Publications by authors named "Leena Finer"

Article Synopsis
  • * Analysis of data from over 1 million forest plots and thousands of tree species shows that wood density varies significantly by latitude, being up to 30% denser in tropical forests compared to boreal forests, and is influenced mainly by temperature and soil moisture.
  • * The research also finds that disturbances like human activity and fire alter wood density at local levels, affecting forest carbon stock estimates by up to 21%, emphasizing the importance of understanding environmental impacts on forest ecosystems.
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Forests are a substantial terrestrial carbon sink, but anthropogenic changes in land use and climate have considerably reduced the scale of this system. Remote-sensing estimates to quantify carbon losses from global forests are characterized by considerable uncertainty and we lack a comprehensive ground-sourced evaluation to benchmark these estimates. Here we combine several ground-sourced and satellite-derived approaches to evaluate the scale of the global forest carbon potential outside agricultural and urban lands.

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Understanding what controls global leaf type variation in trees is crucial for comprehending their role in terrestrial ecosystems, including carbon, water and nutrient dynamics. Yet our understanding of the factors influencing forest leaf types remains incomplete, leaving us uncertain about the global proportions of needle-leaved, broadleaved, evergreen and deciduous trees. To address these gaps, we conducted a global, ground-sourced assessment of forest leaf-type variation by integrating forest inventory data with comprehensive leaf form (broadleaf vs needle-leaf) and habit (evergreen vs deciduous) records.

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The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is one of the most recognized global patterns of species richness exhibited across a wide range of taxa. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed in the past two centuries to explain LDG, but rigorous tests of the drivers of LDGs have been limited by a lack of high-quality global species richness data. Here we produce a high-resolution (0.

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Brownification, caused by increasing dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations is a threat to aquatic ecosystems over large areas in Europe. The increasing concentrations of DOC in northern boreal streams and lakes have attracted considerable attention with proposed important drivers such as climate, deposition and land-use, and complex interactions between them. Changes in total organic N (TON) concentrations have received less attention, even though carbon and nitrogen losses are highly related to each other.

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More reliable assessments of nutrient export to surface waters and the Baltic Sea are required to achieve good ecological status of all water bodies. Previous nutrient export estimates have recently been questioned since they did not include the long-term impacts of drainage for forestry. We made new estimates of the total nitrogen (N), total phosphorus (P) and total organic carbon (TOC) export from forests to surface waters at different spatial scales in Finland.

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Nature-based solutions (NBS) are being promoted as adaptive measures against predicted increasing hydrometeorological hazards (HMHs), such as heatwaves and floods which have already caused significant loss of life and economic damage across the globe. However, the underpinning factors such as policy framework, end-users' interests and participation for NBS design and operationalisation are yet to be established. We discuss the operationalisation and implementation processes of NBS by means of a novel concept of Open-Air Laboratories (OAL) for its wider acceptance.

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Fine roots and above-ground litterfall play a pivotal role in carbon dynamics in forests. Nonetheless, direct estimation of stocks of fine roots remains methodologically challenging. Models are thus widely used to estimate these stocks and help elucidate drivers of fine root growth and turnover, at a range of scales.

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Future climate scenarios for the boreal zone project increasing temperatures and precipitation, as well as extreme weather events such as heavy rain during the growing season. This can result in more frequent short-term waterlogging (WL) leading to unfavorable conditions for tree roots. In addition, it is decisive whether short-term WL periods during the growing season occur continuously or periodically.

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The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of different water management options to mitigate sediment and nutrient exports from ditch network maintenance (DNM) areas in boreal peatland forests. Available literature was reviewed, past data reanalyzed, effects of drainage intensity modeled, and major research gaps identified. The results indicate that excess downstream loads may be difficult to prevent.

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Humans require multiple services from ecosystems, but it is largely unknown whether trade-offs between ecosystem functions prevent the realisation of high ecosystem multifunctionality across spatial scales. Here, we combined a comprehensive dataset (28 ecosystem functions measured on 209 forest plots) with a forest inventory dataset (105,316 plots) to extrapolate and map relationships between various ecosystem multifunctionality measures across Europe. These multifunctionality measures reflected different management objectives, related to timber production, climate regulation and biodiversity conservation/recreation.

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Drained peatlands are an important source of forest biomass in boreal regions and ditch network maintenance (DNM) operations may be needed to restore the drainage functions of ditches. By reviewing the available literature, as well as utilizing an existing hydrological model and analyzing the characteristics of eroded sediments, we assessed the impacts of DNM on runoff and exports of suspended solids (SS), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P). In general, DNM had minor impact on runoff and dissolved N and P, and it decreased rather than increased DOC exports.

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The importance of biodiversity in supporting ecosystem functioning is generally well accepted. However, most evidence comes from small-scale studies, and scaling-up patterns of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (B-EF) remains challenging, in part because the importance of environmental factors in shaping B-EF relations is poorly understood. Using a forest research platform in which 26 ecosystem functions were measured along gradients of tree species richness in six regions across Europe, we investigated the extent and the potential drivers of context dependency of B-EF relations.

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The forest landscape across the Nordic and Baltic regions hosts numerous lakes and watercourses, which must be included in forest management. In this study, national policy designs regarding protection zones for surface waters on forest land were reviewed and compared for the Nordic countries, Estonia and Latvia. The focus was how each country regulates protection zones, whether they are voluntary or mandatory, and the rationale behind adopting a low or high degree of prescriptiveness.

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Dissolved organic matter (DOM) strongly affects water quality within boreal forest ecosystems. However, how the quality of DOM itself changes spatially is not well understood. In this study, to examine how the diversity of DOM molecules varies in water moving through a boreal forest, the number of DOM molecules in different water samples, i.

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An assemblage of tree species with different crown properties creates heterogeneous environments at the canopy level. Changes of functional leaf traits are expected, especially those related to light interception and photosynthesis. Chlorophyll a fluorescence (ChlF) properties in dark-adapted leaves, specific leaf area, leaf nitrogen content (N) and carbon isotope composition (δ13C) were measured on Picea abies (L.

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The biodiversity-productivity relationship (BPR) is foundational to our understanding of the global extinction crisis and its impacts on ecosystem functioning. Understanding BPR is critical for the accurate valuation and effective conservation of biodiversity. Using ground-sourced data from 777,126 permanent plots, spanning 44 countries and most terrestrial biomes, we reveal a globally consistent positive concave-down BPR, showing that continued biodiversity loss would result in an accelerating decline in forest productivity worldwide.

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There is considerable evidence that biodiversity promotes multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality), thus ensuring the delivery of ecosystem services important for human well-being. However, the mechanisms underlying this relationship are poorly understood, especially in natural ecosystems. We develop a novel approach to partition biodiversity effects on multifunctionality into three mechanisms and apply this to European forest data.

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Many experiments have shown that local biodiversity loss impairs the ability of ecosystems to maintain multiple ecosystem functions at high levels (multifunctionality). In contrast, the role of biodiversity in driving ecosystem multifunctionality at landscape scales remains unresolved. We used a comprehensive pan-European dataset, including 16 ecosystem functions measured in 209 forest plots across six European countries, and performed simulations to investigate how local plot-scale richness of tree species (α-diversity) and their turnover between plots (β-diversity) are related to landscape-scale multifunctionality.

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Large-scale forestry operations, like clear-cutting, may impair surface water quality if not done with environmental considerations in mind. Catchment and country level estimates of nutrient loads from forestry are generally based on specific export values, i.e.

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Tree species diversity has been reported to increase forest ecosystem above-ground biomass and productivity, but little is known about below-ground biomass and production in diverse mixed forests compared to single-species forests. For testing whether species richness increases below-ground biomass and production and thus complementarity between forest tree species in young stands, we determined fine root biomass and production of trees and ground vegetation in two experimental plantations representing gradients in tree species richness. Additionally, we measured tree fine root length and determined species composition from fine root biomass samples with the near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy method.

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Article Synopsis
  • Climate models indicate that droughts will become more intense and frequent in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly affecting forest ecosystems.
  • A study of 160 forest stands across Europe shows that higher tree species diversity can reduce drought exposure in some forest types, but not in others.
  • The findings suggest that managing forests for higher biodiversity may not guarantee better resistance to future droughts, especially in environments that aren't already prone to drought.
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The long-term impacts of current forest management methods on surface water quality in Fennoscandia are largely unexplored. We studied the long-term effects of clear-cutting and site preparation on runoff and the export of total nitrogen (total N), total organic nitrogen (TON), ammonium (NH(4)-N), nitrate (NO(3)-N), total phosphorus (total P), phosphate (PO(4)-P), total organic carbon, and suspended solids (SS) in three paired-catchments in Eastern Finland. Clear-cutting and soil preparation were carried out on 34 % (C34), 11 % (C11), and 8 % (C8) of the area of the treated catchments and wide buffer zones were left along the streams.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A study in eastern Finland revealed a statistically significant rise in stream water iron (Fe) concentrations, with Fe showing a strong correlation to total organic carbon (TOC) trends, increasing at rates of 3.5% and 2.5% per year, respectively, between 1995 and 2006.
  • * The changes in precipitation and temperature, especially during late autumn and early winter, seem to drive increasing Fe levels, suggesting that the interaction between Fe and organic matter is
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The water footprint by the Water Footprint Network (WF) is an ambitious tool for measuring human appropriation and promoting sustainable use of fresh water. Using recent case studies and examples from water-abundant Fennoscandia, we consider whether it is an appropriate tool for evaluating the water use of forestry and forest-based products. We show that aggregating catchment level water consumption over a product life cycle does not consider fresh water as a renewable resource and is inconsistent with the principles of the hydrologic cycle.

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