Effects of Ocean Acidification on Resident and Active Microbial Communities of Stylophora pistillata

Ocean warming and ocean acidification (OA) are direct consequences of climate change and affect coral reefs worldwide. While the effect of ocean warming manifests itself in increased frequency and severity of coral bleaching, the effects of ocean acidification on corals are less clear. In particular, long-term effects of OA on the bacterial communities associated with corals are largely unknown. In this study, we investigated the effects of ocean acidification on the resident and active microbiome of long-term aquaria-maintained Stylophora pistillata colonies by assessing 16S rRNA gene diversity on the DNA (resident community) and RNA level (active community). Coral colony fragments of S. pistillata were kept in aquaria for 2 years at four different pCO2 levels ranging from current pH conditions to increased acidification scenarios (i.e., pH 7.2, 7.4, 7.8, and 8). We identified 154 bacterial families encompassing 2,047 taxa (OTUs) in the resident and 89 bacterial families including 1,659 OTUs in the active communities. Resident communities were dominated by members of Alteromonadaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, and Colwelliaceae, while active communities were dominated by families Cyclobacteriacea and Amoebophilaceae. Besides the overall differences between resident and active community composition, significant differences were seen between the control (pH 8) and the two lower pH treatments (7.2 and 7.4) in the active community, but only between pH 8 and 7.2 in the resident community. Our analyses revealed profound differences between the resident and active microbial communities, and we found that OA exerted stronger effects on the active community. Further, our results suggest that rDNA- and rRNA-based sequencing should be considered complementary tools to investigate the effects of environmental change on microbial assemblage structure and activity.

Uncovering Active Communities from Directed Graphs on Distributed Spark Frameworks, Case Study: Twitter Data

Directed graphs can be prepared from big data containing peoples’ interaction information. In these graphs the vertices represent people, while the directed edges denote the interactions among them. The number of interactions at certain intervals can be included as the edges’ attribute. Thus, the larger the count, the more frequent the people (vertices) interact with each other. Subgraphs which have a count larger than a threshold value can be created from these graphs, and temporal active communities can then be mined from each of these subgraphs. Apache Spark has been recognized as a data processing framework that is fast and scalable for processing big data. It provides DataFrames, GraphFrames, and GraphX APIs which can be employed for analyzing big graphs. We propose three kinds of active communities, namely, Similar interest communities (SIC), Strong-interacting communities (SC), and Strong-interacting communities with their “inner circle” neighbors (SCIC), along with algorithms needed to uncover them. The algorithm design and implementation are based on these APIs. We conducted experiments on a Spark cluster using ten machines. The results show that our proposed algorithms are able to uncover active communities from public big graphs as well from Twitter data collected using Spark structured streaming. In some cases, the execution time of the algorithms that are based on GraphFrames’ motif findings is faster.

Animating business relationships through community social capital: an insight into conviviality

Purpose As conviviality can nurture community social capital, this paper aims to investigate how such capital can give rise to economic behaviour in terms of developing business relationships. Design/methodology/approach The empirical analysis was based on case studies of Italian businesses recognised as active communities that periodically organise convivial activities to fuel reciprocal collaboration. The case studies were constructed by combining a collection of secondary data, in-depth interviews and participant observations. Findings This paper shows how: community social capital in convivium emerges from self-narrative stimulated by ritual practices; social trust mobilising a convivial social capital is fuelled by knowledge generated through sharing and empathic relationships; community-based social relations embed business relations and if mediated, community-based business relations can also embed a community business. Originality/value The originality of the paper is twofold as it contributes: to understanding how conviviality can be used as a strategic tool for entrepreneurs to develop business relationships from convivial relations; and to finding intersection points between studies on business relationships from social capital and studies on entrepreneurship from community social capital.

Metabarcoding on both environmental DNA and RNA highlights differences between fungal communities sampled in different habitats

In recent years, metabarcoding has become a key tool to describe microbial communities from natural and artificial environments. Thanks to its high throughput nature, metabarcoding efficiently explores microbial biodiversity under different conditions. It can be performed on environmental (e)DNA to describe so-called total microbial community, or from environmental (e)RNA to describe active microbial community. As opposed to total microbial communities, active ones exclude dead or dormant organisms. For what concerns Fungi, which are mostly filamentous microorganisms, the relationship between DNA-based (total) and RNA-based (active) communities is unclear. In the present study, we evaluated the consequences of performing metabarcoding on both soil and wood-extracted eDNA and eRNA to delineate molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTUs) and differentiate fungal communities according to the environment they originate from. DNA and RNA-based communities differed not only in their taxonomic composition, but also in the relative abundances of several functional guilds. From a taxonomic perspective, we showed that several higher taxa are globally more represented in either “active” or “total” microbial communities. We also observed that delineation of MOTUs based on their co-occurrence among DNA and RNA sequences highlighted differences between the studied habitats that were overlooked when all MOTUs were considered, including those identified exclusively by eDNA sequences. We conclude that metabarcoding on eRNA provides original functional information on the specific roles of several taxonomic or functional groups that would not have been revealed using eDNA alone.

An Empirical Chronicling of How Agricultural Innovation Platforms Were Established in Hwedza, Zimbabwe

This paper focuses on the establishment of agricultural innovation platforms (AIPs) in the communal areas of Hwedza in Zimbabwe. Through the efforts of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), there have been initiatives to improve agricultural productivity in Africa and Zimbabwe in particular. One such intervention has been the AIPs that seek to bring together all stakeholders who can meaningfully contribute to the improvement of agriculture. Using largely qualitative approaches, data was collected through interviews from small scale farmers as well as different actors who were involved in the AIPs. The respondents in the study also included NGO workers, academic researchers, government workers, traditional leaders, agricultural financiers, extension workers and state-owned institutions. Using Norman Long’s interface analysis as the central theoretical framework, key findings showed that communal areas were active communities that had their own socio-economic network systems which govern how smallholder farmers operate. It also emerged that IPs are a result of a combination of the social and the formal/institutionalised structures that interacted in Hwedza. The paper concludes that IPs were established in Hwedza through a series of interactive processes among actors and these were not always smooth and successful.

Capturing Spotaneous Software Evolution in a Social Coding Platform With Project-as-a-City Concept

Social coding platforms (SCPs) have realized spontaneous software evolution, where new source code and ideas are spontaneously proposed by altruistic developers. Although there are many projects operated by active communities performing spontaneous evolution, it is yet unclear that how such successful projects and communities have been formed and governed. This article proposes a method that can investigate the history of every project in the SCP. Introducing the concept of project as a city, the authors consider every project in the SCP as a city, where a government and citizens develop a city through collaborative activities. This research then identifies essential attributes that characterize a state of a city. For each attribute, the authors develop metrics that quantify the state S(p; t) of a project p at time t. An experimental evaluation investigating GitHub projects of famous code editors shows that the proposed metrics well visualize the history of the projects from essential perspectives of a city.

TAMAN SELUNCUR INTERAKTIF SETIABUDI

Duncan M. Laren and Julian Agyeman stated in their writings on 'sociocultural' which is a human nature that occurs everywhere but now society is gradually divided when it comes to public commercial knowledge and the rapidly developing economic as well as technological aspects. Various trends related to commercial matters are slowly creating destabilization and fragmentation of identity in some societies, as there are class classifications formed among them. Of the various opportunities that exist in a city, sometimes misuse that focuses on economic interest, as a result the interests of the community are ruled out because the available spaces are intended to be commercial interests that privatize public services and utilize land values by means of gentrification. A Third Place that provides a series of activities is one of the architectural responses in the development of an open society. Through the high appreciation of the community for sports and culinary as an attraction that is in accordance with the characteristics of the area, the program offered is the incorporation and development of basic activities. This project is expected to support the cultivation of skateboarding activities and similar activities such as cycling, rollerblading, and basic types of sports that can be followed by everyone, taking from the category of skating, this project promotes a dry ski program, where this program has potential in the region. Restraining the methodology of activity typology and trans-programming as well as the source of the concepts presented by Edward T. White, the project with flexible layout design creates removable dry skiing which is a dominant part of the third place program to build active communities in locations with high potential with a strong TOD system.Abstrak Duncan M. Laren dan Julian Agyeman mengatakan dalam karya penulisannya mengenai ‘sosiokultural’ yang merupakan sifat dasar manusia terjadi di mana saja namun kini semakin lama masyarakat mengalami perpecahan ketika mengenal komersial publik dan aspek ekonomi serta teknologi yang berkembang pesat. Berbagai tren yang terkait dengan hal-hal komersial perlahan menciptakan destabilisasi dan fragmentasi akan identitas pada sebagian masyarakat, maka terdapat klasifikasi kelas yang terbentuk diantaranya. Dari berbagai kesempatan yang ada dalam sebuah kota, terkadang terjadinya kesalahgunaan yang berfokuskan pada ketertarikan ekonomi, alhasil kepentingan masyarakat dikesampingkan akibat ruang-ruang yang tersedia diperuntukan menjadi commercial interest yang memprivatisasi layanan publik dan memanfaatkan value tanah dengan cara gentrifikasi. Sebuah Third place yang menyediakan serangkaian aktivitas merupakan salah satu tanggapan arsitektural dalam pembangunan masyarakat yang terbuka. Melalui apresiasi warga yang tinggi terhadap olah raga dan kuliner sebagai daya tarik yang sesuai dengan karakteristik kawasan, program yang ditawarkan ialah penggabungan dan pengembangan kegiatan dasar. Proyek ini diharapkan mendukung pembudidayaan akan kegiatan skateboard dan aktivitas serupa seperti bersepeda, sepatu roda, serta jenis olah raga basic yang dapat diikuti oleh semua orang, mengambil dari kategori olah raga seluncur, proyek ini mengangkat program dry ski, di mana program ini memiliki potensi dalam kawasan tersebut. Mengendalkan metode tipologi kegiatan dan trans-programming serta sumber konsep yang dekemukakan oleh Edward T. White, proyek dengan desain layout flexible menciptakan removable Dry ski yang menjadi bagian dominan dalam program third place untuk membangun masyarakat aktif pada lokasi yang sangat berpotensi dengan sistem TOD yang kuat.

Conventional and organic soil management as divergent drivers of resident and active fractions of major soil food web constituents

Conventional agricultural production systems, typified by large inputs of mineral fertilizers and pesticides, reduce soil biodiversity and may negatively affect ecosystem services such as carbon fixation, nutrient cycling and disease suppressiveness. Organic soil management is thought to contribute to a more diverse and stable soil food web, but data detailing this effect are sparse and fragmented. We set out to map both the resident (rDNA) and the active (rRNA) fractions of bacterial, fungal, protozoan and metazoan communities under various soil management regimes in two distinct soil types with barley as the main crop. Contrasts between resident and active communities explained 22%, 14%, 21% and 25% of the variance within the bacterial, fungal, protozoan, and metazoan communities. As the active fractions of organismal groups define the actual ecological functioning of soils, our findings underline the relevance of characterizing both resident and active pools. All four major organismal groups were affected by soil management (p < 0.01), and most taxa showed both an increased presence and an enlarged activity under the organic regime. Hence, a prolonged organic soil management not only impacts the primary decomposers, bacteria and fungi, but also major representatives of the next trophic level, protists and metazoa.