Putting the seafood in sustainable food systems

Increasing attention by consumers to the social and environmental dimensions of the food they eat has generated many different responses, including certification programs, watch lists and local/slow food movements. This article examines the more recent entry of seafood into these consumer social movements. Although a concern with the family farm—as well as tendency to equate national security with food security—has long connected terrestrial food production with other cultural concerns, fisheries have tended to be regarded more as natural resources. Considering seafood as part of the “food system” would enhance the management of fisheries, while the long engagement in fisheries with co- and adaptive management and the politics of knowledge would enrich the debate in the agri-foods literature. The article also offers suggestions on how fisheries management could better govern for sustainable food systems, and provides further ideas about food, sustainability and governance.     

Geographies of folded life: How immunity reframes biosecurity

Biosecurity, in broad terms, aims to reduce the impact and incidence of threats to life through regulatory means. For reasons we raise in this paper, such regulation can often lead to the specification of disease free processes within the food and farming industry, with biosecurity success measured in terms of the degree of compliance with and allegiance to modern farming practice. We counter this progressive narrative in three ways. First we draw on UK-based qualitative fieldwork with vets, farmers and pigs to demonstrate how biosecure farming and disease freedom are translated and qualified, in practice, to pathogen free, pathogen management and ultimately to configuring health through immunity management. Second, these translations demonstrate how building health is dependent on spatial and microbiological diversity rather than uniformity. Crucially, health involves patch-work and situated knowledge practices that are under threat within an industry increasingly marked by control and homogeneity. Third, in conceptual terms, we argue that while pig farming is organised through both biosecurity and a biopolitical regulation of life, immunity opens up political space for exploring an alternative politics of life, one where farmers and others are not so much made responsible for disease prevention, but make valued contributions to understandings of animal health and food security.     

A Fresh Look at the Geobiology & Sedimentary Environments of the Hypersaline Great Salt Lake,USA

正1 Introduction The Great Salt Lake(GSL)is the defining hydrological feature of the Great Basin,North America’s largest desert--and it is the largest waterbody in the western USA.Despite the early(Eardley,1938)recognition of"bioherms,"algal layers,and mats covering hundreds of square km of lake area,these features have not been the     

Salt Desert and Saline-Ackaline Mixed Dust Storms:An Ignored Issure for Global Climate Change

正Salt desert,saline-alkaline dust storm and saline-alkaline mixed dust storm are significant but ignored problems for a long time.After many years of observations and researches,the author believes that salt desert,saline-alkaline dust     

荒漠生态系统C、N、P生态化学计量研究进展

生态化学计量学是通过研究生物有机体主要元素含量及其比值的变化关系,揭示生态系统各组分间元素循环规律的一门学科,生态化学计量也是荒漠生态系统研究的重要内容。因此,综合掌握水分和养分限制环境下C、N、P生态化学计量的关系对揭示荒漠生态系统植物的限制性元素、土壤营养的供给能力、养分的有效性等都具有重要的意义。基于此,回顾和分析了国内外荒漠生态系统C、N、P生态化学计量最新研究和动态,分别从植物、凋落物、土壤、土壤微生物、土壤酶进行较为系统的评述,讨论了植物-土壤-微生物-酶四者的关系,提出了荒漠生态系统C、N、P生态化学计量的未来研究方向,期望为全面理解固沙植被的演变过程、稳定性维持机制及其科学管理提供理论指导。     

干涸尾闾湖盆区泥漠地表磨蚀释尘特征

沙粒的表面磨蚀效应是地表产尘、释尘的重要机制,针对干湖盆泥漠地表开展磨蚀释尘实验研究,对理解干湖盆地表风蚀过程及盐碱尘暴形成机理具有重要意义。对采自西居延海干涸湖盆泥漠地表土样进行室内磨蚀模拟实验,研究了不同粒级（细、中、粗）沙粒不同落沙角度（30°,45°,60°）的磨蚀效应。结果表明：（1）泥漠地表磨蚀实验中能够产生明显释尘效应的沙粒粒级阈值为中沙（0.25 mm<M_d<0.50 mm）;（2）磨蚀粒径粒级相同时,磨蚀角度会对泥漠地表磨蚀释尘速率产生影响,磨蚀量的角度排序为60°>30°>45°,但同一粒级3种角度下的磨蚀释尘率差异不显著。（3）磨蚀角度为45°时,计算了泥漠地表的质量磨蚀率与能量磨蚀率,其中中沙为0.04 g·kg^-1、0.43 g·J^-1,粗沙为0.08 g·kg^-1、0.74 g·J^-1,极粗沙为0.26 g·kg^-1、2.54 g·J^-1;在磨蚀沙粒粒级倍增而磨蚀角度不变情况下,泥漠地表磨蚀释尘率与能量磨蚀率未发生正比例线性增长变化。     

轻度沙埋对典型荒漠植物的影响北大核心CSCD

中国西北干旱区以荒漠生态系统为主体,是中国典型脆弱生态系统。沙埋对该区域植物生存和生长、植被分布和组成以及荒漠生态系统功能和结构有重要影响。以典型荒漠植物梭梭(Haloxylon ammodendron)、柽柳(Tamarix chinensis)、白刺(Nitraria tangutorum)、沙拐枣(Calligonum mongolicum)为研究对象,对比研究了轻度沙埋和非沙埋植物在生理和生长方面的差异,并从土壤盐分、土壤水分、土壤温度等方面探究了造成这种差异的原因。结果表明:轻度沙埋环境下,梭梭、柽柳、白刺、沙拐枣的光合速率普遍高于非沙埋植株,蒸腾速率显著低于非沙埋植株,水分利用效率也均高于非沙埋植株。轻度沙埋梭梭、柽柳、沙拐枣、白刺株高明显低于非沙埋植株,但地径、冠幅、叶面积指数普遍高于非沙埋植株。主要原因是轻度沙埋植物下方土壤黏粒含量、土壤湿度高于非沙埋植物下方,轻度沙埋植物下方土壤温度、含盐量低于非沙埋环境。     

Mediating good food and moments of possibility with Jamie Oliver: Problematising celebrity chefs as talking labels

This paper explores the powerful and mediating role of celebrity chefs over audience relationships with food through analysis of Jamie Oliver and his recent series Save with Jamie. The paper firstly situates the role of celebrity chefs theoretically, defining them as ‘talking labels’ who may act both as knowledge intermediaries and boundary objects to connect audiences with food in multiple ways. Here chefs actively construct and mediate discourses around ‘good food’. As trusted, credible, well-liked public figures, chefs step into out private home spaces through our televisions to convey food information in a charismatic, entertaining and accessible way. Like traditional food labels, chef’s words can be ‘sticky’ and take hold in public imaginations in a way that goes far beyond the capacity of food products labels. Yet the relationship between chefs and audiences is far from straightforward and so the paper secondly aims to explore how these talking labels are understood and ‘used’ by audiences in their everyday food practices. Drawing selectively from a large scale audience survey (n = 600) as well as the series, Save with Jamie, this paper reveals the different ways that audiences ‘talk back’ to chefs both positively and negatively to create moments of simultaneous possibility and resistance for audience relations with food. This revealed complex relationships between audiences, chefs and food. It also suggests that the powerful work on celebrity chefs functions as part of a new mediated mechanism within today’s food governance.     

Climatic implications of loess deposits from the Beijing region

Variations in magnetostratigraphy, pedostratigraphy, grain size and magnetic susceptibility of the loess deposits near Beijing have been studied at two sections. The sections are about 400 km east of the main loess deposits in China, have a maximum thickness of 100 m and extend back to 1.1 Ma. The sequence consists of 14 loess–palaeosol couplets (S0‐S14), which correlate well with sequences in the Loess Plateau. Susceptibility records from the sites near Beijing are comparable to the Xifeng, Luochuan and Baoji sections located in the middle part of the Loess Plateau; however, the down‐core variations in the grain size in the Upper Lishi Formation exhibit some differences. The median grain size increases by about 25–30 µm from L4 to L2, with the sandy grains (>63 µm) increasing from 10–20 wt% to 40–50 wt% . This implies that the depositional environment of the dust sources in the Beijing loess section is different in some aspects from the Loess Plateau. The Beijing loess may have had a different dust source than the Loess Plateau. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.