Forest conversion to oil palm plantation is causing a major loss of biodiversity in Southeast Asia and other tropical regions. Oil palm plantations have less biodiversity because of their simplified vegetation, human disturbances, and extreme microclimate conditions. Alleycropping system incorporates a secondary crop in the alleys between the main crops. In some cases alley-cropping can result in a greater vegetation structural complexity, thus potentially providing agricultural and ecological benefits, including: buffering against weather extremes, reduction in soil erosion, increased biodiversity, and increased nutrient and water-use efficiency. In this study, we compared vegetation structure (height and cover of vegetation), microclimate (air temperature, relative humidity, light intensity and wind speed), and soil conditions (soil surface temperature, soil pH and soil moisture) across a range of alley-cropping systems and two ages of monoculture oil palm. We found that alley-cropping system had varied structural complexity across different crops when compared to oil palm monoculture system. Careful selection of crops was essential, with black pepper and cacao having the largest impact on improving vegetation heterogeneity and microclimate regulation when incorporated into an alley-cropping system. In particular, we found that systems intercropped with black pepper had air and soil surface temperatures up to 1.3 °C and 2.1 °C cooler than those in oil palm monoculture. In contrast, systems intercropped with bactris and bamboo had increased air temperatures. Our findings show that some alley-cropping systems have great potential as a climate-smart practice in sustainable oil palm agriculture. This study also shows that careful selection of crops is important in the planning and management of future alley-cropping system to optimise the ecosystem benefits that can be gained from this management system.
Oil palms are extensively planted in tropical countries and causing a severe decline in biodiversity. Alleycropping is an agroforestry practice that has been proven to sustain greater diversity of terrestrial arthropods than monoculture plantations. However, the environmental factors responsible for these differences remain unclear. This study aimed to identify the environmental factors influencing terrestrial arthropod abundance and richness in alley-cropping and monoculture oil palm plantations. We sampled terrestrial arthropod using 840 pitfall traps under seven treatments: oil palm alley-cropping systems with Bactris, bamboo, black pepper, cacao, and pineapple; and two oil palm monoculture systems. We assessed the microenvironment (presence/absence of alley cropping, vegetation coverage, soil surface temperature, soil moisture, light intensity, and relative air humidity) at each sampling site. Overall, 14,358 arthropods belonging to 19 orders were collected. The presence of alley-cropping was the only factor that positively affected the arthropod abundance and order richness. Arthropod abundance was negatively affected by soil moisture, suggesting that the dominant species, even in alley-cropping, were generalist species acclimated to dry soil conditions. Our study suggests that alley-cropping in oil palm plantations could increase the terrestrial arthropods diversity by increasing the diversity of vegetation (even with only one additional crop), rather than improving habitat microclimate. However, as microclimate remained intense, alley-cropping with only one secondary crop in our study site would not be sufficient to conserve forest specialist species. We suggest that producers of oil palm pay close attention to the potential of alley-cropping incorporating multiple secondary crops to increase biodiversity in plantations.
Introduction. Trans-radial artery (TRA) becomes the most common entry route for cardiac catheterization. However, it may cause radial artery spasm (RAS) and subsequent radial artery occlusion (RAO). We conducted a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to assess the efficacy of different administration routes of nitroglycerin in reducing RAS and RAO compared to placebo in adult patients undergoing TRA cardiac catheterization. Methods. We searched Google Scholar, Web of Science, SCOPUS, EMBASE, PubMed (MEDLINE), and CENTRAL for RCTs up to April 23, 2022. The outcomes of interest were the incidence of RAS or RAO. Pooled risk ratio (RR) with the corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) in a fixed-effects model was generated using RevMan Software (Version 5.4). We evaluated heterogeneity using I-square and Chi-square tests. Results. Eleven trials with 5,814 patients were included. Compared to placebo, the overall results showed that nitroglycerin was effective in preventing RAS (RR: 0.71 with 95% CI [0.59, 0.84], p= 0.0001), and RAO (RR: 0.74 with 95% CI [0.58, 0.94], p= 0.02). However, subgroup analysis according to the route of administration showed statistically significant result with subcutaneous nitroglycerin in prevention both RAS (RR: 0.57 with 95% CI [0.43, 0.77], p= 0.0003) and RAO (RR: 0.39 with 95% CI [0.16, 0.98, p= 0.05) but not intra-arterial nitroglycerine for RAS ((RR: 0.8 with 95% CI [0.63, 1.02], p= 0.07) and RAO (RR: 0.78 with 95% CI [0.6, 1.01], p= 0.06)), neither topical nitroglycerine for RAS ((RR: 0.73 with 95% CI [0.42, 1.24], p= 0.24). Conclusion. Our meta-analysis showed that subcutaneous nitroglycerin administration for TRA catheterization may prevent RAS and subsequent RAO compared to placebo. In contrast, intra-atrial and topical nitroglycerin have non-significant outcomes. Figure 1: Forest plot of the primary outcomes sub-grouped by route of administration (A- RAS, B- RAO). I2: I-squared; CI: confidence interval.
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