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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.

2011

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Abstract

The northernmost range of beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) is in southern Norway and consists of two distinct and isolated distributions, a single population at Seim in West Norway and several adjacent populations in Vestfold, East Norway. The modest beech pollen deposits beyond these main distributions suggest that the Norwegian beech distribution has never been an extension of the south Scandinavian range. We used genetic markers and historical sources to trace the ancestor populations for the beech at Seim and Vestfold, hypothesising Denmark as the most likely source. Nuclear inter-simple sequence repeat markers, amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), were applied to estimate genetic distances between beech populations in Norway, England and Denmark. The variation in chloroplast DNA polymorphism was estimated using PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism. The nuclear genetic data indicate Denmark as a source for the beech in Norway, although the data are less certain in the case of Seim than in that of Vestfold. The populations from South England were genetically different from most Scandinavian populations. The genetic variation within Norwegian populations was only slightly lower than that of the English and Danish populations, questioning birds as vectors for dispersal. Thus, the pollen data and our results are in accordance with the intentional introduction and documented human migrations across Skagerrak before and during the Viking Age.

Abstract

The release of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the land surface via different respiratory processes is a major flux in the global carbon cycle, antipodal to CO2 uptake via photosynthesis. Understanding the sensitivity of respiratory processes to temperature is central for quantifying the climate–carbon cycle feedback. In a recent study we approximated the sensitivity of terrestrial ecosystem respiration to air temperature (Q10) across 60 FLUXNET sites. For this objective, we developed a novel methodology that circumvents seasonally confounding effects. Contrary to previous findings, our results suggest that Q10 is independent of mean annual temperature, does not differ among biomes, and is confined to values around 1.4 ± 0.1. However, the shape of the strong relation between photosynthesis and respiration is highly variable among sites. The results may partly explain a less pronounced climate–carbon cycle feedback than suggested by current carbon cycle climate models. In the talk we put our findings into context with other recent results and critically discuss their potential for evaluating temperature sensitivity of respiration in terrestrial biosphere models and parameterizing future land surface schemes.