Hopp til hovedinnholdet

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

Til dokument

Sammendrag

Increasing populations of large carnivores are leading to tension and conflicts with livestock production, a situation that potentially might escalate. In Norway the objective of the large carnivore policy is two-folded: to ensure viable carnivore populations and to secure a sustainable grazing industry. The main instrument is zonation, with carnivore management zones (CMZs) prioritized for reproduction of the large carnivore species separated from other areas prioritized for grazing livestock. The objective of this paper is to describe current knowledge about the impact of the zoning management strategy on the grazing industry. This is done by documenting status and changes in sheep production, losses of livestock to predating carnivores, and the use of grazing areas inside and outside the CMZs. CMZs offering protection for lynx, wolverine, bear and wolf cover 55% of the Norwegian mainland. 30% of the sheep and 50% of the Sami reindeer grazing areas are found inside the CMZs. Livestock (semi-domestic reindeer excluded) is using 59% of the available natural pasture areas outside the CMZs, but only 26% inside the CMZs. The lowest use of available grazing areas was found inside zones for wolves (12%) and brown bears (6%). Livestock in these zones are confined to fenced enclosures, mostly on the farm itself, or moved to pastures outside the management zone for summer grazing. Livestock losses increased in the affected regions during the period when carnivores were reestablished. Later, losses declined when CMZs were established and mitigation efforts were implemented in these zones. The bulk of sheep and reindeer killed by carnivores are now found in boundary areas within 50 km off the CMZs, where sheep are still grazing on open mountain and forest ranges. Therefore, instruments to protect livestock in areas close to the CMZs are also needed. The number of sheep declined inside the CMZs from 1999 to 2014, but increased outside the zones. The reduction in the absolute number of sheep in the CMZs is balanced by a similar increase outside, thus the total sheep production in Norway is maintained. We conclude that although of little consequence for the total food production in Norway, the economic and social impact of the large carnivore management strategy can be serious for local communities and individual farmers who are affected. There is a need for more exact carnivore population monitoring to quantify the carnivore pressure, better documentation of reindeer losses, and a clearer and stricter practicing of the zoning strategy. Increased involvement of social sciences is important in order to understand the human dimension of the carnivore conflicts.

Til dokument

Sammendrag

Aim: Many countries lack informative, high‐resolution, wall‐to‐wall vegetation or land cover maps. Such maps are useful for land use and nature management, and for input to regional climate and hydrological models. Land cover maps based on remote sensing data typically lack the required ecological information, whereas traditional field‐based mapping is too expensive to be carried out over large areas. In this study, we therefore explore the extent to which distribution modelling (DM) methods are useful for predicting the current distribution of vegetation types (VT) on a national scale. Location: Mainland Norway, covering ca. 324,000 km2. Methods: We used presence/absence data for 31 different VTs, mapped wall‐to‐wall in an area frame survey with 1081 rectangular plots of 0.9 km2. Distribution models for each VT were obtained by logistic generalised linear modelling, using stepwise forward selection with an F‐ratio test. A total of 116 explanatory variables, recorded in 100 m × 100 m grid cells, were used. The 31 models were evaluated by applying the AUC criterion to an independent evaluation dataset. Results: Twenty‐one of the 31 models had AUC values higher than 0.8. The highest AUC value (0.989) was obtained for Poor/rich broadleaf deciduous forest, whereas the lowest AUC (0.671) was obtained for Lichen and heather spruce forest. Overall, we found that rare VTs are predicted better than common ones, and coastal VTs are predicted better than inland ones. Conclusions: Our study establishes DM as a viable tool for spatial prediction of aggregated species‐based entities such as VTs on a regional scale and at a fine (100 m) spatial resolution, provided relevant predictor variables are available. We discuss the potential uses of distribution models in utilizing large‐scale international vegetation surveys. We also argue that predictions from such models may improve parameterisation of vegetation distribution in earth system models.

Til dokument

Sammendrag

We report an observation of a flightless fledgling Lapland longspur (Calcarius lapponicus (Linnaeus, 1758)) at a long-term study site near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, in late July 2018. Based on our observations of longspur nests at the site dating back to 1993, we estimate that the fledgling observed in 2018 may have originated from a nest initiated 12–37 d later than nesting in previous years. Onset of spring in 2018 was late, but comparable with other years in which longspur nests were observed a full calendar month earlier than in 2018. An analysis including multiple candidate predictor variables revealed a strong negative association between estimated longspur nest initiation dates and mean May temperature, as well as a weaker association with the length of the annual period of vegetation green up at the site. Given the limitations of our data, however, we are unable to assign causality to the 2018 observation, and cannot rule out other possibilities, such as that it may have resulted from a second clutch.

Til dokument

Sammendrag

No abstract has been registered