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The Late Pleistocene cataclysmic releases of glacial meltwater left distinct footprint across the Central European Lowland. Deeply incised tunnel valleys, oversized ice-marginal spillways, fields of mega-dunes, and glacial curvilineations carved by rapid drainage events occur along the southern margin of the last (Weichselian) Scandinavian Ice Sheet margin. These meltwater releases contributed sigThe Late Pleistocene cataclysmic releases of glacial meltwater left distinct footprint across the Central European Lowland. Deeply incised tunnel valleys, oversized ice-marginal spillways, fields of mega-dunes, and glacial curvilineations carved by rapid drainage events occur along the southern margin of the last (Weichselian) Scandinavian Ice Sheet margin. These meltwater releases contributed sig

The arrangement of plant species within a landscape influences pollination via changes in pollinator movement trajectories and plant–pollinator encounter rates. Yet the combined effects of landscape composition and pollinator traits (especially specialisation) on pollination success remain hard to quantify empirically. We used an individual-based model to explore how landscape and pollinator speci

Globally, plants display enormous variation in life-history strategies and trait combinations. However, evidence suggests that evolutionary and physiological constraints limit the number of plant ecological strategies. Although there have been recent advances in understanding correlations among plant traits, reproductive traits are rarely considered, despite their key role in shaping plant life-hi

Bees play a key role in maintaining healthy terrestrial ecosystems by pollinating plants. Stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini) are a diverse clade of social bees (>500 species) with a pantropical distribution spanning South and Central America, Africa, India, Australia and Asia. They are garnering increasing attention as commercially-beneficial pollinators of some crops, yet their contribution to t

The electron-ion scattering experiment ELISe is part of the installations envisaged at the new experimental storage ring at the International Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Darmstadt, Germany. It offers an unique opportunity to use electrons as probe in investigations of the structure of exotic nuclei. The conceptual design and the scientific challenges of ELISe are presented.

Biodiversity-benefits of organic farming have mostly been documented at the field scale. However, these benefits from organic farming to species diversity may not propagate to larger scales because variation in the management of different crop types and seminatural habitats in conventional farms might allow species to cope with intensive crop management. We studied flowering plant communities usin

In this study, we present summertime concentrations and fluxes of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) measured at a sub-arctic wetland in northern Sweden using a disjunct eddy-covariance (DEC) technique based on a proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer (PTR-MS). The vegetation at the site was dominated by Sphagnum, Carex and Eriophorum spp. The performance of the DEC system was assesse

A major uncertainty in the estimation of soils acting as net carbon (C) sinks or sources stem from the effects of anthropogenic nitrogen (N) input on the balance between plant C input and soil C loss. In contrast to the generally observed increasing pattern of plant C input, the response of soil C loss to increased N deposition remains elusive, largely due to its large temporal variation. Here sim

Microplastics can perturb microbial nutrient-mining strategies. However, the mechanism by which microplastics affect the resource-acquisition strategies of crops in agricultural systems remains unknown. The nutrient-acquisition potential of crops and microbes was investigated under treatments with two common microplastics (polyethylene [PE] and polyvinyl chloride [PVC]) at 0%, 1%, and 5% (w/w). Di

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, paved the way for a new hybrid global climate governance architecture with both bottom-up and top-down elements. While governments can choose individual climate goals and actions, a global stocktake and a ratcheting-up mechanism have been put in place with the overall aim to ensure that collective efforts will prevent increasing adverse impacts of climate chan

The Colombian peace agreement officially ended one of the world’s longest internal armed conflicts. But the transformation of land use that takes place in the wake of the peace agreement, has made the historic inequalities of access to land more visible and revealed inherent and violent struggles over resources that persist across the country. In this briefing we analyse the

The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has not halted farmland biodiversity loss. The CAP post-2023 has a new ‘‘Green Architecture,’’ including the new ‘‘Eco-scheme’’ instrument. How can this new Green Architecture help tackle the biodiversity crisis? Through 13 workshops and an online survey, over 300 experts from 23 European Member States addressed this question. From experts’ con

Black carbon (BC), spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCP), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are carbonaceous pollutants affecting the climate, environment, and human health. International regulations limit their emissions, and the present emissions are followed by monitoring programs. However, the monitoring programs have limited spatio-temporal coverage and only span the last decades.

Savannas cover a wide climatic gradient across large portions of the Earth’s land surface and are an important component of the terrestrial biosphere. Savannas have been undergoing changes that alter the composition and structure of their vegetation such as the encroachment of woody vegetation and increasing land-use intensity. Monitoring the spatial and temporal dynamics of savanna ecosystem stru

Vapor pressure deficit (VPD) is of great importance to control the land-atmosphere exchange of water and CO2. Here we use in situ observations to assess the performance of monthly VPD calculated from state-of-the-art data sets including CRU, ERA5, and Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA2). We investigate trends in VPD at global scale and for different

In boreal summer, circumglobal Rossby waves can promote stagnating weather systems that favor extreme events like heat waves or droughts. Recent work showed that amplified Rossby wavenumber 5 and 7 show phase-locking behavior which can trigger simultaneous warm anomalies in different breadbasket regions in the Northern Hemisphere. These types of wave patterns thus pose a potential threat to human