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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.

2004

Abstract

Border cells from the seedling root tips were added to the conidium suspensions of two soilborne rootpathogens, Fusarium sp. and Cylindrocarpon sp. The presence of border cells in the suspension clearly stimulated germination of fungal conidia. Conidia of Fusarium sp. and Cylindrocarpon sp.started to germinate within 3 hours after inoculation.When border cells were washed off, the stimulating effect disappeared. Addition of malt extract caused similar stimulation as border cells. Germination of conidia was suppressed in Al-treated plants.

Abstract

Extensive monitoring of forest health in Europe has been carried out for two decades, based mainly on defoliation and discolouration. Together these two variables reflect chlorophyll amounts in the tree crown, i.e. as an indicator of foliar mass, and chlorophyll concentration in the foliage, respectively.In a current project we try to apply remote sensing techniques to estimate canopy chlorophyll mass, being a suitable forest health variable. So far, we limit this to Norway spruce only. LIDAR data here play an important role, together with optical and spectral data, either from survey flights or from satellites. We intend to model relationships between foliar mass and LIDAR data for sample trees, and then scale up this to foliar mass estimates for the entire LIDAR area.Similarly, we try to scale up chlorophyll concentrations in sample trees, by modelling a relationship between sample tree chlorophyll and hyper-spectral data. The estimates of foliar mass and chlorophyll concentrations are then aggregated to every 10x10 m pixel of a SPOT satellite scene which is also covered by airborne data, providing an up-scaled ground truth. If we are successful with this, it might be a starting point for developing a new nationwide forest health monitoring system in Norway.

Abstract

A home designed diffusion chamber was used during the isolation of fluoride from plant material. The chamber contained two beakers, one for the sample (milled plant material) and the other for the trapping solution (0.1M NaOH). Hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDS) in 3.5M perchloric acid was added into the sample beaker through a septum, after the chamber was closed.Fluoride in the sample reacts with HMDS and forms the volatile trimethylfluorosilane (TMFS), which is trapped and hydrolyzed to fluoride. The diffusion time was 2h and 20 samples were handled at the same time. The fluoride concentration was determined by a flow injection analysis (FIA) system using an ion selective electrode (about 50 samples/hour).The results by acid extraction were compared to the results obtained after an ashing/alkaline fusion. Both a certified sample of timothy grass (NIST 2695, high level) and more typical vegetation from forest were analyzed. For the timothy grass, the recovery increased from 48 to 84% when ashing/alkali fusion was used before the diffusion. However, higher recovery was not obtained by using ashing/alkaline fusion for the determination of fluoride in natural vegetation from forest. Acid extraction in combination with addition of HMDS was sufficient as pretreatment in these types of plant materials.The method was routinely used for the determination of fluoride both in research and forest monitoring.

Abstract

Conventional extreme value statistics and the calculation of return periods implicitly assume stationarity of distributions and statistical independence at least asymptotically (most extreme events).We demonstrate, using a collection of river runoff time series from Southern Germany, that these assumptions are invalid, and that temporal as well as spatial correlations prevail instead: temporal differences of distributions are nearly synchronized within a region, and there are systematic trends of percentiles especially at low flow conditions within the 20th century.As a consequence, the estimated return periods of a given threshold flow are fluctuating, in some cases even in a dramatic fashion. On the other hand, a general trend towards an increase in flood frequencies cannot be stated on basis of our investigations, in accordance with other recent findings (Mudelsee et al. 2003), but contrary to general expectations drawn from climate change studies.

Abstract

In three Nordic field trials, 26 provenances of Abies lasiocarpa (Hook.) Nutt. and Abies lasiocarpa var. arizonica (Merriam) Lemmon were evaluated 3 yrs after establishment. The focus was on 16 traits important for adaptation, establishment and production of Christmas trees.For all three sites in Denmark, Norway and Iceland, survival ranged from 89 to 96%. Provenances showed statistically significant differences for all but two traits. For all traits there was significant interaction between provenance and site. Analysis of ecovalens showed that for most traits, only a limited number of provenances contributed substantially to the interaction. Therefore, a large proportion of the provenances showed a fairly consistent ranking across sites.The frequency of potential Christmas trees in the provenances ranged from 10 to 49%. Southern provenances from New Mexico and Arizona seemed to have the best potential for producing high-quality Christmas trees. The southern provenances added substantially to the interaction between provenance and site for budset, lammas growth and colour. When using multivariate statistical methods on all measured traits, the provenance clusters fitted neatly into six distinct geographical regions.

Abstract

Using Singular System Analysis (SSA), we extract a collection of significant long-term components (with dominant periods of at least 3 years) for a large number of river runoff records.At first glance, these long-term modes are a distinct feature of this variable, not contained in precipitation and temperature, and not easily correlated to commonly known long-term indices (NAO, SOI, NHT, SUN, etc.). However, low-pass filtered versions of these time series exhibit strikingly similar behavior, like common maxima, within a region (such as Southern Germany), pointing to a common origin.Although not an unequivocal example for synchronization, we quantify the degree of synchronization as a function of the regional extent of the data and propose a mechanism, stochastic resonance, discussed in climate dynamics, which is able to produce this collective behavior despite the lack of deterministic drivers. We also comment on air pressure-induced teleconnections between the different large scale oscillations in the climate system.

Abstract

Wood modification based on furfuryl alcohol improves several important wood properties, such as the resistance to fungal decay and insect attack, hardness, dimensional stability, bending strength and stiffness. The improvements of wood properties depend on the weight percent gain (WPG) due to furfurylation.Fourier transform near infrared (FT-NIR) spectroscopy was used to calibrate PLS-regression models for prediction of WPG due to furfurylation in birch wood. Spectra were obtained in cross-sections of solid wood. A PLS-regression model based on wood samples with WPG ranging from 16.7 to 35.1%, performed well when validated on a separate test set.The coefficient of determination between laboratory measured WPG and predicted WPG was high (R2 = 0.87). The prediction error given by the root mean square error of prediction was low (RMSEP = 1.23). The results showed that the technique should be considered a prospective tool for quality assessment of furfurylated wood.