To better determine the ecological variation (body shape and structure) of the Vieja Azul (Andinoacara rivulatus; syn.: Aequidens rivulatus) in northwest Ecuador (Los Ríos Province), 300 specimens of both sexes (150 male and 150 female) were collected from 3 different locations, one from a wild production system and two from fish farm populations in the Quevedo River. Twelve meristic, 26 traditional morphometric, and 32 truss measurements, among 25 anatomical landmarks, were determined. The body weight (BW), total length (TL), eye diameter (ED), dorsal fin ray length (DFRL), and body perimeter 3 (P3) showed significant differences (P < 0.05) between production systems, and sex had significant influence on preanal length (Pre-AL), P3, and body width 2 (LC2). Females showed higher mean values than males in all measurements, except for BW. The Fulton factor differed for both factors considered. The canonical discriminant analysis revealed a percentage of correct assignment of 64.42% for the dataset, 85% and 60.9% for cultured and wild females, and 62.1% and 56.3% for wild and cultured males, respectively, as well as morphometric variation between groups. Results could be attributed to environmental conditions (habitat, temperature, and food). The Mahalanobis test showed greater distances among females than among males. In conclusion, this study provides valuable morphological information on the shape and structure of Andinoacara rivulatus that can be used to characterize and quantify the changes that occur as a consequence of adaptation to a different habitat. The authors hope that the information obtained from the present study will be helpful for fisheries, biologists, and taxonomists. Research ArticleThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. CAEZ et al. / Turk J Zool 517 2. Materials and methods Ethical noteThe study was carried out according to the Ecuadorian national recommendations for fish management, with consideration for the rules on animal welfare. Study area and data samplingThis study was carried out in Los Ríos Province (Ecuador). The climate of the area is tropical with an average temperature of 25 °C, annual rainfall of 2400 mm, and relative humidity of 82%. Wild fish were caught from 3 separate locations within their natural geographic distributions in the Quevedo River (Los Ríos Province, Ecuador). Cultured fish were collected from 2 fish farms A total of 300 Andinoacara rivulatus individuals (150 wild and 150 cultured, of both sexes) were obtained at random from weekly catches made following the procedure described by Konings (1989) in 2017. All individuals were healthy adult fish. In the river, diurnal catches were made by native fishermen following the procedures described by Frost and Kipling (1980), Chávez-Lomelí et al. (1988), and Konings (1989. On the farms, fish were caught using standard fishing equipment. Farmed fish were fed 3 times per day, adjusting the consumption to 1.5% biomass. The diet composition was 32% crude protein, 7% fat, 5% crude ...

Ecuador, a country exhibiting large developments in fish farming, has a great variety of freshwater native fish. Among these fish is the Dormitator latifrons or chame, which has characteristics that make its farming prone to occur at a quite-developed stage. However, morphological characterization is required to establish a conservation program. In this study, 300 chames were captured in the Manabi province (Ecuador) to analyze their morphostructural model and to evaluate the effects of sex and the production system through multivariant techniques. The fish from the farm presented morphological measurements that were statistically (p < 0.05) higher than those of wild fish. Males were taller, longer, and wider than females, although the differences were not significant (p > 0.05). The percentage of correct adscription was 84%, with larger errors in wild fish. The morphostructural model had a high homogeneity, with 89.95% significant correlations (p < 0.05), and wild male and female fish were more homogeneous. The farm fish were larger because of the higher food availability. Moreover, the species exhibited sexual dimorphism, although there were no great differences in the morphometric measurements. This study shows the great biodiversity that naturally exists in Ecuadorian rivers. Therefore, it is of great interest to develop a chame breeding and conservation program.

In dit rapport presenteren we een effectbeoordeling van zes doelstellingen van de Farm to Fork-en biodiversiteitsstrategieën met betrekking tot vermindering van het gebruik en risico van pesticiden, vermindering van nutriëntenverliezen, vergroting van het areaal in de EU waarop biologische productie plaatsvindt en verhoging van de hoeveelheid land dat bestaat uit landschapselementen met grote diversiteit. Er zijn vier scenario's ontwikkeld waarvan de effecten zijn beoordeeld: (1) vermindering van gebruik en risico van bestrijdingsmiddelen, (2) vermindering van gebruik en verlies van nutriënten (3) vergroting van het biologische areaal en (4) een combinatie van de scenario's 1 en 2 uitgebreid met de doelstelling om meer land met landschapselementen met grote diversiteit te hebben. De effectbeoordeling is uitgevoerd op bedrijfsniveau en heeft betrekking op tien gewassen en zeven caselanden in de hele EU. Met de resultaten van de casestudies is onderzocht wat de gevolgen zijn van deze doelstellingen voor het productievolume van de gewassen in de EU, de prijzen, de internationale handel en indirect landgebruik.In this report we present an Impact Assessment on six objectives of the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies with respect to reduction of pesticide use and risk, reduction of nutrient losses, increase of the area in the EU under organic production and increase of the amount of agricultural land under high-diversity landscape features. Four scenarios have been developed for which the impacts have been assessed: (1) reduction of use and risk of pesticides, (2) reduction of use and losses of nutrients, (3) increase of area under organic production and (4) a combination of the Scenarios 1 and 2 extended with the added objective to have more land with high-diversity landscape features. The impact assessment has been executed at farm level, covering ten crops and seven case countries across the EU. The results of the case studies have been used to explore the consequences of these objectives for the production volume of the crops in the EU, market prices, the international trade and indirect land use.

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In this paper we derive a theoretical macro accumulation function, which relies on the accelerator principle and is complemented by utilizing capacity and profits. This investigation also accounts for several sources and kinds of uncertainty: exchange rates for financial uncertainty, oil prices for political uncertainty and interest rates for stock market uncertainty. The latter purports to account for the relationship between physical and financial investment. We also take on board the role of conventions in an attempt to account fully for uncertainty. In doing so, we include the relevant variables as deviations from their conventional levels. In the second part of the paper we estimate the investment function, by means of the system GMM in a panel of 12 OECD economies over the period 1970-2010.

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This paper shows how to introduce liquidity into the well known mean-variance framework of portfolio selection. Either by estimating mean-variance liquidity constrained frontiers or directly estimating optimal portfolios for alternative levels of risk aversion and preference for liquidity, we obtain strong effects of liquidity on optimal portfolio selection. In particular, portfolio performance, measured by the Sharpe ratio relative to the tangency portfolio, varies significantly with liquidity. Moreover, although mean-variance performance becomes clearly worse, the levels of liquidity on optimal portfolios obtained when there is a positive preference for liquidity are much lower than on those optimal portfolios where investors show no sign of preference for liquidity.3

Although a key condition for the creation of a monetary union is the existence of similar structural characteristics that reduce the existence and incidence of asymmetric shocks, in the case of the Eurozone, most, if not all, studies have emphasized the existence of sizeable divergences both in the macroeconomic performances and in the structural elements of the Eurozone countries. The objective of the paper is to analyse whether the economic and financial crisis that is affecting the Eurozone since the year 2008 has had any impact of the coherence of the Eurozone, that is, whether after 2008 the differences in the macroeconomic performance of the euro counties are declining (convergence) or increasing (divergence).