Relationship between abundance of rodents and damage to agricultural crops

Brown, Peter R.; Huth, Neil; Banks, Peter B.; Singleton, Grant R.

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2006.10.016

Cited by 93 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…It appeared that as the crops developed towards the reproductive stages, so did the availability and quality of food and cover (crop height) which may have been conducive for rodent population growth. Similar increases in rodent abundance in the course of crop development and increasing vegetation cover have been reported by Brown et al (2007) and Jacob (2008). The pattern we observed appears to occur with much regularity following crop development, making decision making for application of control measures somewhat less challenging.…”

Section: Rodent Abundance and Crop Phonological Stagesupporting

confidence: 64%

Rodent abundance, stone bund density and its effects on crop damage in the Tigray highlands, Ethiopia

et al. 2014

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Section: Rodent Abundance and Crop Phonological Stagesupporting

confidence: 64%

Rodent abundance, stone bund density and its effects on crop damage in the Tigray highlands, Ethiopia

et al. 2014

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“…Empirical evidence to support this body of theory is limited, but research examining the relationship between density and impact of crop pest species in agricultural and forestry systems has shown both linear (Poché et al 1982;Parsons et al 2005) and nonlinear relationships (Liebhold et al 1993;Nava-Camberos et al 2001;Brown et al 2007). Together, this body of ecological theory and the empirical results from agricultural and ecological studies suggest that per capita impacts are not constant, and that the utility of this framework for assessing impacts of early-stage invasion is severely limited.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Linear and non-linear impacts of a non-native plant invasion on soil microbial community structure and function

Elgersma

Ehrenfeld

2010

Biol Invasions

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Biological invasions can alter ecosystem functions such as litter decomposition and nutrient cycling, but little is known about how invader abundance influences the impact on the ecosystem. It is often assumed that impacts are proportional to invasion density, but this assumption has never been tested and has little justification. We tested the hypothesis that the microbial community structure and function of a mixed hardwood forest soil changed after invasion by Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii), an invasive shrub commonly found in eastern hardwood forests, and that changes were proportional to the density of invasion. We constructed microcosms with mixtures of native and invasive leaf litter, and measured microbial community structure (phospholipid fatty acids) and function (litter decomposition). Decomposition was linearly related to the degree of invasion (R 2 = 0.945), but the ratio of bacteria to fungi exhibited a strongly non-linear, threshold response (R 2 = 0.513). These results indicate that impacts of Japanese barberry invasion are not always proportional to invasion density. This finding has implications for the study of biological invasions as well as practical implications for the management of exotic invasive species.

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“…To address these problems, we investigated the effects of unprocessed, pounded, and/or cooked diets on body mass and food preference in a model omnivorous mammal, the mouse (Mus musculus), a species known to exploit both meat (16) and starchrich foods (17) in natural contexts. We validated our protocol with diets consisting of tubers, a starch-rich item in which significant positive effects of cooking were predictable based on prior studies of starch digestibility (2) but underestimated by the Atwater convention (10) ( Table S2).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Energetic consequences of thermal and nonthermal food processing

Carmody

Weintraub

Wrangham

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

181

120

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Processing food extensively by thermal and nonthermal techniques is a unique and universal human practice. Food processing increases palatability and edibility and has been argued to increase energy gain. Although energy gain is a well-known effect from cooking starch-rich foods, the idea that cooking meat increases energy gain has never been tested. Moreover, the relative energetic advantages of cooking and nonthermal processing have not been assessed, whether for meat or starch-rich foods. Here, we describe a system for characterizing the energetic effects of cooking and nonthermal food processing. Using mice as a model, we show that cooking substantially increases the energy gained from meat, leading to elevations in body mass that are not attributable to differences in food intake or activity levels. The positive energetic effects of cooking were found to be superior to the effects of pounding in both meat and starch-rich tubers, a conclusion further supported by food preferences in fasted animals. Our results indicate significant contributions from cooking to both modern and ancestral human energy budgets. They also illuminate a weakness in current food labeling practices, which systematically overestimate the caloric potential of poorly processed foods.caloric value | nutrition label | weight | energy balance | human evolution E nergy availability is a routine constraint on metabolic processes, including growth, disease suppression, and reproduction, and therefore, it is a key variable for human nutrition and evolutionary fitness. Cooking has long been recognized to increase the energy available from starch (1-3), but how it changes the rate of energy gain from eating meat is an unsolved problem with practical and theoretical implications. Because meat is nearly always eaten cooked, the contribution of meat cooking to human nutritional energetics is potentially great: meat is the largest source of protein in all affluent countries except Japan (4), and dependence on meat is growing rapidly among developing nations (5), with annual global consumption of meat expected to reach 376 million tons by 2030 (6). The energetic consequences of cooking meat would also have been important in human evolution ever since fire was controlled, minimally 300,000-400,000 y ago, a period when meat is inferred to have been a large component of the diet and energy would have routinely been in short supply (7-9).The standard Atwater system of energy assessment is based on measuring the total metabolizable nutrient content of an edible item (gross food energy content minus energy lost in urine, feces, secretions, and gases) and finds that cooking tends to have minimal impact on meat energy value (10) ( Table S1). However, this conclusion is suspect, because the Atwater system ignores potentially important effects (1). Heat-induced protein denaturation, loss of structural integrity, and deactivation of microbes are expected to increase meat energy value (2, 11, 12), whereas dripping loss, Maillard reactions, formation of protein c...

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Relationship between abundance of rodents and damage to agricultural crops

Cited by 93 publications

References 48 publications

Rodent abundance, stone bund density and its effects on crop damage in the Tigray highlands, Ethiopia

Rodent abundance, stone bund density and its effects on crop damage in the Tigray highlands, Ethiopia

Linear and non-linear impacts of a non-native plant invasion on soil microbial community structure and function

Energetic consequences of thermal and nonthermal food processing

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