Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2021
Authors
Leticia Regueiro Richard Newton Mohamed Soula Diego Méndez Björn Kok David C. Little Roberto Pastres Johan Johansen Martiña FerreiraAbstract
EU aquaculture produces only a small fraction of the internal demand of aquatic foods, but boosting this activity must be done in compliance with high standards of environmental protection and social benefits, as fostered by the policies on circular economy recently launched by the EU. Nevertheless, the assessment of the environmental sustainability of aquaculture and other food production systems is complex, due to the different tools and approaches available. Moreover, the current EU regulatory framework may be restricting the options to implement some circular solutions. This paper examines the controversies related to the assessment of environmental impacts of aquaculture processes and the different available circular solutions, with a focus on the best options to valorize aquaculture side streams and how current regulatory burdens and gaps should be solved.
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Authors
Jan-David WackerAbstract
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Authors
Dmitry KechasovAbstract
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In regions with intensive agricultural production, large amounts of organic waste are produced by livestock animals. Liquid digestate from manure-based biogas production could potentially serve as fertilizer if integrated with closed horticultural irrigation systems. The aim of this experiment was to investigate how fertilizer based on liquid biogas by-products of pig manure digestion can affect the growth and production of tomato plants. Integration of a nitrification bioreactor presumes a significantly lower concentration of nutrient solutions and a higher level of oxygenation than classical mineral cultivation. Therefore, additional controls were included. We compared plant growth and fruit quality traits of tomato plants grown in a hydroponic solution with organic fertilizer with two levels of mineral fertilizer. The tomatoes grown with organic waste-based liquid fertilizer showed reduced growth rates but increased mean fruit size, resulting in no significant change in total yield compared with high-mineral cultivation. The growth rate was similarly reduced in plants cultivated with low-mineral fertilizer. Plants cultivated with organic waste-based fertilizer had high Cl− concentration in xylem sap, leaves, and, ultimately, fruits. The leaves of plants cultivated with organic waste-based fertilizer contained higher concentrations of starch and soluble carbohydrate and low concentrations of phosphorous (P) and sulfur (S). The plants grown with organic waste-based or low-mineral medium showed significantly poorer fruit quality than the plants cultivated with the high-mineral solution. The low-mineral treatment increased xylem sap contribution to fruit weight because of higher root power. The organic waste-based fertilization did not change the root power but increased fruit size. In conclusion, organic waste-based cultivation is a possible solution for sustainable plant production in greenhouses. However, additional adjustment of nutrient supply is required to improve fruit quality.
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Authors
Karin Juul HesselsøeAbstract
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Vibeke LindAbstract
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Abstract
While interspecific variation in microbiome composition can often be readily explained by factors such as host species identity, there is still limited knowledge of how microbiomes vary at scales lower than the species level (e.g., between individuals or populations). Here, we evaluated variation in microbiome composition of individual parasites among infrapopulations (i.e., populations of parasites of the same species living on a single host individual). To address this question, we used genome-resolved and shotgun metagenomic data of 17 infrapopulations (balanced design) of the permanent, bloodsucking seal louse Echinophthirius horridus sampled from individual Saimaa ringed seals Pusa hispida saimensis. Both genome-resolved and read-based metagenomic classification approaches consistently show that parasite infrapopulation identity is a significant factor that explains both qualitative and quantitative patterns of microbiome variation at the intraspecific level. This study contributes to the general understanding of the factors driving patterns of intraspecific variation in microbiome composition, especially of bloodsucking parasites, and has implications for understanding how well-known processes occurring at higher taxonomic levels, such as phylosymbiosis, might arise in these systems.