Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2025
Authors
Zuzana Vaneková Martina Redl Lorenz Fischer Karin Ortmayr Laura Jaakola Judith M. RollingerAbstract
Vaccinium uliginosum (bog bilberry) is widely consumed in North America and Asia but has been historically avoided in many parts of Europe due to its alleged poisonous effects. We aimed to address this discrepancy in a systematic way with a combined phytochemical and ethnopharmacological approach, using UHPLC and UHPSFC for the chemical analysis, model organisms Caenorhabditis elegans and human liver cells GFP-Huh-7 for the bioactivity and toxicity testing, as well as fermentation experiments. Phytochemical analysis revealed minimal differences in the metabolite pattern between European and North American samples, with no evidence of toxic alkaloids or harmful secondary metabolites. Extracts exhibited no strongly toxic effects in the tested concentrations, neither in vitro (cell viability) nor in vivo (C. elegans). Berries infected by Monilinia megalospora showed altered flavonoid and anthocyanin contents but no increased toxicity. Notably, bog bilberries demonstrated a fermentation potential superior to Vaccinium myrtillus, resulting in an alcohol content of 4.8–5.8% ABV in unsweetened juices, thus potentially explaining historical accounts of inebriation. In conclusion, direct toxicity derived from these fruits is unlikely, but the alcohol content due to fruit fermentation is a plausible explanation for the folklore names (“drunk, inebriating berry”). However, additional factors such as human error, individual intolerance, or endophytic activity need to be considered.
Authors
Timothy Ohlert Melinda D. Smith Scott L. Collins Alan K. Knapp Jeffrey S. Dukes Osvaldo Sala Kate D. Wilkins Seth M. Munson Maggie I. Anderson Meghan L. Avolio Anping Chen Meghan T. Hayden Martin C. Holdrege Ingrid J. Slette Peter Wilfahrt Claus Beier Lauchlan H. Fraser Anke Jentsch Michael E. Loik Yiqi Luo Fernando T. Maestre Richard P. Phillips Sally A. Power Laura Yahdjian Qiang Yu Angel Chen Andrew J. Felton Laureano A. Gherardi Nicholas J. Lyon Hamed Abdoli Mehdi Abedi Juan Alberti Antonio I. Arroyo Heidi Asbjornsen Harald Auge Seton Bachle Michael Bahn David C. Bartholomew Amgaa Batbaatar Taryn L. Bauerle Karen H. Beard Kai Behn Ilka Beil Lucio Biancari Irmgard Blindow Viviana Florencia Bondaruk Elizabeth T. Borer Edward W. Bork Carlos Martin Bruschetti Kerry M. Byrne James F. Cahill Dianela A. Calvo Michele Carbognani Cameron N. Carlyle Karen Castillioni Miguel Castillo-Garcia Manjunatha H. Chandregowda Scott X. Chang Jeff Chieppa Amber C. Churchill Marcus Vinicius Cianciaruso Amanda L Cordeiro Sara A. O. Cousins Daniela F. Cusack Sven Dahlke Pedro Daleo Lee H. Dietterich Maren Dubbert Nico Eisenhauer T’ai G. W. Forte Flavia A. Funk Darcy Galiano Aaron C. Greenville Liebao Han Siri Vatsø Haugum Yann Hautier Andy Hector Hugh A. L. Henry Daniela Hoss Forest Isbell Samuel E. Jordan Yuguang Ke Eugene F. Kelly Sally E. Koerner Juergen Kreyling György Kröel-Dulay Alicia I. Kröpfl Angelika Kübert Andrew Kulmatiski Eric G. Lamb Klaus Steenberg Larsen Steven Lee Smriti Pehim Limbu Anja Linstädter Shirong Liu Grisel Longo Alejandro Loydi Junwei Luan F. Curtis Lubbe Andrey V. Malyshev Cameron D. McIntire Daniel B. Metcalfe Malesela Vincent Mokoka Akira S. Mori Edwin Mudongo Gregory S. Newman Uffe N. Nielsen Raúl Ochoa-Hueso Rory C. O’Connor Romà Ogaya Gastón R. Oñatibia Ildikó Orbán Brooke B. Osborne Rafael Otfinowski Meelis Pärtel Jesús Pascual Josep Peñuelas Pablo L. Peri David S. Pescador Guadalupe Peter Alessandro Petraglia Catherine Picon-Cochard Valério D. Pillar Juan M. Piñeiro-Guerra Laura Weber Ploughe Robert M. Plowes Cristy Portales-Reyes Suzanne M. Prober Yolanda Pueyo Golsa Rahmati Sasha C. Reed Dana Aylén Rodríguez William E. Rogers Christiane Roscher David W. Rowley Ana M. Sánchez Bráulio A. Santos Michael P. Schellenberg Michael Scherer-Lorenzen Eric W. Seabloom Ruonan Shen Baoku Shi Lara Souza Andreas Stampfli Rachel J. Standish Marcelo Sternberg Wei Sun Marie Sünnemann Michelle Tedder Tyson J. Terry Pål Thorvaldsen Katja Tielbörger Maud Tissink Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur Alejandro Valdecantos Liesbeth van den Brink Vigdis Vandvik Liv Guri Velle Svenja Wanke Glenda M. Wardle Cunzheng Wei Christiane Werner Georg Wiehl Jennifer L. Williams Amelia A. Wolf Honghui Wu Chong Xu Xuechen Yang Yadong Yang Jenifer L. Yost Alyssa L. Young Ping Yue Juan M. Zeberio Michaela Zeiter Haiyang Zhang Juntao Zhu Xiaoan ZuoAbstract
As droughts become longer and more intense, impacts on terrestrial primary productivity are expected to increase progressively. Yet, some ecosystems appear to acclimate to multiyear drought, with constant or diminishing reductions in productivity as drought duration increases. We quantified the combined effects of drought duration and intensity on aboveground productivity in 74 grasslands and shrublands distributed globally. Ecosystem acclimation with multiyear drought was observed overall, except when droughts were extreme (i.e., ≤1-in-100-year likelihood of occurrence). Productivity losses after four consecutive years of extreme drought increased by ~2.5-fold compared with those of the first year. These results portend a foundational shift in ecosystem behavior if drought duration and intensity increase, from maintenance of reduced functioning over time to progressive and profound losses of productivity when droughts are extreme.
Authors
Laura JaakolaAbstract
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The value of genetic resources in agriculture is hard to overestimate as they are decisive for food safety, provide options for adaptation of future diet needs, and underpin a vast amount of biodiversity. To enable an effective conservation of these resources, we need knowledge about where they are located. The EU project GenRes Bridge showed that this knowledge is indeed modest at the European level. A source of genetic resources with particular potential for use in agriculture, e.g. related to the future adaptation to climate change, are crop wild relatives (CWR). Crop wild relatives are plant species categorized as wild relatives of cultivated plants and are used here as an indicator of genetic resources in the landscape. We therefore wanted to explore new ways of identifying hotspots of genetic resources, highlighting the landscape as a starting point. It is well established that landscape heterogeneity is closely related to biodiversity, although to our knowledge studies hitherto have rarely looked at the relation between landscape and genetic resources. Focusing on crop wild relatives, used here as an indicator for genetic resources in the landscape, we wanted to assess whether we could identify how landscape variation in topography and land cover has consequences for the spatial distribution of genetic resources that may be important in the future development of agriculture. Here we report the results from this pilot study where we have tested whether there is a correlation between landscape heterogeneity and agricultural genetic resources, using 5 x 5 km grid cells as spatial units. We used the presence of the crop wild relatives (CWR) which are prioritized for conservation in Norway as indicators of agricultural genetic resource diversity and extracted landscape heterogeneity descriptors from publicly available sources. The results from our study do suggest that landscape diversity could be a path worth following in searching for these resources in the landscape, and thus also important in decision-making on planning and management in these diverse landscapes.
Authors
Min Lin Shirin Mohammadi Nora Røhnebæk Aasen Silius Mortensønn Vandeskog Maria Thorkildsen Anne Marthe Lundby Alex Lenkoski Morten LillemoAbstract
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Authors
Stephen Matthew Platt Siv Kari Lauvset Christine Groot Zwaaftink Richard Sanders Holger Lange Agneta Fransson Ingunn Skjelvan Are Olsen Gunnar Myhre Nicholas Roden Andrew Luke KingAbstract
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Authors
Barbara Baraibar Zahra Bitarafan José Luis González Andújar Eva Hernández Plaza Merel Hofmeijer Silvia Medina Susana Pascual Björn Ringselle Inés Santin Amber ten Brummelhuis Stanley ZiraAbstract
No abstract has been registered