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
Authors
Habtamu AlemAbstract
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Authors
Michel VerheulAbstract
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Authors
Thomas Gschwantner Iciar Alberdi Sébastien Bauwens Susann Bender Dragan Borota Michal Bosela Olivier Bouriaud Johannes Breidenbach Jānis Donis Christoph Fischer Patrizia Gasparini Luke Heffernan Jean-Christophe Hervé László Kolozs Kari T. Korhonen Nikos Koutsias Pál Kovácsevics Miloš Kučera Gintaras Kulbokas Andrius Kuliešis Adrian Lanz Philippe Lejeune Torgny Lind Gheorghe Marin François Morneau Thomas Nord-Larsen Leónia Nunes Damjan Pantić John Redmond Francisco C. Rego Thomas Riedel Vladimír Šebeň Allan Sims Mitja Skudnik Stein Michael TomterAbstract
Wood resources have been essential for human welfare throughout history. Also nowadays, the volume of growing stock (GS) is considered one of the most important forest attributes monitored by National Forest Inventories (NFIs) to inform policy decisions and forest management planning. The origins of forest inventories closely relate to times of early wood shortage in Europe causing the need to explore and plan the utilisation of GS in the catchment areas of mines, saltworks and settlements. Over time, forest surveys became more detailed and their scope turned to larger areas, although they were still conceived as stand-wise inventories. In the 1920s, the first sample-based NFIs were introduced in the northern European countries. Since the earliest beginnings, GS monitoring approaches have considerably evolved. Current NFI methods differ due to country-specific conditions, inventory traditions, and information needs. Consequently, GS estimates were lacking international comparability and were therefore subject to recent harmonisation efforts to meet the increasing demand for consistent forest resource information at European level. As primary large-area monitoring programmes in most European countries, NFIs assess a multitude of variables, describing various aspects of sustainable forest management, including for example wood supply, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity. Many of these contemporary subject matters involve considerations about GS and its changes, at different geographic levels and time frames from past to future developments according to scenario simulations. Due to its historical, continued and currently increasing importance, we provide an up-to-date review focussing on large-area GS monitoring where we i) describe the origins and historical development of European NFIs, ii) address the terminology and present GS definitions of NFIs, iii) summarise the current methods of 23 European NFIs including sampling methods, tree measurements, volume models, estimators, uncertainty components, and the use of air- and space-borne data sources, iv) present the recent progress in NFI harmonisation in Europe, and v) provide an outlook under changing climate and forest-based bioeconomy objectives.
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No abstract has been registered
Authors
Siv Mari Aurdal Bente Føreid Trine Aulstad Sogn Trond Børresen Trine Hvoslef-Eide Siv Fagertun RembergAbstract
Purpose: Due to environmental concerns, there is a demand to reduce the use of peat as a growing medium for horticultural crops. Simultaneously, there is an interest to recycle organic waste materials in the form of compost. This study aimed to document effects on growth, yield, and fruit quality of tomato plants when cultivated in a sewage digestate-based compost in a subirrigation container system. Materials and methods: The compost used in this experiment consisted of 30% hygienised sewage digestate from biogas extraction and 70% garden waste. The treatments were 100% compost, a peat mix and mixtures of the two in 25/75, 50/50 and 75/25 ratios. Results and conclusion: Considering the contrast in chemical and physical properties of the treatments, variations in growth, yield and quality were expected. The plants differed in leaf area and number of leaves, but there were no differences in yield or quality of the tomato fruits. It is assumed that this is in great part due to the remediating effects of subirrigation with an ideal nutrient solution, and the use of pre-established plants. Further research should focus on benefits of this cultivation system for use in sustainable horticulture in combination with recycled organic waste.
Authors
Ritter Atoundem Guimapi Saliou Niassy Bester Tawona Mudereri Elfatih M. Abdel-Rahman Ghislain T. Tepa-Yotto Sevgan Subramanian Samira A. Mohamed Karl Thunes Emily Kimathi Komi Mensah Agboka Manuele Tamò Jean Claude Rwaburindi Buyung Hadi Maged Elkahky May-Guri Sæthre Yeneneh Belayneh Sunday Ekesi Segenet Kelemu Henri E. Z. TonnangAbstract
After five years of its first report on the African continent, Fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith) is considered a major threat to maize, sorghum, and millet production in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the rigorous work already conducted to reduce FAW prevalence, the dynamics and invasion mechanisms of FAW in Africa are still poorly understood. This study applied interdisciplinary tools, analytics, and algorithms on a FAW dataset with a spatial lens to provide insights and project the intensity of FAW infestation across Africa. The data collected between January 2018 and December 2020 in selected locations were matched with the monthly average data of the climatic and environmental variables. The multilevel analytics aimed to identify the key factors that influence the dynamics of spatial and temporal pest density and occurrence at a 2 km x 2 km grid resolution. The seasonal variations of the identified factors and dynamics were used to calibrate rule-based analytics employed to simulate the monthly densities and occurrence of the FAW for the years 2018, 2019, and 2020. Three FAW density level classes were inferred, i.e., low (0–10 FAW moth per trap), moderate (11–30 FAW moth per trap), and high (>30 FAW moth per trap). Results show that monthly density projections were sensitive to the type of FAW host vegetation and the seasonal variability of climatic factors. Moreover, the diversity in the climate patterns and cropping systems across the African sub-regions are considered the main drivers of FAW abundance and variation. An optimum overall accuracy of 53% was obtained across the three years and at a continental scale, however, a gradual increase in prediction accuracy was observed among the years, with 2020 predictions providing accuracies greater than 70%. Apart from the low amount of data in 2018 and 2019, the average level of accuracy obtained could also be explained by the non-inclusion of data related to certain key factors such as the influence of natural enemies (predators, parasitoids, and pathogens) into the analysis. Further detailed data on the occurrence and efficiency of FAW natural enemies in the region may help to complete the tri-trophic interactions between the host plants, pests, and beneficial organisms. Nevertheless, the tool developed in this study provides a framework for field monitoring of FAW in Africa that may be a basis for a future decision support system (DSS).
Authors
Johannes Breidenbach David Ellison Hans Petersson Kari T. Korhonen Helena M. Henttonen Jörgen Wallerman Jonas Fridman Terje Gobakken Rasmus Astrup Erik NæssetAbstract
Key message: Using satellite-based maps, Ceccherini et al. (Nature 583:72-77, 2020) report abruptly increasing harvested area estimates in several EU countries beginning in 2015. Using more than 120,000 National Forest Inventory observations to analyze the satellite-based map, we show that it is not harvested area but the map’s ability to detect harvested areas that abruptly increases after 2015 in Finland and Sweden. Keywords: Global Forest Watch, Landsat, Remote sensing, National Forest Inventory, Greenhouse Gas Inventory
Abstract
As a way to estimate evapotranspiration (ET), Heat Field Deformation (HFD) is a widely used method to measure sap flow of trees based on empirical relationships between heat transfer within tree stems and the sap flow rates. As an alternative, the Linear Heat Balance (LHB) method implements the same instrumental configuration as HFD but calculates the sap flow rates using analytical equations that are derived from fundamental conduction-convection heat transfer equations.
Authors
Declan J. Lafferty Richard V. Espley Cecilia H. Deng Catrin S. Günther Blue Plunkett Janice L. Turner Laura Jaakola Katja Karppinen Andrew C. Allan Nick W. AlbertAbstract
Members of the Vaccinium genus bear fruits rich in anthocyanins, a class of red-purple flavonoid pigments that provide human health benefits, although the localization and concentrations of anthocyanins differ between species: blueberry (V. corymbosum) has white flesh, while bilberry (V. myrtillus) has red flesh. Comparative transcriptomics between blueberry and bilberry revealed that MYBPA1.1 and MYBA1 strongly correlated with the presence of anthocyanins, but were absent or weakly expressed in blueberry flesh. MYBPA1.1 had a biphasic expression profile, correlating with both proanthocyanidin biosynthesis early during fruit development and anthocyanin biosynthesis during berry ripening. MYBPA1.1 was unable to induce anthocyanin or proanthocyanidin accumulation in Nicotiana benthamiana, but activated promoters of flavonoid biosynthesis genes. The MYBPA1.1 promoter is directly activated by MYBA1 and MYBPA2 proteins, which regulate anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins, respectively. Our findings suggest that the lack of VcMYBA1 expression in blueberry flesh results in an absence of VcMYBPA1.1 expression, which are both required for anthocyanin regulation. In contrast, VmMYBA1 is well expressed in bilberry flesh, up-regulating VmMYBPA1.1, allowing coordinated regulation of flavonoid biosynthesis genes and anthocyanin accumulation. The hierarchal model described here for Vaccinium may also occur in a wider group of plants as a means to co-regulate different branches of the flavonoid pathway.