| 1. |
- Alakukku, Laura, et al.
(författare)
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Maatalouden ympäristötuen vaikuttavuuden seurantatutkimus (MYTVAS 3) : loppuraportti
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since 1995, agri-environmental support partly funded by the EU has formed the core of Finland’s agri-environmental policy. This system has had a variety of impacts on the relationship between agriculture and the environment. Today’s agri-environmental support is one of the packages included in the Rural Development Programme for Mainland Finland (2007–2013/2014), which both in itself and through the underlying EU legislation requires monitoring of the impacts of the measures implemented. The study monitoring the impact of the 2nd Finnish agri-environmental scheme (MYTVAS 3), which ran from 2008 to 2013, forms part of this monitoring. The MYTVAS 3 monitoring study was also financed by the Ministry of the Environment. The monitoring study was carried out by a consortium coordinated by MTT Agrifood Research Finland and including the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), the University of Helsinki, the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute and the University of Turku.The purpose of the MYTVAS 3 monitoring study was to find out how agri-environmental support and its various measures have affected the state of the environment in agricultural areas, how agri-environmental support has affected the potential for farming and how agri-environmental support should be developed to increase its impact. The monitoring focused on the impacts of agri-environmental support on the nutrient load from agriculture on the waterways and on biodiversity. When evaluating the findings presented, we should remember that while monitoring data shows that something happened, it does not necessarily explain what caused it. It is not always possible to show that particular developments were a specific outcome of the current agri-environmental support system and the implementation of its measures. The delay between a measure and its observed impact is often long, and the cause-and-effect relationships are complicated and partly unknown. Also, other agricultural policy and fluctuations on the market may affect the state of the agricultural environment directly or indirectly.The monitoring data show that agri-environmental support has not had a detrimental impact on the potential for farming. Despite a slight increase in the incidence of weeds, they do not cause problems of the kind that would require amendments to the content of agri-environmental measures. Carbon levels in the surface stratum of arable land seems to be continuing their slow decline, and there is still need for measures to preserve organic material in the soil.Compliance with the fertilisation limits in the agri-environmental support system would seem to have had very little impact on crop quality. Variations in the weight and protein content per hectolitre and per 1,000 seeds were of the same order between 2006 and 2012 as they were between 1995 and 2005. Crop quantities have also not been noticeably affected by compliance with the fertilisation limits. Average crop yields remained stable between 1986 and 2013, and no clearly different crop years were observed in the 2000s. It is possible, however, that the lower fertilisation levels could have lowered crop potential in the years with advantageous weather conditions in the 2000s and that protein contents have been lower in advantageous years.The monitoring data also show that the nutrient load potential of agriculture, measured by nutrient balances, has decreased continuously for nitrogen and particularly for phosphorus. The decrease in the nutrient load potential is due above all to a decrease in the use of synthetic fertilisers. The decline in nitrogen fertilisation has bottomed out in recent years, and low protein levels measured in high crop yield years show that there is no point in further reducing nitrogen fertilisation. Optimising nitrogen fertilisation according to how advantageous the growing season is and effectively using the soluble nitrogen in cattle manure are key measures in achieving reasonable nitrogen balances and good crop quality despite fluctuations in growing season conditions. New crop variants have been found to make more efficient use of nitrogen than old ones, and thus the introduction of new variants should be promoted. Despite the decrease in the nutrient balances, there are indications that nutrient loads in runoff water from domestic animal production sites are becoming an increasing problem. Indeed, the fundamental problem with the nutrient load from agriculture is the diversification of livestock farming and crop farming, which has made it more difficult to use nutrients appropriately. Therefore attention must be paid to measures that both boost the use of nutrients in manure and reduce the levels of nutrients that end up in manure. Based on nutrient load monitoring in the catchment areas of rivers, the phosphorus load per hectare of cropland has decreased in each programme period, being about 80% of the level of the first period (1995–1999) in the third period (2007–2013). Because of the increase in the area of cropland, the nitrogen load on waterways from agriculture continued to grow during the second programme period (2000–2006) but peaked in the third (2007–2013). A similar trend was found in the nitrogen load per hectare of cropland.The most important threat to biodiversity is caused by the development of landscape structure, typically involving a decrease in the number of open or half-open areas excluded from actual cultivation. The consequence of the clearing of margins and ecological islands located in crop fields, drainage measures aimed at increasing arable land and all rationalisation of cultivated areas is the diminishing of exactly those areas that are the most important from the perspective of the biodiversity of the agricultural environment. However, the measure-specific findings in the monitoring study show that biodiversity benefits have been locally achieved where measures have been implemented on a broad enough scale (biodynamic farming, traditional biotopes, wetlands, buffer zones, green fallow / nature management areas). Particular care should therefore be taken that all cultivated land continues to have a sufficient percentage of non-cultivated areas, whether they be natural meadows, nature management areas, biodiversity strips, buffer zones, filter strips, headlands, ecological islands, etc. Including the rather popular nature management areas as a new voluntary measure under basic measures was a significant contribution to biodiversity.Regarding the rural landscape, it may be noted that by visual inspection the area of cropland has remained largely unchanged, at the level of the landscape as a whole it is far more common for the landscape to become more closed than to become more open. This trend was also observed in the visual inspection of traditional biotopes, even if the openness of the meadows monitored largely remained unchanged.The only measures that directly address the reduction of gaseous emissions in the agri-environmental support system are the longterm grass cultivation on peat fields and special aid agreements for slurry injection in cropland. While other measures have indirectly affected gaseous emissions, the impact of agri-environmental support as a whole on reducing gaseous emissions from agriculture has been negligible. In general, we may conclude that the goals, content and support levels of agri-environmental support measures must be increasingly adapted and customised by region, by type of farming and by farm, because both the state of the agricultural environment and the needs of society differ greatly between different types of rural area.
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| 2. |
- Bentham, James, et al.
(författare)
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A century of trends in adult human height
- 2016
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Ingår i: eLIFE. - 2050-084X. ; 5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.522.7) and 16.5 cm (13.319.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.
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| 3. |
- Bentham, James, et al.
(författare)
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A century of trends in adult human height
- 2016
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Ingår i: eLIFE. - : eLife Sciences Publications Ltd. - 2050-084X. ; 5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5–22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3– 19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8– 144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.
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| 4. |
- Lundgren, Markus, et al.
(författare)
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Analgesic antipyretic use among young children in the TEDDY study : No association with islet autoimmunity
- 2017
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Ingår i: BMC Pediatrics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2431. ; 17:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The use of analgesic antipyretics (ANAP) in children have long been a matter of controversy. Data on their practical use on an individual level has, however, been scarce. There are indications of possible effects on glucose homeostasis and immune function related to the use of ANAP. The aim of this study was to analyze patterns of analgesic antipyretic use across the clinical centers of The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) prospective cohort study and test if ANAP use was a risk factor for islet autoimmunity. Methods: Data were collected for 8542 children in the first 2.5 years of life. Incidence was analyzed using logistic regression with country and first child status as independent variables. Holm's procedure was used to adjust for multiplicity of intercountry comparisons. Time to autoantibody seroconversion was analyzed using a Cox proportional hazards model with cumulative analgesic use as primary time dependent covariate of interest. For each categorization, a generalized estimating equation (GEE) approach was used. Results: Higher prevalence of ANAP use was found in the U.S. (95.7%) and Sweden (94.8%) compared to Finland (78.1%) and Germany (80.2%). First-born children were more commonly given acetaminophen (OR 1.26; 95% CI 1.07, 1.49; p = 0.007) but less commonly Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAID) (OR 0.86; 95% CI 0.78, 0.95; p = 0.002). Acetaminophen and NSAID use in the absence of fever and infection was more prevalent in the U.S. (40.4%; 26.3% of doses) compared to Sweden, Finland and Germany (p < 0.001). Acetaminophen or NSAID use before age 2.5 years did not predict development of islet autoimmunity by age 6 years (HR 1.02, 95% CI 0.99-1.09; p = 0.27). In a sub-analysis, acetaminophen use in children with fever weakly predicted development of islet autoimmunity by age 3 years (HR 1.05; 95% CI 1.01-1.09; p = 0.024). Conclusions: ANAP use in young children is not a risk factor for seroconversion by age 6 years. Use of ANAP is widespread in young children, and significantly higher in the U.S. compared to other study sites, where use is common also in absence of fever and infection.
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| 5. |
- Zhou, Bin, et al.
(författare)
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Worldwide trends in diabetes since 1980: A pooled analysis of 751 population-based studies with 4.4 million participants
- 2016
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Ingår i: The Lancet. - : Elsevier B.V.. - 0140-6736 .- 1474-547X. ; 387:10027, s. 1513-1530
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: One of the global targets for non-communicable diseases is to halt, by 2025, the rise in the age standardised adult prevalence of diabetes at its 2010 levels. We aimed to estimate worldwide trends in diabetes, how likely it is for countries to achieve the global target, and how changes in prevalence, together with population growth and ageing, are aff ecting the number of adults with diabetes.Methods: We pooled data from population-based studies that had collected data on diabetes through measurement of its biomarkers. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends in diabetes prevalence-defined as fasting plasma glucose of 7.0 mmol/L or higher, or history of diagnosis with diabetes, or use of insulin or oral hypoglycaemic drugs-in 200 countries and territories in 21 regions, by sex and from 1980 to 2014. We also calculated the posterior probability of meeting the global diabetes target if post-2000 trends continue.Findings: We used data from 751 studies including 4372000 adults from 146 of the 200 countries we make estimates for. Global age-standardised diabetes prevalence increased from 4.3% (95% credible interval 2.4-17.0) in 1980 to 9.0% (7.2-11.1) in 2014 in men, and from 5.0% (2.9-7.9) to 7.9% (6.4-9.7) in women. The number of adults with diabetes in the world increased from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014 (28.5% due to the rise in prevalence, 39.7% due to population growth and ageing, and 31.8% due to interaction of these two factors). Age-standardised adult diabetes prevalence in 2014 was lowest in northwestern Europe, and highest in Polynesia and Micronesia, at nearly 25%, followed by Melanesia and the Middle East and north Africa. Between 1980 and 2014 there was little change in age-standardised diabetes prevalence in adult women in continental western Europe, although crude prevalence rose because of ageing of the population. By contrast, age-standardised adult prevalence rose by 15 percentage points in men and women in Polynesia and Micronesia. In 2014, American Samoa had the highest national prevalence of diabetes (>30% in both sexes), with age-standardised adult prevalence also higher than 25% in some other islands in Polynesia and Micronesia. If post-2000 trends continue, the probability of meeting the global target of halting the rise in the prevalence of diabetes by 2025 at the 2010 level worldwide is lower than 1% for men and is 1% for women. Only nine countries for men and 29 countries for women, mostly in western Europe, have a 50% or higher probability of meeting the global target.Interpretation: Since 1980, age-standardised diabetes prevalence in adults has increased, or at best remained unchanged, in every country. Together with population growth and ageing, this rise has led to a near quadrupling of the number of adults with diabetes worldwide. The burden of diabetes, both in terms of prevalence and number of adults aff ected, has increased faster in low-income and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.
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| 6. |
- Bergström, Lena, et al.
(författare)
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Interim Report of the ICES/HELCOM Working Group on Integrated Assessments of the Baltic Sea (WGIAB) : 18-22 April 2016 Helsinki, Finland
- 2016
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The ICES/HELCOM Working Group on Integrated Assessments of the Baltic Sea (WGIAB) meeting was held in Helsinki (Finland), 18-22 April 2016. The meeting was attended by 26 participants from five countries and chaired by Laura Uusitalo, Fin-land, Saskia Otto, Germany, Martin Lindegren, Denmark, and Lena Bergström, Swe-den. This was the first year of the new three-year Terms of Reference (ToR) for WGIAB. The main working activities in 2016 were to A) develop the trait-based ap-proach of understanding the ecosystem function, and B) explore the social-ecological system, including indicator development, revising the conceptual model, and devel-oping case studies. As a primary outcome of the ToR A, we built on our previous work on integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs) in the Baltic Sea, but extended it beyond considering changes in abundances of a few dominant species, to accounting for community-wide changes in a number of key traits across multiple trophic levels. These traits represent various ecosystem functions upon which we derive important ecosystem services. By investigating temporal changes in the community weighted mean traits of phyto-plankton, zooplankton, zoobenthos, and fish, we demonstrated whether trait reor-ganizations at the level of entire communities occurred in the Central Baltic Sea as a result of the 1980s regime shift. Using in total 29 traits combined for all groups we found indications of two breakpoints across all four taxonomic groups over the last decades, i.e. one around 1990 and one around 2000. Further work will focus on ex-ploring the nature of the changes in trait composition and on standardizing the num-ber of traits and data types (i.e. binary, continuous or categorical) across taxonomic group.In addition, we collected data on key functional groups and abiotic variables in all main sub-basins of the Baltic Sea, setting the stage for a cross-regional comparison of temporal patterns and trends in lower trophic level in the face of recent develop-ments in climate-related drivers.With reference to Tor B, to explore how social indicators could be used in parallel with biological indicators in an integrated assessment framework, we developed a conceptual model of interrelationships between ecosystem and society. We used the model as a basis for mapping factors to be accounted for in the ecosystem-based management using the Baltic salmon and clupeid species as case studies. The models depict 1) the structure of the foodweb relevant to the target species, 2) the key com-munity level and population traits that contribute to the state of the species, 3) main pressures affecting the foodweb and their effects on the species, 4) key management measures, and 5) benefits that the species can produce for society.To support the development of Ecosystem Overview the group members evaluated the probability of occurrence and the magnitude of the effect of 15 pressures occur-ring in the Baltic Sea. The top five pressures identified were input of nutrients, in-creased temperature, decreased salinity, input of hazardous substances, and input or spread of non-indigenous species.The work will continue intersessionally and the next meeting of WGIAB is planned to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, back-to-back with WGCOMEDA and WGEAWESS.
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| 7. |
- Bergström, Lena, et al.
(författare)
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Report of the ICES/HELCOM Working Group on Integrated Assessments of the Baltic Sea (WGIAB)
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The ICES/HELCOM Working Group on Integrated Assessments of the Baltic Sea(WGIAB) was established in 2007 as a forum for developing and combining ecosystembasedmanagement efforts for the Baltic Sea. The group intends to serve as a scientificcounterpart and support for the ICES Baltic Fisheries Assessment Working Group(WGBFAS) as well as for efforts and projects related to Integrated Ecosystem Assessments(IEA) within ICES and HELCOM. The group works in cooperation with similargroups within the ACOM/SCICOM Steering Group on Integrated Ecosystem Assessments(SSGIEA).The 2015 WGIAB meeting was held in Cádiz, Spain, from 9–13 March, back-to-backwith the meeting of its counterpart in the Working Group on Ecosystem Assessmentof Western European Shelf Seas (WGEAWESS). The meetings had joint sessions as wellas WG specific work, and some participants effectively participated in both meetings.The WGIAB meeting was attended by 27 participants from nine countries. The meetingwas chaired by Christian Möllmann, Germany, Laura Uusitalo, Finland and Lena Bergström,Sweden.This was the last year of the ongoing three-year Terms of Reference (ToR) for WGIAB.The main working activities in 2015 were to i) conduct studies on Baltic Sea ecosystemfunctioning with the goal to publish case studies from different parts of the Baltic Seain peer-reviewed journals, ii) work on the demonstration exercise to develop ecosystem-based assessment and advice for Baltic fish stocks focusing on cod (DEMO) withmultiple approaches, iii) plan further how to integrate the social and economic aspectsmore tightly in the WGIAB work, and iv) discuss the future focus and format of theWGIAB work.The Baltic ecosystem functioning activity focused on identifying and exploring keytrends and linkages in the Baltic Sea foodweb. This was pursued by presentation andfurther discussion of ongoing intersessional work on foodweb modelling and integratedanalyses, and by exercises to develop conceptual models Baltic Sea foodwebsand the links to ecosystem function. Long-term monitoring datasets on the abiotic andbiotic parts of the Baltic Sea Proper ecosystem were updated for use in the continuedwork to develop environmental indicators for fisheries and marine management.The focus of the DEMO 3 (DEMOnstration exercise for Integrated Ecosystem Assessmentand Advice of Baltic Sea cod) was on finding a way to use the results from theDEMO1 and DEMO2 workshops in short and midterm projections/scenarios of Balticcod dynamics based on different types of modelling, as well as designing methodologyand modelling data for practical implementation of Integrated Advice for Baltic cod.The WGIAB was positively inclined towards including social and economic aspectsinto the integrated assessment. Openings to this path were provided by presentationon ongoing project work, and discussing their linkages to ecological aspects. It wasseen as crucial that experts on social and economic analysis should be included andtake an active part in the future work of the group.The group concluded that its upcoming work should focus more closely on functionaldiversity, which was identified as a recurring issue in the Baltic Sea. This approach wasalso identified as a useful connection point between scientific and management aspectsin order for the group to continue serving as a forum for developing ecosystem-basedmanagement efforts in the Baltic Sea. A focus on functional diversity was also seen as2 | ICES WGIAB REPORT 2015a potentially feasible way of bringing together management aspects for different sectors,by linking to ecosystem services concepts.The group proposed Saskia Otto, Germany and Martin Lindegren, Denmark as newincoming Chairs, together with Lena Bergström, Sweden and Laura Uusitalo, Finland.Having four Chairs is justified due to the wide scope of the group's work, as well asthe increased work load due to the planned new foci.
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| 8. |
- Gorokhova, Elena, et al.
(författare)
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Indicator Properties of Baltic Zooplankton for Classification of Environmental Status within Marine Strategy Framework Directive
- 2016
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 11:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The European Marine Strategy Framework Directive requires the EU Member States to estimate the level of anthropogenic impacts on their marine systems using 11 Descriptors. Assessing food web response to altered habitats is addressed by Descriptor 4 and its indicators, which are being developed for regional seas. However, the development of simple foodweb indicators able to assess the health of ecologically diverse, spatially variable and complex interactions is challenging. Zooplankton is a key element in marine foodwebs and thus comprise an important part of overall ecosystem health. Here, we review work on zooplankton indicator development using long-term data sets across the Baltic Sea and report the main findings. A suite of zooplankton community metrics were evaluated as putative ecological indicators that track community state in relation to Good Environmental Status (GES) criteria with regard to eutrophication and fish feeding conditions in the Baltic Sea. On the basis of an operational definition of GES, we propose mean body mass of zooplankton in the community in combination with zooplankton stock measured as either abundance or biomass to be applicable as an integrated indicator that could be used within the Descriptor 4 in the Baltic Sea. These metrics performed best in predicting zooplankton being in-GES when considering all datasets evaluated. However, some other metrics, such as copepod biomass, the contribution of copepods to the total zooplankton biomass or biomass-based Cladocera: Copepoda ratio, were equally reliable or even superior in certain basin-specific assessments. Our evaluation suggests that in several basins of the Baltic Sea, zooplankton communities currently appear to be out-of-GES, being comprised by smaller zooplankters and having lower total abundance or biomass compared to the communities during the reference conditions; however, the changes in the taxonomic structure underlying these trends vary widely across the sea basins due to the estuarine character of the Baltic Sea.
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| 9. |
- Haghighi, Mona, et al.
(författare)
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A Comparison of Rule-based Analysis with Regression Methods in Understanding the Risk Factors for Study Withdrawal in a Pediatric Study
- 2016
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Regression models are extensively used in many epidemiological studies to understand the linkage between specific outcomes of interest and their risk factors. However, regression models in general examine the average effects of the risk factors and ignore subgroups with different risk profiles. As a result, interventions are often geared towards the average member of the population, without consideration of the special health needs of different subgroups within the population. This paper demonstrates the value of using rule-based analysis methods that can identify subgroups with heterogeneous risk profiles in a population without imposing assumptions on the subgroups or method. The rules define the risk pattern of subsets of individuals by not only considering the interactions between the risk factors but also their ranges. We compared the rule-based analysis results with the results from a logistic regression model in The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study. Both methods detected a similar suite of risk factors, but the rule-based analysis was superior at detecting multiple interactions between the risk factors that characterize the subgroups. A further investigation of the particular characteristics of each subgroup may detect the special health needs of the subgroup and lead to tailored interventions.
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| 10. |
- Helama, Samuli, et al.
(författare)
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Disentangling the Evidence of Milankovitch Forcing From Tree-Ring and Sedimentary Records
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Earth Science. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2296-6463. ; 10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tree-ring records constitute excellent high-resolution data and provide valuable information for climate science and paleoclimatology. Tree-ring reconstructions of past temperature variations agree to show evidence for annual-to-centennial anomalies in past climate and place the industrial-era warming in the context of the late Holocene climate patterns and regimes. Despite their wide use in paleoclimate research, however, tree rings have also been deemed unsuitable as low-frequency indicators of past climate. The arising debate concerns whether the millennia-long tree-ring records show signals of orbital forcing due to the Milankovitch cycles. Here, we produce a summer-temperature reconstruction from tree-ring chronology running through mid- and late-Holocene times (since 5486 BCE) comprising minimum blue channel light intensity (BI). The BI reconstruction correlates with existing and new tree-ring chronologies built from maximum latewood density (MXD) and, unlike the MXD data, shows temperature trends on Milankovitch scales comparable to various types of sedimentary proxy across the circumpolar Arctic. Our results demonstrate an unrevealed potential of novel, unconventional tree-ring variables to contribute to geoscience and climate research by their capability to provide paleoclimate estimates from inter-annual scales up to those relevant to orbital forcing.
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