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The influence of soil physicochemical properties on microbial communities can be large, especially in developing soils of glacier forefield chronosequences. However, small-scale expositional differences in bare soils and their impacts on soil microbial communities have so far been largely neglected. Here we studied the changes of microbial communities in three deglaciated unvegetated sites along a

Despite increasing recognition of the relevance of biological cycling for Si cycling in ecosystems and for Si export from soils to fluvial systems, effects of human cultivation on the Si cycle are still relatively understudied. Here we examined stable Si isotope (delta Si-30) signatures in soil water samples across a temperate land use gradient. We show that - independent of geological and climato

Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species' threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a rang

A surface-sediment survey of pigments in 100 lakes in the Scandes Mountains, northern Sweden, was combined with a reconstruction of Holocene sedimentary pigments from Lake Seukokjaure to assess the major factors regulating phototrophic communities, and how these controls may have changed during the period from the deglaciation (similar to 9700 cal. years BP) to the present. The study area covers a

Abstract in UndeterminedThe upwelling region off northwest Africa is one of the most productive regions in the world ocean. This study details the response of surface-and deep-water environments off Mauritania, northwest Africa, to the rapid climate events of the last deglaciation, especially the Bolling-Allerod (15.5-13.5 ka BP) and Younger Dryas (13.5-11.5 ka BP). A high accumulation rate gravit

Recent reports have demonstrated that hypoxia is widespread in the coastal zone of the Baltic Sea. Here we evaluate the long-term trends of dissolved oxygen in bottom waters and of the drivers of coastal hypoxia. Eleven of the 33 sites evaluated had increasing trends of bottom water dissolved oxygen, but only the Stockholm Archipelago presents a consistent positive increasing trend in time. The va

Lake Vattern, Sweden, is within a graben that formed through rifting along the boundary between two Precambrian terrains. Geophysical mapping and geological coring show that substantial tectonic movements along the Lake Vattern graben occurred at the very onset of the Holocene. This is evident from deformation structures in the soft sediment accumulated on the lake floor. Our interpretation of the

Very few principles have been unraveled that explain the relationship between soil properties and soil biota across large spatial scales and different land-use types. Here, we seek these general relationships using data from 52 differently managed grassland and forest soils in three study regions spanning a latitudinal gradient in Germany. We hypothesize that, after extraction of variation that is

Deoxygenation is a global problem in coastal and open regions of the ocean, and has led to expanding areas of oxygen minimum zones and coastal hypoxia. The recent expansion of hypoxia in coastal ecosystems has been primarily attributed to global warming and enhanced nutrient input from land and atmosphere. The largest anthropogenically induced hypoxic area in the world is the Baltic Sea, where the

Hypoxia is emerging as a major threat to marine coastal biota. Predicting its occurrence and elucidating the driving factors are essential to set successful management targets to avoid its occurrence. This study aims to elucidate the effects of warming on the likelihood of hypoxia. High-frequency dissolved oxygen measurements have been used to estimate gross primary production (GPP), net ecosystem

There is a need for further studies to compare the decomposition of biochar to that of the original feedstock and determine how these amendments affect the cycling of native organic matter (NOM) of different soils to improve our understanding of the resulting net C sequestration potential. A 510-days incubation experiment was conducted (i) to investigate the evolution of CO2 from soils amended wit

We investigated the distribution, storage and landscape partitioning of soil amorphous silica (ASi) in a central Canadian region dominated by tundra and peatlands to provide a first estimate of the amount of ASi stored in Arctic permafrost ecosystems. We hypothesize that, similar to soil organic matter, Arctic soils store large amounts of ASi which may be affected by projected climate changes and

Boreal forests harbour diverse fungal communities with decisive roles in decomposition and plant nutrition. Although changes in boreal plant communities along gradients in soil acidity and nitrogen (N) availability are well described, less is known about how fungal taxonomic and functional groups respond to soil fertility factors. We analysed fungal communities in humus and litter from 25 Swedish

Aphids are among the most severe invertebrate pests of crops and cause high economic losses. The control of aphids by natural enemies is an essential ecosystem service with high relevance to management strategies applied in agricultural plant production and horticulture. However, the current knowledge on the effectiveness of specialist and generalist predators in aphid control with respect to host

Plants have a remarkable capacity to adapt to local environmental conditions, which can result in ecotypic differentiation. Patterns of differentiation can, however, also be influenced by the extensive phenotypic plasticity exhibited by many plant species. In this study, we evaluated the distinctness of two putative ecotypes of the parasitic herb Rhinanthus angustifolius. We compared population me

Avian malaria (Plasmodium spp.) and other blood parasitic infections of birds constitute increasingly popular model systems in ecological and evolutionary host-parasite studies. Field studies of these parasites commonly use two traits in hypothesis testing: infection status (or prevalence at the population level) and parasitaemia, yet the causes of variation in these traits remain poorly understoo

The carbon cycle of a lake is a balance between supply from the atmosphere and catchment, and the net demand exerted by primary producers, minus losses back to the atmosphere and to sediment storage. Evaluating the sum of these processes and reconstructing them from sediment records of lake history requires a range of methods and a multi-proxy approach. One promising technique is to explore the ca

Much of the Baltic Sea is currently classified as 'affected by eutrophication'. The causes for this are twofold. First, current levels of nutrient inputs (nitrogen and phosphorus) from human activities exceed the natural processing capacity with an accumulation of nutrients in the Baltic Sea over the last 50-100 years. Secondly, the Baltic Sea is naturally susceptible to nutrient enrichment due to