| 1. |
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| 2. |
- Olalde, I., et al.
(författare)
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The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe
- 2018
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 555:7695, s. 190-196
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- From around 2750 to 2500 bc, Bell Beaker pottery became widespread across western and central Europe, before it disappeared between 2200 and 1800 bc. The forces that propelled its expansion are a matter of long-standing debate, and there is support for both cultural diffusion and migration having a role in this process. Here we present genome-wide data from 400 Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age Europeans, including 226 individuals associated with Beaker-complex artefacts. We detected limited genetic affinity between Beaker-complex-associated individuals from Iberia and central Europe, and thus exclude migration as an important mechanism of spread between these two regions. However, migration had a key role in the further dissemination of the Beaker complex. We document this phenomenon most clearly in Britain, where the spread of the Beaker complex introduced high levels of steppe-related ancestry and was associated with the replacement of approximately 90% of Britain's gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east-to-west expansion that had brought steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe over the previous centuries.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Chazdon, Robin L., et al.
(författare)
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Carbon sequestration potential of second-growth forest regeneration in the Latin American tropics
- 2016
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Ingår i: Science Advances. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 2375-2548. ; 2:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Regrowth of tropical secondary forests following complete or nearly complete removal of forest vegetation actively stores carbon in aboveground biomass, partially counterbalancing carbon emissions from deforestation, forest degradation, burning of fossil fuels, and other anthropogenic sources. We estimate the age and spatial extent of lowland second-growth forests in the Latin American tropics and model their potential aboveground carbon accumulation over four decades. Our model shows that, in 2008, second-growth forests (1 to 60 years old) covered 2.4 million km2 of land (28.1% of the total study area). Over 40 years, these lands can potentially accumulate a total aboveground carbon stock of 8.48 Pg C (petagrams of carbon) in aboveground biomass via low-cost natural regeneration or assisted regeneration, corresponding to a total CO2 sequestration of 31.09 Pg CO2. This total is equivalent to carbon emissions from fossil fuel use and industrial processes in all of Latin America and the Caribbean from 1993 to 2014. Ten countries account for 95% of this carbon storage potential, led by Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela. We model future land-use scenarios to guide national carbon mitigation policies. Permitting natural regeneration on 40% of lowland pastures potentially stores an additional 2.0 Pg C over 40 years. Our study provides information and maps to guide national-level forest-based carbon mitigation plans on the basis of estimated rates of natural regeneration and pasture abandonment. Coupled with avoided deforestation and sustainable forest management, natural regeneration of second-growth forests provides a low-cost mechanism that yields a high carbon sequestration potential with multiple benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem services.
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| 5. |
- Poorter, Lourens, et al.
(författare)
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Wet and dry tropical forests show opposite successional pathways in wood density but converge over time
- 2019
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Ingår i: Nature Ecology & Evolution. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2397-334X. ; 3:6, s. 928-934
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tropical forests are converted at an alarming rate for agricultural use and pastureland, but also regrow naturally through secondary succession. For successful forest restoration, it is essential to understand the mechanisms of secondary succession. These mechanisms may vary across forest types, but analyses across broad spatial scales are lacking. Here, we analyse forest recovery using 1,403 plots that differ in age since agricultural abandonment from 50 sites across the Neotropics. We analyse changes in community composition using species-specific stem wood density (WD), which is a key trait for plant growth, survival and forest carbon storage. In wet forest, succession proceeds from low towards high community WD (acquisitive towards conservative trait values), in line with standard successional theory. However, in dry forest, succession proceeds from high towards low community WD (conservative towards acquisitive trait values), probably because high WD reflects drought tolerance in harsh early successional environments. Dry season intensity drives WD recovery by influencing the start and trajectory of succession, resulting in convergence of the community WD over time as vegetation cover builds up. These ecological insights can be used to improve species selection for reforestation. Reforestation species selected to establish a first protective canopy layer should, among other criteria, ideally have a similar WD to the early successional communities that dominate under the prevailing macroclimatic conditions.
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| 6. |
- Gei, Maga, et al.
(författare)
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Legume abundance along successional and rainfall gradients in Neotropical forests
- 2018
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Ingår i: Nature Ecology & Evolution. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-334X. ; 2:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The nutrient demands of regrowing tropical forests are partly satisfied by nitrogen-fixing legume trees, but our understanding of the abundance of those species is biased towards wet tropical regions. Here we show how the abundance of Leguminosae is affected by both recovery from disturbance and large-scale rainfall gradients through a synthesis of forest inventory plots from a network of 42 Neotropical forest chronosequences. During the first three decades of natural forest regeneration, legume basal area is twice as high in dry compared with wet secondary forests. The tremendous ecological success of legumes in recently disturbed, water-limited forests is likely to be related to both their reduced leaflet size and ability to fix N2, which together enhance legume drought tolerance and water-use efficiency. Earth system models should incorporate these large-scale successional and climatic patterns of legume dominance to provide more accurate estimates of the maximum potential for natural nitrogen fixation across tropical forests.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Piponiot, Camille, et al.
(författare)
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Distribution of biomass dynamics in relation to tree size in forests across the world
- 2022
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Ingår i: New Phytologist. - : Wiley. - 0028-646X .- 1469-8137. ; 234, s. 1664-1677
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tree size shapes forest carbon dynamics and determines how trees interact with their environment, including a changing climate. Here, we conduct the first global analysis of among-site differences in how aboveground biomass stocks and fluxes are distributed with tree size. We analyzed repeat tree censuses from 25 large-scale (4–52 ha) forest plots spanning a broad climatic range over five continents to characterize how aboveground biomass, woody productivity, and woody mortality vary with tree diameter. We examined how the median, dispersion, and skewness of these size-related distributions vary with mean annual temperature and precipitation. In warmer forests, aboveground biomass, woody productivity, and woody mortality were more broadly distributed with respect to tree size. In warmer and wetter forests, aboveground biomass and woody productivity were more right skewed, with a long tail towards large trees. Small trees (1–10 cm diameter) contributed more to productivity and mortality than to biomass, highlighting the importance of including these trees in analyses of forest dynamics. Our findings provide an improved characterization of climate-driven forest differences in the size structure of aboveground biomass and dynamics of that biomass, as well as refined benchmarks for capturing climate influences in vegetation demographic models.
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| 9. |
- Smith‐Martin, Chris M., et al.
(författare)
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Hydraulic variability of tropical forests is largely independent of water availability
- 2023
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Ingår i: Ecology Letters. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1461-023X .- 1461-0248. ; 26:11, s. 1829-1839
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tropical rainforest woody plants have been thought to have uniformly low resistance to hydraulic failure and to function near the edge of their hydraulic safety margin (HSM), making these ecosystems vulnerable to drought; however, this may not be the case. Using data collected at 30 tropical forest sites for three key traits associated with drought tolerance, we show that site-level hydraulic diversity of leaf turgor loss point, resistance to embolism (P50), and HSMs is high across tropical forests and largely independent of water availability. Species with high HSMs (>1 MPa) and low P50 values (< −2 MPa) are common across the wet and dry tropics. This high site-level hydraulic diversity, largely decoupled from water stress, could influence which species are favoured and become dominant under a drying climate. High hydraulic diversity could also make these ecosystems more resilient to variable rainfall regimes.
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| 10. |
- Letcher, Susan G., et al.
(författare)
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Environmental gradients and the evolution of successional habitat specialization : a test case with 14 Neotropical forest sites
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0022-0477 .- 1365-2745. ; 103:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- * Successional gradients are ubiquitous in nature, yet few studies have systematically examined the evolutionary origins of taxa that specialize at different successional stages. Here we quantify successional habitat specialization in Neotropical forest trees and evaluate its evolutionary lability along a precipitation gradient. Theoretically, successional habitat specialization should be more evolutionarily conserved in wet forests than in dry forests due to more extreme microenvironmental differentiation between early and late-successional stages in wet forest. * We applied a robust multinomial classification model to samples of primary and secondary forest trees from 14 Neotropical lowland forest sites spanning a precipitation gradient from 788 to 4000 mm annual rainfall, identifying species that are old-growth specialists and secondary forest specialists in each site. We constructed phylogenies for the classified taxa at each site and for the entire set of classified taxa and tested whether successional habitat specialization is phylogenetically conserved. We further investigated differences in the functional traits of species specializing in secondary vs. old-growth forest along the precipitation gradient, expecting different trait associations with secondary forest specialists in wet vs. dry forests since water availability is more limiting in dry forests and light availability more limiting in wet forests. * Successional habitat specialization is non-randomly distributed in the angiosperm phylogeny, with a tendency towards phylogenetic conservatism overall and a trend towards stronger conservatism in wet forests than in dry forests. However, the specialists come from all the major branches of the angiosperm phylogeny, and very few functional traits showed any consistent relationships with successional habitat specialization in either wet or dry forests. * Synthesis. The niche conservatism evident in the habitat specialization of Neotropical trees suggests a role for radiation into different successional habitats in the evolution of species-rich genera, though the diversity of functional traits that lead to success in different successional habitats complicates analyses at the community scale. Examining the distribution of particular lineages with respect to successional gradients may provide more insight into the role of successional habitat specialization in the evolution of species-rich taxa.
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| 11. |
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| 12. |
- Muscarella, Robert, et al.
(författare)
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The global abundance of tree palms
- 2020
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Ingår i: Global Ecology and Biogeography. - : Wiley. - 1466-822X .- 1466-8238. ; 29:9, s. 1495-1514
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- AimPalms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) and in terms of responses to climate change. We quantified global patterns of tree palm relative abundance to help improve understanding of tropical forests and reduce uncertainty about these ecosystems under climate change.LocationTropical and subtropical moist forests.Time periodCurrent.Major taxa studiedPalms (Arecaceae).MethodsWe assembled a pantropical dataset of 2,548 forest plots (covering 1,191 ha) and quantified tree palm (i.e., ≥10 cm diameter at breast height) abundance relative to co‐occurring non‐palm trees. We compared the relative abundance of tree palms across biogeographical realms and tested for associations with palaeoclimate stability, current climate, edaphic conditions and metrics of forest structure.ResultsOn average, the relative abundance of tree palms was more than five times larger between Neotropical locations and other biogeographical realms. Tree palms were absent in most locations outside the Neotropics but present in >80% of Neotropical locations. The relative abundance of tree palms was more strongly associated with local conditions (e.g., higher mean annual precipitation, lower soil fertility, shallower water table and lower plot mean wood density) than metrics of long‐term climate stability. Life‐form diversity also influenced the patterns; palm assemblages outside the Neotropics comprise many non‐tree (e.g., climbing) palms. Finally, we show that tree palms can influence estimates of above‐ground biomass, but the magnitude and direction of the effect require additional work.ConclusionsTree palms are not only quintessentially tropical, but they are also overwhelmingly Neotropical. Future work to understand the contributions of tree palms to biomass estimates and carbon cycling will be particularly crucial in Neotropical forests.
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| 13. |
- Uriarte, J L, et al.
(författare)
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Properties of FeNiB-based metallic glasses with primary BCC and FCC crystallisation products.
- 2003
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Ingår i: Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials. - 0304-8853. ; 254-255, s. 532-534
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- FeSiB tapes have long been commercialised for their excellent soft-magnetic properties but do not manifest a glass transition temperature Tg as crystallisation intervenes. In this work, we present the crystallisation and properties of two Fe-based glasses, which show a glass transition before crystallisation. Using Ni and Co substitution, we can design glasses that form primary FCC or BCC FeNiCo solutions in their first stage of crystallisation followed by the formation of the metastable (FeNiCo)4B (C6Cr23-type cF116) intermetallic phase. Thermal and structural and magnetic properties were compared during heat treatment.
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| 14. |
- Hülsmann, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
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Latitudinal patterns in stabilizing density dependence of forest communities
- 2024
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Ingår i: Nature. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 627, s. 564-571
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Numerous studies have shown reduced performance in plants that are surrounded by neighbours of the same species1,2, a phenomenon known as conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD)3. A long-held ecological hypothesis posits that CNDD is more pronounced in tropical than in temperate forests4,5, which increases community stabilization, species coexistence and the diversity of local tree species6,7. Previous analyses supporting such a latitudinal gradient in CNDD8,9 have suffered from methodological limitations related to the use of static data10–12. Here we present a comprehensive assessment of latitudinal CNDD patterns using dynamic mortality data to estimate species-site-specific CNDD across 23 sites. Averaged across species, we found that stabilizing CNDD was present at all except one site, but that average stabilizingCNDD was not stronger toward the tropics. However, in tropical tree communities, rare and intermediate abundant species experienced stronger stabilizing CNDD than did common species. This pattern was absent in temperate forests, which suggests that CNDD influences species abundances more strongly in tropical forests than it does in temperate ones13. We also found that interspecific variation in CNDD, which might attenuate its stabilizing effect on species diversity14,15, was high but not significantly different across latitudes. Although the consequences of these patterns for latitudinal diversity gradients are difficult to evaluate, we speculate that a more effective regulation of population abundances could translate into greater stabilization of tropical tree communities and thus contribute to the high local diversity of tropical forests.
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| 15. |
- Ibanez, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
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Damage to tropical forests caused by cyclones is driven by wind speed but mediated by topographical exposure and tree characteristics
- 2024
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 30:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Each year, an average of 45 tropical cyclones affect coastal areas and potentially impact forests. The proportion of the most intense cyclones has increased over the past four decades and is predicted to continue to do so. Yet, it remains uncertain how topographical exposure and tree characteristics can mediate the damage caused by increasing wind speed. Here, we compiled empirical data on the damage caused by 11 cyclones occurring over the past 40 years, from 74 forest plots representing tropical regions worldwide, encompassing field data for 22,176 trees and 815 species. We reconstructed the wind structure of those tropical cyclones to estimate the maximum sustained wind speed (MSW) and wind direction at the studied plots. Then, we used a causal inference framework combined with Bayesian generalised linear mixed models to understand and quantify the causal effects of MSW, topographical exposure to wind (EXP), tree size (DBH) and species wood density (ρ) on the proportion of damaged trees at the community level, and on the probability of snapping or uprooting at the tree level. The probability of snapping or uprooting at the tree level and, hence, the proportion of damaged trees at the community level, increased with increasing MSW, and with increasing EXP accentuating the damaging effects of cyclones, in particular at higher wind speeds. Higher ρ decreased the probability of snapping and to a lesser extent of uprooting. Larger trees tended to have lower probabilities of snapping but increased probabilities of uprooting. Importantly, the effect of ρ decreasing the probabilities of snapping was more marked for smaller than larger trees and was further accentuated at higher MSW. Our work emphasises how local topography, tree size and species wood density together mediate cyclone damage to tropical forests, facilitating better predictions of the impacts of such disturbances in an increasingly windier world.
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| 16. |
- Leite, Melina de Souza, et al.
(författare)
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Major axes of variation in tree demography across global forests
- 2024
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Ingår i: Ecography. - 0906-7590 .- 1600-0587.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The future trajectory of global forests is closely intertwined with tree demography, and a major fundamental goal in ecology is to understand the key mechanisms governing spatio-temporal patterns in tree population dynamics. While previous research has made substantial progress in identifying the mechanisms individually, their relative importance among forests remains unclear mainly due to practical limitations. One approach to overcome these limitations is to group mechanisms according to their shared effects on the variability of tree vital rates and quantify patterns therein. We developed a conceptual and statistical framework (variance partitioning of Bayesian multilevel models) that attributes the variability in tree growth, mortality, and recruitment to variation in species, space, and time, and their interactions – categories we refer to as organising principles (OPs). We applied the framework to data from 21 forest plots covering more than 2.9 million trees of approximately 6500 species. We found that differences among species, the species OP, proved a major source of variability in tree vital rates, explaining 28–33% of demographic variance alone, and 14–17% in interaction with space, totalling 40–43%. Our results support the hypothesis that the range of vital rates is similar across global forests. However, the average variability among species declined with species richness, indicating that diverse forests featured smaller interspecific differences in vital rates. Moreover, decomposing the variance in vital rates into the proposed OPs showed the importance of unexplained variability, which includes individual variation, in tree demography. A focus on how demographic variance is organized in forests can facilitate the construction of more targeted models with clearer expectations of which covariates might drive a vital rate. This study therefore highlights the most promising avenues for future research, both in terms of understanding the relative contributions of groups of mechanisms to forest demography and diversity, and for improving projections of forest ecosystems.
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| 17. |
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| 18. |
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| 19. |
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| 20. |
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| 21. |
- Needham, Jessica F., et al.
(författare)
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Demographic composition, not demographic diversity, predicts biomass and turnover across temperate and tropical forests
- 2022
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 28, s. 2895-2909
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The growth and survival of individual trees determine the physical structure of a forest with important consequences for forest function. However, given the diversity of tree species and forest biomes, quantifying the multitude of demographic strategies within and across forests and the way that they translate into forest structure and function remains a significant challenge. Here, we quantify the demographic rates of 1961 tree species from temperate and tropical forests and evaluate how demographic diversity (DD) and demographic composition (DC) differ across forests, and how these differences in demography relate to species richness, aboveground biomass (AGB), and carbon residence time. We find wide variation in DD and DC across forest plots, patterns that are not explained by species richness or climate variables alone. There is no evidence that DD has an effect on either AGB or carbon residence time. Rather, the DC of forests, specifically the relative abundance of large statured species, predicted both biomass and carbon residence time. Our results demonstrate the distinct DCs of globally distributed forests, reflecting biogeography, recent history, and current plot conditions. Linking the DC of forests to resilience or vulnerability to climate change, will improve the precision and accuracy of predictions of future forest composition, structure, and function.
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| 22. |
- Ozuna, Hazel, et al.
(författare)
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Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans and Filifactor alocis : two exotoxin-producing oral pathogens
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Oral Health. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2673-4842. ; 3
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Periodontitis is a dysbiotic disease caused by the interplay between the microbial ecosystem present in the disease with the dysregulated host immune response. The disease-associated microbial community is formed by the presence of established oral pathogens like Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans as well as by newly dominant species like Filifactor alocis. These two oral pathogens prevail and grow within the periodontal pocket which highlights their ability to evade the host immune response. This review focuses on the virulence factors and potential pathogenicity of both oral pathogens in periodontitis, accentuating the recent description of F. alocis virulence factors, including the presence of an exotoxin, and comparing them with the defined factors associated with A. actinomycetemcomitans. In the disease setting, possible synergistic and/or mutualistic interactions among both oral pathogens might contribute to disease progression.
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| 23. |
- Smith-Martin, Chris M., et al.
(författare)
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Hurricanes increase tropical forest vulnerability to drought
- 2022
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Ingår i: New Phytologist. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0028-646X .- 1469-8137. ; 235:3, s. 1005-1017
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Rapid changes in climate and disturbance regimes, including droughts and hurricanes, are likely to influence tropical forests, but our understanding of the compound effects of disturbances on forest ecosystems is extremely limited. Filling this knowledge gap is necessary to elucidate the future of these ecosystems under a changing climate. We examined the relationship between hurricane response (damage, mortality, and resilience) and four hydraulic traits of 13 dominant woody species in a wet tropical forest subject to periodic hurricanes. Species with high resistance to embolisms (low P-50 values) and higher safety margins (SMP50) were more resistant to immediate hurricane mortality and breakage, whereas species with higher hurricane resilience (rapid post-hurricane growth) had high capacitance and P-50 values and low SMP50. During 26 yr of post-hurricane recovery, we found a decrease in community-weighted mean values for traits associated with greater drought resistance (leaf turgor loss point, P-50, SMP50) and an increase in capacitance, which has been linked with lower drought resistance. Hurricane damage favors slow-growing, drought-tolerant species, whereas post-hurricane high resource conditions favor acquisitive, fast-growing but drought-vulnerable species, increasing forest productivity at the expense of drought tolerance and leading to higher overall forest vulnerability to drought.
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| 24. |
- Smith-Martin, Chris M., et al.
(författare)
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Hydraulic traits are not robust predictors of tree species stem growth during a severe drought in a wet tropical forest
- 2023
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Ingår i: Functional Ecology. - : British Ecological Society. - 0269-8463 .- 1365-2435. ; 37:2, s. 447-460
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1. Severe droughts have led to lower plant growth and high mortality in many ecosystems worldwide, including tropical forests. Drought vulnerability differs among species, but there is limited consensus on the nature and degree of this variation in tropical forest communities. Understanding species-level vulnerability to drought requires examination of hydraulic traits since these reflect the different strategies species employ for surviving drought.2. Here, we examined hydraulic traits and growth reductions during a severe drought for 12 common woody species in a wet tropical forest community in Puerto Rico to ask: Q1. To what extent can hydraulic traits predict growth declines during drought? We expected that species with more hydraulically vulnerable xylem and narrower safety margins (SMP50) would grow less during drought. Q2. How does species successional association relate to the levels of vulnerability to drought and hydraulic strategies? We predicted that early- and mid-successional species would exhibit more acquisitive strategies, making them more susceptible to drought than shade-tolerant species. Q3. What are the different hydraulic strategies employed by species and are there trade-offs between drought avoidance and drought tolerance? We anticipated that species with greater water storage capacity would have leaves that lose turgor at higher xylem water potential and be less resistant to embolism forming in their xylem (P-50).3. We found a large range of variation in hydraulic traits across species; however, they did not closely capture the magnitude of growth declines during drought. Among larger trees (& GE;10 cm diameter at breast height-DBH), some tree species with high xylem embolism vulnerability (P-50) and risk of hydraulic failure (SMP50) experienced substantial growth declines during drought, but this pattern was not consistent across species. We found a trade-off among species between drought avoidance (capacitance) and drought tolerating (P-50) in this tropical forest community. Hydraulic strategies did not align with successional associations. Instead, some of the more drought-vulnerable species were shade-tolerant dominants in the community, suggesting that a drying climate could lead to shifts in long-term forest composition and function in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
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| 25. |
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| 26. |
- Wrenn, Sean M, et al.
(författare)
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Avian lungs : A novel scaffold for lung bioengineering
- 2018
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Ingår i: PLoS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 13:6, s. 0198956-0198956
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Allogeneic lung transplant is limited both by the shortage of available donor lungs and by the lack of suitable long-term lung assist devices to bridge patients to lung transplantation. Avian lungs have different structure and mechanics resulting in more efficient gas exchange than mammalian lungs. Decellularized avian lungs, recellularized with human lung cells, could therefore provide a powerful novel gas exchange unit for potential use in pulmonary therapeutics. To initially assess this in both small and large avian lung models, chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) and emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) lungs were decellularized using modifications of a detergent-based protocol, previously utilized with mammalian lungs. Light and electron microscopy, vascular and airway resistance, quantitation and gel analyses of residual DNA, and immunohistochemical and mass spectrometric analyses of remaining extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins demonstrated maintenance of lung structure, minimal residual DNA, and retention of major ECM proteins in the decellularized scaffolds. Seeding with human bronchial epithelial cells, human pulmonary vascular endothelial cells, human mesenchymal stromal cells, and human lung fibroblasts demonstrated initial cell attachment on decellularized avian lungs and growth over a 7-day period. These initial studies demonstrate that decellularized avian lungs may be a feasible approach for generating functional lung tissue for clinical therapeutics.
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