Circular management of beef supply chains holds great promise for
improving sustainability from grazing agroecosystem to dinner plate.
In the United States and Canada, one approach to circularity entails
transporting manure nutrients from cattle produced in feedlots back
to the grazing agroecosystems where they originated to enrich
haylands for further grazing cattle production. We provide data to
assess this strategy centered around three grazing agroecosystems:
Florida, New Mexico, and the provincial assemblage of Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia. We describe four datasets
that can be used to estimate the potential nutrient utilization of
hay fed to grazing cattle in the three grazing agroecosystems and
the magnitudes of feedlot manure nutrients available for transport
back to them. We found that although biogeography and management
differ among the three grazing agroecosystems, the hay allocated for
grazing cattle represented approximately 65% of the total harvested
hay produced per agroecosystem after accounting for harvest losses,
and that on average all three areas exported about 450,000 cattle
annually for feedlot, pasture, and slaughter to states across the
US. Although we highlight only three grazingland settings, our
approach relies on methods that could ultimately be scaled
nationally and internationally, with applicability to other animal
industries for which circular management is an aspiration for
sustainability outcomes.
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Family Histories and Teen Pregnancy in the United States and Canada: Teen Pregnancy in the United States and Canada
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Cynipidae (Hymenoptera: Cynipoidea) is a diverse group of wasps, many of which are capable of inducing plants to make galls, novel structures that protect and nourish the wasps' larvae. Other cynipids, especially those species in Ceroptresini and Synergini, are understood to be usurpers of galls made by other cynipids. The North American cynipid fauna has not been fully catalogued since 1979, but there is renewed interest in revising the taxonomy and in doing research that sheds light on the mechanisms of gall induction, the evolution of this life history, and their ecological interactions more broadly. Significant taxonomic changes have impacted the group since 1979, thereby warranting a new catalogue. The current state of knowledge of species classified in Aulacideini, Ceroptresini, Diastrophini, Diplolepidini, Phanacidini and Synergini in the United States, Canada, and Mexico is summarised in catalogue format. We report 323 names, including 170 valid species of rose gall wasps, herb gall wasps, and inquiline gall wasps, classified in 12 genera, from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Current taxonomic status, distribution, host associations, and vernacular names are listed for each species. The catalogue also includes the original description of galls for many species of gall-inducer, as well as atomised characterisations of different gall traits as key-value pairs. For most galling species without existing vernacular names, new vernacular names are proposed.more » « less
