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The present study explored the motivation of rural-urban migrants who moved from the Himalaya foothills of Uttarakhand to its capital city, Dehradun. A survey of 100 migrant families reported their socio-economic profile before and after migration, personal and general reasons for migration, problems in the village and in the city, and perception of push- and pull factors. A remote sensing-based analysis of land cover and forest changes was conducted for two villages of the migrants’ origin, aiming to link the reasons for migration to land cover changes. This was contextualised by reported large scale changes in forest cover. Major reasons for migration mentioned in this study were education, employment opportunities with the associated income, and facilities. These were perceived as both, push and pull factors, whereas environmental factors ranked very low. Declining environment or agriculture were never mentioned spontaneously as personal reason, and only occasionally as a presumed general reason for migration, but were frequently confirmed as a major problem in the village. Thus, although such problems existed, they seemed not a major driver of rural-urban migration. For most of the respondents their migration resulted in a profound change of livelihoods and significantly improved their socio-economic situation. Land and forest cover around the chosen villages fluctuated by up to 15% with a trend to increasing forest cover in recent years. At the district and state scales, forest cover was rather stable. These results question the narrative of deforestation and environmental degradation in the Himalayas as major push-factors for rural-urban migration in Uttarakhand. Even if environmental constraints were felt, it was rather the differences in socio-economic opportunities (education, employment, facilities) that drove people to migrate to the city. Regarding the push-pull paradigm, we conclude that scenarios of external conditions under which people migrate cannot be evaluated without taking the migrants’ attitudes and choices into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanisation is a global trend rapidly transforming the biophysical and socioeconomic structures of metropolitan areas. To better understand (and perhaps control) these processes, more interdisciplinary research must be dedicated to the rural-urban interface. This also calls for a common reference system describing intermediate stages along a rural-urban gradient. The present paper constructs a simple index of urbanisation for villages in the Greater Bangalore Area, using GIS analysis of satellite images, and combining basic measures of building density and distance. The correlation of the two parameters and discontinuities in the frequency distribution of the combined index indicate highly dynamic stages of transformation, spatially clustered in the rural-urban interface. This analysis is substantiated by a qualitative assessment of village morphologies. The index presented here serves as a starting point in a large, coordinated study of rural-urban transitions. It was used to stratify villages for random sampling in order to perform a representative socioeconomic household survey, along with agricultural experiments and environmental assessments in various subsamples. Later on, it will also provide a matrix against which the results can be aligned and evaluated. In this process, the measures and classification systems themselves can be further refined and elaborated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A protein sparing effect in mixed cultures of rumen microbes, recently described for the field scabious Knautia arvensis [Selje-Assmann, N., Hoffmann, E.M., Muetzel, S., Ningrat, R., Wallace, R.J., Becker, K., 2007. Results of a screening programme to identify plants or plant extracts that inhibit ruminal protein degradation. Br. J. Nutr. 98, 45–53], and extractable with methanol, was similar to effects mediated by monensin. As a potential alternative to growth promoting feed antibiotics, we investigated this activity in a dose study. In vitro batch incubations were completed with rumen fluid from lactating Holstein cows on a substrate designed to resemble a concentrate-rich diet for dairy cattle, with a standardized protein supplement, to measure degradation of feed protein. Incubations with 3μM monensin were the external control. Five concentrations (i.e., 0.4–2mgdrymatter/ml) of methanol extract of K. arvensis were added, either substituting an equivalent amount of basal forage, or to a constant amount of substrate. Fermentation parameters, determined in regular intervals up to 12h, were gas production, concentrations of short chain fatty acids (SCFA), ammonium and soluble true protein. When the extract was substituted, and total substrate was the reference, total SCFA yield was not affected, whereas release of branched SCFA and protein degradation rate were reduced in a dose-dependent manner by a maximum of ∼60%. Propionate proportion increased with extract dose by up to ∼15%, and effects could be modeled by linear regression with high correlation coefficients. Ammonium concentration decreased above the threshold concentration of 0.8mg/ml by ∼14%. However 3μM monensin, under the same conditions, decreased branched SCFA and protein degradation rate by ∼36%, ammonium by 5% and increased propionate proportion by 28%. When the extract was added to a constant amount of substrate, rather than replacing forage, effects on protein degradation were more pronounced. In vitro results suggest that K. arvensis has the potential to increase rumen protein escape in ruminant diets, and thus improve N use efficiency in vivo. The methanol extractability of the active component provides perspective for development of a standardized additive from this plant material that may be applicable in dairy cattle feeding systems, although its in vivo efficacy and persistency still need to be demonstrated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Soybean meal is a widely used protein supplement in animal feeds. When fed to monogastrics, thermal pretreatment (roasting) is needed to destroy antinutritional components. The major antinutritive compound of soybeans is trypsin inhibitor, a protein of 21 kDa molecular mass. Ruminants can tolerate this compound due to the microbial fermentation in the rumen rendering the inhibitor ineffective. This process was monitored under controlled conditions in an in vitro fermentation system. Raw soybean meal was added at different levels to a basal roughage and incubated with bovine rumen fluid. Samples were taken at regular time intervals up to 24 h of incubation. The samples were assayed enzymatically for trypsin inhibitor activity, and parallel to this the proteolytic degradation of trypsin inhibitor was documented qualitatively and quantitatively through polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and densitometric methods. It was shown that trypsin inhibitor is both inactivated and degraded in the rumen, but with different kinetic characteristics. Its concentration in the soluble fraction showed a more pronounced initial increase than the apparent activity, and the time of complete degradation lagged 1–2 h behind the complete loss of activity. Protein concentration and activity were related to each other by calculating specific trypsin inhibitor activity. As this parameter showed a rapid, presumably exponential decay with the onset of fermentation, inactivation must be due to a mechanism preceding and not directly related to proteolysis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We present a continuous culture system based on one developed by [Teather, R.M., Sauer, F.D., 1988. A naturally compartmented rumen simulation system for the continuous culture of rumen bacteria and protozoa. J. Dairy Sci. 71, 666–673]. In which programmable stirring speeds allow a raft mat to form similar to that found in the rumen to produce a de facto dual flow system with different liquid and solid turnover rates that helps to maintain the protozoal population. Novel features include a non-clogging outflow, and a computer controlled, compact feeding system able to deliver ground substrates or pellets. The system comprises 12 thermostat controlled fermenter vessels with a working volume of 1L each. The fermenters were primed with rumen fluid from two cows and continuously provided with the same diet as the donor animals (15g/day for 3 days then 10g/day) and artificial saliva (1L/day). The concentration of short chain fatty acids (SCFA), microbial ribosomal RNA (rRNA) concentrations and total enzymatic activities were all lower in the fermenter than in the donor animals, but the proportions of SCFA remained the same. There was no difference in specific cellulase activity, but specific xylanase activity and total protozoal counts were significantly higher in the fermenters. The proportions of Bacteria, and Eukaryota (i.e., protozoa and fungi) were similar in the fermenters compared to the donor animal, but the proportion of the Archaea (methanogens) was increased. Total rRNA from cellulolytic organisms (Chytridiomycetes, Fibrobacter sp. Ruminococcus albus and R. flavefaciens) was similar to that in the donor animals. However, the composition of the cellulolytic community changed with the proportion of R. albus and the Chytridiomycetes increasing while the proportion of R. flavefaciens decreased, and the genus Fibrobacter was unchanged. Despite these differences, this in vitro system has potential to study effects of feed components on fermentation parameters. Whether the system will prove useful for modelling changes in the composition of the rumen microbial community needs to be evaluated further. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]