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
Abstract
Green roofs provide vital functions within the urban ecosystem, from supporting biodiversity, to sustainable climate-positive ESS provisioning. However, how plant communities should best be designed to reach these objectives, and how specific green roof systems vary in their capacity to support these functions is not well understood. Here we compiled data on plant traits and plant–insect interaction networks of a regional calcareous grassland species pool to explore how designed plant communities could be optimised to contribute to ecological functionality for predefined green roof solutions. Five distinct systems with practical functionality and physical constraints were designed, plant communities modelled using object-based optimization algorithms and evaluated using five ecological functionality metrics (incl. phylogenetic and structural diversity). Our system plant communities supported a range of plant–insect interactions on green roofs, but not all species were equally beneficial, resulting in wide-ranging essentiality and redundancy in ecological processes. Floral traits were not predictive of pollinator preferences, but phylogeny was observed to govern the preferences. Large differences in ecological functionality can be expected between green roofs depending on system design and the extent of the plant community composition. Multifunctionality covariance diverged between systems, suggesting that ecological functionality is not inherently universal but dependent on structural limitations and species pool interactions. We conclude that informed system design has a potential to simultaneously support ecosystem services and urban biodiversity conservation by optimising green roof plant communities to provide landscape resources for pollinating insects and herbivores.
Authors
Klaus Steenberg Larsen Carl-Fredrik Johannesson Jenni Nordén Holger Lange Hanna Marika SilvennoinenAbstract
Non-steady-state chambers are widely used for measuring the exchange of greenhouse gases (GHGs) between soils or ecosystems and the atmosphere. It is known that non-steady-state chambers induce a non-linear concentration development inside the chamber after closure, even across short chamber closure periods, and that both linear and non-linear flux estimates are impacted by the chamber closure period itself. However, despite the existence of recommendations on how long to keep the chamber closed, it has been little explored to what extent the length of the chamber closure period affects the estimated flux rates, and which closure periods may provide the most accurate linear and non-linear flux estimates. In the current study, we analyzed how linear regression and Hutchinson and Mosier (1981) modeled flux estimates were affected by the length of the chamber closure period by increasing it in increments of 30 s, with a minimum and maximum chamber closure period of 60 and 300 s, respectively. Across 3,159 individual soil CO2 and CH4 flux measurements, the effect of chamber closure period length varied between 1.4–8.0% for linear regression estimates and between 0.4–17.8% for Hutchinson–Mosier estimates and the largest effect sizes were observed when the measured fluxes were high. Both linear regression and Hutchinson–Mosier based flux estimates decreased as the chamber closure period increased. This effect has been observed previously when using linear regression models, but the observed effect on Hutchinson-Mosier modeled estimates is a novel finding. We observed a clear convergence between the short-period linear regression estimates and the long-period Hutchinson–Mosier estimates, showing that closure periods as short as possible should be used for linear regression flux estimation, while ensuring long-enough closure periods to observe a stabilization of flux estimates over time when using the Hutchinson-Mosier model. Our analysis was based on soil flux measurements, but because the perturbation of the concentration gradient is related to the non-steady-state chamber technique rather than the measured ecosystem component, our results have implications for all flux measurements conducted with non-steady-state chambers. However, optimal chamber closure times may depend on individual chamber designs and analyzer setups, which suggests testing individual chamber/system designs for optimal measurement periods prior to field application
Authors
Heidi Kreibich Murugesu Sivapalan Amir AghaKouchak Nans Addor Hafzullah Aksoy Berit Arheimer Karsten Arnbjerg-Nielsen Cynthia Vail-Castro Christophe Cudennec Mariana Madruga de Brito Giuliano Di Baldassarre David C. Finger Keirnan Fowler Wouter Knoben Tobias Krueger Junguo Liu Elena Macdonald Hilary McMillan E. Mario Mendiondo Alberto Montanari Marc F. Muller Saket Pande Fuqiang Tian Alberto Viglione Yongping Wei Attilio Castellarin Daniel Peter Loucks Taikan Oki María J. Polo Huub Savenije Anne F. Van Loon Ankit Agarwal Camila Alvarez-Garreton Ana Andreu Marlies H. Barendrecht Manuela Brunner Louise Cavalcante Yonca Cavus Serena Ceola Pedro Chaffe Xi Chen Gemma Coxon Zhao Dandan Kamran Davary Moctar Dembélé Benjamin Dewals Tatiana Frolova Animesh K. Gain Alexander Gelfan Mohammad Ghoreishi Thomas Grabs Xiaoxiang Guan David M. Hannah Joerg Helmschrot Britta Höllermann Jean Hounkpè Elizabeth Koebele Megan Konar Frederik Kratzert Sara Lindersson Maria Carmen Llasat Alessia Matanó Maurizio Mazzoleni Alfonso Mejia Pablo Mendoza Bruno Merz Jenia Mukherjee Farzin Nasiri Saleh Bertil Nlend Rodric Merime Nonki Christina Orieschnig Katerina Papagiannaki Gopal Penny Olga Petrucci Rafael Pimentel Sandra Pool Elena Ridolfi Maria Rusca Nivedita Sairam Adarsh Sankaran Namboothiri Ana Carolina Sarmento Buarque Elisa Savelli Lukas Schoppa Kai Schröter Anna Scolobig Mojtaba Shafiei Anna E. Sikorska-Senoner Magdalena Smigaj Claudia Teutschbein Thomas Thaler Andrijana Todorovic Faranak Tootoonchi Roshanak Tootoonchi Elena Toth Ronald van Nooijen Franciele Maria Vanelli Nicolás Vásquez David W. Walker Marthe Wens David J. Yu Heidar Zarei Changrang Zhou Günter BlöschlAbstract
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Abstract
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Abstract
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Abstract
Algal-based wastewater remediation systems (phycoremediation) include phycosphere bacterial communities that influence algal growth, pollutant remediation, and downstream applications of biomass as fertilizers or bio-stimulants. This study investigated the bacterial community dynamics in a novel phycoremediation system using a co-culture of the green algae Stigeoclonium sp. and Oedogonium vaucheri. Bacterial abundance was estimated using flow cytometry (FCM), while community composition was assessed through 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding. Additionally, 28 bacterial strains were isolated from the bioremediation experiment, cultured, genetically characterized for identification and screened for production of the auxin phytohormone indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). Metabarcoding showed that the free-living bacterial community consisted of bacteria from both the wastewater effluent and the algal inocula, while the attached phycosphere community was dominated by bacteria from the algal inocula, indicating the stability of the algae-associated phycosphere. Taxa known to include plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) were abundant, and several strains produced IAA. The bacterial community composition, combined with the potential production of phytohormone by isolated bacteria indicates symbiotic or commensal algae-microbe interactions within the phycosphere bacterial communities. Sterile filtration of wastewater effluent, including only the algal inoculum bacterial communities, reduced algal biomass production and increased bacterial abundance. This study highlights the critical role of microbial interactions in engineered ecosystems and provides insights for optimizing algal-based wastewater treatment technologies.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Payel Bhattacharjee Mari Talgø Syvertsen Igor A. Yakovlev Marcos Viejo Somoano Mallikarjuna Rao Kovi Torgeir Rhoden Hvidsten Torstein Tengs Carl Gunnar Fossdal Jorunn Elisabeth OlsenAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Berit Marie Blomstrand Stig Milan Thamsborg Håvard Steinshamn Heidi L Enemark Inga Marie Aasen Karl-Christian Mahnert Kristin Sørheim Francesca Sheperd Jos Houdijk Spiridoula AthanasiadouAbstract
Plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) may improve gastrointestinal health by exerting immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory and/or antiparasitic effects. Bark extracts from coniferous tree species have previously been shown to reduce the burden of a range of parasite species in the gastrointestinal tract, with condensed tannins as the potential active compounds. In the present study, the impact of an acetone extract of pine bark (Pinus sylvestris) on the resistance, performance and tolerance of genetically diverse mice (Mus musculus) was assessed. Mice able to clear an infection quickly (fast responders, BALB/c) or slowly (slow responders, C57BL/6) were infected orally with 200 infective third-stage larvae (L3) of the parasitic nematode Heligmosomoides bakeri or remained uninfected (dosed with water only). Each infection group of mice was gavaged for 3 consecutive days from day 19 post-infection with either bark extract or dimethyl sulphoxide (5%) as vehicle control. Oral administration of pine bark extract did not have an impact on any of the measured parasitological parameter. It did, however, have a positive impact on the performance of infected, slow-responder mice, through an increase in body weight (BW) and carcase weight and reduced feed intake by BW ratio. Importantly, bark extract administration had a negative impact on the fast responders, by reducing their ability to mediate the impact of parasitism through reducing their performance and tolerance. The results indicate that the impact of PSMs on parasitized hosts is affected by host's genetic susceptibility, with susceptible hosts benefiting more from bark extract administration compared to resistant ones.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered