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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.

2019

To document

Abstract

Soil is one of the most species-rich habitats and plays a crucial role in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. It is acknowledged that soils and their biota deliver many ecosystem services. However, up to now, cultural ecosystem services (CES) provided by soil biodiversity remained virtually unknown. Here we present a multilingual and multisubject literature review on cultural benefits provided by belowground biota in European forests. We found 226 papers mentioning impact of soil biota on the cultural aspects of human life. According to the reviewed literature, soil organisms contribute to all CES. Impact on CES, as reflected in literature, was highest for fungi and lowest for microorganisms and mesofauna. Cultural benefits provided by soil biota clearly prevailed in the total of the reviewed references, but there were also negative effects mentioned in six CES. The same organism groups or even individual species may have negative impacts within one CES and at the same time act as an ecosystem service provider for another CES. The CES were found to be supported at several levels of ecosystem service provision: from single species to two or more functional/taxonomical groups and in some cases morphological diversity acted as a surrogate for species diversity. Impact of soil biota on CES may be both direct – by providing the benefits (or dis-benefits) and indirect – through the use of the products or services obtained from these benefits. The CES from soil biota interacted among themselves and with other ES, but more than often, they did not create bundles, because there exist temporal fluctuations in value of CES and a time lag between direct and indirect benefits. Strong regionality was noted for most of CES underpinned by soil biota: the same organism group or species may have strong impact on CES (positive, negative or both) in some regions while no, minor or opposite effects in others. Contrarily to the CES based on landscapes, in the CES provided by soil biota distance between the ecosystem and its CES benefiting area is shorter (CES based on landscapes are used less by local people and more by visitors, meanwhile CES based on species or organism groups are used mainly by local people). Our review revealed the existence of a considerable amount of spatially fragmented and semantically rich information highlighting cultural values provided by forest soil biota in Europe.

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Abstract

The positive effect of low oxygen and high CO2 for sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) storability is well-known. In the present experiment, a combination of controlled atmosphere (CA; 2°C, 5% O2 and 15% CO2) storage and modified atmosphere in consumer packaging (MAP) were assessed. Fruit of 'Kordia' were packaged directly (0-week CA) or after three weeks in CA storage (3-week CA). The different packages were 1: macro-perforated polyethylene bag (carry bags); 2: trays wrapped in perforated films giving passive modified atmosphere with high CO2 concentration (MAP-high CO2); 3: similar as 2, but with low CO2 concentration (MAP-low CO2); 4: perforated shaker with lid containing cherries with stem; and 5: similar as 4, but with fruit without stems. The consumer packages were stored at 4°C for 5 days and thereafter for 3 days at 4°C (Chill) or 20°C (Retail) simulating different retail storage conditions. The weight loss was below 1% for fruit in all packages stored at chill conditions. At retail conditions, weight loss for cherries in carry bags varied between 2.2 and 8.4%, whereas MA packages had insignificant weight loss. Fungal fruit decay was below 0.5% for 0-week CA cherries stored at chill conditions for 8 days, and from 7 to 14% for 3-week CA cherries stored at chill conditions for 6 days after packaging. At retail conditions, 25 to 52% decay was detected at end of storage period after previous storage in 0 and 3 weeks in CA, respectively. Sweet cherries of 'Kordia' did not maintain an acceptable quality in 3 weeks of CA with consecutive simulated distribution conditions during 6 days. Fungal decay was lower in carry bags and MA packaging with high CO2, and the MA packages had additionally insignificant weight loss in mean of the different temperature regimes and storage times.