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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.

2020

Abstract

The forests in Nordic countries have been a source of food, products and welfare for both local communities and for the nations as long as there has been any settlement. More recently, the way the forest supports the climate has become more pronounced. However, humans now face major challenges due to climate change as well as societal and environmental challenges. Fundamental changes are needed to ensure future prosperity in the face of growing resource depletion, climate changes and environmental degradation. What has become clear is that fossil dependence must be overcome and be replaced with bio-based materials and innovations to support the more efficient use of resources — thus, creating a more bioeconomy-based society. This report describes the role of the forest in bioeconomy transformation and green innovation in the northern part of Europe — Finland, Norway and Sweden — and highlights the challenges facing forests in this emerging bioeconomy. These countries are also part of the Barents area, thus the northern part of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. In summary, the report discusses several common features and lessons learned from these countries: • Forests are crucial for the development of sustainable bioeconomy in the Nordic countries in substituting fossil fuel-based materials and energy. Forest biomass has a large potential for developing new bio-based products. • Bioeconomy and circular economy transformation depend on both technical and social innovations together with societies adapting to a bio-based sustainable future, which emphasises the ecologic, economic, and social functions of forests. In policymaking and forest management, synergies need to be realised and trade-offs evaluated and addressed in forest management in general. • Bioeconomy transformation is driven by the development of forest value chains and innovations based on forest biomass, in which research and development go hand in hand with investments and policy regulations. • Consumers are a main driver of bioeconomy transformation replacing the demand of fossil-based materials with bio-based. • Choices, both in policy and forest management, have to be made to support the continuous provision of all forest ecosystem services. • The contributions of forest to bioeconomy are regional, national, as well as cross-country (e.g. Baltic, Barents or Nordic), and international (e.g. EU) and the forest’s contribution to bioeconomy has to be considered in relation to properties of the forest, sustainability, innovations, knowledge development, green investment structures as well as national policies.

Abstract

Researcher Dr. Svenja B. Kroeger at NIBIO has a passion for marmots and other furry creatures. She loves nature and thinks every day should be World Wildlife Day.

To document

Abstract

Biodiversity time series reveal global losses and accelerated redistributions of species, but no net loss in local species richness. To better understand how these patterns are linked, we quantify how individual species trajectories scale up to diversity changes using data from 68 vegetation resurvey studies of seminatural forests in Europe. Herb-layer species with small geographic ranges are being replaced by more widely distributed species, and our results suggest that this is due less to species abundances than to species nitrogen niches. Nitrogen deposition accelerates the extinctions of small-ranged, nitrogen-efficient plants and colonization by broadly distributed, nitrogen-demanding plants (including non-natives). Despite no net change in species richness at the spatial scale of a study site, the losses of small-ranged species reduce biome-scale (gamma) diversity. These results provide one mechanism to explain the directional replacement of small-ranged species within sites and thus explain patterns of biodiversity change across spatial scales.

Abstract

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