| 11. |
- Jonsson, Micael, et al.
(författare)
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Levels of forest ecosystem services depend on specific mixtures of commercial tree species.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Nature Plants. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2055-0278 .- 2055-026X. ; 5, s. 141-147
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global and local ecosystem change resulting in diversity loss has motivated efforts to understand relationships between species diversity and ecosystem services. However, it is unclear how such a general understanding can inform policies for the management of ecosystem services in production systems, because these systems are primarily used for food or fibre, and are rarely managed for the conservation of species diversity. Here, using data from a nationwide forest inventory covering an area of 230,000km2, we show that relative abundances of commercial tree species in mixed stands strongly influence the potential to provide ecosystem services. The mixes provided higher levels of ecosystem services compared to respective plant monocultures (overyielding or transgressive overyielding) in 35% of the investigated cases, and lower (underyielding) in 9% of the cases. We further show that relative abundances, not just species richness per se, of specific tree-species mixtures affect the potential of forests to provide multiple ecosystem services, which is crucial information for policy and sustainable forest management.
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| 12. |
- Lennartsson, Tommy, et al.
(författare)
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Diversity in Ecological and Social Contexts
- 2018
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Ingår i: Issues and Concepts in Historical Ecology. - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. - 9781108420983 - 9781108355780 ; , s. 182-239
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)
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| 13. |
- Lien, Sigbjorn, et al.
(författare)
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The Atlantic salmon genome provides insights into rediploidization
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 533:7602, s. 200-205
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The whole-genome duplication 80 million years ago of the common ancestor of salmonids (salmonid-specific fourth vertebrate whole-genome duplication, Ss4R) provides unique opportunities to learn about the evolutionary fate of a duplicated vertebrate genome in 70 extant lineages. Here we present a high-quality genome assembly for Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), and show that large genomic reorganizations, coinciding with bursts of transposon-mediated repeat expansions, were crucial for the post-Ss4R rediploidization process. Comparisons of duplicate gene expression patterns across a wide range of tissues with orthologous genes from a pre-Ss4R outgroup unexpectedly demonstrate far more instances of neofunctionalization than subfunctionalization. Surprisingly, we find that genes that were retained as duplicates after the teleost-specific whole-genome duplication 320 million years ago were not more likely to be retained after the Ss4R, and that the duplicate retention was not influenced to a great extent by the nature of the predicted protein interactions of the gene products. Finally, we demonstrate that the Atlantic salmon assembly can serve as a reference sequence for the study of other salmonids for a range of purposes.
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| 14. |
- Maes, Joachim, et al.
(författare)
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An indicator framework for assessing ecosystem services in support of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020
- 2016
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Ingår i: Ecosystem Services. - : Elsevier. - 2212-0416 .- 2212-0416. ; 17, s. 14-23
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the EU, the mapping and assessment of ecosystems and their services, abbreviated to MAES, is seen as a key action for the advancement of biodiversity objectives, and also to inform the development and implementation of related policies on water, climate, agriculture, forest, marine and regional planning. In this study, we present the development of an analytical framework which ensures that consistent approaches are used throughout the EU. It is framed by a broad set of key policy questions and structured around a conceptual framework that links human societies and their well-being with the environment. Next, this framework is tested through four thematic pilot studies, including stakeholders and experts working at different scales and governance levels, which contributed indicators to assess the state of ecosystem services. Indicators were scored according to different criteria and assorted per ecosystem type and ecosystem services using the common international classification of ecosystem services (CICES) as typology. We concluded that there is potential to develop a first EU wide ecosystem assessment on the basis of existing data if they are combined in a creative way. However, substantial data gaps remain to be filled before a fully integrated and complete ecosystem assessment can be carried out.
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| 15. |
- Mobjörk, Malin, et al.
(författare)
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Facilitating Doctoral Education in Cross-disciplinary Milieus : Experiences from PhD-candidates
- 2019
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cross-disciplinarity shapes much research today and many PhD candidates areengaged in this research. The doctoral education is a formative phase in a scientist’sintellectual development. Despite a large body of research about cross-disciplinarity,less attention has focused on how cross-disciplinarity shapes doctoral education.This report explores the organisation of doctoral education in four cross-disciplinaryresearch milieus and the experiences of 14 PhD candidates enrolled in these milieus.One key finding is that PhD candidates are more comfortable when their educationhas involved meta-communication about conceptual approaches and experiencesof conducting cross-disciplinary research. This calls for research milieus’ providingdoctoral education in cross-disciplinary settings to take a deliberative approach.This will both benefit the PhD candidates and the research milieus, and is centralin the socialisation process of the next cadre of researchers and for the future ofcross-disciplinary research.
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| 16. |
- Mårald, Erland, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Changing ideas in forestry : A comparison of concepts in Swedish and American forestry journals during the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries
- 2016
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Ingår i: Ambio. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 45, s. 74-86
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- By combining digital humanities text-mining tools and a qualitative approach, we examine changing concepts in forestry journals in Sweden and the United States (US) in the early twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Our first hypothesis is that foresters at the beginning of the twentieth century were more concerned with production and less concerned with ecology than foresters at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Our second hypothesis is that US foresters in the early twentieth century were less concerned with local site conditions than Swedish foresters. We find that early foresters in both countries had broader—and often ecologically focused—concerns than hypothesized. Ecological concerns in the forestry literature have increased, but in the Nordic countries, production concerns have increased as well. In both regions and both time periods, timber management is closely connected to concerns about governance and state power, but the forms that governance takes have changed.
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| 17. |
- Sinclair, Paul, 1949-, et al.
(författare)
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Historical Ecology and the Longue Durée
- 2018
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Ingår i: Issues and Concepts in Historical Ecology. - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. - 9781108420983 - 9781108355780 ; , s. 13-40
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)
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| 18. |
- Sundqvist, Maja K., et al.
(författare)
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Experimental evidence of the long-term effects of reindeer on Arctic vegetation greenness and species richness at a larger landscape scale
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Ecology. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 0022-0477 .- 1365-2745. ; 107:6, s. 2724-2736
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Large herbivores influence plant community structure and ecosystem processes in many ecosystems. In large parts of the Arctic, reindeer (or caribou) are the only large herbivores present. Recent studies show that reindeer have the potential to mitigate recent warming‐induced shrub encroachment in the Arctic and the associated greening of high‐latitude ecosystems. This will potentially have large scale consequences for ecosystem productivity and carbon cycling.To date, information on variation in the interactions between reindeer and plants across Arctic landscapes has been scarce. We utilized a network of experimental sites across a latitudinal gradient in the Scandinavian mountains where reindeer have been excluded from 59 study plots for at least 15 years. We used this study system to test the effect of long‐term exclusion of reindeer on the abundance of major plant functional groups, the greenness indexes Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), soil mineral nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P), and species richness, and to determine whether the effect of reindeer exclusion is dependent on reindeer density, productivity, soil fertility or climate.We found that NDVI and LAI, lichen and deciduous shrub abundances were largely reduced while soil mineral N was enhanced by reindeer. The direction and amplitude of other plant functional group responses to reindeer exclusion differed between forest and tundra as well as shrub‐ and herbaceous‐dominated vegetation. Higher reindeer densities were related to decreased plant species richness in low‐productive sites and to increased species richness in productive sites.The relative reduction in LAI and associated absolute reductions of deciduous shrubs in response to reindeer were positively related to reindeer density, while the relative reduction in NDVI was not. Further, relative reductions in LAI and NDVI in response to reindeer were unrelated to climate and soil fertility.Synthesis. Our results provide long‐term experimental evidence highlighting the role of reindeer density in regulating plant species richness, global climate change induced greenness patterns and shrub encroachment at regional scales in the Arctic. These findings emphasize the need to consider reindeer in models predicting vegetation patterns and changes in high‐latitude ecosystems.
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| 19. |
- Uboni, Alessia, et al.
(författare)
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Long-Term Trends and Role of Climate in the Population Dynamics of Eurasian Reindeer
- 2016
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 11:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Temperature is increasing in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world. The frequency and nature of precipitation events are also predicted to change in the future. These changes in climate are expected, together with increasing human pressures, to have significant impacts on Arctic and sub-Arctic species and ecosystems. Due to the key role that reindeer play in those ecosystems, it is essential to understand how climate will affect the region's most important species. Our study assesses the role of climate on the dynamics of fourteen Eurasian reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) populations, using for the first time data on reindeer abundance collected over a 70-year period, including both wild and semi-domesticated reindeer, and covering more than half of the species' total range. We analyzed trends in population dynamics, investigated synchrony among population growth rates, and assessed the effects of climate on population growth rates. Trends in the population dynamics were remarkably heterogeneous. Synchrony was apparent only among some populations and was not correlated with distance among population ranges. Proxies of climate variability mostly failed to explain population growth rates and synchrony. For both wild and semi-domesticated populations, local weather, biotic pressures, loss of habitat and human disturbances appear to have been more important drivers of reindeer population dynamics than climate. In semi-domesticated populations, management strategies may have masked the effects of climate. Conservation efforts should aim to mitigate human disturbances, which could exacerbate the potentially negative effects of climate change on reindeer populations in the future. Special protection and support should be granted to those semi-domesticated populations that suffered the most because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, in order to protect the livelihood of indigenous peoples that depend on the species, and the multi-faceted role that reindeer exert in Arctic ecosystems.
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| 20. |
- Uboni, Alessia, et al.
(författare)
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Modelling occurrence and status of mat-forming lichens in boreal forests to assess the past and current quality of reindeer winter pastures
- 2019
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Ingår i: Ecological Indicators. - : Elsevier. - 1470-160X .- 1872-7034. ; 96, s. 99-106
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lichens play an essential role in northern ecosystems as important contributors to the water, nutrient and carbon cycles, as well as the main winter food resource for reindeer (Rangifer tarandus, also called caribou in North America), the most abundant herbivores in arctic and subarctic regions. Today, climate change and several types of land use are rapidly transforming northern ecosystems and challenging lichen growth. Since lichens are important indicators of ecosystem health and habitat suitability for reindeer, large-scale assessments are needed to estimate their past, present and future status. In our study, we aimed to develop models and equations that can be used by stakeholders to identify the occurrence of lichen-dominated boreal forests and to determine lichen conditions in those forests. Data were collected in Sweden and most input data are publicly available. We focused on mat-forming lichens belonging to the genera Cladonia and Cetraria, which are dominant species in the reindeer and caribou winter diet. Our models described lichen-dominated forests as being dominated by Scots pine (Pines sylvestris), having low basal area and thin canopy cover, and being located in south-and west-facing areas with high summer precipitation, low winter precipitation and temperature, and on gentle slopes. Within those forests, lichen biomass was positively related to tree canopy cover and summer precipitation, while negatively and exponentially related to intensity of use of the area by reindeer. Forest, meteorological, topographic and soil data can be used as input in our models to determine lichen conditions without having to estimate lichen biomass through demanding and expensive fieldwork.
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