Due diligence is a fundamental component of ensuring a sustainable and legal wildlife trade that is also supportive of the livelihoods and businesses that depend on the trade. This is particularly true with species listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) that are considered threatened or may become threatened by trade. Undertaking due diligence exercises requires access to information on which to base such decisions; however, the extent to which information is available is unclear. We used the trade in tropical pitcher plants (Nepenthes) for horticultural purposes as a case study to determine the extent to which information is available. A systematic survey of online trade was conducted for species described from 1996 to 2016. For the species found in trade, these were cross-referenced with the CITES trade database, and inquiries were made to the relevant CITES Management Authorities and National Focal Points Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS). Of 83 newly described species, 61% were offered for sale online in 2018. Despite all Nepenthes species being listed on CITES, only 23% (n = 19) of the species being sold online were reported in trade on the CITES Trade Database, and only 3 were from the countries of origin. Thirty-two of these species had no international trade recorded according to the database. Management authorities of CITES for the countries of origin confirmed trade had been permitted for 5 of 32 species. Lack of CITES records may be explained by trade under \"Nepenthes spp.\" or as exempt parts and derivatives. However, permits to collect and commercialize are likely to be required as part of the Nagoya Protocol on ABS from the Convention on Biological Diversity. The ABS National Focal Points were contacted to determine whether collection or commercialization permits had been issued for the remaining species. Only 2 of 7 focal points replied, and both stated no permits had been issued. Lack of traceability information or response related to the issuance of collection and commercialization permits is concerning and hinders the due diligence of businesses and consumers wanting to ensure their trade is legal, sustainable, and ethical.
Definición de la legalidad de especies recién catalogadas en CITES en la horticultura comercial de plantas de jarra tropicales (Nepenthes) Resumen La diligencia debida es un componente fundamental para garantizar un comercio de vida silvestre legal y sostenible que también apoye los medios de subsistencia y las empresas que dependen del comercio. Esto es especialmente cierto en el caso de las especies incluidas en la Convención sobre el Comercio Internacional de Especies Amenazadas de Fauna y Flora Silvestres (CITES) que se consideran amenazadas o pueden verse amenazadas por el comercio. La realización de ejercicios de diligencia debida requiere acceso a información con la cual fundamentar tales decisiones; sin embargo, no está claro hasta qué punto se dispone de información. Usamos como estudio de caso el comercio de plantas de jarra tropicales (Nepenthes) con fines hortícolas para determinar cuánta información hay disponible. Realizamos un estudio sistemático del comercio en línea de las especies descritas entre 1996 y 2016. Para las especies encontradas en el comercio, hicimos referencias cruzadas con la base de datos de comercio CITES y consultamos a las Autoridades Administrativas CITES pertinentes y a los Puntos Focales Nacionales de Acceso y Distribución de Beneficios. De las 83 especies con descripción reciente, el 61% se pusieron a la venta en línea en 2018. A pesar de que todas las especies de Nepenthes están catalogadas en CITES, sólo el 23% (n = 19) de las especies que se vendían en línea figuraban en la base de datos sobre comercio CITES, y sólo tres procedían de los países de origen. Treinta y dos de estas especies no tenían comercio internacional registrado según la base de datos. Las autoridades de gestión de CITES de los países de origen confirmaron que se permitió el comercio de 5 de las 32 especies. La falta de registros CITES puede explicarse por el comercio de «Nepenthes spp» o como partes y derivados exentos. Sin embargo, es probable que se exijan permisos de recolección y comercialización en el marco del Protocolo de Nagoya sobre Acceso y Participación en los Beneficios (APB) del Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica. Contactamos a los Puntos Focales Nacionales de APB para determinar si se habían expedido permisos de recolección o comercialización para las especies restantes. Sólo dos de los siete puntos focales respondieron y ambos afirmaron que no se había expedido ningún permiso. La falta de información de rastreo o de respuesta en relación con la expedición de permisos de recolección y comercialización es preocupante y obstaculiza la diligencia debida de las empresas y los consumidores que desean asegurarse de que su comercio es legal, sostenible y ético.

The growing interest in utilizing recycled waste substrates (RWS) in ecosystem services and environmental remediation aligns with the \"waste to wealth\" concept and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite the promising potential of RWS, research gaps remain due to a lack of comprehensive reviews on their production and applications. This systematic review attempts to synthesize and critically assess the scientific footprint of RWS through robust methodology and thorough investigation. Characterization of scientific literature, network analysis, and systematic review were conducted on articles indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed on 140 articles selected by the rigorous article screening process executed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol. The findings map the scientific literature and research themes in RWS. Around 66 % of studies in RWS used a multiple research approach, primarily experiments with case studies. Key research topics identified include (A) Technical domains - types of wastes and recycling techniques in RWS production and parameters influencing the substrate quality; (B) Application domains: environmental remediation of soil and agriculture and horticulture. The use of RWS in urban green infrastructure, particularly for green roofs and vegetative walls, and the potential for LCA studies on RWS production and applications emerge as promising areas for future research. This systematic review also presents a conceptual framework model (CFM) on RWS research, encapsulating the state-of-the-art themes, risks, limitations and constraints, and future research avenues.

A major barrier to sustainably improving food security for a growing global population is the availability of suitable space for growing crops. Urban areas offer a potential solution to increase availability of land, however, horticultural soils often accumulate zinc. These increased levels may affect the interactions between crops and soil microbes with potential implications for crop health and nutrition. Using radio-isotope tracing, we investigated the effect of urban environmentally relevant concentrations of zinc in soils on the nutrient exchange between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and pea plants. At higher concentrations of zinc, transfer of phosphorus from fungi to plants and the movement of carbon from plants to fungi was dramatically decreased. Our results suggest that while urban horticulture holds promise for sustainably enhancing local food production and addressing global food security, the unchecked presence of contaminants in these soils may pose a critical hurdle to realizing the potential of urban soils.

Some biostimulant products provide proven benefits to plant production, potentially offering more environmentally friendly, sustainable, and natural inputs into production systems. However, the transference and predictability of known benefits between different growth environments, application protocols, and management systems are fraught with difficulty. In this study, we carried out carefully controlled glasshouse and in vitro assays with applications of humic acids, protein hydrolysates, and seaweed extract to compare the variability of biostimulant effects and dosage-dependent variations across diverse conditions, encompassing a sufficient range to comprehensively assess their full spectrum of impacts. The results demonstrated a clear trend of dosage-dependent effects with each biostimulant exhibiting a significant growth-promoting effect within a critical concentration range, but detrimental effects when the concentration fell outside this range. While substantial growth-promoting effects were observed under glasshouse conditions, biostimulant applications tended to be more sensitive and generally led to negative impacts in sterilised conditions. The combined use of biostimulants mostly resulted in detrimental and toxicological responses with only two combined treatments showing marginal synergistic effects. The findings demonstrated a complex interplay between biostimulants and the growth conditions of plants. Lack of knowledge of the indirect effects of different growth media may result in negative impacts of biostimulant applications and combinations of products outside narrow critical concentration ranges.

Climate change negative impacts on food production systems have forced large scale food producers to make available less healthy products. Although available on the markets, tomatoes are no more tasting as they used to be and providing fewer nutrients compared to then. This study investigates and compares the quality and yield of organic tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) produced in an insect net covered photovoltaic greenhouse against ambient production. Plant\'s physical characteristics were measured, yields and nutrient content were found at harvest, and environmental conditions (temperature, relative humidity, solar irradiance and CO2) were recorded. Plants grew as high as 160 cm inside the greenhouse under an average afternoon temperature of 30.71 °C and a vapor pressure deficit (VPD) of 1.88 kPa against outside plant growth of 72 cm height under averages of 36.04 °C and 3.05 kPa. Although, inside greenhouse tomatoes were physically more attractive and firm with two times healthier tomatoes (98%), 52.39% higher content in protein, 13.31% more minerals and 13.19% more dry matter than outside tomatoes, the yield from outside environment was 4.57 times higher than that of inside due to probably the used crop variety adapted to the harsh climate. Using a crop variety optimum for greenhouse, increasing ventilation and using better fertilizers with enough irrigation could help increase productivity while keeping high fruit quality inside the greenhouse, leading to healthier fruits for food security in the Sahel.

Integrating agricultural, chemical, and technological knowledge is crucial for developing bio-nanotechnologies to improve agricultural production. This study explores the innovative use of biopolymeric coatings, based on sodium alginate and sodium alginate + Laponite® (nanoclay), containing biostimulants (tryptophol and thymol) or not, on garlic cloves. These coatings were analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Greenhouse bioassays showed improvements in garlic shoot plant biomass with both treatments: sodium alginate biopolymer and sodium alginate biopolymer plus Laponite®. In the field experiment, garlic plants treated with sodium alginate, in combination with conventional pesticide treatments, resulted in better quality garlic bulbs, where larger garlics were harvested in this treatment, reducing commercial losses. In tropical garlic crops, obtaining plants with greater initial vigor is essential. Our results highlight the potential of these bio-nanotechnological strategies to enhance garlic propagation, ensuring environmental protection and food security.

Introduction history, including propagule pressure and residence time, has been proposed as a primary driver of biological invasions. However, it is unclear whether introduction history increases the likelihood that a species will be invasive or only the likelihood that it will be established. Using a dataset of non-native species historically available as ornamental plants in the conterminous United States, we investigated how introduction history relates to these stages of invasion. Introduction history was highly significant and a strong predictor of establishment, but only marginally significant and a poor predictor of invasive success. Propagule pressure predicted establishment better than residence time, with species likely to be established if they were introduced to only eight locations. These findings suggest that ongoing plant introductions will lead to widespread establishment but may not directly increase invasive success. Instead, other characteristics, like plant traits and local scale processes, may better predict whether a species becomes invasive.

Multiple Epiphyas species inhabit southwestern Western Australia, including Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) Epiphyas postvittana (Walker) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), a globally significant, polyphagous pest. This study evaluated the efficacy and specificity of lures designed for 3 Epiphyas species: E. postvittana, Epiphyas pulla (Turner), and the undescribed Epiphyas sp. (1) (Common). Additionally, the study sought to determine the presence and distribution of Epiphyas species in 3 significant apple-growing localities. Trapping, together with partial sequencing of the mitochondrial COI gene, found LBAM to be restricted to the Perth Hills and E. pulla, to apple orchards near Manjimup and Pemberton. This geographic disjunction remains unexplained. Epiphyas sp. (1) was not recorded despite using a specifically designed lure. The E. pulla and LBAM traps demonstrated superior efficacy in capturing their target species, while the catch in Epiphyas sp. (1) traps did not significantly differ between the 2. Both E. pulla and LBAM exhibited peak abundance from late spring to the end of summer (October-February), with variations in timing and peak catch of male moths across species, locations, and years. Surveys conducted in April during the harvest period (February-May), when moth traps caught an average of 1-1.8 moths/trap/week, found no Epiphyas larvae or damage on 140,400 mature apples or on 26,000 leaves. While E. pulla and LBAM traps effectively monitor their target moths, genetic identification of trap catch would be necessary if they co-occurred. Encouragingly, the results indicate that both species become relatively rare as harvest season approaches, and neither inflicts significant damage to mature apples under existing management.

The complexity of the agroecosystem can also be assessed by the different land uses in the system and the surroundings, being a relevant way to assess the heterogeneity of the landscape and the effects on the community of interest, in this case, entomofauna. Thus, the objective of this work is to verify how the use of soil in the surroundings of Chilean lettuce horticultural systems, in the Coquimbo Region, alters the entomological community of the crop. Insect sampling was conducted (February 2021 to March 2022) using yellow pan traps. Two sites will be sampled on each of the seven studied lettuce crops. Land use and land cover classes were defined: Forests, water bodies, shrub vegetation, grasslands, barren lands, impermeable surfaces, and urban areas. After land use and land cover classification, buffers of 500 to 5,000 m were created around each data collection point. For data analysis, the percentages of land use of different classes were compared with the ecological attributes: Abundance of insects, abundance of insect pests, richness of entomological families and types of oral apparatus (licker-sucker, mandible, picker-sucker, and sucker). Land uses at different distances from horticultural systems affected the entomological community.

Crop growth monitoring is essential for both crop and supply chain management. Conventional manual sampling is not feasible for assessing the spatial variability of crop growth within an entire field or across all fields. Meanwhile, UAV-based remote sensing enables the efficient and nondestructive investigation of crop growth. A variety of crop-specific training image datasets are needed to detect crops from UAV imagery using a deep learning model. Specifically, the training dataset of cabbage is limited. This data article includes annotated cabbage images in the fields to recognize cabbages using machine learning models. This dataset contains 458 images with 17,621 annotated cabbages. Image sizes are approximately 500 to 1000 pixel squares. Since these cabbage images were collected from different cultivars during the whole growing season over the years, deep learning models trained with this dataset will be able to recognize a wide variety of cabbage shapes. In the future, this dataset can be used not only in UAVs but also in land-based robot applications for crop sensing or associated plant-specific management.