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.
2023
Authors
Vibeke LindAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Mireia Pecurul-Botines Laura Secco Laura Bouriaud Alex Giurca Maria Brockhaus Vilis Brukas Marjanke Hoogstra-Klein Agata Konczal Lenka Marcinekova Krzysztof Niedzialkowski Knut Øistad Špela Pezdevšek Malovrh Niina Pietarinen Jeanne-Lazya Roux Bernhard Wolfslehner Georg WinkelAbstract
What is at stake? The new Forest Strategy for 2030 for the European Union (EU) was adopted in July 2021, creating a new drive for forest policymaking on an EU level. Its main reference is the European Green Deal that puts forests in the light of a decarbonised society until 2050, and emphasises carbon sequestration, biodiversity protection, and forest restoration. The strategy aims to improve the quality and quantity of EU forests, enhance their multifunctionality and resilience, and address challenges linked to the increasing strain on forests through human activities and natural processes, including climate change. The Strategy’s priorities include: 1. supporting the socio-economic forest functions and boosting bioeconomy within its sustainability boundaries; 2. protecting, restoring and enlarging forests in the EU; 3. ensuring a strategic forest monitoring, reporting and data collection and 4. encouraging dialogue and stakeholder engagement. Compared to earlier versions, the new EU Forest Strategy has become more concrete and comprehensive in its vision and tries to tie in different objectives of the plethora of EU forest-related policies (such as e.g., bioeconomy enhancement, biodiversity protection, climate mitigation and adaptation etc.). The implementation of the new EU Forest Strategy and meeting its goals has therefore potentially larger implications for national authorities than earlier ones, through its stronger embedding in the overall political framework of the EU, although the Strategy as such is not legally binding. What are the study’s aims? This study assesses whether and to what extent national and regional policy developments meet the EU Forest Strategy goals. It analyses those policies in 15 countries in and outside the EU, as well as in three regions in Spain. The countries are: Austria (AT), Czech Republic (CZ), Finland (FI), Germany (DE), Ireland (IE), Italy (IT), Lithuania (LT), the Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), Poland (PL), Romania (RO), Slovakia (SK), Slovenia (SI), Spain (ES), and Sweden (SE). Although not a member of the EU, Norway was included into this study as it is closely related through the EEA agreement and a bilateral agreement on cooperation with the EU to fulfil the 2030 climate target. What patterns emerge? There is a striking diversity of socio-economic, environmental and political settings for forests and forestry in Europe and even within countries, which affect the impact of the Forest Strategy. Differences related to both ecological site conditions (determining the type of forest), basic socioeconomic factors (such as ownership), societal demands and needs as well as private sector interests, and urban or rural forest settings determine past and current forest governance and management practices in European countries. At the same time, there are common issues for forest governance and management across Europe, relating to: • a considerable divide of forestry and conservation interests found in all studied countries; • the increasing impact of climate change and related forest disturbances (with regionally different consequences for forests and forestry); and • the embeddedness of European forest governance and markets within larger structures, for example related to (global) energy and resource trade and investment patterns. Other patterns relate to ‘silences’ in member states’ policies, e.g., missing references to forest-sector specific internal threats to biodiversity, as well as to the risk (and reality) of conversion of old growth forests, or missing action and strategies to collect data that is not (yet) part of ‘traditional’ monitoring and reporting activities and systems. ...........................
Abstract
In the Nordic countries, ice encasement of golf greens and agricultural grass fields under sunlight heat often leads to grass death due to oxygen depletion and accumulation of carbon dioxide and metabolites from anaerobic respiration under the ice layer. The phenomenon is termed ‘isbrann’ in Norwegian and it is a severe type of winter damage that may also affect germination and growth after reseeding. We have employed soil water metabolome analyses to differentiate and identify small, water-soluble metabolites produced in ice-encased grass for a better understanding of how ice and anoxic soils might affect grass plants.
Abstract
The large pine weevil (Hylobius abietis) is a major regeneration pest in commercial forestry. Pesticide application has historically been the preferred control method, but pesticides are now being phased out in several countries for environmental reasons. There is, thus, a need for alternative plant protection strategies. We applied methyl jasmonate (MeJA), salicylic acid (SA) or oxalic acid (OxA) on the stem of 2-year-old Norway spruce (Picea abies) plants to determine effects on inducible defenses and plant growth. Anatomical examination of stem cross-sections 9 weeks after application of 100 mM MeJA revealed massive formation of traumatic resin ducts and greatly reduced sapwood growth. Application of high concentrations of SA or OxA (500 and 200 mM, respectively) induced much weaker physiological responses than 100 mM MeJA. All three treatments reduced plant height growth significantly, but the reduction was larger for MeJA (~55%) than for SA and OxA (34-35%). Lower MeJA concentrations (5-50 mM) induced comparable traumatic resin duct formation as the high MeJA concentration but caused moderate (and non-significant) reductions in plant growth. Two-year-old spruce plants treated with 100 mM MeJA showed reduced mortality after exposure to pine weevils in the field, and this enhanced resistance-effect was statistically significant for three years after treatment.
Authors
Yupeng Zhang Tuomas Toivainen Kathryn Mackenzie Igor A. Yakovlev Paal Krokene Timo Hytönen Paul Grini Carl Gunnar FossdalAbstract
Temperature conditions experienced during embryogenesis and seed development may induce epigenetic changes that increase phenotypic variation in plants. Here we investigate if embryogenesis and seed development at two different temperatures (28 vs. 18°C) result in lasting phenotypic effects and DNA methylation changes in woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca). Using five European ecotypes from Spain (ES12), Iceland (ICE2), Italy (IT4), and Norway (NOR2 and NOR29), we found statistically significant differences between plants from seeds produced at 18 or 28°C in three of four phenotypic features investigated under common garden conditions. This indicates the establishment of a temperature-induced epigenetic memory-like response during embryogenesis and seed development. The memory effect was significant in two ecotypes: in NOR2 flowering time, number of growth points and petiole length were affected, and in ES12 number of growth points was affected. This indicates that genetic differences between ecotypes in their epigenetic machinery, or other allelic differences, impact this type of plasticity. We observed statistically significant differences between ecotypes in DNA methylation marks in repetitive elements, pseudogenes, and genic elements. Leaf transcriptomes were also affected by embryonic temperature in an ecotype-specific manner. Although we observed significant and lasting phenotypic change in at least some ecotypes, there was considerable variation in DNA methylation between individual plants within each temperature treatment. This within-treatment variability in DNA methylation marks in F. vesca progeny may partly be a result of allelic redistribution from recombination during meiosis and subsequent epigenetic reprogramming during embryogenesis.
Authors
Cornelya KlutschAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Tire wear particles (TWP) are a major source of microplastics that are mainly transported by stormwater from roads to the environment. Their risk has not yet been sufficiently evaluated, mainly because of the lack of suitable analytical methods for identifying and measuring their environmental concentrations. Moreover, TWP are persistent in the environment while their generation is increasing, which calls for action to limit their environmental spread. Conversely, stormwater management solutions are becoming a growing fixture in the road environment for their multipurpose role in controlling peak runoff and reducing pollution. However, knowledge of the effect of stormwater management solutions in removing TWP is limited. The overall goal of this Ph.D. study was to introduce a suitable analytical method for detecting and quantifying TWP in the environment and measuring the actual concentrations of TWP in sediments of stormwater management solutions associated with roads. Three study sites and laboratory experiments were used as data sources for the studies included in this thesis (Papers I–IV). Simultaneous thermal analysis (STA) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were used to analyze the samples, and parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) was used for data analysis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-tests were used for statistical analysis.
Authors
Thiago Inagaki Angela R. Possinger Steffen A. Schweizer Carsten W. Mueller Carmen Hoeschen Michael J. Zachman Lena F. Kourkoutis Ingrid Kögel-Knabner Johannes LehmannAbstract
The spatial distribution of organic substrates and microscale soil heterogeneity significantly influence organic matter (OM) persistence as constraints on OM accessibility to microorganisms. However, it is unclear how changes in OM spatial heterogeneity driven by factors such as soil depth affect the relative importance of substrate spatial distribution on OM persistence. This work evaluated the decomposition and persistence of 13C and 15N labeled water-extractable OM inputs over 50 days as either hotspot (i.e., pelleted in 1 – 2 mm-size pieces) or distributed (i.e., added as OM < 0.07 µm suspended in water) forms in topsoil (0-0.2 m) and subsoil (0.8-0.9 m) samples of an Andisol. We observed greater persistence of added C in the subsoil with distributed OM inputs relative to hotspot OM, indicated by a 17% reduction in cumulative mineralization of the added C and a 10% higher conversion to mineral-associated OM. A lower substrate availability potentially reduced mineralization due to OM dispersion throughout the soil. NanoSIMS (nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry) analysis identified organo-mineral associations on cross-sectioned aggregate interiors in the subsoil. On the other hand, in the topsoil, we did not observe significant differences in the persistence of OM, suggesting that the large amounts of particulate OM already present in the soil outweighed the influence of added OM spatial distribution. Here, we demonstrated under laboratory conditions that the spatial distribution of fresh OM input alone significantly affected the decomposition and persistence of OM inputs in the subsoil. On the other hand, spatial distribution seems to play a lower role in topsoils rich in particulate OM. The divergence in the influence of OM spatial distribution between the top and subsoil is likely driven by differences in soil mineralogy and OM composition.
Abstract
Active canopy sensors (ACSs) are great tools for diagnosing crop nitrogen (N) status and grain yield prediction to support precision N management strategies. Different commercial ACSs are available and their performances in crop N status diagnosis and recommendation may vary. The objective of this study was to determine the potential to minimize the differences of two commonly used ACSs (GreenSeeker and Crop Circle ACS-430) in maize (Zea mays L.) N status diagnosis and recommendation with multi-source data fusion and machine learning. The regression model was based on simple regression or machine learning regression including ancillary information of soil properties, weather conditions, and crop management information. Results of simple regression models indicated that Crop Circle ACS-430 with red-edge based vegetation indices performed better than GreenSeeker in estimating N nutrition index (NNI) (R2 = 0.63 vs. 0.50–0.51) and predicting grain yield (R2 = 0.56–0.57 vs. 0.49). The random forest regression (RFR) models using vegetation indices and ancillary data greatly improved the prediction of NNI (R2 = 0.81–0.82) and grain yield (R2 = 0.87–0.89), regardless of the sensor type or the vegetation index used. Using RFR models, moderate degree of accuracy in N status diagnosis was achieved based on either GreenSeeker or Crop Circle ACS-430. In comparison, using simple regression models based on spectral data only, the accuracy was significantly lower. When these two ACSs were used independently, they performed similarly in N fertilizer recommendation (R2 = 0.57–0.60). Hybrid RFR models were established using vegetation indices from both ACSs and ancillary data, which could be used to diagnose maize N status (moderate accuracy) and make side-dress N recommendations (R2 = 0.62–0.67) using any of the two ACSs. It is concluded that the use of multi-source data fusion with machine learning model could improve the accuracy of ACS-based N status diagnosis and recommendation and minimize the performance differences of different active sensors. The results of this research indicated the potential to develop machine learning models using multi-sensor and multi-source data fusion for more universal applications.
Authors
Silvano Fares Teodoro Georgiadis Arne Sæbø Ben Somers Koenraad Van Meerbeek Eva Beele Roberto Tognetti Giuseppe E. Scarascia-MugnozzaAbstract
In this chapter, we analyse the current state of the art on how green infrastructures mitigate and adapt to climate changes and pollution, how they may improve urban air quality, increase green mobility, and can promote other important ecosystem benefits as water cycle regulation and supply. Relevant case studies will be also described, as gaps and future perspectives will be analyzed towards reaching the full potential of urban forests and other green spaces, for Biocities in Europe and beyond.