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.
2022
Abstract
Aim Grasslands of varying land-use intensity and history were studied to describe and test species richness and compositional patterns and their relationships with the physical environment, land cover of the surrounding landscape, patch geometry, and grazing. Location The mainland of Norway. Methods We utilized data from the Norwegian Monitoring Programme for Agricultural Landscapes, which recorded vascular plants from 569 plots, placed within 97 monitoring squares systematically distributed throughout agricultural land on the Norwegian mainland. We identified four grassland types: (i) moderately fertilized, moist meadows; (ii) overgrown agricultural land; (iii) cultivated pastures and disturbed ground; and (iv) natural/unfertilized and outfield pastures. Results Soil moisture and grazing measures were found to be important in explaining species compositional variation in all grassland types. Richness patterns were best explained by complex and differing combinations of environmental indicators. Nevertheless, negative (nitrogen and light level) or unimodal (pH) responses were similar across grassland types. Vegetation plots adjacent to areas historically and/or currently dominated by mires, forests, or pastures, as well as abandoned and overgrown grasslands, had a slightly higher species richness. Larger grasslands surrounding the vegetation plots had slightly less species than smaller grasslands. Conclusions This study demonstrates that data from a national monitoring programme on agricultural grasslands can be used for plant ecological research. The results indicate that climate-change-related shifts along moisture and nutrient gradients (increases) may alter both species composition and species richness in the studied grasslands. It is likely that large and contiguous managed (grass)land might affect areas perceived as remnants, probably caused by the transformation to homogeneous (agri)cultural landscapes reducing edge zones, which in turn may threaten the species pool and richness. The importance of land use and land-cover composition should be considered when planning management actions in extensively used high-latitude grasslands.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Julie Ingram Jane Mills Jasmine E. Black Charlotte-Anne Chivers José A. Aznar-Sánchez Annemie Elsen Magdalena Frac Belén López-Felices Paula Mayer-Gruner Kamilla Skaalsveen Jannes Stolte Mia TitsAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Bente Føreid Julia Maria SzocsAbstract
Sorption to cheap sorbents can be used to concentrate nutrients from liquid waste streams and make them into fertilisers. In this study we assess how plant available is ammonium nitrogen (N) sorbed to three sorbents, and if the potential for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions after a non-growing season is affected by sorption. Ammonium-N labelled with N15 was sorbed to biochar, bentonite and zeolite. Treatments where N was sorbed and where N and sorbents were applied separately were tested in a pot experiment with wheat, and soil samples were then frozen and dried to simulate non-growing seasons. After thawing and re-wetting, GHG emissions from the soil were assessed. There was no difference between sorption treatments in biomass or N uptake or fertiliser N left in the soil, and little difference between sorption treatments in gas emissions after the non-growing seasons was seen. We conclude that ammonium applied sorbed to these sorbents is as plant available as ammonium applied the conventional way. GHG emissions at the beginning of the next season are also not affected by ammonium applied sorbed.
Authors
Boban Djordjević Dejan Djurović Gordan Zec Dragana Dabić Zagorac Maja Natić Mekjell Meland Milica Fotirić AkšićAbstract
The aim of this study was to examine the influence of shoot age on the biological and chemical properties of 13 black currant cultivars with different origins and ripening times. Phenological observations together with examined pomological and chemical characteristics were studied in two consecutive years at the experimental field near Belgrade, Serbia. The total content of phenols was estimated spectrophotometrically by the Folin-Ciocalteu method, while quantitative analysis of anthocyanin and flavonols aglycones was performed using a high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method. Principal component analysis was performed to establish differences in biological and chemical properties of black currants. Three-year-old shoots had an earlier start of all examined phenological stages, better generative potential, higher yields, while clusters and berries from 2-year-old shoots had significantly higher values for physical properties, total phenols, anthocyanin and flavanols aglycones and antiradical capacity. Late ripening cultivars had higher contents of all chemical compounds. The berries on 2-year-old shoots had total phenolics that ranged between 123.0 (‘Titania’) and 298.3 mg/100 g fresh weight (FW) (‘Ometa’), while total anthocyanins ranged between 398.5 (’Ojebyn’) and 1160.8 mg/kg FW (’Ometa’). According to the obtained results, cultivars ‘Ometa’, ‘Ben Lomond’, ‘Tsema’ and ‘Malling Juel’ can be recommended as the most promising for growing in the continental climate because they stood out with higher generative potential and yield, physical traits of cluster and berry, higher level of primary and secondary metabolites and DPPH activity in their berries.
Authors
Melissa MagerøyAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
There is debate on which tree species can sustain forest ecosystem services in a drier and warmer future. In Europe, the use of non-native timber species, such as Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirb.] Franco), is suggested as a solution to mitigate climate change impacts because of their high growth resilience to drought. However, the biogeographical, climatic and ecological limits for widely planted timber species still need to be defined. Here, we study the growth response to climate variables and drought of four Douglas fir plantations in northern Spain subjected to contrasting climate conditions. Further, we measure wood density in one of the sites to obtain a better understanding of growth responses to climate. Correlative analyses and simulations based on the Vaganov–Shaskin process-based model confirm that growth of Douglas fir is constrained by warm and dry conditions during summer and early autumn, particularly in the driest study site. Minimum wood density increased in response to dry spring conditions. Therefore, planting Douglas fir in sites with a marked summer drought will result in reduced growth but a dense earlywood. Stands inhabiting dry sites are vulnerable to late-summer drought stress and can act as “sentinel plantations”, delineating the tolerance climate limits of timber species.
Authors
Anna Birgitte MilfordAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Wilson Lara Henao Maria C. Londoño Ivan Gonzalez Victor H. Gutierrez-VelezAbstract
1. Spatial resources accessible for the derivation of biodiversity indicators of the class ecosystem structure are sparse and disparate, and their integration into computer algorithms for biodiversity monitoring remains problematic. We describe ecochange as an R-package that integrates spatial analyses with a monitoring workflow for computing routines necessary for biodiversity monitoring. 2. The ecochange comprises three modules for data integration, statistical analysis and graphics. The first module currently downloads and integrates diverse remote sensing products belonging to the essential biodiversity class of structure. The module for statistical analysis calculates RasterStack ecosystem-change representations across areas of interest; this module also allows focusing on species habitats while deriving changes in a variety of indicators, including ecosystem areas, conditional entropy and fractal dimension indices. The graphics module produces level and bar plots that ease the development of indicator reports. 3. Its functionality is described with an example workflow to calculate ecosystem-class areas and conditional entropy across an area of interest contained in the package documentation. 4. We conclude that ecochange features procedures necessary to derive ecosystem structure indicators integrating the retrieval of spatially explicit data with the use of workflows to calculate/visualize biodiversity indicators at the national/regional scales.