Global warming causes a range of negative impacts on plants especially due to rapid changes in temperatures, alterations of rainfall patterns, floods or drought conditions, and outbreaks of pests and diseases. These, in turn, affect crop production reducing the quality and quantity of agricultural produce. Climatic extremes and high population growth significantly increase the world’s food demand. Therefore, fulfilling the goal of attaining food security for the present and future generations is of prime importance. Biotechnology enables creating dramatic alterations on crops to withstand stress which is difficult to attain using conventional breeding approaches. It is a viable tool used to improve agricultural production. The development of biotechnological approaches such as genetic engineering, genome editing, RNA-mediated gene silencing armored with next-generation sequencing, and genome mapping have paved the way for precise and faster genetic modifications of plants. Such intensive efforts are currently underway creating desirable crop cultivars to meet the food demand and to support sustainable agricultural productivity for climate change adaptation.
The Kalu Ganga Basin in Sri Lanka is generally flooded once a year. A network of low-lying lands acts as natural retention and storage that captures floodwater, minimizing damage. An increase in the flood frequency has been observed in recent years. It is commonly perceived that this increase is caused by a rise in the frequency and severity of ‘very wet’ precipitation events. We conclude that land-use changes may have played a larger role in generating floods.Peer Revie
The present study was carried out to determine the effect of water quality on the diversity and distribution of avifauna in urban wetlands. The bird aggregation and physical and chemical parameters of water bodies were assessed using standard field-based methods. The study recorded 67 bird species of 35 families. The bird population parameters were influenced by total dissolved solids, dissolved oxygen, salinity, and visibility. The Shannon-Wiener species diversity index (Hˊ) ranged between 0.99±0.05 -1.71±0.03. The density of aquatic birds and species richness ranged between 1677.45±137.2 -4990.09±151.3 birdskm-2 and 14.85±0.36 -22.07±0.68 respectively in the five wetlands studied. Shannon-Wiener diversity index (Hˊ) resulted in significant negative relationships with total dissolved solids (R 2 =0.716; p<0.05), and salinity (R 2 =0.919; p<0.01). Bird density was positively related with Secchi disk depth (R² = 0.457; p<0.05).Further, bird density negatively correlated with salinity (R² = 0.568; p<0.05) and total dissolved solids (BD = -0.003TDS + 3.903; R² = 0.566; p<0.05). The results of the principal component analysis indicated Secchi disk depth and dissolved oxygen were extremely influenced on Thalangama tank followed by Heen Ela marsh. For the wetland sites of Beddagana and Kiribathgoda, salinity and total dissolved solids were the extremely influential parameters, where Beddagana and Diyasaru Park had an influence from electrical conductivity on the variation of diversity, density, and species richness of the aquatic birds.
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