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.
2017
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Biancha Cavicchi Sergio Palmieri Marco OdaldiAbstract
This paper deals with processes and outcomes of sustainable bioenergy development in Emilia Romagna. It draws on an on-going research project concerning inclusive innovation in forest-based bioenergy and biogas in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Italy. The goal is to explore how local governance impacts on inclusive innovation processes and triple bottom sustainability of bioenergy development in Emilia Romagna and, ultimately, to contribute to the debate on the bioeconomy. It thus compares the case of biogas and forest-based bioenergy production. The study adopts an analytical framework called Grounded Innovation (GRIP) and the local governance approach. The study uses qualitative methods and particularly semi-structured interviews and governance analysis. The key results show different outcomes on both inclusive innovation and triple bottom-line dimensions. Biogas has not fostered inclusiveness and triple bottom line sustainability benefits, contrary to forest-based bioenergy. The findings indicate that the minor role of local actors, particularly municipalities, in favour of industrial and national interests may jeopardise the sustainability of biobased industries. Besides, policies limited to financial incentives may lead to a land-acquisition rush, unforeseen local environmental effects and exacerbate conflicts.
Abstract
National Red Lists are widely used prioritizing tools for nature conservation. However, status and trends of species vary with scale, and accounting for a larger spatial scale may provide complementary perspectives for nature conservation.We investigate effects of upscaling and influence of wider-scale distribution patterns for composition of Red Lists. We collated nationally red-listed forest species in Norway, Sweden and Finland, and extracted “Candidates for a Fennoscandian Red List” (CFRL), defined as species red-listed where they appear in the region. For each country, we compared composition of organism groups and forest type associations of species that were national CFRL to the nationally red-listed species not CFRL. European distribution patterns were compared to investigate how broader-scale distribution is reflected in national Red Lists. Among the 4830 nationally red-listed forest species in Fennoscandia, 58% were CFRL. The fraction of species in the different forest type and species groups differed significantly between the two spatial scales for several groups, although the overall differences in composition were relatively small. Red-listed species had more confined distribution patterns, suggesting that many nationally red-listed species owe their status to being at the edge of their distribution range. An up-scaling had a large effect on which species designated to a Red List, but a relatively small impact on which organism groups or forest types that contained most red-listed species. A regional perspective generated by compilation of national Red Lists can give valuable complementary information on the status of species and effects of scale.
Authors
Phyllis G. Weintraub Sonja J. Scheffer Diedrich Visser Graciela Valladares Alberto Soares Correa B. Merle Shepard Aunu Rauf Sean T. Murphy Norma Mujica Charles MacVean Jürgen Kroschel Miriam Kishinevsky Ravindra C. Joshi Nina Johansen Rebecca H. Hallett Hasan S. Civelek Bing Chen Helga Blanco MetzlerAbstract
Liriomyza huidobrensis (Blanchard) is native to South America but has expanded its range and invaded many regions of the world, primarily on flowers and to a lesser extent on horticultural product shipments. As a result of initial invasion into an area, damage caused is usually significant but not necessarily sustained. Currently, it is an economic pest in selected native and invaded regions of the world. Adults cause damage by puncturing abaxial and adaxial leaf surfaces for feeding and egg laying sites. Larvae mine the leaf parenchyma tissues which can lead to leaves drying and wilting. We have recorded 365 host plant species from 49 families and more than 106 parasitoid species. In a subset of the Argentinian data, we found that parasitoid community composition attacking L. huidobrensis differs significantly in cultivated and uncultivated plants. No such effect was found at the world level, probably due to differences in collection methods in the different references. We review the existing knowledge as a means of setting the context for new and unpublished data. The main objective is to provide an update of widely dispersed and until now unpublished data, evaluate dispersion of the leafminer and management strategies in different regions of the world, and highlight the need to consider the possible effects of climate change on further regional invasions or expansions.
Authors
Christian PedersenAbstract
No abstract has been registered
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No abstract has been registered
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No abstract has been registered
Authors
Holger LangeAbstract
Long time series of environmental variables are reflecting the dynamics of ecosystems. Data on climate, water, carbon, nutrients and other observables provide the key to understand terrestrial systems and to detect trends, systemic changes and responses, e.g. to changing climate, disturbances, or management. We present a number of diagnostic measures, based on symbolic dynamics or order statistics, which quantify the information content and the complexity of environmental time series. Three examples for the application of complexity measures in environmental sciences will be provided: Earth System Models and their ability to reproduce observations of Gross Primary Productivity, the dynamics of river runoff, and long-term behavior of ion concentrations in stream water from a monitoring site in Germany. Diagnostic measures of this kind provide data-analytical tools that distinguish different types of natural processes based solely on their dynamics, and are thus highly suitable for environmental science applications such as model structural diagnostics.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Volatiles emitted by plants convey an array of information through different trophic levels. Animals such as host-seeking herbivores encounter plumes with filaments from both host and non-host plants. While studies showed a behavioral effect of non-host plants on herbivore host location, less information is available on how a searching insect herbivore perceives and flies upwind to a host-plant odor plume within a background of non-host volatiles. We hypothesized here that herbivorous insects in search of a host-plant can discriminate plumes of host and non-host plants and that the taxonomic relatedness of the non-host have an effect on finding the host. We also predicted that the ratio between certain plant volatiles is cognized as host-plant recognition cue by a receiver herbivorous insect. To verify these hypotheses we measured the wind tunnel response of the moth Argyresthia conjugella to the host plant rowan, to non-host plants taxonomically related (Rosaceae, apple and pear) or unrelated to the host (Pinaceae, spruce) and to binary combination of host and non-host plants. Volatiles were collected from all plant combinations and delivered to the test insect via an ultrasonic sprayer as an artificial plume. While the response to the rowan as a plant was not affected by the addition of any of the non-host plants, the attraction to the corresponding sprayed headspace decreased when pear or apple but not spruce were added to rowan. A similar result was measured toward the odor exiting a jar where freshly cut plant material of apple or pear or spruce was intermixed with rowan. Dose-response gas-chromatography coupled to electroantennography revealed the presence of seven field attractive and seven background non-attractive antennally active compounds. Although the abundance of field attractive and of some background volatiles decreased in all dual combinations in comparison with rowan alone, an increased amount of the background compounds (3E)-4,8-Dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene ((E)-DMNT) and (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate was found in the rowan-apple and rowan-pear but not in the rowan-spruce headspace. A higher ratio between the abundance of each field attractive component and that of (E)-DMNT and (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate was measured for rowan and rowan-spruce in contrast to rowan-pear and rowan-apple headspaces. Our result suggests that the ratio between field attractive and background antennaly active volatiles encodes host-plant recognition in our study system.