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504. Climate Change Effects on Blood Cockle Aquaculture
Blood cockle is a marine bivalve mollusk of the Arcidae family that contains hemoglobin in its fluid, with the largest growing to about 5 cm in shell length. This species is common as a food source in Southeast Asian countries and is also cultivated. The main fishing grounds for this species are the estuarine areas where mangrove forests and mud flats are formed, and the surrounding shallow-water areas. This article presents a case study of mass mortality of blood cockle in a sowing aquaculture fishery in Thailand during the rainy season, and considers measures to stabilize production.
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503. Altered Growth and Water-use Efficiency of Tropical Rainforest Trees Due to Climate Change Over the Past 50 Years
Global climate change may have a significant impact on the distribution, growth rate, and carbon fixation of the trees that make up forests. It is especially important to accurately predict the effects of climate change on tropical rainforests because of the huge size of the trees and the large amount of carbon stored in them. However, in tropical rainforests, where the climate is hot and rainy throughout the year and there is no seasonality, it has been difficult to determine long-term growth rates from annual tree rings. We established a new technique for accurately identifying past growth rates from radiocarbon isotope concentrations in the wood of rainforest trees in a Malaysia.
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502. Renewal of the JIRCAS Website
The top page of the JIRCAS website has been renewed as of Tuesday, March 22, 2022. In this renewal, we have revised the design and menu structure of the top page to make it easier to view, user-friendly, and more visually informative.
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501. World Water Day: Development of Appropriate Fertilizer Application for Safe Groundwater
March 22 is World Water Day, a day to raise awareness of the importance of water in various countries around the world. This year's theme is "Groundwater – Making the invisible visible”. One in five children in the world does not have access to enough water for their daily needs. In rural areas of developing countries, drinking well water contains high concentrations of nitrate nitrogen derived from nitrogen fertilizers, which can be hazardous to people's health. Along with the need for infrastructure development to provide safe drinking water, efforts are required to improve the efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer use in the fields and to reduce nitrate-nitrogen concentrations in groundwater.
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500. A Better World－SDG 13
This is the 500th article in the Pick up section that we started on March 8, 2020. Today we are featuring “A Better World” published by the Human Development Forum, which features various education and innovation efforts around the world related to the Sustainable Development Goal on climate change (SDG 13). This publication also introduces the research agenda of the JIRCAS Environment Program on climate change focusing on the Asian Monsoon region.
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499. Dissemination and Use of Differential System Against Rice Blast
Blast disease, caused by a type of filamentous fungus (Pyricularia oryzae), occurs in all regions where rice is grown, from tropical to temperate zones. Blast disease is caused by the repeated use of a single rice cultivar over a wide area (monoculture), which results in a dominant race of fungi capable of infecting that particular resistant cultivar, and is induced by low temperatures during the growing season, such as cold injury, and excessive application of fertilizer. Damage is increasingly being reported not only in temperate regions but also in tropical regions of Africa and Asia. Breeding rice cultivars that take advantage of genetic diversity and developing cultivation methods will be important for rice cultivation, especially in economically poor developing regions.
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498. Increasing Rice Production and Malaria Eradication Simultaneously Require Cooperation Between Agriculture and Health Sectors
Malaria, a disease transmitted by the bite of a mosquito carrying the malaria parasite, remains one of the most serious infectious diseases in the world. In many parts of Africa, malaria is the most common reason for visits to outpatient clinics and admissions to pediatric wards. On the other hand, rice is the fastest expanding crop in Africa, and with the projected increase in demand for rice, many African countries are looking to expand production. A study published in The Lancet Planetary Health conducted a meta-analysis of the relationship between rice cultivation and malaria transmission. The study concluded that cooperation between the agricultural and health sectors is necessary to simultaneously achieve the two development goals of increasing rice production and eradication of malaria.
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497. Unravelling Little-known Small-scale Marine Fishing in Cambodia
The year 2022 has been designated as the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture. It is extremely important to understand the actual situation for the promotion of small-scale fishery and aquaculture workers. However, catch statistics, which serve as basic data for fisheries management, often provide sample data on a limited number of species caught by large-scale fisheries in developing countries, and the catch and operational status of small-scale surface fisheries are largely unknown. Since many small-scale marine fisheries in Cambodia are operated by fishers, Tokai University and JIRCAS analyzed the actual situation with the cooperation of the Cambodian government.
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496. UN International Day of Forests and the Forest Utilization in Tropical Islands
One week from now, on March 21, is the “International Day of Forests (IDF)”. This year's theme is "Forests and sustainable production and consumption”. Forests not only produce timber, but also serve socially beneficial functions such as water and soil conservation and climate change mitigation, and are important places of livelihood for local residents who produce non-timber forest products (NTFPs) such as fruits and mushrooms. At JIRCAS, we are conducting research on sustainable resource use in forested mountainous areas that can both sustain the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and improve water and soil conservation functions.
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495. Towards a Food System that Averts Future Pandemics
It has been two full years since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Pandemics are extremely costly, and prevention is more effective in reducing the incidence of the zoonotic diseases that cause them. Prevention of pandemics and zoonoses requires monitoring of the food system, which is the largest factor in biodiversity loss and land use change.
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494. PNAS: Ten Facts About Land Use Sustainability
In February 2022, PNAS published a paper summarizing the 10 facts about land use sustainability based on a review of literatures. The paper is based on the premise that land use is intertwined with sustainability in many ways, including biodiversity conservation, climate change, food security, poverty reduction, and sustainable energy.
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493. Millet Day
March 9th is “Millet Day”. Millet is a general term for minor cereal crops such as Japanese millet, foxtail millet, and pearl millet that produce small grains. Let's learn about millet in today's Pick Up.
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492. Accelerated Expansion of Cropland in the 21st Century
A paper published in the international journal Nature Food in January 2022, examines global cropland expansion using satellite data and shows that cropland has been expanding at an accelerating rate since the beginning of the 21st century. Half of the newly created cropland area is from natural vegetation and tree cover, contradicting SDG Goal 15 (Life on land), which aims to halt deforestation and degradation of natural habitats.
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491. Obesity and the Food System
March 4 was World Obesity Day. Overweight and obesity are conditions that pose a risk to health, and as of 2017, it is estimated that over 4 million people die each year from overweight or obesity. Once a problem seen only in high-income countries, in recent years it has been on the rise in low- and middle-income countries, especially in urban areas. There is a need to fundamentally rethink the food system regarding dietary habits that cause overweight and obesity.
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490. Vegetable Research ― Towards Improving Global Nutrition ―
Eating vegetables and obtaining nutrients and functional ingredients are important for a healthy life. Today’s article is an excerpt from the latest issue of “Koho JIRCAS” introducing our research activities to improve nutrition using vegetable genetic resources.
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489. Substance from Maize that Makes the Earth Healthy
In order to increase the yield of crops and livestock feed for supporting the growing population, it is necessary to apply nitrogen fertilizer into the soil. Unfortunately, only about 50% of what is administered is absorbed by the plants, and the rest is released from the farmland in the forms of polluted water and greenhouse gases. From the latest issue of the JIRCAS bulletin, we present an article on the search for substances from maize, that can make the earth healthier.
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488. Mismatch in Seasons and Life Cycle Patterns of Plants and Animals Due to Climate Change
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been releasing Frontiers reports since 2016 that focus on emerging environmental challenges. In Frontiers 2022: Noise, Blazes and Mismatches, published on February 17, 2022, the following issues are addressed: the long-term physical and mental health impacts of urban noise pollution, the increasing frequency of wildfires and forest fires and the shifting rhythm of nature due to climate change. Today, we will focus on the mismatch between the life cycle patterns of plants and animals and the seasons.
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487. IPCC - The Need for Climate Resilient Development
In February 2022, Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”, assessing the the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities at global and regional levels, analyzing vulnerabilities and the capacities and limits of the natural world and human societies to adapt to climate change, and proposing policy commitments and governance to promote adaptation, mitigation, and achievement of the SDGs towards climate resilient development.
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486. Distribution of Stalks for Seeds of a New Sugarcane Variety “Harunoogi” Bred by JIRCAS and NARO to Farmers
Sugarcane is an important crop for food and energy production in the world, producing about 80% of the world's sugar and 40% of the world's bioethanol. In Japan, it is cultivated as a main crop in the Nansei Islands and plays an important role in maintaining domestic self-sufficiency in sugar and the social and economic life of the island region. JIRCAS, in collaboration with the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) has bred Japan's first sugar cane variety for sugar production, "Harunogi", using interspecific hybridization with wild sugarcane varieties. The distribution of stalks for seeds to farmers in the Kumage and Amami regions of Kagoshima Prefecture has began in February 2022, with the aim of spreading this new variety.
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485. Addressing the Global Challenge of Malnutrition ～ Contributions from the JIRCAS Information Program
JIRCAS publishes a Japanese bulletin called “Koho JIRCAS”, which introduces the activities of research staff. This article introduces an excerpt from the latest issue focusing on our efforts to address the global challenge of malnutrition. For more details, please refer to the “Koho JIRCAS” link.