The food and growth of 0-group flatfish on nursery grounds in the Clyde Sea Area

In early summer plaice (Pleuronectes platessa L.) in the Clyde Sea Area eat Tellina siphons and spionid palps. As they grow, they take progressively larger siphons, fragments of spionids and some crustaceans. In late summer they eat entire spionids and other sedentary polychaetes. There is no significant predation on fish. The common dab [Limanda limanda (L.)] took a wider range of prey species than the plaice, but also depended mainly on polychaetes, crustaceans and bivalves. Depth distribution may limit both intra- and interspecific competition between these fish and also influence the choice of prey. The results from the main nursery areas of Irvine and Ayr Bays were similar to those from the other bays throughout the Clyde Sea Area and support earlier work at Firemore Bay in north-west Scotland and in the Dutch Wadden Sea.The growth rate of the fish increases during the early summer and may be related to increasing food availability, feeding experience of the fish and longer day length. Growth rate between areas appeared to be correlated with benthic productivity. 0-group plaice in Irvine, Ayr and Firemore Bays grew to different mean lengths by the end of the summer growth season, being 82 mm, 73 mm and 61 mm, respectively, for the period 1972–1974. This agrees with the known differences in standing stocks of intertidal macrobenthos in these bays (17·0, 11·1 and 1·3 g m^?2 dry weight, respectively). The significance of this in relation to survival is discussed. Offshore migration of the larger fish in the autumn may result in apparent slowing of growth rates prematurely in inshore areas. The year-class strength depends more on the food availability in the nursery areas than on the number of plaice that settle on the bottom.     

Campaigning culinary documentaries and the responsibilization of food crises

This paper explores the campaigning culinary documentary (CCD) as an emerging format within food television. CCDs bring together elements of the lifestyle genre with an explicit focus on a food ‘crisis’ – such as obesity or animal welfare – and explore how this crisis is to be resolved, usually through the intervention of a food celebrity. Focussing largely on shows made by the UK’s Channel 4 network, we explore the ways in which CCDs narrate issues of responsibilization, whether these target consumers/viewers, the food industry, or the state. Through a reading of selected CCDs from Channel 4’s roster, we consider how the shows attempt to fuse elements of lifestyle/reality TV with a social or political agenda, but one which deploys the governmental strategy of responsibilization and so could be read as an enactment of neoliberal logic. While there is some truth to this claim, our analysis and discussion seeks to complicate this reading, showing how CCDs open up other narrative and political possibilities while also consolidating the brand image of the cookery TV stars who front them.     

“Fish as food”: Exploring a food sovereignty approach to small-scale fisheries

This article explores how conceptualizing fish as food, rather than primarily as a resource or commodity supports a shift towards more systems-based approaches to engaging with fisheries (i.e. considering the relationships between ecosystems, people, management and policy). A “fish as food” lens is operationalized by drawing on the theory and practice of food sovereignty. While fishing people and communities have always been a core part of the food sovereignty movement, there have been limited efforts in the academic literature to explore these connections directly. Drawing on examples primarily from a Canadian context, it is argued that a deeper engagement between fisheries and food sovereignty is long overdue, particularly as a growing body of research on small-scale fisheries seeks to address social-ecological relationships and issues of power that are also at the core of a food sovereignty approach. This article identifies the opportunities and limitations of engaging with food sovereignty in the context of small-scale fisheries and suggests a series of key questions for future fish as food research and policy.     

Using high resolution satellite imagery to estimate cropped area in Guatemala and Haiti

Guatemala and Haiti are two of the most food insecure nations in the Western Hemisphere. Measurements of food availability and access are instrumental in developing targeted hunger reduction strategies yet no estimates of cropped area (a critical input in the calculation of food production) at either a national or sub-national-level exist. The purpose of this research is to produce estimates of cropped area for Guatemala and Haiti using an area frame sampling approach and very high resolution (∼1 m) satellite imagery. Related research has combined livelihood data with topographic information to construct cropped area estimates in other settings using generalized additive models. We expand this approach with the inclusion of specific population variables in place of the livelihood data. We produce estimates of cropped area for the two countries and sub-national units and our results highlight the significance and complexity of incorporating explicit population characteristics into models of cropped area.     

Implementing the Slow Life in Southwest Ireland: A Case Study of Clonakilty and Local Food

Cittaslow is an Italian‐based global network of towns and cities that grew out of the Slow Food movement. Cittaslow and Slow Food reject the standardization of culture and taste that has accompanied globalization. Instead, they focus on strategies that foster a sense of place that is derived from a town's unique environmental and cultural setting: its terroir. Clonakilty, a small town located thirty miles southwest of Cork, is Ireland's first and only “slow city.” This paper examines how a sense of place is conveyed in the town's restaurants through the selection of menu items and locally produced food. The results indicate that independently owned restaurants are more likely to embrace Cittaslow's efforts at conveying a sense of place than restaurants in hotels and pubs. Nearly all of the town's restaurants serving Irish food use locally available food suppliers.     

广西耕地资源可持续利用与粮食安全问题研究

1978～ 1999年 ,广西耕地总量相对稳定 ,但人均耕地面积下降趋势明显 ,人地矛盾突出。耕地利用程度、集约经营程度和利用效益偏低 ,粮食安全形势严峻。预测 2 0 10年耕地总面积可保有 2 5 8 2 3× 10 4hm2 ,仅可满足耕地总需求量的下限要求。采取保护耕地、促进耕地可持续利用和加大对耕地的投入等有效措施 ,是提高粮食单产水平和粮食产量 ,实现粮食安全保障的关键。     

PCB, PCDD/F and PBDE levels and profiles in crustaceans from the coastal waters of Brittany and Normandy (France)

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) were analysed in the muscle of various edible marine crustaceans (spider crab, edible crab, velvet swimming crab and Norway lobster) from the Brittany and Normandy coasts (France). The highest concentrations were measured in species collected from Antifer (Seine Bay). PCB and PBDE patterns in crustacean muscles were similar and independent of the geographical area with the predominance of the high chlorinated PCBs (CB153, 138, 118 and 180), and of a few PBDE congeners (BDE47, BDE99, BDE100 and BDE28). Oppositely, dioxin contamination differed with site. The major component in crustaceans from the Seine Bay was 2378-TCDF, whereas specimens from cleaner areas had higher relative concentrations of OCDD. Finally, the comparison of the spider crab contaminant profiles to those measured in mussel and sea bass highlighted two different trends: decapod crustaceans possess relatively strong capacity to metabolise PCBs and PBDEs; however these species might be used as bioindicators for dioxin pollution monitoring in the marine coastal environment.     

Mediating the spaces of diet and health: A critical analysis of reporting on nutrition and colorectal cancer in the UK

The media are one of the main arenas in which nutrition information is framed and developed. Research has shown a predominantly individualistic framing of diet-related health issues such as obesity, type-2 diabetes and coronary heart disease in international media coverage. These issues are framed as personal, ’lifestyle’ issues rather than requiring policy or structural change. In addition, research has shown a tendency in nutrition research and media coverage of it, to emphasize individual ingredients or components more than overall diet. The media have a tendency to report diet related research simplistically, often without contextualization. Taking a case study approach, this paper analyses UK news media coverage and framing of British Medical Journal (BMJ) published research into dietary fibre and bowel cancer risk. I investigate how the health issue fibre and bowel cancer is framed and dissect the process of mediation (from press release to mass media to local media), analysing the shifting ’geographies of responsibility’ that result. This paper argues that media coverage of research into diet and bowel cancer can be explained by the technologies, conventions and routines of media representation. Key gatekeepers were found to have an important role in framing the information that was reported. Taking a critical approach, this paper argues that like obesity, type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, coverage of nutritional means of preventing bowel cancer is set predominantly in the ’lifestyle’ frame, laying responsibility for increasing dietary fibre at the door of the individual rather than looking at broader social, economic, or political drivers of dietary change.     

Making visible: Interrogating the performance of food sharing across 100 urban areas

Interpersonal sharing of food has been an omnipresent feature of human civilisation from hunter-gatherer societies to the present, both as a mechanism through which sustenance is secured and as a means to cement social relations. While the evolutionary dynamism of this food sharing is relatively well documented, critical scholarship has tended to examine contemporary food sharing practices beyond family and friends through case studies of individual initiatives. A broader view of food sharing practices is absent. In addition, there has been little examination of the role that emerging information and communication technologies (ICT) are having on food sharing, despite claims that such technologies offer transformative potential to achieve more secure, sustainable and just food systems. In response, this paper presents a novel landscape level analysis of more than 4000 ICT-mediated urban food sharing activities operating across 100 cities in six continents. Adopting conceptual insights from the intersection of social and economic practice-oriented approaches, the resulting foodsharing database progresses understanding of, and makes visible, the ways in which food (and food-related skills, stuff and spaces) is being shared across diverse urban settings. To conclude, it is argued that the database plays an important productive and performative role in mapping and comparing diverse food sharing economies. Importantly, it provides a springboard for further explanatory research to fine-tune our understanding of the evolution, governance and sustainability potential of urban food sharing.     

Autecology of Limnomysis benedeni Czerniavsky, 1882 (Crustacea: Mysida) in Lake Constance, Southwestern Germany

The Ponto-Caspian mysid Limnomysis benedeni was first recorded in Lake Constance in summer 2006, and a stable population developed at the site of discovery. Although this mysid is common in the Rhine and Danube rivers, little is known about its ecology and impact in systems of invasion. We investigated the autecology of L. benedeni in habitat-choice and food experiments. In the habitat-choice experiments, highly structured habitats, i.e., stones covered with zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha), macrophytes, and especially stonewort, were strongly preferred. In food experiments, L. benedeni fed mostly on food sources with a small particle size, e.g., biofilm on leaf litter, biodeposited material of zebra mussels, epilithon, and phytoplankton. We also compared the L. benedeni population data from Lake Constance with that from rivers. In Lake Constance, female L. benedeni were nearly 30% larger and carried more than three times more eggs in spring (9.4±0.6 mm and 28.4±5.7 eggs) than in summer (6.7±0.8 mm and 8.7±2.9 eggs). The mysids present in spring might be the generation that over-wintered; in summer, this generation was probably replaced by a new generation of smaller individuals. The large brood size and the detritivorous feeding strategy might allow L. benedeni to colonize Lake Constance rapidly.