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Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2008

Abstract

The last late glacial from 22,000 up until just before 13,000 years ago was very cold and dry throughout Europe. Large ice sheets were present over much of northern Europe, and ice caps covered the Alps and the Pyrenees. Forest and woodland were almost non-existent, except for isolated areas of woodland vegetation and close to the mountain ranges of southern Europe. Instead, a sparse grassland or semi-desert covered most of southern Europe, at the same time as a mixture of the dry, open steppe tundra and polar desert covered the parts of northern Europe not occupied by ice sheets (Figure 1). Ice-wedge geomorphological features suggest that permafrost extended across most of Europe, down to about the latitude of central France. At this time drifting sand and wind erosion were common in north and central Europe.

Abstract

This paper is the outcome of a group discussion held at the Savonlinna meeting ‘Management of forest ecosystems and its impact on the GHG budget’. The aim of this break-out group discussion was to ‘Characterize forest management impacts on the GHG budget of forest ecosystems in different European regions’. In this paper we briefly characterize different options that a forest owner has in order to maintain or maximize forest carbon pools and carbon sequestration. These hectare scale descriptions of measures are then regarded in connection to the current state of European forests and how they can be combined with ongoing management trends and local issues. We point out the various possibilities that exist in European forests, where they are located, and where they could possibly be combined with adaptation. We identify these hotspots for largest growing stocks, largest peat areas, and, e.g. largest risks for loss of carbon due to fire or urban sprawl. We conclude that one common strategy cannot be designed. Within each region, local solutions have to be found that optimize goals and aim at integrated and sustainable land use.

Abstract

Short days (SD) trigger cessation of elongation growth and transition from an actively growing apex to a terminal bud in woody plants of the temperate and boreal zones. The molecular basis behind this is not well understood in gymnosperm forest trees such as Norway spruce. By combining suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) libraries and monitoring of gene expression using quantitative RT-PCR analysis, we aimed to identify genes involved in photoperiodic control of growth cessation and dormancy induction in Norway spruce. The gene expression patterns described here will be useful for future detailed functionalanalyses.

To document

Abstract

The Fusarium genus includes devastating plant pathogenic fungi that cause diseases in cereals around the world. They produce several mycotoxins, including the estrogenic compound zearalenone. To better understand the molecular mechanisms determining zearalenone production, we performed differential display RT-PCR under conditions where Fusarium graminearum and F. culmorum produced high amounts of zearalenone. We found 133 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) and 54 of these were considered to be up-regulated during high zearalenone production. Several of the ESTs were confirmed to be up-regulated by real-time qPCR, but none showed any significant down-regulation in the zearalenone negative mutant Delta PKS4-T9, or were similar to typical gene expression patterns of previously described zearalenone-related genes. Some of the up-regulated ESTs were similar to genes involved in secondary metabolite production, lipid metabolism, transcriptional activation, provision of precursors, signal transduction, transport or detoxification. Several of the ESTs were also located adjacent to one another in the genome and therefore might represent genes involved in the same biosynthetic pathway. Members of six such putative pathways could be found. All sequences were compared to the MIPS F. graminearum Genome Database to verify autocalled gene predictions experimentally and to introduce new exons and gene structures.