Vapour pressure deficit determines critical thresholds for global coffee production under climate change.

Our understanding of the impact of climate change on global coffee production is largely based on studies focusing on temperature and precipitation, but other climate indicators could trigger critical threshold changes in productivity. Here, using generalized additive models and threshold regression, we investigate temperature, precipitation, soil moisture and vapour pressure deficit (VPD) effects on global Arabica coffee productivity. We show that VPD during fruit development is a key indicator of global coffee productivity, with yield declining rapidly above 0.

Mapping spatial distribution and geographic shifts of East African highland banana (Musa spp.) in Uganda.

East African highland banana (Musa acuminata genome group AAA-EA; hereafter referred to as banana) is critical for Uganda's food supply, hence our aim to map current distribution and to understand changes in banana production areas over the past five decades. We collected banana presence/absence data through an online survey based on high-resolution satellite images and coupled this data with independent covariates as inputs for ensemble machine learning prediction of current banana distribution. We assessed geographic shifts of production areas using spatially explicit differences between the 1958 and 2016 banana distribution maps.

Whole-exome sequencing in syndromic craniosynostosis increases diagnostic yield and identifies candidate genes in osteogenic signaling pathways.

Craniosynostosis (CS) is a common congenital anomaly defined by premature fusion of one or more cranial sutures. Syndromic CS involves additional organ anomalies or neurocognitive deficits and accounts for 25%-30% of the cases. In a recent population-based study by our group, 84% of the syndromic CS cases had a genetically verified diagnosis after targeted analyses.

Warm nights drive Coffea arabica ripening in Tanzania.

Studies have demonstrated that plant phenophases (e.g. budburst, flowering, ripening) are occurring increasingly earlier in the season across diverse ecologies globally.

Micro-livestock in smallholder farming systems: the role, challenges and opportunities for cavies in South Kivu, eastern DR Congo.

Livestock play multiple roles for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Mixed crop-livestock systems are common in South Kivu, eastern DR Congo, but herd sizes are small and numbers of large livestock (i.e.