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.
2021
Abstract
The presence of tire crumb rubber particles in soil surrounding three artificial football fields in Asker and Bærum municipalities, Norway, was studied. Concentrations of crumb rubber particles in soil were found to be high.
Authors
Jade Phillips Marjana Westergren Danjela Bojkovski Michele Bozzano Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat Kjersti Bakkebø Fjellstad Hojka Kraigher Francois Lefevre Nigel Maxted Silvia Peres-Espona Nina Svartedal Enrico Sturaro J Sustar Vozlic Tor MykingAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Tomasz Leszek Woznicki Krzysztof Kusnierek Unni Myrheim Roos Sofie Andersen Katrin Zimmer Anita SønstebyAbstract
The use of peat as a growing media in horticulture is supposed to be reduced due to negative effects of its production on the environment. Interest in development of alternative growing media is therefore increasing and is enhanced by both political pressure and industry demands. Therefore, the influence of 33 growing media on the performance and productivity of two strawberry cultivars were examined in a polytunnel under Nordic conditions (60.7 N). Alternative substrates including fibers of spruce, birch and flax and coffee grounds were tested standalone or in mixes. Peat and coir were included as controls. Additionally, impregnation of the wood fibers with organic and inorganic substances was examined. All investigated growing media received identical fertigation strategies (EC 1.5). The highest average biomass production was observed for plants grown in bare peat; however, the best yield performance was noted for peat mixed with perlite and for coarse spruce fiber. Strawberries grown in these two best performing substrates showed comparable overall productivity, with 272 and 268 g of berries per plant, respectively. Both peat/perlite mix and the coarse spruce fiber had also a similar weight of berries larger than 25 mm, with 210 and 198 g plant-1, respectively. Moreover, improvement of the substrate structure by adding perlite or wood chips may have had a pronounced effect on fruiting performance. When compared to peat with added perlite (which gave the highest berry yield in the experiment; 272 g plant-1), strawberries grown in pure peat produced only 187 g plant-1. Furthermore, impregnation of spruce fiber with humic acid enhanced fruiting performance by increasing the total yield and number of large berries (≥25 mm). Future prospects for this study include establishment of an optimal structure of spruce fiber substrate suitable for strawberry production and development of the fertigation strategy optimized for the new growing media.
Abstract
This study explores cell wall changes in Radiata pine (Pinus radiata) after modification with acetylation or furfurylation and subsequent prolonged subjection to the brown rot fungus R. placenta with the aim of better understanding the modus operandi of these two modifications. Both modifications have shown good durability in field tests, but in order to learn from their possible limitations, we used optimal environmental conditions for fungal growth, and extended the testing period compared to standard tests. Hyphae were found in acetylated wood after two weeks, and after 28 weeks of decay abundant amounts of encapsulated hyphae were present. In furfurylated wood, mass loss and a few hyphae were seen initially, but no further development was seen during weeks 18–42. The general degradation pattern was qualitatively the same for unmodified, acetylated and furfurylated wood: carbohydrates decreased relative to lignin. Acetyl groups were lost from acetylated wood during decay (earlier results), while the furan polymer did not seem to be altered by the fungus. Based on these findings it is hypothesized that modifications such as furfurylation that enhance moisture exclusion within the cell wall through impregnation polymerization offer better long term protection compared to modifications such as acetylation that depend on the replacement of hydroxyl groups with ether bound adducts that can be removed by fungi.
Authors
Idoia Biurrun Remigiusz Pielech Iwona Dembicz François Gillet Łukasz Kozub Corrado Marcenó Triin Reitalu Koenraad Van Meerbeek Riccardo Guarino Milan Chytrý Robin J Pakeman Zdenka Preislerová Irena Axmanová Sabina Burrascano Sándor Bartha Steffen Boch Hans Henrik Bruun Timo Conradi Pieter De Frenne Franz Essl Goffredo Filibeck Michal Hájek Borja Jiménez-Alfaro Anna Kuzemko Zsolt Molnár Meelis Pärtel Ricarda Pätsch Honor C. Prentice Jan Roleček Laura M. E. Sutcliffe Massimo Terzi Manuela Winkler Jianshuang Wu Svetlana Acíc Alicia T.R. Acosta Elias Afif Munemitsu Akasaka Juha M. Alatalo Michele Aleffi Alla Aleksanyan Arshad Ali Iva Apostolova Parvaneh Ashouri Zoltán Bátori Esther Baumann Thomas Becker Elena Belonovskaya José Luis Benito Alonso Asun Berastegi Ariel Bergamini Kuber Prasad Bhatta Ilaria Bonini Marc-Olivier Büchler Vasyl Budzhak Alvaro Bueno Fabrizio Buldrini Juan Antonio Campos Laura Cancellieri Marta Carboni Tobias Ceulemans Alessandro Chiarucci Cristina Chocarro Luisa Conti Anna Mária Csergő Beata Cykowska-Marzencka Marta Czarniecka-Wiera Marta Czarnocka-Cieciura Patryk Czortek Jiří Danihelka Francesco de Bello Balázs Deák László Demeter Lei Deng Martin Diekmann Jiří Doležal Christian Dolnik Pavel Dřevojan Cecilia Duprè Klaus Ecker Hamid Ejtehadi Brigitta Erschbamer Javier Etayo Jonathan Etzold Tünde Farkas Mohammad Farzam George Fayvush Maria Rosa Fernández Calzado Manfred Finckh Wendy Fjellstad Georgios Fotiadis Daniel García-Magro Itziar García-Mijangos Rosario G. Gavilán Markus Germany Sahar Ghafari Gian Pietro Giusso del Galdo John Arvid Grytnes Behlul Güler Alba Gutiérrez-Girón Aveliina Helm Mercedes Herrera Elisabeth M. Hüllbusch Nele Ingerpuu Annika Jagerbrand Ute Jandt Monika Janišová Philippe Jeanneret Florian Jeltsch Kai Jensen Anke Jentsch Zygmunt Kącki Kaoru Kakinuma Jutta Kapfer Mansoureh Kargar András Kelemen Kathrin Kiehl Philipp Kirschner Asuka Koyama Nancy Langer Lorenzo Lazzaro Jan Lepš Ching-Feng Li Frank Yonghong Li Diego Liendo Regina Lindborg Swantje Löbel Angela Lomba Zdeňka Lososová Pavel Lustyk Arantzazu L. Luzuriaga Wenhong Ma Simona Maccherini Martin Magnes Marek Malicki Michael Manthey Constantin Mardari Felix May Helmut Mayrhofer Eliane S. Meier Farshid Memariani Kristina Merunková Ottar Michelsen Joaquín Molero Mesa Halime Moradi Ivan Moysiyenko Michele Mugnai Alireza Naqinezhad Rayna Natcheva Josep M. Ninot Marcin Nobis Jalil Noroozi Arkadiusz Nowak Vladimir Onipchenko Salza Palpurina Harald Pauli Hristo Pedashenko Christian Pedersen Robert K. Peet Aaron Pérez-Haase Jan Peters Nataša Pipenbaher Chrisoula Pirini Eulàlia Pladevall-Izard Zuzana Plesková Giovanna Potenza Soroor Rahmanian Maria Pilar Rodríguez-Rojo Vladimir Ronkin Leonardo Rosati Eszter Ruprecht Solvita Rusina Marko Sabovljević Anvar Sanaei Ana M. Sánchez Francesco Santi Galina Savchenko Maria Teresa Sebastia Dariia Shyriaieva Vasco Silva Sonja Skornik Eva Šmerdová Judit Sonkoly Marta Gaia Sperandii Monika Staniaszek-Kik Carly Stevens Simon Stifter Sigrid Suchrow Grzegorz Swacha Sebastian Świerszcz Amir Talebi Balázs Teleki Lubomír Tichý Csaba Tölgyesi Marta Torca Péter Török Nadezda Tsarevskaya Ioannis Tsiripidis Ingrid Turisová Atushi Ushimaru Orsolya Valkó Carmen Van Mechelen Thomas Vanneste Iuliia Vasheniak Kiril Vassilev Daniele Viciani Luis Villar Risto Virtanen Ivana Vitasović-Kosić András Vojtkó Denys Vynokurov Emelie Waldén Yun Wang Frank Weiser Lu Wen Karsten Wesche Hannah White Stefan Widmer Sebastian Wolfrum Anna Wróbel Zuoqiang Yuan David Zelený Liqing Zhao Jürgen DenglerAbstract
Aims Understanding fine-grain diversity patterns across large spatial extents is fundamental for macroecological research and biodiversity conservation. Using the GrassPlot database, we provide benchmarks of fine-grain richness values of Palaearctic open habitats for vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens and complete vegetation (i.e., the sum of the former three groups). Location Palaearctic biogeographic realm. Methods We used 126,524 plots of eight standard grain sizes from the GrassPlot database: 0.0001, 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 1, 10, 100 and 1,000 m2 and calculated the mean richness and standard deviations, as well as maximum, minimum, median, and first and third quartiles for each combination of grain size, taxonomic group, biome, region, vegetation type and phytosociological class. Results Patterns of plant diversity in vegetation types and biomes differ across grain sizes and taxonomic groups. Overall, secondary (mostly semi-natural) grasslands and natural grasslands are the richest vegetation type. The open-access file ”GrassPlot Diversity Benchmarks” and the web tool “GrassPlot Diversity Explorer” are now available online (https://edgg.org/databases/GrasslandDiversityExplorer) and provide more insights into species richness patterns in the Palaearctic open habitats. Conclusions The GrassPlot Diversity Benchmarks provide high-quality data on species richness in open habitat types across the Palaearctic. These benchmark data can be used in vegetation ecology, macroecology, biodiversity conservation and data quality checking. While the amount of data in the underlying GrassPlot database and their spatial coverage are smaller than in other extensive vegetation-plot databases, species recordings in GrassPlot are on average more complete, making it a valuable complementary data source in macroecology.
Authors
Nicholas Clarke Lars Pødenphant Kiær O. Janne Kjønaas Teresa Gómez de la Bárcena Lars Vesterdal Inge Stupak Leena Finér Staffan Jacobson Kestutis Armolaitis Dagnija Lazdina Helena Marta Stefánsdóttir Bjarni D. SigurdssonAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Nicholas Clarke Lars Pødenphant Kiær O. Janne Kjønaas Teresa Gómez de la Bárcena Lars Vesterdal Inge Stupak Leena Finér Staffan Jacobson Kestutis Armolaitis Dagnija Lazdina Helena Marta Stefánsdóttir Bjarni D. SigurdssonAbstract
The use of biomass from forest harvesting residues or stumps for bioenergy has been increasing in the northern European region in the last decade. The present analysis is a regional review from Nordic and UK coniferous forests, focusing on the effects of whole-tree harvesting (WTH) or whole-tree thinning (WTT) and of WTH followed by stump removal (WTH + S) on the forest floor and mineral soil, and includes a wider array of chemistry data than other existing meta-analyses. All intensified treaments led to significant decreases of soil organic carbon (SOC) stock and total N stock in the forest floor (FF), but relative responses compared with stem-only harvesting were less consistent in the topsoil (TS) and no effects were detected in the subsoil (SS). Exchangeable P was reduced in the FF and TS both after WTT and WTH, but significant changes in exchangeable Ca, K, Mg and Zn depended on soil layer and treatment. WTH significantly lowered pH and base saturation (BS) in the FF, but without apparent changes in cation exchange capacity (CEC). The only significant WTH-effects in the SS were reductions in CEC and BS. Spruce- and pine-dominated stands had comparable negative relative responses in the FF for most elements measured except Mg and for pH. Relative responses to intensified harvesting scaled positively with growing season temperature and precipitation for most variables, most strongly in FF, less in the TS, but almost never in the SS, but were negative for P and Al. The greater reduction in FF and TS for soil organic carbon after intensive harvesting decreased with time and meta-regression models predicted an average duration of 20–30 years, while many other chemical parameters generally showed linear effects for 30–45 years after intensified harvesting. Exchangeable acidity (EA), BS and pH all showed the reversed effect with time, i.e. an initial increase and then gradual decrease over 24–45 years. The subsoil never showed a significant temporal effect. Our results generally support greater reductions in nutrient concentrations, SOC and total N in forest soil after WTH compared with SOH in northern temperate and boreal forest ecosystems.
Authors
Niels Strange Peter Bogetoft Giovanna Ottaviani Aalmo Bruce Talbot Anders Holm Holt Rasmus AstrupAbstract
The forestry sector is constantly looking for ways for making data-driven decisions and improving efficiency. The application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) allow the users to go beyond looking at simple key performance indicators. Benchmarking is one of the most common tools in business for improving efficiency and competitiveness. This study searched for benchmarking studies in Web of Science until December 2020. It reviewed 56 benchmarking studies in forestry and discusses the potential advantages of using benchmarking in forestry. More than 80% of the studies apply DEA. This review found that almost half of the benchmarking studies in forestry have attempted to estimate the efficiency of forest management organizations at regional scale, mostly being public or state-owned forest districts. A bit more than one-third of the studies have focused on benchmarking forest industries and one-fifth, benchmarking of forest operations. Forest management organizations mainly applied benchmarking for internal comparison and forest industries entirely focused on competitive benchmarking. Surprisingly, in most cases the studies do not necessarily overlap geographically with forest rich countries (e.g., Russian Federation or Brazil). A number of studies address multiple criteria. The future potential for applying automatic data transfer from harvest machines to interactive benchmarking systems are discussed. Finally, the paper discusses the advantages and weaknesses of benchmarking and future research on improving usefulness and usability of benchmarking in forest businesses.
Authors
Björn Ringselle Benedikte Watne Oliver Therese With Berge Inger Sundheim Fløistad Liv Berge Lars Olav BrandsæterAbstract
Many herbaceous perennial plant species gain significant competitive advantages from their underground creeping storage and proliferation organs (CR), making them more likely to become successful weeds or invasive plants. To develop efficient control methods against such invasive or weedy creeping perennial plants, it is necessary to identify when the dry weight minimum of their CR (CR DWmin) occurs. Moreover, it is of interest to determine how the timing of CR DWmin differs in species with different light requirements at different light levels. The CR DWmin of Aegopodium podagraria, Elymus repens and Sonchus arvensis were studied in climate chambers under two light levels (100 and 250 μmol m−2 s−1), and Reynoutria japonica, R. sachaliensis and R. × bohemica under one light level (250 μmol m−2 s−1). Under 250 μmol m−2 s−1, the CR DWmin occurred before one fully developed leaf in R. sachaliensis, around 1–2 leaves in A. podagraria and E. repens and around four leaves in S. arvensis, R. japonica and R. × bohemica. In addition to reducing growth in all species, less light resulted in a higher shoot mass fraction in E. repens and S. arvensis, but not A. podagraria; and it delayed the CR DWmin in E. repens, but not S. arvensis. Only 65% of planted A. podagragra rhizomes produced shoots. Beyond the CR DWmin, Reynoutria spp. reinvested in their old CR, while the other species primarily produced new CR. We conclude that A. podagraria, R. sachaliensis and E. repens are vulnerable to control efforts at an earlier developmental stage than S. arvensis, R. japonica and R. × bohemica.
Abstract
Eradication of alien invasive species in the soil with steam as an alternative to chemical fumigation may allow contaminated soil to be reused. We have investigated steam disinfestation of soil to combat invasive plant species in three experiments including different temperatures and exposure durations using a prototype stationary soil-steaming device. The experiments included effects on seed germination of bigleaf lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus Lindl.), ornamental jewelweed (Impatiens glandulifera Royle), and wild oat (Avena fatua L.; one population from Poland and one from Norway), as well as effects on sprouting rhizome fragments of Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis L.) and Bohemian knotweed (Reynoutria x bohemica Chrtek & Chrtková). In Experiment 1, we tested four different soil temperatures of 64, 75, 79, and 98 C with an exposure duration of 90 s. In Experiments 2 and 3, we tested exposure durations of 30, 90, and 180 s and 90, 180, and 540 s, respectively, at 98 C. Seed pretreatment of 14 d cooling for L. polyphyllus and I. glandulifera, no seed pretreatment and 12-h moistening for A. fatua populations, and 5- and 10-cm cutting size for R. x bohemica were applied. Our results showed germination/sprouting was inhibited at 75 C for I. glandulifera (for 90 s) and 98 C for the other species; however, longer exposure duration was needed for L. polyphyllus. While 30 s at 98 C was enough to kill A. fatua seeds and S. canadensis and R. x bohemica rhizome fragments, 180-s exposure duration was needed to kill L. polyphyllus seeds. The results showed promising control levels of invasive plant propagules in contaminated soil by steaming, supporting the steam treatment method as a potential way of disinfecting soil to prevent dispersal of invasive species.