The pace of life for forest trees.

Tree growth and longevity trade-offs fundamentally shape the terrestrial carbon balance. Yet, we lack a unified understanding of how such trade-offs vary across the world's forests. By mapping life history traits for a wide range of species across the Americas, we reveal considerable variation in life expectancies from 10 centimeters in diameter (ranging from 1.

Constraining long-term model predictions for woody growth using tropical tree rings.

The strength and persistence of the tropical carbon sink hinges on the long-term responses of woody growth to climatic variations and increasing CO . However, the sensitivity of tropical woody growth to these environmental changes is poorly understood, leading to large uncertainties in growth predictions. Here, we used tree ring records from a Southeast Asian tropical forest to constrain ED2.

Diel and seasonal stem growth responses to climatic variation are consistent across species in a subtropical tree community.

Understanding how intra-annual stem growth responds to atmospheric and soil conditions is essential for assessing the effects of climate extremes on forest productivity. In species-poor forests, such understanding can be obtained by studying stem growth of the dominant species. Yet, in species-rich (sub-)tropical forests, it is unclear whether these responses are consistent among species.

Quality of life, psychosocial characteristics, and study skills affecting recruits' intention to quit Basic Military Training.

Quitting Basic Military Training (BMT) is a problem in the Dutch Armed Forces. Previous research focused on physical factors. Yet, contemporary research focuses on psychosocial characteristics, study skills, and quality of life factors associated with recruits' intention to quit BMT.

High vapour pressure deficit enhances turgor limitation of stem growth in an Asian tropical rainforest tree.

Tropical forests are experiencing increases in vapour pressure deficit (D), with possible negative impacts on tree growth. Tree-growth reduction due to rising D is commonly attributed to carbon limitation, thus overlooking the potentially important mechanism of D-induced impairment of wood formation due to an increase in turgor limitation. Here we calibrate a mechanistic tree-growth model to simulate turgor limitation of radial stem growth in mature Toona cilitata trees in an Asian tropical forest.

Restoration success in former Amazonian mines is driven by soil amendment and forest proximity.

Mining contributes importantly to tropical deforestation and land degradation. To mitigate these effects, mining companies are increasingly obliged to restore abandoned mine lands, but factors driving restoration success are hardly evaluated. Here, we investigate the influence of ecological factors (restoration age, soil properties and surrounding forest area) and management factors (diversity and density of planted species, mine zone) on the recovery rate of forest structure and tree diversity on 40 post-mining restoration areas in Southern Amazonia, Brazil, using a 9-year annual monitoring dataset consisting of over 25 000 trees.

Using the Black Carbon Particle Mixing State to Characterize the Lifecycle of Biomass Burning Aerosols.

The lifecycle of black carbon (BC)-containing particles from biomass burns is examined using aircraft and surface observations of the BC mixing state for plume ages from ∼15 min to 10 days. Because BC is nonvolatile and chemically inert, changes in the mixing state of BC-containing particles are driven solely by changes in particle coating, which is mainly secondary organic aerosol (SOA). The coating mass initially increases rapidly ( = 0.

Clay and soil organic matter drive wood multi-elemental composition of a tropical tree species: Implications for timber tracing.

Forensic methods to independently trace timber origin are essential to combat illegal timber trade. Tracing product origin by analysing their multi-element composition has been successfully applied in several commodities, but its potential for timber is not yet known. To evaluate this potential the drivers of wood multi-elemental composition need to be studied.

The role of demographic compensation in stabilising marginal tree populations in North America.

Demographic compensation-the opposing responses of vital rates along environmental gradients-potentially delays anticipated species' range contraction under climate change, but no consensus exists on its actual contribution. We calculated population growth rate (λ) and demographic compensation across the distributional ranges of 81 North American tree species and examined their responses to simulated warming and tree competition. We found that 43% of species showed stable population size at both northern and southern edges.

The future of Earth system prediction: Advances in model-data fusion.

Predictions of the Earth system, such as weather forecasts and climate projections, require models informed by observations at many levels. Some methods for integrating models and observations are very systematic and comprehensive (e.g.

Species-level tree crown maps improve predictions of tree recruit abundance in a tropical landscape.

Predicting forest recovery at landscape scales will aid forest restoration efforts. The first step in successful forest recovery is tree recruitment. Forecasts of tree recruit abundance, derived from the landscape-scale distribution of seed sources (i.

Interannual temperature variability is a principal driver of low-frequency fluctuations in marine fish populations.

Marine fish populations commonly exhibit low-frequency fluctuations in biomass that can cause catch volatility and thus endanger the food and economic security of dependent coastal societies. Such variability has been linked to fishing intensity, demographic processes and environmental variability, but our understanding of the underlying drivers remains poor for most fish stocks. Our study departs from previous findings showing that sea surface temperature (SST) is a significant driver of fish somatic growth variability and that life-history characteristics mediate population-level responses to environmental variability.

On Assessing ERA5 and MERRA2 Representations of Cold-Air Outbreaks Across the Gulf Stream.

The warm Gulf Stream sea surface temperatures strongly impact the evolution of winter clouds behind atmospheric cold fronts. Such cloud evolution remains challenging to model. The Gulf Stream is too wide within the ERA5 and MERRA2 reanalyses, affecting the turbulent surface fluxes.

Aerosol-boundary-layer-monsoon interactions amplify semi-direct effect of biomass smoke on low cloud formation in Southeast Asia.

Low clouds play a key role in the Earth-atmosphere energy balance and influence agricultural production and solar-power generation. Smoke aloft has been found to enhance marine stratocumulus through aerosol-cloud interactions, but its role in regions with strong human activities and complex monsoon circulation remains unclear. Here we show that biomass burning aerosols aloft strongly increase the low cloud coverage over both land and ocean in subtropical southeastern Asia.

Climate-driven, but dynamic and complex? A reconciliation of competing hypotheses for species' distributions.

Estimates of the percentage of species "committed to extinction" by climate change range from 15% to 37%. The question is whether factors other than climate need to be included in models predicting species' range change. We created demographic range models that include climate vs.

Joint effects of climate, tree size, and year on annual tree growth derived from tree-ring records of ten globally distributed forests.

Tree rings provide an invaluable long-term record for understanding how climate and other drivers shape tree growth and forest productivity. However, conventional tree-ring analysis methods were not designed to simultaneously test effects of climate, tree size, and other drivers on individual growth. This has limited the potential to test ecologically relevant hypotheses on tree growth sensitivity to environmental drivers and their interactions with tree size.

Detecting forest response to droughts with global observations of vegetation water content.

Droughts in a warming climate have become more common and more extreme, making understanding forest responses to water stress increasingly pressing. Analysis of water stress in trees has long focused on water potential in xylem and leaves, which influences stomatal closure and water flow through the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. At the same time, changes of vegetation water content (VWC) are linked to a range of tree responses, including fluxes of water and carbon, mortality, flammability, and more.

Cloud drop number concentrations over the western North Atlantic Ocean: seasonal cycle, aerosol interrelationships, and other influential factors.

Cloud drop number concentrations ( ) over the western North Atlantic Ocean (WNAO) are generally highest during the winter (DJF) and lowest in summer (JJA), in contrast to aerosol proxy variables (aerosol optical depth, aerosol index, surface aerosol mass concentrations, surface cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations) that generally peak in spring (MAM) and JJA with minima in DJF. Using aircraft, satellite remote sensing, ground-based in situ measurement data, and reanalysis data, we characterize factors explaining the divergent seasonal cycles and furthermore probe into factors influencing on seasonal timescales. The results can be summarized well by features most pronounced in DJF, including features associated with cold-air outbreak (CAO) conditions such as enhanced values of CAO index, planetary boundary layer height (PBLH), low-level liquid cloud fraction, and cloud-top height, in addition to winds aligned with continental outflow.

Impact of various air mass types on cloud condensation nuclei concentrations along coastal southeast Florida.

Coastal southeast Florida experiences a wide range of aerosol conditions, including African dust, biomass burning (BB) aerosols, as well as sea salt and other locally-emitted aerosols. These aerosols are important sources of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), which play an essential role in governing cloud radiative properties. As marine environments dominate the surface of Earth, CCN characteristics in coastal southeast Florida have broad implications for other regions with the added feature that this site is perturbed by both natural and anthropogenic emissions.

Barriers and facilitators of oral health care experienced by nursing home staff.

Objectives to explore attitudes, perceptions, and perceived barriers to and the perceived facilitators of daily oral health care and the actual daily oral health care performances among nursing home staff. Methods A mixed methods study in 21 nursing homes was completed; a) questionnaires for nursing staff and managers; b) focus group interviews with nursing staff. Results 409 (21%) questionnaires were completed by nursing staff and 14 focus group interviews organized.