| 1. |
- Abdallah, Clement Kamil, et al.
(författare)
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Assessing the quality of water used for vegetable irrigation in Tamale Metropolis, Ghana
- 2021
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper assesses water quality that is used for vegetable irrigation in Tamale Metropolis, Ghana. A mixed-method of research design was employed in this study to collect and analyze the data based on survey instruments. The paper found that Escherichia coli (E. coli) that is usually used as an indicator of water contamination and heavy metals exist in all taken water samples. The mean concentrations of nutrients such as ammonia, nitrate, nitrite and phosphate were recorded as 0.022 mg/l to 5.98 mg/l for ammonia, 1.06 mg/l to 7.52 mg/l for nitrate, 0.031 mg/l to 0.056 mg/l for nitrate and 0.037 mg/l to 0.069 mg/l for phosphate. E. coli and Total Coliforms levels for Sanghani, Kamina and Waterworks from the laboratory analysis were recorded as 3.2x10(3) CFU 100 m/l and 5.5x10(2) CFU 100 m/l, 4.0x10(3) CFU 100 m/l and 1x10(2) CFU 100 m/l, and 2.1x10(3) CFU 100 m/l and 4.6x10(2) CFU 100 m/l respectively. To conclude, based on the measured parameters, water used for irrigation in the Tamale Metropolitan is polluted and may cause potential health risks. Therefore, farmers, traders and consumers need to apply further safety measures to make the vegetables safe.
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| 2. |
- Alatalo, Juha M, et al.
(författare)
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Collembola at three alpine subarctic sites resistant to twenty years of experimental warming
- 2015
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examined the effects of micro-scale, site and 19 and 21 years of experimental warming on Collembola in three contrasting alpine subarctic plant communities (poor heath, rich meadow, wet meadow). Unexpectedly, experimental long-term warming had no significant effect on species richness, effective number of species, total abundance or abundance of any Collembola species. There were micro-scale effects on species richness, total abundance, and abundance of 10 of 35 species identified. Site had significant effect on effective number of species, and abundance of six species, with abundance patterns differing between sites. Site and long-term warming gave non-significant trends in species richness.The highest species richness was observed in poor heath, but mean species richness tended to be highest in rich meadow and lowest in wet meadow. Warming showed a tendency for a negative impact on species richness. This long-term warming experiment across three contrasting sites revealed that Collembola is capable of high resistance to climate change. We demonstrated that micro-scale and site effects are the main controlling factors for Collembola abundance in high alpine subarctic environments. Thus local heterogeneity is likely important for soil fauna composition and may play a crucial role in buffering Collembola against future climate change.
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| 3. |
- Alatalo, J. M., et al.
(författare)
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Impacts of different climate change regimes and extreme climatic events on an alpine meadow community
- 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
- Climate variability is expected to increase in future but there exist very few experimental studies that apply different warming regimes on plant communities over several years. We studied an alpine meadow community under three warming regimes over three years. Treatments consisted of (a) a constant level of warming with open-top chambers (ca. 1.9 degrees C above ambient), (b) yearly stepwise increases in warming (increases of ca. 1.0, 1.9 and 3.5 degrees C), and (c) pulse warming, a single first-year pulse event of warming (increase of ca. 3.5 degrees C). Pulse warming and stepwise warming was hypothesised to cause distinct first-year and third-year effects, respectively. We found support for both hypotheses; however, the responses varied among measurement levels (whole community, canopy, bottom layer, and plant functional groups), treatments, and time. Our study revealed complex responses of the alpine plant community to the different experimentally imposed climate warming regimes. Plant cover, height and biomass frequently responded distinctly to the constant level of warming, the stepwise increase in warming and the extreme pulse-warming event. Notably, we found that stepwise warming had an accumulating effect on biomass, the responses to the different warming regimes varied among functional groups, and the short-term perturbations had negative effect on species richness and diversity
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| 4. |
- Alatalo, Juha M., et al.
(författare)
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Vascular plant abundance and diversity in an alpine heath under observed and simulated global change
- 2015
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global change is predicted to cause shifts in species distributions and biodiversity in arctic tundra. We applied factorial warming and nutrient manipulation to a nutrient and species poor alpine/arctic heath community for seven years. Vascular plant abundance in control plots increased by 31%. There were also notable changes in cover in the nutrient and combined nutrient and warming treatments, with deciduous and evergreen shrubs declining, grasses overgrowing these plots. Sedge abundance initially increased significantly with nutrient amendment and then declined, going below initial values in the combined nutrient and warming treatment. Nutrient addition resulted in a change in dominance hierarchy from deciduous shrubs to grasses. We found significant declines in vascular plant diversity and evenness in the warming treatment and a decline in diversity in the combined warming and nutrient addition treatment, while nutrient addition caused a decline in species richness. The results give some experimental support that species poor plant communities with low diversity may be more vulnerable to loss of species diversity than communities with higher initial diversity. The projected increase in nutrient deposition and warming may therefore have negative impacts on ecosystem processes, functioning and services due to loss of species diversity in an already impoverished environment.
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