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
Authors
Clemens Reimann Rolf Tore Ottesen Malin Andersson Arnold Arnoldussen Friedrich Koller Peter EnglmaierAbstract
Production of wood ash has increased strongly in the last ten years due to the increasing popularity of renewable and CO2-neutral heat and energy production via wood burning. Wood ashes are rich in many essential plant nutrients. In addition they are alkaline. The idea of using the waste ash as fertiliser in forests is appealing. However, wood is also known for its ability to strongly enrich certain heavy metals from the underlying soils, e.g. Cd, without any anthropogenic input. Concentrations of 26 chemical elements (Ag, As, Au, B, Ba, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, K, La, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Ni, P, Pb, S, Sb, Sr, Ti, and Zn) in 40 samples each of birch and spruce wood ashes collected along a 120 km long transect in southern Norway are reported. The observed maximum concentrations are 1.3 wt.% Pb, 4.4 wt.% Zn and 203 mg/kg Cd in birch wood ashes. Wood ashes can thus contain very high heavy metal concentrations. Spreading wood ashes in a forest is a major anthropogenic interference with the natural biogeochemical cycles. As with the use of sewage sludge in agriculture the use of wood ashes in forests clearly needs regulation.
Authors
Anne-Cathrine Scheen Charlotte Lindqvist Carl Gunnar Fossdal Victor A. AlbertAbstract
The five mint genera Brazoria, Macbridea, Physostegia, Synandra and Warnockia (Lamioideae: Lamiaceae) are all North American endemics. Together with the monotypic European genus Melittis and the Asian genus Chelonopsis, these taxa have been classified as subtribe Melittidinae. Previous morphological studies have failed to uncover synapomorphic characters for this group.We sequenced the plastid trnL-trnF region and trnS-trnG spacer and the nuclear ribosomal 5S non-transcribed spacer (5S-NTS) to assess phylogenetic relationships within Melittidinae. Standard parsimony and direct optimization (POY) analyses show Melittis, the type genus of the subtribe, as sister to Stachys. Thus, the monophyly of subtribe Melittidinae is not supported either by molecular or morphological data...
Authors
Målfrid ToeneietAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Rosario Mosello Tiziana Amoriello Sue Benham Nicholas Clarke John Derome Kirsti Derome Gerrit Genouw Arianna Orrù Gabriele A. Tartari Anne Thimonier Erwin Ulrich Antti-Jussi Lindroos Nils KönigAbstract
A Working Group on Quality Assurance/Quality Control of analyses in laboratories active in the chemical analysis of atmospheric deposition and soil water has been created within the framework of the Integrated Co-operative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests (UN-ECE/ICP Forests) and the EU/Forest Focus Programme (Regulation 2152/2003). This paper is a follow up to an earlier paper dealing with the validation of chemical analyses, in which validation techniques (ion balance, comparison between measured and calculated conductivity, Na/Cl ratio and relationship between different forms of N) were tested on a set of real analysis data obtained from different laboratories. This paper focuses on the validation of chemical analysis of samples containing high dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations ( 5 mg C L-1), where the ion balance criterion fails because of the presence of weak organic acids. About 6000 chemical analyses of bulk open field, throughfall and stemflow samples, which contained complete sets of all ion concentrations, conductivity and DOC, produced in 8 different laboratories, were used to calculate empirical relationships between DOC and the difference between the sum of cations and the sum of anions, with the aim to evaluate a formal charge per mg of organic C...
Authors
Rastislav Solár Miroslav Mamo Janka Dibdiakova Ladislav Reinprecht Milo Pánek Jozef HudecAbstract
A series of comparable specimens of hornbeam wood were submitted to pre-treatments by white-rot fungi and by alkali, or alkali followed by oxidation agents. The pre-treatments caused weight loss of wood and modified its physical properties and chemical composition.All pre-treatments reduced axial permeability of the test specimens in wet state (w FSP). The pre-treatments of the test specimens by diluted sodium hydroxide, or sodium hydroxide followed by hydrogen peroxide, however increased rate of diffusion in direction parallel to grain. The pre-treatments also made the kinetics of wood/water interactions in its initial phase much higher, especially when the white-rot fungi were used.The chemical pre-treatments of hornbeam wood caused its extreme final swelling, and on the other hand, a careful drying to initial moisture content resulted in its deep collapse. An increased rate of wood/water interactions, higher uptake of water and higher diffusion coefficients of wood pre-treated by alkali may play a positive role in the pulping processes.
Abstract
Life on earth depends on water and where running water occurs on earth, there is life. Nevertheless, existing modelling approaches in hydrology almost completely neglect the biological aspects of water flow. We claim that ignoring biological behaviour and interaction in catchment runoff modelling is too restrictive, and that computational theories can be used to formalise behaviour and interaction and model the biological impact on runoff. To demonstrate this, starting with a general classification of catchment behaviour, as documented in runoff data, we will use symbolic dynamics to quantify randomness and complexity in the time series. This approach shows that runoff records from very different catchments show common behaviour. This behaviour can be fitted to a one-parametric curve, stratified into three regions. In this manner, it becomes possible to represent and classify types of interactive behaviour that cannot be generated algorithmically. This suggests that physically based catchment models do not properly represent all types of interactive behaviour, and that signatures of biological interaction are present in runoff data.
Authors
Carl Gunnar Fossdal Ari M. Hietala Igor A. Yakovlev Halvor SolheimAbstract
The root-rot causing fungus Heterobasidion annosum sensu lato is the most devastating pathogen of conifers in Europe. This pathogen enters Norway spruce through the roots and can colonize the tree from within, growing as a saprophyte when established within the dead heartwood and acting as a necrotroph when in contact with living host tissue. Despite the high incidence of damage, trees have defences against this pathogen in the bark and living wood. Furthermore, spruce has a defense against internal attack by forming a reaction zone, in this case the host defense is directed inwardly by the still living sapwood toward the central colonized heartwood. We have studied the host responses to infection in Norway spruce clones at the transcriptional level and found that the speed of recognition and that spatial defense signalling appears to be the hallmarks of trees with high degree of resistance...
Authors
Peder GjerdrumAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
The area of wood protection is in a period of change. New wood protection systems have been developed while their mode of action remains insufficiently understood. The development of molecular methods provides potential tools to investigate the interaction between modified wood and decay fungi. One small step to tackle some of the unsolved questions about the mode of action of modified wood is taken in this study. A specific and quantitative real-time PCR (QRT-PCR) assay was now established for identifying and quantifying early stages of fungal colonisation in modified wood and for profiling growth dynamics of the white-rot fungus Trametes versicolor through different stages of decay. QRT-PCR of colonisation of three different wood modification systems (acetylation, furfurylation, thermal modification), two reference treatments (Cu-HDO, CCA) and Scots pine sapwood as control was performed. Incubation time was 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 weeks...
Authors
Yijie WuAbstract
Luftforurensninger og klimaendringer påvirker kjemien i kronedrypp og jordvann i boreale skoger. Løst organisk materiale (DOM), inklusiv løst organisk karbon (DOC) og løst organisk nitrogen (DON), spiller en nøkkelrolle, og det er derfor nødvendig å forstå hvordan DOM blir påvirket, ikke bare av luftforurensninger og klimatiske faktorer, men også av andre faktorer. Denne avhandling undersøker faktorer som påvirker DOC og DON i norske skogøkosystem, med bruk av data fra de norske ICP Forests Level II-flater og andre studier...