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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

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Abstract

Biodiversity of ecosystems is an important driver for the supply of ecosystem services to people. Soils often have a larger biodiversity per unit surface area than what can be observed aboveground. Here, we present what is to our knowledge, the most extensive literature-based key-word assessment of the existing information about the relationships between belowground biodiversity and ecosystem services in European forests. The belowground diversity of plant roots, fungi, prokaryota, soil fauna, and protists was evaluated in relation to the supply of Provisioning, Regulating, Cultural, and Supporting Services. The soil biota were divided into 14 subgroups and the ecosystem services into 37 separate services. Out of the 518 possible combinations of biotic groups and ecosystem services, no published study was found for 374 combinations (72%). Of the remaining 144 combinations (28%) where relationships were found, the large majority (87%) showed a positive relationship between biodiversity of a belowground biotic group and an associated ecosystem service. However, for the majority of the combinations (102) there were only three or fewer studies. The percentage of cases for which a relationship was detected varied strongly between ecosystem service categories with 23% for Provisioning, 8% for Regulating, 40% for Cultural, and 48% for Supporting Services.We conclude that (1) soil biodiversity is generally positively related to ecosystem services in European forests; (2) the links between soil biodiversity and Cultural or Supporting services are better documented than those relating to Provisioning and Regulating services; (3) there is a huge knowledge gap for most possible combinations of soil biota and ecosystem services regarding how a more biodiverse soil biota is associated with a given ecosystem service. Given the drastically increasing societal demand for knowledge of the role of biodiversity in the functioning of ecosystems and the supply of ecosystem services, we strongly encourage the scientific community to conduct well-designed studies incorporating the belowground diversity and the functions and services associated with this diversity.

Abstract

Complex communities of microorganisms influence plant and agroecosystem health and productivity. Bacteria and fungi constitute a major part of the wheat head microbiome. A microorganism’s ability to colonize or infect a wheat seed is influenced by interacting microbiome. In Norway, wheat seed lots are routinely analysed for the infestation by Fusarium head blight and seedling blight diseases, such as Fusarium and Microdochium spp., and glume blotch caused by Parastagonospora nodorum using traditional methods (plating grain on PDA, recording presence or absence of fungal colonies) The purpose is to decide if the seed quality is suitable for sowing and whether seed treatment is needed. This method is time consuming, require knowledge within fungal morphology, and do not facilitate identification to species level in all cases. Molecular methods such as sequencing could allow detection and quantification of “all” microbial DNA, only limited by the specificity of the primers. Microbial profiling (metabarcoding) can be very time and cost-effective, since a mixture of many samples can be analysed simultaneously for both fungi and bacteria, and other microbes if required. In our project “Phytobiome” we used metabarcoding to analyse microbial communities in wheat heads and verify this information with results from qPCR and plate studies for a more complete study. Around 150 spring wheat seed lots from the years 2016-2017 (including two cultivars) were selected for analysis. One of the main objectives was to find microorganisms associated with seed germination. We will present findings from this work, but also some challenges when using PCR-based sequencing methods, especially regarding Fusarium head blight fungi.

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Abstract

After harvesting, the Norwegian root vegetables are normally stored at refrigerated temperatures for 5 to 7 months. During this period, up to 30% of the products are lost. The goal is to reduce the diseases, the product loss and energy consumption, in addition to increase shelf-life and storage period. Twenty-eight commercial root vegetable cold-stores were instrumented to measure air temperature, relative humidity and product temperature. The study was done over two years. The cold-stores were located in four different regions of Norway. The three focus-products carrot, swede and celeriac were harvested from one field in each region in open wire nets. The nets were placed in the various cold-stores in the respective regions and put in the wooden bins together with the producer's own products. The quality and yield of the products were determined and correlated to the storage condition. The various storage condition negatively affects the respiration and quality of the root vegetables, storage-life, and influence on the cooling capacity of the refrigeration systems.