute Regional Office • Southeast Asia Date: December 14, 2015 Page: 1 of 314 New Entries to IPNI Library as References Hardwick S. R., R. Toumi, M. Pfeifer, E. C. Turner, R. Nilus, and R. M. Ewers. 2015. The relationship between leaf area index and microclimate in tropical forest and oil palm plantation: Forest disturbance drives changes in microclimate. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 201:187-195. Reference ID: 21198 Notes: #21198e Abstract: Land use change is a major threat to biodiversity. One mechanism by which land use change influences biodiversity and ecological processes is through changes in the local climate. Here, the relationships between leaf area index and five climate variables air temperature, relative humidity, vapour pressure deficit, specific humidity and soil temperature are investigated across a range of land use types in Borneo, including primary tropical forest, logged forest and oil palm plantation. Strong correlations with the leaf area index are found for the mean daily maximum air and soil temperatures, the mean daily maximum vapour pressure deficit and the mean daily minimum relative humidity. Air beneath canopies with high leaf area index is cooler and has higher relative humidity during the day. Forest microclimate is also found to be less variable for sites with higher leaf area indices. Primary forest is found to be up to 2.5 degrees C cooler than logged forest and up to 6.5 degrees C cooler than oil palm plantations. Our results indicate that leaf area index is a useful parameter for predicting the effects of vegetation upon microclimate, which could be used to make small scale climate predictions based on remotely sensed data. Ajambang W., S. W. Ardie, H. Volkaert, M. Galdima, and S. Sudarsono. 2015. Huge carbohydrate assimilates delay response to complete defoliation stress in oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.). Emirates Journal of Food and Agriculture, 27:126-137. Reference ID: 21199 Notes: #21199e Abstract: Understanding how and when crops cope with and respond to stress during reproductive development may be able to forecast total crop production under abrupt climate change. We studied the effect of complete defoliation under time- specific climate-related conditions on inflorescence sex differentiation in oil palm. A total of 162 pisifera oil palm trees were completely defoliated at the rate of three trees per month between July 2007 and December 2011. Complete defoliation significantly increased male inflorescence induction by 104% when compared with control without defoliation. Acute soil water deficit (SWD) of 16.8 mm between the 30th and 60th day after complete defoliation (DAD) had an additional positive effect on male inflorescence production. A regression analysis on 18 time-specific, climate- related research and two inflorescence-related variables resulted in high regression coefficients for the time period 30th to 60th DAD. This is an indication that oil palm responds to complete defoliation stress after a 30-day delaying period. Total soluble sugars measured at 45 DAD showed a depletion of 55% in the leaves and 21% in inflorescence of defoliated trees compared to control trees without defoliation. Preferential sex differentiation in oil palm towards maleness is an acclimation response to the depletion of total soluble sugar inflected by mechanical and soil Mail PO Box 500 GPO, Penang 10670, Malaysia Office c/o The WorldFish Center, Jalan Batu Maung, Batu Maung, 11960 Bayan Lepas, Penang, Malaysia Ph +60 4 6202 284 • Fax +60 4 6264 380 • E-mail [email protected] • URL www.ipni.net/seasia water deficit stresses. These results shall permit the simulation of male inflorescence induction and yield forecasting in other geographical locations. Cracknell A. P., K. D. Kanniah, K. P. Tan, and L. Wang. 2015. Towards the development of a regional version of MOD17 for the determination of gross and net primary productivity of oil palm trees. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 36:262-289. Reference ID: 21200 Notes: #21200e Abstract: Conducting quantitative studies on the carbon balance or productivity of oil palm is important for understanding the role of this ecosystem in global climate change. The MOD17 algorithm is used for processing data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to generate the values of gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity for input to global carbon cycle modelling. In view of the increasing importance of data on carbon sequestration at regional and national levels, we have studied one important factor affecting the accuracy of the implementation of MOD17 at the sub-global level, namely the database of MODIS land cover (MOD12Q1) used by MOD17. By using a study area of approximately 7 km x 7 km (49 MODIS pixels) in semi-rural Johor in Peninsular Malaysia and using Google Earth 0.75 m resolution images as ground data, we found that the land-cover type for only 16 of these 49 MODIS pixels was correctly identified by MOD12Q1 using its 1 km resolution land-cover database. This leads to errors of 24% to 50% in the maximum light use efficiency, leading to corresponding errors of 24% to 50% in the GPP. We show that by using the Finer Resolution Observation and Monitoring - Global Land Cover (FROM-GLC) land- cover database developed by Gong et al., this particular error can be essentially eliminated, but at the cost of using extra computing resources. Anderman T. L., R. Remans, S. A. Wood, K. DeRosa, and R. S. DeFries. 2014. Synergies and tradeoffs between cash crop production and food security: a case study in rural Ghana. Food Security, 6:541-554. Reference ID: 21201 Notes: #21201e Abstract: Despite dramatic improvements in global crop yields over the past half- century, chronic food insecurity persists in many parts of the world. Farming crops for sale (cash cropping) has been recommended as a way to increase income that can, in turn, improve food security for smallholder farmers. Despite long-term efforts by development agencies and government to promote cash cropping, there is limited evidence documenting a relationship between these crops and the food security of households cultivating them. We used a mixed methods approach to build a case study to assess these relationships by collecting quantitative and qualitative data from cacao and oil palm farmers in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Three dimensions of food security were considered: food availability, measured by the months in a year households reported inadequate food; food access, indicated by the coping strategies they employed to secure sufficient food; and food utilization, gauged by the diversity of household diets and anthropometric measurements of child nutritional status. We found significant negative relationships between each of these pillars of food security and a household's intensity of cash crop production, measured by both quantity and area. A qualitative assessment indicated community perception of these tradeoffs and identified potential mechanisms, including increasing food prices and competing activities for land use, as underlying causes. The adverse relationship Page 2 of 314 between cash crop production and household food security observed in this paper calls for caution; results suggest that positive relationships cannot be assumed, and that further empirical evidence is needed to better understand these tradeoffs. Hunsberger C., S. Bolwig, E. Corbera, and F. Creutzig. 2014. Livelihood impacts of biofuel crop production: Implications for governance. Geoforum, 54:248-260. Reference ID: 21202 Notes: #21202e Abstract: While much attention has focused on the climate change mitigation potential of biofuels, research from the social sciences increasingly highlights the social and livelihood impacts of their expanded production. Policy and governance measures aimed at improving the social effects of biofuels have proliferated but questions remain about their effectiveness across the value chain. This paper performs three tasks building on emerging insights from social science research on the deployment of biofuel crops. First, we identify livelihood dimensions that are particularly likely to be affected by their cultivation in the global South - income, food security, access to land-based resources, and social assets - revealing that distributional effects are crucial to evaluating the outcomes of biofuel production across these dimensions. Second, we ask how well selected biofuel governance mechanisms address livelihood and equity concerns. Third, we draw insights from literature on non-energy agricultural value chains to provide one set of ideas for improving livelihood outcomes. Our analysis demonstrates that biofuel policies treat livelihoods as a second-degree problem, specifying livelihoods as an afterthought to other goals. We suggest integrating livelihoods into a multi-criteria policy framework from the start - one that prioritizes equity issues as well as overall outcomes. We also show that the instruments with strongest provisions for safeguarding livelihoods and equity appear least likely to be implemented. Together, shifting both the priorities and the relative hierarchy of biofuel governance instruments could help produce strategies that more effectively address livelihood and equity concerns. Persson U. M., S. Henders, and C. Cederberg. 2014. A method for calculating a land-use change carbon footprint (LUC-CFP) for agricultural commodities- applications to Brazilian beef and soy, Indonesian