Towards repeated clear-cutting of boreal forests - a tipping point for biodiversity?

Boreal forests are important carbon sinks and host a diverse array of species that provide important ecosystem functions. Boreal forests have a long history of intensive forestry, in which even-aged management with clear-cutting has been the dominant harvesting practice for the past 50-80 years. As a second cycle of clear-cutting is emerging, there is an urgent need to examine the effects of repeated clear-cutting events on biodiversity.

Factors influencing trust among colleagues in hospital settings: a systematic review.

Background: Many studies show positive results of collegial trust in the workplace, e.g. performance, innovation and collaboration.

A Pollen-Based Assisted Migration for Rapid Forest Adaptation.

Climate change poses an unprecedented threat to forest ecosystems, necessitating innovative adaptation strategies. Traditional assisted migration approaches, while promising, face challenges related to environmental constraints, forestry practices, phytosanitary risks, economic barriers, and legal constraints. This has sparked debate within the scientific community, with some advocating for the broader implementation of assisted migration despite these limitations, while others emphasize the importance of local adaptation, which may not keep pace with the rapid rate of climate change.

Estimating baselines of Raman spectra based on transformer and manually annotated data.

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful and non-invasive analytical method for determining the chemical composition and molecular structure of a wide range of materials, including complex biological tissues. However, the captured signals typically suffer from interferences manifested as noise and baseline, which need to be removed for successful data analysis. Effective baseline correction is critical in quantitative analysis, as it may impact peak signature derivation.

Milk production and methane emissions from dairy cows fed silages from different grassland species and harvesting frequencies.

The aim of this study was to examine how silages from different grassland species and harvesting frequencies affect feed intake, milk production, and methane (CH) emission in dairy cows. We hypothesized that cows consuming silages of more frequent harvest, grass species with greater organic matter digestibility and legumes with lower NDFom concentration would have greater silage dry matter intake and milk yield and thereby lower CH yield and intensity. Forty Norwegian Red cows were allocated to 5 treatments in a cyclic changeover design with 4 21-d periods (14 d of adaptation, 7 d of data collection).

Biofilm application for anaerobic digestion: a systematic review and an industrial scale case.

Biofilm is a syntrophic community of microorganisms enveloped by extracellular polymeric substances and displays remarkable adaptability to dynamic environments. Implementing biofilm in anaerobic digestion has been widely investigated and applied as it promotes microbial retention time and enhances the efficiency. Previous studies on anaerobic biofilm primarily focused on application in wastewater treatment, while its role has been significantly extended to accelerate the degradation of lignocellulosic biomass, improve gas-liquid mass transfer for biogas upgrading, or enhance resistance to inhibitors or toxic pollutants.

Seascape Genomics of the Smooth Hammerhead Shark Reveals Regional Adaptive Clinal Variation.

Globally, hammerhead sharks have experienced severe declines owing to continued overexploitation and anthropogenic change. The smooth hammerhead shark remains understudied compared to other members of the family Sphyrnidae. Despite its vulnerable status, a comprehensive understanding of its genetic landscape remains lacking in many regions worldwide.

Steaming soil is effective in eliminating invasive alien plants (IAPs) - part I: effect of exposure method.

Background: As regulations on pesticides become more stringent, it is likely that there will be interest in steam as an alternative approach for soil disinfestation. This study investigates the feasibility of utilizing a soil steaming device for thermal control of invasive plants.

Results: Seeds of Echinochloa crus-galli, Impatiens glandulifera, Solidago canadensis, and rhizome fragments of Reynoutria × bohemica were examined for thermal sensitivity through two exposure methods: (1) steam treatment of propagative material in soil; (2) exposure of propagative material to warm soil just after heated by steam.

Resilience of genetic diversity in forest trees over the Quaternary.

The effect of past environmental changes on the demography and genetic diversity of natural populations remains a contentious issue and has rarely been investigated across multiple, phylogenetically distant species. Here, we perform comparative population genomic analyses and demographic inferences for seven widely distributed and ecologically contrasting European forest tree species based on concerted sampling of 164 populations across their natural ranges. For all seven species, the effective population size, N, increased or remained stable over many glacial cycles and up to 15 million years in the most extreme cases.

Bio-fertilizer applications from poultry slaughterhouses in subtropical agriculture - Interactions between soil structure and nitrate dynamics.

The No-till system and organic fertilization combined can be a potential strategy to avoid nutrient leaching, as the soil structure plays a crucial role in retaining them. In this study, we evaluated the influence of different rates of a bio-fertilizer made of industrial organic waste (IOW) from a poultry slaughterhouse on the percolation and stocks of nitrate in disturbed and undisturbed soil samples collected from a subtropical no-till field in southern Brazil. In an incubation experiment, we performed a percolation experiment using lysimeters and simulated rainfall for 180 days and evaluated the remaining soil nitrate stock after the incubation period.

Valorization of the Invasive Blue Crabs () in the Mediterranean: Nutritional Value, Bioactive Compounds and Sustainable By-Products Utilization.

The blue crab (), originally from the western Atlantic Ocean, has recently spread to the Mediterranean and is now considered one of the one hundred most invasive species in that region. This opportunistic species, known for its adaptability to different temperatures and salinities, negatively impacts biodiversity and human activities such as fishing and tourism in the Mediterranean. However, the blue crab is gaining interest as a potential food resource due to its high nutritional value and delicate, sweet flavor.

Genetic markers identify duplicates in Nordic potato collections.

Introduction: The first small scale cultivation of potatoes in the Nordic countries began roughly 300 years ago, and later became an important staple food in the region. Organized conservation efforts began in the 1980s, and today, potato landraces, improved varieties, and breeding lines are conserved in genebanks at the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen), Sweden, and the Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre (NGS), Norway, as well as at potato breeding companies across Nordic countries. All these collections house a diverse array of genotypes with local names and local growing histories from the whole region.

Characterization of cellulases from softening fruit for enzymatic depolymerization of cellulose.

Cellulose is a major renewable resource for a wide variety of sustainable industrial products. However, for its utilization, finding new efficient enzymes for plant cell wall depolymerization is crucial. In addition to microbial sources, cellulases also exist in plants, however, are less studied.

Bioaugmentation by enriched hydrogenotrophic methanogens into trickle bed reactors for H/CO conversion.

Biomethanation represents a promising approach for biomethane production, with biofilm-based processes like trickle bed reactors (TBRs) being among the most efficient solutions. However, maintaining stable performance can be challenging, and both pure and mixed culture approaches have been applied to address this. In this study, inocula enriched with hydrogenotrophic methanogens were introduced to to TBRs as bioaugmentation strategy to assess their impacts on the process performance and microbial community dynamics.