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.
2018
Abstract
The boreal forest is a key ecosystem for global C sequestration and storage. Microorganisms in soil have crucial functions in regulating these processes. Fungi are typically sharply structured with soil depth, but we largely lack such information for other microorganism, including bacteria and other micro-eukaryotes. To improve our knowledge of how different microorganisms are structured vertically and how they might interact, we investi-gated the communities of bacteria, fungi and micro-eukaryotes in four different soil horizons in natural birch forests in Western Norway. The communities of all three organismal groups were strongly structured along the vertical depth. Our results support the hypothesis that natural decrease in nutrient availability and pH differ-ences between organic and mineral horizons affect the distribution of soil microorganisms. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Planctomycetes dominated in the uppermost organic layer while Acidobacteria and Firmicu-tes in mineral layers. Proportionally, fungi dominated in mineral layers whereas other micro-eukaryotes (Meta-zoa, Apicomplexa, Conosa, Ochrophyta and Chlorophyta) in organic layers. Ascomycota were relatively more abundant in mineral layers compared to Basidiomycota and Cryptomycota. Nematoda, Annelida and Arthropo-da showed decreasing trends with depth. Furthermore, different optima in the depth distribution of ectomy-corrhizal and saprotrophic genera was observed, supporting the view that different genera are adapted to different niches along the soil depth gradient. Network analyses will be used to infer tentative biotic interac-tions between the microbial groups and how this varies with soil depth.
Authors
Krishna Reddy Kakumanu Yella Reddy Kaluvai Sekhar Udaya Nagothu Narayan Reddy Lati Gurava Reddy Kotapati Sunitha KaranamAbstract
Climate change characterized by global warming has become a hotspot of research in recent years for water resources, agriculture,ecology and other disciplines. In India, studies have shown an increasing trend in surface temperature, with decreasing trends inrainfall. Farmers are also more affected by the climate variability which has a serious influence on their production and income.The climate change and adaptation (ClimaAdapt) programme was implemented from 2012 to 2016 to build farm-level capacitiesand enhance the adaptive capacity of the agricultural and water sectors in the Krishna basin of Andhra Pradesh and Telanganastates. Water-saving interventions such as direct seeded rice, a modified system of rice intensification and alternate wetting anddrying (AWD) of rice were implemented in a cluster approach and enhanced water productivity. The training and implementationprogrammes increased the adaptation and awareness of farmers. Water measurements were carried out by usingflumes andultrasonic sensors. The area under direct seeded rice has increased to 64% in the study district and 77% of the trained farmersare adopting the practice. Capacity building, implementation and science–policy linkages are the key pillars of the programmeto improve the adaptive capacity and scaling-up of water management practices.
Authors
Leonardo Ciaccheri Lorenza Tuccio Andrea A. Mencaglia Anna G. Mignani Ewelina Hallmann Kalina Sikorska-Zimny Stanislaw Kaniszewski Michel Verheul Giovanni AgatiAbstract
Non-destructive tools for evaluating the lycopene content in tomatoes are of great interest to the entire fruit chain because of an increasing demand for beneficial health products. With the aim of developing compact low-cost reflectance sensors for lycopene determination, we compared Partial Least Squares (PLS) prediction models by using either directional or total reflectance in the 500–750 nm range. Directional reflectance at 45° with respect to the LED lighting direction was acquired by means of a compact spectrometer sensor. Total reflectance was acquired through a 50-mm integrating sphere connected to a spectrometer. The analysis was conducted on two hydroponic greenhouse cultivated red tomato varieties, namely the large round ‘Dometica’ (average diameter: 57 mm) and the small cherry ‘Juanita’ (average diameter: 26 mm). For both varieties, the spectral variance of directional reflectance was well correlated to that of total reflectance. The performances of the PLS prediction models were also similar, with R2 of cross-validation between 0.73 and 0.81. The prediction error, relative to the mean lycopene content of full ripe tomatoes, was similar: i.e. around 16–17% for both varieties and sensors. Our results showed that directional reflectance measured by means of portable, low-cost and compact LED-based sensors can be used with an adequate precision for the non-destructive assessment of lycopene in tomatoes.
Authors
Ravishankar Narayana Judith Fliegmann Ivan Paponov Massimo E. MaffeiAbstract
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Lone RossAbstract
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Anne Falk Øgaard Marianne BechmannAbstract
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