The strength of green ties: Massachusetts cranberry grower social networks and effects on climate change attitudes and action

Cranberry fruit epicuticular wax benefits and identification of a wax-associated molecular marker

BACKGROUND

As the global climate changes, periods of abiotic stress throughout the North American cranberry growing regions will become more common. One consequence of high temperature extremes and drought conditions is sunscald. Scalding damages the developing berry and reduces yields through fruit tissue damage and/or secondary pathogen infection. Irrigation runs to cool the fruit is the primary approach to controlling sunscald. However, it is water intensive and can increase fungal-incited fruit rot. Epicuticular wax functions as a barrier to various environmental stresses in other fruit crops and may be a promising feature to mitigate sunscald in cranberry. In this study we assessed the function of epicuticular wax in cranberries to attenuate stresses associated with sunscald by subjecting high and low epicuticular wax cranberries to controlled desiccation and light/heat exposure. A cranberry population that segregates for epicuticular wax was phenotyped for epicuticular fruit wax levels and genotyped using GBS. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) analyses of these data identified a locus associated with epicuticular wax phenotype. A SNP marker was developed in the QTL region to be used for marker assisted selection.

RESULTS

Cranberries with high epicuticular wax lost less mass percent and maintained a lower surface temperature following heat/light and desiccation experiments as compared to fruit with low wax. QTL analysis identified a marker on chromosome 1 at position 38,782,094 bp associated with the epicuticular wax phenotype. Genotyping assays revealed that cranberry selections homozygous for a selected SNP have consistently high epicuticular wax scores. A candidate gene (GL1-9), associated with epicuticular wax synthesis, was also identified near this QTL region.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that high cranberry epicuticular wax load may help reduce the effects of heat/light and water stress: two primary contributors to sunscald. Further, the molecular marker identified in this study can be used in marker assisted selection to screen cranberry seedlings for the potential to have high fruit epicuticular wax. This work serves to advance the genetic improvement of cranberry crops in the face of global climate change.

Behavior feature extraction method of college students’ social network in sports field based on clustering algorithm

In order to improve the integrity of the social network behavior feature extraction results for sports college students, this study proposes to be based on the clustering algorithm. This study analyzes the social network information dissemination mechanism in the field of college students’ sports, obtains the real-time social behavior data in the network environment combined with the analysis results, and processes the obtained social network behavior data from two aspects of data cleaning and de-duplication. Using clustering algorithm to determine the type of social network user behavior, setting the characteristics of social network behavior attributes, and finally through quantitative and standardized processing, get the results of college students’ sports field social network behavior characteristics extraction. The experimental results showed that the completeness of the method feature extraction results improved to 9.93%, and the average extraction time cost was 0.344 s, with high result integrity and obvious advantages in the extraction speed.

Be(e)coming pollinators: Beekeeping and perceptions of environmentalism in Massachusetts

In an era of mass extinction and biodiversity crisis, it is increasingly crucial to cultivate more just and inclusive multispecies futures. As mitigation and adaption efforts are formed in response to these crises, just transitions forward require intentional consideration of the hybrid entanglement of humans, human societies, and wider landscapes. We thus apply a critical hybridity framework to examine the entanglement of the pollinator crisis with the cultural and agricultural practice of hobbyist beekeeping. We draw on ethnographic engagements with Massachusetts beekeepers and find apiculture to be widely understood as a form of environmentalism-including as both a mitigation to and adaptation for the pollinator crisis. Illustrating how power-laden socioecological negotiations shape and reshape regional environments, we then discuss how this narrative relies on the capitalistic and instrumental logics characteristic of Capitalocene environmentalisms. These rationalities, which obscure the hybridity of landscapes, consequently increase the likelihood of problematic unintended consequences. Also present, however, is a deeper engagement with hybrid perspectives, with some beekeepers even offering pathways toward inclusive solutions. We conclude that if more just and biodiverse futures are to be realized, beekeeping communities must foster increasingly hybrid visions of apiculture as situated within socioecological and contested landscapes.