| 1. |
- Lago, M., et al.
(author)
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Introducing the H2020 AQUACROSS project : Knowledge, Assessment, and Management for AQUAtic Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services aCROSS EU policies
- 2019
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In: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 652, s. 320-329
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The AQUACROSS project was an unprecedented effort to unify policy concepts, knowledge, and management of freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems to support the cost-effective achievement of the targets set by the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. AQUACROSS aimed to support EU efforts to enhance the resilience and stop the loss of biodiversity of aquatic ecosystems as well as to ensure the ongoing and future provision of aquatic ecosystem services. The project focused on advancing the knowledge base and application of Ecosystem-Based Management. Through elaboration of eight diverse case studies in freshwater and marine and estuarine aquatic ecosystem across Europe covering a range of environmental management problems including, eutrophication, sustainable fisheries as well as invasive alien species AQUACROSS demonstrated the application of a common framework to establish cost-effective measures and integrated Ecosystem-Based Management practices. AQUACROSS analysed the EU policy framework (i.e. goals, concepts, time frames) for aquatic ecosystems and built on knowledge stemming from different sources (i.e. WISE, BISE, Member State reporting within different policy processes, modelling) to develop innovative management tools, concepts, and business models (i.e. indicators, maps, ecosystem assessments, participatory approaches, mechanisms for promoting the delivery of ecosystem services) for aquatic ecosystems at various scales of space and time and relevant to different ecosystem types.
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| 2. |
- Bentley, Michael J., et al.
(author)
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A community-based geological reconstruction of Antarctic Ice Sheet deglaciation since the Last Glacial Maximum
- 2014
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In: Quaternary Science Reviews. - : Elsevier BV. - 0277-3791 .- 1873-457X. ; 100, s. 1-9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A robust understanding of Antarctic Ice Sheet deglacial history since the Last Glacial Maximum is important in order to constrain ice sheet and glacial-isostatic adjustment models, and to explore the forcing mechanisms responsible for ice sheet retreat. Such understanding can be derived from a broad range of geological and glaciological datasets and recent decades have seen an upsurge in such data gathering around the continent and Sub-Antarctic islands. Here, we report a new synthesis of those datasets, based on an accompanying series of reviews of the geological data, organised by sector. We present a series of timeslice maps for 20 ka, 15 ka, 10 ka and 5 ka, including grounding line position and ice sheet thickness changes, along with a clear assessment of levels of confidence. The reconstruction shows that the Antarctic Ice sheet did not everywhere reach the continental shelf edge at its maximum, that initial retreat was asynchronous, and that the spatial pattern of deglaciation was highly variable, particularly on the inner shelf. The deglacial reconstruction is consistent with a moderate overall excess ice volume and with a relatively small Antarctic contribution to meltwater pulse la. We discuss key areas of uncertainty both around the continent and by time interval, and we highlight potential priorities for future work. The synthesis is intended to be a resource for the modelling and glacial geological community.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Franke, A., et al.
(author)
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Operationalizing Ocean Health : Toward Integrated Research on Ocean Health and Recovery to Achieve Ocean Sustainability
- 2020
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In: One Earth. - : Elsevier BV. - 2590-3330 .- 2590-3322. ; 2:6, s. 557-565
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Protecting the ocean has become a major goal of international policy as human activities increasingly endanger the integrity of the ocean ecosystem, often summarized as “ocean health.” By and large, efforts to protect the ocean have failed because, among other things, (1) the underlying socio-ecological pathways have not been properly considered, and (2) the concept of ocean health has been ill defined. Collectively, this prevents an adequate societal response as to how ocean ecosystems and their vital functions for human societies can be protected and restored. We review the confusion surrounding the term “ocean health” and suggest an operational ocean-health framework in line with the concept of strong sustainability. Given the accelerating degeneration of marine ecosystems, the restoration of regional ocean health will be of increasing importance. Our advocated transdisciplinary and multi-actor framework can help to advance the implementation of more active measures to restore ocean health and safeguard human health and well-being.
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| 5. |
- Artigas, J., et al.
(author)
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Towards a renewed research agenda in ecotoxicology
- 2012
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In: Environmental Pollution. - : Elsevier BV. - 0269-7491. ; 160, s. 201-206
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- New concerns about biodiversity, ecosystem services and human health triggered several new regulations increasing the need for sound ecotoxicological risk assessment. The PEER network aims to share its view on the research issues that this challenges. PEER scientists call for an improved biologically relevant exposure assessment. They promote comprehensive effect assessment at several biological levels. Biological traits should be used for Environmental risk assessment (ERA) as promising tools to better understand relationships between structure and functioning of ecosystems. The use of modern high throughput methods could also enhance the amount of data for a better risk assessment. Improved models coping with multiple stressors or biological levels are necessary to answer for a more scientifically based risk assessment. Those methods must be embedded within life cycle analysis or economical models for efficient regulations. Joint research programmes involving humanities with ecological sciences should be developed for a sound risk management. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 6. |
- Araza, Arnan, et al.
(author)
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Past decade above-ground biomass change comparisons from four multi-temporal global maps
- 2023
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In: International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. - 1569-8432. ; 118
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Above-ground biomass (AGB) is considered an essential climate variable that underpins our knowledge and information about the role of forests in mitigating climate change. The availability of satellite-based AGB and AGB change (ΔAGB) products has increased in recent years. Here we assessed the past decade net ΔAGB derived from four recent global multi-date AGB maps: ESA-CCI maps, WRI-Flux model, JPL time series, and SMOS-LVOD time series. Our assessments explore and use different reference data sources with biomass re-measurements within the past decade. The reference data comprise National Forest Inventory (NFI) plot data, local ΔAGB maps from airborne LiDAR, and selected Forest Resource Assessment country data from countries with well-developed monitoring capacities. Map to reference data comparisons were performed at levels ranging from 100 m to 25 km spatial scale. The comparisons revealed that LiDAR data compared most reasonably with the maps, while the comparisons using NFI only showed some agreements at aggregation levels <10 km. Regardless of the aggregation level, AGB losses and gains according to the map comparisons were consistently smaller than the reference data. Map-map comparisons at 25 km highlighted that the maps consistently captured AGB losses in known deforestation hotspots. The comparisons also identified several carbon sink regions consistently detected by all maps. However, disagreement between maps is still large in key forest regions such as the Amazon basin. The overall ΔAGB map cross-correlation between maps varied in the range 0.11–0.29 (r). Reported ΔAGB magnitudes were largest in the high-resolution datasets including the CCI map differencing (stock change) and Flux model (gain-loss) methods, while they were smallest according to the coarser-resolution LVOD and JPL time series products, especially for AGB gains. Our results suggest that ΔAGB assessed from current maps can be biased and any use of the estimates should take that into account. Currently, ΔAGB reference data are sparse especially in the tropics but that deficit can be alleviated by upcoming LiDAR data networks in the context of Supersites and GEO-Trees.
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| 7. |
- Irestedt, Martin, 1968-, et al.
(author)
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A crowd-sourced genomic project to assess hybrid content in a rare avian vagrant (Azure Tit Cyanistes cyanus (Pallas, 1770))
- 2023
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In: Avian Research. - : Elsevier. - 2053-7166. ; 14
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The aim of this study was to correlate plumage variation with the amount of genomic hybrid content in hybrids between Azure Tits Cyanistes cyanus (Pallas, 1770) and European Blue Tit Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758), by re-sequencing the genomes of museum specimens of non-hybrids and presumed hybrids with varying plumages. The project was funded by crowdsourcing and initiated when two presumed Azure Tits, observed by hundreds of Swedish birdwatchers, were rejected as hybrids based on minor plumage deviations assumed to indicate hybrid contents from the European Blue Tit. The results confirm that hybrids with intermediate plumages, so called Pleske’s Tits, are first generation hybrids (F1 hybrids). Individuals, whose plumages are similar to Azure Tits, but assessed as hybrids based on minor plumage deviations, are all backcrosses but vary in their degree of hybrid content. However, some individuals morphologically recognized as pure Azure Tits expressed similar degrees of hybrid content. The results indicate that: (1) hybrid content may be widespread in Azure Tits in the western part of its habitat distribution; (2) plumage deviation in backcrosses is not linearly correlated with the genetic degree of hybrid origin; and (3) all Azure Tits observed in Europe outside its natural distribution may have some degree of hybrid origin. We therefore suggest that it is very difficult to phenotypically single out hybrids beyond first generation backcrosses. We argue that decreased sequencing costs and improved analytical tools open the doors for museomic crowd-sourced projects that may not address outstanding biological questions but have a major interest for lay citizens such as birdwatchers.
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| 8. |
- Jane, Stephen F., et al.
(author)
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Widespread deoxygenation of temperate lakes
- 2021
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In: Nature. - : Springer Nature. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 594:7861, s. 66-70
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The concentration of dissolved oxygen in aquatic systems helps to regulate biodiversity(1,2), nutrient biogeochemistry(3), greenhouse gas emissions(4), and the quality of drinking water(5). The long-term declines in dissolved oxygen concentrations in coastal and ocean waters have been linked to climate warming and human activity(6,7), but little is known about the changes in dissolved oxygen concentrations in lakes. Although the solubility of dissolved oxygen decreases with increasing water temperatures, long-term lake trajectories are difficult to predict. Oxygen losses in warming lakes may be amplified by enhanced decomposition and stronger thermal stratification(8,9) or oxygen may increase as a result of enhanced primary production(10). Here we analyse a combined total of 45,148 dissolved oxygen and temperature profiles and calculate trends for 393 temperate lakes that span 1941 to 2017. We find that a decline in dissolved oxygen is widespread in surface and deep-water habitats. The decline in surface waters is primarily associated with reduced solubility under warmer water temperatures, although dissolved oxygen in surface waters increased in a subset of highly productive warming lakes, probably owing to increasing production of phytoplankton. By contrast, the decline in deep waters is associated with stronger thermal stratification and loss of water clarity, but not with changes in gas solubility. Our results suggest that climate change and declining water clarity have altered the physical and chemical environment of lakes. Declines in dissolved oxygen in freshwater are 2.75 to 9.3 times greater than observed in the world's oceans(6,7) and could threaten essential lake ecosystem services(2,3,5,11).
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| 9. |
- Borodulin, V. I., et al.
(author)
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Quantitative study of localized mechanisms of excitation of cross-flow instability modes in a swept-wing boundary layer
- 2018
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In: CONFERENCE OF YOUNG SCIENTISTS IN MECHANICS. - : IOP PUBLISHING LTD.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- An experimental study of two efficient receptivity mechanisms of excitation of cross-flow (CF) instability modes is carried out in a boundary layer of a real airfoil section of a swept wing due to: (i) action of localized surface vibrations, and (ii) scattering of 2D freestream vortices on them. It is found that the two mechanisms lead to rather efficient excitation of CF-modes both at surface vibration frequency and at combination 'vortexvibration' frequencies. First estimations of the corresponding localized receptivity coefficients are obtained. Direct comparison of the experimental amplification curves of the excited CF-modes with those calculated based on the linear stability theory (LST) has shown that the experimental data obtained at vibration frequency are in excellent agreement with the LST. At the same time, growth rates of the CF-modes excited at combination frequencies are found to be completely inconsistent with the LST. A possible explanation of this phenomenon via action of a new efficient distributed receptivity mechanism is suggested. This mechanism is associated with scattering of freestream vortices on rather high-amplitude CF-modes excited by surface vibrations.
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| 10. |
- Maier, O., et al.
(author)
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ISLES 2015-A public evaluation benchmark for ischemic stroke lesion segmentation from multispectral MRI
- 2017
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In: Medical Image Analysis. - : Elsevier BV. - 1361-8415 .- 1361-8423. ; 35, s. 250-269
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Ischemic stroke is the most common cerebrovascular disease, and its diagnosis, treatment, and study relies on non-invasive imaging. Algorithms for stroke lesion segmentation from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) volumes are intensely researched, but the reported results are largely incomparable due to different datasets and evaluation schemes. We approached this urgent problem of comparability with the Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation (ISLES) challenge organized in conjunction with the MICCAI 2015 conference. In this paper we propose a common evaluation framework, describe the publicly available datasets, and present the results of the two sub-challenges: Sub-Acute Stroke Lesion Segmentation (SISS) and Stroke Perfusion Estimation (SPES). A total of 16 research groups participated with a wide range of state-of-the-art automatic segmentation algorithms. A thorough analysis of the obtained data enables a critical evaluation of the current state-of-the-art, recommendations for further developments, and the identification of remaining challenges. The segmentation of acute perfusion lesions addressed in SPES was found to be feasible. However, algorithms applied to sub-acute lesion segmentation in SISS still lack accuracy. Overall, no algorithmic characteristic of any method was found to perform superior to the others. Instead, the characteristics of stroke lesion appearances, their evolution, and the observed challenges should be studied in detail. The annotated ISLES image datasets continue to be publicly available through an online evaluation system to serve as an ongoing benchmarking resource (www.isles-challenge.org).
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