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.
2014
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Reidun Pommeresche Anne-Kristin LøesAbstract
The diversity and density of springtails (Collembola) were studied in an organically managed grass-clover ley at Tingvoll experimental farm in NW Norway during 2011–2012. In total after one sampling in 2011 and 3 samplings in 2012, 42 species were identified. Our results included a new species for the Norwegian fauna, Onychiurus edinensis (Bagnall, 1935) and one species very unusual to agricultural soils, Oligaphorura ursi (Fjellberg, 1984). The most abundant species was Parisotoma notabilis (Schäffer, 1896), followed by three species of Mesaphorura Börner, 1901, two species of Protaphorura Absolon, 1901 and Isotomurus graminis Fjellberg, 2007. A high number of P. notabilis has also been found in pastures in Iceland (Gudleifsson & Bjarnadottir 2008), in forest habitats in Norway (Hågvar 1982, Fjellberg et al. 2005) and in agricultural soil in Denmark (Axelsen & Kristensen 2000) and Sweden (Lagerlöf & Andrén 1991). The average density of springtails was 7 917 individuals m-2 in 2011. In 2012, the density was generally higher and varied between 16 182 and 41 515. We have proposed a grouping of the species into “epigeic” and “endogeic”, dependent on the presence or absence of eye organs and colour. Such classification is relatively easy and may give useful information in cases when identification to species is not possible.
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Marcin Chmielarz Sylwester Sobkowiak Konrad Józef Debski David E.L. Cooke May Bente Brurberg Jadwiga ŚliwkaAbstract
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The effects of climate change are unequally distributed between female and male gender in agrarian communities, particularly in developing countries. The agrarian regions of South India offer some representative examples where extreme events such as drought and floods influence gender inequalities. The current study assesses the potential effects of climate change as reflected through weather extremes to gender in agricultural communities of Andhra Pradesh state in South India. The findings signify that no major existent inequalities could be found in the study areas. There is though some uncertainty on the income contribution of males and females in a household and the economic independency of female gender. All the more, a different attitude between men and women was confirmed towards the concerns and initiatives to be undertaken mainly against droughts events. This differentiation could be the cause for the creation of future inequalities because the unilateral decisions seem to provoke unequal access to natural, social and economic resources.
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Klaus Mittenzwei Wolfgang Britz Christine WieckAbstract
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Jutta Kapfer Einar Heegaard Svein Olav Krøgli Christian Pedersen Gregory Taff Wenche DramstadAbstract
Background & Aim: Land-use regimes and their changes, as well as landscape heterogeneity are key determinants of the distribution and composition of species in cultural landscapes. In European agricultural landscapes, habitat loss due to both abandonment and intensification of agriculture fields are major causes for the decline of species diversity. Landscapes that are diverse in habitats and species are important to maintain basic ecosystem functions and services as, for instance, pollination or habitat preservation. In Norway, semi-natural species-rich habitats, such as agricultural grasslands, often occur in mosaics with forests and crop fields. This research studies key information for design of conservation plans focused on these habitats, addressing how landscape structure and land-use history affect the distribution, richness and composition of species in species-rich grasslands across geographical regions. Material & Methods: We recorded vegetation (species occurrence and cover) in agricultural grasslands with varying intensity and type of use from 569 plots of 8 x 8 m size systematically distributed throughout Norway (from 64 to 78 °N latitude). To identify the most important driving factors of species diversity and composition we explored the combined effects of historic and current land-use and the spatial landscape configuration of nearby land cover types (e.g. minimum distance to or area of neighbouring wetland, forest, cultivated land) taking into account the effects of grazing, elevation, and moisture conditions. Non-metrical multidimensional scaling (NMDS) was applied to identify the most important drivers of species composition. We used Generalized Additive Mixed Models to test the relationship of these drivers with patterns in species richness. Main results & Interpretations: NMDS revealed species composition to be explained most by the distance to surface cultivated land and transportation corridors (r=0.905, p<0.001 and r=-0.982, p<0.001; 1. NMDS axis) as well as shape of the patch in which the vegetation plot is embedded (patch shape) and grazing intensity (r=0.988, p<0.001 and r=-0.952, p<0.001; 2. NMDS axis). Observed patterns in species richness were statistically significantly linked to the combined effects of elevation, grazing intensity, historical land-use, patch shape, distance to transportation corridors and forest, and area of nearest wetland. Our results demonstrate the importance of a variety of factors influencing the species composition and richness in Norwegian grasslands. We found that both the landscape element harbouring the observed plot and also the surrounding landscape structure and intensity of land-use are important determinants of species diversity. The fact that distance to more intensively managed agricultural land is one of the strongest explanatory facts signals how effects of agricultural management practices reaches outside the field itself and into adjacent landscape elements. This suggests that the entire landscape needs to be taken into consideration when management of a particular habitat patch is planned.
Authors
Toril Drabløs Eldhuset Nina Elisabeth Nagy Isabella Børja Igor A. Yakovlev Roman Gebauer Daniel Volarik Paal KrokeneAbstract
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