Conformity and tradition are more important than environmental values in constraining resource overharvest.

We present the results of a hybrid research design that borrows from both experimental techniques-experimental games-and observational techniques-surveys-to examine the relationships between basic human values and exposure to natural ecosystems, on the one hand, and collective action for resource governance, on the other. We initially hypothesize that more frequent exposure to forests, and more pro-environmental values will be associated with more conservation action. However, we find that other values-tradition and conformity-are more important than pro-environmental values or exposure to nature. Our results imply that resource governance is likely to be more successful where resource users hold values that facilitate cooperation, not necessarily strong pro-environmental values.

Linking knowledge with action when engagement is out of reach: three contextual features of effective public health communication.

Scholars and practitioners often promote direct engagement between policymakers, health workers and researchers as a strategy for overcoming barriers to utilizing scientific knowledge in health policy. However, in many settings public health officials rarely have opportunities to interact with researchers, which is a problem further exacerbated by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. One prominent theory argues that policy actors will trust and utilize research findings when they perceive them to be salient, credible and legitimate. We draw on this theory to examine the conditions facilitating greater uptake of new knowledge among health officials when engagement is out of reach and they are instead exposed to new ideas through written mass communication. Using data from a survey experiment with about 260 health workers and administrators in Honduras, we find that messages from a technocratic sender based on statistical evidence improved perceptions of salience, credibility and legitimacy (SCL). Additionally, perceptions of SCL are three contextual features that operate as joint mediators between knowledge and action, and several individual characteristics also influence whether officials trust research findings enough to apply them when formulating and implementing health policies. This research can help inform the design of context-sensitive knowledge translation and exchange strategies to advance the goals of evidence-based public health, particularly in settings where direct engagement is difficult to achieve.

L-lactate induces neurogenesis in the mouse ventricular-subventricular zone via the lactate receptor HCA1.

AIM: Adult neurogenesis occurs in two major niches in the brain: the subgranular zone of the hippocampal formation and the ventricular-subventricular zone. Neurogenesis in both niches is reduced in ageing and neurological disease involving dementia. Exercise can rescue memory by enhancing hippocampal neurogenesis, but whether exercise affects adult neurogenesis in the ventricular-subventricular zone remains unresolved. Previously, we reported that exercise induces angiogenesis through activation of the lactate receptor HCA1. The aim of the present study is to investigate HCA1 -dependent effects on neurogenesis in the two main neurogenic niches. METHODS: Wild-type and HCA1 knock-out mice received high intensity interval exercise, subcutaneous injections of L-lactate, or saline injections, five days per week for seven weeks. Well-established markers for proliferating cells (Ki-67) and immature neurons (doublecortin), were used to investigate neurogenesis in the subgranular zone and the ventricular-subventricular zone. RESULTS: We demonstrated that neurogenesis in the ventricular-subventricular zone is enhanced by HCA1 activation: Treatment with exercise or lactate resulted in increased neurogenesis in wild-type, but not in HCA1 knock-out mice. In the subgranular zone, neurogenesis was induced by exercise in both genotypes, but unaffected by lactate treatment. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrates that neurogenesis in the two main neurogenic niches in the brain is regulated differently: Neurogenesis in both niches was induced by exercise, but only in the ventricular-subventricular zone was neurogenesis induced by lactate through HCA1 activation. This opens for a role of HCA1 in the physiological control of neurogenesis, and potentially in counteracting age-related cognitive decline.

Organizations matter in local governance: evidence from health sector decentralization in Honduras.

Health systems strengthening is at the forefront of the global health agenda. Many health systems in low-resource settings face profound challenges, and robust causal evidence on the effects of health systems reforms is lacking. Decentralization has been one of the most prominent reforms, and after more than 50 years of implementation and hundreds of studies, we still know little about whether these policies improve, harm or are inconsequential for the performance of health systems in less-developed countries. A persistent problem in existing studies is the inability to isolate the effect of decentralization on health outcomes, struggling with heterogeneous meanings of decentralization and missing counterfactuals. We address these shortcomings with a quasi-experimental, longitudinal research design that takes advantage of a unique staggered reform process in Honduras. Using three waves of household survey data over 10 years for a matched sample of 65 municipalities in Honduras, we estimated difference-in-difference models comparing changes in outcomes over time between local health systems that were decentralized using one of three types of organizations [municipal governments, associations of mayors or non-governmental organization (NGOs)] and those that remained centrally administered. We find evidence of overall improvements between 2005 and 2016 in several service delivery-related outcomes, and additional improvements in decentralized municipalities governed by NGOs. NGO-led municipalities saw a 15% decrease in home delivery relative to centralized municipalities in 2016, a 12.5% increase in MCH facility delivery and a 7% increase in the use of a skilled birth attendant. There were no detectable positive treatment effects for vaccination, and a slight decline in the weight-for-length z-scores in NGO municipalities, but we find no systematic evidence of decentralization negatively impacting any maternal and child health outcomes. These findings highlight the importance of considering implementation context, namely organization type, when assessing the effects of decentralization reform.

Voluntary leadership and the emergence of institutions for self-governance.

Strong local institutions are important for the successful governance of common-pool resources (CPRs), but why do such institutions emerge in the first place and why do they sometimes not emerge at all? We argue that voluntary local leaders play an important role in the initiation of self-governance institutions because such leaders can directly affect local users' perceived costs and benefits associated with self-rule. Drawing on recent work on leadership in organizational behavior, we propose that voluntary leaders can facilitate a cooperative process of local rule creation by exhibiting unselfish behavior and leading by example. We posit that such forms of leadership are particularly important when resource users are weakly motivated to act collectively, such as when confronted with "creeping" environmental problems. We test these ideas by using observations from a laboratory-in-the-field experiment with 128 users of forest commons in Bolivia and Uganda. We find that participants' agreement to create new rules was significantly stronger in group rounds where voluntary, unselfish leaders were present. We show that unselfish leadership actions make the biggest difference for rule creation under high levels of uncertainty, such as when the resource is in subtle decline and intragroup communication sparse.

Navigating the Murine Brain: Toward Best Practices for Determining and Documenting Neuroanatomical Locations in Experimental Studies.

In experimental neuroscientific research, anatomical location is a key attribute of experimental observations and critical for interpretation of results, replication of findings, and comparison of data across studies. With steadily rising numbers of publications reporting basic experimental results, there is an increasing need for integration and synthesis of data. Since comparison of data relies on consistently defined anatomical locations, it is a major concern that practices and precision in the reporting of location of observations from different types of experimental studies seem to vary considerably. To elucidate and possibly meet this challenge, we have evaluated and compared current practices for interpreting and documenting the anatomical location of measurements acquired from murine brains with different experimental methods. Our observations show substantial differences in approach, interpretation and reproducibility of anatomical locations among reports of different categories of experimental research, and strongly indicate that ambiguous reports of anatomical location can be attributed to missing descriptions. Based on these findings, we suggest a set of minimum requirements for documentation of anatomical location in experimental murine brain research. We furthermore demonstrate how these requirements have been applied in the EU Human Brain Project to optimize workflows for integration of heterogeneous data in common reference atlases. We propose broad adoption of some straightforward steps for improving the precision of location metadata and thereby facilitating interpretation, reuse and integration of data.

Exercise induces cerebral VEGF and angiogenesis via the lactate receptor HCAR1.

Physical exercise can improve brain function and delay neurodegeneration; however, the initial signal from muscle to brain is unknown. Here we show that the lactate receptor (HCAR1) is highly enriched in pial fibroblast-like cells that line the vessels supplying blood to the brain, and in pericyte-like cells along intracerebral microvessels. Activation of HCAR1 enhances cerebral vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) and cerebral angiogenesis. High-intensity interval exercise (5 days weekly for 7 weeks), as well as L-lactate subcutaneous injection that leads to an increase in blood lactate levels similar to exercise, increases brain VEGFA protein and capillary density in wild-type mice, but not in knockout mice lacking HCAR1. In contrast, skeletal muscle shows no vascular HCAR1 expression and no HCAR1-dependent change in vascularization induced by exercise or lactate. Thus, we demonstrate that a substance released by exercising skeletal muscle induces supportive effects in brain through an identified receptor.

Decentralization can help reduce deforestation when user groups engage with local government.

Policy makers around the world tout decentralization as an effective tool in the governance of natural resources. Despite the popularity of these reforms, there is limited scientific evidence on the environmental effects of decentralization, especially in tropical biomes. This study presents evidence on the institutional conditions under which decentralization is likely to be successful in sustaining forests. We draw on common-pool resource theory to argue that the environmental impact of decentralization hinges on the ability of reforms to engage local forest users in the governance of forests. Using matching techniques, we analyze longitudinal field observations on both social and biophysical characteristics in a large number of local government territories in Bolivia (a country with a decentralized forestry policy) and Peru (a country with a much more centralized forestry policy). We find that territories with a decentralized forest governance structure have more stable forest cover, but only when local forest user groups actively engage with the local government officials. We provide evidence in support of a possible causal process behind these results: When user groups engage with the decentralized units, it creates a more enabling environment for effective local governance of forests, including more local government-led forest governance activities, fora for the resolution of forest-related conflicts, intermunicipal cooperation in the forestry sector, and stronger technical capabilities of the local government staff.

More Trees, More Poverty? The Socioeconomic Effects of Tree Plantations in Chile, 2001-2011.

Tree plantations play a controversial role in many nations' efforts to balance goals for economic development, ecological conservation, and social justice. This paper seeks to contribute to this debate by analyzing the socioeconomic impact of such plantations. We focus our study on Chile, a country that has experienced extraordinary growth of industrial tree plantations. Our analysis draws on a unique dataset with longitudinal observations collected in 180 municipal territories during 2001-2011. Employing panel data regression techniques, we find that growth in plantation area is associated with higher than average rates of poverty during this period.

Resilience and Alternative Stable States of Tropical Forest Landscapes under Shifting Cultivation Regimes.

Shifting cultivation is a traditional agricultural practice in most tropical regions of the world and has the potential to provide for human livelihoods while hosting substantial biodiversity. Little is known about the resilience of shifting cultivation to increasing agricultural demands on the landscape or to unexpected disturbances. To investigate these issues, we develop a simple social-ecological model and implement it with literature-derived ecological parameters for six shifting cultivation landscapes from three continents. Analyzing the model with the tools of dynamical systems analysis, we show that such landscapes exhibit two stable states, one characterized by high forest cover and agricultural productivity, and another with much lower values of these traits. For some combinations of agricultural pressure and ecological parameters both of these states can potentially exist, and the actual state of the forest depends critically on its historic state. In many cases, the landscapes' 'ecological resilience', or amount of forest that could be destroyed without shifting out of the forested stability domain, declined substantially at lower levels of agricultural pressure than would lead to maximum productivity. A measure of 'engineering resilience', the recovery time from standardized disturbances, was independent of ecological resilience. These findings suggest that maximization of short-term agricultural output may have counterproductive impacts on the long-term productivity of shifting cultivation landscapes and the persistence of forested areas.

The lactate receptor, G-protein-coupled receptor 81/hydroxycarboxylic acid receptor 1: Expression and action in brain.

We have proposed that lactate is a "volume transmitter" in the brain and underpinned this by showing that the lactate receptor, G-protein-coupled receptor 81 (GPR81, also known as HCA1 or HCAR1), which promotes lipid storage in adipocytes, is also active in the mammalian brain. This includes the cerebral neocortex and the hippocampus, where it can be stimulated by physiological concentrations of lactate and by the HCAR1 agonist 3,5-dihydroxybenzoate to reduce cAMP levels. Cerebral HCAR1 is concentrated on the postsynaptic membranes of excitatory synapses and also is enriched at the blood-brain barrier. In synaptic spines and in adipocytes, HCAR1 immunoreactivity is also located on subplasmalemmal vesicular organelles, suggesting trafficking to and from the plasma membrane. Through activation of HCAR1, lactate can act as a volume transmitter that links neuronal activity, cerebral blood flow, energy metabolism, and energy substrate availability, including a glucose- and glycogen-saving response. HCAR1 may contribute to optimizing the cAMP concentration. For instance, in the prefrontal cortex, excessively high cAMP levels are implicated in impaired cognition in old age, fatigue, stress, and schizophrenia and in the deposition of phosphorylated tau protein in Alzheimer's disease. HCAR1 could serve to ameliorate these conditions and might also act through downstream mechanisms other than cAMP. Lactate exits cells through monocarboxylate transporters in an equilibrating manner and through astrocyte anion channels activated by depolarization. In addition to locally produced lactate, lactate produced by exercising muscle as well as exogenous HCAR1 agonists, e.g., from fruits and berries, might activate the receptor on cerebral blood vessels and brain cells.

Payment for Environmental Services: Hypotheses and Evidence.

The use of payment for environmental services (PES) is not a new type of contract, but PES programs have become more in vogue because of the potential for sequestering carbon by paying to prevent deforestation and degradation of forestlands. We provide a framework utilizing transaction costs to hypothesize which services are more likely to be provided effectively. We then interpret the literature on PES programs to see the extent to which transaction costs vary as predicted across the type of service and to assess the performance of PES programs. As predicted, we find that transaction costs are the least for club goods like water and greatest for pure public goods like carbon reduction. Actual performance is difficult to measure and varies across the examples. More work and experimentation are needed to gain a better outlook on what elements support effective delivery of environmental services.

G protein-coupled estrogen receptor 1/G protein-coupled receptor 30 localizes in the plasma membrane and traffics intracellularly on cytokeratin intermediate filaments.

G protein-coupled receptor 30 [G protein-coupled estrogen receptor 1 (GPER1)], has been introduced as a membrane estrogen receptor and a candidate cancer biomarker and therapeutic target. However, several questions surround the subcellular localization and signaling of this receptor. In native cells, including mouse myoblast C(2)C(12) cells, Madin-Darby canine kidney epithelial cells, and human ductal breast epithelial tumor T47-D cells, G-1, a GPER1 agonist, and 17ß-estradiol stimulated GPER1-dependent cAMP production, a defined plasma membrane (PM) event, and recruitment of ß-arrestin2 to the PM. Staining of fixed and live cells showed that GPER1 was localized both in the PM and on intracellular structures. One such intracellular structure was identified as cytokeratin (CK) intermediate filaments, including those composed of CK7 and CK8, but apparently not endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi, or microtubules. Reciprocal coimmunoprecipitation of GPER1 and CKs confirmed an association of these proteins. Live staining also showed that the PM receptors constitutively internalize apparently to reach CK filaments. Receptor localization was supported using FLAG- and hemagglutinin-tagged GPER1. We conclude that GPER1-mediated stimulation of cAMP production and ß-arrestin2 recruitment occur in the PM. Furthermore, the PM receptors constitutively internalize and localize intracellularly on CK. This is the first observation that a G protein-coupled receptor is capable of associating with intermediate filaments, which may be important for GPER1 regulation in epithelial cells and the relationship of this receptor to cancer.