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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.

2025

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Abstract

As droughts become longer and more intense, impacts on terrestrial primary productivity are expected to increase progressively. Yet, some ecosystems appear to acclimate to multiyear drought, with constant or diminishing reductions in productivity as drought duration increases. We quantified the combined effects of drought duration and intensity on aboveground productivity in 74 grasslands and shrublands distributed globally. Ecosystem acclimation with multiyear drought was observed overall, except when droughts were extreme (i.e., ≤1-in-100-year likelihood of occurrence). Productivity losses after four consecutive years of extreme drought increased by ~2.5-fold compared with those of the first year. These results portend a foundational shift in ecosystem behavior if drought duration and intensity increase, from maintenance of reduced functioning over time to progressive and profound losses of productivity when droughts are extreme.

Abstract

The value of genetic resources in agriculture is hard to overestimate as they are decisive for food safety, provide options for adaptation of future diet needs, and underpin a vast amount of biodiversity. To enable an effective conservation of these resources, we need knowledge about where they are located. The EU project GenRes Bridge showed that this knowledge is indeed modest at the European level. A source of genetic resources with particular potential for use in agriculture, e.g. related to the future adaptation to climate change, are crop wild relatives (CWR). Crop wild relatives are plant species categorized as wild relatives of cultivated plants and are used here as an indicator of genetic resources in the landscape. We therefore wanted to explore new ways of identifying hotspots of genetic resources, highlighting the landscape as a starting point. It is well established that landscape heterogeneity is closely related to biodiversity, although to our knowledge studies hitherto have rarely looked at the relation between landscape and genetic resources. Focusing on crop wild relatives, used here as an indicator for genetic resources in the landscape, we wanted to assess whether we could identify how landscape variation in topography and land cover has consequences for the spatial distribution of genetic resources that may be important in the future development of agriculture. Here we report the results from this pilot study where we have tested whether there is a correlation between landscape heterogeneity and agricultural genetic resources, using 5 x 5 km grid cells as spatial units. We used the presence of the crop wild relatives (CWR) which are prioritized for conservation in Norway as indicators of agricultural genetic resource diversity and extracted landscape heterogeneity descriptors from publicly available sources. The results from our study do suggest that landscape diversity could be a path worth following in searching for these resources in the landscape, and thus also important in decision-making on planning and management in these diverse landscapes.

Abstract

Leather rot of strawberry fruit caused by the oomycete Phytophthora cactorum is detrimental to both freshly consumed and processed produce of this crop because of an off-odour flavour caused by two phenolic compounds, 4-ethylphenol (4-EP) and 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (4-ethyl guaiacol, 4-EG). In this study, we have investigated differences in off-odour among strawberry genotypes and how the perception of the off-odour varies among people. Fruit of 13 strawberry genotypes, including five cultivars and eight selections, inoculated with P. cactorum were assessed by a sensory panel to determine differences in the characteristic leather rot odour. The content of aroma compounds, including the two phenolics, was analysed by headspace GC/MS and compared with sensory analysis. The amount of 4-EP and 4-EG varied greatly among the genotypes, and although the ones with the highest and lowest sensory scores also had the highest and lowest amounts of the phenolics, the correlation between their content and leather rot odour was not significant. The results clearly indicated that aroma components, of which the major ones were butanoic acid and acetic acid methyl and ethyl esters, hexanoic acid methyl ester and acetone, were important for the perception of leather rot off-odour. This suggests that natural strawberry aroma compounds can partly mask the characteristic leather rot odour independent of the level of the off-odour compounds. Consumer tests showed great variation in the ability of people to recognize the leather rot off-odour of strawberry fruit, especially at lower levels, but a few people were not able to detect the odour at all. The amount of contaminated strawberry fruit necessary for olfactory identification and to set an odour threshold of leather rot is further discussed.

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Abstract

Aim Large carnivores worldwide have experienced substantial range contractions due to human activities, though several species are recolonising parts of their historical range. We aimed to assess current and potential European brown bear ( Ursus arctos arctos ) habitat as well as habitat connectivity on a continental scale. Location The extended biogeographical regions of Europe, spanning from Portugal to central Russia, longitudinally, and from Norway to Türkiye, latitudinally. Excluding inland seas; this area covers 11,151,636 km 2 . Methods We assessed habitat suitability throughout the study area using an ensemble species distribution model with nine submodels, using data from 10 European bear populations and Türkiye. We used the resulting habitat suitability maps to conduct a least‐cost path connectivity analysis and an omnidirectional circuit connectivity analysis. Main Conclusions Habitat suitability was strongly associated with low percentages of agricultural cover, low percentages of human development, and proximity to forest. Of our entire study area, 37% (4.09 million km 2 ) is occupied or potentially suitable for bears. Connectivity analyses identified corridors that could facilitate movement among southern European bear populations, though agricultural land and human development limit connectivity between northern and southern European bear populations. Previous research estimated bears occupied 0.5 million km 2 across the European Union, while our results estimate 1.82 million km 2 of this part of our study area is potentially suitable for bears, though connectivity is limited. Our results inform conservation strategies and policy development for the future of brown bears in Europe, emphasising the need for transboundary conservation efforts.