Life Sciences Commons^™

Measuring Ecosystem Services From Soil Health. Vermont Payment For Ecosystem Services Technical Research Report #1, Alissa C. White, Heather M. Darby, Benjamin Timothy Dube, Bryony Sands, Joshua W. Faulkner, Meredith Albers, Maggie Payne

UVM Extension Faculty Publications

There are a multitude of approaches to evaluating soil health and the soil processes influenced by soil health. As the state of Vermont explores innovative programs that compensate farmers for soil health and associated ecosystem services, the selection of soil health indicators and quantification methods is a foundational first step that influences other aspects of program design. What is measured determines the ecosystem services that can be inferred, the accuracy of data that informs decisions, and programmatic transaction costs. Simply put, what is measured matters. The PES Working Group identified organic matter, bulk density, aggregate stability, greenhouse gas flux from …

Emulating Agricultural Disease Management: Comparing Risk Preferences Between Industry Professionals And Online Participants Using Experimental Gaming Simulations And Paired Lottery Choice Surveys, Eric M. Clark, Scott C. Merrill, Luke Trinity, Gabriela Bucini, Nicholas Cheney, Ollin Langle-Chimal, Trisha Shrum, Christopher Koliba, Asim Zia, Julia M. Smith

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Mitigating the spread of disease is crucial for the well-being of agricultural production systems. Implementing biosecurity disease prevention measures can be expensive, so producers must balance the costs of biosecurity investments with the expected benefits of reducing the risk of infections. To investigate the risk associated with this decision making process, we developed an online experimental game that simulates biosecurity investment allocation of a pork production facility during an outbreak. Participants are presented with several scenarios that vary the visibility of the disease status and biosecurity protection implemented at neighboring facilities. Certain rounds allowed participants to spend resources to reduce …

Farm Benchmarking: The Application Of Business, Conservation And Labor Indicators, Mark Cannella, Sara Ziegler,, Qingbin Wang, Mary Peabody, Thomas Leahey, Heather M. Darby

USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Center

Farm benchmarking programs will move Vermont’s food system towards important sustainability outcomes by establishing enhanced monitoring of priority indicators and facilitating the adoption of best practices. Farmers, researchers, policy agencies and development professionals agree there is a lack of regular and consistent data available to guide private and public initiatives. This paper identifies and contextualizes over forty priority indicators capable of measuring business performance, conservation, farm labor and community development.

Benchmarking methods need to be adapted to better represent the diversity of enterprises present in Vermont’s agricultural portfolio. The integration of University Extension objectives with food systems research priorities can …

The Farm-Community Nexus: Metrics For Social, Economic, And Environmental Sustainability Of Agritourism And Direct Farm Sales In Vermont, Lisa Chase, Gillian L. Galford, Jane Kolodinsky, Daniel Tobin, Eric Bishop Von Wettberg, Amy Kelsey, Susanna Baxley, Christopher Brittain, Josiah Taylor

USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Center

Viable working landscapes, vibrant communities, and healthy ecosystems are the building blocks of sustainable food systems. Small and medium farms are connective tissue, creating a system that is greater than the sum of its parts by linking consumers to producers and promoting environmental stewardship. Our approach considers sustainability through connections between farms, their communities, and visitors within an agritourism framework, including on-farm experiences, direct sales of agricultural products, and farmer-consumer interactions at markets. The goal is to contribute to the understanding, operationalization, and integration of metrics built on the ideals that viable, sustainable, and resilient food systems must support social, …

Master’S Project: Exploring And Supporting Social And Ecological Dimensions Of Pollinator Habitat Enhancement In Burlington, Vt, Victoria Hellwig

Rubenstein School Masters Project Publications

Urbanization and other manmade impacts threaten critical pollinator species like the bumblebee, whose populations are significantly affected by habitat loss. In response, activists in the City of Burlington are enhancing habitat to increase biodiversity through collaborative partnerships in urban green spaces. In an effort to explore and support pollinator habitat enhancement in Burlington, I examined social interactions involved in a group highly motivated to enhance habitat at Lakeview Cemetery and Champlain Elementary School, with an emphasis on power dynamics and place meanings of these sites. In conjunction with this exploration, I created landscape designs, planted a native habitat garden, and …

A Cross-Cultural, Participatory Approach For Measuring And Cultivating Resilience On Small And Medium Farms, Hans Estrin, Walter Poleman, Aura M. Alonso-Rodríguez, Edgardo Gonzalez, Maria A. Juncos-Gautier, Chistopher Nytch, Ethan Thompson

USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Center

One of the greatest leverage points in fostering the transition to sustainability can be found in the realm of food systems. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the critical importance of small farm resilience to the well-being of communities around the world. We explored the role of small and medium farms in promoting sustainable social-agricultural systems, and investigated how the resilience of these farms can be both measured and amplified. W e integrated concepts from the fields of food systems sustainability and resilience, agroecology, and positive deviance to identify indicators that can help measure and track farm resilience. …

Amplifying Agroecology In Vermont: Principles And Processes To Foster Food Systems Sustainability, Martha Caswell, Rebecca Maden, Nils Mccune, V. Ernesto Mendez, Gabriela Bucini, Janica Anderzen, Victor Izzo, Stephanie E. Hurley, Rachelle K. Gould, Joshua W. Faulkner, Maria A. Juncos-Gautier

USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Center

Agroecology is grounded in principles that support transitions toward economic, social and ecological sustainability and proposes that real and lasting change will require a significant transformation of our agri-food systems. Evidence for agroecology’s potential continues to grow, both through word of mouth by farmers and social movements, and through recent scientific assessments of its performance. With endorsements from the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), national governments in both the global north and south, and social movements, it is developing the web of ‘thick legitimacy’ required for even broader adoption (Montenegro de Wit & Iles, 2016). “...Agroecology …

Awareness Of Climate Change’S Impacts And Motivation To Adapt Are Not Enough To Drive Action: A Look Of Puerto Rican Farmers After Hurricane Maria, Luis Alexis Rodríguez-Cruz, Meredith T. Niles

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Understanding how perceptions around motivation, capacity, and climate change’s impacts relate to the adoption of adaptation practices in light of experiences with extreme weather events is important in assessing farmers’ adaptive capacity. However, very little of this work has occurred in islands, which may have different vulnerabilities and capacities for adaptation. Data of surveyed farmers throughout Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria (n = 405, 87% response rate) were used in a structural equation model to explore the extent to which their adoption of agricultural practices and management strategies was driven by perceptions of motivation, vulnerability, and capacity as a function …

Organic Amendments Alter Soil Hydrology And Belowground Microbiome Of Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum), Taylor Readyhough

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Manure-derived organic amendments are a cost-effective tool that provide many potential benefits to plant and soil health. For example, amendment applications may increase soil fertility, improve soil structure, stimulate microbial activity, and suppress plant pathogens. Yet, responses to these applications may have unintended consequences. Inherent variability in the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of these materials can result in inconsistent outcomes observed after their application. These differences are manifested in plant growth, soil physiochemical properties, and soil microbial community composition. Popular manure-derived organic amendments include dairy manure compost and poultry manure pellets. Dairy manure is an abundant resource on many …

Spillover, Dilution, And Coinfection: Understanding The Spread Of Disease Within Managed And Native Bee Communities., Phillip A. Burnham

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Maintaining healthy pollinator communities is vital both for ensuring food securityand ecological diversity. However, managed honeybees and wild bee communities are under threat from an array of stressors including habitat loss, global change, pesticide use, poor beekeeping, and various pests and pathogens. Pathogens have been shown to be spilling over from managed bees into wild bee populations and are known to adversely affect colony function as well as increase mortality. Understanding transmission mechanisms related to general dynamics in this system will not only benefit pollinator health, but also gives us insight into important and understudied topics in disease ecology. In …

Assessing Chemical And Biological Recovery From Acid Rain Deposition In Montane Vermont Lakes, Sydney Diamond

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Vermont’s inland lakes are changing rapidly in response to anthropogenic disturbance pressures. While changes in water chemistry are well documented across the state, the biological response of primary producer communities to these shifts remains poorly understood. This project investigated the response of phytoplankton communities to the interacting effects of recovery from acidification and climate change in high-altitude lakes. We analyzed long-term monitoring and meteorological data in four of Vermont’s acid-impaired lakes and found that as pH and acid-neutralizing capacity has increased, so have concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in most lakes. To assess the biological response to these processes, …

Lcms-Based Analysis Explains The Basis Of Oxidative Resistance In Selenium-Containing Thioredoxin Reductase, Daniel Haupt

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Selenocysteine (Sec) is referred to as the 21st proteogenic amino acid and is found in place of the redox-sensitive amino acid cysteine (Cys) in a small number of proteins. Sec and Cys carry out similar chemistry and are structural isomers save for a single atom difference; the former contains selenium (Se), while the latter contains sulfur (S) in the identical position. Sec poses a high bioenergetic cost for its synthesis and subsequent incorporation into protein not shared by Cys. Since Sec’s discovery in 1976, scientists have debated why certain proteins express Sec while others express Cys. In recent years, it …

Shaping Soil: Examining Relationships Between Agriculture And Climate Change, Lindsay Barbieri

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

As the ripple-effects of a changing climate shape our planet, understanding relationships between agriculture and climate change is critical. With agricultural practices shaping soils on over a third of the earth’s land surface, the soils and lands where food is produced are integral grounds for examining these relationships. While not all humans practice agriculture in similar or damaging ways, nevertheless, dominant agricultural practices are displacing beings and ecosystems and perturbing global nutrient cycles across the planet. These entwined imbalances of dominance and nutrients result in flows of excess nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon that are responsible for nearly three-fourths of the …