BOKU University

The European Union's (EU) Cohesion Policy (CP) promotes balanced territorial development between and within countries and calls for mechanisms to enhance the current approaches to territorial, economic and social cohesion. Low-density (LD) areas emerged as a territorial category to define the difference between rural and urban areas. Although the scientific literature discusses various topics and activities in low-density areas, there is hardly any holistic definition. Furthermore, their role in improving CP implementation remains unclear. This paper is an exploratory study and aims to examine the specific characteristics of LD areas through a systematic literature review and see if and how it supports the implementation of CP. The research shows that LD is a holistic category and points beyond low population density. It deserves special attention from the perspective of the EU CP implementation, especially in the Mediterranean region with its specific geographic and socio-cultural features. Our results also show that identifying LD rural areas and addressing their challenges could contribute to a more targeted implementation of CP. Creating adjusted measurement frameworks and tools and from there, spatial identification and mapping are vital for the place-based implementation of EU CP 2021–2027 and fair allocation of EU and state funds.

Chemical 1,1´-glycosylation for the synthesis of non-reducing disaccharides is complicated by the need to simultaneously control the stereochemistry at two anomeric centers. While considerable progress has been made in the...

Soil water sustains terrestrial life, yet its fate is uncertain under a changing climate. We conducted a deuterium labeling experiment to determine whether elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), warming, and drought impact soil water storage and transport in a temperate grassland. Elevated CO2 created a wetter rootzone compared with ambient conditions, whereas warming decreased soil moisture. Soil water remained well mixed in all global change treatments except for summer drought combined with warming and elevated CO2. These combined treatments caused the grassland to conserve water and restricted soil water flow to large, rapidly draining pores without mixing with small, slowly draining pores. Our results suggest that drought in a warmer, more CO2-rich climate can severely alter grassland ecohydrology by constraining postdrought soil water flow and grassland water use.

Hydraulic redistribution is considered a crucial dryland mechanism that may be important in temperate environments facing increased soil drying–wetting cycles. We investigated redistribution of soil water from deeper, moist to surface, dry soils in a mature mixed European beech forest and whether redistributed water was used by neighbouring native seedlings. In two experiments, we tracked hydraulic redistribution via (1) ² H labeling and (2) ¹⁸ O natural abundance. In a throughfall exclusion experiment, ² H water was applied to 30–50 cm soil depth around mature beech trees and traced in soils, in coarse and fine roots, and in the rhizosphere. On five additional natural plots, the ¹⁸ O signal was measured in seedlings of European beech, Douglas fir, silver fir, sycamore maple, and Norway spruce at dawn and noon after a rain‐free period. We found a significant enrichment in ² H in surface soil fine roots of mature beech, and an indication for transfer of this water into their rhizosphere, suggesting hydraulic redistribution from deeper, moist to drier surface soils. On four of the five additional plots, δ ¹⁸ O of seedlings' root water was lower at dawn than at noon. This indicated that dawn root water originated from soil layers deeper than the seedlings' rooting depth, suggesting hydraulic redistribution by neighbouring mature trees. Hydraulic redistribution equated to about 10% of daily transpiration in mature beech trees, and contributed to root water in understory seedlings, emphasizing hydraulic redistribution as a notable mechanism in temperate forests. Transport mechanisms and potential of different tree species to redistribute water should be further addressed.

Prokaryotic microorganisms, comprising Bacteria and Archaea , exhibit a fascinating diversity of cell envelope structures reflecting their adaptations that contribute to their resilience and survival in diverse environments. Among these adaptations, surface layers (S-layers) composed of monomolecular protein or glycoprotein lattices are one of the most observed envelope components. They are the most abundant cellular proteins and represent the simplest biological membranes that have developed during evolution. S-layers provide organisms with a great variety of selective advantages, including acting as an antifouling layer, protective coating, molecular sieve, ion trap, structure involved in cell and molecular adhesion, surface recognition and virulence factor for pathogens. In Archaea that possess S-layers as the exclusive cell wall component, the (glyco)protein lattices function as a cell shape-determining/maintaining scaffold. The wealth of information available on the structure, chemistry, genetics and in vivo and in vitro morphogenesis has revealed a broad application potential for S-layers as patterning elements in a molecular construction kit for bio- and nanotechnology, synthetic biology, biomimetics, biomedicine and diagnostics. In this review, we try to describe the scientifically exciting early days of S-layer research with a special focus on the ‘Vienna-S-Layer-Group’. Our presentation is intended to illustrate how our curiosity and joy of discovery motivated us to explore this new structure and to make the scientific community aware of its relevance in the realm of prokaryotes, and moreover, how we developed concepts for exploiting this unique self-assembly structure. We hope that our presentation, with its many personal notes, is also of interest from the perspective of the history of S-layer research.

Background Many animals must adapt their movements to different conditions encountered during different life phases, such as when exploring extraterritorial areas for dispersal, foraging or breeding. To better understand how animals move in different movement phases, we asked whether movement patterns differ between one way directed movements, such as during the transient phase of dispersal or two way exploratory-like movements such as during extraterritorial excursions or stationary movements. Methods We GPS collared red foxes in a rural area in southern Germany between 2020 and 2023. Using a random forest model, we analyzed different movement parameters, habitat features—for example landclasses and distances to linear structures—and time variables (season and time of day) within red fox exploratory, transient and stationary movement phases to characterize phase specific movement patterns and to investigate the influence of different variables on classifying the movement phases. Results According to the classification model, the movement patterns in the different phases were characterized most strongly by the variables persistence velocity, season, step length and distance to linear structures. In extraterritorial areas, red foxes either moved straight with high persistence velocity, close to anthropogenic linear structures during transient movements, or more tortuously containing a higher variance in turning angles and a decrease in persistence velocity during exploratory-like movements. Transient movements mainly took place during autumn, whereas exploratory-like movements were mainly conducted during winter and spring. Conclusion Movement patterns of red foxes differ between transient, exploratory and stationary phases, reflecting displacement, searching and resident movement strategies. Our results signify the importance of the combined effect of using movement, habitat and time variables together in analyzing movement phases. High movement variability may allow red foxes to navigate in extraterritorial areas efficiently and to adapt to different environmental and behavioral conditions.

Plain Language Summary Microwave radar detects geological disasters by sending out signals and analyzing how they bounce back from moving targets. It has many advantages, such as being able to see through obstructions and working in any weather conditions, both day and night. However, using radar signals and artificial intelligence models to identify debris flow has not been thoroughly studied. In our research, through field experiments and indoor compilation, we developed a large data set of 24,000 samples with eight different categories including the debris flow and falling rocks. Then we tested 12 deep learning algorithms with a voting approach to create a series of models that can recognize the debris flow in the complex environment. Each model performed well, with the best one achieving an impressive accuracy of 95.46% in classifying multiple objectives. The vgg16 model with a simple and deep architecture stood out for its effectiveness in identifying the debris flow. Our findings suggest that combining radar technology with deep learning models, especially with extensive real‐world data, will significantly improve how we prevent the debris flow, making it a major step forward in monitoring and early warning of similar natural disasters.

The production of complex multimeric secretory immunoglobulins (SIgA) in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves is challenging, with significant reductions in complete protein assembly and consequently yield, being the most important difficulties. Expanding the physical dimensions of the ER to mimic professional antibody‐secreting cells can help to increase yields and promote protein folding and assembly. Here, we expanded the ER in N. benthamiana leaves by targeting the enzyme CTP:phosphocholine cytidylyltransferase (CCT), which catalyses the rate‐limiting step in the synthesis of the key membrane component phosphatidylcholine (PC). We used CRISPR/Cas to perform site‐directed mutagenesis of each of the three endogenous CCT genes in N. benthamiana by introducing frame‐shifting indels to remove the auto‐inhibitory C‐terminal domains. We generated stable homozygous lines of N. benthamiana containing different combinations of the edited genes, including plants where all three isofunctional CCT homologues were modified. Changes in ER morphology in the mutant plants were confirmed by in vivo confocal imaging and substantially increased the yields of two fully assembled SIgAs by prolonging the ER residence time and boosting chaperone accumulation. Through a combination of ER engineering with chaperone overexpression, we increased the yields of fully assembled SIgA by an order of magnitude, reaching almost 1 g/kg fresh leaf weight. This strategy removes a major roadblock to producing SIgA and will likely facilitate the production of other complex multimeric biopharmaceutical proteins in plants.

Actors use different frames to advance their interests in agricultural policy-making processes. Five frames and 25 subframes have been identified by a qualitative content analysis of 1,155 newspaper articles in Austria’s largest agricultural newspaper Bauernzeitung during the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform process 2013. However, it remains unclear which actors make selective or repeated use of the identified frames and subframes and who forms a coalition with other actors along their policy core beliefs in order to influence agricultural policies. Therefore, we link the Advocacy Coalition Framework with frame analysis to explore actors’ frames and advocacy coalitions in the CAP reform process 2013. Our results show that the actors can be divided into two advocacy coalitions, namely the Agricultural Coalition and the Environmental Coalition. The Agricultural Coalition mainly uses the social balance subframe, the national politics subframe, the negotiation subframe, and the financial regulations subframe. The Environmental Coalition mainly uses the societal concerns frame and its associated subframes. Journalists act as policy brokers and use almost all subframes. The results accentuate that media are a welcome device to participate in agricultural policy-making processes and provide useful insights for a diverse group of CAP actors on how to target their communication strategy.

The remarkable diversity of insect pigmentation offers a captivating avenue for studying evolution and genetics. In tephritids, understanding the molecular basis of mutant traits is also crucial for applied entomology, enabling the creation of genetic sexing strains through genome editing, thus facilitating sex-sorting before sterile insect releases. Here, we present evidence from classical and modern genetics showing that the black pupae (bp) phenotype in the GUA10 strain of Anastrepha ludens is caused by a large deletion at the ebony locus, removing the gene’s entire coding region. Targeted knockout of ebony induced analogous bp phenotypes across six major tephritid agricultural pests, demonstrating that disruption of Ebony alone is sufficient to produce the mutant trait in distantly related species. This functional characterization further allowed a deeper exploration of Ebony’s role in pigmentation and development across life stages in diverse species. Our findings offer key insights for molecular engineering of sexing strains based on the bp marker and for future evolutionary developmental biology studies in tephritids.

The damage potential in river systems due to flood flows has increased as a result of the increased infrastructure and population growth along river corridors, frequently accompanied by an incomplete understanding of flood safety and the impact of climate change. In particular, so‐called catastrophic flood events in alpine areas are generally accompanied by massive channel beds and floodplain erosion with a higher damage potential than inundation only. It has been recently shown that critical flow conditions might be an important driver of uncontrolled erosion and channel avulsion in terms of extraordinary flood events. A systematic analysis, however, of the parameters driving critical flow conditions is lacking. Thus, the aim of this study was to conduct a systematic numerical evaluation of the hydraulic parameters responsible for critical flows in steep mountain channels as a baseline study for future improved flood impact assessment and mitigation measure design. The systematic analysis of standardized river bathymetries revealed that channel slope, roughness and river widening impose decreasing influences on alpine rivers to produce critical flow conditions. However, there is a risk that due to human interventions, altering the natural slope–roughness relationship to increase the discharge capacity for flood safety might promote critical conditions. These findings should be considered in future hydraulic engineering practice.

Mycotoxin exposure from contaminated food is a significant global health issue, particularly among vulnerable children. Given limited data on mycotoxin exposure among Namibian children, this study investigated mycotoxin types and levels in foods, evaluated dietary mycotoxin exposure from processed cereal foods in children under age five from rural households in Oshana region, Namibia. Mycotoxins in cereal-based food samples (n = 162) (mahangu flour (n = 35), sorghum flour (n = 13), mahangu thin/thick porridge (n = 54), oshikundu (n = 56), and omungome (n = 4)) were determined by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1, 35.8%), zearalenone (27.2%), fumonisin B1 (FB1, 24.1%), citrinin (CIT, 12.4%) and deoxynivalenol (10.5%) were the major mycotoxins quantified. Food samples (35.8% (n = 58) and 6.2% (n = 10)) exceeded the 0.1 µg/kg AFB1 and 200 µg/kg FB1 EU limit for children’s food, respectively. Several emerging mycotoxins including the neurotoxic 3-nitropropionic acid, moniliformin (MON), and tenuazonic acid were quantified in over 50% of all samples. Co-occurrence of AFB1, CIT, and FB1 detected in 4.9% (n = 8) samples, which could heighten food safety concerns. Regarding exposure assessment and risk characterization, average probable dietary intake for AFB1 from all ready-to-eat-foods was 0.036 µg/kg bw/day, which resulted in margin of exposures (MOE) of 11 and 0.65 risk cancer cases/year/100,000 people, indicating a risk of chronic aflatoxicosis. High tolerable daily intake values for FB1, and MOE for beauvericin and MON exceeded reference values. Consumption of a diversified diet and interventions including timely planting and harvesting, best grain storage, and other standard postharvest food handling practices are needed to mitigate mycotoxin exposure through contaminated cereal foods and to safeguard the health of the rural children in Namibia.

In classical continuum constitutive models, the loss of ellipticity of the governing rate equilibrium equations entails localizing deformations and mesh sensitivity in finite element simulations. Extensions of such models, rooted in the micromorphic continuum, aim at remedying mesh sensitivity by introducing length scales into the constitutive formulation. The micropolar continuum constitutes a special case of the micromorphic continuum and is commonly employed for remedying mesh sensitivity accompanying shear band failure. However, localizing deformations in the micropolar continuum remains largely unexplored. This study aims to investigate the conditions for localizing deformations in the micropolar continuum and to highlight their implications for 2D and 3D finite element simulations. To this end, we propose a micropolar extension of the modified Cam‐clay model formulated in a three‐dimensional infinitesimal elastoplastic framework and establish its localization characteristics following a method recently presented for the classical Cauchy–Boltzmann continuum. Investigations at the constitutive level highlight the stabilizing effect of the micropolar extension, which is increased both by the presence of couple stresses as well as by increasing the Cosserat couple modulus. Simulations at the structural level exhibit good agreement with the results obtained at the constitutive level and indicate that the Cosserat couple modulus required for adequately regularizing the structural response depends on the level of modal dilatancy. Even though localized failure is commonly regarded to be restricted to opening modes, we find mesh‐sensitive structural behavior also in cases where the expected maximum modal dilatancy is far from unity.

Conventional tillage, including ploughing after harvest and/or for seedbed preparation, aims to incorporate crop residues and weeds and to loosen, mix and aerate the soil. However, less beneficial effects, such as a loss of soil organic carbon (SOC), are also associated with intensive tillage. This has made reduced and minimum tillage systems without ploughing increasingly popular in agriculture, contributing to soil health and climate change mitigation. We studied the effects of different tillage systems on chemical and microbial soil properties in a long‐term field experiment established on a fine‐sandy loamy Haplic Chernozem in Fuchsenbigl, Austria, in 1988. The tillage treatments include conventional tillage (CT) with a plough and a cultivator down to 30 cm soil depth, reduced tillage (RT) with a cultivator down to 15 cm two to three times a year, as well as minimum tillage (MT) treated with a rotary driller once a year down to 5–8 cm soil depth. In 2016, a soil sampling campaign was conducted, and alkaline phosphatase, phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs), and the nitrogen (N) mineralisation potential were analysed along with chemical properties including SOC, active C, total nitrogen (N t ), CAL extractable phosphorus (P CAL ) and potassium (K CAL ). Under MT, these properties were significantly higher compared to CT in 0–10 cm. In deeper soil layers, these parameters showed very few significant differences between the tillage treatments. RT yielded intermediate values but not always significantly different from CT. PLFA indicators significantly correlated with SOC and, even more distinctly, with N t and active carbon. The high ratio of Gram‐positive to Gram‐negative bacteria indicates more recalcitrant organic matter in the top layer in MT than CT.

Parkland systems in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of West Africa are commonly perceived as a resilient agroforestry practice well adapted to the semi-arid climatic conditions of the region. However, there exist several knowledge gaps regarding the interplay between the different components of this agro-silvopastoral land use system. A literature review with subsequent meta-analysis was conducted to analyze the effects of woody perennials on soil, crops and livestock, for which our study found very context-specific responses. A scoring of tree and shrub species indicated a general trend of trade-off between positive impact on crops and livestock vs. impact on soil organic carbon content. The study further confirmed that Faidherbia albida (Del.) Chev. is one of the most promising parkland species, but also revealed that there are no multipurpose single species that should be promoted exclusively. The focus should rather shift to species mixtures that satisfy multiple human and environmental needs. The study also pointed out that information on the nutritional properties of the majority of browse species is particularly limited. Transdisciplinary modelling is suggested as a tool to assess the complex interactions between the different components that shape this agro-silvopastoral system at different scales.